City Council - Regular Meeting

Madam Clerk, please start the meeting. Yes, Mayor, please go ahead. Thank you. I hereby call the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order. This meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public may access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. Please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meeting. Madam Clerk, please conduct the roll call.

Madam Clerk, are there any additions or deletions to the closed session agenda? There are none. Does any council members need to announce their abstentions on closed session items? Look at Council Member Phan. It's usually her. Seeing none. All right. Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers for closed session?

No further speakers. Thank you. We will now recess to closed session.

Madam Clerk, please start the meeting. Yes, Mayor, go ahead, please. I hereby call the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order.

Thank you. The first item on the agenda is our beautiful Pledge of Allegiance. And I would like to ask Cortez to please come up and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Come on up, young man. Thank you. Big responsibility here. Let's give him a round of applause.

That's our future, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, next is our... Words of inspiration provided by Pastor Greg Cruelly, sir. Hello.

Thank you, Pastor. Madam Clerk, are there any additions or deletions to the City Council agenda? There are none. All right. The first presentation is mine. I want Santa Ana 8U Pony Baseball All-Stars. Come on up. What's up, guys? Look at this. More? Okay, good job. All right, look at this.

I'm going to put it down because one of you are going to come up and speak, so I'll lower it, okay? Do we know who's going to come up and speak yet? We don't know, coaches? Somebody will. All right. Well, good evening, everybody. Let's welcome and recognize Santa Ana AU All-Stars for an outstanding 2026 season and congratulate them all on their incredible accomplishments. This is very near and dear and personal to us. The city manager and I were at their game when they played Mexico. We could tell you all about it, it was a great game. All right, throughout the 2026 All-Star season, this team

Raise your hand. Jet Ceja. Charlie Castellanos. Raise it high so everybody can see you. Victor Ventura. Cortez Ventura. Isaac Penalosa. Adrian Penalosa. Jonathan Sanchez. Andy Buenrostro. Albert Venegas. Noah Sanchez, Antonio Molina, Aaron Corona and Nathan Arana. None of these accomplishments would have been possible without the dedication of their coaches, their parents, their families, and all their supporters. And let me tell you, we're watching the game. We got to see all the parents and grandparents and Nina's and Thea's, everybody out there dancing and supporting them. They were literal

From the mayor and all the council members, we want to present the certificate of recognition to the Santa Ana AU All-Stars. And please continue to invite us to the games. I have to tell you, city manager, myself, I even took my husband. He doesn't go anywhere. He went. That's awesome. And he watched, and it was a beautiful game. And you guys are amazing. So, again, thank you for everything that you do.

All right, the next item, presentation is by Councilmember Lopez, recognizing Jonathan Martinez. You're gonna.

Okay, good evening everybody. I'm really excited to be recognizing an incredible local artist whose work reminds us not only of the beauty of the natural world, but also our responsibility to protect it. Jonathan Martinez, known professionally as Art of the Endangered, go check out his Instagram account, has spent the past decade creating vibrant, captivating works that celebrate wildlife and inspire conservation. His signature style filled with bold colors and dynamic movement brings endangered species to life and encourages viewers of all ages to appreciate and protect our planet's biodivers

We're going to go into public comment. This is the time of the meeting for the City Council to receive comments from the public on agenda and non-agenda items. Madam City Clerk, please explain the public comment procedures and call the first speakers.

This is on? You can move it up. Go ahead and move it up.

Can you bring your mic down a little bit, please? Thank you so much.

Can you come up closer, there you go. There you go, thank you.

You have to have filled out a speaker card so I can't allow you to speak, but thank you very much for coming tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Clerk. All right.

Thank you. Before we move forward, Mr. City Manager, I just want to be clear that the item 26 that the public comments will be on the next meeting in July, is that correct?

Okay, I just want clarification for our position. Okay, thank you. All right, the consent calendar items number three through 20 are before us. Councilmembers, please announce any items that you'll be abstaining from due to conflict, and if there are any requests to pull an item from the consent calendar for further discussion. Councilmember Vasquez? I'll pull 18, please. Thank you, sir, I already pulled that one. I apologize, I did pull 18. Okay, Councilmember Lopez?

I'm not pulling any items, but I will register a vote on number 20 and 12 as well.

And what is your vote, ma'am? Yes or no? For contact? 20 or 12. You said 20. You're pulling it? No, I'm not pulling. Just registering a vote. Thank you. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. That's what I was trying to get. She didn't say no vote. I just want to make sure. Okay. Councilmember Hernandez.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll go ahead and pull items 13 and 18, and I'll register a no vote on item 19.

Thank you, Council Member Fan. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to announce my recusal from number 18 as the developer is a client of my employer, Rattan and Tucker. So I will leave the room while you discuss. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to just register a no vote on item 20 to be consistent with the last no vote I took last month. And also, I will be also registering a recusal on number 12 due to a campaign contribution and out of an abundance of caution. If the item is pulled, I will be leaving the room.

Thank you, sir, very much. Okay, at this time, do I have a motion and a second to approve the remainder of the calendar? I'll make a motion. Thank you, Councilman Hernandez. Let's prepare to vote for the remaining items.

We're not done with comments yet at this time. So Council Member Becerra.

Thank you Madam Mayor. So I appreciate Council Member Hernandez's comments. What I didn't hear though was I guess part of your motion would be to remove commissioners that are running for office on other commissions because Mr. Chavez's opponent happens to be on the Planning Commission. Now I was on the Planning Commission when I ran for office. I think it's something that asking folks to serve in the community whether it's on the council, whether it's a commission, I don't think there's a problem with that. I have to say the commission that Mr. Chavez is going to be serving on, hopefully, I d

Well, and so I'm going to go back to my question, which is, so would you also advocate for removing the planning commissioner that's also running for that same seat?

So may I propose a friendly amendment then that if Mr. Chavez can't serve on the commission, then we would also then remove the commissioner from the planning commissioner that's also running for office as well?

Mayor. Yes, Mayor Pro Tempore. Thank you, and I just want to thank Councilmember Hernandez for the condescending comments. First of all, this isn't your chamber, this is the people's chamber, and just wanted to make that point of clarification. And with that said, I just wanted to make a sub-motion to move forward with approving whatever the item was, item five, to appoint Giovanni Chavez to the Rental Housing Board for a partial term. And I'll make that sub-motion to move forward. And that's it, Mayor. I'll second that.

Yeah, hold on, I'll get you right now. Council Member Vazquez?

I don't think there's an issue with having this person sit. It's just that he's a candidate now. That we have a planning commissioner who has served over years But years, they were doing this for the love of the city, for the work, for putting in time. And many times over, we do get people running for office from our commissioners. They do get trained in how to be at a meeting. And this happens. But using this seat... To push yourself forward in a campaign, I just find a very little, no integrity in that. Just using this position for your own benefit, not for serving the people of Santa Ana. Y

Thank you, Councillor Vance. Councillor Lopez, is your mic up?

Yes. Go ahead. Well, first and foremost, this is not how I want to be spending my time. I have disagreed in the past when my colleagues have retaliated against community members for not believing or sharing the same political ideology. I have spoken up when members of this council have blocked the prerogative of council members' ability to make an appointment. And so tonight I am going to be consistent with my past actions. And so I hope that as this discussion proceeds, I hope that everybody can look at your literal code of ethics and conduct that is in front of you. Thank you. Thank you, Cou

Thank you, Mayor. Madam City Attorney, I do have a couple quick questions for you. First of all, is there anything prohibiting a candidate who is running for office from being appointed to a city commission?

Thank you. And even if there were an appealable action from the rent board to the city council, wouldn't that be similar to a planning commissioner who runs for office and then later on has to recuse themselves from the appeal?

We would hold every individual, whether appointed or elected, from this, including staff, right? If there's a staff member who decides to use city resources for any campaigns, that would be illegal, correct? Correct. Okay, thank you. So I was not expecting this conversation, y'all. I thought that, you know. I was. Number one, this is an individual who lives in the ward, right? Number two, there's nothing in our policy statement indicating that you cannot appoint somebody to a vacant seat in order to serve. I 100% understand the concerns regarding renter's rights. I was there for every meeting.

Okay, so you call the question. We all had an opportunity. I'll just be really quick. I didn't come from nowhere, just the school board. I was a commissioner, too.

I mean, nowhere as in you didn't have to be on some appointed group. No, thank you. Thank you very much. And Council Member Lopez, thank you for saying let's not take up time doing this. We have a lot of business to do tonight. So let's just vote, please. And, you know, I think we all need to remember. Council Member Phan said it best, you know, whoever wants to run for office, by golly, run for office. It's not easy, you gotta be thick-skinned, you gotta take the heat, as you're watching tonight. It's season of politics, so it's gonna get a little silly up here, so I wanna apologize right fro

Giovanni Chavez, if you're here, please come up so we can swear you in. You want to go down with him, Mayor Pro Temp? And congratulations.

All right, congratulations. Let's move on now, please.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this is the lease agreement with LAZ Parking California for office space at the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center. So according to the staff report, LAZ Parking California has requested to lease approximately 190 square feet of non-retail office space located on the first floor of the SARTIC for one year. So I don't have a problem with that. I'm absolutely fine with it. But this item calls into question the fact that with all the other ground floor open spaces, We should be having more uses that are more geared towards train and bus passengers, restaurants, co

So we haven't had a broker this entire time?

Is there a reason why? You just don't want to have business in there?

I mean, the first thing we could do is just put a for lease sign in the window. That would be nice.

I can tell you from the folks that are waiting on the platforms, The construction hasn't stopped them from getting to the platform. So I bet you they would hop the tracks to go get a bagel or coffee.

Well, frankly, I don't care if you do an RFP. I don't care if you ask a local broker. Let's just get those things populated. So I hope we don't have the same discussion again from the dice.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. I think Council Member Lopez.

Yes, I just wanna thank staff. I know that my office has been discussing this, right? How do we activate this space? Also recognizing that because it has not been active for so long, people do not think of the space as somewhere that they can go and get coffee or a breakfast burrito or a bagel. And so I understand the concern. This is obviously something that my office has approached you about. And I think that any business owner that comes in, we're going to need to work with them very closely so that they don't fail. Because again, this is not a place where people immediately think about goi

Thank you, when we make a comment that everybody loves to throw it around, we're giving preference, I'm not quite sure what that means, but I would just say thank you for bringing them to our city and into our SARTEC there. I think we have two other businesses that'll be leasing as well that are on here, and so the other issue, and I know we've brought it up before, is, and I will not beat the dead horse, we know that we've hired three additional economic development staff, I believe two years ago, Mr. City Manager, when you first came on, correct, with your team? And so they've been working h

Thank you, Council Member Hernandez. Final comment before we vote, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to, you know, support my colleagues in reiterating what I told you last week, City Manager, about the space at the train station and our desire to see something really, that space really activated. I know years ago there were staff members in CDA and Public Works talking about brewery in the works, you know, on the southern part on the first floor and numerous other shops, coffee places and whatnot.

And to know that it's been seven plus years and that nothing has come to fruition in that area is also, you know, frustrating. But then again, we're the only city in America that can't seem to advertise on bus stops for whatever reason. So it's one of those never-ending repeating patterns that we keep seeing with just our inability to bring these landmark stores or storefronts in places like the train station. But those are my comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's vote, please. Mr. City Manager, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager, for saying that, and we appreciate your comments. And again, as I always state, and I think most of us up here do, since you and your team have arrived, you're moving things at a pace that has never been moved in this city. Never, ever been moved. And so we thank you. And I think it, I know for me personally, it's just, Mayor Pro Tem always talks about Bristol from diapers to his kids' diapers, I get it. But I swear it's tattooed somewhere that Bristol will be done this year. And so we're waiting on that. So you are with your team doing great work and we really app

Yeah, you got to recuse yourself. I apologize. I'll wait till you're out of the room. Hurry, run, run, run. I'm just kidding. No workers' comp, don't run, please. All right, she's out of the room. So Mr. City Manager, actually council, I pulled this item because I would like to postpone it for two weeks to the next council meeting. I have questions for staff, I have some concerns, so I would like to make a motion and I hope I get the support from the council to move this item to the next meeting. I'm happy to support it. I'll second. Council Member Lopez, thank you for seconding. Let's prepare

Mayor, I was going to just quickly suggest, I don't think two weeks is enough. I think we should do 30 days for...

First, there's only one meeting in August. Do you want to take it there? So everybody would have an opportunity to meet with the city manager. Yeah. I'm supportive of amending my motion. Council Member Lopez? I accept. Perfect. First meeting in August, Mr. City Manager, and I believe there's only one meeting in August. Is that correct? That is correct. Yes, that's correct. I'm looking at the city clerk, yes. Thank you. Jennifer, I appreciate that. So we'll move it to the August meeting.

Madam City Clerk, can you do a roll call, please?

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. And Mr. City Manager, I'm sure you'd expect meetings with the Council and myself. Thank you so very much. We really appreciate it. All right, we're now gonna go on to the business calendar at this time. Item number 21 is the designation of a voting delegate and alternates for the 2026 Cal City's Annual Conference. Do you all need a presentation? I do not, I don't think any of us do. I'd like to make a motion. Councilman Becerra as one of the voting delegates, and Thank you very much. Is there an alternate?

Well, if she will accept it, I'll nominate Council Member Lopez as an alternate.

I'll second that. Council Member Lopez? Yes, that's fine, thank you. Great, let's prepare to vote. No, just you and then an alternate. Okay, we're good, but just the two.

It's in Anaheim this year, so that's a good thing.

Yes, it's going to be right down the street. It's wonderful. We don't have to fly anywhere. All right. Item number 22 is to consider a ballot measure to remove the sunset on local sales tax. Do we need a presentation, Council? Yeah, I think a presentation. Perfect. All right. Let's have our presentation. The floor is all yours, Kat.

Thank you very much. I'll open it up to the council this time and then I'll make my comments when we're about to vote. So any council member comments? Councilman Hernandez.

Thank you, Councilman Hernandez. I don't see any other comments. You gotta raise it, Councilman Vasquez. All right, got it, go ahead.

Thank you, I as well would like to support this item and taking it to the voters of Santa Ana. We have seen how we run the city in the last two years. We've had less money, I believe we've done more. And we've reduced the houseless population. The graffiti is cleaned off the next day. I asked my students, what's wrong with Santa Ana? They're like, there's potholes everywhere, I'm aware. Tell me, and I'll use the app and it'll be gone tomorrow. Just tell me where, and that's part of what Measure X gets us. And you see vacant lots that are clean, that are taken care of, that are used. We get the

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So Measure X, according to the chart, is 20% of our general fund. So Measure X constitutes 20% of our general fund. Sadly, our hotel visitor's tax is only 2% of the general fund. That 2% absolutely needs to grow. In Anaheim, their hotel visitor's tax is more than their sales tax and property tax combined. So here we are at 2%. Theirs eclipses their property tax and their sales tax combined. Anaheim has over $190 million more in their general fund, and their sales tax is lower than ours. Now, I don't wanna keep this tax. I don't. But I also don't wanna make 20% cuts to p

Thank you, I'm gonna make my comments and then we will take a vote. So at this time, I'm gonna just say it is at the will of the voters, bottom line. It was in 2018 and it's gonna come forward again. If it passes, it will be the voters who decide. And so since I've been the mayor, I've talked about in 2029, there'll be a 30 million drop for the city. 30 million, because whoever was sitting up here in 2018 and brought this forward to the voters, you know, they put a timeline on it, 2029 and 2039, which to me is absolutely ridiculous. They should have just put it there forever, right? And said,

So sorry, I do have a comment, Mayor. Oh, I asked you earlier, you said no, and I said I was going to speak and then close it out, so go ahead.

Thank you, Councilman Hernandez, for seconding my motion. Go ahead. Yes, no, thank you. I really appreciate all the work that has gone into this, and this is the second time that we discuss this. And in 2018, as that year has been brought up many times, and you know, The desire to place blame on people up here right is something that I strongly disagree with because I was not on this dais in 2018. And Santa Ana voters, many of us, many people that are on this dais that voted in 2018 have said time and time again from this dais that they didn't vote for this in 2018. And so, you know, Santa Ana

Thank you. And since we now are back to speaking, I thought we were going to vote. So Council Member Fann.

Thank you, Mayor. I wasn't going to say anything, but I guess I just want to remind everybody, just as all my colleagues have said up here, this is a decision for our voters. And I think at the end of the day, Yes, the previous city council laid forth a proposal that our voters decided on, and we liked the deal at the time. Nobody could have guessed that the pandemic would hit us. Nobody could have guessed that we would be in this exact situation. And now we get to give the voters another opportunity to decide Do you like the additional removal of graffiti? Do you like the additional bus bench

Thank you, Mayor Mezcua. You know, it's unfortunate that we have to even have this discussion. I just want to state for the record that not a single one of us up here on the city council today was present when this first came before us almost 10 years ago in 2018. It was an entirely different council, seven members up here that are not here today that left us with this poor bag of goods. I... You know, I have trouble with this just because I understand the number of services that we've been able to provide with this additional sales tax that's here today. However, one thing that this city and

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. We have your no recorded. I just want to clarify that we're not raising the taxes. We are keeping them exactly. It'll go out to the voters. If it passes that, it'll say exactly the same. So I just want to be clear on that. I do appreciate your comments, you know, about wasteful spending. But I also want to be clear as the mayor and that I've been sitting here for four years. The last two years, I have seen such a difference. You know, you kind of, we have staff that are lifting the covers, and oh my goodness, the cockroaches run out, and all of a sudden you see a prob

I'll make a recommendation that councilman found right in support of this, please.

Thank you and I want to thank the Council for this very healthy discussion. It's hard to be up here and you make some hard decisions so I want to thank all of you for making whatever decision you made tonight. All right, we're gonna end the business calendar. At this time, we're gonna go to the council member requested items. Requested item number 23 was brought forward by Mayor Pro Tem Panelosa. Sir, the floor is yours.

ITEM 23 IS PRETTY SIMPLE. IT'S DISCUSSING CONSIDER DIRECTING THE CITY MANAGER TO REPLACE THE CURRENT RESIDENTIAL PARKING PERMIT STICKER SYSTEM WITH A HANGING PLACARD SYSTEM OR ADDING TO, NOT REPLACING ENTIRELY, DEPENDING ON WHAT STAFF COULD BRING BACK. I KNOW THERE'S A LOT OF STUDIES HAPPENING. A PLACARD SYSTEM THAT WOULD BE DISPLAYED FROM THE VEHICLE'S REVIEW MIRROR, take on necessary actions to implement the transition. I know that so the reason and I want to just inform my colleagues a little bit of how we got here in the public as well with context and I appreciate the resident that came t

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. So let me just ask a couple questions. So as far as the tickets and car parked against park, I mean, against each other and whatnot, according to the police department, from January 1 of 26 to June 30 of 26, they've given out 44,260 tickets. I think that's great. I mean, I don't know what that amounts to in revenue, but I think it's, I mean... They're doing their job, right? Chief, they get out of their car, they do check the license. Can you share that, please, sir? And the parking permit, license, I mean, whatever they're doing. We've had 44,260 tickets.

And if they're parked in an area where they do not have a parking permit, do they address that as well, sir?

Okay, and I'm only asking because I want some clarification, Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. City Manager or Deputy City Manager, can you share a little bit about the RFP without, is it closed? If you can't discuss it, just let us know, but I just would like a little bit about.

And I want to be clear that Rudy Rosas is the Acting Director, Executive Director at this time, and you are not, you were not the Executive Director six, seven years ago.

That's why I asked, can we ask about that? So thank you. Yeah. So let's stop.

I don't want to ask any questions. Just tell us what you can share. No, I got around it. I have lawyers in my family. I know how to do this.

Uh-uh, we're sorry. Thank you for the answer. Thank you, sir, very much for the answer. Is there another, Council Member Lopez?

Yes, no, thank you everybody. I appreciate the item being added to the agenda, but as you've already heard, right, this is something that the council has already given staff direction through the budget process and the citywide parking study discussions that my understanding is we've all been briefed already. My office has been briefed, and so I think it is, that those recommendations come forward so that we can discuss them publicly, which will also include the modernization of our current process. And so whatever format we land on, stickered or otherwise, I want to make sure that it's part o

Okay, so I think Mr. City Manager, you have direction, correct? Is that a yes?

Can you give us a date or a meeting date, please?

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. I mean, we have homes, condos, we have homes with ADUs, we have homes with adult children. Parking is a huge problem in our city, and I think one of the, one of our constituents talked about that, you know, building apartments, as you had indicated, and parking. So, you know, we're gonna, even if you put a door, a hanger on their windshield, it's not gonna fix it. So first meeting in October, I believe we only have one meeting in October.

I think that's the direction. The Council, we're good with the first meeting in October. Whatever we have heard. Thank you very much. Mayor Pro Tem, you're good? All right, let's prepare to move on now. Item number 24 was requested by Council Member Lopez. Council Member Lopez, the floor is yours.

So we heard some of the public comment regarding this item about how Southern California Edison rates have more than doubled since 2016. And right now, one in five SE households is behind on their bill by an average of $829. That is not a handful of people falling behind. That is actually a debt crisis that we are now facing and seeing. And so while our residents are already struggling on a day-to-day, as we heard, there's $4.9 billion in profit last year. And so the core problem here is really structural, as I see it. And under the current regulatory model, SCE earns... I think a guaranteed r

Thank you. Thank you Council Member Lopez for bringing this forward. I think Mr. City Manager you heard my support the last meeting when they spoke and I asked you to look into this as well. So thank you very much. Council Member Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor. This might be a question for Madam City Attorney or Mr. City Manager. I guess, wouldn't any type of rate increase? I guess I'm just trying to see if we can delegate this to staff because, you know, whether it's SCE, SoCalGas, and these utilities, they try to increase rates all the time. And I think it should, it seems to be routine for us to send a letter to signal our disagreement with that. Is that possible? So we don't have to come back to the Council every time?

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Council Member Vasquez.

Thank you, Mayor. And I come from a household of six and we feel the hurt. We feel the pain and paying those electricity prices is really high. So I'm going to be in support of this item. Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor Mesquine. Thank you, Councilwoman Lopez, for bringing this item forward. A lot of good bills in this item, in this resolution package that we should support. However, there are a couple in there. I don't want to send staff down a rabbit hole or do work that It's not necessary. There's about three, and I know Councilwoman Lopez mentioned it, but there's three bills specifically that have been killed for a couple months now. I think they were killed in appropriations in early May. AB 1774, which is one of the items listed in there, AB 1677, and AB 2338 recently killed in appropr

No, it's fine. You can add it. This is, again, an introductory item. Members of the council can provide their comments. Obviously, the three bills that got solved don't need to come back or be part of that resolution. And if another member of this council wants to introduce something to this legislative packet that is relevant, I'm happy to accept.

Okay, so with that, I'd also like to add, if you accept, Councilwoman Lopez, that we look at AB 2493 and also follow that as well. That was introduced by... Assemblymember Cottey Pichinorris, and actually had, she's the chairwoman of the Utilities and Energy Committee, which would be a good, you know, she's 10 minutes away, definitely be worth our while as city staff to meet with her and see how, with our lobbyists as well, to see how we could work support these good bills. There's a lot of good ones and the only one that gives me pause is that SB 1359, just because of the very old infrastruct

Thank you. Mr. City Manager, are you clear on direction?

Great, thank you. Looking forward to seeing the work that Townsend will be doing on our behalf. Appreciate that. All right, let's move forward now to Mr. City Manager. Do you have any comments you'd like to share with us?

I just want to make sure I heard you correctly. And again, I want to thank the council for staying for the entire closing comments of each council member. It definitely shows a sign of respect and professionalism. So let's start with closing comments from our council members. Council member Vasquez, please.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank the Mexican national team for bringing unity and joy to the people of Santa Ana. It was a beautiful run for the team. And I and all of Sanana, we were here for it. You know, we got together. We celebrated in downtown, and we united with our Korean friends, our Arab friends, our Vietnamese friends, our Hawaii friends, and they were all loving it and wearing green and supporting the three. I celebrated every go with you all. And this was a huge contrast from last year. We're being chased in the streets and being down in the streets of Santa Ana when we were told

Thank you, Council Member Vasquez. Council Member Lopez, please.

Yeah, I want to thank the Youth Running Club, the Lightning, the Youth Lightning Running Club. They actually worked with our office today to help us clean Edna Park, and I really appreciate their partnership and their commitment to keeping our parks clean, as my office has worked so hard to do, so much so that the work of my office helped earn the city the designation of a Clean California Community, And so that's something that we're really proud of. I also, I think to echo some of the comments that Council Member Vasquez just mentioned, really want to thank our community for such a joyful, b

Oh, so many updates, hi everyone. So first, actually I'll let this new business, I'll leave it to Council Member Becerra in Ward 4.

Yeah, no, I am. I'm going to take up all my six minutes. First, I'd like to thank city staff for an incredible 4th of July. We had so many people out there. It was super fun. It was such a wonderful event and just so fun to see the community come out. I want to say happy birthday to my council aide, Amanda Tran, whose birthday just passed recently. So happy birthday. We have a couple upcoming events in Ward 1. This Saturday, 7-11 at 10 a.m., we are doing the New Hope Library renovation, reopening, grand reopening. Thank you so much to our city staff and our Public Works Department, Library, Br

If you see Councilmember Phan on the dance floor in downtown Santa Ana, quiero volar. Quiero volar.

Quiero volar. But seriously. Your time is up now? No, I'm not done. Let's go. Come on. The last thing I'll say about this is I'm very sad that there are no Latin American teams left in the World Cup. I said what I said. There are no Latin American teams left in the World Cup. So we're going to have to cheer on Morocco. And if Morocco gets knocked out, we're going to have to cheer on Norway, right? So we're going to go there.

Argentina is not a Latin American country, my friends.

Are you done? Thank you so much, Councilmember Pham, for your comments. Have a wonderful night, everyone. We're going to move on now. And you forgot to mention the USA played yesterday. They got knocked out, but, you know, USA did play as well. So, all right, Councilmember Hernandez. I think she covered soccer, sir, so we'll just leave that alone. Okay, go ahead.

I think she called it a ball game or something. No, no, no, no, no. Councilmember Pham, you're done. She's got the... Councilman Hernandez, go ahead.

Thank you, Council Member Hernandez. Stay right on task. Love it. Council Member Serra.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I believe Council Member Phan was talking about Toro Tea. Toro Tea. Toro Tea. So Toro Tea opened up last week. Ward 4 is blessed. We have a lot of great businesses, a lot of great restaurants. But I got to tell you, in my time on the council, I have not gone to an opening where in a shopping center you had a line that started from one end and went all the way to the other end. Super impressive. Toro Tea had their first store up in Chino Hills, right? Or no, Diamond Bar.

Diamond Bar, and then they opened the second one in Chino Hills. Don't ask for questions and take your time. We're hoping they'll expand.

So, yeah. So, amazing place. If you have a chance, go check it out. I'm going to be hosting my office hours, which I've been doing since I got elected. And I'll be hosting that on Saturday, July 11th at 10 a.m. over at Sandpoint Park. Feel free to stop by. Fourth of July. Nobody up here brought up Fourth of July. We had a great event. I want to thank my colleagues who did show up. All right, right, relax. Fourth of July was great. Thank you, Park staff, for putting that on. Thank you to the community that came out. We had folks, I mean, I was very impressed with the turnout that we had. I'm go

I called, I said, thank you for Fourth of July. Thank you. Well, you're red carding yourself, so now you gotta go. Please continue, Councilman Becerra. We need to get out.

All right, all right. So with that being said, watching the Mexican soccer team, oh my God, I'm not a typical soccer fan, but I gotta tell you, watching that team was amazing. It wasn't just because it was the Mexico team. They were just amazing. I am disappointed that they didn't go further in the World Cup. But again, they were a team that I think inspired a lot of us and definitely was a lot to do with their play. They did an amazing job. One thing I want to talk about is at a recent community meeting, or community event, excuse me, Supervisor Sarmiento made statements that were false and t

Thank you, Councilman Becerra. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor Mezcua. I just wanted to thank staff for such a nice event on Saturday at Centennial Park. It was really nice to see everybody out there. And just wanted to also invite community out on August 1st. We're going to be having, my office is going to be having a backpack school supply giveaway at a You know what? I haven't confirmed the park, but it's scheduled. But we will be having that and probably releasing those details this week. But just keep an eye out for it. It is happening on August 1st, just in time for back to school. So with that, Mayor, those are my comments. Again,

Thank you. I also am sad over Mexico's loss in USA, so we wanted them to both win here. So first of all, let me just share that on August 1st, excuse me, first of all, first of all, first and foremost, on July 4th at 11.11 a.m., my grandson, Logan Ramses Melendez, was born at St. Joseph's Hospital. It was a beautiful day. And we brought him home yesterday and he's healthy and mom and dad are healthy. And so what a truly, what a blessing. And I get to see him every single day. So I am super excited. So if you see me smiling a lot more, you know why. Because there is nothing, nothing more import

Thank you so much, and I believe on 4th of July, on top of that, the drones, I don't know if we used them on 4th of July, and you don't need to answer. I don't want anything, but I do want to say that I'm looking forward to this drone demonstration so the community can see. So please come out on August 1st at the community room at the police department. I think the max that we can hold is about 100 people in that room. Is that correct, Chief?

Okay, so then once we cap off there, I'm sure the fire department will say no more, and... you won't be able to come in. So come in and take a look at the drones and so that you're not misled and given bad information and maybe a call will go out that the drones will respond to actively and so we'll be able to see what they're doing. Also, I want to talk about the reentry program. I'll give you an update really quick. On June 23rd, several of us attended the Board of Supervisors meeting to speak on this matter and to share how we do not want, the constituents that were there with me, we do not