City Council and Authorities - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to today's Stockton City Council meeting for the 23rd of June. Let's go ahead and do roll call.

So we are going to there are no additions to regular session. I skipped one we're going on to invocation. and Lars Knudsen is going to be doing an invocation and nobody be afraid.

Next, we will be having our flag salute, and we are blessed with having one of our summer youth employment students, Kimberly Sanchez.

I'm giving you a pin so you're officially a city representative. So there's a pin. And then come back a little.

If you haven't noticed, there's quite a few individuals in the back of the room. I don't think the fire marshal is going to throw them out. But they have blue shirts on because they are representing one of our most important departments, I would say, in the city of Stockton. And we will be recognizing them today. So city clerk.

in case you didn't know we have a new community services director that's just started recently so I'm gonna have him introduce himself and then we will have Spencer Lockwood who sits on the Parks and Rec Commission also share some words

Okay guys, you're gonna have to squeeze in. Stand sideways, stand sideways. There we go, we'll be able to get, we'll look that way. Who's in, we're doing sideways.

yes so far we've had a very active summer and uh... we hope it continues uh... with our uh... parks and recreation programs and our activity guide in case you didn't know tons of stuff for kids and adults of all ages uh... to take advantage of so many free things in there and uh... While we have them, please use them. So we are going to now move on to a public comment and this is for matters that are not on the agenda.

So Esperanza from my office will speak with you. Thank you.

Wonderful. So we're going to move on now to the consent items. And I will ask people what items they'd like to pull. I will go ahead and say 6.1.

Any others? OK, hearing none, we'll move on then to public comment on items on the agenda, on consent agenda.

Okay, so I will look for a motion for the rest of the consent agenda minus 6.1, 6.3, and 6.11. Motion to approve.

Everybody. Okay, we have a motion from Allada and a second from the Vice Mayor. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Okay, moving on then to item 6.1. Adoption of an ordinance establishing Title IX Chapter 9.18 of the Stockton Municipal Code regulation use of facial coverings. So I pulled this agenda item because there was an article that was written and I just followed up on some of the information. I will start off by saying, you know, as a teacher working at a high school where we have dress code that students are to abide by, one of them is no ski masks. and one of the reasons why tha

so in terms of uh case um the law as it is deputy chief if you want to come up morris and just let me know about that what the law is because i know we've had smashing grabs that we all hate we've had i mean we've had a lot of negative things that have happened and people have worn mass in the commission of those crimes

Thank you. Moving on to Councilwoman Padilla.

Thank you, Mayor. So my opinion on this is that COVID is over. And honestly, with Stockton's weather, wearing masks all the time doesn't make sense to me. As our Vice Mayor has mentioned before, we don't have snow and we don't have heavily cold weather here in Stockton and I have to be honest if I see somebody out in the public wearing a mask I do kind of get apprehensive and nervous because typically when someone is wearing a mask that means they want to hide their identity or they're sheltering themselves from something and you know we just had multiple homicides over the weekend and I'm not

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you to my colleague for her comments. And so I'm going to start by saying that I'm going to root all of what I have to say initially in facts. And then I will give my opinion because I think facts are important. The fact is I own a media company and Beyonce said that the media controls the minds of the people. Sometimes when you put stories out, people read it and they believe it's absolutely true. They're referring to the Stockton Observer article that was written on the date that the city attorney just said, titled Stockton Council to Vote on Controversial Mask Or

So I believe in our police department. I don't want to politicize this matter. I believe in our officers. I believe in officers that are in here to protect us. I'm not concerned about my safety. I have a great amount of respect for Deputy Chief Annabelle Morris. We bestow the state, our country bestows rights to our officers to protect our community, including the right to take a life if they believe in doing so will protect citizens in this community. So I'm not going to say that we're going to remove to say that to pass a face covering. ban ordinance to protect our kids, to protect our commu

Thank you, Mayor. City Attorney, I just have some questions about the lawsuit going on in Modesto. Have you had a chance to look at their ordinance and how does it compare to ours?

So some of the questions like I that article that we're talking about and one of the groups. Pacific Media Workers Guild is a plaintiff and they're arguing that reporters routinely rely on helmets goggles respirators protective equipment while covering protests. The ordinance that you drafted seems to have a number of exceptions. So one of those including occupational safety. So would that mollify that particular group with that. I mean I would think if they could make the argument that they have occupational safety, that that would be an exemption allowing them to wear masks without. I apologize. Can you go through the exceptions?

Okay, thank you. I'd also like to hear from our police department. Deputy Chief, can you kind of give us your input on this? Does this add another arrow in your quiver? Is this something you think will be helpful or do you think it'll be more of a pain?

So do you think if this does pass, I mean, that does give you another tool to use?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Question for city attorney. I got some calls and emails and I've seen a lot of traction on the social media. Didn't this go before federal court and it got denied in the court in the past? So, how many of you can answer that question?

Okay. Well, I mean, I just see it as this, how are we going to pass it locally if it didn't get past higher courts? That's how I feel about what's going on right now. So, thank you.

I'm going to go to Councilman Enriquez and then public comment and then back to Vice Mayor.

Thank you mayor. So city attorney, one of the things that, and just for the public, I know when this was first initially discussed at our legislation committee last year, and I know he got, he got brought to council and we had a discussion and you know, the police who all gave your perspective, which I appreciate a lot has happened since ledge meeting to the last time he was brought to full council to now having a new city attorney to the lawsuit in Modesto and just the crime rates that have been lowered here in Stockton, and that's something that we want to talk more about how crime is down h

Not necessarily a question, but just something to think about in terms of having a proper legal analysis. Again, just if you had the time to really review this and considering all the moving parts I shared, I think would be helpful for this council.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the public comments. I want to call Deputy Chief Morris up to the podium, and please be mindful of my time when she's speaking. The article that we referenced earlier quoted you. It says, Deputy Chief Annabelle Morris of the Stockton Police Department said she did not have statistics, and it quoted you saying, I do know that there are situations where masks are used during crimes. That's your statement?

Okay. Because the other thing I want to quote from the same article was Councilman Padilla was quoted as saying that you compare the issue to vehicle window tent violations, noting that enforcement often depends on officer discretion. They quoted you in that article as saying that. So going back to the issue of discretion, officers would have to use the same discretion in whether or not to engage a person that has a mask on as they do whether or not they have to pull their firearm and shoot a person.

And discretion, it stays with the officer to make that determination. Correct. One of the public comments from Michelle Sherman, she just said that she opposes it because the city needs to prioritize recruiting officers. That's an indication of what the department's efforts are because we don't recruit officers. You all recruit officers. Are you all doing everything you can to recruit officers to the city? And do you believe that you have all the support of this council to recruit whoever you need to wherever you need to?

Okay. And then the other thing that was said by Mr. Sanghai, congratulations on your graduation. that we need to support the department with all the tools they need. We sat in a meeting with the congressman about support for drones. We got that. We talked about the real-time crime center. We got that. Do you believe that this council is giving you the tools that you need to support your department? Yes. Okay, thank you. That's all I have. Sometimes elected, we socialize issues and we get caught up in the emotion of it all. Again, talking to you not only as an elected official, but as a black m

Thank you, Mayor. I understand we have brought it to ledge two times. We brought it to council again two times. And I know how important public safety is to our city. But with listening to public comments and also what my colleagues have said, I just don't feel that we have enough conversation or topic that warrants this policy. including city council's, I mean, sorry, city attorney's thorough and legal analysis that this doesn't impede on the First Amendment. I don't know if you saw us passing notes back and forth, but city attorney, is my understanding that this was created prior to you comi

Okay. So I, I mean, I, I understand, you know, you want a decision and I understand the importance. Um, I don't want to send it back to ledge. I wouldn't mind seeing it coming back to council at the next meeting. Um, I'm, I'm open to suggestions. I don't want to say that I'm a fully opposed, um, as I'm always open to discussion and more conversation.

Okay, thank you. Okay, and before I go to Vice Mayor, I would say thank you, David and Michelle, for your comments. It brought up some things that made me think about enforcement can be unequal. And, you know, is it, you know, with a minority majority city, we don't want to unknowingly target our black and brown community, but you can't tell when somebody's got a ski mask on, I'll put it, I'll put it like that. But officers still need a legal, you know, a legal precedence, not precedence, a legal justification in order to stop somebody as it is, because wearing a ski mask in and of itself is n

Thank you, Mary, and thank you for those comments. I'm going to use them as reference points in my response to that. Stop and frisk in our country. If you think about New York City, that is very diverse. It's one of the most diverse cities in our country. I was just there this weekend. If you walk in Times Square, you literally see a sea of everything, every type of person, every type of background. And I think that's the thing that makes that city beautiful. But that's also the thing that's the heart of our city, that we are a very diverse community. If you look at this dais, we represent the

I would also like some input from the police department with regards to enforcement. I know you mentioned that if there was a call for a crime versus the face mask, the serious crime would be, you know, enforced prior to. Just if you can elaborate more on the enforcement piece.

Thank you. And I apologize for so many questions, but I do want to be thorough in my information. What if somebody is, like you said, skateboarding around and they have a mask on and someone calls and says, I feel nervous. I don't feel comfortable. I fear for my life or I don't feel safe. And he's wearing a mask or someone's wearing a mask.

Okay, so no more lights blinking. What is the pleasure of council? Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor. I'll put the recommendation out there, but if I can really quick, if you get a call because somebody's skateboarding and wearing a mask and the officer engages them and they have a gun on them, will they be arrested?

Or if they have a warrant for robbery or homicide, they'll be arrested.

Thank you. And thank you for all of your presentation. I mean, given the conversation, and I appreciate this dialogue because I think, you know, whether we agree, disagree, or the debate is good for the safety of our city thank you mayor for allowing us to have that debate I would say we can bring this back to the very next council it gives our city attorney an opportunity to do a full review put her eyes on it talk with our city manager and our police department and take all their considerations and then council members can have discussions in their respective areas and I will commit to hosti

I'll second. I'd like to make an amendment.

Okay. Sorry. Is it a friendly amendment? It's a very friendly amendment.

After conversation, dialogue, debate, and I would just like to make a motion to proceed with, no, not proceed with conversation, to approve the motion as it is. I'll second that.

So we'll vote on her motion first, and then we may not need to answer that question.

Okay. Thank you. Apologies. Please state your motion.

She's second. Okay. Council, please vote. Motion carries 6-1 with Fugazi dissenting. Okay, moving on then to item 6.3, which is approve a motion authorizing five-year agreements for Stockton Fire Department to provide fire and EMS dispatch services to regional partners. Pulled by Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I just wanted to acknowledge publicly acknowledge the chief in the fire department for all the creativity you all are doing to be innovative and move us forward um and what i looked i think what i saw in this report was that this is going to be making us money is that accurate

I mean, you're helping to save money, okay? Yes, correct. Okay, and so with this, do you see us being able to recover even more revenue later or down the road? Or how does this work for those who are watching and learning?

Yeah, I just wanted to pull it to acknowledge the work and just say thank you.

And I pulled the item, but there's lots of conversation with this dais individually and in groups about the need to continue to support the fire department, the work that you're doing, but I wanted to pull it to just publicly acknowledge it in any way that we can save money is great, so thank you. Absolutely, thank you. I'll make a motion to approve.

Is there public comment on this item? There is not. Okay. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to the next item pulled by Vice Mayor, it is 6.11. Approve motion to award service contracts for the debris removal and pickup program.

Thank you, Mayor. So I was able to meet with Penny from public. So thank you for answering some of my questions. I've received lots of calls and text messages about this item and I wasn't, I don't know if I was, well maybe I was around last time we did the award but I had questions around it. One of the questions was what is the RFP process for this? I understand we put our RFP out. We have received I think six to seven applicants. I asked how they were selected. and where the actual plans for each of the contractors, my understanding, similar to when we do NOFA work, where we can review the a

And were you able to examine the program we have with the sheriff's office? I know we have a contract in speaking to the sheriff that we reimburse or pay for. Were you able to confirm what that rate is?

Okay, thank you. The one thing that I wanted to highlight in pulling this item too is one of our vendors here, 209 Cares, I do want to say, during the Wild and Out investigation, this individual who runs this company was all over social media creating narratives about me allegedly being involved in taking money and using my position, and they were going on and on and on bashing me. And I just want to be very clear that if we have vendors in our city providing services to our taxpayers that elected us to govern, I think they should be very mindful of how they utilize their time because I'm not

Okay, so I'd like to make a comment off that, just letting the people know that this is an RFP process. The city puts it out to bid to any and everybody, and they can submit, there's a deadline for it, and there's actually criteria that you have to meet in order to be eligible. A selection committee comprised of public work staff evaluated and ranked all proposals based on each firm's experience with similar kinds of work, quality work, equipment, and cost. This is a process that has been long standing for, I would say, decades. And the bids are all sealed. You don't know who applied. They pur

Okay, so is there going to be a day when people don't work?

Okay, because currently only one of the vendors is going to do five days and the other two vendors are doing four days.

Okay. I'm going to go to Councilman Enriquez and then back to Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Just really quick, Penny. Maybe you already answered this, so I apologize if you have to repeat yourself. But in terms of the six bids that were out and three were chosen, Why three? Why not two? Is it just based on you staggered the hours that they could do per week? Why three out of six, not two out of six or one out of six? We could have gone with one out of six. Is it normal to do? Was it three before or is it three this time around?

No, and I appreciate that, and thank you for saying that because I'm sure, I mean, I didn't know that, so I don't know how many, the public knew that until just now, so it's good to hear, and also I think I had the same thoughts as the mayor had about just the tracking, how much is picked up per district throughout the city. I know we get it once a year, but if there were emails that maybe I didn't get, my apologies, but even if it's something as simple as quarterly updates about what these three partners, especially if they were previously having done this, you know if there are focus areas I

Yeah, I just want to say, yeah, I agree with my colleagues on the data, but I've been around with these three partners with us. They've been tremendous working with them. I've been on ride-alongs. I know I email you guys just every day. But they've been a big impact in our community. So I give them kudos for what they do every day in our community, cleanups. And I want to thank you guys being in those emails as well. So I support what they're doing and I continue to support them going on in the future. So thanks.

thank you Mary yeah I want to echo what my colleague said and I haven't been on trash ride-alongs and I probably won't but what I will say is I do want to echo what he said that you know a woman stopped me yesterday and she said I just have to tell you district 6 has been cleaner than it ever has I'm not cleaning that up that's your team and I just want to say I appreciate You I know that you did a ride-along throughout the whole district with all my commissioners looking at areas hot spots The illegal dumping and you guys have put a plan together Thank You city manager for being responsive to

Yeah, because at the State of the City, we talked about the tonnage, about how much was picked up. But knowing each month, is there a particular month where there's more than another month? And I do believe those hotspots, we need to have cameras, we need to have eyes on it, we need to be fully prosecuting, going after the people that are doing this illegal dumping. They could take it out to the dump and pay their $35 or whatnot, or we can fine them $10,000, which would you rather have?

And, Mayor, we are bringing that to ledge.

Good, because that's what I want. Oops, I said that out loud. I shouldn't have.

And I will echo Councilmember Enriquez you know having staggered a service because I know this last year we did have people going out on weekends but if they're just going out Monday through Thursday with every other Friday off or Monday through Friday. come Monday, they're going to have a whole lot to pick up because Saturday and Sunday nobody was out there. But hopefully we'll be able to deter that so it won't continue to happen at the level it is because we're talking about millions of pounds of trash that are picked up off of our streets. And it's wrong.

Yeah. So, yeah, with that, I heard Vice Mayor. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Okay, so that is all of our items there. We are now moving on to administrative matters. Are there any administrative matters? Vice Mayor?

Yeah, I have some that I put on. Okay, so let me go here to my note because I was going to do it during council comments. uh okay first you know we've had i appreciate us doing making the decision today thank you councilman padilla on the face cover band to take down the list but there were other things that i've seen uh that we've addressed here that we have not just taken a definitive stance on that i do want to agendize for a a very near upcoming meeting fire services at the port i want us to make a determination finally if we're going to direct staff to pursue that If I can get a second fo

Okay. The second one. I'm sorry. Oh, I received at the meeting that I wasn't here in May. Apparently there were comments about me that were potentially in violation of our decorum policy by a person who is not only a committee member, but now has been added to other committees, specifically Mr. Toffoli. I'd like to agendize his appointment to committees at the next council meeting for discussion and potential action. Second. All right. And that's it for now.

I'd like to also add on, agendize, talk about dogs in our communities and our streets, if I could add.

Thank you, Mayor. So yeah, thank you, Council Member Villalpudo for bringing that up. I know we did ask that for it to come to ledge. So any animal related ordinances is gonna be presented to our future ledge meeting. And we know that's a priority throughout the entire city. And then also I wanna just, even though I am chair, I wanna just reiterate to the public that we are bringing back slight amendment for street vendor ordinance, a very slight amendment just through the ongoing work. As we said, it's been six months, but we also know that there's been a lot of lessons learned, but we wanna

Okay, no unfinished business. Moving on to public hearing. 9.1, adopt a resolution for the formation of the Five Mile Slough Assessment District. Approve an engineered report and authorize a levy of the proposed assessment. District 3, I need to recuse myself so I won't even open the public hearing. And I have to recuse myself because I own a piece of property that resides on that

Give me a second. I didn't know I was going to have to come over here. All right, declaring the hearing open.

are there any questions for members of the council no okay thank you so i'm going to close the hearing and there's no public comments i'll bring it back for council discussion okay council member enriquez

oh councilman blower it says enrique i'm just saying thank you vice mayor uh first of all i'm i'm just thrilled that we're finally here this thing has been in the in the works for quite some time um This whole thing started with constituents coming to me talking about their slough and how it was totally overrun with duckweed and water hyacinth, and it just smelled bad, looked bad. At the time, I was able to get some one-time funds to clean up that waterway. The problem is, anything like that is eventually going to come back, and whether or not the city's gonna have extra money to do that, is u

Passes 6-0 with the mayor absent, recusing.

I got to do it again. 9.2, public hearing authorizing the continued use, funding, and acquisition of military equipment established in the military equipment policy as mandated by chapter 12.8, commencing with section 7070 to division seven of title one of the government code relating to military equipment. I declare the public hearing open.

OK, thank you. Do we have any questions? Okay. Public comment needed to be provided when the item was announced. Okay. So I will then close the public hearing and bring it back to Vice Mayor.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to I just want to refer back to an earlier public comment around giving our officers the tools they need to keep our community safe because I know oftentimes when we have items like this come before us or flock cameras or other things, it becomes a topic where it's like, oh, well, why are we using this or why are we using that? And I will say, uh... i just want to use an example uh... last weekend uh... my family and i we decided to go to sacramento for the day and we went out there all day went to two different uh... situations and uh... everybody was

Motion is second, council please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Okay, moving on to item 12, I mean, excuse me, new business 10.1, proposition 218 to consider storm water rate adjustments.

No. So, yeah, there's no public comment on this item, but colleagues, do you have any questions? Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I mean, obviously this is disappointing, you know, and I understand, you know, affordability is a constant conversation and how we spend our resources and for some people limited resources is always a concern. I first want to say acknowledge staff for doing a great job of educating the community. Our community leaders who held multiple meetings throughout the city to talk to people about the need to consider this, and it's disappointing to see that it not pass. I guess my question would be, now that this vote has happened, can't come back before the council, can't come

Got it, and it costs a lot of money. Got it, okay.

You say we have to accept it? Yeah. What if we don't wanna accept it? Just plain, just plain. I know, I know, I know. No, I'm just playing. But again, it is disappointing because we need more to do more. And when we look at district, again, I'm a little biased because I'm looking at my district where we're prioritizing economic development. I'm going to be talking about that soon. And part of our ability to develop, yeah, these side conversations are really hard for me to stay focused, by the way. In order for us to fully develop South Stockton, Southeast Stockton, Conway, some of our challeng

And piggybacking off of that, 34 years, it's been 34 years since there was a rate increase. And so if pipes get backed up, if there is flooding that happens, just know our staff is doing everything they can, but we cannot update our infrastructure if we don't have the funds to do so. But everybody, this is United States of America, everybody's entitled to their vote. And obviously the public has spoken. Council Member Villapudua.

yeah mayor um yeah it's very um sad news but before it came um i was saying that we had to the message wasn't clear out there all we saw was water rates were going up there was no town hall meetings in the different districts to letting people know the right language the social media took initiative real quick oh water's going up that's not I ain't going to vote on that but for future items we need to get ahead of way ahead of the time before it even comes here before it goes out there it wasn't we weren't having enough meetings in our communities community centers to get that language correct

Just for clarity, thank you, Mayor. If you don't mind just sharing how many meetings you did to get to this point. because again, I do disagree with my colleague, because I know in my district, I did talk about the water rate, so I wouldn't speak on behalf of everyone up here, but I would just say for the record, if you all can just give us a ballpark of how many meetings you all did, how many letters you put out there, and especially Council Member Villaputua, we're on the Water Committee together, and we discussed this very heavily about the public and sharing the video links to the public,

No, and I appreciate that because I know one of the asks during our Water Committee meeting was to be able to share that link and that resource so we can share it amongst ourselves, which you all did. And I know I took advantage of it, so I wanted to say thank you for that. And a lot of my constituents did ask questions, so we had good dialogues. I know during my mornings with Mario, I always make that a topic, a priority to discuss. So I mean, we all work in different ways, but I don't want to take away the work that you all did to get here. And also, I would say for anyone that did give a na

I also serve on the Water Committee. And I'm also very, very disappointed this didn't pass. I mean, our crumbling infrastructure is going to cost us. And the next atmospheric river that comes through And when you see the streets that are flooded and all that water there and we don't have the ability to pump that water away is really going to be a hindrance to us. And I do want to thank staff for the work that they've done on this. Kim Floyd, I know she worked very hard on this. I know I personally brought, had Kim Floyd speak at my Rotary Club, at my, office sales meeting, I think the next tim

Councilwoman Petia. Thank you, Mayor. City Clerk, just for information, how many ballots did come back?

And just to echo Councilmember Enriquez, if there's any way possible if we can start education now, I think that would be beneficial. Thank you.

And I would say it doesn't necessarily come down to education. When I did my town hall, we had a conversation about low voter turnout. I mean, how many ballots were sent out? We got 11,444 back, but how many did we put out? Did we send out 100,000? 85,000. 85,000. So actually we had more people vote than we, I think the percentage was higher for voters than we did for people returning this ballot. So it is, you know, we used to have a very active well, newspaper, we did, very active newspaper. I was a subscription holder for the record for many years. That was a way that you could get informat

Okay, and yeah, we don't need public comment because we already brought this before us before. So, council, you want to accept it?

Okay, council, please vote. No, 7-0, I just was saying that. Okay, item 10.2, we are having a civil service overview presentation. This is an informational item. And after this, we'll take a break, I promise. So, you're on.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I have a question. So in terms of this process that you just presented, How, is it outdated? Does there need to be updates? I'm assuming, when was the last time it was updated?

Is there a staff process to review and determine if there's needed changes that can go before, whether it's the commission, the council? I mean, I don't know, maybe some of my colleagues who have more experience. i just don't know how outdated this process is and if we're doing everything we can to to improve it if i may do the chair sorry

So I have a question. So it was brought up earlier. Of course, we have vacancies. Some vacancies fall under the civil service, you know, criteria, and some don't. So people have talked to me about code enforcement and those officers. They have to go through this similar process, correct? Yes.

Okay. So when it says testing, I'm just... Curious, what would a testing for a code enforcement or animal services officer, what kind of testing do they have?

Because we do get a number of applications for those positions. And last I heard, we were fully staffed with our code enforcement. That's what Omarosa told me, that they were fully staffed, which was a good thing, but maybe it's not enough. Who knows? But anyway, I digress. Continue.

Yeah, really quick. Yeah. Just looking at this process, we've had conversations about recruitment, retention. I think we heard earlier about supporting our departments to be able to recruit. I know we've talked about diversity and all these things. I'd be interested in hearing really quick while we're on this slide from Fire and PD, just their thoughts on this, if it's okay. I just gave them the heads up that I was going to be asking them to come out, so. You can start with whichever wants to start. My question is just looking at this, because I'm learning as I'm talking, are there needed upda

Chief, I think I brought up during budget how nice it would be just to have somebody designated, and maybe Eric can be that person to do it all for you. I don't know, just throwing it out there. He might not be interested, but it seems like he knows his stuff.

well I just fortunately you have Commissioner Sherman here and I think she's heard you loud and clear and needs to make sure working with the city clerk's office about scheduling those special meetings so that we get people you know hired and on their way to working for the city of Stockton they've been amazing by the way where they have reconvened for special meeting and they're responsive and it's been working I heard they they don't have any problems with quorum either yeah

No, no, thank you. And it sounds like Eric is somebody we should really look into for this so we can get the ball rolling. And Padilla had her, so I'll come to Vice Mayor after Councilman Padilla.

Thank you, Mayor. And just to echo what you said with regards to the three interviews, I'm sure that the directors in each department are very well educated to determine on the first interview if that candidate is either going to make it or or not be a part of the department and so I can see definitely why that is something that's very important even though they know that that might be not a right fit they are still required to interview them two more times And if I were a candidate, assuming that, oh, I have two more interviews, maybe I'm going to go up to another panel and thinking that I mi

Be careful what you ask for, all the support now to get this hiring process expedited. So thank you for bringing that up earlier. My question is, if you do a background, I mean, well, first of all, Eric, congratulations on moving to the police department. It's a nice building. The second thing is, I think there's consensus. When you put the 10 people through or the 15 people, if that's what happens, and say then you have... eight to make it through or whatever. Do you keep, I guess my question is if you fill all the positions with those that go through the background and we have extras, not th

But does that happen now or no? No, it does not. So that's something to consider. Right?

But I guess the scenario I'm asking is say we say yes put 15 through there's 10 positions all 10 all 15 pass so now 10 are selected and they fill those positions do we keep those extra five that have gone through background on a list that we can just access say somebody retires or somebody quits or something like that.

This is kind of like ask for everything you want day.

I was going to say, we do have more slides in some of them. Oh, Chief Carr wants to be called up.

OK. Eric, you can continue. Are you still? Or who's up next?

Are there any questions? This is an informational item, so we're not voting on anything. Okay, thank you so much. With that, I would like to take, if possible, a 16-minute break, having us come back at 4.30. Okay, so 4.30, come back. Are we good, Gabriel? Okay, let's call the meeting back to order. We are moving on to item 10.3, a presentation from Restore the Delta, Restoring Mormon Slough, a Community-Led Economic Development and Green Space Revival.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Mayor and City Manager, for scheduling this presentation. First, I want to say, as you're talking, I'm getting excited, and this is not even my project. I'm up here like, oh, my God, getting excited. But what I'm excited about is that In my opinion, this is really what community is about. And I think public-private partnerships and figuring out ways of us supporting initiatives like this that are critical. I look down at the end of the day as my colleague, And I recently had to be responsive to concerns from the Anderson Street Church that was responding to fol

Well, the reason why I asked the question, I'll look at Mary Elizabeth on the CEQA piece. You can have a conversation with her on that. I won't touch that. But what I will say is, you know, the mantra at SEIU was stronger together, right? Like, we're stronger together. City government doesn't fix everything. I mean, I would have to ask my colleague, Councilman Padilla, what she was able to do with state. I mean, I don't even know who has control. Is it state lands? I mean, she was able to cut through a lot of yellow tape for Trinity Parkway. And I'm just, what I know is that I can get people t

But thank you for the presentation. Thank you for the work.

Yes, thank you mayor and as well. Thank you for presentation. I agree with the vice mayor as well. I will be joining the July 25th as well. Just a few things you guys mentioned. You've had 70 meetings OK from when to. So now I went on these meetings occurred.

Are urban native communities involved, like SCC, Native American Indian Centers, are they involved in this?

Okay, and then The landlord the land owners around there. Who are you guys working with? I

And what's the feedback with the rest of the landowners?

You mentioned data. Have we done any testing to see if these areas are contaminated or anything?

And what do we think about the funding? How are we going to come out with this?

And as I know, being a vice mayor in the same area, have we reached out to Supervisor Gardea to get involved as well?

Councilwoman Padilla. Thank you, Mayor. No questions, just a comment. I want to commend you on all the work that you've been doing. And the city can't do everything and fund everything. And I really appreciate the fact that you guys took this upon yourself to build an organization just to better our city and make it environmentally safe. So I just appreciate all your work and thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor. Morgan, I just want to say thank you for this presentation to Barbara and the entire team. And I know I've been to a couple meetings. One thing already, because I think we first met, I think it was we were in South Stockton. There was a presentation. I forget where we were at, but it was my first introduction to the Mormon slew restoration and all the efforts you all were doing. And I know I've been to two that you all had at your main office and then one recently at the well. But resharing your content online has been really informative for me at least. I know it has been fo

Okay. Oh, we have public comment. Go ahead with the public comment.

Thank you. So I just want to say back after I got elected in 2015-16 when Kurt Wilson was the city manager, I had talked to him specifically about Mormon slough and I had said, hey, what's prohibiting us from allowing water to flow back down the slew and he says, oh, can't do that. There's an agreement with DWR and they'll never have water in again. And I was like, wow, you know, that's sad because everything, you know, kind of comes full circle. and we should be doing habitat restoration. It's something I did with my students. We put the elderberry bush back in, so then we would have a habita

Yeah, because you know we're talking well actually it's the it's for peace of public private philanthropic partnership, so it's there's for peace and all those people have to be peas in a pod working together moving in the same direction and if we leave. If we leave anybody out, we don't want to face objection on things of this nature, because to go all the way through the process and then have people say, nope, I don't want it done. I don't know what that would mean for a project as magnanimous as this. Because it's not just a little, it's that whole slew needs attention. And if you just do o

Thank you, Mayor. Okay, so I'm going to respond to everything I just heard and say that I'm very protective of my district and the neighboring district that I share with my colleague. And I don't like there being advanced thoughts or movement on my district without considerations that involve the public and me. And I'm not saying that that happened, I just want to put that out there because I will become a champion with CEQA. against anything that the city moves forward without the people and without me being involved so let me just start by saying that that's just put that out for the whole r

And I'll just add, you know, there's other work that's happening that will be in tandem to both of your districts because you have the Stockton Diamond Project that's going to have a flyover that will also be creating issues in the SLU. They want to, of course, work with others, too. They already have... terms of what it would be like they work with Paul Schneider who was here last week with Siegfried and associates so they've done a number of community meetings on that project but just so that we're clear would we have to have a or the people that own these properties or parcels would they ha

Yes, hello, Mark Thomas has a lot of business in this area, I would say, between COG, rail, us, so happy to have you.

Okay, before you go to the next slide, got a question. What we have found, and I'm wondering if you have, is that we have residential, we have mixed use, with commercial on the bottom and residential on top. That's within this footprint. So you have the Medici building, you have Grandview, ours is just outside of it, but We have people who are some, well, I'd like to say like landlocked from getting to a grocery store. They're gonna have to use one of these modes of transportation in order to get to, well, they're gonna have to use RTD to get to a grocery store or they have to have their own c

Because we have a number of vacant buildings that are within this footprint as well. And when you have vacant buildings, you have people that maybe won't come downtown, then they can't support the businesses that are downtown in that area. working smarter, not harder, and you say, oh, what do you do? Do you build the workforce and then ask an employer to come, or do you find the employer and then build their workforce? So that's kind of what I feel like here, where we've created spaces, but then nobody will use the space. So, Jordan, go ahead.

Yeah. And I think outside of CMC, where would people go to like a drugstore? I mean, there's nothing there. You'd have to go to CMC and that's not always convenient for people. So, OK, thank you. Not a problem.

And one more quick question. Was parking at all discussed during any of this? Because since we're talking about transportation, if you've ever tried to find a parking place downtown and the parking garages are full, because they've diverted all juries

Any questions from Council? Otherwise, I'll entertain a motion. We have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Thank you. 7-0, it passes. Relatively painless, right? Okay, moving on to item 10.5, a resolution ratifying the local emergency proclamation due to the golden muscle infestation.

I don't think that's gonna be viable at this location So I think it's gonna be a lot of mechanical type cleaning Yeah, some elbow grease Vice mayor has a question for yes I'm not afraid to ask what may be perceived as a stupid question because there's people out there there are people out there watching that don't know what we're talking about and I'm trying to catch on to everything because I mean, these look like the things I go fishing with, and I haven't been fishing in a while, so I don't know. Let me ask the question. So what we're gonna be asked to do is to ratify the recommendation by

And so has this been something that's gradually happened, or it just came out? It's rapid. It's rapid. So we didn't see this coming.

Right. So I saw on the news there was a business person who I know has come down here as part of the downtown discussions that we had, but he's at the marina, and it was impacting his business. So how is it impacting businesses or businesses?

Yes, and I'd like to say this is our first time. I'm thinking of mitten crabs. Remember mitten crabs, the hyacinth, nutria, and now we have this golden mussel. It's like we get a new invasive species every couple of years that falls upon the city of Stockton.

Yeah, I just had one question there so. The removal of the golden muscle. So we we clean this up. Can this come back again? Absolutely. So what's the solution we keep working?

And every time it's going to cost us $209,000.

Thank you, Mayor. I think this proclamation makes a lot of sense, gives us a lot of tools to deal with this problem. what is the plan in terms of like this passes moving forward like how are we going to work with say the county the state

Thank you, Mayor. Along with what Council Member Villalpudo asked in terms of whether or not this can come back and understanding that it can and the rapid rate in which they reproduce, we don't have an endless bank of money to deal with this. And my question is, are we talking to the state and the county? Are we coordinating with other funding partners on this?

Then the county, there will be stronger coordination with the county?

Yes, and I know that there's a grant because Supervisor Gardea called me and said they did their state of emergency and then time ran out to get the grant. So I know I talked to City Manager Ford and said make sure we have that and that we are on the timeline to get that funding so we can try to eradicate as much as we can to keep that flow. Okay, so there's no public comment. Oh. One final question.

Okay, go ahead. Is it safe for people or other people? I mean, does it affect the skin of people? I mean, any of that? I mean, I just want to know. I got questions out of that.

You can't just bring your boat into that lake, okay? So how do we, is there maybe a certain way that we can do that type of stuff that we don't bring other boats?

I was joking because when they have their offspring and you can't even see it with the eye, but you Let's say you swallowed some water. Is it going to be in your stomach or whatnot? And we're talking about muscles, but not that kind of muscle.

Not that we're drinking that water. Vice Mayor.

And this is why I don't go in the water. I just don't. I'm not a fan of the water like that. Yeah, this may be a no-brainer, but I'm assuming there's coordination with the port too, right? yeah i sent i sent a message over to one of my colleagues over there and i haven't heard back yet i would just email kirk directly i mean i don't know i know the mayor's in touch with him i can support that i do think we should talk to the port director um given the significance and the investment that we're going to make but um would love to get an update from the city manager's office on coordination with

I wasn't sure if you were going to say you were sending divers, but I thought you got rid of your diving equipment. So we have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to item 10.6, receive a presentation on Rosenberg's Rules of Order.

So I don't need to read the long inner... You don't have to.

You haven't watched any of our meetings, obviously. Councilwoman Padilla has a question.

So you gave an example when there's a motion on the floor, but if we're still having discussion, do we just interrupt the person talking?

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, that was a question, so it's five votes. The second thing is you said that the question can be called at any time, but the rules require us to have some debate, right? You can't just, item 6.2 of this, call the question, right? We have to be able to discuss and debate or not? Nope.

Excuse me. You talk about a cane and all the weaponry that you just talked about a minute ago. If that ever happened over here, it would just tear this council apart. Not that we've not been there before. But my question was just to understand, to the point somebody made, it would take five of us to say we want to end the debate. So obviously this group's never going to get there out the gate.

remember to that all of these motions require a second so somebody can't just say i want to limit debate the five minutes okay five minutes you need a second the you need a formal vote vice mayor has a question thank you yeah i mean today has been a great example of how we can debate items and have uh... robust discussion but let's be very clear right with every action there's a reaction if you limit they had one thing you said here you'd be put Indicators there to emphasize your point is not to weaponize these tools. I'll use the word tools versus rules, but the tools are to guide us and give

I want my colleagues to hear this conversation because we can't afford to have another training on Robert's Rules of Order, and we cannot afford to have another breakdown because I've just resolved myself to saying that I'm going to come in here and fight for my constituents regardless of the optics and what people take from that. But I think part of it is getting to a place where Um, you know, we, we obviously will disagree on things and we will take position on them and we will do it publicly and we will do it on social media and we'll do it wherever we do it. But understanding how we govern

Yeah, so it was a question that Councilman Padilla had, but we have Councilman Enriquez that has a question.

No, thank you, Miss. I appreciate it. I just had a quick question, and I think you just said it. The slide where it has motions governing debate, motion to limit debate. So if someone calls the question, they can do it whenever. uh requires two-thirds approval so you do need to so do you first caught a question you get a second and then the majority two-thirds have to approve that after the second yes okay and i asked that because i think that i don't know if this happened when my three of my colleagues were here before the four of us came on if called a question has ever happened i've never s

Well, I think it's on the second bullet point there. Motion can request a time limit on debate. So the first one and the third one are a super majority and the second one is a simple majority?

No, no, no. I'm just saying the order that you have.

And then- I did a time limit, I did a time limit, but it was for public comment.

Thank you, Mayor. No, actually, there were time limits placed on discussion on the dice. I think early on when we were really trying to get our footing and there was, you know, disagreements or whatever there was. And I think for me, there was a point where I attract how many times we change public comments, how many times we limited debate or whatever to just try to understand the method. i think it's it's it's helpful to hear this um i mean today i think was a great example of how far we've come as a council where we had great debate great you know we challenge each other's thoughts and ask

And I think there's Rosenberg's and then we have council policy too. And those differ where in council policy it does put a time limit for, it says here, time limit every member once recognized shall be limited in their debate to five minutes and shall upon expiration of said time relinquish the floor and then it says on the other one it says council members no council member shall speak twice on any given subject unless all the other council members have been given the opportunity to speak so that's not in Rosenberg's but that is in our council policy

We had the Downtown Stockton Alliance that we went through, and we said continue it, but it was, we found out later we couldn't continue it.

Does that have to occur right after the vote?

Thank you, Mayor. So let me be clear. You have free speech rights on a plane, but you can't say bomb. We have decorum policies here that do set the tone for our chamber and how members of the public engage the council. For example, can a member of the community get up here and start saying homophobic attacks against council members who are openly gay? Are you saying they have the First Amendment right to do that? And so even our decorum policies, if they prohibit that, which I believe they do, that's still okay.

If we have a decorum rule for how we govern our council meetings, does that mean that we should change our rule? Because if we have a rule that says no personal attacks or address the chair or whatever, I mean, I'm thick skinned, I'm a public figure outside here, so I can deal with whatever and give whatever, I just wanna know the rules, right? And I wanna make sure we follow them consistently. So if our decorum rule for the chamber is that anybody can come and say anything, or we can say anything, I think it just becomes the Wild Wild West. So let me kinda parse that out a little bit. Yeah, y

So let me just say, again, this is less about emotional fragility for me. I can handle whatever, and I can also give it out. You say when they go low, you go high. When they go low, I go to hell. That's just who I am in real life. My point is understanding the rule and being very clear on it. If the rule here is anybody can say whatever they want, great, I'm done. It's just a matter of, like, Consistently being about that right so like if that's what it is the rule has to apply to Council Blower the same as Councilman Padilla the same as me. It's when the world switches up we've had people thr

And I would say those are guidelines that we want them. That's why we say them. We want people to do that. But ultimately, that's what I learned at my U.S. Conference of Mayors. They said, nope, somebody can get up there and say you're a piece of poop if they want to. And that's their First Amendment right. But we try to not have people do that by reading out our expected decorum for people in the audience, as well as us up here.

No, no, no. What you gave, what you provided was great. I mean, what she confirmed at the meeting with the mayors is consistent. I mean, if that's the policy, I think we just, I mean, if that's the right, we just have to review our policy and it is what it is.

I just had one question. So from that side, they can say anything as long as it's not a threat, correct? Correct.

Now I bring that up because I know the mayor mayor for guys he has her her rules before we start a meeting, I know former mayor. We can had his rules and have yet to say look directly towards me so that's why I'm looking towards what's the difference from Bloomberg's rules and then the mayor has own rules, I mean I just want to make sure

You didn't talk about point of order. So that is something we talk about up here quite a bit. And that's under decorum. So I was waiting for your slide on point of order, but you didn't go there, so.

Well, Rosenberg's has point of order in it. And then sometimes council members have used other points, points of this, point of that, that isn't in Rosenberg's. But if somebody out there is talking ill, council will say, you know, point of order because we have these rules that we want them to abide by. Or even amongst ourselves, point of order is used. and then I say, oh, well, what's the point? What rule has been broken?

Look at that. All right, ready? honorable mayor members of the council thank you so much I hope this was helpful thank you for giving me the honor of coming and speaking to you guys and good luck okay thank you moving on to item 11 city managers update roll that footage no I'm just guessing okay so we'll go on then to council comments

everybody's buzzing in at once okay vice mayor thank you mayor okay this has been a pretty productive day all right so first I want to say and coming right off that last comment that it is historic that you know we are the last council to be in this building this building has lots of history I remember coming down here as a kid and finding Gary Podesto I didn't know what a mayor was I just knew he was in charge and asking him to support my endeavors of creating the first teen club in Stockton, at least during my generation, and he wrote me a check, and I did that, and it was great while it las

Okay, yeah, and Miguel Villalpudo is now a consultant over there handling government affairs, so maybe talking with him too, maybe now that he's there, he can be helpful in helping us to get that. Also, we passed the CESP agreement where we had come to council and we extended for five years against the recommended 10-year extension. I know that I've had multiple conversations with BIA, NAACP, and staff about the follow-up to the CESP agreement, in particular the partnership between BIA and NAACP in creating a program to create jobs for the disadvantaged communities. I know staff has been worki

Okay, it's been a busy couple weeks since the last meeting. On June 10th, we had the big press conference. I joined the Mayor and Councilmember Villaputua, the big, am I taking some of your thunder? Yes, go ahead. Or crusaders, as this one were. So the big announcement that Stockton is getting arena football back. So very, very excited for that. Really great press conference. I mean, gosh, the energy in that room was wonderful. So hopefully... the city will rally around this team and get their season tickets and promote that. Then later that, after the press conference was the annual employee

Yes, thank you, Mayor. It's been a last good couple weeks as you see last week. We had the grand opening of Columbus Park. It was very joyful to see all the kids, seeing the mayor, seeing the city manager, and everyone just enjoying a beautiful park. been going every day picking up trash maintaining the park and other parks and you know I recommend some of my colleagues you know check on your parks as well but Anyways, I want to wish everyone who had a great, happy Father's Day this past weekend. I enjoyed it. It's one of my most important days of the year, just hanging out with my son and wat

Thank you, Mayor. So it's unfortunate in North Stockton, we have recently been hit by a specific group. I'm just going to say it's Spider and Purple Paint. They are tagging every poll utility box, mailbox. I actually reported two yesterday in the morning through Ask Stockton. And by the late evening, they were already cleared up. So we have to really thank our graffiti removal team, because they are expediting graffiti cleanups just as fast as it's happening. So I really appreciate the work that they're doing. And graffiti really impacts our city. I drive down the freeway, and when I see graff

Thank you, Mayor. So I'll start off like I normally do. I will start off with infrastructure. I want to just let my constituents know, and I did do some follow ups, but for now we have three potholes we're able to get fixed the force 4600 block of venicia boulevard the 1500 block of bacardi drive and the 1400 block of columbia avenue near victory park and that one in particular was about six small potholes and that was really important because as we all know and i mentioned at the last council meeting we have our concerts in the park now happening again at victory park so a lot of folks park t

Oh, of course. Yeah, she has to come back to New City Hall. At least once a week. Yes, once a week. Try the Dunkin' Noodles. And then also, I want to thank Stockton Service Corps. They had their alumni induction ceremony over the weekend. I know Congressman Harder was there. And a couple other staff were there, but it was really great to be there because we had a lot of the students that were there. They came to City Hall and I want to think our city clerk in our city manager. We got to meet about 20 of them who were here and just kind of really give them a lay of the land of the politics, gov

Okay, thank you. So I first want to start with why I voted no on 6.1. I did go into it, my feelings and thoughts on that, but I also had members of the public that reached out to me and spoke about it. But when you go into the actual redlined or final adopted ordinance, just know it goes into effect in 30 days, so that's July 23rd. But the fact is, it says it's unlawful for any person, in any school building, rec center, daycare, park, city-owned building, or on any mode of public transportation. It says, but not limited to buses and trains, of course, but I didn't know we had trolleys or subw

No, we don't. Okay. So this body will now recess. Report out after coming, exiting closed session.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. 1057.