Remarks by Nelson Esparza
210 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 8 of 9
- Play at 57:22
“Saturday, it typically is 9 a.m. I'll double check, but especially in the summer times, it may get bummed down to 8.30 because of the heat, but I'll double check that and get back to you. City Manager, any comments?”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 57:38
“Okay, sounds good. All right, we'll move on to our agenda. We will go ahead and take, at this point, we don't have any timed items. Those have all been punted or rescheduled, it looks like, from my side here. So we'll move on to the consent agenda. Before we vote on that, obviously we have some items pulled, but we're going to take public comments on any item that's on the consent agenda or the contested consent or the closed session agenda as well. So now would be the opportunity to be able to speak. COMMENT. I DO HAVE SOME CARDS, AND AGAIN, JUST FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC, WE'RE DOING…”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:01:17
“Thank you. Next card I have is going to be for Bill Bunnell.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:04:33
“Thank you, Bill. Next speaker I have is going to be Daniel Gonzalez.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:06:54
“Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Andy Chikara. Welcome, you have three minutes.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:09:35
“Our next speaker we have is Balwinder Singh.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:11:30
“Thank you. Next card is going to be for Baolia Xiong.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:13:50
“Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Jasmine. And as a reminder, we're currently doing public comment for any item that was on the consent agenda, contested consent or closed session agenda.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:15:58
“Next speaker is going to be Sukbir Bandal.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:19:39
“Thank you. A city attorney, someone from code enforcement could briefly advise my question. Yeah, we have to move on to the meeting. Thank you. Next speaker is going to be David Rios.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:21:00
“Thank you. I don't have any more yellow cards, but I do have some folks on Zoom queued up to speak. Again, as a reminder to the public, we're on the portion of public comment with respect to anything on the consent agenda or the contested consent agenda or a closed session. So if you're in the chamber and would like to speak, go ahead and bring up a yellow card. Meanwhile, we're going to go over to some of the Zoom speakers. First up, we have Joseph Rodriguez. Hello. Yes. Welcome, Joseph. You have three minutes. Joseph, you have to unmute yourself. We're on public comment for the consent…”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:24:44
“Next speaker on Zoom is going to be Brian Lam. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Welcome, you have three minutes.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:26:40
“All right, thank you. Next speaker is going to be Julio Lopez on Zoom.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:28:09
“All right, next speaker on Zoom is going to be Lisa Flores.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:28:19
“Yes, Lisa, welcome. You have three minutes.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:29:48
“Lisa, we're on public comment related to the consent agenda, contested consent, or closed session. So please keep your comments directed in that direction.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:30:38
“Thank you, Lisa. I don't have any other speakers punched up on Zoom. I don't have any other yellow cards or any additional public comment on consent, contested consent or the closed session agenda. Seeing none, would enclose public comments. And I'll come back up to the council. I'll entertain a motion for approval of the consent agenda. Motion? I'll second that. Any opposition to approving the balance of the consent agenda? Seeing none, that passes. Any question?”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:31:13
“All right, seeing none, that passes five to zero. I think, yeah, five, zero. All right, it looks like at this point we've got the contested consent agenda. Clerk, remind me which items we have on the contested consent?”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:32:01
“Yeah. So let's see, we'll move on to item 2H here. And Council Member Richardson, you pulled this?”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:33:17
“We have a motion and a second. Is there any opposition to approving item 2H? Seeing none, that passes four to zero. Yeah, four to zero. All right. Item 2M, also pulled by Council Member Richardson. Director Horn here.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:37:23
“All right, we have a motion, we have a second. Is there any opposition to approving item 2M? M as in Mary? Seeing none, that passes five to zero. All right, on contested consent, we're going over to item 2Z, tobacco retail license. This item is sponsored by myself, Council Member Karbasi, and Council Member, Council Vice President Maxwell. It was pulled by Council Member Richardson. Council Member, I'll let you have the floor. Would the sponsors like to speak on it first? No, we had this discussion last week, so we'll hand it over to you for now.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:55:22
“All right, thank you, Council Member Richardson. You know, I'm open to a conversation on some of these. I was taking notes as you were going through Maybe half of them I'd be open. You know, if you read the language of the TRL, we don't address the radius or the sensitive use areas. I think we have addressed those at length in other pieces of legislation, and we really wanted to keep this one fairly narrow, right? We're not really... applying a new set of laws to follow per se. We're implementing a sustainable enforcement mechanism of existing laws, whether that be our own local ordinances or…”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:58:54
“No, I mean, I was, yeah, I mean, I think you answered the question about whether we're, you know, enforcing on tobacco currently. And again, with respect to how sustainable that might be and where the funding is coming from right now. Yes.”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:59:48
“Thank you. Appreciate that. Councilmember, with respect to the transfer business, I would like to hear some of the legal counsel offline where appropriate. And then with respect to the delineation between the kind of administrative and code issues versus issues more related to the actual violations of sale, I'm open to that conversation. I would say, generally speaking, again, there's some decent ideas here. I think what I would want to do today, if it was the will of the council, is press forward with an approval, and then maybe if you wanted to author some amendments, put some pen to paper,…”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 2:27:56
“I'll give you a minute to clarify. But while you do that, I'll just make a few last comments discussion here. I appreciate everybody who came out today to comment, whether you were at the coalition or whether you were at APCA. You know, between myself and my office, we've had a chance to meet with all of these advocacy groups in one format or the other. It's interesting kind of the range of where the interested groups and interested parties are all landing. I've got one group who wants to pull this one direction, another group who wants to pull it the other direction, and then a small handful…”
City Council · Aug 13, 2026