City Council - Regular Meeting

good afternoon the time is four o'clock and i call the september 8th city council meeting to order madam clerk roll call please all council members present now is the time for invocation that will be led by reverend monsignor doug cook of our lady of mount carmel catholic church following that we'll have the pledge of allegiance led by council member weber

Since I happen to attend the church where Monsignor Cook is the pastor, I'll pinch hit for him, but probably not as well. Dear Lord, we are here today because we care so much about the city and Thank you for all the volunteers who work so hard to build this place. Thank you for all the residents who care so much to put their time and talents into making the city a beautiful place to live. Thank you for our staff and council members who give so many hours and minutes of their day in thought to making this a wonderful, beautiful place. It is truly a beautiful place that you've given us. We ask for your blessings in our decision making, in our judgment, and on our community that we may work together to continually build a better and more beautiful community. Amen.

I'm just going to leave it. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, council members Bartow and Weber. It is now my honor on behalf of the city of Newport Beach to recognize two outstanding Corona Del Mar high school student athletes and CIF Southern section champions, Sophia Simonoski from the girls swim team and Erin Silva from the boys wrestling team. Sophia and Erin, please come forward. Both of these exceptional athletes have represented Corona Del Mar High School and our community with tremendous talent, dedication, and sportsmanship. Sophia is the 2026 CIF Southern Section Division I champion in the girls 100-yard breaststroke, winning with an impressive time of 59.51 seconds, just 3 tenths of a second shy of the meet record. Sophia is committed to swim at the University of Michigan and was recently named Swim Radar's number one California recruit in the class of 2027. Aaron won the 2026 CIF Southern Section Coastal Division Wrestling Championship at 126 pounds. This was Aaron's third CIF championship, making him the first Sea King to accomplish this remarkable achievement. Aaron is also a four-time National All-American and four-time All-County athlete. Sophia and Erin, congratulations on your outstanding accomplishments. Your hard work, discipline, and commitment are an inspiration to young athletes throughout Newport Beach, and we are very proud to recognize you today. Please join me in recognizing and congratulating Sophia and Erin. I'm gonna come down and take a photo with you, so. And either of you wanna say a few words? No, okay.

One, two, three.

Moving on to our next presentation, I will now read the September 2025. Actually, I'm going to have Lena read it. Do you still have it with you? You don't. We have a presentation, a proclamation to Janice Song, Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County Ambassador. Janice, please come forward to receive the proclamation.

I'll have Lena read it. Whereas hunger and poverty are issues of vital concern in California, where approximately 22% of California households and 27% of households with children experience food insecurities and over 387,000 individuals, including more than 112,000 children, or one in six children in Orange County alone are found insecure. And whereas the city of Newport Beach is committed to combating hunger in every part of our community and to working with Orange County Hunger Alliance in educating the public about the role of food bank and the charitable food system, raising awareness of hunger as a symptom of poverty and collaboratively optimizing the food system to address food insecurity. and whereas in 2025 orange county food bank and second harvest food bank collective collectively recorded an average of 808 473 individual food distribution visits per month and distributed 72 800 27,837,548 pounds of food through their partner networks of food pantries, senior centers, schools, college, universities, houses of worship, soup kitchens, shelters, and other community organizations. And worries about food care facilities, the recovery of over 25 million pounds of excess edible food in orange county each year reducing food waste and redirecting that food to those in need while meals on wheels orange county prepared and delivered 1 million 272 thousand 26 meals in 2025 providing all the adults and vulnerable neighbors with vital nutrition, compassionate support, and services promoting health, independence, and dignity. Whereas the month of September has been designated Hunger Action Month, to bring attention to food insecurity and to enlist the public in the movement to end hunger through volunteering donating and advocating with food banks and organizations across the country including members of the orange county hunger alliance hosting events throughout september to bring awareness and help and food insecurity in our local community and now therefore Mayor Kleiman, Mayor of the City of Newport Beach, on behalf of the entire Newport Beach City Council, do hereby proclaim September as Hunger Action Month in the City of Newport Beach, California, and call this observance of the attention of our citizens in witness of the signature of the Council and Mayor Kleiman.

Thank you. Janice, do you want to say a few words?

I just want to thank the city, Mayor Kleinman, and all the city council members for being so supportive of us in declaring September Hunger Action Month. This is now my third year coming to receive this proclamation. And every year, the support has been getting bigger. And we appreciate it. And we would love to see you all at the food bank. And I know that Councilman Wiegand and Grant like to come out a lot. And we'd love to see you guys all again. And we also have No Lunch Lunch. And I would love to see you there. I know I've seen you there several times now, so I really appreciate it. And we just are very blessed here, but we just don't understand how close we are to those who are in need of food and are food insecure. So thank you.

Thank you.

We're going to come down to the photo.

What's the date of the No Lunch Lunch? No Lunch Lunch has now been moved to a Tuesday. So it's going to be September 17. I mean, sorry, November 17. And it'll be just a great way to learn more about the food bank if you haven't been there. They offer tours. And you'll also get a state of what we are doing.

Thank you madam madam era just want to add to it if there is lunch. So when you say no lunch on Senate and it's actually a really good lunch and it is a very good lunch.

It's actually there's a salad made by Bracken's kitchen which is a local organization that uses produce from the food bank, as well as Antonello's, and he has always made our soup for the last, I don't know, as long as I've been going to the food bank for No Lunch Lunch.

He's very generous with it, and it's a really neat opportunity for you to see what goes on at the food bank, and there's such a story to tell for so many years that they've been doing it there, and it's at the Great Park, and they use an old building, but it does such a great thing for our community. We don't think about it a lot, so I'm happy that you but if anyone in the audience in particular, it is a really meaningful and inspiring event and it's open to the community to come.

And it's free of charge. Okay, photo time.

Oh yeah, that's a proof of life. Perfect.

Madam Clerk, please read the notice regarding public comments on agenda and non-agenda items.

The City Council of Newport Beach welcomes and encourages community participation. Public comments are invited on items listed on agenda and non-agenda items. Speakers must limit comments to three minutes per person to allow everyone to speak. Written comments are encouraged as well. The City Council has a discretion to extend or shorten the time limit on agenda and non-agenda items. At this time, the Zoom connection is active for public participation. Anyone wishing to address the City Council during public comment via Zoom should use the raise hand feature. Speakers will be recognized in order received. When called upon, please unmute your microphone, state your name for the record, and proceed with your comments.

We will now proceed with public comments on all agenda and non-agenda items. Please note that members of the public will still have an opportunity to comment on agenda items under consent and closed session later in the meeting, provided they do not comment on those items at this time. A speaker who comments on any consent calendar item will not be permitted to comment again on the consent calendar later in the meeting. Commander?

Good afternoon, Mayor and member of the City Council. Gary Steinberg, Newport Heights homeowner. The city has guidelines for formation of underground utility districts. It requires an interested property owner's submission of a letter to the Public Works Department with proposed boundaries. AD 118-2 does not appear to have been created through the process described in the city's own guidelines. The record shows requests for two different districts, AD 114 and AD 118. Public records produced have shown no request exists from any property owner asking the city to create the combined district now called AD 118-2. The city appears to have combined those areas itself in contradiction to its own guidelines. The next guideline step is for the city staff to prepare a boundary map. Prior to completion of the current boundary map, Mike Henn sent an email dated July 6, 2025, to Mike Sinecori at the city. The email states in part, I spent some time walking the old District 118 and took an aggressive approach to slimming down the district to minimize the probable no votes. See what you think and let me know. Thereafter, the new District 118 map removed approximately 100 plus properties that previously existed in the original 118 map 10 years ago. Why is this important? Once the properties were removed, the city was required to make a special benefit analysis and study as to the nature of the properties to be included in the current proposed map and the detriment that might exist for not including the 100 Homewood and Catalina properties previously included 10 years ago. I made a specific document request dated August 17th of this year for such studies and reports. Not a single document of this kind was produced. In the case of the town of Tiburon versus Bonander, boundaries are supposed to be driven by the location of the special benefits conferred in the improvements, not by the predictive voting patterns to aid proponents of the undergrounding. The city can't have it both ways. Where it was valid to include Homewood and Catalina properties 10 years ago, how can these properties now be excluded if no special benefit analysis was performed before the issuance of the petition and the city-approved map? The next guideline step in the assessment requires that the assessment engineer and or bond counsel prepare a petition. Nowhere in your guidelines does it state that the proponents of the petition shall draft the petition. What actually happened? The city provided Mike Henn and Andrea Bird with copies of the proposed petition and allowed them to make 72 modifications and changes to the petition, many of which were material modifications that could be considered beneficial to the proponents of the undergrounding effort. The failure of the city to follow the guidelines puts the entire subject of lack of neutrality at issue. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker please.

Mayor and members of the City Council, my name is Rick Weiss. Again, regarding undergrounding, I want to present disturbing new information found in response to a Freedom of Information request. This is no longer simply about undergrounding. The records show direct coordination between Assistant City Engineer Michael Sinecori and two leading undergrounding proponents, Michael Henn and Andrea Byrd, that raises serious questions about the city's claims of neutrality. On November 17, 2025, Sinecori prepared a petition package addressed to Henn and Annie Clarity. We have a city-provided document showing that Michael Henn and Andrea Bird were then permitted to edit their own acceptance letter, revise petition instructions, and even insert self-serving wording into the petition itself. This wasn't just proofreading. The edits included 72 revisions, many of which were crafted to minimize the significance of signing. They inserted Safer's recurrent themes that the petition was non-binding and merely affirms our desire, the same reassuring messages they used when trying to get signatures. Nowhere in Sinekori's petition was there any verbiage such as binding, non-binding, no financial obligation, or affirms our desire. But these words were inserted repeatedly, actually, redundantly by Henn and Byrd. Byrd also inserted that private costs could range from zero to question mark when specific amounts were never mentioned in Sinekori's petition. City of Korea accepted every one of these changes and issued the resulting petition package under city authority without disclosing hen or bird's role in drafting or revising them. This reassuring language never appears in prior neutral city petitions. Homeowners had every right to believe that they were reading standardized neutral language written by the city, not wording revised by advocates with a hidden agenda. Can signatures obtained by such a process be lawfully relied upon to advance district formation? These new facts together with other irregularities showing a troubling pattern. Promotional and fear-based materials were stapled over the official petition. There are completely false claims of fire safety risks. Altered photographs were presented as represented neighborhood conditions. Residents received safer mailings containing only the signature page without the two-page city petition explaining what they were being asked to sign. And even after all this, following almost seven months of trying, proponents still have not obtained the signatures required to advance the process, which is now burdened by serious questions about its creation, wording, and circulation. If there are no consequences for this behavior, how can we ever trust that a city petition was actually written and fairly managed by the city and not secretly shaped by advocates with an ulterior motive? If the city council allows this flawed and biased process to continue after these facts have been brought to its attention, despite having the authority to stop it, then the city council also becomes complicit in the process. We didn't elect Hannah Bird, and neither one is a city employee. What are they doing writing official city documents, especially with $30 million of our money and years of neighborhood disruption are involved? Stop this process now. Otherwise, look us in the eye and tell us that these are the standards by which you want to run this city.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My comment has nothing to do with underground utilities. My name is Nancy Lyons, and I'm a resident of Newport Beach. Thank you for the opportunity to briefly share with you the impact of Orange County United Way here in our Newport Beach community. Orange County United Way works to improve lives and strengthen our community by focusing on education, financial stability, health and housing. These are the building blocks of a good quality of life. Operated by Orange County United Way, 211 OC is the county's free 24-7 information and referral line. It's available by calling, by text, or by web. and it connects our Newport Beach residents to critical services including housing, food, utility help, healthcare access, and much more. With changes this year to Medi-Cal and CalFresh, many families have questions about eligibility or renewals. 2-1-1 remains a trusted resource to help residents navigate these changes and connect them to the right services quickly and confidently. Last year, 1,474 Newport Beach residents reached out to 2-1-1. These are hardworking families, seniors, and neighbors who may not know where to turn, but 2-1-1 helps connect them to what they need. We encourage everyone to help spread the word about 211. You can share a 211 resource card, and I meant to bring some of those today and I forgot, so I'll try to bring them this week and drop them off in your mailboxes. Sometimes a small card can be a life-changing difference by connecting someone to help at the right time. In addition, Orange County United Way recently completed another successful OC free tax prep season, helping families file for taxes in a free way and to claim valuable tax credits. This past season, the program brought back $29.2 million to the county, which served more than 15,000 residents. In Newport Beach alone, 78 households were served for an impact of more than $150,000. To learn more or to request 211 resource cards or get involved, please visit unitedwayoc.org. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

I AM HERE TO SPEAK ABOUT UNDERGROUNDING. GOOD AFTERNOON, COUNCIL MEMBERS. MY NAME IS VAL LYON. I'M A 64-YEAR RESIDENT OF NEWPORT BEACH WITH 44 OF THOSE YEARS RESIDING IN THE SAME LOCATION ON SAN BERNARDINO AVENUE IN NEWPORT HEIGHTS. I have significant concerns about the information being disseminated by proponents of an effort to create an assessment district to underground utilities. As you are aware, the estimated cost to each homeowner could exceed $70,000 for something many of us do not need or want. Specifically, earlier this summer, I was given a packet of information by the Safer Newport Heights proponents that included a full page color, digitally manipulated image that undergrounding proponents stapled on top of the actual city petition to try and get signatures from residents. This image has also been used as the cover image in their door-to-door campaign handouts and is still being used on their website. The image purports to illustrate a power pole and attendant lines on Redlands Avenue, literally around the corner from my home. When I looked at the image closer, something seemed amiss. Upon closer inspection, I noticed wires that simply aren't there in real life. and two chimneys on the home on Redlands that only has, in actuality, one. In fact, the home itself has been duplicated. The most bizarre depiction, though, is a power line stretching out like spaghetti towards the horizon, presumably connecting to the palm trees in Cliff Drive Park. A comparison of the proponent's image and real life can be accessed at www.nonundergrounding.com. The entire image is highly deceptive and the use of this type of misinformation in a purported democratic process is abhorrent. Other proponent photos removed actual palm trees, and showed AI-generated children with huge smiles, apparently unaware of the ditch they were about to ride their bikes into. The photos are clearly fake, but apparently by removing trees and adding fake children in some way makes the neighborhood image cleaner, safer, and storm-ready, as proponents caption in their image. This misinformation goes along with their made-up safety claims, trying to convince residents that our neighborhood is unsafe because it has a OC Public Works wildfire hazard rating of 0.03 on a 1 to 5 scale. That is 33 times lower than the lowest risk figure, so low that it really should have a new description like mega exceedingly low risk. In conclusion, I feel dissemination of misinformation as part of this democratic process is confusing residents and influencing their decision to sign the petition. Please stop the petition now. Thank you.

Good afternoon, mayor and city council members. My name is and I'm a resident of Newport Beach and Newport Heights. And I was here a couple of weeks ago and I spoke about not wanting the undergrounding in the neighborhood. I just have a few little additional points I wanted to make on that. That Newport Heights is not in a designated high fire hazard zone and it is not near the foothills. Wildfire risk does not apply as it might elsewhere. Further, undergrounding is not a zero risk swap. Underground lines do not eliminate outage risk entirely. Underground lines are more vulnerable to flooding, ground shifting and water intrusion. They are also not immune to damage from digging such as contractors hitting a line. On July 27 2021, the Central Balboa Island District was approved for undergrounding by the City Council. It's been roughly four to five years since approval with active digging trench work ongoing. And then what you have are repaving streets and alleys, which cause months and years of noise, torn up roads, and inconvenience for residents. The repairs take longer. When something goes wrong, crews have to dig up the streets, sidewalks, or yards instead of climbing a pole. And overhead lines are easy to inspect visually and fix quickly. Underground faults are harder to locate and access, so outages can take longer to resolve. so I'm not in favor of undergrounding. On a very another important topic, please protect Newport Beach's Civic Center Park. I am not in favor of building the new police station on the Civic Center Parkland for the following reasons. In 2026, the city report noted the plan could consume about 3.5 acres of parkland, including the sculpture garden, which is a big chunk of park many residents value as open space. Part of the site is tied to a 20 Oh seven ballot initiative that pledged the park would remain as open space. Thus it runs against what voters were explicitly promised. And also the city staff have said the city's civic center site is a complex site with habitat and species. And there is a lot of top topography issues and it's unclear whether a police station would actually fit. Please consider other locations, Santa Barbara Drive, Dove Street, private sites, and keep our beautiful Civic Center Park as open space for the current residents and for all the future residents to enjoy. And there will be more residents in Newport Beach, and we would want them to be able to enjoy this valuable open space. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

I'm Linda Adams. I've lived in Newport Heights 50 years. On February 18th, 2026, Mike Henn and Annie Clardy received a letter signed by Michael Sinecori, a district number 118-2 underground utility assessment package. Included was the actual petition, instructions for petition signatures, certification, all kinds, oh, and the map, and the map. The contents of the instructions in this package were essentially an expansion of a website on underground utilities assessment districts, a step-by-step guide that's on the city website. In neither of these documents was there any indication of a timeline for this petition. I'm simply talking about the petition. So I went to the Orange County Registrar of Voters, which is mandated to review petitions and thus such, thus and such. And on page 11 of this... special district initiative referendum handbook for your purposes of reference there is a us it says you need to secure signatures to and present the petition together with all sections pages to the district elections official for filing within 180 days from the date of the publication or posting or both of the notice of intention and statement of reasons if the petitions are not filed within the time permitted by this section the petition and its sections shall be void for all purposes and it cited the california election code section 9306 i went to the California election code 9306. And it says, signatures upon petitions and sections thereof shall be secured. And the petition, together with all sections thereof, shall be filed within 180 days from the date of the filing of the materials specified in section 9304, which is essentially the source material for these two prior documents. If the petitions are not filed within the time permitted by this section, the petition and its sections shall be void for all purposes. If we take the February 18th date for the letter to Mr. Han and Ms. Clarity it has been to this day 201 days and apparently knows that no petition has been filed Therefore, I think you can make a reasonable conclusion that this position this petition is Thank you Good afternoon, we're climbing and council members.

I

My name is Chaley Hilkema, and I'm speaking today as a mooring permit holder. More than 100 years ago, Newport Beach policymakers invited voting members of the public to create moorings in Newport Harbor. Mooring permits were eventually regulated, and they've been sold on the open market at least since the 1940s. Now the city of Newport Beach has decided to arbitrarily end the historical mooring permit transfer system. and its associated value while it continues to allow permit transfers of similarly situated Tidelands users. Its decision was made without stakeholder input and without a legal explanation that describes why mooring permit transfers are impermissible. We're awaiting evidence that other permit programs have been evaluated under the same legal standard. As manager of the Tidelands, the city is duty-bound to treat all harbor users equitably, but it hasn't been fair. For decades, residential peer permit holders and Yacht Club members have enjoyed the luxury of being the city's favored classes, a bias made obvious by city policies that burden mooring permit holders with much higher fees, stringent regulations, and focused policing. Essentially those with mooring permits and residential permits use the public tidelands for the same purpose, to store private boats when they're not in use. So why are mooring permit holders being singled out? The city has yet to justify why it intends to continue to allow the transfer of residential peer permits with their potential to earn more than a million dollars of private profit while it denies the transfer of mooring permits where holders simply hope to recoup some of what they paid for their permits and tackle maintenance. What legal distinction authorizes the city to treat like users so differently? In May of 2026, city manager Simone Jurgis claimed that the city manages Newport Harbor on behalf of the state of California and is responsible for ensuring public resources remain accessible to everyone. Can Mr. Jurgis explain how the public benefits from city policies that authorize residential peer permit holders exclusive private use rights of the public tidelands? How about the city's gift of charging them no fees to berth their boats on public tidelands and creating a private profit-making opportunity to rent dock space on public tidelands for personal gain that can amount to many thousands of dollars per year? Members of the public can't walk freely on private docks or berth their boats at private piers, so how is their access insured? In contrast, mooring permit holders don't have exclusive rights to their moorings. When they're empty, city sublets them to members of the public and keeps the use fees. though it's the permit holders who pay to maintain the mooring tackle. So essentially, mooring permit holders provide access for the boating public. So why is the city rocking only our boats? Why does it intend to enforce the so-called trust obligations selectively instead of equally?

Next speaker, please.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Richard Moriarty. I'm resident of owner 20462 Southwest Birch Street in Santa Ana Heights, formerly. I acquired the property in 2017. I'm still trying to attain a certificate of occupancy for a bill that I've been working on for close to 10 years continually. The Planning Commission has already resolved some encroachment issues that I had that the city was basically holding my certificate of occupancy hostage over, and that resolution was filed August 20th. The city is still, we're in active litigation right now with the city. I started with a good faith negotiation with Aaron Harp and Shimon Jurgis. in October two years ago, 2024, to find a non-litigious solution to our problem. Obviously, my encroachment issues have been solved, but they are still continuing to litigate. I'm trying to save the city money by stopping this unnecessary litigation. There are no health and safety reasons that I cannot occupy my property. It's simply being used as a weapon by the attorney's office to keep me from getting my occupation. I've had, we've retained Dennis Bogle, who was the inspector for the city of Newport Beach and formerly with the city of Laguna Beach for 16 years. As an expert witness, he says there's no reason I cannot have a certificate of occupancy or my gas turn on, which I applied for in 2018. Right now they're going after my water meter, which I put in in 2018 also. I applied for an ADU permit, which was erased from the city database, which is patently illegal. And I spent $50,000 on improvements, sewer, gas, water for that purpose. And they're blocking my applications for the ADU. They're blocking my applications for further inspections. And they're blocking my architect's ability to submit a final Delta 16 plan, which is an unheard of number of changes. By the way, my first house I built with no Deltas whatsoever. And we're probably 50 on this at the time. When the annexation happened, which is 1996, the condemnation, they condemned 15 feet of the street. And that was never used by the city. And by code, if it's not used in 30 years or intended use stated for it, it reverts back to the previous owner or lease opportunity to buy it at first refusal. So I'm asking that we basically speed up this process and try to make it as less litigious as it is right now, because I've spent close to $50,000 on this. At one point, I was directed to post a $50,000 bond to solve this. I posted the bond. The city didn't take it. They took it, gave it back to me, and they're still continuing active litigation to stop my CO. So I would like some help with this to resolve it. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Hi. Carol King from Irvine Terrace. my first question which I know will not get answered because that's not the council way to answer questions but I don't understand why we are still dealing with this ballot initiative why the four items are being kept off I've never understood why the council was opposed to it and now it's being said that it's because it's too late when the city in fact caused the delay so Either way, it's gonna cost us a bunch of money to get it to the voters. And also my second question besides why is how much, how much money are we spending on attorneys to fight the court? We've been turned down three times and we're still fighting the court. And I don't understand where the council thinks that money is coming from other than from the taxpayers' pockets. So I'm highly offended. And somehow we'll get an answer one of these days. I don't know when it will be. Meanwhile, back to my favorite issue of no police station in the park. On your staff report for item 14 on the agenda today, just the first one of the paragraphs says about Dove Street. I'm back on Dove Street. The property was originally purchased by the city as an option for possibly developing a future headquarters for the Newport Beach Police Department. That is in your staff report. We all know that's why it was purchased. I don't know why we're not considering it. I have not heard another why. Why are we not considering it? It still has not been brought up at any of the police advisory committees. I'm sure it will be eventually. But at my last talking time, I said, why don't we put the police station there temporarily while we rebuild at the Santa Barbara site? There is, according to this report, 27,000 square feet available for rent. that should take a big chunk of the police department's functions to be able to migrate over to there you can also build a jail there because Mr Maloney says we can't have a temporary jail build a jail at Dove Street start with that migrate the people over and eventually get to the point where the police can operate operate out of there temporarily and then build a beautiful state-of-the-art facility on Santa Barbara. This would save about five years time. And you keep saying you want the police to have the best, you support the police. So do I. I don't want them to have to wait five more years to get going on this. I don't know why we're spending money and time on the park site. So please consider that again. No police station in the park. I will continue to say that, and if I have to chain myself to a bunny rabbit, I might end up doing it. But please consider rebuilding on Santa Barbara. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Hello, everybody. I am now ePlanet Thunder Striker Rift Surfer. So let's start talking about a globally acceptable civics organization. Countries have the option for two slots. One is a government individual. One is a citizen's individual. You could have either, neither, or both. Every country determines their structure organically or their own country.

Sir, so you have to be on something within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council as I informed you when you came up and asked me about it.

Well, I just mentioned a global civics organization. Anybody in this room could start a Newport Beach chapter.

We'll keep it focused on Newport Beach then, sir.

Excuse me?

Keep it focused on Newport Beach. Thank you.

OK, well, I actually want to talk to you.

Could you direct your comments up here to the dais, please? Do you have any comments related to?

Well, I want to point out that I've been interrupted twice. I'm talking about a global civic organization that certainly anybody in Newport Beach could be involved in. Just civics in America is dangerously low. And I'm trying. This is the third time now this person's interrupted me when I've had something appropriate for this venue. What he doesn't want me talking about are the reasons that I'm in here, why I'm here trying to talk about that while at the same time I'm talking about I submit documents and they're not on record anymore. The times when I come and I speak here, they're not on record anymore and also been mis-summarized in the minutes. Three times this community has watched this person interrupt me when I'm trying about talking something appropriate. A global civics organization and you also still allow him to interrupt me? And clearly this community is not connecting the dots. I'm not here that crazy drifter out of town. I have serious things that you have all known about that you're suppressing. I have to thread this little needle through so that things like that don't happen And these people, they don't make a connection. A global civics organization is, of course, within the venue of this jurisdiction. So why am I being interrupted that nobody's caring about that when I say, why submitted this document? I said, these things, it's not on record. What's going on here? What about when I'm doing the same thing in Irvine twice? I have to go back a third time. You guys didn't do anything when I said and did things. You made a criminal infraction three times when I'm filing that notice. That's still not in the media. So there is some really serious disconnect with what civics are supposed to be in this community what these people believe. We were, did you guys remember, we were a society that didn't lock our doors until 65 years ago. And you all know very well that I'm dealing with the music industry problem, top tier, that's why I'm getting suppressed, why I'm getting thrown around, why these kind of things happen, why the chief knows and he doesn't do anything, criminal infractions, their problems are kindergartener crap compared to what I'm dealing with, and this person did this again! Next speaker, please.

Mayor Kleinman, members of the council, my name is Jim Moser. Two weeks ago I commented on the lack of any obvious effort on the part of the city of Newport Beach to publicize the opportunity that the public has to participate in these meetings commenting by Zoom. And I just want to observe two weeks later I don't see any progress on that front. I think we are still not publicizing it, even though the law says that the agencies are supposed to make a good faith effort to publicize and encourage more public participation. That is the reason for the Zoom opportunity. I also wanted to comment on this particular agenda announcement about the opportunity for public comment on agenda and non-agenda comments, and particularly this relatively new rule that we have that if during this interval a member of the public comments on any item that is on the consent calendar, that that bars them from commenting later on any other item on the consent calendar. My understanding that rules like that to restrict public access to the meeting have to be, number one, reasonable. And number two, they have to be adopted by the whole body, not just the rules thought up by the staff or the mayor. I do not think that is a reasonable rule, because I believe people are supposed to have an opportunity to comment on every item. And the consent calendar is not a single item. It has many different items. And second, I do not recall this body as a whole ever considering discussing or adopting that rule. And then second, I think this is confusing to the public and it's disassociating the comments on agenda items from the actual discussion of those items by the council later in the meeting. I think our meetings would run much more smoothly if this was just an opportunity for public comment on non-agenda items AND THAT THE AGENDA ITEMS BE ADDRESSED AND COMMENTED ON AS PART OF THE DISCUSSION OF THOSE ITEMS. SO I THINK NOT ONLY OUR ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT ZOOM OPPORTUNITIES, BUT I THINK THIS ANNOUNCEMENT ALSO COULD BE IMPROVED. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. NEXT SPEAKER, PLEASE.

GOOD AFTERNOON. IF IT'S AN IDEAL WORLD, I WOULD HAVE SOME SLIDES SUBMITTED UNDER MY NAME AND DAVE HOND. Perfect, thank you. The top of this is part of the granting statute, which I imagine you're all at least somewhat familiar with. And part of it is that the city may lease state trust lands that it's managing for any part thereof for a period not exceeding 50 years for purposes consistent with the trust. The blue text in the middle of the slide is quotes from the State Lands Commission indicating that recreational boating is a water-dependent use that is generally consistent with the common law public trust doctrine and that the California legislature has identified private recreational boating facilities as an authorized use of public trust lands. the bottom of the page is Portions of my mooring permit that I acquired less than three years ago. I got a Pretty rough condition boat and a mooring permit and all the mooring tackle for $30,000 paid about $1,200 as a transfer fee to the city and I I'm under threat, as you know, of losing my permit, even though it's public trust consistent and complies with the statutes and the law and is allowed to lease up to 50 years. I have looked at hundreds of recreational leases through the State Lands Commission, residential peers in Newport, they get 10 year increments at CPI up to 50. Mooring permit holders just want the same treatment virtually every other recreational user in the state gets. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. IN OCTOBER OF 2022, ON A HARBOR COMMISSION AGENDA, THERE WAS A MOORING BUYBACK PROPOSAL, A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR FOR 30 YEARS. THIS WOULD ALLOW THE CITY TO ACQUIRE THE MOORINGS IT CLEARLY DESPERATELY COVETS THROUGH FAIR AND EQUITABLE AGREEMENTS WITH THOSE GIVING THEM UP. LESS THAN TWO YEARS LATER, AS YOU KNOW, JULY 9, 2024, The city decided to steal the permits with the false promise of grandfathered rates that Mayor O'Neill, an attorney at the time, said it was unsecured unless something were in the charter. And I keep hearing, oh, you were offered grandfathered rates. There have been so many false promises made by power players in Newport. You can't expect that people believed that false promise. And here we are now. Every Tidelands user faces significant risk of vastly increased rates, ridiculous regulation. I've reached out to a number of you. I continue to do so. I think there may not be awareness even of how badly this can go. Now it's been kicked back down to the Harbor Commission, but it's time to start listening. I will relay facts. If you doubt me, challenge me, and I will prove things. Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Good evening, council members. I'm Joy Brenner, former city council member, and I have a concern about, I've never seen this in any of our documents, whether we have, as council members, a fiduciary responsibility to the city that we represent. But if not, we have a moral responsibility to the city and the citizens that we represent. and to be wasting money on lawsuits and fighting with the court you're essentially fighting with the citizens of newport beach in order to keep us from being able to vote that makes no sense whatsoever you can't get any people in the city to voluntarily say to you yes i think that's a good use of our tax dollars for you to fight us in court to keep us from being able to vote on issues that are so important to us. So I think for your future reputations, some of you may have plans to run for higher office. And if you do, do you really want it on your record that you have wasted taxpayer money in order to fight with the citizens so that they cannot vote on issues that are critically important to us? I know Joe's a wealth manager and He would not want the people that are his clients to say, you know, you waste money. You waste money when the court has said this is not appropriate and you're wasting our money. It's the same way with this. You're wasting our money. You're not wasting your money. You're not wasting city staff's money. You're wasting our money fighting us so that we can't vote on issues that are extremely important to us. Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Good evening, council. I would just like to second what Joy Brenner has just said. It's political suicide for the two of you that are running and have people running against you to be spending taxpayer dollars to fight us, the taxpayers. And all the people that have come up and spoken and been to all the events, Hundreds and hundreds of people have told you, no, we don't want a police station in the park. Do any of you listen? Do any of you respond? No. And then you have all the other issues of censoring next door and all of the other political suicide you're doing. I was at an event last night and actually got two people that supported our mayor that have changed their tune. So I'm just starting, and I think you guys should finish this.

Any other speakers? Madam Clerk, do we have anyone online?

Yes, correct. Samantha McDonough. Please unmute yourself.

Hi, yes. Can you hear me?

We can.

Great. I'm actually commenting on agenda items, so I will put that comment time.

You can proceed.

I can proceed on items on the consent calendar?

You can.

Okay. Awesome. So my name is Samantha McDonald. Again, I'm a liveaboard in Newport Beach. I'm speaking about the renewal of the Balboa Bay Club, item 13. You are being asked to renew a lease that for decades violates the existing statutes. I want to repeat that statement. You are being asked to renew a lease that for decades violates existing statutes. The State Lands Commission determined that the Balboa Bay Club is not public trust compliant. The tidelands were supposed to be given back to the public in public access decades ago. Yet here we are with a clear disparity in treatment. It's looking like the city thinks it's OK for people to live in the tidelands noncompliant if you pay abhorrent rent and millions in tax and tidelands funds. But it's not okay to live on Thai lands while you are compliant if you are the lower income populations just trying to maintain affordable recreational access and employment opportunities on the coast and in the city. The city is going to have a very hard time defending that discrepancy. And I asked this council to think really carefully about how they are picking and choosing who gets Tidelands access and who doesn't, because this feels like textbook examples for the record of discriminatory behavior for the wealthiest of the city. And so I asked that this council really take that into consideration. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else online?

Linda Peterson. Linda? Please unmute yourself on your end, Linda, please.

Can we unmute her on her end? Anyone else? Okay. That was the last speaker? OK. We'll now move on. This is the time for council announcements, oral reports from council members on committee activities, and for council members to request an item be placed on a future agenda. Council Member Wiegand, do you have any announcements or reports?

Just two. I do want to thank Zach Gentry and his municipal operations department this weekend. Huge tide surge, huge swell, and they were out there the week before, lifting up a lot of sand and protecting and barricading out the waves that were soon to come. If it weren't for you guys, that whole entire Main Street parking lot down by Balboa Pier would have flooded, and we would have had a repeat of what we did in 2020, I think. and so you guys were out there a lot up and down the coast keeping an eye on stuff and you saw a lot of news coverage of other cities that didn't fare as well but the fact you guys were out there in advance i think was really big for our community and protected a lot of assets so thank you guys for that hard work and then the lifeguards too i mean there's every day this weekend it was red flag i haven't seen that in quite some time even more blackies where it's usually even when the waves are big elsewhere. It was massive. There was a lot of water moving, and our lifeguards did a really good job this week saving folks, and I don't think there was really any negative story to report back that every person was accounted for. All rescues were made, and this was a tremendous season, so Chief Boyles, if you can hand that down to our entire team, What they did this year was pretty remarkable. And there's still, obviously, some warm days to come. But just today, I was driving down there, and there's a lot of empty lifeguard towers. So a lot of our guys are back at school. We got guys in high school, 16 years old, that are lifeguards saving people's lives. So it's pretty cool. And then a lot of our guys are back out at college and doing other things. bigger things to come in life. I think it's a tremendous thing that we recruit so young and we've got these guys that are out in the community and doing a lot of fun stuff.

So special tribute to those guys.

And then I do want to mention on Thursday, Battle of the Bay, Newport Harbor's going to win this year. Sorry, Sarah. Sorry, Mayor. I know you've got your son playing in the football program this year, but we took a drubbing last year, and I think we get a good opportunity to come back. We have a brand new principal at Newport Harbor High School, so he gets a chance to be a 1-0, and I look forward to taking CDM down this year.

Will he be on the field? That's the only thing that's going to help.

Yeah, I'll be on the field, too.

Council Member Bartow.

I'm excited to go to that too on Thursday. But I did want to say thanks again to our public works and to our police, to our fire, to our lifeguards. I was down there this weekend and what a technically challenging weekend you guys all had. Everything felt very safe and watching the sand kind of wash away was a little heartbreaking. We just had our water quality tides committee meeting and talking about sand. On the one hand, I guess it's good that we didn't go spend $30 million to replace that sand that would then wash away, but hopefully we can figure out some ways to bring our beaches back. I wanted to congratulate our Water Quality and Tidelands Committee member, Sharon Ray, and give a big thanks to staff. Sharon, through working really hard for the past year on our committee, has come up with a $1.8 million grant, which will later be coming to council for review and hopefully approval to do some, again, some restoration on North Star Beach and things like that, completely almost without cost to the city. City at all. So it's her hard work and I wanted to give her a shout out but also just give a shout out to our whole committee who has Big goals for the city and I it's it's fun to watch them work hard

Councilmember Grant. Thank you. I'll echo those compliments to our Public Safety, MOD, Public Works. Obviously we had an incredible weekend and past couple weeks and it's worked out very well for us. So thank you so much. I also want to compliment the Newport Fire Foundation They featured a Vietnam veteran, Captain Charlie Plum at Woody Hall. He was able to share his remarkable story surviving as a Navy fighter pilot who endured over 2,000 days as a prisoner of war. It was really an honor to have him here at Woody Hall. He had some really good takeaways, including always pack a parachute, which is meaningful, especially for him, since he needed it. Serve without asking for anything in return. And adversity is a terrible thing to waste. So thank you to the foundation and to Charlie Plum for providing that important messaging for us. I wanted to mention on September 12th, the Friends of Newport Beach Animal Shelter, FOMBUS, is sponsoring a free dog, cat, or pet adoption at the Newport Beach Animal Shelter. You can go to the website, newportbeachca.gov, Backslash animal shelter to see the available animals and to learn more about the process but most importantly Bombas is hosting that event as a free event for our community to make sure that we provide new forever homes for our lost or displaced animals Another event coming up on September 10th and 11th at called the Lido legacy live is going to bring two evenings of music and community together and support of two other wonderful organizations in our community, Friends of Oasis Senior Center and the Newport Beach Junior Lifeguards. The concerts are gonna feature a local resident, Bill Medley, who's very famous in the music world. And it's an opportunity to support the two organizations that make such a meaningful difference in Newport Beach. And then finally, I was proud and excited to attend the opening of Levain Bakery in Newport Center in Fashion Island. And I mention that only because it was an important opportunity for them to give back to our community, as we did today, honoring Second Harvest Food Bank. All the proceeds from the grand opening went to Second Harvest Food Bank. So thank you to Levain Bakery for doing that for our community.

How are the cookies? Amazing. Best cookies in the world. Council Member Weber?

None.

Council Member Stapleton?

Yeah, I would just echo, as a District 1 resident, the waves were incredibly strong, and to our public safety, to our fire, lifeguard, our police, we had a lot of outside agencies making sure that District 1 was protected during Labor Day, and all was clean, safe, well-enjoyed, like a harbor master would say. And then to all of our staff resources, mod, public works, utilities, you guys did a yeoman's effort with your entire team out there. I saw crews all day, every day, at night, early in the morning, working 24-7. So thank you for keeping our residents safe and our beaches. uh protected um and i just want to congratulate the fire and lifeguards of the year so uh congrats to the newport beach fire foundation they hosted the uh annual fire and lifeguard appreciation uh event it seems like a year ago it was like last week i think uh but that was incredible even our mayor got up and sang so that was a probably one of the highlights of the night that was fun uh and again i'm hosting a town hall for a district one on september 14th next monday Six o'clock at Marina Park to talk about all things 4th of July what we did what we're gonna do going forward So look forward to that.

Thank you Mayor pretend blown no comments other than the video clip that I provided for the karaoke. Oh We don't have it currently so nothing to add Hey, I'm just a girl

Okay. Madam Clerk, would you please read the notice regarding public comments on consent calendar?

This is a time in which council members may pull items from the consent calendar item for discussions, items one through 16. Public comments also invited on consent calendar items. Speakers must limit comments to three minutes. Before speaking, please state your name for the record. If any item is removed from the consent calendar by a council member, members of the public are invited to speak on each item for up to three minutes per item. all matters listed on the consent calendar considered to be routine and will be all enacted by one motion in the form listed below council members have received detailed staff reports on each of the items recommending an action there will be no separate discussion of these items prior to the time the city council votes on the motion unless members of the city council request specific items to be discussed and or removed from the consent calendar for separate action

Councilmember Wiegand, do you have any items to pull from the consent calendar or conflicts to announce related to items number 1 through 16?

No, I do not.

Councilmember Bartow?

I have a conflict related to item 13 related to my membership at the Balboa Bay Club. Councilmember Grant?

None. Councilmember Weber?

None.

Councilmember Stapleton?

Just conflict on item number 8 due to real property interest at 4,141 MacArthur.

Mayor Pro Temblom.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going to pull items two and seven, please.

OK. And I have no items to pull nor conflicts to announce. Is there anyone from the public that wishes to speak on the consent calendar, items number one through 16, except for numbers two and seven, which have been pulled by Mayor Pro Temblom?

I have Adam Leverance. I just handed the city attorney three submittals, one for each of you, one for the city manager, one for the city attorney from a group called Transparent Newport related to item 13. I also wish to speak to item 13. As I mentioned earlier, the granting statute allows leases of public title lands for up to 50 years for uses that are consistent with the public trust doctrine. State lands has defined that the Balboa Bay Club lease is a non-conforming use inconsistent with the public trust doctrine. Those are the state's own words. The nonconforming and inconsistent use has been at this location since like 1948. It was supposed to be terminated in 1998 and again by December 31st of 2024. The lease you're being asked to accept will have the lease run until 2076, which is about 128 years total. And they assure you that they will reach out to the legislature and try and have the law change so that they're not violating the current statute. And again, statute allows leases of 50 years for uses consistent with the public trust, which this is not. And I can't imagine that the legislative intent was that non-consistent, non-compliant uses get the same benefit as trust consistent uses. And I ask that you think about that. i am an advocate for housing as you all know i i this is a part of this property is apartments i don't want anyone to lose their homeowner over this but the fact that millions of dollars are being made by a a group of individuals and lots of money going into the Tidelands Fund is that justification for mayor and council to violate existing statute by granting a lease that runs much longer than the sunset date the legislature set. I've suggested that this would be an opportunity to talk about affordable housing or coastal access. There's a hotel there. In August, room rates were as high as $809 a night. They're frequently over $700 a night, $400 a night. The Coastal Commission has provisions for calculating percentage of a number of rooms to meet affordable access requirements, offsets, although they also say that on public state tidelands, those offsets don't apply. And I would think given the money that stands to be made here over half a century, this might be an opportunity for mayor and council to try and negotiate with somebody. Clearly they want a lease, and rather than just catering to the whims of developers, like stand up and try and do something and change something. And I thank you for your time.

Next speaker.

Mayor Kleinman, members of the council, my name again is Jim Mosher. Consent calendar item 12 is a yet another agreement with a private communications company for community outreach services. If I recall the staff report, this is to support the ongoing effort to respond to the state lands commission critique of our management of the harbor. and I don't know if this will solve it or not. I think there certainly is a communication problem because my understanding is the council appointed two council members to prepare the response, yet tomorrow night the Harbor Commission thinks that they are the ones who are supposed to be preparing the response. and we'll be dealing with that. So I think there's great confusion about what we are doing and when we're doing it and who is doing it to respond to that report. And then I would just echo the comments of the other speakers about the Balboa Bay Club lease extension. This is nominally a 50-year maximum lease, and yet through these repeated extensions that have been going on for years and years and years, the end date of the lease for use of public property never comes. It gets moved further and further and further off into the future. And I also have a concern, the council, the state lands commission, have a concern about collecting fair market rent or value for our uses of the public property. And that also seems to get pushed off and off and off. It's promised after 19 years into the lease, but the 19 years keeps getting moved. And it's not clear to me it's actually happened in the last 40 years or more. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other speakers? Madam Clerk, do we have anyone online? OK. Seeing no comments up here either, do I have a motion?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd love to push the motion forward with adjustments to the minutes, noting a recusal on item 13 from Councilmember Bartow and a recusal on item 8 from Councilmember Stapleton.

Do I have a second? Seconded by Council Member Stapleton. Let's go ahead and vote.

Motion carried by unanimous vote.

City Clerk will now read the ordinances that have been adopted.

Ordinance number 2026 dash 14, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Newport Beach, California, amending chapter 5.95 short-term lodging permit of the Newport Beach Municipal Code.

Okay, we'll now move to consideration of items that have been removed from the consent calendar. Mayor Potemblom, are you wanting to take items two and seven separately or together?

I'm going to talk about item two first briefly. I'm not going to need a staff report. Thank you. And I have a couple of comments to make on it. Mainly, thanks. I recognize that the 4th of July this year was difficult, not necessarily for all of us that were on the peninsula, but some of us that saw it had emotional responses to it. This is the subsequent knee-jerk reaction. But I really appreciate that this council came together in a study session, talked about it, gave very clear parameters, and this is the revelation of those parameters we brought forth our public safety from both police and fire public works to figure out how to move people around from both the city manager's office and the city attorney's office and the mayor herself reaching out and talking to numerous amounts of people And so, when you look at something like this ordinance, it is intense. And that was, as I read through it, the feeling that came about.

Intense.

There are a lot of things in here that are going to prohibit a lot of things. In my typical way, I don't actually care for prohibiting a lot of things. I think that we should embolden people to be free. But after seeing kind of what happened out there and seeing who was manifesting the problems, I'm so thankful that not only as a community, we addressed it. As a community and a council, we listened. We started it with a study session, which is what we should always do. We brought the people in. We had a great ability to talk to them, see what their concerns were. And then we put the experts in place. When it came to law enforcement, we put them in place. They told us what they thought they needed. We came to public works, came to our attorneys, came to the committees that we don't get control of, Coastal Commission and others. The mayor jumped in. And all of these I think it shows an amazing amount of work and fortitude that got us to a point where in a very short amount of time from July 4th to today, we have new ordinances on our books, new responsibility to how we address something nine months from now. That is probably some of the more efficient government I can imagine in my life. I would like to say that I had literally nothing to do with it other than sitting here and chatting briefly for a study session. So not a lot to do with me, but I am very thankful for what we were able to push forth and has my absolute full support. I didn't pull it for anything other than that to thank everyone involved for putting so much time and diligence to make this happen. Thank you.

Councilmember grant. Thank you. I will echo the compliments to our police department and to chief minor. I think the recommendation that we have on the agenda tonight Can provide significant benefits that protect our public safety, especially during the peak holidays, but just in general and I'm really I you know highly complimentary of all the work that's gone into that and this is an important you know a bit of advice from our public top top public safety officials so obviously we take it with um you know the highest regard i do propose that Rather than rushing through adopting measures, these measures will not go into place until actually probably eight or more months out. I think that they're an important first step and not at all adverse to any of them, but I think we can complement the proposal that we have tonight with a complete strategy. This is not the only thing that we need to do. There's other things that we need to be looking at. That doesn't mean that the proposal that we have tonight isn't sufficient in its own capsule regard, but that we do need a complete strategy as we had last year and the year before, and that is the legacy of our community to be very complete in the work that we do. I had anticipated that that work would occur through a public safety ad hoc committee, and I'm still hopeful that that'll happen. We're obviously gonna discuss that tonight, but we also have another opportunity in just a week or so. I think Council Member Stapleton mentioned that he's gonna be having a safety ad hoc community meeting. That's an opportunity for us to gather more information Obviously, we defer to our public safety professionals to give us the best advice, but in this instance, we don't have an immediate need tonight. I would suggest that we defer this vote to the next meeting so that we can at least take into account what occurs at what is considered by the community a very important town hall that's gonna occur. um it'll allow the community to hear directly from chief minor which is always appreciated and other public safety professionals presumably i don't know exactly what council member stapleton has in mind but um it'll allow our community here directly from the police chief in another op you know another opportunity that we had at the study session and could presumably have tonight um so again a brief deferral of the proposal would just at least confirming the curfew is not a standalone measure. That's not what we're looking for. It's just a standalone measure. We want a comprehensive public safety approach, which is what we're, you know, used to in this city. And I think that that would be an effective strategy for dealing with concerns that we have that aren't going to be implemented for at least, you know, a number of months. Thank you.

Seeing no other speakers up here, we'll go out to public comment on item number two.

Adam Leverance, I agree with Council Member Grant's idea of holding off on this. And the couple of concerns I have, the last time we addressed something like this, it was noticed as controls during high-risk periods, and I'm talking about like shade structures and whatnot. It turned out to be a year-round enforcement. There's been a drastic increase in the number of administrative citations being issued by the city. You've recently contracted with two law firms to prosecute those through the city's finance department. Rather than do all that, I'd rather, I think it'd be wiser to work with this and get it more refined than it is now. And my primary concern is during these high risk periods, you're proposing a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for minors. I mean, do you remember being a kid? Did you go inside in the summer when the sun was still out at six o'clock? And I would suggest that to accomplish a similar goal, perhaps half hour after sunset till half hour before sunrise, Because as you know, the days get longer and longer. And just trying to, making children being outside at the beach in the summer unlawful well before the sun sets just seems like a really bad idea. And I think part of the problems of July 4 this year were prompted when you tell adolescents to do something it doesn't always mean that they'll do what you suggest and and this just seems like a really bad idea in regards to that i mean there are exceptions for minors traveling by the most direct route possible to wherever they're going but this offers all kinds of uh you know interpretation and officers and whatnot which i trust But just consider the 6 p.m. thing. Forcing kids inside at 6 p.m. in the summer just seems, I think it would be horrible. I would have hated that when I was a kid. Thank you.

Any other speakers?

Jim Mosier. It's always disturbing to see a ordinance, especially a major ordinance, proposed for introduction without any discussion at all on the consent calendar. So I'm very grateful that the Mayor Pro Tem did pull this, if his reason was not discussion, but just to say thanks. And I would point out that in the absence of a staff report, I do not think anybody watching at home or even anybody here in this room, especially since we don't see the materials, they're not handed out for us to review, has any idea what this major intense ordinance that you are about to introduce involves. As Mr. Leverance pointed out, one component of it is a 6 p.m. curfew on people under the age of 18 in West Newport and, as I understand it, the ocean-facing side of the entire rest of the peninsula down beyond Balboa Village on every Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. They can be arrested if they're out unaccompanied after 6 p.m. Yesterday was one of those days. I was not there. I did not know. Did our police officers feel a need to arrest people under the age of 18 who were unaccompanied by an adult after 6 p.m.? Is this a law that we intend to enforce each of those days, every day, every year? or only years when we anticipate a problem. If it's only when we anticipate a problem, shouldn't that be somewhere in the law explaining that it's not every holiday, but only certain times when a need for it is proclaimed? I don't know, so I think Councilmember Grant's idea to put this off so it can be more thoroughly discussed and so that the public can understand what this is at the town hall next week, which as I understand it is open to the entire public, not just District 1. I think that's a very wise idea. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. First time I've done this. Andrew Gerken. Just want to echo a little bit what Jim said, that there needs to be more discussion before this goes to a final anything. But there's two parties as to what you guys think and what the public thinks. But I also think that we have to look into what somebody outside of our community thinks. There might be experts in this country that might give us another perspective on this other than us solving it internally alone.

Madam Clerk, is there anyone online? No raised hands online. Council Member Stapleton?

Yeah, I don't know. Police Chief, would you be able to offer any color to this or anything that you'd want to add to this idea of a curfew? And correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't mandatory on Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July. This is a tool that our city manager and police chief would have available, correct? Correct.

No, so we did make it mandatory on the Fourth of July Memorial Day and Labor Day from 6 p.m. On but I do think it's important to note that there's about 12 or 13 exceptions Where you would be a minor be allowed to be out one of those is if you're with your parent or guardian I think a lot of the problems I've stemmed in recent years are from youth that are not Accompanied by their parents or guardians which was resulted significant arrest on each of the holidays, but I'll let the police chief speak to that Okay

Thank You madam mayor City Council It's quite limited in scope. So it's just on those specific holidays in the West safety enhancement zone period So on those three days in that designated area and Like the city attorney said there's there's quite a few exceptions you know as listed in the staff report so if they're accompanied by an adult, uh, or parent or guardian, if there's an emergency that they're responding to, uh, and on and on and on. So it's just one more tool for us to maintain public safety as we've seen, uh, you know, between that time, right before sunset, large groups of juveniles gathering and disobeying, uh, our laws and municipal codes.

I mean, it looks like if I'm reading the code, the staff report, we had 439 arrests. 97% of those on the 4th of July were from out of town. And approximately 20% of those were juveniles from the ages 13 to 17. Correct. So this would be a tool that would be useful for you to make, you know, to utilize on a holiday week. Correct. I like that. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Council Member Weigand.

Yeah, I'm supportive of this. You know, just looking at these items that set up that the following should not apply on subsections A and B with the curfew. You know, there's 10 bullets here. You know, I started running through my head what might be something that would be prohibitive of somebody that's a minor not being able to get to do. But I think all of these items I can read and see that there is a workaround. And the one thing I've learned about in criminal justice is police officers have a discretion. And if they see something that kind of fits in this realm like, okay, sporting events, if an officer sees a guy at the surfboard heading out, you know, to go on one of these days, he's going to make a pretty good assumption that he's, you know, contributing. It's not quite a sporting event, but it's that he's going to go out in the water. So I think that there's plenty of work around here that will help if there is some type of problem related to a minor. So I'm willing to, I'll make a motion that we move forward with this item. And I don't see any issue. I think if there is one that presents itself, we'll be able to respond to it in the following years. But I think this is a great tool as police and our city attorney has highlighted that this gives us an additional piece of armor on these holidays.

We have a motion. Do I have a second? Are there other comments up here?

Thank you. One quickly and very brief comment. As I read it, it talks about when large crowds and unsupervised gatherings create heightened risks. And I feel like that has been the conversation. We can prepare. We can plan. We can have ancillary officers from other cities be ready to come down here. But the question is when the risk gets beyond something that we can easily handle. And so we listened. We had to sit here and listen. And this was the response. We needed something that was comprehensive and amazing. So I couldn't be more thankful. And I'd be happy to second Councilmember Wiegand's approval of staff recommendation.

We have a motion and a second. Council Member Grant, you have additional comments?

Just one quick clarification. You know, I think I was clear that I am supportive of this. I think that it's important for us to maintain, you know, the public safety at these important times. I am hopeful, you know, I am going to support this initiative tonight, but I am hopeful that as we move forward that we will have an opportunity to bring together a group COUNCILMEMBERS OR OTHERS TO GO THROUGH ALL OF THESE MEASURES THAT WE ARE ENTERTAINING SO THAT WE DO HAVE A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH.

LET'S GO AHEAD AND VOTE.

MOTION CARRIED BY UNANIMOUS VOTE, 7-0.

DO YOU NEED TO READ THE ORDINANCE? NO. OKAY. WE'LL MOVE TO ITEM NUMBER 7, ALSO PULLED BY MAYOR POTAM BLOM.

Thank you. And I also do not require staff report. And this trails directly off of what we were just speaking to. I am a very firm believer that the experts are the best decision makers. And I think we were very blessed to have not only our very competent and amazing police force, all of our public safety officers involved, our city attorney's office, the mayor herself calling out to other agencies throughout our city manager's office, Public Works, everyone who came to make 4th of July turn into a very wonderful 5th of July as I was on the peninsula at that time. The idea that we're going to be beating a dead horse into another public committee where we're going to rehash the same ideas without anybody that is a professional in any of these things is insane to me, and so I will be voting no on this item. Thank you.

Council Member Grant.

I'll just again restate that I do believe that it's important for us to create a committee to work in partnership with our public safety professionals to accomplish emergency preparedness policies and resources. The purpose of the ad hoc is to support public safety as they coordinate these evidence-based recommendations and protect our community. Thank you.

We'll go out for public comment. Again, this is on agenda item number seven. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, do we have anyone online? I will bring it back up here for a motion.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would love to push a motion for denial of this ad hoc.

Do I have a second? Seconded by Councilmember Weber, the motion is for denial of this item. So that's against staff recommendation to create the committee. Let's go ahead and vote.

Motion passes by four to three votes.

Madam Clerk, please read the statement on motions for reconsideration.

A motion to reconsider the vote on any action taken by the city council at either this meeting or the previous meeting may be made only by one of the council members who voted with the prevailing side.

Are there any motions for reconsideration? OK, HEARING NONE, WE'LL NOW MOVE ON TO PUBLIC COMMENTS ON CLOSED SESSION ITEMS. MR. HARP, OR EXCUSE ME, WE'LL FIRST GO TO COMMENTS IN THE AUDIENCE.

Good evening. My name is Susan Skinner, and I'm here to speak to the fact that this city council is seeking to block three citizen-obtained initiatives from meeting the ballot. I love how Noah's rolling his eyes. But the law allows citizens to collect enough signatures to force an initiative onto the ballot. So even if the city council doesn't want to have this particular topic on a ballot, Citizens are allowed to do so. So this was done. There are three citizen initiatives that have, as of yet, not been placed on a ballot. And I'd like to discuss the process in which the city has addressed this. So the first thing is that these initiatives were submitted to the city attorney. There is a requirement that there be a written description of it. And there is a legal time frame in which this must be done. Our city attorney didn't do that. it required legal action from the proponent to force that through the city attorney these these signatures were gathered primarily by paid petitioners that's completely legal to do and when they were submitted to the city clerk there is a legal requirement that these signatures get submitted to the county for verification. That didn't happen. It required legal action for the city clerk to submit those signatures to the county. So interestingly enough, Mr. Stapleton and Mr. Weigand at a recent candidate forum said, well, it's because they didn't follow the rules. But I'm going to just tell you that the judge in this case gives a lie to that statement because she said that this city has been obstructing these ballot initiatives. And she required it to go on the ballot for the November 2028 ballot. Unfortunately, because of the delays from this city, this has not happened. And now there's going to have to be a special election at a cost of probably $1.5 million of our taxpayers' dollars. So I'm just going to say that this city council is acting in a way that is completely contrary to democracy by blocking this at every level. It is unethical what was done. And I'm furious about it. I'm disgusted by the members of this city council that chose to block this. This is excluding Robin and Michelle. We will have the opportunity to vote on this because the court is going to require it again. at great cost, and it is my sincere hope that all three of these initiatives pass despite the obstructionism of the Newport Beach City Council. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Speaker.

Mayor Kleinman, members of the council, Jim Mosier, As you just heard on the closed session, there is an item about the effort of the city to block three new initiatives. There also is a second item on the closed session which has to do with the city's effort to pull back a initiative which had previously, the council here, previously put on the ballot. As you heard there is considerable public interest in how much money is being spent on this and I would think in which council members are directing that expenditure of money because under our charter it is the city council not the staff that directs the legal affairs of Newport Beach. And so at the last meeting, when these same two items were on the closed session two weeks ago, I did ask if the announcement had been made, because I did not know who had been on the council backing these appeals. And the city attorney corrected me, and he was correct. The announcement had been made at the August 18th meeting that you unanimously supported an appeal on these two issues. Should it be necessary? It's not clear to me that that is forever your decision. So when you meet tonight, if you revisit that question of whether we should continue spending money on this and you take a vote on that, I trust that the vote will be announced. So I will be staying to hear that. I would further comment, I think there is a little element of hypocrisy in what is going on. This closed session is to deal with legal issues, but it has become clear from the council candidate forums and from the city managers communications that the concern and the wish to block these is not actually about the legal issues, or at least has not been, but it is the council objects to who is funding the preparation and circulation of these. Apparently you don't want somebody to have the power to do that, but what counts is that your constituents did sign the petitions, they showed an interest in wanting to vote on that, and I think you should honor that. And the other thing that does not seem to be a legal issue to me, although of course it is legally connected, is that the city is currently under an order from the court to hold an election on November 3rd on the three initiatives that have not yet been put on a ballot and that is something that I think we have in our nation we still have to comply with court orders our city has to do that's a conversation with the city clerk who is our election official not with the city attorney and I am not knowing when that's gonna happen. Time is running out. We need to hear how that election is gonna happen. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Any other comments from the audience? Anyone online, Madam Clerk? Okay, Mr. Hart, please announce our closed session items.

Thank you, Mayor. The City Council adjourned a closed session to meet with legal counsel regarding two matters. The first is City of Newport Beach versus Newport Beach Stewardship Association. And the second one is City of Newport Beach versus Robert Page. And those are both on the agenda under 517 A and B.

And with that, we are now recessed to closed session. Mr. Harp, is there a closed session report?

Thank you, Mayor. There's no closed session report this evening.

And with that, we are adjourned.