City Council and Authorities - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to today's council meeting for August 18th. Let's go ahead and start with roll call.

Wonderful. At this time, we are going to have our invocation, and I'd like to invite Pastor Vince, an associate pastor at Christian Life Center, to the podium. And press the button. When you see green, that means you're good to go.

Thank you. Next, I would like to invite Jessica Villalma Ornelas and Anisa Barney, who are both students from UC Berkeley that are working in the mayor's office. Oh, and Millie and Andres.

Next up, we have a recognition of a Stockton City employee who has recently retired after many, many, many years of service. So is Ray Dato here? Come on up. Come up to the mic. We're going to read something for you.

Your commitment, hard work, and dedication throughout your career have made a lasting impact on the people of Stockton and your Public Works team.

Now we have a proclamation for United Way of San Joaquin with their 100-year celebration.

So now we are moving on to a public comment and this is for items that are not on the agenda and we're trying something a little different tonight.

OK, so we will be setting the timer at three minutes for public comment.

Okay, so now we will be moving to the consent agenda. Before we have a public comment on the items, are there any items that council would like to pull? I have a 6.3 and 6.11 already pulled.

Anybody else? Okay, then we will go to a public comment.

Okay, excuse me, excuse me. So please offer a little grace to our, you know, the person that is helping from the city clerk's office. It was not realized that it should be waited until that item would be called. So... Okay, so the next one, 6.7. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. So next up for 6.7 is Mary Elizabeth.

Motion to approve the remainder of the consent items. Second.

Okay. So I have a motion from Councilwoman Padilla and a second from Vice Mayor Lee to approve the rest of the consent calendar. Roll call vote.

Yes. Okay, thank you. Yeah, motion carries 6-0 with the absence of Councilmember Enriquez. So we're moving on now to item 6.3. This is, let me go ahead and read it aloud. Adoption of a resolution approving city manager Johnny R. Ford first amend employment agreement. And I will turn it over to our city attorney.

Are there any comments from council? I did have a comment. Yes councilman Padilla.

Thank you mayor So in this short time that city manager Ford has been here I have seen a major change within our city You know what really stands out is how he treats people and how he treats his employees and that really matters and He values his employees, he listens, and most importantly, he's earned their respect. So he is truly a positive addition to Stockton, and I fully support his continued leadership, and I am thankful that he is here in Stockton leading our city. So I appreciate you.

Any other comments from council? Otherwise, I'll entertain a motion. We have a motion from Council Member Blauer and a second from Council Member Padilla. Roll call vote.

yes motion carries a six zero with councilwoman palm safe absent okay moving on to item uh 6.11 um i see penny making his way and rosa making their way up here i will defer to uh councilman fedia first if you would like to go ahead and speak on this item

Sure, just a couple of questions. So we received $8.4 million under this SB1 funding for this fiscal year. Is there any other remaining balance? No, let me rephrase that. Have we spent any other funds to date with that grant? Or is this the first allocation of that grant?

Okay, so we've depleted the grant then. Is that what you're saying? What you said?

So we're allocating $198,000 for resurfacing. Correct. Out of that money, we've used all of it yet? Is that my question?

Knowing that those three items were on this agenda. You know what people really are asking for is complete resurfacing They don't want little patches, you know, you know potholes being filled great. We did 25,400 amazing Thank you to the staff But a little bit of water gets under there or if it's not the perfect conditions it crumbles and it opens right back up And then looking at this list for 611. This is the one that's particularly important because I want to know how first of all how many miles of roadway do we have in the city of Stockton 786 miles of roadway how many miles are we resurfa

CHRISTINA PAXSON- How much? 26. CHRISTINA PAXSON- 26 miles out of 700, almost 800 miles.

I'm trying to get to a point though. So people, infrastructure is one of our priorities. We know that we get SB1 funds. SB1 funds is a direct allocation from the state. It's part of the gas tax. Is there any way for us to get next year's and the year after that, potentially that funding, so we can do more street resurfacing. How long does a street resurfacing last? versus slurry seal or mill and overlay or CAPE seal project or?

Because I think you said to me once, Penny, that it costs $5 million to do three miles.

And that's contiguous, three miles contiguous. OK. So is there a possibility for us to ask for advanced years so we could do more? instead of doing a little piece here, a little piece there. Has anybody asked if that is a possibility?

Yes. And I would say that was one of our council priorities. And I don't remember in recent years when infrastructure has ever been a priority. And then I would say the other thing potentially, could we look at maybe an infrastructure bond? Is that a possibility?

okay okay oh Council member Enriquez thank you mayor uh Penny just a quick point of clarification um I'm particularly looking at the street list and I just want to double check out of the four in District 4 there is row 20 and 21. I'm looking at the star in the end roads is that just the intersections themselves for 20 and 21. and I'm sure there are others that are similar but I'm just looking at my district Pacific Avenue starts at Knowles, ends at Pacific, and then starts at Rose, ends and begins at Rose and Yosemite Street. Or that's just that intersection piece for those two? I know you do

And I just wanted to, and I ask that for a reason because I know there are others that are a bit more extended. So then that way in case folks ask in particular for that, they'll know that just that intersection versus maybe an extra road compared to others on the list. So I appreciate it.

thank you Mary thank you both of you for the presentation quick question so like obviously I represent the district that has the most infrastructure challenges in the city oldest part of Stockton why is it that I don't see more areas identified in my district that may need the attention

When was the request from a stock in makers, I know people put things in a stock in all the time.

Well, I mean, before I vote to approve this list today, I want to know what was the duration that staff looked at submission. So was this in the last 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days a year, two years?

And while you walk up here, the reason why I asked the question is because I didn't see an email that went to council to say promote to your districts. I want them to catch this, I know they're trying to meet. I didn't see an email go out to council to say, hey, please promote to your districts, you know, we're going to do a survey of streets that need to be repaired, but I know how many streets need to, you know, just by driving around my district that need repairing. I want to make sure that we're all given the opportunity to get that information out. I mean, obviously we want to approve thi

It is it's been a while since we've been at council so we're gonna be asked to approve a list of streets to be repaired under this item and And this item list came from a process that we promote to the city called Ask Stockton. But we don't know how long that process of evaluating the needs of the whole city as it pertains to this repair. We don't know how that process came about or how long we looked at that process. Because I know Penny did a great job of driving throughout the entire district with my commissioners looking at everything. And I know our list is huge. of stuff that needs to be

And I know council has asked in the past, I don't remember if it was Padilla, myself, or the mayor, we asked in the past about a tracking system or a system for council to be able to look at at a glance by district or a master list of all the requests that are out there. I don't know if we have that level of intelligence as a city today, which we should. Maybe the city manager can update us on that. But I guess my question is, is there a way for the preservation of peace among our community that we can get that information today before we decide? Because I know that people are going to be text

And so is this this is not the exhaustive list that I think the mayor went through all the shoes we have this is not an exhaustive list of everything that's come in. So then my question is how do we select these

What is it what is it that gave the Council for what is it 30 versus 70.

So maybe what may be helpful if we approve this list tonight, which I'm assuming we are, is if we can get a more comprehensive list, a presentation to council on how we rate, how we do the work, and then a list of what's outstanding so people will know that.

You know, I think a study session would be great. I would add traffic calming to that. And I think all of us talking about infrastructure taxes at some point for a future item, we should consider that. But I do think that that's important. Now, I know we say 45, 60 days, and then somehow when we say it here, it gets forgotten, and then 90 days later, we add a topic.

And just one more point. When we repair something and then it starts to wear down again, I mean, are we looking at what's causing our roads to have undulations as you go? I know Miracle Mile has tons of undulations. OK, you know what I'm saying. Like a roller coaster. There. Pershing. Another one. We have them. So let us know what's causing that. And if it's something that is within the control of the city to reduce that, I think we need to be looking at that because we're just going to keep coming back. Or you guys are just going to keep coming back, hat in hand. So we do have a public commen

Okay, thank you will bring it back to Council.

Entertaining a motion motion to approve second.

We have a motion from Councilman Enriquez and a second tie between on say and blower a roll call vote.

Motion carries 6, 0 with Councilwoman. Administrative matters item 7 on the agenda. Vice mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll save all of my future agenda items for later during council comments, but one, based on the public comment I heard about flock cameras, obviously there's a lot of concern from the community around flock cameras. I will say I do know about the national conversation about flock cameras, but given our city, I am a supporter of flock cameras, but very much interested in opening, open to hearing from our community around their concerns. I know that when we passed the conversation, Mayor, about flock cameras. We talked about the caveat of protections and ownership over data an

No, I agree. Maybe it can be a study session and we can throw in the roads, you know, talking about our street repairs, but I don't have an issue with that.

Okay. Do you need four of us to say that?

anyone else okay um there is no unfinished business we are moving on to hearings 9.1 public hearing to consider authorizing city participation in the california municipal finance authority bond opportunities for land development program i declare the public hearing open hello

Are there any questions from council on this item? Okay, any from the public?

I do have a question. I saw where it said $500,000 on there. You said that's the minimum? OK. And this is within the existing sphere of influence?

OK. And those people that already have development agreements, they already have something like this in place, they would not be qualified then to access these funds if they already have a development agreement with the CFD? That's up to the city.

OK, and what are the advantages of keeping it in-house?

OK, because if the developer has it, the developer can do what they want.

We have a second. Vice Mayor and Councilman Blower, roll call vote.

Yes. Motion carries 7-0. OK, it's 322. So if we could take a quick break and be back by 340. Is that enough time? OK, so we'll be back at 340. As promised, 340. And we are back in session. The next item, 10.1, reconsideration of the resolution appointing a position in the office of the mayor. Since I am the mayor, I will be recusing myself. And I will be passing the gavel down to the vice mayor. And I will step out. And somebody let me know when it's all done.

Mayor, as this is a discussion item as well, after receiving guidance from our city attorney, I find that myself, too, will recuse due to a personal matter and out of an abundance of caution.

I guess I have a question before we get started for our city attorney. With respect to recusals, I know that typically when there's a recusal for financial reasons or for reasons that are personal under the FPPC guidelines, we state why we're recusing. Is that not required?

Okay. All right. Thank you. So noted. All right. Well, first, let me thank the mayor, the city manager, city attorney, and the council for entertaining this item item 10.1 first i want to introduce our is it interim or acting it's interim interim city attorney donald larkin um donald if you can just before we get started just briefly introduce yourself and then if you can set the stage for this discussion item i appreciate that

Thank you. And as I mentioned to you privately, I appreciate your advice and we'll take it under consideration, but still do the work of the city as I feel fit. All right. Before we do that, we'll go ahead and entertain public comments. So city clerk, if we have public comments. Yes. First, we have Zoila Moreno.

need to be held accountable all of you because remember you work for us you have said so we have no other public comments thank you um and to that end you're correct we we do work for all of you and part of our job or at least one of our jobs that i find extremely critical is the preservation of taxpayer resources and this conversation isn't going to cost us anything but the time here to have it. But it is a conversation that needs to be had. First, I want to acknowledge the mayor recusing herself and allowing us to have this conversation because she and I have been working on our relationship

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just really quick, City Attorney, if you can just give us some more context. I know in the beginning you gave a little bit, but just in terms of your legal analysis of this. Obviously, I know the mayor has the ultimate authority to appoint her employees, but if there's any other context you can provide to the public.

And then really quick, Art, I don't know if you can publicly say this, but do you know if there currently is an investigation happening?

And the reason why I ask is because, again, I think, you know, the vice mayor alluded to this is that this is really for the public. And this is something that, you know, it's funny. I had to call the record a couple weeks after that headline went out where they were saying that two council members wanted to fire a Stockton, a city of Stockton employee. And I call them to let them know that when someone seconds an item to support something, it doesn't necessarily mean that there is an official stance or a thought or a statement that either member or other members make. And you hit it right on

So this is kind of an interesting item where it feels like it's somewhat limited in terms of what we can say the fact that it is a personnel matter And so I appreciate Donald for giving us giving us advice and guidance on this I really do appreciate the public showing up and you know giving giving your input and and letting us know what you what you think about that and ultimately the mayor's PIO is the mayor's employee and so it really comes down to the mayor to you know do do the supervision and deal with her own employees so I think that's something that you know we'll all keep an eye on bu

Thank you. In the spirit of transparency, Council Member Enriquez, you and I have had conversations about the Mayor's PIO's post on social media with wrong dates, inappropriate dates, wrong information. So I don't want to have private conversations that we're afraid to have in public. And you know I have an immense amount of respect for you, but I do believe in us all still being accountable to the conversations we have in private that we also have those in public. The second thing is I do want to ask the city attorney if, and I worked 11 years in labor, so I just want to be clear because this

Well, I'm saying woman versus man, male versus female, gay versus straight, Latino versus black.

So I joked and gave you an analogy. I guess let me ask you a question. When you have When you decide on personnel matters in terms of giving people their rights or, say, under FMLA, do you get to decide who you give FMLA to or not? OK. When there's a FIHA claim or an investigation where somebody says, or Johnny may call up and say, I'd like to put this manager on leave for something because I'm doing an investigation, could someone make a claim if one person is treated differently than another?

So the last question, I appreciate that. If the city clerk makes a claim that staff are interfering in the election and asking her to do things that could be illegal or nefarious, would that be something you would think? One would say, we should probably take this serious.

Interesting. Well, Section 2.36.180 around political activity talks about cities' competitive service while on the clock. Can staff, while they're on the clock, be engaged in political activities here at the city?

Oh, I know. I'm reading it. And so if an employee says at 1237 that an employee was asking them to do things and changing, hold on, don't interrupt because you didn't even hear the question. If the person is asked to modify a candidate statement at 1237, wouldn't that be taxpayer time?

We're getting into hypotheticals. The point of bringing this up is, one, now it's a matter of historical record. The second thing is that Everybody that's watching and participating can do two things. One, wait for the mayor to make a decision now that she's well informed of at least the concerns and that the public knows. And two, wait to see if we offer a quarter of a million, a million, two million, three million, because at this point, it's your taxpayer resources that are at play. Now, we do have the option, I think I understand, to rescind the, tell us what we have the right to do.

And so if we make the motion to rescind the resolution, it's a symbolic gesture of where we're at on the matter. but not a one that would rescind the appointment.

Okay. Well, listen, I have no – anybody else have anything else to say? No. You know, I have no problem being the only person that believes that the mayor's PIO shouldn't be attacking constituents online, shouldn't be going into our city clerk's office, and shouldn't have us now having to determine whether or not we give a quarter of a million dollars away. and so I have no problem since I can't decide the decision on who is appointed, and I appreciate the guidance there because we see the charter. There are a couple things that we do have. We have the ability to take this back to the Charter

And then we do have the right as the, people who create the budget for the city to decide how we fund positions, correct?

And then we can rescind the resolution, although the employee would still stay in the position and go through whatever process the city deems fit. but it will be a matter of record our position on the matter.

Well, my vote to approve the appointment matters to me because my vote represents the district that put me here. And although I don't have the authority to remove the individual based on the charter, I am going to ask that we make a motion to send the mayor's PIO position to the Charter Review Commission to review the guardrails that need to be put around a position that can help preserve moments like this where we have no council oversight. So if I can get a second for that, that'd be great. Okay. The other thing is, or do I have to vote on that, or do I have to make a motion?

Okay, thank you, okay. But I can make a motion to rescind my, to reconsider this appointment.

Okay, and then the referral to the Charter Review Commission happens, or we put this on the agenda for a future item. Okay, well, I make the motion to remove Tony.

Okay, well, he can abstain from voting. Hold on, hold on, excuse me. For people who didn't hear, Council Member Villaputo. Okay, one second. First, since I'm chairing this discussion, let me acknowledge the Council Member Villaputo. Go ahead.

Well, you push the button push that It was an action taking me forward now became so I will not be making a vote on this Okay.

Yeah, and Councilmember Villapuerte says he's gonna abstain from voting which is fine but I guess the the question I have is we can refer this to Agenda to this to a future meeting, correct?

Okay. So do we wait for him to come back?

But it's okay. Wait. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. This is the process playing out for the public. You all will be the final arbiter in that. We'll wait for council comments, and then I will put it on the agenda for a future meeting later. But I'll go ahead and end this discussion and bring the mayor back to move the agenda. Thank you. Let's take a five-minute recess to bring the meeting back to order with the mayor. Five minutes.

Order and we are moving on to item 10.2 adopt a resolution to award and allocate community development block grants and emergency solution grant funding to eligible respondents to the 2026-27 CDBG ESG notice of funding I said 10.2 Okay. Oh, okay. Mine says 10.2. So does yours? Yeah. Okay. 10.2, update from Zen City Technologies.

Thank you. A lot of information there to digest. I don't know if there were any public comments on this item.

OK, bring it back to Councilwoman Padilla. OK. Council Member Enriquez.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I just want to echo what some of the public have shared so far. I look at this being, I think, the last three months in terms of data. So I'm just curious to see how often we get this data. The fact that it's 810 is a pretty low number. I do agree with Julie. I want to go back to when we voted on this. I was the sole dissenting vote against this contract. No offense to you. You gave a lovely presentation. Please press the button.

Oh, perfect. So you know who I am. But I appreciate your presentation nonetheless. I know data is very important. I always echo how much we need data. At the same time, this is something that I ask staff in terms of how this information truly is helping the departments. So I don't want it to just be we get a packet and then we just throw it away and don't look at it. But intentionally, I want to speak on behalf of my colleagues, but intentionally for the departments, How are they effectively using this data? If it's every three months, how are they utilizing it? Even if it's a small number of

Are you able to click into it? Okay, and then how is it that you know what district they're in?

And then I did like the recommendation of those that we have a listserv of, you know, potentially hitting people that we didn't have already. And to... Councilmember Enriquez's point, it's the granular, really dialing it down so that you can pinpoint things. But I will say something did come out of this, and it is a marketing person for CSD that we approved here to get that information out about our activity guide all the things that are that are going on and i know that this was a part of helping make that happen because yeah people don't know about it so how do we make sure that they know ab

Okay. How much did we pay for this survey? Or how much did we pay for this process? How much? $189,000. Earlier, there was a comment made about going to a Cardi B record or store or album, whatever. I don't know what that was about. But I think of it like, We're going to go to a Cardi B concert. It's going to cost us $180,000 to do that. And when I get there, I better have a good experience, or else I'm going to feel gypped. I don't know, in a city of 326,000 people, a result of data from 810 people is sufficient for me. The reason why I bring that up is because when I look at Joelle, who's si

It's okay. So let me ask you specific questions. How much more work do we have to do in partnership with you as it relates to this work?

Okay. And so we have two more years left or three more years left?

Yeah. Unlike my colleague who is the only dissenting, I support data because we have to be less emotionally driven and more data driven. But if you can't come back with eight at least 8,000 people that tell you something, then I wouldn't support us continuing this project. I think that the people of the city deserve to have community outreach that includes partnerships within city and our established community leaders who are on the ground doing the work. They're all in the room and you'll see them shortly when they come for this other item. But I do think that we have to go further than 800 p

Let me stop you. I heard you when you said that about the 10 CCs, and I worked in health care for 10 years, 11 years. This ain't that. You have to go deeper. You have to go to Audrey Jones-Taylor in the back. Did I get the last name right this time? Okay. You need to go to her and her staff and find out about all the CSD projects happening within the city in our community, in our city centers. You need to talk to our county supervisors who are amazing. You need to ask for Rhodesian Ransom, our assemblywoman who cares about our community, friends outside. Be outside. You've got to talk to Preva

And again, United Way, I can keep going on and on and on. There's people that have opportunities for outreach. But yeah, I think I said what I needed to say.

Thank you. I want to thank you for the presentation. I did take statistics in college, and it was not my favorite class. But I did buckle down, and I did pass that. But I do remember some of the things about sample size and all that. And I do understand what you're saying, that my question is more with the methodology. Because it seems like there was a recruiting element to getting people to do this. How does that affect the people that respond? It seems like the people that if you're versus just a pure random sampling of people, don't the people that get recruited tend to have stronger feelin

No, I don't mean that. I just mean that people that are responding to something online saying, you know, oh, yeah, I want to get my two cents. Do those people tend to be more like mad at the city or whatever? And does that skew the results? How do you account for that?

I guess. I mean, I do tend to think that the people that gravitate towards those things probably have stronger opinions. And I know it's probably tough to I don't know. I just wondered if you reached out and randomly picked. And I know you want to have a good cross-section and a good representative group. But again, I just wonder how much that factors in.

Thank you, of course Hey vice mayor Thank you, sorry, I missed I may have missed something So when the survey was, you know, I never understood during the last administration why the vice president's thing was internet I just didn't understand like why is internet your thing? You know, I have internet I have internet but then I think about all the people in the country that don't have internet. And when I think about the survey, I think about my grandmother. She's dead now, but she wasn't on the internet. She wasn't a texter and all those things. And in my district, I have the most challenged

Yeah, no, the reason why I bring that up is, you know, and you literally just touched on it, where there were some, maybe some more affluent communities that may participate or be higher engaged. When we have, if you look at the social makeup of our city here, 46% Latino, I don't know how much of that is Spanish speaking. And then you have community leaders like Georgia Brownlee and Sierra Vista who can pull the whole housing unit together at a pop-up. So there are other opportunities. I heard the city manager say he'll work with you on that, but I just think if we go deeper into those communi

Okay, moving on then to item 10.3, adopt a resolution to award and allocate community development block ground emergency solutions grant funding to eligible respondents to the 2026-27 CDBG ESG notice of funding availability. Take it over, ladies.

Yeah, thank you, Ms. McCarty and Lana and all the staff that worked on this. And thank you to all our community partners that are here. I've had the privilege of getting to know most of you. Just a quick disclosure, I did meet with Michael Sorensen yesterday, but unrelated to this, and we didn't talk about this grant, but I did want to make that disclosure. You know, the one question I have for staff when we met before today, as you know, when we look at the ESG grant, obviously we wish that there was a zero on the end of every one of these numbers because we need more to do more, and our comm

So can I stop you and ask you a question? So I hear you. Is the feeding, you don't feed people, they end up on the street, they end up committing crime, starvation, poverty. We can go down a whole conversation about that. Mm-hmm. But my question is, is the ESG grant specific only for one service or for multiple services or just services in general for competing organizations that serve the same population? Just trying to understand what the grant is for.

So one thing I understood or learned in our meeting was that the number of people serving is not a qualifying factor for the NOFA consideration, right? And so is that something that this council will have to decide if we want that to be a part of the process moving forward? It's not a part of the rating here, obviously, but I just kind of think that, and I also want to be fair in terms of capacity for organizations that may not have the capacity of it. Is that why there's not that consideration, or can you explain?

Got it. And then, you know, I see Red Rabbit advocacy constantly denied for various different reasons. I guess my question is for all of the organizations that are competing for this funding, you know, they all have needs and they all have passions to help our community. Are we making sure we're setting everybody up for the same level of success, whether it's the pre meetings, the post meeting debriefing, like what can you walk just walk us through that, that process briefly, so people can understand what we're doing to make sure people are set up for success.

In terms of my other question, hopefully I articulated it properly, is for organizations when they apply for this funding, if they have 307 projected service numbers versus 15, what would the implications of including that in the consideration have on our existing community partners? And let me ask, let me clarify. So children's home, well-established, been around forever, may have lots more resources than a Red Rabbit advocacy, may be competing to find funding for the same or similar service, but you're going up against Goliath for the money. Would it be an unfair consideration to add the num

And then I guess my last thing, but prior to getting elected, I remember Councilwoman Padilla and I had a meeting in Western Ranch with Mark from BCHIP. And we brought lots of community partners. That's where I met Michael Sorensen. And the question I had, I think the question Councilman Padilla had at the time, because she was a city council member, is how does the city get some of these resources? Obviously, I've learned that the city's not in the business of getting into those type of grants from the state. But if there was a way of exploring public-private partnerships with Friends Outside

Thank You mayor I'm not the best of Matt and maybe I missed it but the ESG grant was for 283 but the two that are funded or 262

The recommendation and what's on the chart are two different things for Prevail. They're two different amounts.

No other questions, I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion from Councilwoman Padilla. You guys are going to have to Rochambeau over there for the second. Blower will have it. So roll call vote.

OK, moving on to more good news, 10.4, accept the fiscal year 25-26 third quarter budget status update. And we're like on time, I think, or close to it. Yes, Mr. Garcia. So you have the floor to give us the good news.

A quick question for you. Is the approved budget for the 26-27 year that we did back in June, is there a place we can find that, or is that still being curated?

I'd love to have an award. especially if it's Earned and I think you've earned it since you've been here I know from meeting with mayors throughout the United States that many of them are negative in the millions and some of them in the hundreds of millions of dollars and so I'm proud that we have been fiscally responsible and and I we're going to replenish I wrote that word down actually before you said it. But that we are, you know, we're always cautiously optimistic, but that we can't take any missteps from here, especially now that all of our bargaining units, you know, we've got that all

Okay, so the recommendation is to accept the third quarter budget status. So.

We have a motion. Second. And a second. Roll call vote.

OK. Thank you. Moving on to item 10.5, approve the motion to adopt the 26-27 State and Federal Legislative Advocacy Program. Hi, Alex.

Alex, can I ask you a quick question? So other than the big city mayor's coalition, I don't recall council going up for a legislative day. I mean, I know we've done that in the past. Is there a reason why we, or did I just miss it last year?

You figure we go all the way to D.C. We can easily go up to Sacramento. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Vice Mayor, you have a question?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Alex, for the presentation. Now, we're paying for this advocacy group to go out and advocate on our behalf. Obviously, the Trump administration is looking for model cities that set up our fragile environment to experience things that it definitely doesn't want. My question is, how are we evaluating the performance of these advocates that are out, that are that we're paying to advocate for us shipyard buildings been a discussion I know the mayor's been passionate about that this council is supported figuring out for some time now do we how do we evaluate how that's

And I do have an email from the port. They're keeping me abreast of the different opportunities that they're out there. So they're in discussions with some other groups. But they are kind of carrying it at this point. And I'm saying we're open and ready for business.

Got it. I just want to, I guess, similar to the work that we just saw from Zen City, If we're spending taxpayer resources for people to go out and do the work for us and advocacy for us, I want to be able to know what are our tracking and what are our tools that we have in our tool belt to be able to evaluate the efficiency of that work.

Well, here's the reason why I'm asking. Yes. You know, if we've been pursuing something for a year and a half and we're not seeing them give us any real substantive moves towards that, we can always blame things on like the White House. But we need to know how realistic our pursuit is for things. And I would just like to know what we're doing, right?

So who's going to remind council of this?

No, that's helpful. And then the last question is, I know, you know, under the charter, we don't direct staff. How are we directing this agency? Staff does that? Does that come from city manager's office?

Okay, that last line is getting me. yes okay um i'm going to consider if i want to say something else but right now i'm not why uh no i'm going to just leave it there but here's what i will say right taking what you just said without saying too much yes we need to further consider all decisions that we make in pursuit of these things because if through our decisions uh our advocacy groups we're not able to achieve the the goals that we're setting forth then we always have As a council, I think the need to reconsider some decisions that we make.

So make it palatable to them. And the reason why I ask the question, Alex, is because we don't, as a council, interact with this lobbyist, right? And when Florence was talking about staff going to D.C., I've not gone to D.C. on a trip yet because I don't want to just go out there and have lunch. Like, I want to know how I can use some of my own personal relationships with Congress, men and women or whatever, to be helpful. But since we don't interact with the group, I don't know, at least for myself, who or how we're advocating for what we need or how we're making the determination of what we

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to just reiterate, I know this was feedback I gave after we got back from the one voice trip in May and maybe in a June meeting. But one of the things I did say publicly is that when it comes to our lobbying firm is that I do want not necessarily more preparation, but I want to have a plan of action to kind of to what the Vice Mayor was sharing about having a specific role and providing that beforehand. So kind of for me, at least I've been more in the SJCOG sphere when I'm out there. But of course, I know there's also cities individually also do their own outreac

And I'll say, because we were double booked or meetings ran over, I know Council Member Enriquez covered some meetings and I covered some meetings. And I know, Chief, you were in a meeting. And then we had Deputy Chief from the Police Department and Penny. and we did we did exactly that and told told stories that I will tell you though when I walked into the aviation Department of Aviation and I said you know I'm flying by the seat of my pants on this because because I was not I was not prepared for that one but in the end you know we're out there demonstrating to them you know about what Stoc

Yeah, I just suggest that some of the ones, people that don't make you to the trip, that somehow we can have them call in, like on Zoom, communicate those meetings, if that's possible.

Yeah. And let me say this. And the reason why I haven't gone to D.C., honestly, one, I obviously don't believe Trump's going to give us anything. You can look at him all over the news. But but if he does, if there's any help or any way I can support, you know, I would rather like help phone up Congress people that staff can meet with or make phone calls to make connections. I've offered the mayor to help her with. access to people that I personally won't sit with but can help her talk to for it, but I want to be helpful in that way. I just don't think going out there and wasting, for me, wasti

So this is an action item. I'm bringing it back to council regarding the plan. Alex presented for our state and federal correct yes I'm sorry I thought you were asked for entertain a motion so moved I have a motion by Councilman Bauer and a second by Councilman Villapudua. Go ahead and do roll call.

Yes. Do we need to announce an abstention? Is it an abstention for conflict?

No, I just don't believe we're getting our money.

I'm just saying I didn't know we could abstain unless it was a personal conflict.

Okay. OK, moving on now to item 10.6, San Joaquin County EMS system performance update, ambulance patient offload time, and medical patient destination policy. Hello, gentlemen.

with that I can open it up to questions or any comments I had a couple of questions I noticed on slide for the total transports st. Joseph's Medical Center has nearly 500 and and the patient you know, getting to an RN. Do we have any data that says when they're seen by a doctor, once the nurse gets them, what the time is before they're seen by a doctor?

And I will tell you, I've gone with students, like a student has been injured at school, and I made the mistake of riding in the ambulance instead of taking my car and following, because the principal just said, you need to go with them. And I jumped in the rig and went with them. And then I got there, and there wasn't a bay available. I mean, it was just packed. It was packed. The number of people in there, there were people in the hallway, in gurneys, in the hallway. And then I was trying to get a ride back, but they couldn't give me a ride back. And I was calling Florence. I don't know if s

And that's why I'm so excited that st. Joe's is building a new ER because the one they have there is really cramped and They need a new one.

So anyway Yeah, councilman Padilla Thank You mayor and thank you chief for providing this because I saw it firsthand and I thought it was very informational to the public and In the first presentation, you also mentioned that if the hospital doesn't have a room, for example, if you have a patient that's going into mental distress and they don't have a room available for that type of situation, you are sitting there waiting until the hospital has availability and so that affects you going back into operation. And then, two, the question came up about people directing which hospital they want to

Just a quick clarification. I'm curious with this timing, does the clock start like right when that 911 call comes in?

It's still pretty fast to pick somebody up, get them loaded up, and get them to the hospital.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. It seems like a really good metric to be able to kind of judge how you're doing, and so thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a comment. I just want to say thank you for all that you all do, because when the mayor mentioned St. Joe's ER is very small, when I was practically dying in February, I didn't realize just how hands-on the fire department was when it came to hospitals until I saw it myself. When I was in the ER, I didn't bring his attention because I don't want to make it seem like oh my god why is a customer dying on an ER bed but I saw Devin and two other guys with him and they were literally walking right in front of me in the hallway and I was like oh my god don't say anything just

The Sen Cal operation in general so and you can see that logo a mile away Thank you, so it's easy to identify. Okay. Thank you so much, but there was no public comment on this was it no, okay great So chief you're sticking around fire protection item ten point seven fire protection services at the Port of Stockton next steps

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Chief. And thank you for all the amazing work that you and your team have been doing. I know we had a call earlier this morning related to this matter because I actually asked to bring this back to Council because, as you mentioned, we had this conversation over a year ago. And I just had a meeting last week with Mayor Karen Bass and having watched her go through a disaster in L.A. and it still be a thing where fire started in one area and literally hopped from city to city to city and she's you know she's going through a lot for seasons that was not even hers

to support their needs and our needs as far as the hazards at the port so i think that's a realistic target six months and it'll provide some solid information from that working group yeah and again you all do the amazing work every day we don't we just help you when we can and how we can so i would trust your leadership in doing that i think that the other thing that the port director said why when he was here earlier and i and i think he does a great job out there is There's other business to be done here in Stockton through the port that would require, I think, more services or dedicated se

I was just going to say, April 11, 2023, that's when number one reopened. I was there, and the community was grateful. I mean, people showed up for the opening of the station, and knowing that they are there with the Fresno Avenue, head on over to the port. But if we can do more, I think we need to do more. So thank you for your presentation. I appreciate it. OK. OK. OK. So we are moving on now to the city manager's update. Oh.

Moving on then to the next time which is Council comments. Council member flower.

Okay, I guess I'll be first out of the gate. It's been a while since our last meeting. It was, gosh, back in July. So there's been all these, yeah, it's been a busy summer. So some of the things that I've gone to, I was happy to go on July 25th to the Pioneer Village Grand Opening at the San Joaquin Historical Museum out at Mickey Grove Park. That is really an impressive event. new addition to the parks and to the Historical Society. They spent $5 million building that. And it's where they will do Valley Days. So I know when the kids, I think third graders, do Valley Days. And yeah, it was ver

Thank you, Mayor. Just a few district updates. With today's allocation, Stanfield and Anderson streets will be two streets in District 1 eligible for resurfacing. I have been currently working with city staff on a pilot program to detour street racing and sideshow so I hope this temporary deterrent will be installed North Stockton on the intersection of West Lake and regatta because that is a very large intersection and that is where we see a lot of activity Another intersection, McCollamy and Consumas, which is heavily trafficked with a most recent accident of an individual crossing the stree

Thank you, Mayor. And I didn't have this in here, but I'll go off of what my colleague just said really quick because she said a quote. There's a quote that I live by, and it's a quote from the Bible that says, faith without work is dead. And we could want things, but we have to do the work in order for it to materialize and become a real thing. And I do appreciate a lot of our side conversations about how we individually or in small groupings want things to be better. And I know we're all working hard in pursuit of that. National Night Out, I want to say thank you to everybody that came out.

So can we commit today it will be posted within the next 10 days, and then can this council get an update on what the job description and all that stuff looks like? Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. Also, we talked about CESP. I know that staff are working on that agreement between BIA and NAACP. Is that scheduled to come back soon?

Thank you, sir. And thank you for all the work that you and Audrey have been doing on that because I know that's been a lot. Also, I'll be speaking at the Stockton Democrats meeting August 24, 2026 at 6 p.m. at Troke Library. The only requirement I have is that you come and ask me any question you want, and don't be afraid of the answer that you get. And also, in October, I will be doing a guest lecture at Harvard Law School in Boston, and I'm really excited about that, to come from El Dorado Middle School, or El Dorado Elementary School, I'm sorry, and then Webster Middle School and Stagg Hig

Thank you mayor so I would try to be as quick as I can so just in terms of events a lot has happened since this past July 21st I just want to start off with on July 24th I attended the out of the box music arts ribbon cutting in District 4 right across the street from UOP and then on Saturday July 25th I participated in the Mormon Slough Design Visioning Session number two at the Sycamore in downtown Stockton and then I want to thank our staff for Monday July 27th we had 75 plus people show out to our tenant rights town hall at the oak park senior center and you know one of the things i've bee

Great. Thank you. And then also, a lot was mentioned today with flock data, and I want to just highlight that. Even though I don't necessarily always give constant updates of policy on my social media, I want folks to know that since April to now, I've been heavily been drafting a LPR data resolution resolution. Based on flock so to add additional guardrails and this cut this came after the meeting that we approved the drone technology because I heard loud and clear from the from the community and Since April to now we've been drafting behind the scenes. We've had our city attorney office revi

Councilman Villalpudo yes thank you mayor it's good to be back I want to thank all the kids for coming back to school I know it's been a long summer so I just want to you know give a shout out to all the parents those long nights you know gonna be back again with school so I want to take a big shout out to all the teachers and the parents I know they're the biggest impact in their lives I want to recognize our city manager, Johnny Ford. Thank you, sir, for everything you do, as well as our public works director, our PD, chief of police, Mr. Fadden, and our chief of fire as well. I won't go too

OK, yes. Bishop Dwight Williams and Ben Amador, he was also a member of Stockton Corral. Huge smile on his face whenever I saw him. And Dwight gave the best hugs. He always had these sayings that I loved. And I wish I would have written them down, but my heart goes out to Phyllis, his wife, and everybody whose life he touched. So we will get to that before we go into closed session. Kenneth was here talking about AB 413, parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk. I think that we have red paint. We need to put it out there. If we have parking spaces that are marked too close to the corner, we need

OK, great. Thank you so much. OK, next page. So there were a lot of things that have been said tonight. I want to go one by one through them. Somebody said about following protocol. We have a charter. That charter is our Constitution. We are to follow the charter. Whether we do or not remains to be seen, but ultimately that is our roadmap for governance in the city of Stockton. I do agree everybody should be held to the same standard, but I do think as elected officials we are actually held at a higher standard. The public has entrusted us, they gave us their vote, they have put us in these se

No. Okay. So item 14.1, conference with labor negotiation. This closed session is authorized pursuant to section 54957.6 of the government code, item 14.2, conference with legal counsel regarding significant exposure to litigation. This closed session is authorized pursuant to section 54956.9, subsection D2E2 of the government code, and 14.3, public employee, public employee appointment. This closed session is authorized pursuant to government code section 54957B. And we will adjourn now to closed session. Thank you.

OK. OK. OK. We are back from a closed session. It is 9.08. City Attorney, do you have anything to report out?