City Council - Special Meeting

It's just not water.

good morning the time is now 10 a.m and i will call the september 11 special city council meeting to order madam clerk roll call please all council members present thank you council member bartel will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance place your right hand over your heart ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it I think we'll also just take a brief moment of silence in remembrance of all those fallen on September 11. Thank you. 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 the agenda and non-agenda items. Speakers must limit comments to three minutes per person to allow everyone to speak. Reading comments are encouraged as well. The City Council has the 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 option. Speakers will be recognized in the order received. When called upon, please unmute your microphone, state your name for the record, and proceed with your comments.

We'll 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 current business later in the meeting provided they do not comment on those items at this time.

Good morning. We gather on the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. I was working a few blocks from the White House that morning. My colleagues and I stood at the ninth floor window and watched the smoke rising from the wreckage of the Pentagon. As the mayor just said, we should remember those who died that morning. We should remember today that we are Americans, first and foremost. One of my subjects, William Henry Seward, put this well right after the November 1960 presidential, sorry, 1860 presidential election. Seward was a Republican. He was speaking to a group of ardent young Republicans. They were no doubt expecting a red meat Republican speech. He surprised them and reminded them that their duty in this moment was magnanimity to those in other political parties. He said, quote, we are not, never can be, never must be enemies or even adversaries. We are all fellow citizens, Americans, brethren. We're not quite through this current election, but today is a good day to remember Seward's words.

Next speaker, please.

Mayor Kleiman and members of the council, my name is Jim Mosier. To change the tone slightly, I do have some non-agenda comments. And be clear, these are non-agenda comments. If I inadvertently say anything that seems to relate to agenda item one, this is not my comment on that item. I think this is an important meeting you're holding today. I myself learned about it from an email I received from an acquaintance late yesterday. Even though on the city's website I believe I'm signed up for all city communications. There is a big menu and includes to be notified about council agendas. I did not get any notice of this. And when I look back although I did get notices of some agendas for some meetings I actually have not gotten a notice of a council meeting for more than a year. I do routinely get notices from the city of Costa Mesa for all of their regular and special meetings because I signed up there some years ago. I also regularly get notices of all regular and special meetings from the Costa Mesa Sanitary District, which provides sewer service to the area I live in. In those things I'm subscribed to, I'm also supposed to get something called the on the agenda notifications from the city manager that summarize what happens at the meeting. I've pointed out in the past that I look at those on my own. I do get from the city hall message on Friday. I don't get the on the agenda. When I have looked at those, it not only does not say that you can comment here by Zoom, but the current edition of it is stuck on the August 25th meeting. And you may recall that was another meeting where you were putting items on a ballot. You chose the November 28 ballot. There is nothing, not a word, in the on-the-agenda message from the city manager that you are considering anything about that at the August 25th meeting. Some of you have said that this is the greatest city in the world, and the mayor has said communication is a great priority for us. I think we could do better. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good morning. Lynn Swain. If I look exhausted, it's because I am. We had a fundraiser last night where more than 80 Newport Beach residents were in attendance. And I have to tell you, they were outraged when they heard you are once again spending our tax dollars fighting the very taxpayers you were elected to represent. Nearly 30,000 Newport Beach residents signed petitions asking to put these measures before the voters. 30,000. Let us vote. Yet instead of respecting that message, the city council has chosen to spend what could ultimately amount to millions of taxpayer dollars on lawyers and appeals in an effort to prevent Newport Beach residents from voting. They all asked us last night, what are they afraid of? Why are they using our tax dollars to fight over our right to vote? Didn't a judge rule that these measures belong on the ballot? And rather than listening to the court and listening to your residents, you continue the legal battle with our money. Do you respect the people you represent? If you feel so strongly, they said, that continuing this litigation is the right thing to do, then perhaps you should be willing to personally pay the legal bills. because the taxpayer shouldn't have to finance a legal campaign designed to stop the same taxpayers from having their voices heard on the ballot box. The people I spoke with last night were Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, and what I heard was not partisan. It was frustration, it was disbelief, and it was anger. And I think you may have been witnessing some of that at the candidates' forums. Residents are paying attention. They are paying attention to who is voting to continue spending. And most importantly, they will be voting in November. 30,000 residents have already spoken. Let them vote. Thank you.

Are there any other speakers?

Good morning. I'm Andrew Gerken. First, I want to agree with Jim and start off with it's kind of interesting that one of the reasons that you are fighting these initiatives or you didn't think it was the message was sent out properly to the public. But you guys don't have a good track record to the message because we had 30,000 votes signatures for those ballots. I don't look at this audience here. There's hardly anybody here. So you guys have no business talking about properly announcing things that are gonna happen, look at this. As I did my medical training, a very common theme as we went through training was always when you would be challenged with a case or something hard was just do the right thing, particularly if it was a difficult case. But then if it was an easy case, you really didn't even have to elicit the, you know, bring up the phrase do the right thing. This was also an easy case. It's just called democracy. It's just do the right thing. And you have not been doing the right thing. I would not see you as my doctors because you don't seem to do the right thing.

Madam Clerk, is there anyone online?

I WAS PREPARED TO TALK TODAY ABOUT A DIFFERENT ISSUE, BUT I FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS WHEN EVERYONE ELSE DID LAST EVENING. AND I HAVE ONLY BEEN A COUNCIL OBSERVER FOR ABOUT 15 YEARS. I'VE LIVED IN THE AREA FOR 50, BUT I WAS WORKING AND I RETIRED ABOUT 20 YEARS AGO, LESS THAN 20 YEARS. AND FROM THE MOMENT I BEGAN attending council meetings, I would get so discouraged that the council so often voted as a block. And I thought, I just, I don't understand that. I think that one of the best things about America is that we have individuals who have rights, who should be voting their conscience And I feel like the councils that we've had, with a few exceptions, have been voting as groups. And I know in this particular council, I would like to say I know there is one person who does, and I appreciate that, who does speak as an individual. That's why I think these initiatives are so important, especially the one about district voting. I've talked about that to other people for a long time. I know it doesn't always work as well as those who thought it up, but it certainly would be a move in the right direction for the problem that we're facing with the council that we have now. We really do need people who think for themselves, who are not influenced by other people. And I haven't seen that very often. And I hope for that reason, that these initiatives go on, the ballot, as soon as possible. And I think it's very discouraging that you're trying to keep that from happening. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other comments, we'll now move on to current business, confirmation of the acceptance of the certification of the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

My name is Nancy Skinner. Good morning, Madam Mayor. I had to take my daughter to the airport for the weekend, and so I got here a little late. I'm sorry about that. But I mostly just want to say, first of all, I understand my daughter. She told me on the way to the airport that she spoke to you the other day, so I don't know exactly what she said. But I just want to say, in a gentle way, that I'm really wishing that this council would change their way of doing it and be voting, talking with us, working with us, instead of this, against each other. I mean, I don't know what, I just can't figure out why you wouldn't delete us both. That's one of them. It just doesn't make any sense. And I don't like this feeling that you aren't working with us at all. You're working kind of against us. And I don't know what's the problem with that. I really don't. Certainly on the effort to save the park is one of them. But then this came up, and I'm thinking, What is it that you don't like about us? That's what I guess I wanted to ask. So I know you won't answer it now, but I hope someday, maybe one to one, we can learn. Thank you very much.

Any other speakers? OK, we will now move on to current business. Does any council member need a staff report on item number one? Are there any questions or comments from council members?

Yes, I have a bunch of questions to ask of our clerk, but maybe, do we have somebody online that's serving as our vendor to run the election?

Yes, we have our consultant online via Zoom, so she will be helping me to answer any questions.

Okay, and just so I understand correctly, 44 years is the last time that the City of Newport Beach conducted an election of their own?

Yes, correct. In 1982, the City Council passed a charter amendment that all the elections from now on will be consolidated with the county. It's in our charter. So we haven't had elections since 1982. And before that was just mail ballot and just people using garages and different areas. But that's been so long ago.

Yeah, so polling places have changed over the years. Polling places used to be every precinct, and then recently the state legislature changed it to vote centers. So anyone in Orange County can vote at any vote center. If I live in Newport Beach but happen to work in Fullerton, I can vote for everyone in that vote center. that's kind of where this is leading with all these questions that um and i appreciate hopefully the patience of my council to answer these questions about the process of an election because i would say being in public policy sector for three decades i would say over two-thirds of those decades i've been involved with campaigns candidates and elected officials so I'm pretty familiar with the political process and then the election process. And so what is being asked of us by the courts is to run an election in an accelerated timeframe that is separate from a general election that's being conducted this November and concurrently an election with the city of Newport Beach and the county registrar voters running a federal down to local level ballot. There's a lot of different steps and processes and time that's needed to submit every little step of the way. So this is an important thing for us to be voting on today because it has, to me, ramifications to every single voter of Newport Beach, whether you think that the election should have been conducted in 2026 or 2028, whether you think the council delayed a process, whether we should be litigating or not litigating against the initiatives process that I think was flawed because the signatures, or not signatures, but the steps involved to submit the initiatives were flawed. And that was our initial problem with them. But the court has ruled in the position that the court has ruled. So for me, that's past history. What I'm talking about in my questions will be related to how this city functions and conducts an election for three initiatives while an entire election is being conducted by their city council. There's another initiative that qualified and then there's every other election that from congressional all the way down to special districts. And so for me, I really want to know how the city plans to conduct an election fairly that doesn't disenfranchise a single Newport Beach resident voter and how it eliminates confusion when there's an existing election going on at the exact same time. So I wrote these late in the evening and I didn't do it in chronological order because There is a chronological order. When you seek an election, you use this candidate's guidebook for the registrar voters that they've created. In here is a step-by-step calendar that says every single thing that needs to happen along the way, requirements for candidates, requirements for initiatives, requirements for challenging, nomination periods. to every detail about when election material is submitted to the public, when overseas and military ballots need to be sent by. So there's a whole entire process here that is required by state and federal law. There's voting rights acts from the federal government, and then there's statewide legislative acts signed by governors that say how elections are to be conducted and specially and specifically to the actual date and law. So my apologies for these might be out of order as far as what this guidebook tells you the steps to be, but I wrote them down as they came into my head. And first off I wrote down was drop boxes. So right now the County of Orange has scattered throughout the city that specifically say, you know, you can vote on these days. They come every single day and collect them. On election day, they come multiple times a day, and those are all steps that are done with by the registrar voters and their staff. What happens when a Newport Beach ballot gets submitted into one of those boxes? Do we know what the registrar voters will do when that happens?

So in the in the resolution asking for assistance from the county, that's one of the issues we've raised with the county because that's something that they control and we need their assistance with that if there are mistakes. So that's part of what we're asking the county for to help us with that piece of it.

Do we know what the ballot will look like when it's mailed? Will it look similar to the one that the county uses or will Newport Beach have its own specific look to it?

We have a consultant online Jessica can you unmute Jessica? It probably looks similar format.

Very intentionally the Newport Beach ballot will look different from the county ballot including the envelope design that it's mailed in to try and mitigate voter confusion.

Okay, and can you identify yourself and what what you what what organization you represent or what company or your Yes, sorry.

I'm Jessica Blair. I'm with a Stellar group. I am a former city clerk, communications and legislative affairs director of about 26 years and I now run my own firm helping agencies with a variety of projects, including elections.

And can you tell us how many elections you've run separately from being a city clerk, but in the capacity of this consulting firm you serve on or your your the company that you represent?

Since I started my firm last year, I've helped agencies with I think this would be my seventh election. And then I did probably about 25 to 30 elections during my clerk capacity.

And those in your clerk capacity were city-specific or were they working with the registrar voters?

City-specific.

Okay. And then can you tell me the recent ones that you've done, what some specific elections you've worked on?

Well, I have a few for this November consolidated elections that I've been helping cities with. And then my previous agencies have all been coastal cities within the state, both in Northern California and Southern California. you be specific uh malibu and half moon bay okay and what were those um elections related to well they were the city's elections so during my 15 years in malibu and my 10 years in half moon bay was any of the city's general and special elections i was the elections official

And they just run separate schedules and say like a primary and general election that the statewide does. It's kind of like how LA used to be where they had their mayoral race during a different time than those elections.

Well, the standalones were either for special elections or prior to the state law where all the cities consolidated with the county. So some cities were still choosing to do standalone just to be on a different timeframe or just to be able to have more control over how their elections were ran.

Got it. Got it. Okay. So basically as your capacity as a consultant, you've done several and then you plan on doing several more of this cycle.

Correct.

Okay, okay, thank you. So, and if you wanna chime in to some of these questions that I'm asking city staff of, feel free to. So polling place locations open, which are now called vote centers, open for the county on the 24th of October for select locations, and all locations open on the 31st of October Will Newport Beach be conducting polling place locations in separate locations, or will they partner with the county on vote centers and hold stations next to those stations?

We're going to do all-mail ballot election because we would have to, if we decide to have a polling place, it has to be separate locations, separate polling workers.

So a voter can't vote in person in the Newport Beach election?

No.

So.

Not in a polling place.

They can't go to a polling place and vote in person. So it's like Oregon. Oregon is mail only. There's no polling places. They're all mailed. When is the mailing date of our election going to be?

Jessica, do you have the schedule when the ballots will be going out?

Yes. The scheduled mailing of the Newport Beach ballots is October 19th. And then just to add to what Lena just mentioned, it is part of our county services request to allow for a city informational table at the county's existing boat centers within Newport Beach. If that's not able to be accomplished, we would stand up kind of our own little boat center in a city facility elsewhere. And that's to allow for Anyone that wants to drop off their ballot or needs a provisional ballot, conditional voter registration, things like that. We do still have to provide those voter services. And so we would create a plan to be able to accomplish that.

You have the plan created or is that still in the process?

Let me jump in just real quick because I think you raise an important point. My understanding from speaking with Jessica is that the military and overseas ballots would go out by the 18th, which would be in line with the requirements for mailing those out, but that the domestic ballots wouldn't go out until after the normal cutoff time. Is that right, Jessica?

So the... The elections code actually states they need to be mailed each 29 through 10 and we are proposing a 15. so we are still within. The elections code guideline, we are just not able to mail them on the 1st available day.

So every voter in Newport Beach will receive their ballot sometime right around October 5th, which this candidate guide highlights. But Newport Beach's ballot for these three initiatives, a separate ballot will be mailed out on October 19th or by October 19th.

Correct.

Okay, so you will have one ballot a significant amount of time longer than you'll have a second ballot.

Correct. And part of our implementation plan is assuming adoption of all of the resolutions today is to work on an informational mailer that would go out next week to all registered voters in Newport Beach explaining that there will be two ballots. Here's what they are for. Here's what they'll look like. Here's how you'll return them.

And what day will you be mailing that information out?

Within the next week and a half, hopefully. But definitely before county ballots are mailed out.

And is that standard language that you'll be using, or will you create your own language for this?

We'll be creating our own outreach campaign.

But I mean, as far as the language in the document that you'll be sending out, is this going to be kind of templated off other elections that you've run or other elections?

No, this is a very unique situation. So we'll be Going above and beyond with voter outreach in order to try and prevent any voter confusion.

When you say unique, is that never been done or has it been done before?

I can't say whether it's never been done. I have never had a standalone not consolidated with the county on the same day as a county consolidated to last.

So you as a consultant or a city clerk have never done this before in this accelerated time frame?

I've never heard of it happening before.

Never heard of it and never done it?

Yes.

Okay. As far as the military and overseas ballot, the requirement is September 19th as provided in the guidebook. And you're saying you think you can have that done by the 18th?

Yes, our plan is to send them out on the 18th, yes.

And then you obtain that data from the registrar voters?

Yes.

And then there's also a provision that if a military member comes back in that window of time, that allows them to vote in person How do we plan on accommodating that? Because there's a rule in the law that allows for a service member to return back home and then that ballot is eliminated and then they get to use a new ballot that they get handed to on spot. How do we accommodate that request?

That would be part of what we discussed earlier about either the county allowing us to put an informational table at their vote centers or the separate vote center that we would stand up. They would do that there.

So we would need the county of Orange to help facilitate that for us, which we are kind of looking at some documents that they've sent us in the past. That says they would have trouble doing so, but we don't quite know that answer because we haven't asked them yet as to what they can or cannot do. Is that correct?

Correct. And if, if that's not something that they're able to accommodate, we do have contingency plan to do it elsewhere within the city. So we will have a, our own boat center one way or another.

Okay. But it can't be at the same location as the ones the County has.

It can be if they allow us.

The county has to allow it?

Right.

Okay. Let me shift gears a little bit to ballots in a foreign language. So there's a section 203 of the Voting Rights Act that counties with 10,000 or more, 5% of the total voting age citizens have to have a ballot translated. And Orange County has identified three of those languages. How does that play into Newport Beach on an election like this? Do we have to use the county rule, or since we're a municipality, we can forego translation in any type of language of either election materials or ballots based on a voter's requested language?

We are still hoping to receive the language requirements for Newport Beach specifically from the county. If they are unable to provide that to us, we will use the countywide translation requirements.

And how long does that take to prepare?

How long does it take?

I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Could you proceed? Sorry.

You were asking how long the translation takes to prepare?

Yes, ma'am.

It's the same as ballot production. The vendor could turn it around within one to two days. and we'll come to a decision on the language before the military and overseas ballots are sent.

Okay. Yeah, so would that apply, does translation need to apply to arguments for and against as well? You know, so if the county or if the city wishes to provide some arguments against the initiatives? Do those, are those translated as well?

Yes, the ballot and the voter guide would be translated into all required languages.

Okay. Switching gears to new registered voters, so the requirement is 15 days before the election was, and that's October 19th, that newly registered voters have the ability register, but 14 days prior an election day, they can vote conditionally. So the state of California does allow same day voter registration. How does a new registered or newly a new citizen of Newport Beach get that ballot in either of those windows, you know, 15 days or 14 days prior to election day? And then how do we handle those conditional ballots? Do you feel confident that you can administer that? You know, we have a lot of new people moving into the city all the time. So how do we accommodate those interested bodies?

Yeah, so anyone similar to the existing county consolidated election, any conditional voter would go to the vote center. So if it was specific for Newport Beach, they would come to the one that we have stood up for the Newport Beach election. And then those ballots are held and resolved during the official canvas period.

Can you just remind me again what day we think the vote center will be open?

So. Ours would be the four-day vote center that opens on the 31st through the 30th.

So there's select voting centers open in Orange County on the 24th, and then all are open on the 31st. So we'll kind of mirror the all that the county has. Let me switch gears here to how many days after the election day will ballots be counted? So the state says if you have a postmark, the rules now even change to greater, I think it was five recently, but now it's seven. So up to October, I'm sorry, November 10th, state of california allows for ballots to be counted up to that date as long as they have a postmark does newport beach look to deviate from that process or will that still allow postmarked ballots to be received in our election up to that date uh correct we would follow that guideline and the canvas and

SIGNATURE REVIEW, RECONCILIATION, THAT WILL ALL OCCUR PRETTY MUCH THROUGHOUT THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER UNTIL THE OFFICIAL CAMPUS.

OKAY. AND A FEW OF THESE QUESTIONS LOOK LIKE I GOT ANSWERED. BALLOTS WILL BE RECEIVED ON WHAT DAY WE GOT THAT ANSWER. MILITARY, GOOD. OKAY. WHAT ABOUT CURING? HOW ARE WE, WHO IS HANDLING THE CURING PROCESS OF THE BALLOTS THAT COME IN THAT DON'T MATCH OUR STAFF? The County of Orange has the staff dedicated to reviewing signatures of every mailed in ballot, every single ballot that gets dropped off without an identifier. So if I come into a vote center and vote with a machine, that process is pretty more simplified. But if I mail in a ballot, if I hand in a ballot, or if I put one in a Dropbox, there's staff at the Registrar of Voters that sit at a computer and they match your signature with the voter file. So when you registered to vote, or when you changed to register to vote, or if they have some other signature on file, maybe DMV records, they match those signatures I guess first off, who on our staff or on your staff is gonna be verifying every single signature throughout the process? And do you have enough manpower and staff to accommodate 65,000 voters here in Newport Beach?

Yes, so hearing will be part of the city's ballot processing operation. Return ballot envelopes will go through Signature verification by training authorized election personnel. And so it will be myself. And some other former and current city clerks that will be brought in to help with this process. If a signature is missing or cannot be verified after the review. We'll do the normal cure notice and provide the voter an opportunity to cure. And then we'll track those as well as return care statements and. Valid cured ballots will then move forward for accounting. So.

How many bodies do you think you need to perform these tasks?

Well, so there's going to be sort of the daily intake of return ballots and the processing of those. And that will likely be about two people. And then weekly, we'll do a batch of signature verification. And that will be two to three. And then those final kind of week and a half leading up to the election, especially the four days, there will probably be three to five of us there working over the weekend, getting everything prepared to count on Tuesday night.

There's a date of December 3rd that the register of voters requires that the date of certification occurs. Do you think that your staff can accommodate that date or are we changing the date?

So we actually have a different guideline and November 27th, is the deadline for the council to adopt right now, but that is a city holiday, so we are looking to do it on November 30th.

That's not a requirement? You just have to have it done by the 3rd? Or do we have a requirement date?

There is a requirement date, which is November 27th, but since it is a city holiday, it moves to the next business day, which would be November 30th.

And I asked Lena, but I think it was before you jumped on the call here, what does happen to those Newport Beach ballots that get dropped off at county drop boxes?

Well, so we, in our services request that we are sending to the county, we do have in there that we would like to establish chain of custody procedures. And so that is something that we'll need to work out with the county because there will very likely be city ballots that go to the county or even county ballots that come to the city or someone may put both ballots in one return envelope, right? And so we do need to establish chain of custody procedures with the county. That is something that the county has dealt with before. And so I don't foresee any issues with that. It's just getting that procedure in place.

What example can you give me that the county has dealt with that before?

I believe it was Seal Beach a few years ago. Did a standalone election. I'd have to get more information on that for you. I don't have it on the top of my head. I just know from my experience that that is something that all counties within the state of California have dealt with at some point in time. It's a process that exists. It just needs to be implemented. Jessica maybe we're just quickly maybe just kind of list through what services from the county that we would need to conduct the election maybe just kind of give a quick summary of it just so everyone was aware yeah let me pull it up the essential essential needs are um we need the language requirements um we need signature verification

THAT IS THE DATA THAT YOU NEED FROM THE REGISTRAR OF VOTERS TO MATCH EVERY SINGLE SIGNATURE, CORRECT? CORRECT. IS THAT DATABASE TEND TO BE RELEASED TO CITIES WITH EASE, OR DOES THAT REQUIRE SOME TYPE OF CONFIDENCE THAT SENSITIVE DATA IS PROTECTED? WHAT IS THE DATA? What's the rule there as far as them? They're giving us all of Newport Beach's database of every signature that they have on file in order to verify that the ballots submitted are correct ballots.

Lena is Newport Beach's elections official, right? And so all of Newport Beach's voters are Lena's voters and the county is the custodian of records. And so when a city clerk requests their voter records, they are typically provided given that they are being used for the purpose of an election. And so whenever a city holds a standalone, the county does usually provide all of this information to them. So to get back to the initial question of what all we need from them, we did get the voter files, so that's done. We do still need the language preferences, but again, if they're unable to provide that, we'll just go with the county requirements. We will need the signature verification. Everything else is, would be nice to have, but we can figure it out without it. Like for example, the, you know, being able to put up a voter table or an informational table at their existing vote centers. And that's, you know, for, for the good of the voter to help the voters. So hopefully that is something that we're able to work out with them and the chain of custody procedure as well.

Will Newport beach have our own drop boxes throughout the city?

We are not going to have drop-offs, no. The ballots can be mailed back in the postage paid envelopes that they are sent in, or they could be dropped off at City Hall and depending on those centers that we are able to come up with.

So you can drop at City Hall, you can drop off at a vote center, and how many of those do you think we'll have?

Well, that depends, again, on whether the county allows us to piggyback on theirs. If they don't, then we will likely have just one vote center, either at City Hall or another city facility, wherever it works.

Do you know the locations of the county's Dropbox locations? Do you know the location of the county's Dropbox locations?

Oh, are you asking me? Yes. Yes. They're usually posted online. So I don't know if they've posted them for this election yet.

But they have.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Lena, have you conducted a statewide or sorry, a citywide special like this?

Yes, I did. Oh, good.

Okay, great. So you feel comfortable? Or do you? I probably shouldn't ask that question because I think that I probably know the answer. I want to ask the consultant, are you going to identify, indemnify the city and county against challenges from disenfranchised voters or candidates due to interference or confusion with the statewide and congressional election? So meaning, if this has the potential to confuse a voter, and somebody comes back and says I submitted at the wrong box, it didn't get collected in time, my vote didn't count, are you providing some protection against us with your contract that ensures that we're not liable for the lawsuit if the election is deemed challenged or invalid?

Can I defer to the city attorney on that question?

So we put into the contract that her firm's to identify and defend the city from any errors or omissions on her part, which in my mind includes any violations of the law that were conducted. We can throw in there specifically disenfranchised. It already has in there any violations of the law, but we can add in there disenfranchised voters to address that specifically. I think it's covered already, but we can put that in.

I'll ask the consultant, do you feel comfortable that this election in its accelerated timeframe and all the challenges that are required to get this done properly will not receive any challenge from anyone on either side? Or do you think that there's just, there's a bit of confusion when there's a countywide election occurring at the exact same time?

think voter confusion is an operational concern of course and something that we have a plan to address and you know hopefully mitigate as much as we can um i think that once once we actually you know adopt all the necessary documents and we're able to start implementing that plan that there's a lot of community outreach that we can do to try and make sure that newport beach voters have a clear understanding of the two separate ballots.

Is that community outreach done by you or is that done by us?

It'll be done. It'll be prepared by me and then, you know, Lena and I will work out, you know, communications channels and how it's actually distributed.

Okay, I think I went through my list. I don't know if I wrote it on other sides, but those were kind of my initial questions that more could come up here soon, but I appreciate you answering those questions.

Council Member Bartow.

Thank you. So just to go back a little bit, the reason that we're here is the judge has asked us to submit our voter information to the county. However, the county said they're not able to conduct this consolidated election. AT THAT POINT, SINCE WE AS A CITY HAVEN'T CONDUCTED AN ELECTION IN 40 PLUS YEARS, WE WENT OUT TO CONSULTANTS, AND THE CONSULTANTS, WE WERE ABLE TO FIND JESSICA, THANK YOU, WHO WAS ABLE TO GO FORWARD WITH THIS. IS THAT RIGHT?

She identified other vendors that will be helping with ballot processing and all that other stuff. But it is a very short time frame, and we're trying to work around it and make everything possible. And at this point, it's a court order, so we're moving forward with the process.

Yeah, so we're doing the best that we can, and it's kind of, it's a new process for, it sounds like, Jessica or, you know, everybody, because it's not been done before in this timeframe. So that's concerning, but we are attempting to provide that election. Did the county indicate that if, for whatever reason, they could handle this if it were moved to the next available date prior to November 28th, but did they ever indicate that if it were a feasible other election that they could work with us on that? Did we ask that?

We could have a special election and at that time they will be able to provide us services. It's just not feasible with this timeframes for the county to take over this election and they're worried about the integrity of the process.

Right, for our process, but also for their process. Thank you, that's why we're doing this. And then one very, couple of really quick questions for Jessica. Do you know, kind of other than, I know that we're kind of having to work, we're working around our charter requirements, we're working around some election code issues, which I've heard mentioned, My specific question is how we handle training for poll workers at all of, especially since so many of them are volunteers, if they're asked questions and we, you know, even if we are able to have a table, do we have any kind of plan to educate or inform volunteer poll workers who might get questions from people as to why they don't see these three initiatives on their ballot?

Well, I would defer it to Jessica because I assume it will be some former city clerks or people involved in the election process prior.

Oh, I just meant the people working at the normal county election poll workers.

Yes, they actually issue the notice and they recruit people. It is volunteer position. And then they go through the specified training so they know about election, how to handle questions. They have dedicated phone numbers to call if they can't answer the question. So because we're such short time frames, we are not able to go through our poll workers to train them and establish those polling places and recruit also people.

Right, so I guess that's just my concern is that we, because it is such a short time frame, we're going to be kind of at the mercy of the published materials and there's a chance that some volunteer poll workers might not know the answers to those questions for voters. And I think on the one hand we should do what we can to mitigate that, but that's a concern to me that I don't know how we work around.

Yeah, and also like if we work with the counties, they already have established poll workers. So for them, they will receive questions about the city election. I can't answer for that. They probably won't be able to explain what is happening correctly to some voters.

Thank you. That's all my questions. Councilmember Stapleton.

Yeah, thank you.

All right, so we got 53 days until November 3rd. The comment that Councilman, Councilmember Wagon made, it's not of our decision to make sure this is mail-in only, right? It's just within 53 days, we can't, what's the thought process behind that where we wouldn't have vote centers? Is it a cost thing? Like, what is the...

We don't have established list of poll workers. Poll workers, when they even apply for being a poll worker, they go through the specific training. And there is months of preparation going before that. And so they know how to operate the polling places. WE GO THROUGH INSPECTION OF THE POLLING PLACES WITH THE COUNTY. THERE IS ADA REQUIREMENTS. THERE IS A LOT OF REQUIREMENTS FOR THE POLLING LOCATIONS. AND THIS IS USUALLY WE HAVE AN AGREEMENT WITH THE COUNTY MONTHS BEFORE. SO AT THIS TIMEFRAME, WE ARE NOT ABLE TO ESTABLISH POLLING PLACES. IT PROBABLY WILL BE SEPARATE POLLING PLACES. AND SINCE WE ALREADY DEDICATED OUR MOST KNOWN LOCATIONS, It will be in some other sports facilities or library somewhere. We were looking last week into that.

OK, I just want to make it clear that this is as a steward of safeguarding elections. I would much rather have all offers available for every voter in the city, but the reality is that just with 53 days and everything you just mentioned, the vote by mail is the only option that we have available with this short time. OK, alright. Well, hopefully if the county allows us putting a table in each one of these vote centers would be a huge opportunity. Thank you.

Councilmember grant. Thank you. I want to switch gears first a minute and maybe just address a couple questions to the city attorney I'm curious where we are in the appeal process as far as The court order the stay of the court order has been denied so that's why we're moving forward with what we're doing today Do we have anything else pending? For example, if we go ahead and have this election and then the appeal if we have a pending appeal or elaborate on that and it comes back with a different decision, what's the effect of that? Do we understand? Can you give us some clarification?

Yes, as of now, the Court of Appeals denied our request to stay the writ, which means it still is in effect as far as needing to comply with it. We will seek review by the California Supreme Court of that decision. That needs to be filed within 10 days from the Court of Appeals order, so that's in the process of being prepared. And then on Monday, we've given notice of an ex parte hearing to go back to Judge Bancroft to get some to ensure that the path we're going down here with the standalone election is viewed as complying with the writ and then and especially on the way that is being proposed and second that if there are violations of or actually it's more for an interpretation of what her order means WE'RE ASKING HER TO TELL US WHETHER HER ORDER MEANS THAT WE CAN VIOLATE THE ELECTIONS CODE AND THE CHARTER REQUIREMENTS BECAUSE THERE'S A LOT OF PROVISIONS THAT SAY, FOR INSTANCE THERE'S AN ELECTIONS CODE PROVISION THAT SAYS YOU CAN'T HAVE A STAND-ALONE ELECTION ON THE SAME DATE AS A STATEWIDE ELECTION. so we're asking judge bancroft to confirm that her order means that that code section doesn't apply to the city and there's a similar charter provision that basically says the same thing that you know we're supposed to consolidate so we're asking her does her order mean that that the charter you know is inapplicable to us moving forward And then there's just a host of other issues as far as in-place polling, doing it by mail. There's going to be areas where we reasonably can't comply with the elections code and move this forward under this expedited timeframe. So we're basically asking Judge Bancroft on Monday to tell us exactly what her order meant because it just says go forward and have an election. We're just trying to get clarity on what that means in relation to all the other laws that apply.

OK, so is it conceivable that we could have this election if we were to vote to move forward? And the judge didn't change that on Monday. It's conceivable that we could have this election on November 3, but it could somehow be invalidated later down the road due to further action? Is that what you're saying?

Well, I think there's a few things. So one, we're asking the California Supreme Court to stay the decision. So if the court stayed the decision, the election wouldn't move forward. We're asking Judge Bancroft to confirm what her order means. If she says, no, you have to comply with the elections code and the charter, then I don't see how we can move forward with an election because there's direct conflicts between the elections code and the charter and what we're proposing to do to comply with the writ. SO I DON'T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS, BUT HOPEFULLY WE'LL HAVE ANSWERS NEXT WEEK ON SOME OF THOSE PROVISIONS. AND THEN, YOU KNOW, THERE'S SOME OTHER LARGER ISSUES ABOUT THAT WE CAN'T REALLY DISCUSS HERE IN A PUBLIC FORUM, BUT REGARDING GENERAL APPEALS OF JUDGE MANCROFT'S DECISIONS, BUT THAT WOULDN'T BE SOMETHING WE COULD TALK ABOUT HERE IN AN OPEN SESSION.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

Okay, seeing no other speakers up here, we'll open it up for public comment. As a reminder, if you already spoke on this item, you're precluded from doing so now. Any speakers?

Hi, Walter Starr again. In general, I support the resolutions that you have in front of you to proceed with this parallel election. I can hear from your tone that many of you are unhappy about this. But I would say to you, this is the situation that you have created. If you had listened as recently as the 25th when Joy Brenner got up here almost with tears in her eyes and pleaded with you to do this this year rather than two years from now, we would not be in this situation. I'm dismayed to hear the city attorney say that the city is planning to spend yet more money to file papers in the Supreme Court of California to try to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals. When you look at the timing, the Court of Appeals ruled within 24 hours of receiving the two 70-page briefs that were prepared over the Labor Day weekend. that tells you the court of appeals three senior judges did not see this as a complicated issue i doubt very much hail mary pass doesn't quite express the improbability of the supreme court of california reversing the court of appeals on this issue so it's a waste of money and i'm dismayed by that i'm also dismayed to hear and to read in the the language that you have in front of you that the city intends to continue fighting these ballot measures even if they are passed by the voters in this election this November. So for example, the city raised an argument that the transparency measure failed under the single subject rule. That was briefed, it was rejected by Judge Bancroft, and I think the odds of the city prevailing on that issue in the Court of Appeals, particularly after the people vote for the measure, if they do so this November, is very slim. So the city, we don't know exactly how much the city has spent. Thank you for a partial answer to my records request. But we know that it's tens of thousands of dollars. And it's dismaying to think that the city is spending yet more money on a pointless appeal to the California Supreme Court rather than just focusing its attention on holding this election as best as possible. One last point. How many of the places where the county is going to be collecting ballots are city facilities? I think quite a number. And so I would think that we can have a reasonable conversation with the county about having our tables in at least those facilities, if not all the county facilities where ballots are being collected for the county, state, federal election in parallel with our city election. Thank you.

Just briefly, so Jessica just emailed me about this issue on indemnity and she said she will not indemnify us for disenfranchisement or the other issues you raised. So I think that's important to let you know before you move forward. She'll indemnify us from her, everything's moving really quickly, we're still in the process of negotiating. She did agree to indemnify us from her own professional errors and omissions and for her violations of the law. But to the extent that the city's looking for a specific indemnity on disenfranchisement or infringing on voters' rights, let me know that she will not indemnify us.

Thank you, Mr. Hart. Next public comment.

Hi, Carol King, Irvine Terrace. I think that Mr. Starr is being kind and saying dismayed. I think it's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard out of any council anywhere. I'm new to this game, but this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It seems like councilmen Wagon is trying to figure every possible minutiae reason why the voters of Newport Beach would be confused. We're not so stupid. Just because the older folks show up at the meetings because they have time away from their jobs, which I took time out of my job today to come here because this is just outrageous to me. I can't believe it. I agree with the gentleman who talked about communication. Mayor Kleinman says communication is her big issue. I also agree that I have never received notification of meetings. I accidentally found out about the meeting this morning when I looked at the calendar about the concert on Sunday. So communication is horrible at this council, absolutely horrible. Voter confusion should not be a problem. We're not idiots. And if we can get emails out to everybody, I know there's a way to get an email out because I received campaign material from Mayor Kleinman asking me to vote for her to my personal email, which I did not give to Mayor Kleinman. So either know that there's a way to contact everybody in our city and it should be done and it should be done immediately because this is just getting more and more stupid by the day and way more expensive. And I'm so sick of all this money and all this legal babble talking about maybe we'll still contest it later. Just don't be so stupid. Just let the people vote. What is the problem? Thank you.

Any other speakers?

Mayor Kleinman, members of the council, my name again is Jim Mosher. First, among startling things, I was surprised by the suggestion that it might proceed without any staff report at all, so I appreciate the questions that were asked by some of the council members. And I agree with their sentiment that the city is in a very awkward position now. I also agree with Mr. Starr that it is entirely the city's fault that we're in an awkward position. First, because the city staff took it upon themselves to try to resist the public's right to enact legislation on their own. And then second, apparently the city council has directed staff to pursue this endless, repetitive, fruitless litigation because I would remind you it is city charter section 602 places the responsibility for controlling litigation on the City Council, not on the City Attorney. So he's presumably doing stuff that you have told him to do. Returning to the theme of communication, as we heard from Councilmember Grant, this meeting is taking place because of a denial of of by the appeal court of the city's request for a stay, I am 99% sure that if the decision had gone the other way, there would have been a news splash. I would have received an email that the city had prevailed. Because the decision went the way it did, there's no news about it. nothing telling the public what's going on with these initiatives. As to the substance of the agenda materials that I tried to read, first I noticed that when on August 25th you had a similar agenda item and could have put it on this ballot but chose 28, there were three resolutions for each of the three measures. Today there are only two, so there is no resolution about rebuttal arguments. How are those going to be handled? Why is there no resolution regarding them? As to the arguments for an impartial analysis, extremely short timeline for that. Proponents and opponents have to get their arguments in by five o'clock today. That's not a whole lot of time. On August 25th there was no explanation but we saw in that agenda packet some arguments. Are those now invalid. So does the stewardship association and the council members have to get new arguments in by five o'clock or there will be no arguments for and against. And then second how is the public going to see these in a normal election. We're sent a voter guide. And then the ballot comes later. Is the guide going to come with the ballot? Are we going to see actually what we're voting on? Are we going to see the measures? Or how is that going to work? I do not know.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mosher. Are there any other speakers on this item? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, do we have anyone online who wishes to speak? OK, with that, bring it back up here, Councilmember Weber.

I literally feel like I am being forced to break certain laws in order to comply with other laws that were also broken. I cannot articulate how wrong all of this feels to be perfectly honest. WE ARE BEING ASKED TO MOVE INCREDIBLY FAST, SKIP STEPS, AND DO THINGS THAT WE'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE. I'M HEARING ABOUT A MAIL-IN ELECTION ONLY SEEMS INSANE TO ME. MY BIGGEST CONCERN IS OUR RESIDENTS. And I actually can agree that people have different opinions. I don't think that most people are following every single court filing or every single election deadline. And to receive another ballot in the mail is truly going to be confusing. This has absolutely nothing to do with supporting or opposing the initiatives. It's about protecting our residents and making sure that they can actually trust the process. I'm well aware we have court orders and deadlines, but I am not comfortable looking back six months from now and thinking that we forced something through an accelerated timeline knowing that it wasn't right. Thank you.

Councilmember Wiegand?

Yeah, I'll echo those comments. You know, not here to talk about court case decisions that weren't successful. I'm here to talk about the process that is in front of us. And I don't feel comfortable asking all of the questions that I asked that the city of Newport Beach can conduct an election with an accelerated timeframe. without disenfranchising just one, that's all, one vote. And if one person can't correctly vote in an election, an election that to me seems like we're skirting state law, maybe we're within the rules, but we're not quite within the rules. the usual course of business when it comes to an election. To me, that's problematic. And I think that election law is specifically written in a way that gives the most amount of time possible for statements to be created, to county materials, which would be city materials distributed, to translation, to polling place locations, to proper timeframes for voters to be able to make a decision. All of these things that happen in this book that say deadlines need to be hit and met. These are all accelerated through this process. So I don't support this election, I don't think that it'd be fair to every single resident. And there are a lot of residents that potentially live overseas or in the military that I'm not comfortable with them receiving their ballot in time. That has to be done by Saturday next week that they have to receive this ballot or it has to be mailed by. And then this whole concept of not knowing where the County of Orange is and their ability to help us out. we don't know if they would be willing to help us so i can't look back on this moment and say that in good faith i present an election to every single voter whether you agree with us or not on court decisions or political items before us in this upcoming election or decisions that we made on completely irrelevant to this decision so for me it's It's not fair that we have to mail out ballots 15 days prior instead of 30 days and then give alternative locations for people to vote and not provide the vote centers, well, what's unknown, but potentially not provide the vote centers that the county provides, the drop boxes that the county provides. Those drop boxes are military grade material and they're protected. So I'm not confident that every ballot has a process or a plan for being safely distributed. And in this environment we're in, whether you agree with election security or election fraud or any of those discussions that are nationwide, unfortunately, I don't feel comfortable administrating an election that hasn't been done in the city for 44 years. and rely on a consultant that I've only met via Zoom. And some of the questions answered weren't completely 100% verified that the election will be conducted in a proper and safe and secure manner without indemnity if there is a challenge or a disenfranchised voter. So I will be voting no on these items today.

Are there other council members that wish to speak? Council Member Grant? Thank you.

So, first I would say, you know, we are absolutely dealing with very grave issues here. This is our city charter. It's like the Constitution of the United States. I mean, this is the most important thing that we deal with here on the dais, is making sure that we comply with our city charter. And these are very uncomfortable decisions for us, as well as the general public. I mean, and I understand everything that my colleagues have said. And I think, you know, I came in here, I also went through the election code. requirements that come from the county from the state federal requirements and came in here very uncomfortable with this process i do not like being under a court order this is not optimal for good governance but here we are and we have to i think everybody up here is feeling the uh at least i am feeling how grave these issues are and that you know we need to make very, very nuanced decisions here. I first and foremost take the advice of our city attorney. This is the holy grail for him. This is what he does, and we rely on the city attorney to give us good advice. And when I hear the differing opinions governing rules and laws that we're dealing with. And it just, it's not sinking into one complete decision. It's a problem. I actually, after all of the questions that Councilmember Wiegand presented to our consultant, is it Jessica? What's Jessica's last name?

Jessica Blair.

Blair, so I actually have more confidence in our ability to comply if we can legally hold an election, and that's a big if, and I'm hearing that from our city attorney, but let's just take that for granted that we could. I did actually get quite a bit of confidence from our consultant, Jessica Blair. I felt that her answers, this has been a thoughtful, mindful process for her working with city staff and that anything that was presented today, she is able to accommodate. That actually was a good process, and I appreciate Councilmember Wigand bringing all of that up, because I think, for me, I got a certain amount of confidence out of that. But, you know, we do have several milestones ahead of us, and I also remember the city attorney talking, I think, last meeting about that, you know, and what we're doing here is we're sort of working in two lanes. We are working to comply. but we also have a hearing that's going to happen on Monday that's gonna discuss what that looks like. Can we actually comply? Is that actually what the judge is asking us to do given the obstacles that are presented? So I actually do feel comfortable moving forward in that two-step process that I think the city attorney is recommending, that we move forward to comply but we continue to work with the judge to make sure that whatever we're doing is satisfying the order and is satisfying all the relevant law. But again, I do want to say that after hearing from Jessica Blair, I do have quite a bit more confidence that I had coming in that even though it is difficult, it'll be very difficult for staff. We're always very sensitive to staff time here. We want to make sure we're complying with law. It sounds like we have found someone who can potentially, if it's legal, can actually make this occur in the time frames that we have. So I appreciate all of the, you know, questions that were answered, and I appreciate this process. It's been very helpful.

Mayor Pro Temblor.

Thank you. A quick question about the consultants. Did we reach out to just one, or did we reach out to multiple consultants?

I received three no from Zaza consultants.

So we had three other consulting firms that said no, they couldn't do this.

Yes, because of the time frames and like election process takes months preparation. And even county with their trained staff, signature verification personnel and everything in place, they would not take our election. So yes, that's why other consultants said no.

So there was only one consultant that said this was possible. Okay. The other question is, Maybe for a state attorney. State election law doesn't allow us to have a standalone election on a general. Is that correct?

That's correct. There's a state law that basically says that any election held the same day as a statewide election is supposed to be consolidated. And it's to address some of the issues that have been raised about confusion. You know, I think it is sort of difficult to get the voters' minds wrapped around that there's two separate elections going on on the same date. But ultimately, you know, I think that's sort of the same provisions that are in the charter too about consolidation for general municipal elections.

you know the judge impliedly you know said that those those uh provisions didn't apply but i think it's best to go in and get clarification of that that writ that's what it really meant so if we move forward with this uh the city will be in violation of state law that's my interpretation and in addition to our charter exactly so do we take on additional liability or something like that

I think if the judge, so in a perfect world, in a perfect world, we would have basically gone into the judge first and then come to the council so that you wouldn't have these outstanding questions. The judge doesn't hold ex parte applications on Friday, so we're going in on Monday. But to try to get all this to work, we have to act quickly. Ms. Blair is going to need to to really begin on those ballots and getting them printed in order to make that, you know, the date is on the 19th, but she's planning on mailing them out on the 18th. I mean, it's just such a compressed window that we have to take action soon in order to attempt to make the deadlines. I still think there's some challenges. We need the county's help. Absolutely need the county's help. Without the county's help, we can't do it. And we don't have an answer to that question. And I do think verification from Judge Bancroft about exactly what her order meant and that she was saying that we can move forward even though there's going to be some conflicts. I think that's important to clarify.

thank you and then so we didn't make the agenda for uh tuesday's meeting under brown act for the county when would we then know from the county is it their next regular meeting on the 29th

haven't they haven't committed to hearing it on the 29th is is somewhat within their discretion but you know um we talked to the county about trying to make it for the 15th and um did not get a positive response on that we have letters from the county saying that they don't they tend to or at least county council intends to recommend helping us um but ultimately you know our goal would be then to you know if we can't make the 15th to make the 29th okay so it seems like we have a numerous amount of roadblocks and

a huge amount of questions about if we comply with one order, do we violate state law? What's that open this up for, for more liability, more issues? And knowing that the consultant is not willing to indemnify us on what we're moving forward or what they've agreed to, it's just more liability and more issues. So I'm having a lot of issues with this right now. Okay. And for the record, I think a couple of speakers did talk about that the Court of Appeals made a ruling. They just said that they're not going to stay it until they hear the actual arguments. Is that correct? That's right.

Thank you.

OK. Seeing no other requests to speak, are there any additional thoughts? Or if not, move through kind of the process in front of us. Step one is determine if the council wants to submit arguments against some or all of the initiatives. So I would need a motion on that.

Madam Mayor, I'll make a motion to deny all of these items on staff report.

Do I have a second?

Is there any way to bifurcate any of the components of the staff's recommendation, or is it just all?

I MEAN, FOR ME, I WOULD BE OKAY BIFURCATING OUT ONE OF THE ITEMS, BUT IT WOULD BE WITHIN SECTION E BECAUSE I'M HAPPY TO GO TO THE COUNTY AND ASK THEM FOR HELP, BUT BY THE TIME WE ACTUALLY GET THAT ANSWER, WE'RE EITHER HAVING TO COMMIT TO AN ELECTION THAT, TO ME, IS FILLED WITH POTENTIAL PROBLEM FROM to overseas voters, to military voters, to our own voters here in town. I mean, think about a brand new voter, somebody who's just registered to vote. This is very confusing to that, or to somebody who's a long-term voter. So I'm happy to bifurcate our items, and i would love the county to uh have provided that assistance but we have a letter dated october or sorry august 28th that basically says that even at that point they couldn't conduct an election so um i just don't see the county wanting to take this item on to assist us and potentially be open to liability themselves so that's why i just i think all of this is is riddled with trouble, and I can't on good conscience support anything really in here that would basically force the hand of the city to run an election that we have no business running.

If I could jump in for just a second. Jessica, are you still on the line? So, Jessica, if we continue this meeting until Tuesday to actually consider adoption of the resolutions calling the election, Would you still be able to meet that 18th deadline if you were able to start? I'm just trying to get a feel. We're going back to court on Monday to get some clarity from the court. If we wait until next Tuesday, can you make the deadlines or not?

It's still workable, but it is meaningfully worse than adopting today. The critical point is the UOCAVA on September 18th. and that is next friday um if we continue to tuesday that would only leave us about three days from council authorization to that issuance meanwhile we still need to mobilize the vendors um you know produce the final ballots program uh voter data work and then the production and delivery uh so we were already a little bit tight for

that deadline um it's still workable it wouldn't be right my recommendation is you know move forward today with this step and then we can um you know if something changes you know next week either from you know from the court or from the county um we can we can reassess we're going to break the contracts up into phases so that um The minimal amount of cost incurred is will incur the minimum amount of cost if for some reason we're unable to move forward But I just think if you're gonna try to comply with you're not trying to but if you're gonna apply the courts order and the writ You know, she needs to get moving and I just I'm not comfortable, you know delaying it until next week

So just to clarify, yet again, we need to ask the judge if she wants us to violate state law and our charter provision in order to comply with her order. Separately, in order for this consultant, who's one of four that we asked and the only one who said she could do it even though she's never done it and doesn't know that it's ever been done successfully, we need the county's help. We can't do it without the county, correct? We won't have an answer to that. Potentially at all, but certainly not next Tuesday if they agree to hear it at all in front of the Board of Supervisors it won't be until the 29th and we would have needed to mail these ballots before then

YEAH, SO SHE HAS THE INFORMATION SHE NEEDS TO BAIL THEM TO OVERSEAS AND MILITARY. WHAT SHE DOESN'T HAVE IS ALL THE OTHER THINGS THAT SHE NEEDS FROM THE COUNTY. FOR INSTANCE, THERE'S A GOOD JOB LAYING OUT WHAT SOME OF THOSE ARE AS FAR AS you know access to the signatures and what happens if we're unable to verify the signatures and you know kind of take a second look at that and then what happens if people drop them in the wrong ballot box and how do we get those back so there's definitely some things that you need from the county that if they don't agree to help us you know make the election impossible so potentially there's a scenario under which

We start mailing ballots, and then the county either refuses to hear the request and or denies the request for any assistance, and therefore we're unable to complete the election. So now we have even more confusion with people who receive ballots for an election that's not actually able to proceed on November 3rd, correct?

That's correct.

Okay. Councilmember Wiegand?

I actually was going to say exactly that, just that I think then that puts further confusion on the statewide elections. So now somebody's getting a ballot twice, and then one of them's not counting. So we'd probably have to send out notification to send to that voter and say, sorry, we sent you this, but we're no longer, it's no longer happening.

That's right.

So you send that notification, then you've set up a whole series of problems for the voter who votes in the statewide general election, who then thinks maybe that applies to that ballot too, and then they don't submit it. So now you've entirely disenfranchised an entire general election. I think we vote no on this.

Council Member Stapleton.

Yeah, I'm with my council colleagues in solidarity on this issue when it comes to this, but to our city attorney's point, we've lost every step of the way thinking that we're doing the right thing here. At the end of the day, I'd be fully in favor of moving forward with this resolution and this process based on staff recommendations. And if for some reason the judge comes back and says differently on Monday that she won't allow us to go against state law and everything else, then we haven't mailed anything at that point and we can pull things back. But at this point, I feel like we've gone as long as we can on this and we have a court order saying we have to do something. So I'd be in support of the staff recommendation.

Okay. Well, we've got a lot of comments. We have a motion without a second.

Perhaps Madam Mayor, I can make an alternate motion that we continue this until Tuesday and reconvene at that point to have a little bit more clarification. I am very uncomfortable making an active decision to go against state law to comply with a court order that then puts us in an equal amount of issues and troubles with the state of California. And so unfortunately, I feel the clarity is just not there right now. And this has already been a tricky subject throughout all of it. And I don't want to violate our charter at the same time as violating state election law without a little bit more guidance from the court that made the order.

I would second the motion to continue it.

So before we vote, I mean, we're talking about, as the consultant said, a scenario that is less than ideal, which I think we can agree is already a scenario under which we're operating. Once again, Mr. Harp, would you be comfortable with that?

So I think what ends up happening if you go down this route, I think what ends up happening is that We still con contract on this Blair to go ahead and start moving forward with preparing the ballots and and Translation and getting it all ready to go on the 18th to the maximum extent possible But there be you know, there's gonna be some some holes there, you know, she's not gonna have all the materials Translated or ready to go. So there'd be some last-minute things you'll have to do You know I guess my I think this is really, this is a council decision. I think, you know, you've, you've heard from her that she's already under this compressed timeframe and that I wouldn't want her to miss the deadline because she's under this compressed timeframe. Um, so, you know, my recommendation is to go ahead and move forward and, and, and call the election. Um, if, you know, that's, that's my recommendation.

Council member, why again?

Yeah, I was just going to appreciate what Mayor Pro Temblama suggested, but I just, I can't in good faith move forward with any type of election at this point in the state of the game. So we are doing ourselves a disservice to the residents of Newport Beach, registered voter residents of Newport Beach to push forward with any type of election. So I'll be voting no on that.

Council Member Grant. And I'm going to disagree. I think that I'm hearing from the city attorney that the safest approach is to move forward with the resolution that we have presented here today. We can be doing that in two different lanes. Sure, it costs us some money. We've already spent a lot of money. And sure, it's inconvenient for our staff and for us up here to be potentially violating some laws, if not other laws, court orders. But we certainly can move forward with... miss blair's recommendations we can get her started that shows a very good faith effort on our behalf when we go back to the judge on monday she will see that hopefully we're going to get some kind of relief so that we can do what's correct and appropriate for the residents of this city as well as under state you know city state and federal law so um i would strongly um advise that we move forward with the resolution today and then let our city attorney iron this out on Monday and come back to us with additional information. Perhaps something can be navigated through the court system that cleans this up for us. But if we don't move forward today, we are taking a chance that we won't meet those deadlines. We are at the very, very last juncture here. So the only downsides, I think, if we pass the resolution today are it costs us money, and it costs us staff time um is it i would ask the city attorney are there any other downsides to moving forward today and then reversing later down the road if the judge has an alternate proposal that meets all of the criteria to satisfy laws and and that kind of thing so i i think that until until you get to mailing things actually out on the 18th that

That's when you start to really cause confusion. If for some reason we're unable to go forward after that point, that's when confusion will be the most. Because then you're basically going to try to retract it. But you're not going to know from the county until the 29th at the earliest whether or not they're going to help us or not. So I think that that's a large issue that you need to think about. You have this court order, and I think that it's in your interest to comply with the court order, but I understand also what you're saying about not, you know, also having issues with the election laws and not following kind of a standard process and things of that nature, so... Once again, my recommendation is go ahead and move forward today. Let's get some clarity from the judge on Monday. If we need to, we can have another special meeting next week. But I think acting today is the best course of action because you're moving forward with complying with the writ, but you still have time to reassess if for some reason we don't get clarity out of the court on Monday.

Thank you. I just wanted to continue shortly. I appreciate you making that very clear. I did have one question. I don't know that we've addressed. Are we positive that we cannot get on an earlier agenda, the next week's agenda for the county? I had understood that we had till a certain point today or maybe even a supplemental that could be, you know, is there absolutely no way that we're going to get on an earlier agenda? We have to wait for two county meetings?

Well, we did. We did reach out to the county and they they in essence said they wouldn't they weren't interested in putting it on for the 15th. Bob Page is the one who had had it done. And what I've heard is that he had had to put it on by yesterday at 4 p.m. And a little bit of this is hearsay, but I understand that he wasn't interested in putting this on the agenda for the 15th. But it's not like we didn't reach out. So I don't see how it gets on the agenda for the 15th.

Is there another county official that can put it on the agenda, or is it only the registrar?

Maybe Lena knows more about their process over there.

I talked with them yesterday and it has to come from our we about page or our board of Supervisors representative and they request the staff report our resolutions already approved so at that time I didn't have any of that except the draft format we have right now.

So we can come from Bob page or our 5th district representative to be Katrina Foley and we reached out to Katrina Foley.

We didn't have any documentation. We had to hold the council meeting first to have resolutions approved, executed, and transferred to them. And then they would prepare a staff report and a recommendation.

OK. So do we know a deadline for that? Or I'm just curious. It was yesterday, 4 o'clock. It was yesterday at 4 o'clock. And is there any potential for a supplemental? I think we heard a discussion about that at some point.

They didn't give me that option.

OK. Thank you.

Council Member Stapleton.

YEAH, I GUESS I'M A BIT CONFUSED FOLLOWING ALONG HERE, BUT I'M FULLY SUPPORTIVE OF THE CITY ATTORNEY TO CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD IN THIS PROCESS, AND IF SOMETHING CHANGES ON MONDAY, WE CAN HAVE A SPECIAL MEETING AND GO BACK TO THIS. I DO THINK I DID HEAR A FIRST AND A SECOND FOR CONTINUING THIS. I'M NOT IN FAVOR OF CONTINUING THIS. I THINK IF WE WAIT UNTIL TUESDAY, IT'S GOING TO JUST PUT US IN A WORSE POSITION THAN WE ARE TODAY.

OKAY. LET'S GO AHEAD AND VOTE ON THE MOTION THAT IS ON THE TABLE BY SHOW OF HANDS, PLEASE.

Just to clarify, the motion that's on the table is to continue this to Tuesday at what time? Do you have a time? Four o'clock.

We can vote with our screens and not by...

Wait, can I have a clarification? We're going to continue this vote to Tuesday at four, so we have a special meeting Tuesday at four? Is that what we're saying?

You'd be adjourning this meeting to four o'clock on Tuesday.

Okay.

Yeah, that's the motion that's on the floor. I'm just clarifying what the motion was.

Is it possible to move that up if that's the motion? I can't, 4 o'clock is late.

Yeah, I'm not committed to a time. It just seemed appropriate for enough people to be able to get here, but what?

Do we have to decide that right now?

Why don't we just vote on whether to adjourn it to next Tuesday and then if everybody's in favor of that, then we can figure out a time.

Okay, it looks like we are using our screens then.

Motion failed, two to five.

Okay. And round and round we go. We, once again, do need a motion on, if we're going to, it sounds like, move these forward. Move the resolution recommended by staff forward. We need to determine if the council wants to submit arguments against some or all of the emissions.

I'll make that motion. I'll move to accept full staff recommendation on all matters.

Yeah, so there's two points I need. So the two points that need to be clarified for moving staff recommendation is do you want to submit arguments against some or all of the measures? And then the second question is if you do want to submit arguments against, then who are the three council members that are going to write the arguments against for either each one of them or for all of them?

Okay, I would bifurcate that piece of it. I just want to move forward with the resolution first and then talk about if there's going to be arguments for or against and who would vote for those. So, that would be my motion to take just that piece out and move forward with the resolution at this time.

Are they one and the same, Mr. Hart?

So, basically, you're moving forward with approving everything, staff's recommendation, except for the resolutions that deal with the arguments.

point of clarification.

So moving forward means that the consultant and staff will work to submit military and overseas ballots by Friday, which the deadline, the federal deadline is in statute. The federal deadline is Saturday, but we're going to try to shoot for Friday. And then the ballots will go out. Once those ballots go out, they've gone out. So just remember that.

yes so just to clarify you'd be moving basically items a through g except for you'd be um on item e you wouldn't be approving the resolutions dealing with impartial analysis or arguments against for and against the measure so you'd be pulling those three resolutions from the motion from the motion that's being made

Yes, I think those can be a separate motion because there might be differing opinions about that. But the motion to move forward as recommended by the city attorney's office and get further clarification on Monday, that's my proposal.

I'll second. Oh, sorry.

OK, we have a motion and a second. Does everybody understand the motion? OK, let's go ahead and vote.

Motion passes by 4-3 and opposed we have Mayor Pro Tem Blum, Council Member Weber and Council Member Weigand.

Okay now we'll have to take the secondary piece regarding the arguments against some or all of the initiatives. Council Member Brandt did you want to tackle that as well? Are there any additional thoughts? Mayor Pro Tempolo.

Thank you. Okay. I am happy to move forward with, if we do go forward with this election, to at least have arguments and an impartial analysis. I think that it's very important for anyone to vote and having an idea of what both sides look like and analysis of the measure itself. I'd be happy to be involved as one of the authors on the arguments for all of the initiatives.

That's it. Madam Mayor, just a point of clarification. Sure. Can the arguments against said items include that there's potential for disenfranchising voters as far as the accelerated timeframe of the election not having enough votes to be counted or citizens that are voters their ability to be accounted for.

I think if you add it, so it was a really interesting situation because the judge ordered that, so we're in a very complicated situation with all these corridors. Back in August, the judge had ordered that the arguments against be reviewed by the council at the council meeting on the 25th. And so attached to the staff report were arguments against that were prepared by Council Member Blum, or Mayor Pretend Blum, so my recommendation would be to go with those arguments i think that um those arguments that were submitted are basically the arguments against that should should move forward if you decide you want to do arguments against the trouble with with having something done before we got to the meeting is you can't you can't um couldn't designate who the council members are going to be because you didn't have a meeting to designate them to write the arguments against. It's always done when you call the election. So tonight, or today, you'd be designating the three council members to write them against if that's the way you want to go forward. But as far as what those arguments say, my recommendation would be to just go with what was presented on the 25th by Mayor Patan Blum. I think you'll get a legal challenge if you try to change You might get a legal challenge anyways, but I think you'll get a legal challenge if you try to put something else forward that's not those arguments that were presented on the 25th.

But I guess my question is, though, could it be added, what I mentioned about the accelerated election and the potential for disappointment?

Yeah, I don't know. I'd have to research it. It sounds like, you know, I think it sounds like it'd be fine, but I don't know off the top of my head whether you could.

Because that's an important piece to any type of argument that would the vote actually be counted? Would every single Newport Beach voter get their opportunity to vote in this election? And So if we had that argument created and it was challenged, what's the process for that? Is there an emergency court hearing that somebody has to challenge this accelerator? Again, the guidebook. Wait, wait, hold on one second. The guidebook specifically gives an opportunity to challenge arguments or challenge your ballot designation. So when I sought city council reelection, I said my specific title I wanted. Somebody could challenge that. And there's a period of time to challenge. And then there's emergency court hearings that have to be done by a certain time. So I guess that's a question we need to find out. If we did redraft our own arguments that included that language, what are the periods of time? And then can then those military and overseas ballots receive that information? And if they can't receive that information, is that also a fair election?

So normally you have a 10-day review, right? So you basically sign your arguments and there's normally a 10-day review. And I think that's fine normally, but you're also talking about sending pallets out on the 18th. So there's not going to be a period for a 10-day review if you, so you have a few different issues. One, there's not the normal 10-day review period because we need to get them all printed up. And I think that, you know, at some point, gonna be difficult to switch them out you know as far as what's going into the the ballot for um for the military i don't know what the deadline is but i imagine it's not the 18th you know there needs to be time to translate it and and get it printed and and all that stuff takes takes time i think jessica said at least a couple days So you're really narrowing the window down for someone to have the opportunity to challenge it. So that's another piece of the puzzle here where you're not complying with that 10-day review period that's normally there. And then on top of that, you have the court's order, which said they need to be, you know, the arguments need to be ready for review on the 25th, but there was no way to designate who was supposed to draft those if the council wanted to. Um, and so I think you're dealing with potentially multiple, multiple issues.

Okay, Mayor Pro Tem, do you have an actual motion or amended motion?

Do I have an actual motion? Yes. I sure do. Mr. Harp, we've received arguments for, is that correct? Or the initiatives?

Yes, we have. Okay.

All right. So if we do not put arguments against or the impartial analysis, will the only thing be showing up on the ballots as arguments for?

That's right.

Okay. So then my motion would be to move forward with an impartial analysis and arguments against. And again, I'm happy to author those as well and use the previous ones that I had written. about a month ago.

I can second that and I'm also happy to have my name as be part of those impartial analysis and arguments.

So just to clarify, you already drafted them. Your motion is to use the same arguments with your name signed to them?

Correct.

Does it need to be multiple council members?

It could be up to three.

A point of clarification. So, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, you're not interested in disclosing any additional information related to this election on the accelerated timeframe into those statements? and I guess I could see your, I play devil advocate here, on yours, we've already got them, we're already ready to go, there's no question that those can't be submitted. Say we alter those, and then some court basically says, well, that wasn't valid, and then we're throwing those out. I'm wondering if you could submit that includes the information that I'm bringing up and then use as a backup those ones that you've already drafted. And the reason why I say that is again in the book, you can challenge those. And so when we, as candidates, and there's three different sections in your form when you say, I wanna run for city council as a businessman. And somebody says, you know what, you're not a businessman, you just completely made that up. So then if that's challenged, then there's a backup. Or the registrar voters or the city clerk says, you know, that's kind of fudging. So then you have a backup beyond that. So the process allows for that. What I'm going to is could we draft our own arguments and then have a backup in case those aren't legitimate or if they're challenged in a way that basically they have to be thrown out because of our accelerated timeframe on that. So I guess I'd be supportive of this. but including the fact that we explained to the voter that you're being asked to vote on something, an accelerated timeframe with little discussion out there about the three initiatives. Sure, to some they're simple, but there are some nuance and complications to it that need to be explained about what the ramifications are of supporting said initiatives. So I'm concerned that that's an accelerated timeframe to not get enough information out there. So an argument could be, that there's not enough time for you to understand these complicated issues. So we ask you to vote no because you haven't had enough information. You haven't had enough time to disseminate that information and make a good judgment vote. That's why I think the 28th or 2028 election gives everyone enough time to do all of these things and vote in a consolidated election with every single election that exists and you get one candidate sample ballot that has arguments for and against, it has all of your council, it has all your special districts, it has every single election that you would have instead of this janky process that we're gonna throw out to the city of Newport Beach because a court has forced us into decisions. I think that it would be incumbent on us to explain the facts, why you're getting this, and here's the argument against. So I'd like to amend your motion or make a substitute or whatever.

And I agree with you, Council Member Weigand. If I could just grab some clarification. The reason why, and this is another interesting question, BECAUSE NORMALLY WE CRAFT THE ARGUMENTS UP HERE OURSELVES. THIS JUDGE HAS ORDERED THAT WE CRAFT THEM AND CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, MR. ATTORNEY.

JUST A MOMENT. YEAH. I'M NOT QUITE SURE WHAT JESSICA JUST EMAILED ME SOMETHING. I'D LIKE HER TO EXPLAIN WHAT SHE HAS TO SAY. I WAS OF THE IMPRESSION THAT WE COULD MOVE FORWARD, BUT SHE'S INDICATING THAT MAYBE SHE NEEDS COUNTY APPROVAL. SO JESSICA, COULD YOU LET US KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING AS FAR AS MAILING THE MILITARY?

Yeah, so, and what I've. Sort of been talking about for the past week is that. Us being able to mail ballots depends on us. Having the signature verification from the account. Right and so we are working on both in parallel because we don't have time to wait for the county, but we talked about asking the. For judicial relief and compel the county, or working with. The Board of Supervisors or county council to try and get them to at least agree to that portion. before we send out view at Pavo addressing the council members' points. We cannot just send out ballots knowing we don't have a way to verify them and count them once they return.

So you're saying you wouldn't mail out the military ballots if we didn't have an agreement from the county to provide services?

The signature verification separately. The rest of it is optional, but we've talked about asking the judge about that. working with county council. But no, I would absolutely not mail out ballots without knowing that we've had a way to count them and verify them when they are returned.

To the 29.

Well, I think part of the problem is that, you know, the NBSA didn't name, you know, the registered voters as a defendant, so they're not subject to these orders, you know. So, you know, we need their cooperation and, you know, but they're not parties to the lawsuit. I think what, I'm just going to repeat what Jessica said because it seems different than what I heard previously, is that you will not send out the ballots, you know,

on the um 18th or 19th to the overseas of the military unless the county has agreed to uh provide the signature verification is that what you're saying yeah and that's i've included that in the feasibility plans as well it relies on the county's agreement to give us access to signature verification which are technically leanest records so

So how do we get that? I mean, doesn't the County Board of Supervisors have to consider the resolution asking for services before you can get that?

No, the registrar is able to send it to Lena in her capacity as the elections official for the city. They're not doing it for whatever reason, but as easily as Lena asked for the voter data records and they sent them over, it's that exact same simple process. And it's something that they do for other cities in Orange County that hold their own standalone elections frequently. It's not an arduous process at all.

So just to confirm, that's not something the board of supervisors has to consider as part of, of the resolution that's being adopted. That's something separate.

Yes.

And then I thought we had everything we needed from them because they sent over some of the signatures. Nothing.

The voter data, which we needed.

What was it that you received from them?

This is like any candidate and anybody can get information from the counties that just names of the registered voters as of yesterday got it or 2 days before with the addresses they have the information that's available to the public that was signature verification database is not confirmed or they haven't agreed to that.

We can. Maybe we can continue this meeting for an hour, and then let's try to nail that piece of it down. There's a lot of moving parts, and my understanding is that we had what we needed to at least do the military ballots, but apparently not.

mr harper how does that affect our decisions today if we move forward we at least have these decisions and resolutions in place we could then potentially go back to the county and see if there's any way to get them i think we're just before the the 12 o'clock right yeah i mean you raise a good point but the orange county board of supervisors doesn't need to consider as part of the resolution you're adopting

then we still have a chance of getting it. And that's what I'm hearing. That's not part of what we're asking for county services. This is something separate that the Orange County Register of Voters can approve.

Those is my understanding was that they still need the approval to provide that service because it's a very confidential database and originally they didn't release the signatures and we don't have agreement with them in full process right now so we would have to coordinate with the county and should the county say they're not releasing the signatures we can conduct the election.

So I guess my question is, what's the downside in us just moving forward?

I think you made a good decision. I think you're right. You can move forward still with this, and then we can try to nail that piece of it down in addition to the issues that we're going to bring forward to the court on Monday. And I think at that point, we'll have more clarity of where we're at next week. And then if we need to hold a special meeting next week, that's fine. Yeah, I guess the point I was trying to determine is if we need Orange County Board of Supervisors permission before the 18th or 19th, we're not going to get it. But if we can do it outside of not needing their permission, then that's something we can work on next week and you can go ahead and just move forward today and then we can reassess.

Well, and at this point, we have an approved resolution that we can hopefully try to submit one last time for consideration for Tuesday's agenda. All we can do is try, but if we don't continue to move forward through the process, then we still have to answer to the judge on that piece, and we don't have something to present to county council.

Yeah, I mean, it's a good point. I think you're right. But you can see the complexity of this. You're dealing with a lot of different agencies. You're dealing with the court. You're dealing with the county. You're dealing with consultants. There's just a lot of moving parts here. But I think you're absolutely spot on that if you move forward with this piece, then you're moving the ball down the field towards complying with the writ, and we can reassess if something changes next week.

Okay, so we still.

Madam Mayor, just point of clarification. So there is a section in our agenda that says motion for reconsideration. So, you know, those that voted in the affirmative have an option to reconsider. But from what I'm hearing is there's a potential that military and overseas voters will not receive a ballot. There's potential.

I think what you're hearing is that we need to square some things away with the Orange County Register of Voters before, you know, before the deadline gets here to mail those out.

Squaring things away means a potential that military and overseas voters do not get a ballot.

Council Member Morgan, I think the issue that is now being raised is the discrepancy between the information that we've received about whether or not we need approval from the County Board of Supervisors to have them give us supportive services in this election and Jessica's opinion that they should be able to give us information regardless of whether they adopt any kind of approval or support.

Correct. It's administrative approval from the registrar voters. But if they see that we have a potential to confuse their election, I think that there is a potential for problem.

But I will be quiet because I think what Ms. Blair said is that she does not intend to go forward with mailing out ballots if we don't have the squared away. So I think that at that point, the election becomes infeasible if we can't get that agreement. If she's not going to mail the ballots out, you know, ON THAT DATE IF WE DON'T HAVE AGREEMENT.

OK. SO ONCE AGAIN, I DON'T KNOW THAT THERE'S HARM IN US CONTINUING TO MOVE FORWARD. WE ALREADY HAVE A RESOLUTION THAT'S BEEN ADOPTED AS COUNCILMEMBER WEIGAND MENTIONED AT THE END OF OUR AGENDA TODAY. WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR MOTIONS OF RECONSIDERATION. FIRST, WE'VE GOT TO GET THROUGH THE REST OF THIS. SO ONCE AGAIN, MAYOR POTAM, BLUM, ARE YOU WILLING TO AMEND YOUR MOTION TO ACCOMMODATE COUNCILMEMBER WEIGAND'S REQUEST?

I need quick clarification first, Mr. City Attorney. Because the arguments had already been approved based on the judge's orders, we had to confer with the plaintiff. So is that correct?

so we had to meet and confer and do that agreement on the ballot questions as far as the arguments go her order actually said they need to be ready to go on the 25th and you submitted your ballot arguments that were ready to go on the on the 25th and that's why i'm cautious about saying you could alter those because i could see the judge ruling that you had to go with what was presented on the 25th even though the council as a body hadn't selected who was going to write them or you know approve them and things of that nature

Okay, so even though I do agree with Councilmember Wygant that I would like to see more information on those, since we are literally skating on a knife's edge right now to remain compliant in multiple different arenas, I'm going to keep my motion as stated.

Okay, and then your second came from Council Member Weber who wanted to add her name to those arguments against. Are you okay with that in your motion?

I am, thank you. Madam Mayor, I would like to add my name as well.

Okay, so we have three council members whose names will be signed to those arguments against all three ballot initiatives. And we have a motion and a second. Let's go ahead and vote.

You can vote by . Okay, Strava. Motion passes 7-0.

OK. 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? Hearing none, we are adjourned.

fronts and that way again we can have an opinion that when it comes to stuff i speak it gives me it forced me the possibility to speak directly to our state fire marshal to get information that hey is this relevant to us does it how does it apply to us what's the actual intent of this versus hearing it third party and down the road so it's a pretty good opportunity but as we jump into this the first thing i want to cover is just some definitions so everyone's on the same page Local responsibility area, LRA, that's what we are. So the state has an SRA, a state responsibility area. LRA is Newport Beach. That's who's responsible for the suppression and prevention of fire. Who pays the bill if there's a wildfire? So we're LRA. FHSZ, fire hazard severity zone, that's what the maps are. They're designating the fire hazard severity zones, and that's moderate, high, and very high, with moderate being the least restrictive and very high being the most restrictive. And we'll get into what those actual effects are and the implications, what it means for homeowners, what it means for developers, all that good stuff. If I say SFM, I'm talking about the state fire marshal. I'm not talking directly about Daniel Berlant. I'm talking about his office. Generally, if I'm talking this capacity, it's gonna be SFM, that'll be his office. A hazard map, that's what these are. So they depict the likelihood and severity of wildfire based on fuel, topography, weather, and they just identify the hazard. It's actually a tool for government accountability. Let's say that you pay an architect to come design your home. You pay a landscaper to come maintain your home. Well, it's our job to have those areas identified so you can then build the structure appropriately to where you can maintain the defensible space appropriately and account for that. So when we get into what the hazard map triggers, we'll cover that. And a risk map is what you see the insurance companies use. So it's separate. And I could say based off of my conversations with the insurance industry that I've had from both the insurance commissioner's office and other folks that work in the private insurance side, it is two separate maps. The risk maps are probably, I'd say they're probably far more restrictive and aggressive than what the CAL FIRE maps are because we have homeowners getting dropped that are well outside of these maps for wildfire issues outside of the CAL FIRE maps. Defensible space, that's the buffer between your structure and the surrounding area. So when you hear defensible space, it's that zero to five feet, and then five to 30 feet, and then 30 to 100 feet. And we'll get into, again, what all those are. Home hardening, the building materials used to resist the intrusion of flames and embers projected by a wildfire. So that's when you hear about upgrading your vents or having a noncombustible roof or double pane windows or noncombustible siding. That's all the home hardening. What's in that building envelope and how do you protect it? Post 2008 construction was built to what we call Chapter 7A of the building code, which is this next definition on there. And Chapter 7A basically said, hey, this is how we design structures that are gonna be in a wildfire area that has that hazard to eliminate the ember intrusion, to stop the direct flame impingement, to help defend against a wildfire. The WUI Wildland Urban Interface and Wildland Urban Interface Fire Area is what we're calling WUI-FA. So we'll get into what those are. So real quick on the legislation and the history of the fire hazard severity zones. Way back in 92, they passed the Bates Bill. They call it the Bates Bill, but it's Assembly Bill 337. And that basically said that they have to map the fire hazard severity zones in the local responsibility area. They had already previously done it for the state responsibility area, but they'd never done it for the local. So they said they have to map it. So the bill also required CAL FIRE to transmit these recommendations to the local fire department. So in about 2007, they finished the maps. Sometime between 2007 and 2010, they transmitted them. And when they transmitted them, we had the ability to alter the maps. So we had the very high fire hazard severity zone as recommended by CAL FIRE. And then the city had the ability to go, if we disagree, we're going to pull this out, or we're going to add that in, or we're going to change this, or we're going to change that. And if you look at the original map compared to what we actually adopted, it's half the size. but it was an option based off that. So in 2021, Assembly 642, AB 642 was passed. And what that changed is that previously it was just the very high zone in the LRA. They added in the moderate and the high. So the whole time the state responsibility area had all three layers of hazard. And then in 2021, it changed to where we had to add in the moderate and high for LRA. And we talked about cities, changing the map. So SB 63 was passed and it mandates that the adoption of all three fire hazard severity zones, moderate, high, and very high within the local responsibility area. So what they didn't want was jurisdictions to repeat it and pull out areas of the maps that they recommended. So they made it to where, hey, it's gonna be part of it and you have to adopt all three zones. so what changed is previously local jurisdictions were only required to adopt the very high and they said hey you have to adopt all three and then ab211 occurred so the current law was that only you had to adopt the very high fire hazard severity zone within 120 days ab211 then expanded it to where you had to adopt the high and the moderate within 120 days of them being transmitted to you and you can't reduce it So you can't reduce the severity zone that's in there. So if it is in a very high, it can't become high. And if it's in a high, it can become moderate. And if it's in a moderate, it can't become unzoned. You can only be more restrictive. So if we wanted to add areas in, we could do that, but we can't remove what was recommended. So in this, they said, hey, you have to adopt all this stuff within 120 days and you really don't have a choice. public comment period that's required by the bill we have a 30-day public comment period which it's been on our website with the map with a public comment form those public comments are just that the state is not required to take those comments nor can we send them to them they don't have them they don't have a place for us to send them nor will they take them so when people comment on the maps we take those in and hopefully call and answer questions and educate them on what they are but we can't modify anything as a local agency we can't make it when people say hey we don't want to be in the maps why was I mapped into it we don't have that option so our timeline so SB 63 2021 within 30 days of receiving the maps local jurisdictions must make them available for public review so on March 24th we received the maps from the state on March 25th they're posted for public review so I think that's at 55 days as of today that they've been up and you only have to do it for 30 days. We've allowed it to go much longer than that just to make sure people have the opportunity to see the maps. We're going to close the public comment period on Friday, May 23rd. That's going to be the public comment period closed because at that point in time, we've had nearly 60 days for public comments. If people have questions, the map will still be available. They can call us and ask. We're going to be available to answer any questions people have. We're not going to turn them down. We just won't have the online format to submit a form anymore, but we could still have those discussion. And again, the law does not allow for local agencies to request changes or provide comments to the SFM. So our timeline of events, March 24th, we receive them. March 24th, we post them for public comment. July 8th is when we'll go for the first reading of the council with the ordinance. And July 26th is when we'll go, 22nd, excuse me, is when we'll go with the second reading for the ordinance. That's kind of the timeline, how it's looking. So how are the zones determined? I'm going to tell you what I tell everyone else. CAL FIRE did not show us how the sausage was made. They didn't give us any information. They don't say, this is the formula. This is our modeling. Here's the supercomputer. Here's the inputs. This is the type of vegetation we use. They just said that they use the best available science and data to develop and field test a model that serves as a basis for zone assignments. The model evaluated the probability of the area burning and potential fire behavior in the area. And it took into account fire history, vegetation, flame length, blowing embers, proximity to wildland, terrain, and weather. So that's the information they gave us. So we don't have that model. We didn't get a sneak peek of the maps before they came.