City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright. It says it is 04:00. Alright. We will go ahead and get started. Good afternoon and welcome to the 02/24/2026 Salinas City Council meeting. Let's go ahead and call the meeting to order. And Patty, over to you.

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

Pursuant to California Code Section 54,953, this meeting will include conference participation by council member Andrew Sandoval from eighteen thousand six hundred eighty five Swaner Avenue in Salinas. And I see he is with us. Andrew, welcome. And with that, note that the Zoom webinar participation is available for members of the public. The Zoom webinar ID and link are available on the posted agenda on the city website.

And with that, let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. Alright. Thank you. Alright. Let's Wait. Let's do a roll call.

Councilmember Barajas? Present. Councilmember Barrera? Here. Councilmember De Arrigo? Councilmember Della Rosa?

Here.

Councilmember Salazar? Councilmember Sandoval? Here. Acknowledge he's here.

Patty, there's no audio. Go

and take a look at that right now. I'll acknowledge Councilmember Sandoval on Zoom. Mayor Donahue?

I am here. Closed session has been canceled. However, session was agendized for 04:30. So we will take a recess and we will convene promptly at 04:30. And we might even sneak in at 04:28 or 04:29. So with that, we'll take a break.

Testing. Test.

It's not stomach coming on. Test. Test. Test. Testing.

Test. Testing, test. Test. Testing test. Council member Sandoval, confirm you can hear me.

Yes. I can hear you, Patty.

Awesome. Thank you. Sorry about the glitch. They're in, no closed session. They're on a break.

We'll be back at 04:30.

You're welcome to stay on.

We'll see you later, Anna and Jordy.

Alright. We will we'll do a t minus thirty, so everyone can get settled and we'll get going in just a second. Is Adriana here? Is she there? Okay.

You are there. Okay. Alright. We will

All the way. All the way to the field.

We will start We will resume with some proclaim with a proclamation. I I see there's even swag associated with this proclamation in the form of merchandise. So, Adriana, you're on. And we're gonna start by recognizing National Engineers Week, and it appears the engineers have us outnumbered. So We can

hear you. We can hear you.

Your mic It's on. Can you hear me now? Now are we? Now we're Hold on. Okay. Well, the mic's on. How about now? Okay. This one's on the tech this one's on the AV stuff, not me. How about now?

All right. Well, we'll just do the best we can. The mic is on. So I want to recognize National Engineers Week twenty twenty six. Lots of whereas's, so we'll do a couple of those and then Adriana will let you speak on behalf of the week and the group.

Whereas engineers make vital daily contributions that improve our quality of life, engineers face the major challenges of our communities from designing and constructing resilient infrastructure systems, cleaning our environment and assuring safe and efficient buildings to designing information systems that allow us to communicate more effectively, and solving everyday problems. And whereas in 1931, the State Of California enacted the Professional Engineers Act, establishing regulations for the practice of engineering and to ensure that only licensed professionals represent themselves as engineers. And whereas the City Of Salinas employs engineers from diverse backgrounds and knowledge in civil engineering, mechanical engineering, structural engineering, chemical engineering, and computer science. Whereas founded in 1951, National Engineers Week is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers. So a couple more warehouses and we will shift to my personal favorite, the Now Therefores.

Now Therefore, Mayor Dennis Donahue, on behalf of the Salinas City Council hereby recognize and proclaim February 22 through 02/28/2026 as National Engineers Week and urge all residents to join me in recognizing the important contributions engineers make in our community and our daily lives dated this February '26 and the group has a spokesperson. Adriana?

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, city council. Good afternoon. Adriana Robles, city engineer for the city of Salinas. So I'm here joined with some of your engineering staff.

As you mentioned, this engineering staff is not only from the public works department. We have building department, community development, and then we have information systems. So, there are a number of departments that employ engineers in various fields and various knowledge like you pointed out. So, this year's Engineers Week theme is transform your future. This is not only an inspirational slogan, but a call to action.

Before I continue, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I, like many people from this community, I come from a farm worker family. My father irrigated lettuce fields, my mother sorted potatoes, and picked onions and Gonzales. Studying engineering, graduating with an engineering degree, obtaining a license that allows me to practice as an engineer transformed my future as your city engineer. The city of Salinas employs 27 24.

Sorry about that. 24 full time and part time employees with engineering degrees. Of these, only myself and four others, one a part time employee are licensed engineers. So going with the theme, right now I'm speaking not only to the students and to our community, but I'm speaking to my staff. Transform your future.

By studying engineering, transform your future by graduating from one of the many engineering fields. Transform your future by seeking your license. I know they hear that all the time from me. It's not easy, and there are many steps to it. There are four exams that lead to it, and some have begun the path, some are on their way, but I encourage everybody to move forward to transform your future.

Don't give up. Don't sit back and believe that you're done. Engineering is about learning, and it's it's about continually growing. Thank you.

Well, I'm gonna invite the group up and we'll receive the award, do a photo op, and I I understand I'm also gonna present you and the group with the Caltrans 2024 Excellence in Transportation Award for the Bardensafes routes to school improvements as well. So a twofer. With that, why don't we have everyone to the front and we'll take some photos and hand off the plaque.

Okay.

All right.

So we're gonna have to probably squeeze in your inside.

I'm gonna turn it over to council member Della Rosa for City of Champions. Gloria?

Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. This afternoon, I'm very honored to recognize a friend of Selena's, an outstanding woman that has given a lot of her time and she has a big heart and you've helped so many activities that you have done in years that you started, right? So, I want to welcome Mural Emery.

Can you come up? Mural, can you just three minutes tell us of all the activities that you've been doing to help. Okay. And I believe you graduated from Elsa High or North High?

Yes, I did. Graduated Elsa High School.

Yeah.

I am the third generation of my family that lives here in Salinas. I, for the last three years, have been a proud owner of a hair salon. It's a 600 square foot space, but I have forty eight years of experience and clientele. I have two women that work with me. We've been together all those years.

And since I opened the salon, we have continued to fundraise and be a part of the community. Recently, three of us joined a rotary. We've partnered with people like Mills on Wheels, the YMCA, Hitchcock Animal Shelter, the list goes on. It's been a fabulous experience and we do it because we love to be a part of our community and it just brings us joy and we will continue to do that and it just make it's a feel good thing. It's a lot of fun.

But also you're involved in the prom.

Oh, yes. Are now currently involved with the Belle Isle experience, which we are fundraising for them. We're collecting dresses and suits for young men and we will have our prom giveaway in March. Last year, we serviced over 600 students. They're bused in from all the high schools. And it's an ongoing project and it's a great deal for the high school kids. They come in, they take what they want, there's no charge, it's a beautiful event and they all leave with a smile and it's a Thank joyous

you so much and we appreciate you and let's give her a round of applause please.

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

This is the day that the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Kimberly Bryant. I'm just here to offer a prayer to our city.

Father, I just want to thank you for the abundant life that surrounds our city. Our valley is just covered in beautiful nurtured soil, Father, that you've rained upon in the last two weeks just preparing it, Lord, for the seed that's going to be planted. Father, that it's going to grow into abundant life, Father, to feed the nation. Lord, I thank you for every farmer and I ask you to bless them and look upon them with favor as they till the land, that they plant the seed and it grows up. Father, I thank you for all of the hands that come to harvest.

Harvest that growth, father, to spread it out. Father, I just ask for blessings upon their life, that they would have healing in their bodies in whatever way that they needed as they worked so hard. They worked so hard with their hands, Lord. I just ask that you bless them and cover them cover them. Father, we thank you.

We thank you that we live in an abundant valley, a valley of growth and just beautiful soil. We take it for granted sometimes when we drive past it. We're so used to seeing it, but we're so fortunate that we live in an abundant place, a place of life. It's so life giving and we're grateful. Thank you father. Amen.

Out of Spectator Sport.

Good afternoon. Jose Guerrero, Mobia Community. First, I wanna thank all the guys that came to have coffee with me. Mister Donahue, mister Mendez, chief Acosta, commander Magana. I believe mister David Jacobs was there. Thank you for coming. I appreciate that. Getting more communicate communication through the public at this coffee thing is is working out pretty good. I appreciate everybody showing up. I'd like to see more of you out there. Mister Arrigo de la Rosa, mister Salazar, mister Baraja, mister Barrera. If like to join me someday, it'd be nice. We can just talk about normal stuff. It doesn't be politics. We can just be normal people.

Things come up. We can discuss them as human beings, agree to disagree, and agree, you know, to disagree with each other all the time. It's a good thing to do. On the second note, I'm gonna go back to the Montevaya community. We are still needing a lot of things out there, mister Donahue. You were there, did a tour with us. Things are not getting done. Parks are not getting closed. I don't know what to say. The lights have not been replaced that are missing. I I don't know why it's it's so hard to do the simple things in our community. I don't know what it takes. I I don't know. I've been up here every week telling you. I mean, I what else can I do except come every week and let you know again that we're we're not doing everything a 100%?

Talked to Victor Baez today about the trees that need to be cut. So, Benjie, God bless Benjie, our tree sweeper, does a great job. God bless him. He can't do his job without the trees being trimmed, and it's been about almost three and a half, four years they've done it. So, the truck cannot go through there and clean up the community. So, debris stays there and the dirt stays there, and we we can't do anything about it. But, hopefully, we can all get together and and, you know, become a city again and and do things right. And I think we need to have an oversight committee to oversee the city council to make sure that they're doing their job. Because in some areas, I believe in my opinion, they're not. God bless you all. Thank you. Have a good day.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Bianca Arzmendi and I'm a community outreach assistant with the community development department in here in Salinas. I'd like to invite everyone to join us for an upcoming general plan open house. The general plan is the city's long term guide for growth, decision making, covering topics such as housing, transportation, land use, environmental justice, and community health. The city has recently released an updated draft general plan and this open house is an opportunity for the community to learn what's included, understand what it means for Salinas and ask questions.

We welcome dialogue and public comment as well as part of the review process. The open house will take place Saturday, March 7 from 9AM to 12PM at the National Steinbeck Center. Food and child care will be provided and all community members are welcome. Flyers with additional information will be and registration will be available in the front. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, Mr. Callahan, and Mr. Mendoza, everyone else. My name is Sharon Field, Santa Lucia Village bordering on Hardin Parkway. This is an update on El Dorado Park.

When I spoke to you in January, there was a woman who had her dog unleashed that was vicious. She's only been seen once since then, and she was looking all around according to the neighbors, and then she threw a big bag of garbage into the enclosure. The February, Shannon with Best Lives was able to trap six of the kitties and two street cats and get them spayed and neutered, and I've been doing TNR for ten years, and you usually release the animals wherever you found them because they know who the predators are and they know where the food sources are. I did meet the other lady that's also feeding them, and we're both trying to clean up the park as we feed. We have not seen the two little tuxedo cats for almost two months, so we don't know if they got killed, if they got picked up by someone.

But I want to thank Councilwoman Diorago for getting involved with the shelter, and I also want to thank Mr. Barratt for letting me come to his meeting last week. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Good evening council members, mayor, city manager, and attorney. My name is Carrie Swenson. I want to respond to council member Verhaas remarks on item 26,022 from last the first meeting of the month. When you make broad statements suggesting that unhoused people are all drug addicts or mentally ill, that is not only inaccurate, it's harmful. Many unhoused residents of Salinas are seniors, families, workers, and the children who simply cannot afford housing. These are community members pushing the crisis by economic forces,

not

the caricatures your comments imply. You mentioned 50,000 $57,000,000 spent over three years for roughly 100 1,240 unhoused residents. Is that approach working? Is if the outcome is more displacement, more trauma, and more sweeps than the strategy, not the people is failing. Sweeps are not the solution.

They destroy belongings, disrupt medical care, and push people further into further from stability. Every credible study shows that forced displacement makes it harder for people to to exit homelessness. Real Solutions, housing services, stability benefit all residents. When people are housed, neighborhoods are safer, public spaces are cleaner, and emergency costs go down. This isn't just about compassion, it's about effective governance and fiscal responsibility.

Everyone wins when people have a path to stability. So I asked councilmember Barajas, where are the long term solutions? Where is the investment in permanent housing, mental health care, and substance abuse treatment? Safe parking, sanctioned camping, and real transitional options. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Guillermo Rodriguez. I work for TrueConnect. It's a company for free phones, for public benefits free phones. And I haven't we have an issue with our company because now we have an issue with the CD because now you know the free funds, right?

That's okay. Now we have to try to do our job. But the thing is the Citi, they remove us because they say we don't have the permission to do our job. But the thing is we went to try to see if you guys have any permission in the city, but you guys don't have any permissions. So I'm here to see what's the process to do our job. So I hopefully, yeah, hopefully you guys have we can open in the next agenda to see if can clarify what's the process to get the permission for TrueConnect.

Thank

you. Thanks for your help. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon to all. Thank you. My name is Jesus Estrada, and I'm here to talk about the light, the light that is in Gabilan and Salinas. This light is in front of my office CCA, and one year ago, I was run over. A few years ago, Mr. Savina was run over, and that's really close to our office, and we've seen four or five car accidents. So, I'm here to let you know what is happening, and please ask you to do something. We have to do something. Something must have to be done. We have to find a way to avoid accidents. And I also see the mayor walks there often, so there's something that we must do. Thank you.

Peter Zelaya, thinking of running for mayor. At your last meeting, council member Barajas let loose with a breath taking cannonade against the city's homeless individuals, branding them all with the most demeaning behaviors imaginable, murder, drug use and sale, lewd conduct, indecent exposure, public defecation. Barajas noted tons of debris collected and millions of dollars spent on a fraction of our city, 1,240 individuals, three quarters of 1%. Now, it is true that the homeless do consume vast resources. Many are diminished or limited by addiction or mental illness, and the impacts on the majority to enjoy and be proud of public resources are real.

And the larger public does have a right to question why spending billions of dollars statewide resulted in an increase in homelessness and in the bureaucracy that is the homeless industrial complex. But a minority of homeless people are drug addicts, a minority are mentally ill, and a minority are a threat to public safety. A not insignificant number are employed, some go to school, some are veterans, some are seniors, some are disabled, and some are families. We expect our elected officials to do better than to denigrate with contempt any subgroup. It might come as an unwelcome surprise, but you represent everyone in your districts, even the homeless.

Leadership requires understanding, bringing together all stakeholders, learning from exemplars, hammering out a plan of what can we do as opposed to listing condemnations. Just imagine how uplifting council members and the mayor could be by instead highlighting those who have successfully transitioned out

of

homelessness. Your job, the ones you sought, is to solve problems and not just describe them in the most inaccurate and lured way possible for political gain.

Hello, counsel. My name is Daniel Munoz, aka Cal Paradox. And this is for you, Jose Luis Bras, not for anybody else. This you, is Ryder. So, I was gonna start this speech off by saying how you were elected by the people in District 1, but in reality, District 1 was bought by special interest groups, and you're just their little lap dog.

That's exactly why you vote against renters, you push for harsher crackdowns on the homeless encampments, and in your own words, you painted homeless residents as more of a nuisance than actual human beings. You've made statements about residents and fellow council members that are factually untrue, and you know it's true. You know you're lying. I'm here to let you know that I'm the one who served you with the recall petition, and you've been a villain posing as a victim for too long, Jose. This is what accountability looks like. District 1 deserves better. And to the rest of the council, if you keep turning your backs on the people of Salinas, your recalls might be next. This is not personal. This is democracy. Thank you. Good

afternoon, everybody. I'm here with Monte Bay Development neighborhood watch. We've been having the same problem for a while now since October. Till today, the gates keep staying unlocked past 07:00 in the afternoon. When cars park inside the parking lot of the park, mislinquist tells the servers or the janitorial people not to close the gates just to go home.

So, the gates stay open. And so, this has been going on since October. We are now coming to March and we have the same problem. We are talking directly to Mr. David Jacobs.

He has not done anything about it or responded to our request. So, we're asking our representative, maybe he can talk to him and kind of guide him where Montebello is and give us some kind of a solution. The other problem we have with the speed bumps. In the month of October, we were told that we are in line between year '27 and '30 for the speed bumps because your budget for speed bumps is $230,000 for the whole city of Salinas. We submitted all the paperwork for the third time back almost two years ago and we want to know where we stand because we were told that the city council needs to give us the money for the speed bumps.

We have to ask the City Council, we are asking the City Council for more money for the speed bumps for Monte Bella. Thank you.

Good evening. I want to say first that lady that has a hair salon, she's doing your hair, Gloria. You look fabulous. I love how your hairs look in these days. You look great. And this late nice lady, the engineer for our city, what a great story. I don't think affirmative action got her way cut in life. I think she worked her ass off. She didn't need a handout. She worked her butt off, and that's the American dream right here, that's a great community we live in right here.

Greatest community in the world, best city in the world. And you know, I have these hats made, and I had them made with the thought of somebody that's been here longer than anybody up here. I believe that it's the one person that can make a difference in this city, and it's Tony Barrera. I think that you have the ability to make Salinas great and take all the stigma to a red hat and say, Tony, you have the opportunity. You know everything. And I appreciate you, and I really hope that you can turn things around here. Mr. Baraja is getting hammered. He's got mental health awareness sticking up out there. I'm one o, they were down for a few weeks, But here you are, you're getting held accountable.

This Paradox gentleman, I was wrong about him, called him out, called him a phony, but he's not. He's on to you. And we got this protect Selena spit.

Our good old boy Bruce.

Selena's Valley leadership, Bruce directly. Did you guys give a I think really you got like 50,000 in negative text sent against your opponent there, but you got 20,000 supporting you. Bruce is just lobbying all you people. He's just making a spectacle. In the meantime, you didn't give any of these money back, SVO, none of that, you're going to go sell him a parking lot for cheap. You're going give him what he wants. You're give the people their water, aren't you? You're to oppress your people, aren't you, Jose? Anyways, thank you so much, Tony. This is for you.

Good afternoon. My name is Marina Sarate. I'm with BHC and I'm a community volunteer. We filled out the survey and when we were filling out the survey and I talked to people, most people said that they need better lighting on the streets, so it's safe to cross the streets. They need also better sidewalks, better streets and more housing.

Thank you. Good afternoon, very respectful city council. Thank you so much for letting me speak to you. My name is Melchor Jesus Rios Lopez and I'm from District 2. And, I'm here to physically give you the sentiment of all the citizens.

I'm asking you to please consider because we're witness. Our witness here, our representative Tony Barrera from District 2 knows all the needs that the community have, and we hope we can get a good result. We know you are competent, to be honest. We know that you are good. We have seen that many petitions that we have done, you have complied with them.

But, there's still a lot to be done. There's a lot of city desires, there's a lot of sentiments. We have been able to fill out a thousand surveys. And with all due respect, I please ask you to consider it, to please see. All of them, all the people that have filled out the surveys have read them and they have been able to establish what their needs are and what the city priorities are.

So I ask you please, city council, if God can give you the knowledge, it is your obligation and ours so we can also comply with the city's needs. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Veronica Torres, and I'm a volunteer with BHC. And, well, I'm here filling out also the surveys, and a lot of the things that the people have said that they need is like better sidewalks, better streets, more housing.

So, I also have my representative here from District 1. And I hope that you can pay attention to the needs of the community. And I hope to God that you hear us. And may God bless you and thank you so much. Good afternoon.

My name is Sofia Alvarado, and I'm a volunteer with BHC. I'm from District 1, and we have a lot of surveys that have been filled by the community. And I please ask you to consider everything that the community is asking for. Jose Luis Barajas, you are a council member, and one of the things that they're asking is for beacon lights so the people can cross the streets in safety, mostly in Costa Plaza and Gardner because there's a school nearby, Jose Luis Barajas from District 1. They're also asking for more lights.

The lights in Laurel and Natividad, they don't work, so we need more lighting there. And sandbars, they don't work either. So, this is for all the city council members. This has been very a lot of work for us. It has been a lot of work to get all these surveys filled and so we can voice the community's needs. So, I ask you to please consider all the requests from the community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor Donahue, City Councils. My name is Nidia So to, and I'm from BHC and I'm with Thriving Neighborhoods. So, what we're doing is that what we are doing is that we are promoting civic leadership. We're also trying to promote collective action and we're here because we wanna have an active social participation and we wanna participate actively in the decision making of the community. We are here to give you physically all the surveys.

We have already sent them electronically before the limit date. We have the voices of 1,300 people of the community, and we have six priority areas. These are housing, economic development, infrastructure, security, youth and elderly, and municipal services. And, we also want to you, thank Patricia Barajas, because she gave us all the hard copies and made it possible to be able to get all these surveys. These are the voices of the community and we want to participate actively with the budget.

This improves the quality of life of all the citizens and we know that this also improves the local economy because these are the working hands that contribute to the economy of this city. And so we please ask you to listen to these voices and we ask for you please in the budget of twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven listen to the community needs for the budget. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, Mayor Denninghue and council members. My name is Kevin Moore. I'm in District 5. At the 2025, my neighbors and I became very concerned about the proposed location of the new community center and parking lot plan for Northgate Park. We support improvements to the park, and we support opportunities for Salinas youth.

However, this plan location is a very significant negative impact on our neighborhood. The first issue is access. The plan proposed directions of input into the parking lot will be from Sepulveda Drive, which is a very, very narrow resident street that struggles with congested and limited visibility. Cars are frequently parked close to corners, making it difficult and sometimes dangerous to see oncoming traffic and pedestrians. Introducing additional traffic for community center would increase safety risk for a whole neighborhood.

The second concern is the plan to locate a parking lot directly in front of existing homes. This creates quality of life and safety concerns that no residential neighborhood should be expected to absorb. Residents are worried about noise, late night activities, loitering, trash, and the need for ongoing security. This will be one of the only few parks where visitors must drive through narrow residential streets before accessing the park through a main thoroughfare, which we do not have. There's a better solution.

Our proposal is to relocate the community center and parking lot to the north side of the park along Cherokee Drive. Cherokee is wider, provides better visibility, and offers safer vehicle access. Even in our last meeting, the condominium manager supported this north location because it improves safety for children walking to the park and center.

Okay, alright, thank you.

Thank you.

No, thank you. And we have your

You have my petition. Yeah, we do,

thank you.

Good evening. Name is Eric Peterson. Mister Rojas, have you decided yet whether you're gonna try to do your job as a council member, or are you gonna try to use what focus you have for your other arch activities? Mayor, you need to take control of your protege and get him to start working for the city of Salinas instead of his own interests. He is so wet behind the ears, he drifts.

Look at his shoulders. Mister Rojas, your irresponsible tirade at the end of the last meeting was totally irresponsible. You need to get out and learn about your district and the city of Salinas. At the last meeting, I offered Lisa Murphy the opportunity to meet with the mother of a homeless person. The offer still stands. We haven't heard from her. Mister Barajas, the offer would go for you too. You might learn something. Ignorance is not a positive. And at the last meeting, I mentioned a previous council member organized a homeless camp in front of City Hall.

Mr. Vrajas, if you'd like to try that, I'll get you a tent. Thank you.

Wes Wisely, the Spontane County Homeless Unit Co President, also executive director of HUGS, helping you get support, new nonprofit. Please donate. Just want to say I'm really proud of my community right now. Carrie Swanson, Peter Zalai, Cal Paradox, BHC. I mean we're doing all these wonderful things and hopefully you're listening and following the lead that we're providing for you. You know what the community wants and needs. You know, a lot of people got swept off the tracks a little bit ago off Union Pacific. That's all private property, so it's all right. No worries, no foul, no harm. You know, and the cops are like, Well, don't camp here.

That's already a misnomer. It's not camping, it is living. This is affordable housing. It's what people can afford. I see these administrative procedures, and I don't see them being followed now. So, trips me out, you know, a lot of people are now on bridge and market, and nobody's ever I've never seen a posted anywhere in the city, even today. They're clearing off debris, mostly trash, but a little bit of people's belongings, so somebody got upset. So, I called a cop, he's there. And, you know, I'm like, you know, what would it take for it to be passed over? You know, like legitimacy of cleanliness or health it's not a health and safety risk.

It's just it's the best we can do right now. How come we're not providing running water? How come we're not providing electricity? How come we're not providing laundry service or some kind of way, you know, to at least for them to be able to access it because a lot of businesses say no. So, that needs to be part of this plan that you got, you know? Stop and sweeps is really paramount, and I'm so appreciative that other people are picking up on that now. Know, you got doctors that are giving you reports as well. I'm hoping you're looking at that. Think about shelter in place back in 2020. You know, we weren't getting rid of end camps. We were too worried that they might kill us. So we were actually providing those things that I was just talking about. So please stop the sweeps.

All right. Do we have anybody on Zoom? And it looks like is MJ? Okay.

Hi. My name is Catherine Thomas. I don't know why I have the initial MJ. Anyways, follow the money, follow the votes. Salinas, California has a housing and homeless crisis. Families are struggling. People are living on the street. Services are stretched so thin. Public records show $5,500 campaign contributions that were later returned to entities controlled by Bruce Taylor. After position shifted around homelessness, funding and policy direction, the stat that sequence matters.

Residents deserve answers. Why were the donations returned? What discussions happened before and after? Why is the homeless funding being reconsidered while enforcement spending moves forward? What measurable results justify the shift? If homeless is a priority, funding should reflect it. If housing stability is the goal, publish clear production targets and quarterly outcome data. Policy should not follow documented need, not policy political pressure. Salinas needs housing. Salinas needs transparency.

Salinas needs leadership focused on solutions, not maneuvering. I'm tired of hearing people dying on the railroad tracks. What would Jesus do? This county is so greedy as far as our leaders. You're not working for the constituents as far as I'm concerned, and that needs to change. We're gonna start working on recalling all of you because you guys have forgotten who you really work for. And as living here sixty two years, it breaks my heart to see people living on a railroad track that that has a sign no trespassing. They should be immediately removed, homeless, mentally ill, not, especially on the tracks. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Christina? Oh, Marisol? Okay. Okay, she wasn't on the list. Marisol?

Hi. So, I don't need to remind you all that we live in a country that prides itself on religious liberty and a strong separation of church and state. The continuous use of our public time to be used to praise a deity is unacceptable. Either create a separate opening prayer time in which you rotate between different religious beliefs or be prepared to have a line of Catholics, Jews, Islamic folks, or some of you might have heard there's a satanic temple as well using up our limited time. K?

We do not need that. This is public common time. This is a time where we speak to you guys about what's going on in our local area, not to hear about someone else's religion. I also want to appreciate everyone who called Barajas out on his terrible statements on our homeless population, the people who need more compassion and care and, yes, more resources. We are clearly not doing enough as our numbers of homeless are growing.

Also, thank you, Peter, for stepping up. I you have my vote. We need new we need new blood on that city council. We need someone for the people. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. With that, we will go ahead and close public comment, and we will proceed to presentation items and we are looking for the youth council.

Good evening, council members. Regarding the development for Chinatown for affordable housing, the Chinatown Revitalization Plan was adopted back in 2019. Chinatown highlights represent something culturally significant in our community, so it's encouraging to see progress being made to more affordable housing coming. Regarding the rental registration and rent stabilization update, the youth council is appreciative of the update and support seeing the program continue. We support the staff's plan for 2026 to implement the program and like that there will be regular updates on the progress. Thank you.

Good evening, youth council. I'm here to offer up oh, sorry. Not youth council, city council. I'm here to offer updates on the youth council's recent projects. This week, our sidewalk art competition at Allisau High School will be released to the students. This project will be an art competition with cash prizes and the winner's art will be installed as a mural at Alasol High School. The mural will be to honor the sixtieth anniversary of Alasol High School. The Youth Council would like to promote Pink Shirt Day on Friday at Northridge Mall from four to 7PM. Show support for standing up against bullying by wearing pink this Friday and coming to the event. Thank you and have a good evening.

Okay. Thank you. Alright, alright, thank you. Next we will receive a, we want to hear from the Hartnell College Foundation and they're going to talk about the Salinas Valley promise. And I see the good doctor in Manos.

Mayor Donahue, members of the city council, city council staff, my name is Michael Gutierrez. I am the superintendent president at Hartnell College. The mission of our college is to advance the economic and social justice of our students so that they can potentially earn a credential so that they can get a job with a livable wage so they can remain in our beautiful region. Or if there are transfer students so that they can actually transfer to a university and earn a bachelor's degree. Nothing has shortened the time to completion so that they can be connected to jobs with livable wage and earn economic mobility like the Salinas Valley Promise Program.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to present on the program and also for your support. I'm going to call on our Vice President, Doctor. Gil Pittman, to provide a presentation and show you the progress that we have made. Thank you.

Thanks, Doctor.

All right. Thank you, President Gutierrez. Mayor Donahue, members of the city council, Mr. Mendez, Mr. Callahan, it's an honor to be able to present the Salinas Valley promise to all of you. I know that this is a program that is not new to you, but this is really an opportunity for us to give a refresher about what the program involves and also share with you the impacts that the program has had on our students, and I would go as far as to say as on the community as well. So you can go to the next slide. Oh, have a clicker. Fantastic, even better. Thank you.

Okay, so you can see up here on the slide the eligibility requirements for Salinas Valley Promise and I want to reiterate the fact that this isn't just an access program, this isn't just an educational program, it really is a strategy to enhance educational attainment and economic mobility for students and lift up the economy of our community. We know that earning a bachelor's degree is one of the most significant things that someone can do in order to earn a livable wage, and we also know that at the community colleges that we're the economic drivers in the CTE space. And so making sure that our programs are aligned with livable wage jobs is critically important. And Salinas Valley Promise acts as an engine to connect students not only to the college as a whole, but to those programs and then ultimately to the bachelor's degree and to livable wage jobs. So we really see Salinas Valley Promise as being an economic mobility strategy.

And if you look at the left hand sidebar, you can see that the vast majority of students that are in the program are low income. The vast majority of our students in general are low income and come from low income families. Many of them the first in their families to go to college. And we also know, lastly, that students that complete the FAFSA, the financial aid paperwork, are significantly more likely to enroll in college. And so that's one of the levers that we have as part of Salinas Valley Promise.

Again, as a refresher, there are many cities and counties that have Promise programs, you see them up and down the state of California in the community college space. And I'm really proud to say that our Promise program at Hartnell College is unique in the sense that it's not just a fee waiver program. It also provides wraparound services and mentoring opportunities. And so you can see in the slide what all the program benefits are. So not only do students get free tuition, they get the option of a free textbook voucher, voucher for textbooks or a free laptop.

And then there's opportunities for them to connect to different entities within the institution to learn more about financial literacy and educational planning and other kinds of things that will help them on their educational journey, as well as for them to connect with folks to feel a sense of belonging with the institution, to feel anchored at the institution. We have faculty champions that advocate for students in each cohort, and we also have peer mentoring in the first year of the program. So what I'd like to do at this point is walk you through briefly the student journey and show you the impacts that Celine's Valley Promise has along the way. So it's not, like I said before, just an access intervention. You'll see that there's significant impacts at the beginning of the journey all the way through the end of their journey and even post graduation.

So to start off with, in terms of the Promise program being an access strategy, and I realize that there's a lot of information on this slide, but one of the things that we know that college students really grapple with is the cost of attendance, right? And we know that many students after graduation are burdened with student loan debt and then having to spend many years paying that off. And in many cases, not being able to pay that off because of rising interest rates and just sort of that ongoing amortization. You can see from this slide that as a result of Salinas Valley Promise, the cost of attendance at Hartnell College is significantly lower, not only compared to other colleges within our California Community College system, but compared to the CSU and UC and with our other local institutions. And so, by reducing the cost, we're also reducing the debt burden to students and advancing their economic mobility right from the get go.

So I realize that looking at the slide, especially if you're looking at the screen, this is very small, so I'll try to explain this in a way that makes sense. Basically what you're seeing here is the proportion of students that are coming from the various cities within our service area. And probably the thing that's of most interest to this body is that the group of lines that are the tallest are the ones representing Salinas. Obviously Salinas being the largest city in our region. But you can also see not only are those the tallest lines, but they've been steadily growing since what, over the last six years.

And to be even more specific about that, not only has the program enrollment grown exponentially over time, it's also increased the growth of our full time enrollment. And so we know within community colleges that part time students tend to dominate the student population, and that if a student is part time, their likelihood of actually completing and transferring or completing and getting to a livable wage job is very, very low. So to give just a stark example, and this is not uncommon, this is actually fairly typical, but I'll give you Hartnell's statistic. The six year graduation rate from a community college for a part time student at Hartnell is six percent. So if they go full time, they are significantly more likely to stay in college, to complete college, to advance in their educational journey, and then to achieve post graduation success.

So Salinas Valley Promise really has been an effective vehicle for that. So what you're seeing here on this slide so I just said a little bit about access, bringing students in, reducing the debt burden, and getting them to full time. What you're seeing here on this slide is a statistic that we call persistence, and basically what that means is if a student starts in the fall, what's the likelihood that they're gonna come back in the spring and re enroll, and actually come to class and then finish that semester? It's not uncommon to experience a drop off from fall to spring. It's actually very common to experience a steeper drop off from that spring over the summer to that following fall.

And we're seeing that not only are full time students far more likely to come back in the spring once they've enrolled in the fall. If they're in the Salinas Valley Promise program, they're also significantly more likely to re enroll in the spring. And the difference in the two lines, the maroon line on the top and the gold line on the bottom, indicate the difference between our Salinas Valley Promise students and our part time students. So I referred to the issues that our part time students faced just a moment ago, and you can see that with the persistence. So if they're not coming back in the spring, it makes it that much harder for them to come back again that following fall or subsequently.

So once a student stops out, of course they're free to come back, but it's challenging. So if they can maintain that momentum and stay continuously through their educational journey, again they're far more likely to be able to complete, and we see that with our Promise students. Okay, so let me unpack this data point as well. So one of the ways that community colleges measure completion is by using a three year completion rate. I realize that many community colleges are perceived as two year colleges.

It's pretty uncommon actually for students to finish within a period of two years, and so the federal government, the US Department of Education, uses a three year graduation rate. And so what they're looking at are first time, full time students who are seeking a degree. And you may look at these percentages, and again, the maroon reflects our Salinas Valley Promise students, the gold reflects full time students that are not Salinas Valley Promise. You may look at these percentages and think, well why aren't they 60%, or 75%, or 80%? And what I'll say is that in the community college space, that's where we would love to get.

The reality is that the average community college three year completion rate across the nation typically hovers between 2530%. So that's a challenge that we see just nationally among community colleges. For us Salinas Valley Promise students in fall twenty twenty, their three year completion rate was almost thirty five percent. In fall twenty twenty one, it was almost forty five percent. That's out of the stratosphere.

Again, I'd love to bake it higher, but when you compare to other community colleges, both in California and nationally, that's significant. And you can see the difference between the students that are in the program versus students who aren't in the program. Our overall three year graduation rate is forty percent. Last year, it was thirty two percent. It's hard to attribute cause and effect to that, but I think it's safe to say that Salinas Valley Promise is one of those factors, probably out of several, that is driving that overall number up.

And then the last thing I'll say about transfer is doesn't come from iPads, this comes from another source but fifty five percent of our students at Hartnell complete the bachelor's degree within six years. And so there's a reason why CSU Monterey Bay recently got that recognition because their completion rates and success at bachelor's attainment has been so significant. The Aspen Prize that's cited on this slide is a national recognition, a fairly high, it's a highly regarded recognition. And they have benchmarks for different metrics along the student journey. And the benchmark that they've established for prize winning colleges is 45%.

So we're 10 percentage points above that in terms of our transfer and then Boucher's degree completion rate. Again, it's hard to pinpoint one single thing to that, but I think it's fair to say that Salinas Valley Promise is a significant contributor. I also want to say a little bit about the impact on workforce. So of course we have students that are in the program that transfer and complete the bachelor's degree. We also have students in the program that go directly into the workforce.

And then of course we have students that transfer, earn the bachelor's or beyond, and of course enter the workforce as well. And what you see up here are the employment status outcomes from this last year, from 2025. And the bars that you're seeing up here represent the percent of respondents who report employment close to or very close to the field of study by their employment status. And again, you can see from these percentages that the number of our students that responded that have one full time job in their field of study, a quality job, is approaching 80%, which again is significant compared to other community colleges throughout California. And then the last thing I'll say is that President Gutierrez had mentioned our mission at Hartnell College to advance social and economic justice through the power of education.

And of course, one of the things that we want to do is make sure that our students are earning a livable wage. And that, of course, is not an easy thing in Monterey County, it's not an easy thing in Salinas Valley, it's a very expensive place to live. We see income disparities both within the Salinas Valley as well as throughout the county. Having said that, what you see on this slide, and again I realize the numbers are very small, is that about a third of our students are earning a livable wage directly out of Hartnell College. And then you see that gold area that is not quite a livable wage, but close.

And it's not uncommon when students leave Hartnell. They get into their first job. It may be a livable wage, or might be just below a livable wage, but as they stay in that job, and they build their skills, and they advance, and so forth, they're able to reach that livable wage standard. About 1,300 students are in, the new students enroll in the Salinas Valley Promise program. That represents a little over two thirds of our incoming student population.

I think it's fair to say that this is probably the most at scale effort that we have at Hartnell. And again, you can see the impacts on our students and the community. And so we're very appreciative of the investment that the city has made, because you can see impacts all along the educational journey. What I'd like to do at this point is to pass it off to my colleague, Doctor. Jackie Cruz. She'll spend a little time talking about the fiscal picture of Salinas Valley Promise, and then give a shout out to our supporters.

Good evening, council members, members of the public. I'll wrap it up. I'll be very brief here because I know we took up our ten minutes. I think one of the things I want to say is thank you to everybody that has helped us bring this program to life. When we dreamed it up, we thought that we would have 900 students.

That was in our wildest dreams and to know that we have over 1,300 students and over 800 of them are from the city of Salinas and the remainder from our Salinas Valley communities and the unincorporated areas of the Salinas Valley as well. Also with that, our budget from when we were serving 300 students to now hasn't increased that much. We've really used economies of scale. I think this is a wonderful thing and it is one of the highest impact programs that we have. And, what we do and the way we do it is we work together across sector to bring people together to support our students.

They're our children, they're our sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and so we are here for them and that's what this program is all about. It's about a community driven effort. And, so you can see here that Hartnell College has actually committed general fund dollars, lottery fund dollars, and then the state apportionment of AB $19, and then we have a remainder of $439,000 that we have to raise every year to support the program. And so, that's where the collective effort of those that want to support economic mobility, youth development, and workforce development come together to do this. We can't thank you enough.

I want to mention this is the OG supporters of the Promise Program. And also, I want to mention we've increased our capacity at Hartnell College with some tremendous leaders. You heard Doctor. Pittman who loves data and you could tell she's a data person. And, we have she's our Vice President of Institutional Research Effectiveness and Equity. We also have Sandra Guzman and she's Vice President of Student Affairs. And then we have Doctor. Gabriela Lopez who is in charge of running the Sims Valley Promise program among many other responsibilities. So, it's great to introduce you to some of the team, and thank you very much for your time today. We appreciate you.

Okay, thank you Jackie.

Right. Councilmember Breyer. Well, congratulations. Hartnell College looks like a beautiful university. I mean, it is a beautiful campus. What's the correlation with the Aliso Hartnell campus? What happens out there as far as, I know you're talking here, the quality jobs, 78.5%, I know there's a lot of folks that go to school because they like to work and they like to own their own business and improve themselves. What's the relationship with, how's the LSL Hartnell campus doing?

That's a great question, councilmember. The Ellis Hall campus is part of Hartnell College, so it's actually, as the name sounds like, it's a campus. It's really an extension of Hartnell College and that's where a lot of our CTE programs are housed, not all of them, but many of them. I don't know if any or all of you have had an opportunity to visit the Allisau campus, but it is a site worth seeing. We offer our robotics and mechatronics program, we have our construction management, we have auto tech, we have welding.

It's really impressive to see the facilities out there. And what we're really committed to at Hartnell is making sure that the programs that we offer, whether they're CTE or non CTE, are connecting students to good jobs. Right? So we don't want to educate our students into poverty. We want to make sure that they are gonna be prepped to experience a return on investment. So that's essentially their relationship. We do offer general education classes at the Allisau campus as well. So students can take math, English, etcetera, their general ed. But many of the CTE programs are housed there as well.

You know, even we are a big city, but at the same time, we have that small town feeling. When I go to elementary schools, I go to middle schools, high schools, what is the relationship? How are we encouraging our children to get excited about education? You know? How do we bring them together? Because I know when I hear some educators, they struggle as well. Some of our children because they're monolingual, Spanish. There's all kinds of barriers, but at the same time, we have a lot of very proud educators. How's the relationship there with Hartnell College Thank and our

you for that question. Once again, we're very proud, again, of building cross sector partnerships. We know that Hartnell College in and of itself can't do it all. We have to work with our K6 and our K12 partners, our university partners and our industry partners and our community based organizations. So, what we do right now, a specific strategy have been our K-twelve STEAM programs.

One of the things that I heard from the Alsace School District that they mentioned to me is, if you would have asked one of our kids some eight to ten years ago what they wanted to be, I don't think the answer would have been a scientist or an astronaut or an engineer. And, we are working right now with 10,000 kids a year through our NASA coding and robotics academies. We are working with the districts. The districts are supporting us and through that, I mean it's pretty amazing the scale of that. We started with 150 students at the Allisau campus and then it grew when we took it out.

We went to the schools. So, when you meet the community where they're at, we were able to scale. When we were just at the campus like build it and they will come, it wasn't really working. It was working for some, not for all. So, we're very proud of scaling that. So, at 10,000 a year, now the question is how do we deepen those relationships and how do we follow them through all the way, And, you the next step is middle school programs because that's a big gap. So, we're working right now. We got a grant from the Wallace Foundation in New York that is investing about 7 and a half million dollars in the next five years to support a middle school strategy. So, we wish us luck.

That's great. Let me ask you, I know the mayor has been very passionate, I mean, since he's been a mayor here. How are we educating our young people to stay here? Are we having jobs? Are we creating jobs of these young people that are getting their bachelor's? With that education that they have, are they able to stay within the Monterey County, Salinas Valley area?

Yeah, brain drain. So, a couple of strategies. I think Doctor. Pittman mentioned one of them and that is working with CSUMB. The close to proximity of Cal State Monterey Bay, working and having our pathway programs, our business programs, our ag programs, now that they have an engineering program.

We have an engineering program. We also have the very first ag mechatronics program in the state. So, we could really build these pathways for our students to stay here. But, the strategy has to be intentional to bring them back when they go to like a UC Davis or other places around the country to welcome them back home with opportunities for those high quality jobs. So, it's a responsibility of us, the adults, to create those industry partnerships to have those jobs ready for them.

One of the biggest successes is our STEM research internship program. If they can do internships, whether it's at USDA or any of our ag companies or our research institutions here in the Valley, they're going to be likely to stay. They need a shot. They need an opportunity.

Thank you. Just one other question. I wanna make it a question because I'd rather, it's a comment, but I wanna turn it into a question. I see here you have your OG Salinas Valley Promise Program champions. Man, I see four, Doctor. Jackie Cruz, which is you, Councilmember Margaret Yaurico, Councilmember Aurelio Salazar Jr, Mr. Renee Mendez. How can Tony Barrera get on this list?

I called you.

But you didn't answer.

Thank you. I just put it with my pen right here. I'm on there. Yeah. There you go.

Thank you so much.

Alright. Very good. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, mayor. Thank you for the presentation. I have a quick question. On the Salinas Valley Promise and the eligible programs that it funds, I know Hartnell College also has some bachelor programs, if I'm not mistaken, in computer science. If someone was eligible for Salinas Valley Promise and pursued that route, would the three years potentially cover that, or would Salinas Valley Promise only cover the two years of the initial two years of the program?

Yeah. So the bachelor's program that Councilmember Barrajas is referring to is the CSN3 program that is in partnership with Cal State Monterey Bay, where the program is structured so that students can complete their associate's and their bachelor's degree in three years, rather than having to do the two years and then transfer and, or however many years it takes to finish, and then transfer and get their degree. So we fund, if they're enrolled full time, we cover their first two years.

Okay, awesome. And then on the funding and budget projections, appreciate any organization that can work with as little as you all do and maximize it to the extent that you all do. In terms of ongoing commitments, obviously we saw the slide where the City of was an ongoing partner and being aware of the delta that you all have to fundraise every year. If the City of Salinas were to commit on an ongoing basis to support the Salinas Valley promise, what would be our proportional share of making up that delta on a year over year basis?

Doctor. Cruz, would you like to take that one? Okay.

Could you repeat the question?

Absolutely. So obviously there's a $400,000 delta between what you guys receive and what you need to fundraise to keep Valley Promise going year over year. If the City of Salinas were to contribute on an ongoing regular programmatic systematic manner year over year, what would that amount correspond to the City of Salinas? Of that $400,000 delta, what corresponds to the city of Salinas?

Yes, so the way that we were working with the five cities in the valley was to prorate so that they were funding their own students. So, example, we have the eight thirty four students of the city Of Salinas and we had calculated approximately about $400 per student, which was the amount that we thought was good. I mean, it would cover either the textbook or the laptop or one of the support areas in the gap. So, that's how we were prorating it, but if you calculate that, it comes out to be a significant more amount than what I think we were discussing, but we understand the budget constraint. So, our delta would be reduced by 150,000 of the 400 and something that's on there.

So, we still have to work with the other cities and then we're also very lucky to have the county be matching $200,000 So, you can see that now we only have a delta if the city does support us 150,000, we have a delta of about 89,000. So, much easier to raise 89 than 400 something. Does that make sense?

Yes. Yes. Thank you for that clarification. And last question would just be pertaining to concurrent enrollment and eligibility. Obviously, Hartnell just recently did that partnership with Gonzalez High School where students are able to enroll and get their degree in time. Would, for example, those students that get their degree at the same their associates degree at the same time that they graduate, would they still be eligible for those students who want to pursue a different career path?

Yes, yes. We don't penalize the you know, they're doing great of being a dual enrollment student, so we will not penalize them when they get to Hartnell for additional education. And then, you had a question earlier about the bachelor's degree. We're also really proud that we have our first graduating class of the baccalaureate degree in respiratory care fully at Hartnell College. Our students are debt free. Don't incur any debt in a very high paying field of respiratory care, so I wanted to also mention that.

Awesome, thank you for that. That's all my questions, my last comment would be I've had an opportunity to visit all the Hartnell campuses, King City, Soledad, Castroville and even the new nursing facility and I was also one of the first kids participated in the NASA program actually when the Alice L So campus opened thank you all for all the work that you do and continue to do.

I can get you on there.

Thank you.

Andrew, anything?

Any Just a big shout out. Did have a chance to tour the Arnell All South campus and the diesel program that they're running out of there. Very inspirational. I I had a chance to talk to some of the students and the impact of that program and the job possibilities. And I I had a chance to speak to one of the young lady instructors who had a I think if she could have her dream, it'd be to increase capacity for enrollment. So kudos to that, and I had a chance to tour. Maybe the next time I go back, I could try out the you can do the simulators to drive tractors and things like that.

So just just a great campus

and a lot of great opportunities. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Andrew.

Is everybody wants

to do this?

Anything over here?

Sure. Sure.

Go ahead. You, me? Go ahead.

Yeah.

Okay. Jackie, to all of you, great job, I'm very proud of Hartnell, but you also have a program, and I just found out, that you go into the youth center, is that correct? And, could you tell us just a little bit? And also, the prison, right? So, wow, maybe other people didn't know about that. Could you tell us just a little bit? Yeah, so

we offer classes in the juvenile facility, we offer classes at a number of correctional facilities. Collectively, that's referred to as our Rising Scholars Program. It's a growing program, so we're increasing the number of students that are enrolling and hoping to boost the number of classes. And it's a real opportunity for students once they well, number one, for them to be doing something positive while they're incarcerated, but then once they're released, that they have some potential opportunities for them, and they have some education under their belt. We also serve a fairly good sized portion of formerly incarcerated students and have services on our main campus for that.

Okay, what a great opportunity, thank you.

Numerically, this represents about 800 students right now in the rising scholars.

Aurelio, then Margaret.

Sure. See, I wanna thank council member Vallera for asking like the toughest and probably the most important question, right? Which is the students that that graduate, right? And then them coming back. Before coming on to this council and before serving on the partner board of trustees, I had the opportunity to do some scholarship fundraising and supporting students at the Salinas Union High School District.

You know, one of the things that we found was about 80% of the scholarship recipients were were Latinas and many of those that transferred probably close to 90%, 95% did not come back to Salinas, right? So I know that Hartnell College knows this, you know students that come in through Hartnell College transfer albeit CSUMB or another CSU or UC system, we lose them. I want to bring up bright futures because I know that that is also a very critical component in the work that you're doing in terms of Hartnell being our educational institutional leader here in Monterey County. You know with that being said, you know bright futures I think is also equally as important because it also takes from that cradle to career model which is what HeartNow is really about and which is what all of you are about and I kind of wanted to lift that up under my comments because it's not just the two year, three year, you know some students may be around four or seven at Hartnell College, but it's engaging the parents and the children when they're in the elementary school, following them along, making sure that all stakeholders are investing in our youth, getting them in, getting them out in Hartnell.

And, I think that's the real challenge that we have here as institutional leaders. Albeit, if you're in the educational system, public safety, law enforcement, nursing, agriculture, hospitality, you know that big question. I think that's how we answer that big question that council member brought up. It's like, how do we now also create and support these career pathways in these institutions that we have here? Now, if we were just up, you know, one or two counties, Santa Clara County, I think we would probably be having a slightly different conversation regarding technology and Silicon Valley, right?

And we know what what they're all about and we know what careers that are available to people working and living in that area. For us, it's very it's very different. So I really want to acknowledge the work that Hartnell is doing in identifying what our workforce needs are and providing those educational pathways, careers, certificates, programs, transfer agreements, and making sure that young people are getting out and eventually we've got to get them back here and get them and their careers start here. That was one of the things I think some of you may recall me championing there. But, I think it's something that as institutional leaders, we need to be proactive and build those relationships.

I know that Hartnell, that's one of the art of building relationships you guys have that mastered. And, I just want to acknowledge you for that work and building those relationships and supporting our local industries, albeit just a small business or some of our larger local businesses. So, no comments, I mean no questions but comments and thank you for your work and your leadership.

Thank you. I just want to say one thing about Bright Futures because that's another presentation and I feel like you were being so generous with the time. But, with Bright Futures, we've been the anchor now since October 2024 And in that short period of time, we took the leadership of something called the Cal Kids program. And we have been able with our partners to be able to get over $11,000,000 for scholarships for 19,000, more than 19,000 kids because of the work that we've done together in a very short period of time. These are college savings accounts that newborns all the way to college have access to because someone helped them claim their college account.

So, that is not an easy task, but I think like you said, it's a collective power, people working together to do that.

Margaret?

I'm assuming comments are okay? Yeah. Okay. I'm coming from a very biased lens but you know this is a community college unlike any other that I know of in the state and I'm really proud of you guys. Sorry, my voice is going out.

But I remember when we first had the dream about the promise and doctor Llewellyn and I fought him with Jackie to make this happen because I felt like there were so many amazing kids that were saying college was not for me. And we said, let's plant the seed early and instead of saying, if I go to college it's when I go to college, Hartnell will be there for me and that's what we created and it's happened. So I remember going up to the cities and trying to sell it and it was hard at first and the city of Salinas was tough. They didn't wanna do it but we said, these are your students, your future, your workforce, your future leaders and we fought and fought and the city stepped up and I'm grateful for that and I think we will continue to support you as long as I'm around because this is really important for our future of this entire community. So really proud of what you guys have created.

Keep it going.

Okay, I will just I think the one comment I would make and this has been a very obviously a lot of positive things going on in Salinas and Monterey County, I think it's important for everyone to recognize that Hartnell is a national leader and has national recognition because of these programs. The work they've done extends well beyond the borders of this valley. And I'm a little more I'm certainly familiar with this. I'm familiar with Jackie's work and the ecosystem, the platform around all of your activities extends throughout the state of California. So as you know since you got to sit through public comment, it's a busy city with a lot of things on people's minds.

But people ought to know that something really big, really positive, broad based is being moved forward on behalf of the entire community. So Hartnell has done a terrific job and doctor thanks for your leadership. So I would just make that comment that sometimes I think we have a tendency to go good old Salinas and it is. But this is nationally renowned stuff that's going on. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, okay, we appreciate it. Okay, we will now go to our legislative platform and I think we're looking for Lisa.

That's me.

And we are into consideration items.

Yes. Good evening mayor, council. Lisa Murphy assistant city manager. Tonight I have the pleasure of introducing our 2026 legislative platform. I believe it's the very first time this council would be adopting a legislative platform.

I'll make it brief because we have a presentation from John Arriaga from JEA and Associates. This is our state lobbying firm. And just real briefly, the platform, the legislative platform will establish principles that will guide the city's policy and legislative advocacy efforts, not only on the state level, but also on the federal and local level. And this there are several key focus areas, which John will review with you. The opportunity now though is to hear the the legislative platform, to weigh in on the key areas that were identified by this council and by staff. And so it's my pleasure to introduce John Arriaga to do the presentation. So thank you. Do you want him here? Yes. Okay.

Well,

you Lisa for that introduction. And good evening to the Mayor

and City

Council for the opportunity to come and speak to you briefly. I want to set the stage, first of all, for this legislative platform because it is a first for the city, and I've been working with the city for well over twenty years. And a number of the cities around the not only this county, but Santa Cruz County and San Benito County, both the counties have put together their legislative platform a number of years ago. And I want you to get a feel for this because legislative platform is general in nature. So as we go through it, you aren't looking at it as well my project and my district might not be in there.

It's purposely meant to be general. And let me tell you where it comes into play. Look at it as a tool in the toolbox for the city when it comes to legislation or propositions that might come up where the at the federal or state level, where the council is being asked to support or oppose this issue. Here in California, the legislature this is the second year of a two year session here in the California legislature. Every year, there are a good number of bills that get introduced, and part of our job is to review those bills and and take a look at those that might be important to to the city either in a positive or negative way.

And to just give you a feel for that number, last Friday was a deadline for bill introduction for this year. Prior to Friday, there were about 800 plus bills introduced already. On Friday, and this is what always happens, there's a big dump, and there was 1,100 bills that were introduced So we're now in the process of going through all those bills and so forth and and determining which ones we wanna send to your city manager for distribution to maybe the other departments and and for consideration as to support or oppose and so forth. It also helps us when we're looking at the budget annually to determine, you know, what areas in the state budget or the federal budget, you know, we might be interested in in either talking to our state legislators or federal legislators about making a push for more money in this particular area, whether it's a parks or health or education or so forth. But where it really comes into play is during the year when the council is asked to take a position on a particular bill and say, for example, the legal cities or the national legal cities come to you for a bill that's coming up next week.

Well, you know, they may come to us as as your as your advocates and and ask us to to get the city to to support or oppose. And that bill is coming up in in a week or so. Well, your process doesn't lend itself to that. Normally, takes several weeks, you know, before it actually gets approval for a letter of support or given this authority to go and testify on the city's behalf. And and by that time, that bill may have already gone through a couple of committee hearings and be now on the House floor or the Senate floor or so forth.

So your support or oppose advocacy doesn't really have the impact that it might have if it were there at the beginning. So all that helps. It also gives us an opportunity to share with your legislators as to what is important to the city. When we sit down with them or their staff, we come with them with our issues that we've talked to you all about and share that with them. The other thing you should know as in putting this together, we looked at a number of things.

We looked at your strategic plan for the city. We've talked to annually, we talked to your department heads to get a feel for them as to what's important to them this year, whether it's it's a fire department or the police department or housing and so forth, just so that we have that on our radar. And in addition to that, I think we've talked to most all of you, and we try to do that through on a regular basis throughout the city. So there's been a lot of input into this legislative platform. Like I said, it's general in nature.

And the last thing I want to say before I go to this PowerPoint is that it's a it's a living document. You should look at this annually just to see if there's something that either no longer is relevant to the city or something new that's come up to the city. And you should also understand that if things come up throughout the year, and it may not be in your platform today, it's it's yours to to to take up during the year and decide whether it's something you want to get the city involved in. Things are changing so rapidly. Some you know, sometimes, like I said, there's a great number of bills introduced.

But issues like a a great example these days is AI. With things happening so fast in that area, you know, you may you may be asked, you know, by something that's going to impact cities considerably to take a position. And this just puts it on a platform so that when we look at this and determine whether the city has an interest or can participate, we can use that as a platform. Of course, your city manager is our primary contact with the city. And in this case, he, but he or she decides that, you know, it's something that needs to be brought to the city council before we go out and limit and and support or oppose or testify, then that's usually the case that will happen.

So having said that, I will go over a brief overview of this and then answer any questions at the end. So the legislative platform, why this matters. If state and federal legislative and budget decisions directly impact the state's funding authority and services. The platform provides clear direction for advocacy in Sacramento and Washington DC. It aligns city priorities with upcoming legislative and budget cycles.

Again, it frames things for us for everyone so that we know, you know, what the what the playing field looks like. What is the legislative platform? The legislative platform defines the city's official policy positions on state and federal legislation. It authorizes staff and advocates to support or oppose legislation, to engage in administrative and budget advocacy, and participate in legal or coalition actions when aligned. The council's authority and governance.

Adopt adoption authorizes advocacy consistent with council's priorities. Platform is reviewed annually, as I suggested earlier. Specified bills still return to council when required. And again, that happens from time to time where it's either so controversial you want to make sure we have your council to review and make recommendations. Protects local control and avoids unfunded mandates.

Again, the unfunded mandates, that's one thing we are always looking at because you're the people that get stuck with that bill. And so we're always trying to stay on top of that. Top legislative priorities areas at a glance. So what we did is under each of these, and I think you all have the actual legislative platform, you'll see that we have bullets that we've identified under each of those, and again, general in nature, but gives us all some direction as to what's important in those areas. Agriculture and tech, of course, in this area, it's obviously important, it's been important for years and years, it's a big part of your economy, workforce and so forth.

Healthcare, you've got a wide range of people here in this community

that need

various type of health care situation, either by a community type of facility, or by Natividad, or Salinas community, and so forth. In that area. And these days, with what's going on at the health care at the federal level, it's high up in the list of things to watch for. Transportation and infrastructure, always a need, whether it's your streets here locally or 101 or some of the other highways that come into the area is looking to see how we can deal with that. I know some of your projects that you have coming on in 101 are really important.

How can we look at legislation that might be helpful or something that might hurt you in developing? Economics and community development is another huge area, always looking for those opportunities and those to bring that type of a visit to the community. Public safety, of course, huge. And in that one, that area, you'll see that we actually identified a couple of areas that we know over the last couple of years working with the city are key and we want to make sure we pointed that out in this area, water and environmental quality. Again, these are the headline items in the platform, under that we have a number of bullets, Again, this is for your review.

There's no priority list here. We just identified those that we thought were important to the city that we heard loud and clear from you all, and we'll go from there. Key priorities with direct salientness impact, the water allocation needs, we know that's big, we know that we've heard from your department heads and from you all that gallons one a day is what needs to be added. Affordable housing for workforce of farm workers. We know that that's always been important in this community, affordable housing.

And I think you all are doing a lot in that area for affordable housing, but there's still a great need. And farm worker housing has always been there's been good projects recently to address that, but there's still a lot more that can be done. Hospital and healthcare workforce funding, infrastructure investment, roads, transit and freight, fire station and emergency preparedness, with the growth in housing and so forth in this area, we know that's key. So it's something that we as your advocates can make sure that our legislators know that. When there's budget opportunities, obviously, this isn't the best year for budget ask.

But when there is a surplus, we know what's high on your list and we can make those ask on your behalf. How this platform will be used? Again, guides advocacy meetings with our legislators and agencies, gives us all some directions both at the federal and state level. Using coalition work. We work closely with the League of California cities on those general issues that affect cities throughout California.

Informs budget requests, letters and testimony. Again, that's something that comes up and you know, you it it's helpful to us to know that it's on your list, whether it's housing, roads, and so forth. So when the opportunities come up at the state or federal level, like, know, marks at the federal level where those pop up with very short notice to get your applications in within two weeks. This gives the ability to move quickly on that, ensures consistent messages from staff That's it in a nutshell. I know that's a lot. I know you've got that and you've had a chance to review it. So I'm open for questions on any of these items.

Okay, sounds good. I'll start to my left. Margaret?

Thanks, John, appreciate that. So when we get these opportunities to support or oppose certain bills, is that one of the services that you offer? Because sometimes it's kind of confusing and we only have, you said, a few days to respond. And let's say we all sign a form letter, sign our name. I mean, how effective is that truly?

It's effective if it gets timely, you know, before the committee hearings and so forth. Mhmm.

And, you

know, we we let we let our legislators know. It's important and particularly when our when our state legislators or at the federal level know that this is important and that they've actually got something from the city saying they would so so when a bill is coming to a particular committee that a senator there might be sitting on or particularly with Speaker Rivas, they know this is important to all of you all. We go and let staff know that this is coming up for a hearing, here's our letter of support. We'd like the senators or the speakers vote on this for support.

So if it's something that's really pertinent to Monterey County, would it be more effective for us to have a letter and all of us sign it versus sending in 10 different letters? I'm just trying to simplify things.

I think the letter from the city is probably most important.

Yeah. Thank you.

Go ahead.

I don't have any questions for Mr. Arriaga because I've known him for a long time and I'm very pleased with his work. And, but I have comments that I don't have any questions for you John. Okay. Thank you.

Alright.

Because we have that communication. You communicate with us as electeds, and we communicate with you.

I feel fortunate that I have that opportunity to talk to most of you on an individual basis on a regular time.

Yeah. So my comments.

Alright, John. Since you brought it up that you've been working with the city and county for twenty years, I remember speaking and working with you about maybe a little bit more than twenty years back. So I'm really happy to have you on board and being the the eyes and the ears in terms of all things legislative in nature with with our state our state capital. For those who are listening or in the audience tonight, I you know, we had an opportunity to to meet and speak and and discuss some of these in a little bit more more detail. And then just for those who are also listening, you know, I I know that one of things I was also kinda advocating for or would definitely want to hear more about are are anything that may affect or support, like, our local libraries, our recreation centers, parks, and then anything legislative that would support economic development.

I think more importantly, like, you know, small small businesses. And then also, as as we continue here, you know, we have some infrastructure and transportation needs. And so I think those are all things that we wanna be in tune with in terms of what's what's happening and being advocate for that at the at the state level. So again, thank you very much for your work and your and your presentation. And again, it is a living document, and, you know, we'll adjust and pivot accordingly. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. And, of course, your city manager takes his every opportunity to share with us what's important to your city, we're on we're on it.

Jose? Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Mr. Arriaga, for the presentation. I do have a few questions. I'm one of the folks that didn't have an opportunity to quite provide my So feedback on this is my opportunity to provide some feedback on it. On the legislative platform itself, just additional comments on, for example, transportation and infrastructure. I would just also point out seeking funding for pedestrian safety projects. I know that's a big priority here in the city's lane as we had, I believe, seven fatalities last calendar year alone. We are definitely on track to kind of meet

that. And on that one, yes, we have had that on our radar and looked at opportunities either for slowing traffic, additional type of stop sign signaling, timing and so forth.

So we're on it, yeah.

Awesome. And an additional item on the transportation and infrastructure category would be seeking funding for infrastructure improvements for the perennial flooding that occurs in North Salinas, particularly around the Santa Rita area, those neighborhoods. And then the economic and community development categories, just would also like to call out seeking funding for workforce development for our youth and upskilling of the existing population.

And

two additional items on public safety. I know we're working on the prostitution issue, but just if there's a way that we can reframe it so that we're a little bit more proactive about not just monitoring any legislation that's regarding prostitution, but rather being Salinas being at the forefront of trying to overturn the legislation, which allowed for the decriminalization of prostitution, all those activities. And

on that one, just to note, last year, we've had two year council members, D'Areggo and Della Rosa, there to meet with the legislation who actually introduced legislation to try to overturn that. There's been progress. There's been talk about more legislation this year. We haven't gone through all the 1,100 bills that were introduced on Friday, but I think there are going be opportunities. And we've had thank you, Councilmember De La Raza for your support and so forth because they listened to you when you were there.

Yeah. I know at the League of Cities at the retreat we were at back in December setting our legislative priorities for this calendar year, public safety ended up being one of the top four priorities. It was previously removed for the previous legislative session. And one of the main reasons was prostitution up and down the state, hearing from different communities, not just Salinas, that prostitution is an issue, and they would like to

see that overturned.

And my last comment would be under the future growth and innovation category. Just if we could please squeeze in the Salinas Regional Sports Authority. I know it's in the general plan and a few other planning documents for the Salinas for the City Of Salinas, for the City Of Salinas to become the sports capital of the Central Coast for athletic tourism, right? So continuing to seek out that funding to support the build out of the soccer complex and other sports assets.

We were so happy when the speaker and back then Senator Caballero helped us with the soccer fields and the funding for that and so forth. And we definitely have that on the radar. Awesome. Absolutely.

Thank you. Aside from that, those are all my comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Tony?

Mr. Adiego, good to see you.

I'm here.

You know, every now and then when I sit down with you in Sacramento and we do discussions or even with the city manager, I guess my thought is a lot of times you're very successful in getting funding for the city and we want to thank you for that. I hear the word comprehensive. For many years I hear that word comprehensive a lot. Two things that are standing in my mind as I'm listening to this, your topic here on funding and our what we need to do. Homelessness and infrastructure.

And I'm gonna ask mister Mendez as well. So we get x amount of millions of dollars. I I I'm thinking about Car Lake. Car Lake cost us almost $2,000,000 just to clean it up, all that toxic waste. We as a local government, do we have something comprehensive where, okay, so we get all these millions of dollars coming in, is great, but then the money dries out and we find ourselves, did we do a good job or does it still look the same?

Yesterday I was at the meeting that your staff had, Mr. Mendez, the rent assistance program. There was a mother with three children, hard working woman, she works in the fields. But she's had such a devastating time financially. She's homeless right now.

She lives in her car, her children go to school, and she goes to work in the morning. Not a drug addict, she's not mentally ill. She's in a really serious financial crisis. My question, mister Mendez and mister Arriaga, homelessness, do you think we we have here in Salinas, do we have something comprehensive that we can say, you know what? We got this plan together. We're moving on it. We got different governments working together to to at least make a dent on it. Do you see that happening?

The whole issue of homelessness and everything that is incorporated under the umbrella of homelessness has been huge for the last number of years. Unfortunately, for some, it's been political. But I think there are I mean, from the governor on down and in the past, there has been some support for this at the federal level. But it's a huge problem, as we know. And California is probably the largest and so forth.

I think you have had your successes. I've seen from working with the city over the years, there has been some significant improvements done over there and working with the county to do that. So to answer your question, I don't know if there's one thing you can point to, think. But if you step back and look at what and I do as an outsider, not entirely an outsider, try to spend as much time as I can here. But I think you do have many successes and you're on the right track, I think.

Yeah. So if I can add to that. As you know, when we brought the conversation and there's two items on today's agenda addressing homelessness. One is an investment of $1,100,000 in the Homekey project at Fairview. So we and the city applied for three Homekey projects, but based on either beyond the city's control, we had nothing to do with two of them falling out because of what happened with the provider and the state.

So the city a few years ago went down this path where we were prepared to invest millions and millions of dollars. Yes, we get grant fundings and so forth to do that. So when you talk to me about planning, you have a shared you have a shared center with the county. Whereas we've informed you next year in order to keep it going unless there's other funding and this is part of what our lobbyists will help us work through in our advocate, we are gonna be bringing to you a contribution with the general fund to keep that open, to keep that maintained and open. So that's a lot of bet.

We have a ray, we have other projects. A few weeks, a few months ago, you got a presentation of all the bets that have have come into production, and I get it that there's this perception that the city has not done any. I will tell you that this city has done more in Monterey County than any other city. Have we done enough? No.

We also have another, and we can talk more about when we get to the some of the other items that they're pulled, but what the city is doing to yes, we there's a lot about the encampments and moving them, but we are giving notices, we are trying to work with folks. We're working with the county homeless providers in the continuum of care to try to address this in a systematic way. So the council did give us directions to bring back a to set up a homeless workshop summit or whatever. We will be work with the county to do that over the next few months where we hopefully will share more intentionally everything that the city has done. So in short, we are right now in a in a tipping point when it comes to the federal government.

Vouchers are no longer available, and vouchers have been a primary funding source for the ongoing operation of these programs and centers. So today, for example, the $1,100,000 of Home America Rescue Plan funds is for the operation of the center, not the acquisition of the center. The city already provided along with the county, I believe, $2,500,000 us and the county, 5,000,000 to backfill the loss of funding from the Fed, from the state as it pertains to this home project. So is it enough? No.

It's no. But has the city been doing something? No. This city still try to set up three home key projects. So I think I just wanna put it in perspective when working with mister Ariaga who's very adept to trying to move opportunities. We will continue to move forward. If this the platform's adopted, we will continue to look for opportunities to provide to submit applications, to submit letters of support, submit letters of encouragement, maybe set up visits to the state capital to lobby to advocate for the interest of the community. Yeah. So this is what this allows us to do. Yeah.

Because a lot of times there's some real immediacy to addressing the state or federal government and our council meetings don't always align. So having coming before the council and getting authority to do it, this platform will allow us to move forward a lot quicker. Yeah. Now it doesn't allow us to commit. I just wanna be very, very clear with that. It doesn't allow us to commit money. It does not allow us to put money. That needs to come back to the council. To all of that or accept the grant, appropriate money, appropriate general fund, all that needs to come back to the council. But this allows us to start the process.

Thank you. It sounds like we're moving in the right direction. My other question, just as important, we're often criticized by the people that we serve, our infrastructure. How are doing as far as funding for infrastructure? I I know I think I I think the mayor said that looking at Abbot Street, only what was it? Like, a million dollars only goes so far, and then that's takes a lot of money for infrastructure. My question, how is our lobbyists, mister Arriaga? How are we working together for more funding for our local infrastructure?

Well, like like I said earlier is, you know, we have been successful in a number of programs. I mean, I really pleased to come a few weeks ago to the opening of the grand opening of the Heberland Center over there and to see that finally come together. What a beautiful site that was. What a beautiful day that was. And with, you know, with the soccer fields and so forth.

So, you know, like I said, we we are continuously looking for opportunities. But I think as important as actually getting that opportunity when you when you get it, there's a lot that goes into it beforehand. So we're letting our legislators know that this is our priority and so forth so that when that opportunity comes in like a surplus, then we're on the radar already. We've been doing our homework for the last two, three, four years sometimes. So we'll continue to do that.

Yeah. Just one last question. And Mr. Mendez, you already answered this in an email. But I just wanted the public to be aware of this. Can you just share a little bit about this water allocation, would need 1,000,000 gallons a day of water?

So that's probably a little too specific. But the idea is to work forward to take a little bit more advocacy and control ahead of our water future. We are the largest city in the area by far, so 160,000 plus residents. There's a lot just to put it in perspective, we have approximately 18,000,000 gallons per day of wastewater, industrial and domestic, being treated, being put out. Dollars 14,000,000 to moderate warm water, 4,000,000 to industrial capacity.

So you think about 18,000,000 gallons of water per day, that's daily. That's a lot of water. So what opportunities does that afford us to present us? So this is a way of sort of capturing this and just beginning to say we need to do better in this space. And we are also, as I've been forming, we've been working from a staff perspective with a consultant to sort of bring sort of a wider strategy and vision to the council, which will likely come before over the next few months.

So this is just a way of kind of saying, hey, we need to do better in this space and we need to look for opportunities. It's harder to be able to identify what those opportunities might exactly be. To put it in perspective, we're a member of Monterey Goldwater. We're a member of the Salinas Valley Groundwater Management Agency, Sigma. So we have a presence of that. We also do our own industrial wastewater. And that's just a few of the areas that we're involved with water. By the way, we also need water for our future growth area. We need water to support our own community. Infrastructure plays a large role in this. So this is just the beginning of beginning to elevate this to more of a policy level discussion.

Thank you. Welcome. Andrew?

Thank you, John. It was a pleasure to talk to you the other day. I did have some questions. My question was around the million dollar gallon allocation because, you know, the city of Salinas only until recently has been discussing water. And, you know, this is the legislative policy platform that is gonna basically give our position to our state and federal partners. And so I think it's premature to be identifying, one, a specific allocation of water. And then some of the other ag tech and and I get it. We're in the ag tech industry. Mhmm. But when we're talking about the priorities of our residents, you you you heard you were here for public comment, and and nobody's talking about ag tech.

Now I recognize that they bring work, and we wanna support them. But some of these things, to me, seem like they would divert resources, either your staff time or or our city. You know, we're looking at it it says, seek targeted state funding for AgTech initiatives, that enhance food safety. And some of these things seem like more industry specific, and those billion dollar companies that are located in our area also have lobbyists

that

that could do some of these things, you know, promote international agricultural exchange and trade agreements. It sounds great too, but that that's very industry specific. And and I I see a very small emphasis on, for example, small businesses. I do see a mention of it. Mhmm. It's like one line. It goes on to say, support state and federal legislation that provides grants and initiatives to support ag tech programs. It's just very heavy in the ag industry. And like I said, those those folks have their own lobbyists, and ours should be a more broader approach. So those are some of my comments on the ag tech.

For the healthcare discussion, it says pursue ongoing funding streams for Salinas Valley Health and the Tividad Medical Center. Both great organizations, but for example, Clinica de Salud is facing a lot of budget shortfalls because of our federal government. So if we could broaden that instead of being specific to those and saying, you know, support policies that would support, you know, health care for those most affected residents in Salinas because we know that, you know, with the federal cuts and Medicare and Medicaid and all those things. So I'd like to expand that instead of just specifically Syllins Valley Health and Minnesota Medical Health. When we would okay.

Yeah. In under transportation and infrastructure, because this is a state and federal legislative platform, it says secure continued measure g and other state funding sources to improve roads. I didn't understand why that the measure g would specifically be called out in the state and federal legislative platform.

Only because I know the importance that plays in the area. And just like on the sex trafficking and prostitution and so forth, those seem to really be highlighted, and that's why we included them. Try not to be too specific, but in that situation, we did mention it as an opportunity we want to continue to support.

Yes. I was just curious on how that would, you know, on that level. And then in terms of because even though the state is currently having budget shortfalls, you know, having this legislative platform is kind of giving the position of the city. And in case funds open up, I want to make sure that our residents' priorities are the ones that are being addressed, you know, sidewalks, streets, infrastructure, traffic calming, recreation programs. And and one very specific thing on here that I find very strange, it says that for future growth and innovation, it says modernize the city's welcome center as a hub for tourism, business support, and cultural engagement.

And and that particular call out is a bit frustrating for me because I don't think anybody would see the welcome center as hub for business support or cultural engagement. We have so many nonprofits, and that specific call out is a bit concerning because we have, like, Alice Hall for the fine arts. We have Artist Inc. And so there's not really any focus on arts in our community. I really would like that removed because if money does come, I don't want us to we're and we've not had a discussion as a council to say that our priority is to modernize the city's welcome center. They do some good stuff, but that's just not a priority for me. And collectively, as a council, has not been discussed.

So maybe we incorporate that under that. I agree with you. The arts are huge to community, and there should be more than that. So maybe we'll make

Right. And then, you know, really emphasize, I know we do have promote business and retention, but there really needs to be a focus on small business support. And then around the arts, you know, also to

try to

secure or support funding for nonprofits that do a lot of good work. Like I said, like, arts okay. And then some additions for consideration.

So

one of the things that we're very proud of with the previous council supporting was our mobile crisis unit. And so I'd like the inclusion of a support legislation that fosters the developed the continued development and increase of alternative behavioral health emergency response team and and other funding sources like that. I know public safety is called out in that, but it's not it doesn't include that specific category. And then how about support legislation legislative efforts that create pathways to citizenship for immigrant families and individuals. And then, you know, as we talk about AI, didn't see any mention in there of AI, but support policies and funding mechanisms to provide resources to communities for training and the development of related related to AI.

And I really want to call out I know that what confused me a bit is is some of these are really general categories, but then some are very, very specific. So, you know, included in there, like, you know, support measures that expand funding opportunities for youth, mentoring local parks and recreation agencies, including support funding for after school program. And I know you already have community centers in there.

Yep. Those

are those are my note.

Okay. No. I I appreciate that. And and what I will try to do collectively with the comments that were made today is maybe sit down with the city manager and talk about these and see what we might add to this. It didn't sound like there was much to take out, but add to it to satisfy these requests. Thank

Thank you, Andrew. All right, we will go ahead and go out to the public on this. Open for any public comment on the legislative platform.

Good evening. My name is Eric Peterson. And so far, this discussion has been pretty vague. I'd like to add a little bit of specificness to it, that being Senate Bill eight hold on August by state senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco. In the interests of whole disclosure, it involves PG and E.

I own stock in PG and E and know how sleazy they are. It also involves San Francisco. My daughter is in San Francisco and a family member would benefit from this. As I understand this bill, what it would do is detach San Francisco completely from PG and E. We've got Central Coast Community Energy. We still pay PG and E for using their lines. We still pay PG and E for sending us bills. We still pay PG and E for repairs and such. We've got Central Coast Community Energy. All they do is send us power through PG and E lines.

PG and E was involved in the Monsch Landing fiasco last year, the battery fire. You hear about the other company a lot more because PG and E fortunately wasn't as sleazy as they were. A few years ago, everybody knew when PG and E blew up part of San Bruno. Last year, PG and E was involved in a major multi day power outage in San Francisco. And Patty Popney, the trustee, for those who complain about how much the city manager makes, she gets well over $20,000,000 a year to have battery fires and things like that.

And I would like to suggest that Salinas endorse eight seventy five because if we can get the same deal sent, the people's likely to get will be better off. Thank you.

Thank you, Eric.

Good afternoon, got a couple of things here that I think on this planning we should do is one, the water one thing and all the water treatment, why haven't we started a water program here for us? And not just for ag. We do everything for ag. The same about everybody else in the community. Let's put ag aside. And this is why I think a lot of people don't come back to this area. If you're not involved in ag, you can't really get a job here, if you think about it. So I'm thinking, why don't we start a water treatment for us, for Salinas? I mean, we spend enough money on things we don't need. We're trying to get money away left and right to other divisions, other programs that we don't use.

Why why not? Let's take care of this city, guys. Take care of each other here. Why why not make us let us make the money instead of giving them water away and not getting it back and we're we're not making any any progress. Why don't we do that? Why can't I be on the board with you, mister Donahue, with you and mister Barajas on the water board? I like to hear what's going on. It'd be nice to have someone from the public there. You know, other eyes and ears in there that can let the public know what's really going on. I mean, I I would like to do that.

I mean, we we ask for all this money for the city, but we don't put in the right areas. You just took the funding away from the from the homeless to to do the rent rent, whatever they call it now, rent assistance. I I don't I don't get it. I mean, you guys need to work for us, for the people here in Salinas, and you're not doing that. You're thinking about your own personal agenda, in which you can push forward with the people that support you. But you forgot about the small people that live here in Salinas, the little people, the taxpayers. You guys forgot about us. That's how I feel right now. It's sad that that, you know, you guys don't understand that. Everybody's looking at the clock.

I got four seconds left. Well, God bless you guys. Good luck with it, man. Hey, thanks for the presentation.

Alright. Thank you. Alright. Anyone on Zoom? Okay. Nobody on okay. There is one. Mayor Sal?

Mayor Sal? So I wish the antisocialism guy was here today, and I hope that if he saw this, like, he would go out against this. This legislative platform, quote, unquote, is literally, it plays out, like, what it looks like to us, everyday ordinary people, is it's a gift to your to those who contributed to the majority of your campaigns. Right? Your this is, like, here you go, master tailor, etcetera, etcetera.

This is what I've done for you. This is what I'm gonna make sure we're fighting for you in the legislature, in the state legislature versus what you should be doing, which is trying to find as much funds for the actual people that live here. I understand ag is important. I understand we have a lot of work, but also think of all the workers. Think of the workers who need assistance.

We are not working for them. You are working for the big corporations, and this is what this platform is telling me. So if you guys were to remove that whole first ag tech, I would be okay with it. It's subpar, but I would be okay with that. That's it. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. We will bring it back to this is an action item, so we are will be looking Motion approve. To approve. Okay, by first and second. All right. All right. Go ahead and call for

the question. I'm sorry. Have some comments.

Okay. Go ahead, Andrew.

Well, one, I forgot to include one of the items. It said support the reduction of pesticide use in your parks, homes, schools, healthcare facilities, and other sensitive receptors. And I want to get some clarity. What exactly are we approving? It as is?

That's the motion on the floor as I understand it.

Okay, so whatever comments were made by the council and recommendations have no bearing on this vote. Just want to get that clear.

I wouldn't think that's the case. Would Can

I read what I'm making a motion? No, Yes. I'm gonna read it. By adopting this platform, the city council authorizes the city's participation in state and federal advocacy efforts that are aligned with municipal interests. Based on the adopted platform, the city will evaluate and take formal positions on specific bills, budget proposals, and regulatory matters. Thank you.

And presuming it's okay. The motion can include to incorporate the comments and direction provided by all council members. Absolutely. So if that's implied, maybe we want to make that

This is for discussion. I mean, we continue

Okay. Discussing So that's your motion. Yes. That motion is seconded. Okay. All right.

Let's go. So we're going to approve a document that we haven't seen with hopes that what we mentioned was going to be included in there.

We have a motion and a second on the floor, so we will call for the question.

Well, point of order, I'd like to get clarification on my question. I want to know, like

Well, I think it was just

I mean, are we approving? We're approving a legislative platform with I mean, at least lay out the specifics that are actually going to be included in there.

So if I may, Mayor, the city clerk certainly is taking notes of all of the comments that were made, Council Member Sandoval. So what I understand the motion and the second to be is to approve the legislative platform that was presented with the additions that were suggested by all of the other council members including yourself.

Additions and removals?

As that's the motion that's on the table, council member.

Okay, well, I can't approve something without seeing it, so.

You can't approve with what?

Without seeing it.

So

you can have a motion and call for

the question. Call for the question.

I'll call for a substitute motion that we table this until we have a final draft that the council and the public can review, and we bring it back at our next council meeting.

There's no second.

Okay, no second. Go ahead and call for the question.

Just calling for the vote on the original motion. Councilmember made by Councilmember Barrera, second by Councilmember Barajas. Councilmember Barajas?

Yes.

Council Member Barrera? Yes. Council Member De Rigo? Yes. Council Member Della Rosa? Yes. Council Member Salazar?

Yes.

Council Member Sandoval? No. Mayor Donahue? Yes. Motion passes.

Okay. Thank you. Alright, with that we are going to proceed to administrative reports. There will be three of them. They are not action items. We will be receiving reports And we will go ahead and get started with, an update on predevelopment activities for Chinatown. And, it looks like we are looking for Grant Leonard, and we have found him. Grant?

That's right. Good evening, mayor and council members. Grant Leonard, Hartnell College graduate and, fronvoy of the city of Salinas here tonight with our architects, TEF Design, to provide an update on the city's progress in Chinatown.

Wow. So

just very, very quickly, we have a packed PowerPoint tonight, so buckle up. We will be going over some background, some design precedents that have influenced the concepts you'll see, and then we'll do a a deeper dive into three specific projects. I'm wrapping up with next steps. So very quickly, this is the city's action to implement the Chinatown revitalization plan, which was most recently adopted in 2019, focused on a number of items to revitalize that neighborhood. Traditionally, was a vibrant, thriving mixed use district that's fallen into disrepair, and this is the city's efforts to bring it back.

So one of the main obstacles has been a lack of private investment and disinvestment in Chinatown. So what you see here is the city has been actively trying to spur development by purchasing derelict or abandoned properties as listed there. And in '24 2024, we were successful in receiving a grant from the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments in the state of California to take the next step after acquiring their properties to complete the predevelopment work that, therefore, streamline it for future development. And what you see on the top right is the current state of 45 Soledad Street, which is a vacant lot next to Victory Outreach. And on the bottom right is a picture last week of 34 To 40 Soledad, which is a vacant site next to Dorothy's.

And TEF design was selected for this project based off their previous work with the city of Salinas and their rich experience with also historic architecture, which you'll see why that's important shortly. So just to orient everyone, this is Soledad Street in Chinatown. The hash lined areas are the projects we're talking about, bordered by Market Way. On this bottom of the screen, you'll see the railroad tracks. To the right is the Buddhist temple, and Victory Outreach is surrounded by two of the properties we're talking about, and Dorothy's to the top of the screen.

And these were all formerly active mixed use properties with businesses on the 1st Floor, some component of residential. But over the years, they've fallen disrepair or been demolished after fires. The only property that we're discussing tonight that's still standing is 37 And 39 Soledad Street, which is the Republic Cafe, and that features prominently in the Chinatown revitalization plan. So why did the city take this approach? Well, it's really to streamline the development process for future developers.

If we did all of the legwork to get it up to a building permit essentially and financing strategy, then it would be more attractive for the private sector or nonprofit developer to come in and take the next step and develop the properties. So we also wanted to ensure that the community was brought along. There's a dedicated group of stakeholders in Chinatown. We wanted to make sure that they had not just a say in the process, but really a seat at the table in designing this project. And we wanted to ensure that it was a fully rounded, successfully designed mixed use affordable housing project, served a variety of income levels from low to medium to moderate, served a variety of household types from studio to one bedroom to family units to senior housing, and that it would have successfully designed commercial space on the 1st Floor.

We've all heard of mixed use sites where the 1st Floor commercial is vacant for years on end. We wanted to make sure that didn't happen here, that it was designed for success, and we could have business tenants on day one. On previous slide, there was a an image of a flyer for a public outreach meeting. This is a photo from that outreach meeting last year. Really, over the course of the project, we have focused extensively on meeting with the community stakeholders like the Asian cultural experience in Salinas, the downtown Salinas community board, the Chinatown Coalition, and also the neighboring property owners, Dorothy, Victory Outreach, Victory Mission rather.

And also, we were very intentional in meeting with affordable housing developers and private sector developers to ensure we were on the right path, that what we were coming up with would be viable and attractive to them in a future development bidding process. And where we've been in the last several months is finalizing designs and submitting applications for planning approval and completing any of the associated studies for that. And one of the major things to come out of this was the emphasis on the design, that the community wanted it to look right and wanted it to feel right, that this would be reflective of the history architecture of Chinatown, and that would be something that Salinas could be proud of. And with that, I'll hand it over to our consultants, TEF Design, to discuss the precedents that went into their concepts, and then the concepts that they developed. Thank

you, Grant.

Mister mayor, city council people, I'm very glad to be here. I'm Doug Tom, founding principal of TF design, and with me is my one of my partners, Mariam Rostani. As a way of introduction to the firm, we're a firm of 50 people in San Francisco doing work in the Bay Area and the Central Coast and extending in the state of California from Mount Shasta to San Diego. We do work not only housing, but work for universities and other schools. We do public work, libraries, that sort of thing, work for nonprofits and workplace design as well.

As a way of personal introduction, I'm a native generation. I graduated from Salinas High and Hartnell College. And, even more, on a more personal level, my parents met at a dance in 1946 at the Confucius Church in Chinatown. So, this project has a lot of, not only professional meaning to me, but a lot of personal meaning to me. And, so, we've really tried to dive in, as Grant mentioned, to really understand what this community needs.

Revitalization is really important to this neighborhood. It needs it. And we've been really thinking a lot about and fortunately been working with members of the community to talk about some things that need to get integrated into a good design. And, we'll go through them really quickly. Some of the design precedents we went through was looking at other neighborhoods, other ethnic neighborhoods, Chinatowns in California.

Is it this one? A

A little slow.

Oh, there we go.

Okay. And other housing projects in other similar kinds of neighborhoods as well.

Sorry. Here

we go. What came out of one of the community visioning workshops was the understanding that that the existing architecture of the neighborhood had a lot of Spanish revival influence, clay tile roofs, stucco, those sorts of materials. You'll see in the bottom picture here is just a vignette of one of our renderings, which you'll see in a broader scale in a minute. We understand the importance of Chinese influence. The Chinese red is an important vital color.

And the notion of a moon gate symbolizing a welcoming and secure entry. And so, you'll see that the central entry to one of our projects is a large moon gate in red. We also looked at some detailing. The Japanese design is very intricate about joinery and things like that. And so, we looked at we're going to have a need to have sunshades to protect these windows from the sun.

So, we looked specifically at some opportunities to begin to integrate that kind of Japanese design in there. Lanterns in all Asian countries are a big deal, so we began to integrate some lanterns into this project as well. And then, there are many opportunities in these buildings to integrate murals. So, we actually reached out to a local artist, a woman named Bella Yang in Monterey, and we've inserted some of her murals or her some of her artwork as murals in in a renderings that you can see here. I'm gonna turn it over now to Miriam to talk very specifically about the designs.

Mayor, council members, thank you so much for the honor of listening to us today. My name is Maryam Rasamy. I've been with TEF for twelve years and been an architect for twenty years. And, this project is meaningful to me as both of my parents are immigrants to our great country. We are so excited to show you today this vision for the Edge Of Market Way in Soledad as a brand new and strong gateway for Chinatown in the future.

As you can see here, on the left, you see 3440 Solidad, potentially, hopefully, a six story building that will be mixed use with retail on the bottom and housing at the top. And, on the right, you're seeing 45 Soledad, a two story brick building that will be rebuilt to reimagine the old building that was lost in a fire unfortunately with one story again at the street level of retail space and upstairs, there would be four layers or four levels of housing intended for seniors. Here, we're looking from the other side of what was what used to be the old Chop Sue restaurant, looking across the street at the old Ars Pool Hall which was also unfortunately lost to fire. And, what we're proposing to you all is more of a broad notion of what Salinas Chinatown may look like in the future if we bring in street trees, revitalization, and rebuilding importantly these older beloved resources, historic buildings, rebuilding them to the exact character that they had been in the past As you can see in this view, the pool hall being rebuilt as an anchor for the new developments. And, as well as you see in this particular viewpoint, there is a courtyard.

And, some of these pieces are not in our scope, but we are very inspired by bringing in this kind of fresh ideas and revitalization to the area. So, I'll start by talking more about 3440 Soledad. This was an old pool hall, ours pool hall. Unfortunately, again, as I said, this was lost to a fire quite recently. And, I'll quickly go through the nitty gritty of what we're proposing and I'm happy to take questions at the end.

What you're seeing here is a conceptual floor plan and I want to mention right now at the very beginning that what we're proposing are more like very much developed concepts, not full designs. Eventually, we are trying to get developers very excited to come and invest in this community and so, our responsibility is to maximize these sites, make sure we're providing the absolute highest number of affordable units that we possibly can here, and make it an exciting and beautiful place for developers to come and invest in this community. So, here you're seeing in the orange some retail space, the light orange salmon color would be entry for the residents living upstairs. In the gray, you're seeing parking and some supportive space. Upstairs, there would be again five stories worth of housing and I understand that sounds like a lot, but in fact, what you're seeing is it's creating a courtyard around that orange building which is the rebuilt old pool hall to look like it had looked in the past, restored to its glory.

Along in this courtyard, there would be play space for children as well as landscaping and space for the community to use. Upstairs, again, this kind of the same c shape continues and you're seeing a mix of studios, one bedrooms, two bedrooms, and three bedroom units proposed here at this location. What you're seeing here is a summary slide. Again, we're thinking we can fit about 55 residential units in this potential development. And, as Doug mentioned, we're really trying to put in design features at the street level that are perceptible to our human experience.

All of those details that hark back to the old glory of Chinatown Salinas, including the Chinese details, Spanish revival details, all these kinds of things are going to contribute to the livelihood of the area. Here's another look at the same building, including you're seeing the lanterns going across. And, again, looking from Market Way to where you would drive in to park and where hopefully, we'll have some murals in the future that really speak to the character of the community. Going on to 45 Saladat, and I know I'm speaking quickly, I'm happy to get interrupted at any time. What we are proposing here, it's a quite small space.

Again, in the dark orange, you're seeing retail space, in the light orange that's more of the housing, the entry foyer, and some supportive offices for the housing program. Upstairs, this would be dedicated to older adults and so, there'll be some supportive programs in the orange and the light orange, but mostly all only studios and one bedrooms. And, this is how it would potentially look. Again, there had been a two story brick building in the past and we would be looking to basically rebuild in the spirit of that old building, and then add an addition vertically in order to best maximize the real estate of the space. This amounts to about 30 units in this building.

This is another view looking down toward 45 Solidad, and you're seeing this proposal of a vibrant retail space and potentially, hopefully, you know, eight palm trees that eight is a powerful number in Chinese culture representing that gateway into the new Chinatown Salinas. This is one more view of the same building. Thirty seven, thirty nine Soledad are kind of one building, and this building is unfortunately in quite bad repair. And, so, for at this these, excuse me, at this building, we are doing both historic structures report in order to clearly define what makes this building very special. And, then we're going to stabilize the building, so the community should know if you see it look worse in the short term with kind of boards on it, what we're trying to do is keep it from falling down, make it watertight, make it vandal resistant, and then we're gonna come in, hopefully hopefully, and rebuild.

And, with this one, what we're going to do is take a very surgical approach. Thankfully, these resources have not been lost to fire. So, we have to handle it with kid gloves, these are very important buildings and for these, I won't read off all of these, but you can see we're identifying many very beautiful characteristics of this building that we will that we intend to rebuild. So, as I said, the first step is to stabilize and make sure that the building is safe, watertight, and install a sprinkler system in case, unfortunately, there is a fire. This slide is showing the areas of the temporary reconstruction, meaning we want to be very careful with these particular pieces and really save them, including the sign.

And, here is a rendering of the vision of what the future of this building may look like. The orange tile of the base actually is historic. What's important to also know about this building is that we're celebrating the lives and the history of the Ahtai family in Salinas Chinatown. I'll quickly talk about what's planned in the future for these buildings. The notion is that on at the top of this slide you're seeing in the kind of pink color museum area, this area is intended for the Asian cultural experience of Salinas to take over as an exhibit space, as a community space, as a gathering space.

The space you see on the bottom of the slide, it says commercial area, that may indeed also be part of Asian cultural experiences purview to run as a community space, as a gathering place. Potentially, it's a cafe, but that is to be yet to be seen. The building at the top layer you're seeing has many different levels, all of the kind of pinkish space you're seeing is museum area. There is one historic apartment unit here, you're seeing in blue the Atai family unit that will be retained as a residential unit. And then, in the green space you're seeing that will be basically delivered as a future program space, it's not yet decided exactly what it will be.

Another level upstairs at the on the museum side, and in terms of next steps, we are currently right now working on the entitlements set for 45 solidade, that's the one with the brick base, and we continue to work kind of very intently on the stabilization of the 37, 39 resident buildings, and we are currently working on comments back from 37 from '34, 40. And, I think the next steps are, I was just sort of talking about it, we are working through essentially toward the goal of creating an RFP for developers. So, we'll be working shoulder to shoulder with planning and housing to create a very attractive RFP for developers to come in and be say, yes, we are going to invest in this community. So, this is a kind of a look at potentially how this development If may we zoom out, it's a bird's eye view. We think that there's lots of potential here, and we could not be more excited to be your partners in this endeavor.

All right. Very good, thank you. All right, questions? Yes.

Okay, so when it comes to retail, I'm a little concerned about the retail part, only because there's quite a few mixed use buildings that have been built or tiny village is one that I don't believe is full on the bottom. So, what is the city's recruitment strategy to get retail businesses into those spaces?

Yeah. Excellent question. As I stated, that was one of the goals of this project was to make successful commercial space. Having the Asian cultural experience on board is an sort of an instant tenant in the area is a good first step. And then through the outreach process, we identified the type of spaces that the community wanted. So a market or a corner bodega, for instance, came up as a good space. And then it'll be working with the business community. We've been reaching out to them as well. You know, what kind of spaces do you need? How can we make this space attractive?

So as we're preparing that developer RFP, we're also gonna be working with the business community and the economic development division of the city as well for how we can get those spaces ready to be occupied.

And are you looking for people to come from outside the area to come and invest here? I'm not talking about developers, but business folks as well. Okay. My other question is where did I put it? Oh, I mean, I I think it's it's so beautiful. It's kinda shocking to me. I mean, it's it it doesn't look like the Chinatown I remember for the last sixty three years. Right? So but it's super exciting and I love it. But I'm wondering like how do we change the perception of Chinatown from what it has been to this big beautiful booming industrial area and living space for seniors and beyond?

Right. So this is one part of the strategy. Right? So going back to the 2019 Chinatown revitalization that focuses on addressing safety and homeless services Mhmm. Having economic development, having basic infrastructure improvements, sidewalks, street repairs, etcetera. All those are moving forward as well in parallel path. And so the idea is that they've come together, perfect timing, community is revitalized, and it does happen in phases. Know, Moongate was a good first phase 2017, 2018. This is a good next phase. There are still more properties down Soledad Street towards Moon Gate that the city has purchased or is looking to purchase.

So it's going to continue. It's gonna be a rolling redevelopment, but this is the next chapter.

Gloria?

Yes. This has been the goal of the city for many years to revitalize Chinatown and I'm very supportive, I've always have been and I'm very emotional right now when I saw this because, wow, how beautiful. But, in talking to community members in the community and investors, myself, to invest in redevelopment of Chinatown, the question to me has been this, and whoever wants to answer it, maybe economic development is here. But, okay, you want us to invest to revitalize Chinatown, But, what is the vision of the city of Salinas right now? To have the unsheltered that are there now and on the tracks, we have residents there, you wanna redevelop that, so how many years do we have to wait for that to happen to be able to work with them, to get them into long term housing.

So, I don't know what to say. So, could somebody answer that for me?

Sure. If

we move this forward, which they're starting to, how many years will it take for development to occur?

Well, don't know if I can speak to the actual years that our community development director can help us with that. But

because we need to house

Oh, so here's here's the thought. And this is part of the challenge that we have. We've been investing a ton of money, a lot of money, not enough on trying to get housing. We have a lot of housing units coming up, a lot of Fairviews coming online, we're working on a few other projects. So, part of it is can we shift that? But, the other issue becomes, it's never, I get the community feedback, but it's never gonna be perfect. We are not perfect and there is no perfect funding source. So, we have to take advantage of opportunities. So, part of the opportunity and I walk in this dialogue with the community, let's just understand what we have in front of us. We have a 200 plus million dollar budget.

We have all sorts of needs. We're trying to figure out how to space out for housing. We don't do housing, but we have provided a lot of opportunity to Chispa, to Eden, to others to do affordable housing projects and bring, Moon Gate's another example of the city's investment in this. The city is acquiring property to try to develop it and create a base infrastructure so we can help stimulate some of the economic development that we need. The simple fact of the matter right now is that the entry cost for anybody to develop property there is not obtainable, it's fairly high.

So, when we talk about investing in our community, part of the investment means, can we set it up so others can invest so our community can benefit. There is no direct pathway. So, you want honest conversation, it's not a conversation, this is what it means. So part of the next steps is how do we work? We've been working with Larry and everybody, he's the whole group is providing a lot of feedback on how we can restore, what do we need to save, how can we restructure.

We now need to take this input and bring it to the council in our budgets, but what, how do we invest and what do we invest? And so, short answer to your question is, this is a step, like Grant said, is concurrently infrastructure, acquiring property, working to move folks and create housing opportunities for our unhoused and our homeless. They are part of our community, where we need to figure out a way to be able to work with them to provide them the opportunities they need. We're also partnering with the county health department on social services, I'm providing wraparound services, our SOAR team is incredible in trying to connect people. So, it's just a combination of everything.

So, I think our next step is over the next couple of years, we start doing this and you start seeing some real vitality come back in, and now we're able to encourage others to partner with us. And frankly, the other, that community is gonna help us because I think part of the frustration has been, they've seen no movement. So, they're waiting to kinda take the next steps. So, this is the city trying to take the next steps, but the community is gonna have to help us encourage and get the development that we need. So, I don't have a real great answer other than, it's gonna happen over the next few years in incremental steps like Grant said, and we need to do it in Correct,

I'd echo everything the city manager Mendez said, and really it's a signaling of commitment to revitalize the neighborhood, and it's the public investment then that reduces the risk for private sector investment. And so, that is the signal that we're really sending and through that transformation over time, the character of the neighborhood changes.

Mhmm. Well, thank you, Renee. You gave a very good report so that the community understands. Thank you very much. And like I said, I'm a supporter, but I just worry about, you know, we have to have a we have to have a plan.

Okay, thank you.

Aurelio.

I see a lot of potential in this in this particular area and there are a couple of questions and comments I have. In terms of questions, I'm just wondering if there's been an opportunity to to to visit because it's always been my understanding that our Chinatown is the only Chinatown that exists between San Francisco and Los Angeles. And just wanted to ask staff if there's been that opportunity to to to go do a site visit and to take a look at the architectural style. And I'm wondering if we can go back to slide number 16, staff can bring that up. And so, let's see.

Is it up? So in terms of and I'll go ahead and speak to it. So if if if you take a look at slide number 16 in terms of the the architecture as I as I look at it, and I I think the only recommendation I would I would add to it is, you know, I'm just wondering if there's a way to incorporate more of the, you know, like the swooping roofs, which is a I believe it's a Chinese architectural style or even like a faux, you know, pagoda type style where it where where it builds up. Having looked at my fair share of housing plans, this almost looks like one of our regular housing, you know, projects, right? With the mixed use, you know, retail on the bottom, office space at the bottom, and apartments, condos on the on the top.

That's that's one feedback that I have. And then also, know, I don't know if this is like what's gonna be put out when we start looking for those who might be interested in developing this. But, you know, I'm looking at the trees. I don't know if those are native trees of of China. They almost look like palm trees and that, you know, maybe somebody could could could correct me.

And then also, I I think, you know, as we put this project out forward, you know you know, I just remember growing up, you know, when I grew up in in in Oregon, we had a Chinese community. You know, we had a Japanese community. And they would have their cultural events. And so as I think about the the the street layout, right, like how do we also support that as well, right, if we're trying to bring in and be proactive and support the Chinese contribution Salinas and recognize and honor that. Ideally, you know, I envision kind of what Ace has been doing in terms of like these these annual celebrations is like, you know, how can we also make it street festive?

Right? So that, you know, that one time out of the year, right, it is festive and it is taking into consideration like pedestrians, right, like like like the sidewalks, right? You know, we don't want the small narrow ones, we want those big, big and broad. And then also maybe incorporating some architectural styles there. You know, one of the things that also comes up, you know, regarding this project is I think this is really one of those opportunities where, you know, having that sister city agreement, know, with one of the the major cities in in China, I I I, you know, I don't know if that's something that we've explored or thought about like, know, seeing if there might be some investors either from the San Francisco or Los Angeles area or abroad that would really bring some authentic architectural style and design to to this to this project.

You know, again, this project is very important to me in terms of historic preservation and this being, you know, the only Chinatown area again between San Francisco and Salinas. And I think there is some economic development opportunities, you know, when we can showcase and highlight this particular neighborhood in this block.

As we heard from the community was to honor the very distinct blend of Spanish and Chinese architecture that Salinas' Chinatown had and to avoid, to quote, a Disneyland version of Chinatown. You know, we didn't wanna be overbearing in some of the architectural features. And then the third component was to sort of balance that 1st Floor pedestrian feel with the the new additions above and to still have that Yes. Be affordable for a developer to construct. And so with that, I'll let Doug kinda chime in a little more.

Thank you.

Kinda you kinda answered the question, but I I just wanted to comment. We've struggled with this because we're trying to balance what what a developer would be willing to pay for versus what would really make this feel like a Chinatown. And so we put our rigs in the Ground Floor and we were fortunate to be able to rely on these two historic buildings to be the focal point. The other comment you had was about street trees. Yes, we don't know if palm trees are the right selection, but you saw in the renderings, we did select Japanese cherry trees as the Chinatown tree.

And I don't know if there's a way to get to the next to the last slide. Is that possible? One more back, or I can do it. There. You talked about an opportunity for festivals and things like that. Mary mentioned it, but you can see above 37 Solvay, it's a vacant lot right now. In our imagination of making a place for festivals, that's a town square.

Town square.

And, it's it's an opportunity to to connect to the right to the Buddhist temple, and they have their Oban festivals there. But, we imagine that that that town square, farmers markets, all kinds of festival activities, which will be activated at thirty seven Solidad by the Asus Museum. So we're beginning to try and think about place making, is is a term we use, to enrichen this street. And when you really think about it, and you guys know this, this consolidation of these lots represents about a third of this of this street. So it's quite significant. It's gonna have quite a significant impact.

Thank you. Jose?

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation again. Had an opportunity to see you at the Housing and Land Use Committee. I wanna start off with a quick comment before I get into questions. I know a common thing that was brought up particularly at the beginning of the presentation that really stood out to me was this notion of this building was lost to a fire, this building was lost to a fire, this building was lost to a fire, this building was almost lost to a fire, so we need to stabilize it and we want to prevent future damages.

Of all the sites mentioned here, on the project map on Slide number five, if I could have staff support in pulling that up, 34 And 36 Soledad Street demolished in 2025 after a fire. 38 Soledad Street demolished in 2025 after a fire. 45 Soledad Street also demolished in 2017 after a fire. And all of these fires were not natural fires, it wasn't a random storm event that happened. These were all human caused fires that were caused by the homeless population in that area, which speaks to the gravity and severity and the need to act quickly to help preserve some of these historical assets as they are.

In terms of maximizing these sites, that was also something that really stood out to me from the individual that's the architect that when you gave your presentation on maximizing these sites, the city of Salinas is currently undergoing its zoning code update. Are there any changes you would suggest in the zoning code update that would help make this more palatable site for a developer down the line?

I don't have enough of an educated view on the overall zoning plan to I would rather concede to

Grant. Okay.

Yeah. So, you know, this site is fortunate to be close to the ITC, the train station. So it has incentives related to being close to a transit center. It's also within a focus growth overlay, which is a a current aspect of the city zoning code to sort of focus redevelopment in certain areas. And what the general plan update does, it's currently out for public review, is it takes these special incentives that are sort of layered on now, and it makes them standard.

So the incentives, the extra bonuses, those are worked into the updated place types for the general plan. And then through the zoning code, it'll be implemented down to, you know, the very detailed levels of setbacks, etcetera. So the goal with the general plan and the zoning code is to incentivize more infill development.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you for that clarification. And if the team here tonight isn't necessarily building these buildings per se, At what point in the process do we kind of lock in those housing numbers, the different affordability levels? At what point does that happen? Does that happen after the RFP process and after a developer is selected or is that at some point in this predevelopment phase?

Correct. So, what's being locked in now is the initial concept planning entitlement. If it when the developer is selected through competitive process, say, this summer, we return to council in the fall with the agreement with that developer, they'll go through a process. They'll, you know, value engineer. They'll look for financing.

They may come back and request a minor amendment to the approved plan to change the density or the unit count. And then the final mix of affordability is gonna be based on sort of their funding source. And certain funding sources are tailored towards seniors. Certain funding sources are tailored towards low or median. One thing we did do is ensure that the designs are consistent with the California Tax Credit Authority standards, so it's sort of primed and ready for tax credit funding.

Awesome. Thank you for that clarification. And then of the approximately 85 units across the proposed development, how many parking spots are we planning on incorporating into that?

Yeah. So parking is a tricky issue here. Because of the incentives for being close to transit, actually zero parking is required. We are proposing a minimal amount of on-site parking primarily for ADA access or for employees of the businesses, so they could park safely and then walk into the business. What we see as a major opportunity for parking in Chinatown is along Bridge Street. There is a property that's currently owned by PG and E and Chevron. It's under environmental remediation. It's in the aerial, you might have seen it to the left hand side. It's currently covered in gravel. It cannot be redeveloped for housing.

So, we see it as a prime opportunity once it's through its remediation to be developed into a modern parking lot with the standard rain gardens and landscaping, etcetera. And that's right adjacent to these properties.

Okay. And then in the facility in which or the site in which ACE is proposed to be in and host a museum, what does that exactly mean? Are we are we leasing the building to ACE and they're paying a rent or are we handing over the building to Ace as as a gift? How how how is that going about?

Right. So as a condition of the purchase of 37 And 39 Soledad Street, the city was required to bring the building up to code within ten years and then enter into an agreement with ACES for the development of a cultural resource center slash museum. So the details of that, obviously, have not been worked out yet, what kind of lease terms it is, etcetera. We're in the first phase, is stabilizing, bringing up the code, and then it'll be a negotiation process between the city and ACES on the lease.

Will the negotiation process begin once the developer is selected or continue through this predevelopment?

So, that's an important distinction. Currently, the path forward for the Republic Cafe and Lotus Ann thirty seven, thirty nine is to have the city do the redevelopment. Because it's only one unit of housing, it's not really an attractive asset for an affordable housing developer. So we're moving forward with the assumption the city brings it up to code, does the completion, and then partners with ACES. The other two properties, 45 Soledad and 3440 would be out for a developer.

So along pulling that through a little bit further, would this facility be managed or under the purview of library and community service or housing community development since it's a cultural asset and somewhat serves as a public facing public facility and it's also a quasi mixed use development because there's also the housing component to it.

Yeah. All good questions to be worked out at the moment. I can just say that we're looking at it as a public private partnership between the city and the museum, and future programming will be determined and future leases will be determined.

Awesome. And then last question is comparing Republic Cafe to Lotusen, one has historic designation, the other one is eligible for historic designation. It's my understanding that the city staff needs formal direction from the city council to pursue that historic designation. Is that correct?

That's correct. So the Republic Cafe thirty seven Soledad was designated nationally as historic landmark in 2011 when it was still privately owned. For whatever reason, lost the annals of history, 39 Soledad Street was not pursued at the same time. What we've done here as part of our background studies was to do the diligence and determine that 39 Soledad Street is eligible as a nationally historic landmark. And that opens up some opportunities for, for instance, historic tax credit financing to do construction.

It also has certain limitations on design work. As Miriam touched on, you have to be consistent with the historic design, and there's some extra treatment steps that go into it. So it's there's plus and minuses to the historic designation. Since '39 is not designated, it's only eligible. The property owner needs to pursue designation per the city ordinance, and the city is the owner of the building.

Thank you. Tony? Mayor, I

don't have any questions. I'm just eager to hear You know, this

is

Congratulations, Mr. Leonard and the folks. This is an awesome project. But I'm looking at some individuals here that have a lot of heart for this area. There's family. There's memories. I'm eager, mayor, when it's convenient, I'm eager to hear how they feel about this development, and and and I'm here as one council member to support them. Because, you know, a lot of times we can be up here and say something looks great, when we don't involve the real stakeholders, the ones that actually grew up in that area. It's fantastic, it's a lot of history. So Mr.

Leonard, to your credit, thank you for your work. And I'm just eager to listen to the folks that have made a lot of investment there. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Tony. Andrew?

Yeah. As we look at the housing on the top and the commercial at the bottom, I I know that council member De La Rosa mentioned that some of the units and the other development aren't fully being utilized. And I think the property that Ray Heron did on Abbott Street also, there was some concerns or there was some efforts to consider having more residential units. As we go through zoning or this project moving along, will they be locked into having those that type of zoning where it has to be multi use or will we have flexibility in case those developers wanna build more housing to be to be able to allow that?

Yeah. Excellent question. As currently proposed, it is ground floor commercial, not ground floor retail, and that's consistent with the Chinatown revitalization plan, which is really to bring back Soledad Street as it was, which was traditionally ground floor commercial and then residential above. And what we're trying to do is to make sure that it's not left unfinished. For instance, in tax credit financing properties, often, the 1st Floor is not finished.

Tenant improvements are left after the fact, so that's an added burden on the tenant. We don't wanna have that here. We wanna make sure that the commercial space is fully finished and ready to be occupied. The other thing we're looking at is making sure that, you know, a variety of uses could go in there. It could be, for instance, incubator space for small businesses who are ready to get out of the kitchen table where they do their work and they need a little office space for a while, they could have small office units or incubator space for restaurateurs who are ready to take that next step from home occupied kitchen or food truck and have a brick and mortar.

So it'll be an an interesting approach to flush out what finally moves in there, but we wanna make sure that there are options and that they're primed for success.

Okay. All right. Just before we go out to the public, and I think I want to echo what Tony said. Think we certainly want to hear from the community that provided some of the input. My question is and the design is terrific and it's pretty easy to get excited about all this.

Is it your and maybe this is for I think it sounds like the cities hope a developer will come in with one fell swoop and take a look at the entire project. My question given your experience David and the firms, is it likely that somebody will come in and look at the whole thing or is it building by building by building? Do you have any experience how these types of visions might come together? Is someone likely to come in and do the whole thing and realize a vision because then you may end up with maybe somewhat of a piecemeal look as opposed to the desire of, hey, can we do the whole thing that's very consistent culturally design wise? I think design is absolutely I mean, think you're right on the money, the value and the beauty of design in terms of making it attractive.

Then how does investment follow that?

Right. So I think from an affordable housing perspective, not necessarily private sector, but assuming an affordable housing developer bids on this and is selected. One thing they'll wanna look at is the more units, the easier to finance. So they might wanna bid on both 45 And Soledad Street together because that makes their project more attractive to financing. Alternatively, you might have a proposal where one person wants to just do the senior housing, and they have a stronger proposal on that, and a different developer wants to do the multi family across the street, and you have two different developers.

It'll really be interesting to see what comes through the development process, the request for proposals.

Let me let me have David answer that question also.

It Doug, yeah. I agree. There's likely to be a developer who wants to come in and do the whole thing. But we can also see someone like what Grant just said want to pull out the senior housing on the brick building.

The housing element's absolutely critical. That's not necessarily the same developer that is mixed use or

Right.

And then just given the financial realities of the day, what are we most likely to encounter?

Our personal experience is likely at one, one development company, but you don't know.

Yeah, no, no, No, I completely understand that. I just was curious what your experience has been for this type of project. Okay, good. All right, with that, let's go ahead and go out to the public and then comments from the public.

Evening, I'll say I a multi back community. I think it's a great project, great presentation, taking too long to build. I believe it's a part of history we need to preserve. I don't know why we can't find funding. We have a lot of intelligent people in the city that can get funding. There's a lot of people here that have way to get grants. There's historical grants you can get through the state and federal government. Have we looked into that? Anybody up here? Have we done any of that research? We have experts that can lobby this. We have people in the city that can go out and try to sell to somebody and and say, hey, you know what? We got this beautiful Chinatown we wanna build. Can you help us? Has anybody done that? Anybody here up up here trying to do that? Council members? Anybody? Mister Mendez? Mister Donahue?

Have we tried? We have a great part of history here, we're not really embracing it. And if we're looking for parking, why don't we try to buy the the old Gutierrez restaurant on the corner? I'm sure it's for sale. Buy that, make a five layer parking garage, and you can make money there too. I know you're not making money on the one down by the theater. I don't know what happened there. It's either bad judgment or they they don't know how to use utilize it correctly. But there's a lot of things we can do. We owe the community this.

We we've been talking about this too long. I went to those meetings. They're great meetings. We we talked about busing everybody from Caltrans or wherever that the the bus station is there and bus them, and let people walk, have build a pathway they could walk. But we need to fix the housing. We need to take care of the homeless, unhoused. We need to do that first before we do anything else. With all that money we spent, we I don't see that we got anywhere with it. We need to address that first. That way developers can come and say, hey, we're going to do Salinas. They got their stuff together. Let's get it together guys. It's time. God bless you guys. Good night.

Name is Eric Peterson. Two things. First, a question. On the one of the earlier slides and one of the middle slides, there were Chinese characters. Either that or we need to know that they're easy to change, because it would be really awful to find out we've got a quotation from Chairman Mao up on our walls or something.

And very possible things like that happen in the real world. The second thing is, a couple months ago, the council did a favor for somebody by starting a process to sell two, parking lots to be developed. Maybe we could lean on that person to, be the developer. He's here. Thank you.

Good evening. Larry Hirohara with from Salinas Chinatown. I had some friends here that came in support of myself. So what I'm going to say is we patiently waited to make comment, but we're not nearly as patient as we were in the Chinatown revitalization project overall. But what we would like to say is we would like to express our support and appreciation for the City Of Salinas on this revitalization project.

We fully support that on several we appreciate on several levels. The first level is the engagement and the community feedback. We've been very involved with that, involved in the very beginning through all this project. And also, other part is the resources that the City of is putting into this, especially the Republic Cafe. That's going to be the kickoff point and the Asian cultural experience of Salinas is committed to create that museum within that building as soon as the city brings up the code.

And, the other part is that the project itself is quite large, very impressive. And we hope that and it's understood that this is a predesigned situation where the developer has to come in and develop this. So we're very we're going to try to work with the city as well to collaborate, try bringing in desirable developers. And the other thing too is that within the Chinatown area recently, if you're not aware of that, Union Pacific has become very aggressive in their anti encampment program, and they've got boulders all along the railroad tracks. So that's going to put an impact on Chinatown as well.

And we want to work and try to come up with a solution that would help with the whole situation. So we're very much supportive and in favor of this particular project. Thank you.

So, good evening, counsel. I'm Eloise Schumann. I just wanted to sort of reiterate, you've probably heard it many times, about the history of Chinatown There the Republic Cafe, I kind of want to focus mainly on the Republic Cafe. That cafe was built in 1942. It closed down in 1988.

So, it's been forty years since the only thing that's really kind of determining that it's a historic resource is the neon sign that says Chop Suey. What that is attached to is basically blight. And I think it's an affront to the sensibilities, to the Atai family, that it has taken so long to to do anything with it. And I really think that the Republic Cafe should be properly properly preserved with proper a architecture that's different from all the rest of it, and that it should have the original intent for the museum to be on the on the Bottom Floor, and that the Atai family should really have some, you know, memorial there in in the in the museum.

So thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Tommy Yamashita. I'm the temple Buddhist temple president. And I'd like to express my appreciation to the council mayor and the whole team putting this plan together. I think it's it's wonderful.

It's a start of trying to revitalize Chinatown. Our temple, which is celebrated a hundred year, were the anchor in the whole Chinatown community. And many of our people that used to live all along there, it has tremendous historical significance to our temple, former temple members and so on. So it is very important to bring it back. Okay?

And I'm there almost, you know, every other day cleaning the street. I see the homeless people all the time. I know the kind of problem that we have. And, you know, people say, well, we gotta solve that problem first. Well, I think you're to have to kind of do this concurrently, you know. So, maybe doing this project will be an impetus to really tackle the homeless problem. Take care of these people, you know. And these people, they're in terrible shape. They got drug problems. They got mental problems.

They really do need help, you know. Buddhism that we ascribe to is all about compassion, right? So we do need to take care of them, but hey, let's let's get the the community back up again too. So again, thank you very much for leading this effort.

Okay, thank you. Okay. All right, anyone on Zoom? Sure, yeah, I'm sorry.

My name is Roseanne Rosso. I live in the

District 5.

Can you speak up just a

little bit?

I'm sorry. My name is Roseanne Rosso. I live in District 5. I came for another part of the meeting. It's the first time I come to a city council meeting. But I was just curious, and forgive my ignorance, when

they

were showing the development, and it's a beautiful job, where is the Dorothy's Place and the Victory Outreach among those buildings? They're going to continue to be there?

Can I ask you just to address the council?

I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, it's public comment. So just your comments So and

is the Dorothy's Place and the Victory Outreach right among those structures that are being redeveloped? I mean, isn't that what draws

One of us will pick that up in our final comments on that. But typically, it's just public comment as opposed to a Q and A. So if you have some comments, that's what the purpose of public comment But your comment is you want to know the answer to that question. And we'll answer that. Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. Let's go to Eduardo on Zoom.

Yes. Hi. Can you hear

me? Yes.

Okay. My name is Eduardo Esparza, East Salinas resident. Good evening. It's time we address the elephant in the room. This council is out of touch with the heartbeat of our streets. For too long, we've allowed stagnation to define our historic Chinatown. We are here today because they feel they are ready to hand over the experience for this project. People who don't just see a problem area but see a cultural landmark waiting for a renaissance. It is time to develop a revitalization plan that finally honors the Asian community and diverse history that made Salinas what it is today. Now let's be clear, the presence of our own house is not an excuse to hinder this project.

Homelessness is a challenge, but it is not a barrier to progress unless you choose to make it. It is the city's fundamental responsibility to find ethical, sustainable solution. We should be leaning on established experts like West Weiss and our local nonprofit groups. By working with those already on the ground, we can create impactful change for our unhoused wild foot simultaneously moving forward with the cultural development with neighborhood deserved. The city of Linus has been ready for more inclusive approach for decades.

Our community is a mosaic of cultures, yet the influence in our city's foundation has been consistently under showcased and undeserved. This isn't just a new idea. It is a long overdue debt we owe to our own history. To await any longer is to tell our citizens and the community that their heritage isn't worth the investment. That should be valid there's no valid excuse to reject this project. To do so would be to prioritize the status quo over an abasement. Let's stop discouraging unique ideas and start showcasing the communities that built us. Let's give Chinatown the future it's been waiting for. Thank you. Buenos Noches.

Thank you. All right. All right. Okay. We will come back to counsel for any final comments. There is no action on this item. We're receiving the report. So any final comments from counsel? Andrew, I'll start with you. Any final comments?

No. I think it's a good plan. I I'd like to you know, I'm glad that our staff is looking at possible future developers because that's that needs to be a priority. I mean, these plans are great, but we need to make sure we secure somebody who's really interested in developing that area. Thank you.

Thank you. Tony?

Well, it seems that's a go. We're excited about the project. I'm just happy for the people that have invested years and years there. It's exciting. Thank you.

Thank you. Jose?

Thank you, Mayor. Just thank you for the presentation. Excited to support the project and see the true revitalization of Chinatown. Even though in my short twenty seven years in the city of Salinas, I've seen Chinatown really change drastically over the past couple of years. Even though the progress may be slow, the progress is still being made. And I hope we're able to, within my lifetime, see it fully built out.

Thank you. Thank you, Jose. Margaret?

I support the project wholeheartedly. Thank you for your comments and your support as well. And just cautiously optimistic this is going to go through and I would like to see it done in my lifetime as well. So I think it's really exciting for Salinas and it shows that we are making progress even though people may not see it.

Thank you to the staff and thank you Larry and the entire ACE community. And it's been a long time that we've talked about revitalization, and I also hope to see it in my lifetime, and I truly support it. So it's exciting. No

final comments. Just looking forward to the next presentation regarding this project.

Well, when you get to be my age, really do want to see it within your lifetime. So I'll certainly echo that. I do want to answer your questions. Yes, the answer is Dorothy's Place. One of the views where the trees were looking across the street, that's where Dorothy's would be.

So those two entities that's why I think you've heard some concern about relocation of services and housing and that type of thing. But that's the answer to your question. I think one of the things and I think it's a terrific report and I think there can be no doubt of the sincerity and the commitment and the patience that we've heard expressed from Larry and others, when things don't get done for a long time, there's often a reason. And I can tell you this was something the first time I was the mayor, there was a look there was a look of what what can we do then. So this has this has been going on for decades.

Not because people don't care, not because the same smart people aren't in the room or the various meetings back then as they are today. They're all there. Sometimes things are difficult, sometimes there are particular events. Know when I ran for mayor the first time and I still remember the council chambers being filled and everyone was optimistic and who knew we would have whatever you want to call it, a great recession, a mild depression, whatever it was, it brought everything to a standstill. Who would have predicted COVID?

So there are other things that often happen. I think it is to everybody's credit they have stayed with this. They have persevered and they have believed that this type of project and approach can be possible and realized. And David, to your point and I'm very fortunate, yes, we have pursued sister city relationships. I still remember the trip to Yuyang with the Chinese community here.

So we have pursued those things and we certainly take very, very seriously and are very excited about the cultural diversity that is present in this community. So to get this done really would be exciting. But sometimes things just take a while. But I can assure you having spent a lot of time over the years with the Chinese community, I can see why this is personal to you and you mentioned the Atai family. When you really go through the history of those buildings and you make the connections with the various families and they tell you the stories, whether it's meeting in the dance or what their families did.