City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Let's pray. Thank you. So,

But I need people, council members, public servants, elected officials. Shall we? IT IS NOW 3.32. TIME TO START THE OPEN SESSION TO HEAR PUBLIC COMMENTS BEFORE CLOSED SESSION. MAY WE HAVE A ROLL CALL, PLEASE?

YES. COUNCIL MEMBER BANA.

HERE.

COUNCIL MEMBER BROWN WILL BE ABSENT DUE TO A RECENT SURGERY. COUNCIL MEMBER JIMENEZ.

PRESENTE.

COUNCIL MEMBER ZAPATA IS ABSENT. Council member Wilson here. Vice mayor Robinson is absent and mayor Martinez here.

Thank you.

Okay. The council will discuss the following items during closed session. First item, see one liability claim, claimant Manuel Galley agent against city of Richmond. ITEM C2, CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS, AGENCY REPRESENTATIVE, JARONE TAYLOR, JACK HUGHES AND LISA CHARBONNAY, EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS, SEIU, LOCAL 1021, FULL-TIME AND PART-TIME UNITS, IFPTE LOCAL 21, mid-level management and executive management units, Richmond Police Officers Association, Richmond Police Management Association, IAFF Local 188, and Richmond Fire Management Association. For the record, Vice Mayor Robinson is present. All right. And we have one in-person speaker. If there's anyone joining us online that would like to address the council, please raise your hand. Cordell Hendler, you'll have two minutes.

Thank you. So good afternoon, Mayor Martinez. Council, for the record, I am Cordell Hendler and I'm a Richmond resident. So as far as the labor negotiations, when you go back into closed session, these unions have done a lot for Richmond. So I am asking you to consider, you know, the proposals that have been placed in front of you. So that way the employees can have a some more money coming their way. So that's all I have to say.

And that was our only speaker.

Thank you. Public comment is closed. And with that, we will adjourn to closed session.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for watching. so so So, Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. you you Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, so Thank you. so so Thank you. So, you you you Thank you. Thank you. Let's pray. so so Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. so so . . Thank you. . . you ... ... music music Thank you. you you Hmm. Hmm. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . . . you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you.

All right, if the other council members can make it to the dais, we will begin. It is now, audience, it is now time to start city council, so if you can quiet down, find a seat, we will begin. This is, staff?

Staff, staff.

Chill out. You guys are having too much fun. All right. Now that we've got staff under control, we will begin the regular meeting of the Richmond City Council. We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty ROLL CALL.

FOR THE RECORD, COUNCILMEMBER BROWN WILL BE ABSENT THE ENTIRE MEETING. SHE IS RECOVERING FROM SURGERY. COUNCILMEMBER JIMENEZ.

PRESENTE.

COUNCILMEMBER WILSON.

HERE.

VICE MAYOR ROBINSON.

HERE.

MAYOR MARTINEZ.

HERE.

COUNCIL MEMBER ZAPATA IS ABSENT FOR ROLL CALL. AND COUNCIL MEMBER ABANA IS ABSENT FOR ROLL CALL. NEXT ITEM, STATEMENT OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST. ARE THERE ANY? OKAY. HEARING NONE, MOVING TO AGENDA REVIEW. WE HAVE THREE ITEMS THAT ARE BEING REMOVED FROM THE CONSENT CALENDAR. The items are N3A, that's the support for SB1259, transparency for refinery asset retirement. Item N7D, accept the automated transit network feasibility study. And item N8A, establishing the fiscal year 26-27 residential rental housing fee. These items will be heard directly after the report from the city manager. If you'd like to speak on those items and you are in person, please submit speaker cards to the clerk before the items are called. Thank you. Okay. Next item.

Sorry, I apologize. What was the first one that was pulled off consent?

N3A. Okay, thank you. That's it? Yep. Okay. Okay, for the record, Council Member Vanna.

Thank you.

Is present. And Council Member Zepeda is present. Thank you. Okay. Our next item is a report from the city attorney of final decisions made during closed session.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight's closed session, there were no reportable actions taken during the closed session. Thank you. Okay.

Next item is item L, and that's a report from the city manager.

KCRT, can you please put up the slide deck? Good evening, Mayor, City Council, Shasta Curl, Richmond City Manager. As a reminder, all of these items can be found in the weekly report or calling the City Manager's office at 510-620-6512. Isn't this a beautiful photo? I just love it. Love our Richmond marching band. So this is the Richmond Oilers marching band from Richmond High School that participated in the Juneteenth Festival. Just want to thank and acknowledge them for always coming out to celebrate in our community. Next slide. Next slide. On Saturday, June 20, the Richmond community came together to celebrate our annual Juneteenth Family Celebration. The event featured more than 140 vendors, including many local businesses, a vibrant youth stage, cultural performances, and outstanding entertainment from a diverse lineup of talent artists. An event of this scale requires a month of planning, coordination, and collaboration among numerous partners and stakeholders. Year after year, this celebration continues to be a tremendous success because of the dedicated and hard work of so many individuals. I would like to extend my dearest appreciation to all the city staff that helped make this event possible. IN PARTICULAR, IN ADDITION TO THE COMMUNITY COMMITTEE THAT ORGANIZES THE JUNE TEETH CELEBRATION, I WOULD ALSO IN PARTICULAR LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE CITY STAFF MEMBERS MICHELLE MILAN, DARREN FITZPATRICK, ABDUL BLACK, ALEXIS GRACE, DEPUTY CHIEF RENKON, DEPUTY CITY MANAGER LESHONDA WHITE, ANNA DURAND, SAMANTHA CAR, SAM VAUGHN, AND TAY TAY IN COMMUNITY SERVICES AS WELL AS ALL THE OTHER COMMUNITY SERVICES AND PUBLIC WORK STAFF THAT WORKED THE DAY OF THE EVENT AS WELL AS THE RICHMOND POLICE DEPARTMENT AND RICHMOND FIRE DEPARTMENT FOR THEIR THIS WAS ONE OF THE MOST WELL ATTENDED JUNETEENTH CELEBRATIONS THAT I CAN RECALL AND REALLY ALSO WANT TO THANK THE VENDORS THAT CAME OUT, OUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STAFF PARTNERED WITH THE ORGANIZERS AND WE ARE MAKING SURE THAT WE SHARE RICHMOND BUSINESSES THAT HAVE PARTICIPATED IN OTHER COMMUNITY AND CITY EVENTS. such as The Lot and Cinco de Mayo to ensure that all of our wonderful vendors that are here in the city of Richmond have an opportunity to participate in the various city events that we host throughout the year. So thank you again, everyone who came out in attendance, and we look forward to having another wonderful celebration next year. NEXT SLIDE. ALSO, THE RICHMOND MAIN STREET INITIATIVE LAUNCHED ITS SUCCESSFUL 2026 MUSIC ON THE MAIN SUMMER CONCERT SERIES ON THURSDAY, JUNE 18TH. RESIDENTS, FAMILIES, AND VISITORS TOGETHER ENJOYED AN EVENING OF LIVE MUSIC, DANCING, AND COMMUNITY CELEBRATION IN DOWNTOWN. ANDRE THEORY WAS THE MUSICIAN OF THE EVENING. and it involved participants being able to enjoy free music and purchase from the vendors at the lot. Many of you may recall that the vendors at the lot were PROVIDED AN OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE WHEN WE OVER A YEAR AND A HALF AGO ROLLED OUT THE MOBILE SIDEWALK VENDOR ORDINANCE AND SO THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN A HUGE SUCCESS AND WANT TO THANK THE RICHMOND FARMERS MARKET FOR WORKING WITH OUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STAFF AND THE MAIN STREET INITIATIVE TO STAND UP THIS GREAT WORK IN OUR COMMUNITY. NEXT SLIDE. Coming up on the 3rd of July, please join us for fireworks and our festival in the Marina Bay Park on Regatta Boulevard and Marina Bay Parkway. I highly encourage if you've never attended before, I highly encourage you to bring blankets, a jacket, and chairs, if you'd like to sit in a chair, and arrive early. The event starts at 5 p.m. I highly encourage people to arrive at 5 p.m., although the event does go until 10 p.m. with fireworks beginning at 9.15. This is an extremely well-attended event and it does get crowded, so please arrive early. Next slide. AND ALSO BE PATIENT AS YOU'RE LEAVING. COMING UP, PLANT A SEED AND READ. THIS IS A SUMMER READING PROGRAM THAT'S HOSTED BY OUR LIBRARY. I WANT TO THANK OUR LIBRARY STAFF, IN PARTICULAR KATE FOR HER LEADERSHIP THERE AS WE'RE RENOVATING OUR LIBRARY AND SO REALLY WANT TO COMMEND THE LIBRARY STAFF FOR GETTING OUT AND HOSTING VARIOUS ACTIVITIES IN OUR COMMUNITY. MOST RECENTLY I HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO BRING A FAMILY THAT WAS HERE AT CIVIC CENTER, THEY WERE LOOKING FOR THE LIBRARY SINCE IT'S IN ITS TEMPORARY LOCATION AND WERE ABLE TO BRING THEM OVER TO THE LIBRARY AND PARTICIPATE IN THE CRAFTING EVENT. THESE ACTIVITIES IN THE LIBRARY ARE A LOT OF FUN. PLEASE SIGN UP IF YOU CAN BY CALLING 510-620-6561. or you can scan the QR code there and this will enable you to obtain materials and participate in the summer programs at the library. Next slide. I WANT TO REMIND, IT LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE A BLANK SCREEN, BUT SLIDE SEVEN, PLEASE. RICHMOND SENIOR CENTER MOVIE DAY IS ON THE SECOND AND FOURTH WEDNESDAYS OF THE MONTH AT THE RICHMOND SENIOR CENTER FROM 2 TO 4 P.M. CONCESSION STANDS WILL BE OPEN. THERE ARE HOT DOGS, CHIPS, AND COOKIES AS WELL AS FREE ENTRY. SO FOR RICHMOND SENIORS, PLEASE JOIN US AT 2525 MCDONALD AVENUE FOR THE MOVIE DAY. IT'S A GREAT TIME ON TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

NOW WE'RE MOVING TO ITEM N3A. And that is to direct city council office staff to submit a letter of support to the California state legislature for Senate bill one, two, five, nine, on behalf of the city of Richmond. And we have one speaker in person speaker. There's anyone joining us online that would like to address the council on this item. Please raise your hand at this time and I'll call the speaker.

Yes.

Uh, before Claudia, Claudia Citroen. Claudia Citrone, please come forward. Okay, thank you. So the agenda is turned around for no open forum first. This was announced during agenda review. Please start your comments.

One second, I need to pull it up.

Well, she's pulling it up. I would like to say that the sheet from Senator Catherine Blakesphere from Senate District 38 did a fantastic job of explaining what this bill is about.

Okay, I'm ready. Ready? So this item was posted on new business last council. There's an improper motion. She did speak during the council meeting on the days. There was public objection and mayors ignored the mayor's ruling. There's a contact on days issues. There were Brown Act violations. There are requirements that... Agenda descriptions are reasonably informed the public and that did not happen. There is no public participation now because the letter has not been read last time as it's usually discussed. There are violations to council procedures. There's disregard to presiding officers And there's a fundamental fairness issues. I called Jimenez on Thursday, and I didn't. On Monday night, I received a call back for a meeting on 10 o'clock. That is not possible. She continues to abuse the council consent calendar. And to conclude. The public deserves transparent deliberation, not procedural gamemanship designed to silence discussion. Don Gosney remarked it last time. This is coming up on a frequent basis. Members of the council often remove items from the regular agenda to move it to the consent. If we want to speak on an item, we cannot. And again, this is just... Why does Jimenez think she can do all of this? Why? It's a political gamemanship, and it's for election campaign. I am aghast, and I am just really aghast. So that's all I have to say.

Thank you. Do we have a motion?

I move the item, and I want to ask the city City Attorney, if we are violating any procedure, I ask that this item was putting on consent calendar last time, but it was putting on no consent calendar, so this is why we didn't vote. So I just wanted you to speak on that, and then we can vote on it. It's a letter, it's not a big thing that we are asking for.

Sure, it could have originally gone on consent. It wasn't on consent last time, so my position is moving it back on consent. Didn't give an opportunity to the public to comment BEFORE ARRIVING AND TALKING TO YOU BEFORE IT WAS PUT ON. SO NOW THAT IT IS ON CONSENT, WHICH IT CAN BE, ROUTINE ITEMS ARE ON CONSENT, I SEE NO ISSUE WITH MOVING FORWARD.

THANK YOU. I MOVE THE ITEM.

I SECOND.

COUNCIL MEMBER ABANA.

YES.

COUNCIL MEMBER JIMENEZ. YES. COUNCIL MEMBER WILSON. YES. VICE MAYOR ROBINSON. YES. COUNCIL MEMBER ZAPATA.

I don't know that we move that one to the very top. Yes. Uh-huh. Okay. That's why it's outside. I was like, what are we doing?

Yes And mayor Martinez. Yes, the motion passes with councilmember Brown absent Our next item is item in 7d In 7d except the automated transit network feasibility study is to adopt a resolution to accept the report on the city of Richmond automated transit network feasibility study including the preliminary concept alternatives and planning level capital cost ranges. Appropriate the remaining funds to install solar lighting along bus routes and authorize the city manager or their designee to take administrative actions as necessary. We have One speaker. If there's anyone joining us online that would like to address the council on this item, please raise your hand at this time. Okay. The in-person speaker is Claudia Citrin.

So I know you're not going to listen, so why would I waste my time? This project was initially approved in 2012. It was re-approved in 2025. This were a different financial situation in the city, a different employee situation. You keep putting things on the department's list. There is no, actually, determination that this establish an improvement. There is inadequate administrative records that show that solar lighting is really a good solution. It's again, you keep putting things on the city staff shoulders. Every week you come up with different things. I don't know which part you do not hear from the city staff that they are unable to take on more projects. I don't know which part you don't hear from the city manager saying that there is no money. Just because you get a A grant doesn't mean you have to jump on it. Just because it was approved in 2012, when the city had plenty of money and plenty of funding not in the Trump generation, it should not continue. And just because it fits your agenda and you miss of funding the police department and you're misfunding the fire department. I looked at the civil grand jury report. Most of the things which were requested for the police department are not in. But you have time to put these things on the agenda. You have time to ask city departments to deal with this. Even if you hire consultants, city staff needs to deal with it. And you don't seem to understand it. don't seem to understand it when city departments tell it to you. You don't hear it when the city manager says it. She explained it 10 times last time, saying there is no money, you need to shelf projects. This is a project I approve, but it needs to be shelved. Even the consultant needs to be shelved, and I yield my time.

Mr. Mayor, can I make a motion?

Yes, you may.

UM... DUE TO THE FACT THAT IT'S NOT BROUGHT UP BY COUNCIL MEMBERS, BUT BY THE CITY STAFF, I MAKE A MOTION THAT WE PASS THIS ITEM. I SECOND THAT.

COUNCIL MEMBER BAUTOM?

WAIT. I THINK WE... MY ALTERNATE MOTION IS THAT WE HEAR THIS BECAUSE THIS WAS COUNCIL MEMBER, UH... HUMANAS AND MY ITEM THREE YEARS AGO, AND WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THREE YEARS TO HAVE THIS HERE, AND I DO WISH THAT WE WOULD HAVE HAD TIME TO MEET ONE-ON-ONE. because this is something that we've been waiting for three years. So maybe we table it and we bring it back once we have more time and discussion outside of just here. So my motion is to table then bring it back with a little more time after we meet with the council members that brought this up three years ago.

Do we have a second? Respectfully, it wouldn't be a table then, right? It would be to continue the item. To continue. If I'm understanding your intent.

Is there a second? Do we have a second?

No.

No second. So it remains for voting.

Council Member Brown? Oh, I'm sorry.

Council Member Bonner? Yes.

Councilmember Jimenez? Yes. Councilmember Wilson? Yes. Vice Mayor Robinson?

Yes.

Councilmember Zepeda?

No.

Mayor Martinez?

Yes.

The motion passes. Councilmember Brown absent. And Councilmember Zepeda voting no. Okay. Our next item is item N8A. And that item is to adopt a resolution establishing the fiscal year 2026-27 residential rental housing fee in the amount of $261 per controlled rental unit and $149 per partially covered rental units. Let's see. Are there any speakers that would like to address the council on this item? that's joining us online, please raise your hand at this time. We have one in-person speaker, Claudia Citron. Are you ready? Are you passing on your Okay, well you need to come up and speak please.

So this is the only board that does not come to present in person. All the boards are supposed to come once a year to present. This is the ordinance requirement. And the council independent legislative duty is to ensure this is happening. I sent a long letter. I'm not going to repeat everything again. There is no sufficient evidence that the fees that the rent board requested are actually feasible and proper financial protection. There's a lack of performance accountability. The city's residents do not know what the rent board is doing because you do not present it in council. If you discuss it in private or you discuss it behind, it's again a transparency issue. If Cesar Cepeda wants to meet one-to-one, that is a transparency issue. That's a Brown Act violation. And so I keep going on. Jimenez is supposed to do her job when she reviews all those boards, and she doesn't. This ordinance or this request from the rent board, this presentation, is supposed to be presented that citizens can see it and not just have to read it up. There needs to be discussion between council members on what they think about increases and what they think what the rent board is doing. You are not allowing that. You're cutting back the ability of residents to engage and listen where you are in certain things. And that is just egregious. And I yield my time. I will continue further on this on my open public. But it is just unbelievable how you just kind of look away and you think you own it. I agree with the rent board, but you do forget that you have a liability in being transparent and engaging with the general public who watch the video. and to see what you do and to see that you're not discussing it, you keep it quickly put away in a corner where nobody can see it. And I'm ashamed that Fred didn't even know, Frank didn't even know how council procedures work. He should have been taught by Jimenez and he did not.

Jimenez. All right. We seem to be accused of not being transparent, that... Things are being done in secret. I see that we have Mr. Tran here. Are your meetings done in secret?

No, Mayor, they're not. And just for the record, I'm Fred Tran, the executive director of the rent program. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and council members for listening. But we do meet on a monthly basis. As well, we'll have special meetings to try to conduct business that requires urgency.

AND THOSE MEETINGS ARE BROWN ACT NOTIFIED? CORRECT. SO ANYONE CAN COME TO THEM?

CORRECT. WE POST OUR AGENDA 72 HOURS FOR REGULAR MEETINGS, 24 HOURS FOR SPECIAL MEETINGS AND WE'LL TYPICALLY POST IT ONLINE AS WELL AS WITHIN THE CASE AND TYPICALLY OUR MEETINGS ARE CONDUCTED HERE AT THE COUNCIL CHAMBER.

so that anyone who can find the council meeting can find the rent board meeting just as easily?

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you. I think, do we have a motion?

MAYOR, MAY I MAKE A BRIEF STATEMENT?

YES. I DO WANT TO REMIND THE COUNCIL THAT I DID MENTION THAT WE ARE ANTICIPATING INCREASES IN OUR RISK POOL COSTS OF APPROXIMATELY $3.5 MILLION. SO AT THIS JUNCTURE, STAFF DOES INDICATE THAT THE RENT BOARD CURRENT BUDGET DOES SUPPORT THE OPERATIONS. We do want to note, though, that because of rising salaries, health insurance, risk management, and CalPERS expenses, that the rent board staff, city manager's office staff, and finance should continue to meet in a collaborative manner to monitor the costs and expenses associated with the administration of the program to ensure that the general fund subsidy does not exceed $524,912. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Motion? Motion?

I move to pass the item.

Okay. Second?

I second that.

Okay.

Council Member Urbana?

Yes.

Council Member Jimenez?

Yes.

Council Member Wilson? Yes. Vice Mayor Robinson? Yes. Council Member Zepeda?

Yes.

Mayor Martinez. Yes, the motion passes with councilmember Brown absent Now we're moving to open form Okay Okay If there's anyone joining us online that would like to address the council during open forum, please raise your hand at this time. Open forum is the opportunity to address the council on items that remain on the consent calendar or items that are not on the agenda. Anyone joining us online that wishes to address the council? Okay, we're starting to see some hands raised. During open forum, dialogue between the council and speaker is prohibited. When your name is called and you are an online speaker, please be ready to unmute yourself to begin speaking. For speakers in the chambers, when your name is called, please come forward and line up behind the speaker podium closest to the wall. For safety reasons, all the aisles including the area behind the speaker's podium and staff presentation area must remain clear. All speakers should state your name and your city of residence is optional. Please terminate your address to the council when your time expires. Tonight we have 15 in-person speakers and currently two online. And these are the procedures for speakers the time allotted for each speaker will be as follows 16 to 24 speakers a maximum of one and a half minutes to address the council so we have 18 speakers so as I call your name please line up Cordell Hendler, Don Gosney, Yvette Blandon, Claudia Citron, Kimberly Graves, Cassie Levy, Melvin Suflintus, Mark Wasburg, Urania Delamora, and Taylor Del Rosario. Cordell Hendler.

Thank you. So, good evening, Mayor Martinez, Council. Hold on, Cordell. Hold on.

Okay. Up.

start please okay let me start again so take two so good evening mayor martinez council cordell henlund i'm a richmond resident so i want to thank the mayor's office for for your consideration of reappointing miss myrtle braxton because this lady has done it all she has worked tirelessly to advocate for not only for seniors but for everyone so And as far as life for Ms. Paula Burnett, I want you to consider her because she's a nurse and she knows what she's talking about. So I'll leave it at that. But when I was watching the video last Tuesday. One of the things that Kevin Tisdale brought up a very good point is that we're trying to fill our positions. Why is it not being filled? Because the numbers doesn't seem to align with from last year to 2024. And so it got me thinking, it's like, We need positions in Richmond because if you look at other cities around us, they entice their potential employees. They offer more money and a better pay, too. So I'm thinking we need to follow the same lines of other cities. We're trying to entice people to come to Richmond. And if we want to do that, first, we need to take that $550 million from Chevron and allocate funds for a class and comp study again. So with that, Don, it's all yours.

Don Gosney.

Thank you. Once again, your rules pretty much has silenced people, reducing the amount of time. We come in here with a prepared speech so you can understand what our thoughts are about something. Then once we get here, because sometimes the council chambers are flooded with other speakers coming in here to push for their items, sometimes at the request of some of you people, it means that there isn't enough time for us. Pretty much the message you're saying is sit down and shut up, because there's nothing you have to say that we want to listen to. Try listening to other people talk about how other bodies, like the school district, handles their public speakers, where they do not shut the people down until after a much more reasonable amount of time. This is just, it's not making you guys look good. It really isn't.

You bet, Blandon. Claudia Citra.

So some of you are really informed about what the rent board does. But no, you're not breaking any transparency laws. How can you know it when you're not discussing it with them? That has nothing to do with what the rent board does on YouTube, just to be clear. I was today accused of being, of abusing my privilege to pull items which is only, especially for this city. No, it's my First Amendment right to speak against things. It's my right to know what council discusses with departments. And apparently, you don't discuss it because no communication apparently happened. I was asked to request my things in a timely manner. I request them the moment the agenda comes out. If you guys take a day off, it's not my issue. My list of grievances is so long, how you guys manipulate, misuse, abuse, priorities, and fail to ensure public safety is first is just astounding. I'M REALLY AT LOSS OF WORDS. I'M GOING TO SEND A LONG LETTER AGAIN, AND I KNOW IT'S IGNORED, BUT AT LEAST IT'S IN THE PUBLIC RECORDS, SO THERE'S A RECORD IF ANYONE EVER WILL INVESTIGATE YOU GUYS, I'LL RE-YIELD.

Buenas tardes, honorable alcalde, consejo municipal. Mi nombre es Yvette Landon. Mi familia, Germán Marenco, y mi hijo somos de la ciudad de Richmond. El día de hoy vengo a denunciar públicamente un acto arbitrario y una grave falta de protocolo por parte de la seguridad del parque Booker T. Anderson. A las 10 a.m. me encontraba con mi familia dejando a nuestro hijo en recreación con policías. . . . . . practically the enjoyment we have of recreation, of public things. Please, I demand... formalmente que esta advertencia sea eliminada de cualquier registro que se investigue la actuación del personal que estuvo en turno a las 10.30 am de este día y que el Departamento de Recreación y Parque revise de inmediato los protocolos de su guardia para que ninguna otra familia de Richmond pase por este atropello. Your time has expired. Thank you. Kimberly Graves. What street was she parked on? No, no en la calle. Estaba adentro de la central. A mi hijo estuvo en el summer en el que ofrece el parque BTA. Y después nos salimos con mi esposo.

Venga al micrófono para que escuche todos.

Okay. Fui al summer a dejar a mi hijo que ofrece el complex del parque BTA. Después nos salimos con mi esposo y nos fuimos al estacionamiento. Al estacionamiento donde están las canchas de pica, pool, de tenis y todo. Llegaron dos camionetas del parque de seguridad. I'm sorry but I believe that this is not the appropriate way to pass information and that if maybe we can talk you can talk

With the staff member?

Gabino Arredondo, can you please speak with the public speaker?

Okay.

Mayor, through you as the chair, Gabino Arredondo is going to speak to the public speaker and will assist with follow-up. Okay.

Thank you. Kimberly Graves.

I have something to say about what just occurred. I have work and I came here to be heard. This is not my time. I need this clock to start over.

This is your time if you're on the mic.

I'm on the mic talking about somebody else. You just allowed somebody to speak for an extra three minutes and you're going to stop me from being able to be heard? I pay taxes just like everybody else. So I need my time to start over. Here's what I'll say. You guys are horrible. You have a larger city than El Cerrito, and you choose not to provide dash cams. I was pulled over for what was called a pace, but that man was never bumper to bumper to me, and that's what a pace requires. I was only traveling a mile, and you are a larger city. Since 2016, over 70% of police departments have had dash cams. You don't. You took away my time because you don't want me to be able to express that this is racism. This is what it is. A lot of us that were here in Richmond had to be subjected to police officers that didn't have dash cams so we couldn't have an objective viewpoint of what occurred. As an African-American woman who was born in this city and I was harassed by your police department and now I'm being harassed by you. And I need you to understand, not only am I going to be here today, but I'm bringing a coalition to talk about it. You will never silence me.

Cassie Levy.

Hello. My name is Cassie Levi and I've come here today with several my neighbors in the second row. In November 2025, some people began illegally inhabiting the property next door to us. In December of 2025, the city of Richmond condemned and red-tagged that property. Since then, the unlawful occupants have proven to be a public nuisance and a safety hazard. From ongoing noise issues, all hours of the day and night, aggressive dogs who roam the streets, and dangerous criminal activity. On June 7th at 3.30 p.m., police came to our door. We were told by officers that a suspect had discharged a gun offsite in an attempt to murder his girlfriend. They had then followed the suspect to the house next door to us where he had been staying. Police told us he was in custody, but that they believed he may have disposed of the gun in our yard, and they conducted a canine search. We have since learned that not only was that man not arrested, but there was not even a police report filed on that incident. Our street is inhabited mostly by families and elderly people. We have always felt safe with our neighbors. Now we are living next to violent criminals illegally occupying an unsafe property. Over the past six months, we have communicated directly and civilly with the occupants of the house. We have contacted city police, animal control, building division, and code enforcement many times with no resolution. The property has become a liability, and we fear that it is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt. The kicker is that this property is owned by government agencies, including Department of Housing and Urban Development. Richmond code enforcement has contacted HUD, but has not received any response. Eviction cannot occur until head responds, so we come here today to urge the city council to push the matter forward and do something about this nuisance. Please help us bring peace back to our street and neighborhood. Thank you.

Melvin C. Fuentes.

Muy buenas tardes, tengan todos. Yo soy el vecino que vive a la par de esta propiedad. La verdad que ha sido una situación muy difícil. Estas personas no paran de hacer ruido, peleas con armas de todo tipo. Sus perros están sueltos. También he recibido notificaciones de mis maestros, de mis niños, que tienen que dormir mejor. Yo me vi obligado a meñear mis niños a otra habitación para que puedan dormir, pero no ha mejorado. Mis niños ya no pueden jugar en la parte de atrás de mi propiedad, ni mucho menos enfrente, porque los perros... Siempre están afuera y ellos están siempre peleándose con todo tipo de armas. También ellos recolectan mucha basura y la queman en la propiedad en la parte de atrás. Me ha tocado vigilarlos porque tengo miedo a que mi casa también agarre fuego. He tratado de comunicarme con la policía, los bomberos, y la verdad no hay ninguna solución. He venido a perder mi tiempo muchísimas veces al departamento. de aquí de la ciudad de Richmond y no han llegado a ninguna solución también. La semana pasada mi niño fue atacado por estos perros. Traté de decirles que por favor los pongan en un leash o que los pongan en la parte de la propiedad. Ellos no hacen caso y al contrario se dirigen a ti con malas palabras y con malas actitudes. Mark Wasper.

Thank you. Before Wolfsburg comes up, we've heard some egregious stories from residents. Do we have some way for them to contact the appropriate staff so that these can be addressed?

Yes. When public speakers come up, I direct the appropriate staff to follow up with them. So sometimes, Mayor, through you as the chair, I'll indicate, you know, that someone is going to talk to them. In this instance, Chief Simmons is speaking to the previous speaker. and I'm communicating with staff directly.

Okay, fantastic. You're welcome. That's good to know.

Yes. Yes, yes, I see.

Staff.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Yes, I asked Chief and Lena to go both. Two thumbs up. Thank you.

Urania is going to come up here and read a couple paragraphs of the book that we're writing about Richmond. She's going to read about the 1968 riot. I'm sure some of you old people here in Richmond remember the riot when a cop shot a black young teenager in the back when he was running away.

Urania De La Mora.

OK, good afternoon. So this is how it goes. The riot in Richmond, California started in 1968 due to the theft of a stolen car by four suspects. And one was shot and killed because he escaped police custody. Everything began when Paul Campbell from Detroit reported his 1968 model car stolen. Campbell last saw his new car on 9th Street and McDonald's where he left it. According to the Richmond Independent newspaper, at about 7 in the evening, Officer Walter Baggis and Reserve Officer Jeffrey J. Gates spotted the 1968 model car. The police chase ended when the driver of the stolen vehicle lost control after crashing into a parked car in north Richmond at 4th Street and Chelsea Avenue. Four people jumped out of the stolen car, but one person fell, and he was arrested and put into a patrol car. A person from the crowd near the patrol car helped the arrested young man escape. Officer Gates went after the young man escaping. The young man did not stop running, so Gates shots two rounds at him. At the Brookside Hospital, the staff identified the young man as Charles Mims, age 15, from 1826th Street. The crowd around the crime scene became very agitated after Charles Mims was shot. This increased the violence in the area and the police officers were injured by the crowd. All the units were then ordered to retreat and to block off North Richmond perimeter. The police were unable to retrieve the 1968 model car and it was eventually burned by the angry crowd. A different older car was capsized and burned on 3rd Street and Chelsea Avenue. Even emergency vehicles were severely damaged to the point the company did not dispatch any more ambulances. The crowd took advantage of this order to begin looting. The people looted Alexander's Clothing Store, Arts Record Shop, Paramount TV, Jesse Penny Store, along with other businesses. Thank you very much. The crowds were already tense, but the shooting of the 15-year-old Charles Mims ignited the looting and the fires around Richmond, California. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Our next speaker is Taylor Del Rosaro. Followed by Menard Washington, Shelly Wang, O'Neal Fernandez, Daniel Barth, Naid Pedraza, and our last in-person speaker will be Diego Garcia. Taylor.

Hello. Thank you for being here. I would like to speak in half a SOS on how valuable a resource something to this is to the city. You know, people actually have to pour time in a day to help somebody, so a valuable resource is definitely needed. I also saw this newspaper has been going well. Thank you, guys. Everybody's valuable. Yay.

America.

Mernard Washington.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Menor Washington from Richmond, California. I'm here on behalf of SOS Safe Organized Spaces, and this is to whom it may concern. Please accept this letter as a formal statement of my employment and personal journey with SOS Safe Organized Spaces. Over the last five years, this organization has been far more than just a workplace to me. They have been a fundamental pillar of support, mentorship, and community. When I faced difficult times and was incarcerated, the team at SOS demonstrated tremendous care and compassion for me. Unlike many employers, they did not turn their backs on me. They stayed in touch, checked on my well-being, and truly cared about my future. They really truly care about my future. True to their word and their mission of rest and orientation, they immediately gave me my job back upon my release, offering me the fresh start I needed, demonstrating demonstrating that they are who they say they are in, in, in truly is who they say they will be. SOS is one of the safest places a person can be, especially the ones that's unhoused. I truly understand what it means to have a true family. Thank you.

Shelly Wayne. Okay. O'Neal Fernandez.

I guess my handwriting is actually that bad. Sorry. I'm Shelby Lowry. I work in the city as well as in Contra Costa trying to house the homeless as well as help with people from running the risk of being homeless. SOS is actually a really great center and everything. here in this community, I believe that it's a really good touching place for everybody. It's a community that people can join. There are all kinds of services available, as well as all kinds of services. They're always constantly searching out what is needed by the community, what is needed by these people. I believe the only reason you haven't seen the kind of numbers or results that you would like to see is not because it's not funded, it's because they could use more funding. We only see what happens from two days a week and other little types of events that we help out in. I believe everybody was talking about last time how it brings back human dignity, but I actually believe it brings back humanity for people who have lost all hope. I've seen people come back from nothing, and that's because Everybody gives back in that community. And the thing is, those people who are helped, they bring others. And I've met with people who have been homeless for 10, 15 years who would not go to anything, yet here they are every week at SOS getting help and slowly making that move back to being part of society. And I think that's why we've seen a downtick in the crime and the activity. Unfortunately, as it were, no one has a place to go at this moment. We're going to continue to see an uprise in problems like that. We really do, there needs to be, and possibly just having them available as a day shelter I believe would be a great option, a day or night warming shelter. Thank you very much for your time.

O'Neil Fernandez.

How we all doing tonight? Last week I didn't use all my time. I might actually use all my time with you folks tonight. I want to give you guys a couple of our stats. We were supposed to do annually, from what our contract said, showers 1,800, we did over 2,000. We were supposed to annually pick up 48 tons, clean up events, we did 55. We were supposed to do 240 annual laundry services. We did 434,340 participants. The reason why I'm saying that is we're a week away from the physical year, and there's still zeros. We still have promises of funding that we have no idea what's going on or when it's coming. This impacts things like that. Now, last year we didn't get our funding for, I believe, until mid-November. We still reached all of these numbers and overachieved, but the bad part is this meant I had to send one shower person into an encampment, not two. This meant we had to have two people picking up what four people are picking up on our trash teams. This also meant that our job ready programs that we run every two months didn't get a start till six months, sorry, six months into this. These are the things what we are trying to ask for right now. Daniel Barr.

Shambi Perkins is speaking on my behalf because he got in here late.

All right. I'm here to speak for SOS. As a black man representing the blacks and Latinos who have passed away, five out of nine of them work for SOS. And we, at 53, SOS gave me a chance. I'm 58 now. After being incarcerated, encampment, and everything like that, SOS was there. We don't have that enrichment for people like me. And that's what SOS has done for me.

Thank you. And I'll continue just to mention, so of those nine individuals who were SOS employees and died during their employment, five of them were African Americans and in their 50s and 60s. Deshambi was talking about those five individuals who disproportionately represent the population that's most at risk. And so when we do early intervention services, when we're working in our communities before anyone else can work with them, what we're doing is seeking to prevent. Now when our employees die over the course of five years, you know the level of mortality that we have in the streets. So it's incumbent upon us to make it explicit, hopefully, please, that we have funding in 26, 27. With your blessings, we will continue to do the work for reimagining public safety. Thank you.

Leda Pedraza.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Neda. I am an S.Y. employee. I work the way I came into them. I was homeless myself. I didn't fit the status quo of homelessness. I was living in a car with my at that time, 10 year old daughter, scared to death. because it was raining time. It was a scary time for me. I didn't feel comfortable going to any single organization until I reached the library and I found SOS. It's really disheartening to see that. Each time we try to make goals, but it's very difficult to make goals and achieve them when halfway through we lose our funding. I would love to have stability because stability is actually one of the things we tell our participants that it's necessary. Stability, we need it for them to start. If they don't have stability, it's very difficult to move forward. Some of them, their stability is SOS. coming there and having food provided to them and having someone to talk to, that is stability. We are trying to grow, but it's very difficult to grow and trying to achieve all of our goals when halfway through we lose every single thing and we have to go on crisis mode. I would really love, you know, some stability within the organization so we can grow and have permanent support for all of these people because some of them, they just need to be heard. Thank you.

Diego Garcia.

Good evening. I'm here to speak about an issue that affects many community-based organizations working to serve youth. Twenty-three years ago, I founded Richmond Soul with one goal in mind, to keep kids off the streets. When I first started, I was often told not to maintain the fields, I could not make improvements, and all I wanted to do was just to help the kids get off the streets. However, I was missing many key information from the city of Richmond, and this was the process and procedures on how to keep our organizations involved. Instead of simply enforcing the rules, the city should inform community groups about available resources and opportunities that can help us better serve our residents. Last month, Richmond Soul had their award ceremony, and we had about 2,000 kids, families serving, I mean, present there. One thing that I was missing was that when we went to go do the reservations, they never told us that nonprofit organizations can actually get the auditorium for free. This is key information that can actually be useful for our organizations. This money could have been used for scholarships, it could have been used for materials, and also to be able to serve more kids. What I'm here to ask is for respectfully asking the city of Richmond to reimburse us for the fees paid for Richmond Soul Community Award Ceremony. Hopefully that you guys can take this in consideration and help the organization continue serving the Richmond residents. Thank you.

Now we move to the online speakers.

We have two speakers. Okay, and those two speakers are a user by the name of Empathy in Action and Loris Maddox. When you hear your name called, please be prepared to unmute yourself. User by the name of Empathy in Action, you'll have a minute and a half to speak. If you could please state your name for the record.

My name is Karina Espino. And I am a social worker and business owner in Richmond, California in Contra Costa County. I serve on the SOS Richmond board, leading the fund development and communications strategic team. In my 15 plus years working with nonprofits, SOS Richmond is genuinely exemplary, a model others should follow. SOS Richmond does not just respond to homelessness. It changes how Richmond treats its most vulnerable neighbors with peer outreach, mobile services, and a real pathway to jobs and housing. It's arguably one of the most transformative utilities of city funds. It has earned something hard to measure, trust with our unhoused neighbors. We're working hard to shift from survival to thriving through our fund development efforts. Our board is taking assertive steps to diversify our funding. We built a fund development pipeline through an MSW internship partnership with empathy and action, growing our grant writing and donor strategy at a low cost. And we're also developing an employment-based social enterprise model drawn from organizations like Homeboy Industries, creating dignified jobs led by people with lived experience. Investing in this program saves Richmond money. Cutting it will cost more in displacement and emergency response and then doing years of progress. SOS Richmond is on the cusp of thriving and becoming a local national model of supporting our neighbors who are unhoused. More than any strategy, this is about the people already doing this work daily with their heart and expertise Richmond needs. Please keep them.

Time has expired. The next speaker is Loris Maddox. You'll have a minute and a half to speak. You can go ahead and start. Yes, can you hear me? Yes.

Hi, I'm Loris Maddox. I'm also a board member of SOS Richmond. And I just want to highlight and remind you all that SOS Richmond is not a common program. Our service delivery is unique because it's rooted in community safety and workforce development for our unhoused folks. And it creates cleaner, safer, and more connected neighborhoods, all while advancing pathways out of homelessness. I strongly urge you all to continue supporting solutions to the homelessness issue in Richmond by prioritizing SOS Richmond. it would be very advantageous of you to establish their fund as a standing city budget line item so that they can stop the unnecessary cycle of having to beg for funding for a service model that has shown to be effective and useful, and it also costs money. savings for the city of Richmond. Mr. O'Neill, Mr. Chambe and Daniel all gave you examples of the effectiveness and importance of SOS Richmond service delivery. And I strongly urge you to continue supporting and understand that they are a needed and very rare strategy in the city of Richmond to address the homelessness issue.

Thank you. Thank you. And there are no more speakers.

Thank you.

Our next item is to approve of the consent calendar. And items N3A, N7D, and N8A are not included in this vote. They were all heard separately and voted on. So we need a motion.

I move the consent calendar. Do I have a second?

I second.

Council Member Bonner?

Yes.

Council member her minutes. Yes. Council member Wilson. Yes. Vice mayor Robinson. Yes. Council members Zepeda.

Yes.

And mayor Martinez.

Yes.

The motion passes with council member Brown absent. Now we're moving to item O one under budget session. Item 01 is to adopt a resolution approving fiscal year 2026-27 proposed operating budget and fiscal year 26-27 to fiscal year 2030-31 proposed five-year capital improvement plan budget. If there's anyone joining us online that would like to speak on this item, please raise your hand at this time. How many in person? We have three in-person speakers on this item.

WE'LL HAVE THE STAFF GIVE A REPORT.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL AND RICHMOND COMMUNITY. TONIGHT WE ARE PRESENTING THE PROPOSED FISCAL YEAR 2627 OPERATING BUDGET AND THE FISCAL YEAR 2631 FIVE-YEAR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN.

THIS IS THE PART WHERE EVERYONE CHEERS BECAUSE IT'S BEEN SO MUCH WORK.

I WOULD LIKE TO START BY ACKNOWLEDGING ALL OF THE CITY STAFF THAT HAVE BEEN INVOLVED WITH THE HEAVY LIFT ASSOCIATED WITH THE BUDGET, IN PARTICULAR OUR FINANCE DEPARTMENT AND EVERYONE ON THE BUDGET TEAM. IN PARTICULAR, I WOULD LIKE TO THANK DEPUTY CITY MANAGER NIKKI MASTAY, DEPUTY CITY MANAGER WHITE, FINANCE DIRECTOR EMILY COMBS, ADMINISTRATIVE CHIEF PATRICK SEALS, OUR FINANCE MANAGER, OUR BUDGET CZAR AND IN ADDITION, ANTONIO, OUR REVENUE CZAR AND BERT AND VERNESIA, OUR BUDGET ANALYST AND AS I THINK I WAS GOING TO SAY AVENISH, BUT I WAS TRYING TO REMEMBER WHAT IS, WHAT DOES, I WAS TRYING TO REMEMBER WHAT DOES DANIEL CALL HIM. HE HAS LIKE A COOL CODE NAME FOR HIM. SO MAYBE WE'LL REMEMBER LATER ON THIS EVENING. BUT YES, HE'S OUR SECRET AGENT THAT CAME FROM PUBLIC WORKS AND JOINED THE FINANCE TEAM AND HAS CONTINUED TO SUPPORT THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT IN HIS EXPANDED ROLE. So just want to acknowledge all of those staff. Also want to use this as an opportunity for reflection. We are really doing tremendous work here in the city of Richmond. I know some of our neighboring communities are unfortunately not in the same positive financial situation as we are. And so we're very proud of the work that we're doing. We're proud that we are submitting a balanced budget to the City Council without the need for any layoffs, and we're also pleased to continue to be an employer of choice. Next slide. Next slide. NEXT SLIDE. WE ALSO WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT THE CITY COUNCIL AND THE COMMUNITY ARE AWARE THAT WE BEGAN THIS BUDGET PROCESS WITH TWO CITYWIDE COMMUNITY MEETINGS AND THIS IS OUR NINTH MEETING HERE THIS EVENING. ON THE SLIDE HERE YOU'LL SEE AN OVERVIEW OF THE PRESENTATION THAT WE'RE GOING TO GO THROUGH THIS EVENING. NEXT SLIDE. AND BRIEFLY I WANT TO TALK AS PART OF OUR WORK ON THE CITY BUDGET IT'S VERY IMPORTANT THAT WE ARE REVIEWING STATEWIDE INITIATIVES THAT COULD IMPACT OUR BUDGET AND SO WE WILL KNOW BETTER ABOUT THE ITEMS THAT ARE NOTED HERE ON YOUR SCREEN. HOPEFULLY AS EARLY AS THE END OF THIS WEEK, NEXT WEEK, BUT IT'S IMPORTANT THAT THE CITY COUNCIL UNDERSTAND THAT THE FIRST ITEM, WHICH IS THE ASSEMBLY CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT 13 FROM ASSEMBLY MEMBER WARD, THIS IS A PROPOSES A SUPER MAJORITY VOTE, FOR EXAMPLE, TWO-THIRDS, THAT AN INITIATIVE WOULD BE REQUIRED TO PASS BY A SUPER MAJORITY. AND SO THIS IS SOMETHING THAT IS CURRENTLY BEING DISCUSSED. ALSO, THE SECOND ITEM IS THE HOWARD-JARVIS TAXPAYER ASSOCIATION INITIATIVE. THIS MEASURE WOULD DRAMATICALLY RESTRICT LOCAL TAXING AUTHORITY AND WOULD REQUIRE, AGAIN, A TWO-THIRDS VOTER APPROVAL FOR SPECIAL TAXES PLACED ON BALLOTS BY INITIATIVE. THIS WOULD POTENTIALLY ELIMINATE CHARTER CITY TRANSFER TAXES ALTOGETHER, WHICH INCLUDES THINGS LIKE RICHMOND'S MEASURE H AND ALSO BAN SPECIAL PARCEL TAXES AND WOULD SUNSET ANY EXISTING TAXES THAT DON'T MEET REQUIREMENTS STARTING IN NOVEMBER 2028. AND ALSO WE HAVE ASSEMBLY BILL 736. AND SO UNDER THIS BILL, ANOTHER NO NEW CHARTER CITY TRANSFER TAXES ABOVE 1.5% COULD BE ADOPTED AFTER JANUARY 2027. AND SO WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT THE CITY COUNCIL IS AWARE THAT THIS LAST ITEM IN PARTICULAR IS REALLY DESIGNED TO DEAL WITH SOME OF THE OTHER THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING STATEWIDE, ESPECIALLY IN LOS ANGELES, BUT COULD HAVE A CASCADING IMPACT ON COMMUNITIES LIKE RICHMOND. SO AS THESE BILLS MOVE THROUGH THE ASSEMBLY IN SACRAMENTO AND ON TO THE GOVERNOR'S DESK IF THEY DO, WE WILL CONTINUE TO KEEP THE CITY COUNCIL UPDATED. BUT FOR NOW, SINCE THEY ARE NOT CURRENTLY PASSED, WE CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD WITH A BALANCED BUDGET AND IF WE NEED TO MAKE ANY ADJUSTMENTS, WE WILL COME BACK AT SUCH TIME. NEXT SLIDE. AND AS I WAS MENTIONING EARLIER, THIS SLIDE, MY FAVORITE SLIDE, INDICATES THAT WE ARE NOW IN OUR NINTH MEETING. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR US THAT WE HAVE COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND THAT WE ENABLE COMMUNITY MEMBERS IN THE COUNCIL TO UNDERSTAND ALL THE WORK THAT'S HAPPENING ACROSS THE CITY IN THE VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS AS WELL AS DISCUSSING THE STATUS OF OUR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS. SHORTFALLS AND OBTAINING DIRECTION FROM THE COUNCIL ON HOW TO MEET THE NEEDS OF OUR COMMUNITY WITH THE COUNCIL GOALS AND PRIORITIES. IN ADDITION, I WANT TO REMIND THE COUNCIL AND THE COMMUNITY OF SOME OF THE WORK THAT WE HAVE RECENTLY COMPLETED IN OUR COMMUNITY. SO PART OF WHAT THE CITY COUNCIL IS CONSIDERING ALSO INCLUDES THE SUBSIDY, ONGOING SUBSIDY FOR THE HOUSING AUTHORITY. This was a picture of Hacienda. We were able to bring $35.5 million to renovate that building with our community partners, Mercy Housing and CDHC, which is a local Richmond organization. Next slide. So that's what it looked like before. and this is what it looks like now so just reminding the council and the community of this great project that we were able to complete next slide we started working on nevin plaza many years ago but the construction started in on in march 2023 CONSTRUCTION IS CONCLUDING AND THERE'S A FEW UNITS THAT ARE CURRENTLY BEING RENOVATED AND YOU CAN SEE THAT IT'S A LOVELY BUILDING AND NOW HAS 142 AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS THAT WERE PRESERVED AND COMPLETELY RENOVATED AND SO WE LOOK FORWARD TO HAVING AN EVENT THERE TO CELEBRATE THAT IMPORTANT MILESTONE. NEXT SLIDE. SO, AGAIN, THE CITY COUNCIL IS PROVIDING A $1.2 MILLION SUBSIDY IN THE ADOPTION OF THIS BUDGET. THIS IS THE NEISTROM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT. THERE IS CURRENTLY SOME LEGISLATION HAPPENING AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL THAT WE HOPE WILL ENABLE US TO CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD MORE EXPEDITIOUSLY WITH THIS NEISTROM DEVELOPMENT. BUT THIS IS A SITE THAT WAS A PART OF THE RICHMOND WORLD WAR II ERA HOUSING IN RICHMOND. IT'S ONE OF THE FEW SITES OF ITS TYPE STILL LEFT IN THE COUNTRY AND OUR GOAL IS WITH PHASE ONE TO DELIVER 101 TO 109 NEW AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS ON BLOCK A WHICH IS ANTICIPATED TO BE BETWEEN VIRGINIA, 13TH MAINE AND MARINA AVENUE. And this will enable the will provide 100 replacement units for residents on site there that earn up to 80% of the area meeting income. And so this this project, it's very important to us that is intended to be a place for Newstrom residents that currently live there to have the opportunity to remain in place. Next slide. Also, this is a photo of Nystrom, so this is an example of the renovations that are happening inside of the units. You can see that they look much better now. Next slide. Also, with the Home Key project, this is another site that's currently under construction. The Home Key project will transform, it's transforming the Motel 6 at 425 STREET INTO A TOTAL OF 49 UNITS, 48 PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE HOUSING UNITS WITH ONE MANAGER'S UNIT. THIS PROJECT, AS YOU CAN SEE, WAS $25.8 MILLION. THERE WAS A $14.5 MILLION COMPETITIVE HOME KEY GRANT APPLICATION FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT THAT WAS AWARDED TO THE CITY OF RICHMOND. WE ALSO COMMITTED $10 MILLION FROM THE CITY, WHICH IS IN THE FORM OF A LOAN FROM OUR HOUSING IN LIEU FUND, SO THAT'S ESSENTIALLY BACKED UP BY GENERAL FUND DOLLARS TO SUPPLEMENT THE ACQUISITION AND ADDRESS CONSTRUCTION ISSUES. AGAIN, THESE 48 STUDIO UNITS ARE GOING TO BE GREAT BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO PROVIDE COMPREHENSIVE SERVICES ON SITE FOR THE RESIDENTS AND THE IMPROVEMENTS ENABLED US TO FIX STRUCTURAL PLUMBING, MOLD REMEDIATION AND MANY OTHER BUILDING IMPROVEMENTS. You can see here next slide of what the building is anticipated to look like when it's completed. And some of the components we will continue to seek funding for. This is the full elevation of what we would generally like it to look like. And so you will be seeing a very similar development coming online with some of the additional site work that may need to take place afterwards, depending on how we're doing with construction costs. Next slide. The Richmond Rising is the city's transformative climate communities initiative funded through a $35 million grant with the California Strategic Growth Council. This effort focuses on traditionally disadvantaged communities that were identified by the state of California through SB 535, and it focuses on the Iron Triangle, Santa Fe, and Coronado neighborhoods. IT'S DESIGNED TO BRING ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH, TRANSPORTATION AND ECONOMIC BENEFITS TO COMMUNITIES THAT HAVE EXPERIENCED LONGSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CLIMATE RESILIENCY CHALLENGES. THE GRANT PERIOD BEGAN IN THE FALL OF 2023 AND WILL RUN THROUGH SUMMER OF 2028. THIS PHOTO IS GRID ALTERNATIVES, SOLAR PANEL INSTALLATION WITHIN THE TCC PROJECT AREA. SO THAT WOULD BE, AGAIN, IRON TRIANGLE, SANTA FE AND CORONADO NEIGHBORHOODS. Next slide. Through Richmond Rising, the city and its community partners are implementing a range of projects, including pedestrian improvements, residential solar and energy efficiency upgrades, tree planting, healthy foods and workforce development. This initiative also includes planning efforts focused on community engagement, displacement avoidance, tracking outcomes and expanding clear energy career pathways. Overall, the TCC program is intended to support a healthier, more connected and climate strong Richmond. The left is a photo of a project with the water conservation training program. And then on the right is Orchids for All. It's a training program. Next slide. ANOTHER THING THAT WE RECEIVE A LOT OF INQUIRIES ABOUT IS IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT IS REGARDING PAVING. AND SO ON THE LEFT YOU'LL SEE PAVING ON NEVIN AVENUE AND THEN YOU'LL SEE ALSO THE BEFORE AND AFTER AND SOME OF THE PAVING THAT'S HAPPENING CITYWIDE. NEXT SLIDE. Oh, I'm sorry. Can you go back? So you'll see on the left is Nevin, and then on the right is Maywood Drive and Normanwood Drive. That's near Lemoyne Park and Valley View. And then the next slide, you'll see it more completed. OKAY. AND THEN WE HAVE THE STREET SCAPES. THOSE, THE STREET STATE SOLAR PROGRAM HAS BEEN EXTREMELY WELL RECEIVED IN OUR COMMUNITY. THIS PHOTO IS ALONG CARLSON BOULEVARD AND HIGHLIGHTS THE IMPROVEMENTS THAT HAVE HAPPENED THERE. SO IN ADDITION TO THE GREAT WORK THAT'S HAPPENING IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, LED BY DIRECTOR VELASCO AND VEITRAS AND MATIAS ON THE TCC PROJECT, WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE GREAT WORK HERE WITH THE SOLAR LIGHTING. AS MANY OF YOU ARE AWARE AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS IN PARTICULAR, WE UNFORTUNATELY STRUGGLE WITH A GREAT DEAL OF COPPER THEFT. AND SO OUR PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT LED BY DANIEL AND OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE, DARREN FITZPATRICK AND CLARENCE JOHNSON WHO HAS BEEN WITH THE CITY FOR QUITE SOME TIME AND HAS RECENTLY BEEN PROMOTED TO A SUPERINTENDENT HAS REALLY MOVED FORWARD VERY EXPEDITIOUSLY AND TURNING THINGS AROUND IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND YOU CAN SEE THAT THE SOLAR LIGHTS ARE WORKING WELL AND ARE IMPROVING OUR COMMUNITY AND THE FEELING OF SAFETY. NEXT SLIDE. IN APRIL 2026 WE STARTED OUR LIBRARY RENOVATION PROJECT. THIS IS A $34.9 MILLION PROJECT. THE PHOTOS HERE SHOW YOU THE RICHMOND MAINE LIBRARY PRIOR TO THE CONSTRUCTION. THIS IS A MAJOR MODERNIZATION. IT'S THE LAST BUILDING IN OUR TRADITIONAL CIVIC CENTER WHICH WAS DESIGNED BY THE FLUGAR. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT POST-MODERNIST CIVIC CENTER HISTORIC BUILDING THAT WE'RE ABLE TO PRESERVE AND HAVE A CONTINUED ADAPTIVE REUSE. THIS PROJECT WILL PRESERVE THE LIBRARY'S CHARACTER WHILE DELIVERING SIGNIFICANT UPGRADES INCLUDING SEISMIC SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS, NEW FIRE SPRINKLERS, UPGRADED MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL PLUMBING, HIGH PERFORMANCE WINDOWS, A NEW ROOF. AND ALL NEW ELECTRICAL. ONCE COMPLETED THE LIBRARY WILL OFFER IMPROVED AMENITIES SUCH AS AN EXPANDED CHILDREN'S AREA, A NEW TEEN SPACE, PRIVATE STUDY ROOMS, A LOCAL HISTORY ROOM, UPDATED FURNITURE AND ADDITIONAL SPACE FOR COMMUNITY PROGRAMS AND PUBLIC ART. THE RENOVATED LIBRARY WILL ALSO SERVE AS A COMMUNITY RESILIENCE CENTER. THE SOLAR POWER AND BACKUP GENERATOR WILL SUPPORT RESIDENTS DURING POWER OUTAGES AND EXTREME WEATHER OR OTHER EMERGENCIES. SO I WANT TO THANK KATE FOR HER LEADERSHIP, DEPUTY CITY MANAGER WHITE AND WENDY AND OUR PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT FOR ALL THE WORK THAT THEY'RE DOING. NEXT SLIDE. SO THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE BEFORE. THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE NOW. SO YOU CAN SEE THE CONSTRUCTION IS MOVING RIGHT ALONG. WE ANTICIPATE THAT THE GRAND REOPENING WILL HAPPEN IN APRIL OF 2027 SO BEFORE YOU KNOW IT THE LIBRARY WILL BE DONE AND BACK OPEN AND IF ANYONE IS SEEKING TO ACCESS SOME OF THE MATERIALS THAT WERE AT THE MAIN LIBRARY YOU CAN DO SO ON THE SIDE ROOMS OF THE AUDITORIUM THAT'S WHERE THEIR TEMPORARY SPACE IS AND IT'S REALLY A GREAT SPACE FOR TEMPORARY USE AND VERY ACCESSIBLE. Next slide. This is a rendering of what the main library floor will look like when it's completed in October 2027. So you can see it's a really lovely building and it's going to be very open and have a lot of natural light. Next slide. The next slide is a rendering of the children's area. This is an area that I used to frequent a lot with my daughter and brings back a lot of fond memories and so I'm really excited to see the new children's area opening in the library. AND AGAIN WANT TO THANK ALL OF THE CITY STAFF THAT ARE INVOLVED WITH THIS PROJECT. IT'S VERY IMPORTANT AND I KNOW IT'S SOMETIMES DIFFICULT WITH THESE TRANSITIONS BUT WANT TO JUST THANK THEM ALL FOR THEIR RESILIENCY AND CONTINUING TO SERVE OUR RESIDENTS THROUGH THIS TRANSITION. ONE OF THE FOUR PARK PROJECTS THAT'S CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION IS BORMAN PARK. THIS IS A FOUR ACRE PARK IN RICHMOND'S IRON TRIANGLE NEIGHBORHOOD. THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR THE CITY COUNCIL. I THINK SOMETIMES PEOPLE ARE ASKING WHAT IS THE STATUS OF A PROJECT THAT'S ON THE CIP LIST. THIS PROJECT ACTUALLY STARTED IN DESIGN WELL BEFORE I WAS CITY MANAGER. IN JANUARY 1, 2020. IT'S CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION. IT STARTED IN EARLY 2025, AND WE ANTICIPATE THAT IT WILL BE FINISHED IN OCTOBER, NOVEMBER 2026. I KEEP TELLING DARCY SHE HAS TO HURRY ALONG WITH THESE DATES, I DON'T KNOW. I SAW THESE DATES AND I WAS LIKE WAIT, WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DONE ALREADY. BUT WE'RE MAKING SOME MODIFICATIONS ON PARKS AS THEY'RE COMING ONLINE AS NEEDED TO SUPPORT COMMUNITY NEEDS. AND SO IN PARTICULAR AT THIS SITE, WE NEEDED TO ADDRESS SOME PARKING ISSUES. This is a neighborhood-driven project with a wide range of new accessible amenities, including a natural turf athletic field designed to help address local soccer field shortages. There's an accessible playground, swings, climbing structure, a skate area, basketball court, AND FITNESS STATIONS AS WELL AS A MULTILOOP TRAIL. COMMUNITY GATHERING SPACES INCLUDE A STAGE PICNIC AREA, GAME TABLES, BARBECUE FACILITIES, PUBLIC RESTROOMS AND A STORM WATER BIORETENTION FEATURE AS WELL AS LIGHTING ON THE PERIMETER ALONG WITH FENCING. NEXT SLIDE. THIS IS WHAT THE PROJECT LOOKED LIKE WHILE EARLIER IN THE CONSTRUCTION. NEXT SLIDE. AND THIS IS WHAT A RENDERING OF THE AREA OF WHAT WE ANTICIPATE IT WILL LOOK LIKE UPON COMPLETION. THIS IS DESIGN HAS BEEN DARCY TOOK THIS PROJECT ON AND SHE'S BEEN WORKING WITH RESIDENTS TO ADDRESS CONCERNS AROUND PARKING. NEXT SLIDE. MANY OF YOU ARE AWARE OF THE SHIELDS REED PROJECT BUT I THINK I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT IT USED TO LOOK LIKE BECAUSE IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL NOW. BUT THIS IS WHAT SHIELDS REED LOOKED LIKE BEFORE CONSTRUCTION. THERE WAS $5.3 MILLION FOR THIS. IT STARTED IN JANUARY 2022 AND THE COMPLETION AND GRAND OPENING IS SCHEDULED FOR JULY 11TH. NEXT SLIDE. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT THE PROJECT LOOKED LIKE DURING CONSTRUCTION. Next slide. And this is what Shields Reed looks like now. This is an example of another soccer field that's being brought online in our community for our residents. Next slide. I just love this park. It's just great. ALSO, AS I MENTIONED BEFORE, WE ARE DOING UPDATES INSIDE OF THE BUILDING AND ON THE EXTERIOR OF THE BUILDING. UNFORTUNATELY, SHIELDS REED WAS VERY MUCH SOMEWHAT IN ITS ORIGINAL CONDITION, SO STAFF HAVE BEEN PAINTING, ORDERING NEW FURNITURE, NEW WAITROOM EQUIPMENT, NEW APPLIANCES, NEW FURNITURE, AND ALL THINGS PEPPA THE PIG AS REQUESTED BY THE KIDS. NEXT SLIDE IS WENDELL PARK. THIS IS STARTED IN DECEMBER 2022. AGAIN, WE ANTICIPATE CONCLUSION OF THIS PROJECT IN OCTOBER, NOVEMBER 2026. THE KEY IMPROVEMENTS FOR THIS AREA INCLUDE RENOVATION AND NATURAL GRASS MULTI-PURPOSE FIELD. DESIGNED PRIMARILY FOR YOUTH UNDER 12, INSTALLATION OF A NEW FABRICATED RESTROOM, UPGRADED PERIMETER FENCING, BACKSTOPS, BLEACHERS, DUGOUT SEATING, RECONFIGURATION OF THE YOUTH AND TODDLER PLAY AREAS, NEW SITE INFRASTRUCTURE INCLUDING AN IRRIGATION SYSTEM, INFIELD MATERIALS AND PARK FURNISHINGS. NEXT SLIDE. This is an example of what it looks like now as it's under construction. Next slide. And this is a rendering of the final design. And so you'll see here that this field can accommodate both soccer and baseball. So we can have both uses at the site. Next slide. ONE OF THE OTHER THINGS THAT IS REALLY IMPORTANT FOR US TO LIFT UP WITH THE CITY COUNCIL AND COMMUNITY IS THAT CITY STAFF ARE ALWAYS APPLYING FOR GRANTS. WE ARE CLOSELY MOVING TOWARDS OVER 150 CITY GRANTS. Currently, there were recently seven new grants were awarded. Four grants have been, excuse me, seven new grants were awarded. We have four upcoming grant awards and a total of 20 new grant applications submitted for 13.4, 31.4, and 86.5 million respectively. SO THESE 20 GRANT APPLICATIONS TOTALING 86.5 MILLION ACROSS MAJOR INFRASTRUCTURE, MOBILITY AND COMMUNITY FOCUSED PROJECTS. SO WANT TO THANK ALL OF THE CITY DEPARTMENTS FOR WORKING COLLABORATIVELY TO SUBMIT THESE GRANTS. IT IS SOMETHING THAT REALLY ILLUSTRATES THE PASSION AND DRIVE, DETERMINATION AND GRIT OF OUR TEAM THAT THEY GO ABOVE AND BEYOND AND WORK COLLABORATIVELY TO APPLY FOR GRANTS. uh to better serve the needs of our community next slide is more detail about the grants so all in our total new grant awards are 328 million dollars so that is just phenomenal capital improvement project grants are in excess of 146 million operational grants are in excess of 182 million SO, AGAIN, I WANT TO THANK CITY STAFF FOR THEIR GREAT WORK. YOU CAN SEE HERE FROM THE SLIDE THAT THE GRANTS RANGE FROM CALTRANS PARTNERSHIPS, CALVIP, KAISER, TO TRASH CRAPTER DEVICES, AS WELL AS LOTS OF TRANSPORTATION RELATED WORK, THE RICHMOND WELLNESS TRAIL. THE CALTRANS PLANNING GRANTS AND GAP CLOSURE FUNDS IN ADDITION TO WORK THAT WE SUBMITTED TO SUPPORT THE NEW GRANT APPLICATIONS WERE SUBMITTED TO SUPPORT THE PARK CHESTER NEIGHBORHOOD, GREENWAY GAP CLOSURE FOR 16.3 PARK AND AN ADDITIONAL GRANT WAS SUBMITTED TO SUPPORT THE MLK CENTER, RICHMOND MOVES AND RESILIENT HOMES. SO ALL IN AGAIN 86.5 MILLION RECENTLY SUBMITTED. UPCOMING GRANT AWARDS OF 31.4 MILLION AND NEW GRANT AWARDS OF 13.4 MILLION. SO AGAIN THANK YOU TO ALL THE CITY STAFF. REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR AMAZING WORK. NEXT SLIDE. ANOTHER THING THAT WE'VE HAD MANY DISCUSSIONS ABOUT IS REGARDING THE CITY'S VACANCY RATE. AND SO I DO WANT TO REMIND THE COUNCIL THAT WHEN WE COMMENCED OUR WORK BACK IN, SINCE 21, SINCE FISCAL YEAR 2021, THERE HAVE BEEN 142 NEW POSITIONS ADDED TO POSITION CONTROL. AND SO THAT IS A VERY IMPORTANT NUMBER BECAUSE IF YOU HAVE A We are looking at the number of positions that the city can afford. We're in the 684 to 671 range right now. We have increased substantially our staffing in public works, employment and training, recreation, library and ONS, as well as the community crisis response team and community development focused on unhoused interventions. AND SO WE'VE ALSO IN ADDITION WE'VE ALSO SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED OUR FIREFIGHTER TRAINEE RULES TO BOLSTER AND REDUCE MANDATORY OVERTIME. AND SO WHEN WHAT YOU'LL SEE IS THAT DURING THIS TIME WE'VE IN ADDITION TO ADDING 142 POSITIONS TO POSITION CONTROL HIRED A NET INCREASE OF 99 FTEs. SO WHAT THAT MEANS IS THAT WE ARE SPENDING NEARLY PERSONNEL COSTS MAKE UP NEARLY 70% OF GENERAL FUND SPENDING. SO THIS IS SOMETHING THAT'S VERY IMPORTANT FOR THE COUNCIL AND THE COMMUNITY TO UNDERSTAND. Richmond is an employer of choice and that without the vacancy, without the positions added, we would essentially not have a, currently would not have a vacancy rate. So the vacancy rate that you currently have is a byproduct of the positions that have been added to the position control. IF WE WERE STILL LOOKING AT THE POSITIONS THAT WERE ADOPTED BACK IN POSITION CONTROL FOR FISCAL YEAR 2021, WE WOULD NOT HAVE A SITUATION WITH STAFFING OR A VACANCY RATE AND SO THAT IS SOMETHING THAT'S VERY IMPORTANT FOR CITY COUNCIL TO UNDERSTAND. The positions that are currently filled are in your attachment of your position control list and includes that updated information that was provided. So as city staff continue to retire, we will continue to work with HR, the personnel, BOARD AND THE APPROPRIATE UNIONS TO REFINE POSITIONS TO LEVERAGE OPPORTUNITIES TO ENSURE THAT WE CONTINUE TO HIRE STAFF, BUT WE WILL NEED TO CONTINUE TO REFINE JOB DESCRIPTIONS TO MEET THE CURRENT DEMANDS AND WORK WITHIN THE CITY OF RICHMOND TO ACCOMPLISH THE CITY COUNCIL GOALS AND PRIORITIES. NEXT SLIDE. AND WITH THAT, I WILL TURN IT OVER TO EMILY COMBS, OUR DIRECTOR OF FINANCE, TO COMMENCE ON SLIDE 37. THANK YOU.

Thank you and good evening. So on this slide, we're showing our adjusted general fund revenues to show what the city collects, excluding residential property taxes. So this was a request from the last council budget session. So using the county's equalized role, we estimated about 60% of assessed value is residential. SO WE'VE REDUCED THOSE A.V. DEPENDENT REVENUES ACCORDINGLY AND EVEN AFTER DOING THAT, GENERAL FUNDS REVENUES HAVE, WE CAN SEE THAT THEY'VE INCREASED 36% SINCE FISCAL YEAR 2021 AND THAT'S DRIVEN MAINLY BY GROWTH IN SALES AND USE TAX AND OUR UTILITY USERS TAX. SO THIS JUST HELPS US ILLUSTRATE HOW MUCH OF OUR REVENUE BASE IS SUPPORTED BY COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND OTHER NONRESIDENTIAL SOURCES THROUGHOUT THE CITY. NEXT SLIDE. So this shows the progression of the general fund budget from the May 5th draft all the way to the final June 23rd version today. So it's important to point out here that although council did make several adjustments throughout that time, these changes were net zero. MEANING REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES BOTH REMAIN UNCHANGED BETWEEN JUNE 16 AND JUNE 23. THE FINAL BUDGET HOLDS AT 324.7 MILLION IN REVENUES AND 276.2 MILLION IN EXPENDITURES. WITH THE 48.5 MILLION LIMITED TERM REVENUE PRESERVED AS DIRECTED. EXPENDITURE APPROPRIATIONS DO NOT RELY ON THAT LIMITED TERM REVENUE KEEPING THE GENERAL FUND STRUCTURALLY BALANCED. NEXT SLIDE. SO THIS SHOWS OUR GENERAL FUND REVENUE BUDGET ALSO REMAIN UNCHANGED BETWEEN JUNE 16TH AND JUNE 23RD. THIS IS A VERY BORING SLIDE. JUST SHOWS NOTHING HAS REALLY CHANGED. IT HOLDS STEADY AT ABOUT $324.7 MILLION SO THIS JUST REFLECTS THE FACT THAT COUNCIL'S JUNE 16TH ADJUSTMENTS WERE NET ZERO ON THE REVENUE SIDE. NEXT SLIDE. THIS SHOWS OUR TOTAL GENERAL EXPENDITURES REMAIN AT 276.2 MILLION, ALSO UNCHANGED BETWEEN JUNE 16TH AND JUNE 23rd MOSTLY. ALTHOUGH THE TOTALS DID NOT SHIFT, COUNCIL DID APPROVE ONE KEY ADJUSTMENT AND THIS IS RELATED TO OUR VEHICLE REPLACEMENT PROPOSAL WHICH WAS BASICALLY THE DEFERRING OF A COUPLE OF VEHICLES WHICH WE'LL TALK ABOUT LATER IN THE SCHEDULE, IN THE VEHICLE REPLACEMENT SCHEDULE. SO WHAT THIS MEANT WAS IT WAS A REDUCTION IN ABOUT 650,000 AND OUR COST PULL CHARGES TO THOSE DEPARTMENTS AND THEN WE WERE ABLE TO REDIRECT THAT 650 AND THEN TRANSFER IT OUT TO OUR GENERAL FUND CAPITAL FUND. ALL RIGHT. NEXT SLIDE. SO THIS SHOWS OUR NON-GENERAL FUND REVENUE BUDGET AND ADJUSTMENTS MADE THROUGHOUT THIS PERIOD FROM JUNE 16. SO YOU CAN SEE THAT THERE'S A NET CHANGE OF ABOUT 409,229. AND MOSTLY THE MOVEMENTS HERE IS RELATED TO TIMING AND THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT FUND. SO IT'S NOT THAT THE REVENUE BUDGET INCREASED FOR THAT TOTAL CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT FUND. IT'S MOSTLY JUST A TIMING OF WHEN WE'RE EXPECTING TO RECEIVE GRANTS. AND THEN ALSO YOU CAN SEE THE $650,000 REDUCTION THERE THAT I SPOKE ABOUT EARLIER AND THE INTERNAL SERVICE FUND. SO THAT'S THE TRANSFER THAT WE SPOKE ABOUT EARLIER. SO OVERALL THESE ADJUSTMENTS REFLECT JUST ROUTINE TECHNICAL UPDATES AND THE COUNCIL'S JUNE 16TH NET ZERO DIRECTION ENSURING THAT NON-GENERAL FUND CHANGES STAY ALIGNED WITH THE FINAL CIP. NEXT SLIDE. Here are non-general fund expenditures. They're decreasing mainly because of capital project purchase orders from 25-26. So what happens as we're sort of closing out the books, we're developing the budget at the same time, and just based off of capital project timing, if encumbrances or purchase orders happen in the current fiscal year, 25-26, then that means it reduces the amount that we need to spend in the following fiscal year. So budgets remain unchanged. It's more of a timing issue. All right, next slide. And with that, Shasa, would you like to present the next slide or?

Certainly. So at the last meeting we were asked by Council to make some reallocation. So I just wanted the Council direction to be noted here. Clearly I received an inquiry today about how we were moving forward and this is what we have thus far. And so one way I know that in subsequent discussions there is a need POTENTIALLY FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDS AND SO ONE WAY THAT WE COULD DEAL WITH THAT IS ONCE WE HAVE AN IMPROVED 100% DOCUMENT WE CAN BRING IT BACK TO THE CITY COUNCIL FOR FULL ADOPTION AT THAT TIME AND MAKE AN APPROPRIATION AND SO THAT WOULD ENABLE THE CITY COUNCIL TO ADOPT THE BUDGET AS IS AND THIS IS IN PARTICULAR the need for approximately $60,000 more for Hilltop Green. One advantage to doing it that way is that if the total project costs have increased beyond the anticipated $200,000, THAT WOULD ENABLE THE CITY COUNCIL TO MAKE ONE FINAL APPROPRIATION WHEN WE'RE APPROVING THE PROJECT AND TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLETE AND TOTAL FISCAL IMPACT, WHICH WE DO NOT HAVE AT THIS TIME. ALTERNATIVELY, IF THE CITY COUNCIL DURING YOUR DISCUSSIONS THIS EVENING WANTED TO DIRECT US TO FIND ANOTHER $60,000 OR NOT, WE'RE HAPPY TO LISTEN TO THOSE CONVERSATIONS. But just wanted to make sure that the council is aware that that we understand that that project is for hilltop green wildfire mitigation has a total estimated budget right now of 200,000, 80,000 has been identified from Contra Costa County. AND THERE'S 60,000 FROM THE CITY, SO THEN WE DO STILL HAVE A REMAINING GAP WITH THAT PROJECT. NOT UNCOMMON FOR THESE TYPES OF PROJECTS WHERE WE MOVE ALONG INCREMENTALLY. AND THEN ALSO WE DISCUSSED PREVIOUSLY MAKING SOME MODIFICATIONS TO THE FLEET IN ORDER TO BALANCE THE BUDGET, AND AS WE NOTED, THESE ITEMS ARE ON THE BIKE RACK AND WILL BE CONSIDERED WHEN WE HAVE ADDITIONAL REVENUES TO DO SO. In terms of the vehicle replacement, this is some additional information that the City Council requested regarding the vehicle replacement program. And so we just wanted to make sure that the City Council is aware of the current fleet that we have. and how we go about making decisions pertaining to the fleet. And so as vehicles are becoming more expensive, as we noted, vehicles that are not used by public safety with a great deal of active use daily, we will be encouraging our Public Works Department to look at how we can, where it's fiscally prudent to defer. replacements and extend the life expectancy of vehicles, especially on things like trucks that have gotten increasingly more expensive. Many of the Ford model vehicles are in excess, large trucks are in excess of $100,000 now. So to the extent to which our fleet can responsibly keep them operational, We will continue to do so and look for other opportunities to increase energy efficiency and replacement using hybrid vehicles and also electric vehicles. Next slide. And with that, I will turn it back over to Emily.

SO ON JUNE 16, COUNCIL REVIEWED FOUR CIP PROJECTS, THE COMBINED SHORTFALL OF 2.676 MILLION. THIS WAS FOR THE RICHMOND WELLNESS TRAIL PHASE TWO, THE BAY TRAIL AT POINT LILATI AND ANTICIPATED CHANGE ORDERS AT SHILDS REED AND AT WENDELL PARK. SO TO CLOSE THOSE GAPS WITHOUT INCREASING OUR GENERAL FUND COSTS AND KEEPING OUR BUDGET BALANCED, STAFF IDENTIFIED TARGETED ADJUSTMENTS TO EXISTING CAPITAL PROJECTS. THESE INCLUDED DIFFERING THE CORP YARD FUEL SITE UPGRADE. REVISING THE SCOPE FOR THE CIVIC CENTER PLAZA LANDSCAPING PROJECT AND REALLOCATING FUNDING FROM THE POINT MELATI TRAIL BEACH STABILIZATION PROJECT DUE TO EXPECTED GRANT OPPORTUNITIES. AND WE ALSO SHIFTED A PORTION OF THE PARKS AND OPEN SPACE PROGRAM WHERE FUTURE GRANTS ARE ALSO ANTICIPATED. YOU SAW THIS ON THE PREVIOUS SLIDE. WE'VE ALSO DEFERRED A COUPLE OF VEHICLE REPLACEMENTS. And then for context, we already talked about that, so I'll move on. So together, these adjustments generated the full 2.676 million in order to cover those identified shortfalls. Next slide. SO IN FISCAL YEAR 25-26, THE CURRENT FISCAL YEAR THAT WE'RE IN, THE CITY COUNCIL ALLOCATED APPROXIMATELY 185,000 TO SUPPORT 16 COMMUNITY EVENTS. CITY-SPONSORED EVENTS PLAYED AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN STRENGTHENING NEIGHBORHOOD PRIDE, CULTURAL IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY CONNECTION THROUGHOUT RICHMOND. EXISTING CITY SAF COORDINATED PERMITTING, COMPLIANCE, THE LOGISTICS, OUTREACH AND THE PUBLIC SAFETY SUPPORT TO HELP THESE EVENTS SUCCEED SAFELY AND EFFICIENTLY. Next slide. And here is a list of our city-supported events and fee waivers also that occurred in fiscal year 25-26, and those totaled a little over $36,000. And this is a new slide that you have not seen before. Next slide. And with that, we have our recommended action, and that concludes our presentation for tonight.

All right, public speakers.

And Mayor, if I may, I believe there were inadvertently three items that were missed under city sponsored events. The other three items that should have been included were the AAPI event, the partnerships with the school district related to graduations, and also Mother's Day. So we will add those three. Actually, I apologize. They're noted over here to the side. Okay. Okay. Yeah. No, but they're over to the side. I was just looking at one through 17. So they're noted to the side. So just wanted to call those out.

Okay. We have three in-person speakers and we have two online speakers. The in-person speakers are Cordell Handler, Claudia Citron, and Daniel Barth. We each have two minutes.

So good evening, Mayor Martinez, Council. I am Cordell Handler and I was looking at the budget and I'm like, Wow, I am very impressed with the whole package. So I want to thank the finance department and city manager's office for this report. And I'm asking you, I am begging you to look at the budget and pass it with flying colors, please. And for the record, I did attend the last budget meeting in April, and I was the only one that did my own little checklist of what needs to be done. So with that, approve the budget as presented by staff. That's it.

Claudia Citroen.

Okay, so I do agree with SOS. I do think this should really be a permanent item like Reimagine Richmond. They do a better job than Reimagine Richmond and a lot of other nonprofits which you support. I know SOS, I've worked with them, they are amazing. Not only do they help people, they also help them as they have higher mortality rate, it is true. The second thing is I know you bickered a lot about the bicycle park or the project, the bike landing library. The one thing I missed in this conversation, the one thing I miss you not putting on your agendas for consultant is to look at liabilities of all these scooters and e-bikes running around the city. They go on sidewalks. They go on streets. They go against traffic. There are accidents and all of that. A lot of other cities put liability laws in place and more Ordinances, nothing, the police department can't do anything without an ordinance. If there's an accident, you always blame the car driver, you never blame the cyclist, you never blame the scooter rider. If you look at the medical impact, I'm so upset I can't even think straight right now. If you look at the medical impact of accidents of those things, look at this first before you think about supporting the bike landing library. So there's a lot of other priorities you should set, but I definitely think you should add SOS to the coming budget as a fixed item. This is an institution that do phenomenal work. And they create community like no other organization. I'm so proud of them. Daniel Barth.

Thank you for that endorsement. I'm here to thank you for hearing the presentations from the staff and participants and partners. and the community members and also board members from SOS Richmond. We are wanting to understand very simply if we are explicitly in the budget. It has been a little unclear, a lot unclear, that that $1.32 million line item, what it's dedicated toward, is there an RFP process that is forthcoming which could and should have been forthcoming much earlier in the year so that it could, be the competitive place where SOS Richmond would hopefully fulfill its ongoing funding. But lacking that process, we hope that in the future there can be that process and that in the meantime that we continue the work that we do in the community. We are engaging right now in programming. that will link our relational-based services, our peer-to-peer support with clinical-based services for behavioral health intervention so that when I use the word early interventions, what I'm saying is we want to be able to do the work alongside ROC, to do the work alongside our police department, that we are reimagining what public safety can and should be with public health and public works, all of us working together. We do believe that this formula has been a very has demonstrated the ability to touch on lives in neighborhoods in a way that none others can. And I hope that we continue to do that work in alliance across the housing divide with housed, vulnerably housed neighbors and unhoused neighbors. Thank you very much.

That was our last in-person speaker. Now we'll move to the online speakers, two speakers.

And the two speakers are Bruce Byard and Isabella. Please be prepared to unmute yourself to give your comments when you're called. Bruce Byard, you'll have two minutes to speak. You can go ahead and start.

Mr. Mayor and members of the council, my name is Bruce Byard. I'm here to speak for TRAC. the Trails for Richmond Action Committee. This is the ninth budget session. You've done a lot of work and staff has done a tremendous job in bringing to you a balanced budget. Not many cities these days could say that. TRAC is particularly pleased that the capital budget covers shortfalls in the four priority capital projects as endorsed informally by the city council last week. We're particularly glad that the Point Malady Bay Trail project is fully funded. It's under construction now and will open two and a half miles of San Francisco Bay shoreline for public enjoyment where there's no access at all now other than Point Malady Beach Park. Two weeks ago, we received about 50 emails from residents citywide, Pogo Parks, Citizens Free Shore Parks, Save the Bay, TRAC, and others supporting full funding for the Point Malady Trail. Its completion will expand opportunities for walking, biking, wildlife viewing, environmental education, and outdoor activities. previously an accessible stretch of shoreline. The trail will promote city council strategic goals, areas three and eight, three and six, improving the quality of life, community health, and addressing shoreline and ecological values. Please adopt the five-year capital budget. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And the next speaker is Isabella. You'll have two minutes to speak. You can go ahead and start.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Isabella and I'm a Richmond resident and I'm speaking on the e-bike lending library. Before the council adopts a budget, including this program, several critical questions remain unanswered by the city manager and staff. Some of the more urgent include liability, If a battery fire destroys a borrower's home or building, who pays? If a borrowed bike is stolen or damaged, who pays? If a rider injures a pedestrian, who pays? Director Velasco acknowledged one of the major cost drivers for this overpriced $3.4 million building and program is the fire suppression system. required precisely because e-bike batteries are a known fire and explosion risk, yet staff hasn't explained how sending those same batteries into private homes without that protection is responsible policy. Regarding storage, the city already has a location storing the extra e-bikes purchased for the sharing program. Has staff assessed whether that facility meets battery storage and fire safety requirements? If it does, why can't it be used for the lending library? If it doesn't, is the city currently storing those batteries out of compliance? The city manager also said she could not continue the e-bike sharing program because its grant ran out with no replacement. This library faces the identical problem in 2028 if the public is being told that Rich City Rights will be responsible for obtaining a grant. That is fiscally irresponsible and reckless as there is no guarantee that grant will be obtained. And if all Richmond taxpayers are absorbing a $2.2 million cost overrun, this program must serve all Richmond residents, not just the three neighborhoods in the TCC grant, and certainly not unincorporated North Richmond County residents. Staff and the council owe the public clear answers before any budget commitment is made this evening. Thank you.

Thank you. And that was the last speaker.

Okay, thank you. It's now time for Council comments and questions. Council Member Jimenez.

Mayor, do you want me to address anything that was made during public comment?

Okay.

So a couple of things so one I want to thank all of the staff that Actively work and community-based organization to support the unhoused work enrichment as we indicated in previous budget presentations the The funds for to support unhoused work enrichment will continue this fiscal year overall since fiscal year THROUGH THIS FISCAL YEAR. IN THIS PROPOSED ADOPTED BUDGET THERE WILL BE NEARLY $60 MILLION THAT HAS BEEN ALLOCATED TO UNHOUSED, WORK ENRICHMENT, ERF 1, 2 AND 3, HOME KEY, GENERAL FUND, HOUSING IN LIEU AND ARPA FUNDS. And so any procurement that is required to continue to fund specific nonprofits will be completed through required procurement processes. I've also asked Director Velasco and Deputy City Manager White to ensure that Contra Costa Health Services and our ROC team, that we continue to coordinate with those respective entities to ensure that we're providing good services with CORE to our unhoused community. So coming up in a subsequent meeting, there will be a core contract on the City Council's agenda for consideration. And as it relates to, and so the reimagining public safety, those allocations include continuation for unhoused work. IN TERMS OF THE E-BIKE PROGRAM, WHAT IS RECOMMENDED THIS EVENING IS THE STATUS QUO AS IT RELATES TO THE TCC PROGRAM AND THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ITEM THAT WILL BE BROUGHT BACK TO CITY COUNCIL AT A LATER TIME. AFTER STAFF HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO ASSESS WITH THE GRANTOR THE GRANT REQUIREMENTS AS IT RELATES TO THE POTENTIAL BIKE LENDING. BUT THERE IS NO ADDITIONAL APPROPRIATIONS BEYOND WHAT WAS ALREADY INCLUDED IN THE GRANT REQUESTED AT THIS TIME. SO JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE THE COUNCIL IS AWARE OF THAT. AND STAFF ARE WORKING TO THINK THROUGH WHAT A STRATEGY AND OPTIONS ARE PERTAINING TO THE OVERALL TCC GRANT REQUIREMENTS, HOW TO MEET THOSE, AND HOW AND THE EXISTING E-BIKE PROGRAM AND SO FORTH. SO JUST WANT THE COUNCIL TO KNOW THAT WE'RE NOT REQUESTING AN ADDITIONAL APPROPRIATION AT THIS TIME.

Yes.

So, Claudia, thank you so much. Thank you for all the work, for balancing the budget, for addressing the vacancies. And I think there is a continued work. I just wanted to also for the record to say, like reimagining Richmond Appropriations is one thing. There is another organization in the community that is called Reimagine in Richmond that doesn't receive any money from the city. And this is just because a lot of comments that misinterpret this. One other thing is that I glad that we are keeping the money for our house. I feel like we have, and every year SOS comes and is afraid that they are going to lose their funding despite the reassurance from this council that we are keeping the money. I know that there is a procurement process that needs to happen, but I feel like we know, like we have been giving this money since the beginning to SOS. Is there any way that we can do this appropriation for them so they don't have every year this fear that the funding is going to be taken away?

I WOULD NEVER AS CITY MANAGER RECOMMEND IN EXCESS OF A HALF A MILLION DOLLARS FOR ANY PROCUREMENT WITH NO. BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO ALLOW LIKE WHAT IF GRIP WANTED TO PROVIDE THE SERVICE OR WHAT IF SOME OTHER COLLABORATION WANTED TO PROVIDE THE SERVICE. WE HAVE TO ENSURE FOR THE RICHMOND TAXPAYERS THAT there is a competitive procurement process. And then there was also a desire by the council to ensure that they were seeking other funding. And so in addition to receiving funding from the general fund through the unhoused work and those solicitations, they have been included in some grants. So there's ERF funds that they have been included in some of those. And there's also Kids First appropriations that they've received. So just to be clear, the SOS funding from the City of Richmond is just not under the auspices of Reimagine. There's other buckets that they have sought and procured with the City of Richmond. And so I think we want to make sure that we're treating all groups equitably and that there isn't, I don't know that there is a case that could be made to indicate that they could be the only service provider, especially a grant of that magnitude that needs to be coordinated with CORE, that needs to be coordinated with ROC, and that needs to be coordinated with Contra Costa Health Services to ensure that people are getting into coordinated entry. So, I'm sorry, no.

OKAY. WELL, I THINK LIKE WE, I GUESS.

I MEAN, WE'RE EMPATHETIC, RIGHT? BUT WE, I MEAN, WE CAN BE EMPATHETIC AND WORK WITH PEOPLE, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT WE JUST SOLE SOURCE, YOU KNOW, A MILLION AND A HALF, $2 MILLION.

I THINK LIKE WHAT I WANT IS GUARANTEE THAT WE HAVE THE MONEY FOR THE HOUSE.

WE DO. THAT'S WHAT THE COUNCIL DIRECTED AND THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE.

WE WILL DISCUSS MORE THESE. THANK YOU. MY OTHER QUESTION WAS ABOUT One of the things that I had been at two things one one thing that I had been advocating is for the rock to have care navigator I saw that they are some vacancies in in that in. Are we thinking about. FILLING THESE POSITIONS?

AS PEOPLE RETIRE, IF WE DO NOT NEED TO FILL POSITIONS IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS, WE CAN. BUT UNTIL MOUs ARE FINALIZED WITH PUBLIC SAFETY, WE'RE NOT IN A POSITION WHERE WE CAN HIRE ADDITIONAL STAFF AT THIS TIME. I KNOW THAT'S REALLY DIFFICULT. SO SOME OF THE THINGS THAT I DON'T KNOW, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE using Kaiser and so recently I needed help with something and they sent me this wonderful text message of all the services that are available in a certain zip code for a person who happens to be elderly. And so I think we need to understand what is our opportunity to work with Contra Costa Health Services and what are the resources that we can collaborate on as it relates to ROC while we are trying to stand up the full deployment. AND SO THAT NEEDS TO BE OUR INTERIM STEP.

YEAH, BUT I JUST, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT THEY HAVE BEEN SAYING IS THAT THE CARE NAVIGATOR IS KEY FOR THE SUCCESS OF THIS PROGRAM. SO I JUST WONDERING, THIS IS A NEW PROGRAM. WE WANT THEM TO SUCCEED. IT'S KIND OF LIKE IN THE PARKS, IF WE DON'T PUT THE MONEY, THEN IT WOULD BE A HOLE.

YEAH, I MEAN, PEOPLE RETIRE ALL THE TIME, RIGHT? AND SO EVERY DAY, YOU KNOW, EVERY MONTH, EVERY WEEK, A COUPLE OF PEOPLE RETIRE, WE DO. THIS IS TOWARDS THE END OF THE YEAR, YOU TEND TO HAVE MORE RETIREMENTS. And so if we are able to have some retirements, we will certainly prioritize filling those positions. I agree with you that they're important, but I can't just say unilaterally right now, based on the number of employees we have, we need to wait for some people to retire and to see how we can absorb their work potentially more effectively utilizing technology or redeploying or eliminating something in order to fund those two positions.

OK, well, I think I I know that today we have a balanced budget. I am not going to push hard, but I feel like we need to be in the mid year budget to see how we can actually fill these positions.

Yeah, I mean, I also, as we're, you know, seeing how the revenue projections come in, we'll have a better sense of how things are doing. And so, for example, right, at one time with HUD, it was really awful. It was like, you know, we didn't know if the federal government was completely turning off the lights. Now it looks like, okay, the lights are on. They're not LED, but the lights are on. So, I mean, it's a pretty volatile environment that we're working in right now. So we will try to fill the positions. We just, I can't say that we're going to do it today. AND SO WE CAN CONTINUE TO GO THROUGH THE PROCESS TO FINALIZE THE JOB DESCRIPTIONS AND GET THEM TO GET THEM TO THE PERSONNEL BOARD. AND THEN BUT, YOU KNOW, WARNING, THAT MEANS SOMETHING ELSE WON'T GET FILLED. SO I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE IF YOU GET SOME COMPLAINTS.

YES, IT'S PRIORITIES. THE LAST THING IS THANK YOU FOR PUTTING THE GREEN THERE. IT MAKES SENSE TO HAVE THIS EVACUATION ROUTE, SO I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVE THAT AS A PROJECT. THANK YOU, SOHELA BANA, FOR ADVOCATING FOR THAT. I THINK THAT'S IT. AND THANK YOU SO MUCH. What you presented today is a great state of the city. We have all these parks that are coming up for people to enjoy. The lights are on, cars on. So now I don't have to drive you in the dark when I give you a ride to your home after council meetings. And I think, as you say, we are moving forward. And we will continue to balance the budget, look for more revenue. AND I AM LOOKING FORWARD FOR THIS BUDGET TO REALLY FULFILL THE GOALS THAT WE ARE PUTTING HERE AND ONE OF THEM IS PARKS AND MAINTENANCE SO WE CAN SEE MORE PARKS BEING RENOVATED OR WELL MAINTAINED. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU.

VICE MAYOR ROBINSON.

SO THANK YOU FOR THIS clear presentation tonight. I do want to kind of circle back to the RFP process around the Reimagine Richmond funds and just clarify where we are with that. That was one of the efforts that we did over the last term was to shift the Reimagine Richmond process to an RFP process so it was open so that anyone that's working in the field of unhoused services could apply to the RFP. One of the efforts, one of the missions around that RFP was to make sure that we were supporting organizations who have a lot of experience in the field, who can demonstrate experience. And there was also an effort, I think, I'm not sure if this has happened yet, in this RFP that's going to be released an effort to explore multiyear grants. And so could you just give me an update on where that RFP is and, you know, will it be a part of this fiscal year? What are we expecting?

If I may, Director Velasco, if you can assist, and Jesus, if you can assist with answering that question, that would be great. WHEN STAFF ARE WORKING THROUGH RFPs AND RELEASING THEM AND SCHEDULING RANKINGS, I TRY TO DEFER TO THEM SO THAT WAY THERE'S NO CONCERN THAT THE CITY MANAGEMENT IS INTERFERING IN THAT PROCESS.

YES, GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS, LENA VELASCO, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. SO THE LAST TIME WE ISSUED THE RFP WAS OVER TWO YEARS AGO. SO WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF UPDATING IT TO INCLUDE ADDITIONAL SERVICES THAT HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED THROUGH ENGAGEMENT PROCESSES. SO I THINK ONCE THE COUNCIL BUDGET IS ADOPTED WE'LL HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE POT OF MONEY AND WE ANTICIPATE ISSUING IT THIS SUMMER.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY FOR MULTI-YEAR GRANTS? IS THAT A CONSIDERATION? DID THAT MAKE IT INTO THIS? I THINK I BROUGHT FOR THE ITEM TO CREATE THE RFE PROCESS FOR THIS POT OF MONEY AND THAT WAS ONE OF THE CONSIDERATIONS I WAS HOPING WOULD BE A PART OF IT.

THAT IS CORRECT. I THINK WHAT WE'LL NEED TO, BECAUSE THE COUNCIL DOESN'T ADOPT IT'S ANNUAL BUDGET. WE WOULD NEED TO HAVE THE POSSIBILITY THAT COULD BE EXTENDED SO BY ADDING OPTIONS IF THE ADDITIONAL FUNDING IS GRANTED. SO THAT IS PART OF THE INTENT. AND THEN EVERY TWO YEARS WE WOULD BE RE-ISSUING IT ALONG WITH AS SUGGESTED DOING A COMMUNITY PROCESS TO UNDERSTAND IF THERE'S ANY GAPS IN THE SERVICES THAT AREN'T ALREADY INCLUDED IN THE RFP.

So just to be clear, it means that because we don't do a multi-year budget, we would need to leave the option over in the contract to renew if funds are available. But that would make it so that folks wouldn't have to go through the RFP process again in the second year. But they would need to make sure that the funds were available in order to renew. So it eases it a little bit. But again, because we don't do multi-year budgets, they would still need to wait to make sure the funds are available. Yes?

YES, THAT'S CORRECT. WE CAN WRITE THE RECOMMENDED ACTION SO IT'S SUBJECT TO BUDGET ADOPTION AND PROVIDED THAT THEY, YOU KNOW, CONTINUE TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS IN THE CONTRACT. BUT YES, WE CAN FREQUENTLY THE CITY COUNCIL DOES APPROVE CONTRACTS LIKE THAT THAT IS SUBJECT TO THE BUDGET ADOPTION WHERE YOU HAVE A MULTI-YEAR AGREEMENT.

OK, great. And again, this is something that's going to roll out sometime this summer. And in the next two-year cycle, it will be informed by a community process to make sure that whatever services that are included in the RFP are the services that are needed at the time. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct. Great. Thank you.

And as we're bringing, for example, bringing Homekey online, right, so there might need to be some special coordination as we work with Contra Costa Health Services to make sure people are getting in coordinated entry, that they are, you know, in the queue for Homekey, that we have interim housing for them prior to that happening or like a day center type situation. So those are all the things that we'll be working through with the RFP. Great.

I actually feel like that's all the questions that I have. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Any others?

Council Member Bonner.

Thank you, City Manager. Thank you, City staff, all of you. Wonderful report. And seeing our parks improving like that is very exciting. I just want to especially thank Public Works and Parks and Recreation Department. I remember, I think it was two, three years ago when we got together with a couple of council members, council members Jimenez and Robinson, and visited different parks and decided what to do. And, you know, shortly after, we're there now. So thank you very much for everything you do. And I'd like your suggestion, if I understand it correctly, in terms of Hilltop Green, we approved the project tonight, and you'll come up with proper allocation for that.

YES, I'M SUGGESTING THERE HAS TO BE, FOR EVERY CITY PROJECT, RIGHT, THERE HAS TO BE AN AGREEMENT SIGNED, WE HAVE TO KNOW WHO THE RESPONSIBLE PARTIES ARE TO HELP EFFECTUATE THE AGREEMENT AND THEN WHO'S GOING TO TAKE CARE OF IT AFTER, AND SO AN ITEM WOULD BE BROUGHT TO CITY COUNCIL ONCE ALL OF THAT IS OUTLINED WITH PUBLIC WORKS, THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, FIRE DEPARTMENT, THE OTHER CITY, THE PROPERTY OWNER, AND CONFIRE, AND SO WE WILL WORK ON THAT, BRING THAT BACK TO CITY COUNCIL, BY THEN WE'LL KNOW, ARE WE STILL AT 200,000 OR Maybe it's 205, right, or 210. So we would then request a final city council appropriation at that time to close whatever the remaining gap is based on, I mean, I just think it's important that everyone understand that this was budgeted, you know, and proposed a couple years ago, and I would anticipate there may be some cost increases since then. So when we do the final, we'll do a final to have a true-up with a contingency.

Thank you. I will follow that up. closely and hopefully we'll get there soon before the actual fire season starts in October and November. Hopefully. It will be implemented by then. I have a quick question about Seoul, Richmond Seoul team. I believe they spent over $4,000. I went to their event. The first floor was filled by students, and the upper level, I had never seen it filled. I've been to many events in the auditorium, and the families were at the upper level. IT WAS VERY WELL ATTENDED. I MEAN, THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE FREE TO THE PUBLIC. AND I'M SORRY THEY WERE CHARGED. IS THERE ANY WAY THEY CAN GET REIMBURSED?

I ASKED DEPUTY CITY MANAGER WHITE AND DARREN TO SPEAK TO THEM. AND I UNDERSTAND THAT THEY HAVE. IF THEY CAN BOTH COME PROVIDE AN UPDATE. I KNOW IN PARTICULAR DARREN AND I HAVE BEEN IN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT REALLY PUSHING OUT THE ADOPT A SPOT PROGRAM. I SENT HIM A POSTING FROM ANOTHER NEIGHBORING JURISDICTION WHERE THEY WERE DOING A CLEANUP EVENT, AND SO I KNOW THAT IN ADDITION TO THE 5,000 OTHER THINGS THAT I AND OTHER CITY COLLEAGUES HAVE ASKED HIM TO WORK ON, THAT IS SOMETHING THAT WE CAN WORK ON. AND THEN DEPUTY CITY MANAGER BECAUSE MS. DIEGO WAS SPEAKING TO NOT ONLY THE ISSUE AROUND THE AUDITORIUM FUNDING BUT THEN THE OPPORTUNITY FOR CONTINUED COLLABORATION SO WE DO WANT TO HAVE COLLABORATION WITH ALL OF OUR LOCAL NONPROFITS THAT WANT TO AND I DO WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT OUR CAPACITY HAS INCREASED AND SO WE NOW HAVE ADDITIONAL CAPACITY TO WORK WITH NONPROFITS AND WE'LL DO SO.

GOOD EVENING, DEPUTY CITY MANAGER FOR COMMUNITY SERVICES. I WAS ABLE TO SPEAK TO MR. I APOLOGIZE FOR THE WRONG NAME, I SAID MR. DIEGO. I INFORMED HIM THAT THE AUDITORIUM IS ACTUALLY EXEMPT FROM THE COUNCIL ADOPTED FEE WAIVER POLICY. EVERY CITY PARK, EVERY CITY OWNED FACILITY LIKE OUR COMMUNITY CENTERS, ORGANIZATIONS CAN APPLY FOR FEE WAIVERS, BUT THE COUNCIL, AS PART OF WHAT WE BROUGHT FORWARD TO COUNCIL, THE AUDITORIUM WAS EXEMPTED. So anytime a fee waiver is provided for the auditorium for a community-based organization, a council member brings an item to city council. So for the AAPI event or for the Mother's Day event or for the school district's graduation, because he brought all of those events up, I said a city council member sponsored an item, brought it to city council, and the whole council made a decision that the fees would be waived for the auditorium. So I informed him that that was the process. So I believe he understands. So I don't believe that there is a way for us to provide a refund to him for that event. And for any events that are open to the public, I mean, the ones that you have waived have really been open to the public and haven't been something for a specific organization. They've been very much open for the whole community and flyers that went out to the whole community for those events.

Thank you very much. Maybe you can add a question to the application. You know, is it being sponsored by the city? Provide information to them that they could reach out to their city council members to get it sponsored in the future.

I let him know that that was the way in which for the future if that's what he wanted to do. But we don't, our registration staff don't for every organization that comes forward, we don't say, oh, you can go and talk to a city council member and get that way. We don't tell them that. But Now they know.

And so following up on that, I do. We are trying to provide this list here for council to approve and adopt. So then it's clear. So then throughout the fiscal year, hopefully we have our list and that's what we're working from. I THINK OBVIOUSLY THE COUNCIL, YOU ALL HAVE YOUR OWN STAFF THAT SUPPORTS YOU. I DON'T KNOW IF HISTORICALLY HOW THAT'S WORKED BETWEEN THE COUNCIL AND THE COUNCIL OFFICES WHEN COUNCIL MEMBERS WANT TO HAVE EVENTS AND USE SPACES, AND SO I THINK THAT IS SOMETHING THAT WE CAN CERTAINLY WORK WITH DEPUTY CITY MANAGER WHITE, FINANCE DIRECTOR COMBS, AND THE VICE MAYOR TO KIND OF WORK THROUGH, BECAUSE I KNOW THERE'S BEEN SOME QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT THAT. I DON'T KNOW THAT THIS EVENING IS HOW WE CAN RESOLVE THAT. but would be happy to have a follow-up conversation with the council liaison and the appropriate finance staff to make sure all the procurement policies are being followed.

Thank you. So just for your info, I put Diego Garcia in touch with Patrick Seals, hoping to apply for Richmond Fund for Children and Youth.

They might already be applying. They might already have funds.

Actually, Patrick, do you know? Yeah, so I hope that makes up for that. Thank you.

COUNCILMEMBER WILSON.

THANK YOU. SO I AGREE TONIGHT'S NOT THE NIGHT TO FIGURE THIS ALL OUT BUT THE CONVERSATION WE JUST HAD ABOUT FEW WAIVERS AND ASKING CITY COUNCILMEMBERS TO WAIVE FEES AND STUFF ACTUALLY MAKES ME LESS COMFORTABLE THAN I WAS GOING IN IN TERMS OF I'M AFRAID WE ARE CREATING A SYSTEM WHERE people who have relationships with council members are going to be advantaged in terms of having low cost or free. So I encourage us to take the comments of Mr. Rivera seriously and that we should have a transparent process that everyone can equally engage whether or not they feel comfortable calling me personally and asking for it. Oh, hi. Would you want to speak to that?

I just want to share that there has been a period where the nonprofit did apply for grant funding via the city. They were awarded, I believe, $50,000. They turned down that award because we have requirements with regards to Secretary of State, California DOJ, and so that was an experience that had, so there was an opportunity.

What is the requirement, if I may ask?

So if organizations are nonprofit within the state of California, they have to be licensed and in good standing in a few ways. One of those is they have to be licensed with the federal government as a 501 , which is managed by the Department of Treasury. They also have to be listed as active within the Secretary of State's database, and they also have to be listed as active in good standing within the California Department of Justice. there was an opportunity where they were funded and they declined that funding.

I see.

Thank you. Okay, I'm taking back the mic. So anyways, I hope we can have more conversations about making sure it happens in a way that is accessible to everyone equally. AND I WANTED TO SAY, OH, I HAVE I GUESS THIS IS A QUESTION FOR LENA, SORRY TO MAKE HER RUN BACK AND FORTH BUT I ALSO HAD A QUESTION ABOUT THE SOS RFP. SO WELCOME.

NO, IT'S NOT THE SOS RFP.

IT IS THE RFP FOR UNHOUSED SERVICES. THE RFP FOR UNHOUSED SERVICES PREVIOUSLY OBTAINED BY SOS BUT THAT IS WHY.

In a sole source.

In a sole source. So that's not what we're doing anymore. So that wasn't an RFP. They have not gone through an RFP process.

They may have subsequently, but originally the original contract was through a sole source. So that's why we are very diligent in outlining the need for there to be competitive procurement when we discuss this topic.

OK. And so it sounds like, do you know the specific history? Have they done an RFP with the city? You said two years ago was the last.

Ms. Velasco is the czar of all things affordable housing and unhoused.

So the last RFP you said was two years ago. Was that the RFP that the SOS received the funding from that process?

Yeah. So they have a combination of contracts that we've done over the years. The initial contract was a sole source, and that was as directed through the Reimagining Task Force. But beyond that, two years ago when we did the RFP, they were one of the groups that were selected through that competitive process. And so they have that contract. But we do have separate contracts for them under ERF2 as we've written them into grants. and they've collaborated within those scopes.

Okay, and so I guess what my question and my concern is is that I know everyone's pressed for time and we give staff too much to do, but it sounds to me like we've spaced, we've sort of left a lot of time between these RFP processes in a way that for a very, like a micro organization like SOS or any other small organization who wants to apply, IT MAKES IT UNSUSTAINABLE FOR THEM TO CONTINUE WORKING WITH THE CITY IF WE ARE, I DON'T WANT TO SAY ERRATIC BUT SPACING OUT OUR RFP PROCESSES. I HEARD VICE MAYOR ROBINSON EXPRESSED AN INTEREST IN MULTI-YEAR CONTRACTS WHICH I THINK IS A GOOD IDEA BUT I WANT TO EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR THE IDEA OF CONTINUITY THAT WHETHER THEY ARE MULTI-YEAR OR SINGLE YEAR THAT WE ARE SPACING OUT the RFP processes so that the recipients, if they are successful time after time in winning that with their proposal, it becomes a more steady stream of, you know, again, I, you know, I just want to foster I want us to be sort of the sort of, I guess we're not employer, but the sort of the client that can help sort of sustain organizations rather than the ones that stress them out. Is that realistic?

I THINK WITHIN THE CAVEATS AS CITY MANAGER KERL MENTIONED BECAUSE THE FUNDING FOR THE PROGRAMS AREN'T ALLOCATED IN MULTI-YEARS. OUR GRANTS CAN BE MULTI-YEAR AND WE HAVE STRUCTURED THOSE CONTRACTS BECAUSE THEY ARE MULTI-YEAR GRANTS AND WE ARE ABLE TO DO THOSE. I THINK WE ARE LOOKING AT WAYS TO INCLUDE OPTIONS TO EXTEND AND ADD FUNDING AND THOSE CONTRACTS WILL COME FORWARD TO THE COUNCIL AND WE'LL BRING THAT LANGUAGE AND EXPLAIN IT THAT IT WILL BE CONTINGENT UPON FUNDING OR ALLOCATION OF FUNDS FOR THE WORK. SO WE ARE LOOKING AT OPPORTUNITIES BUT AGAIN BECAUSE THE COUNCIL BUDGET IS DONE ANNUALLY AND YOU CAN ADJUST AT ANY MOMENT, WE CAN'T COMMIT BEYOND ONE YEAR.

I had a question about that. It seems to me, and maybe you can explain the difference, it seems to me we do sign multi-year contracts with different vendors and things, and we're not saying, like, this depends on if next year we have the money. Is there something different about this type of contract?

It is because it's programmatic. I mean, I think, so I'll give an example. For the planning department, every year we have a certain allocation of professional services, but we have to, and so every year in our budget there's an allocation. And so our contracts can be multi-year because we break it up, and we space okay this year We know we're going to use a hundred thousand next year Maybe it'll be two hundred thousand and so we're sort of planning for that within kind of our regular budget requests understanding that one year you may say It needs to be reduced so there's usually a cushion on it But so I guess my point is just anything the city can explore to be a stable source of

with the contracts that we have especially with small organizations. Thank you. Understood. I will say pivoting, I've got my whole list of things. I am okay with spending, you know, I heard Bruce Beyer on the phone and I know there's a lot of supporters for the Bay Trail. And so I am, I want to say that I am okay, you know, accepting the idea of putting up an additional $1 million to help complete the parts of the bay trail on point malati that are currently under construction but i just want to also indicate now that though i very much appreciate public works and the contractors having a terrific meeting last week where they invited folks some city council members some community members out to the beach to talk about current plans for dealing with the section of the trail that is alongside point miladi beach i am unsatisfied with what seems to be coming it still seems to be a design that's very heavily dependent on covering the beach with concrete with riprap in order to support the trail and so i um you know i'll be following up with suggestions uh or to ask my council mates if they'll support exploring some options for preserving the beach at the same time as constructing the trail. So I don't think we're on the right track for that gap area around the beach, but I'm not going to hold up the parts of the project which are already under construction. And then the last thing I want to say is that Oh, just on staffing. I was listening closely to City Manager Curl's explanation, and it's true. I agree with you that it is important that the net number of staff members over the last few years has increased in a significant way. So I do want to give credit for that since I'm also the one who says, oh, the... I was going to say something nice, but I got cut off. Oh, I get to finish it because it was nice?

Because it's nice, I'll let you finish.

Well, it's nice, but it also has a critique in there, so I don't want it to. But the nice part is I do think that that's worth recognizing and that we should, if we're going to be fair about our discussions with staff, we need to say that the number of boots on the ground has gone up considerably in the last few years. under your direction, under the leadership of many of the people on this council. But I'm going to continue to call for, I think the thing that still is difficult for me is the lack of, I want to have more alignment between what's on the position control list, what's posted, and what's filled. And I think right now, for reasons that we don't need to go into here. There's a lot of wiggle room. The position control list is way too large. And then we have situations. Just at the end of the day, I do think it's the council's purview to see a position control list that is actually 100% of the positions that are going to be posted and eventually filled. because that is the way we shape the overall staffing portrait of the city in a way that we currently do not because we approve a position control list that has a lot of fluff in it. Okay, that's all. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, if I may? Yes. So city staff welcome the opportunity to have a position control list that's represented of what can actually be filled. And I think once we conclude the MOU negotiations, that might be an appropriate time to commence those conversations. I do want to acknowledge, though, that that could be potentially very difficult for the department heads, for the staff, for a myriad of reasons. And so just want to flag that. Also, we do our best to provide continuity to nonprofits. And so we're trying to balance that with also encouraging nonprofits to seek other funding sources. And so we actually don't want to be the primary source of funding for any organization entirely because we go through our own fiscal constraints. And so we want to work with them to increase their capacity and diversify their revenue. And so we're hoping that can happen with the nonprofits that we're working with. THE ONLY OTHER THING THAT I WANTED TO FLAG IS THAT I DO APPRECIATE THE WILLINGNESS TO ADOPT THE BUDGET AND INDICATE, YOU KNOW, WE NEED TO, THAT YOU WANT TO CONTINUE TO HAVE CONVERSATIONS WITH PUBLIC WORKS. I APPRECIATE THE COLLABORATION THERE INSTEAD OF SORT OF LIKE, YOU KNOW, HOLDING OUT AND SAYING, OH, NO, WE CAN'T ADOPT THE BUDGET BECAUSE OF THIS ONE THING. SO JUST WANT TO SAY APPRECIATE THAT AND THANK YOU.

Council Member Cepeda.

Yeah, thank you. We're almost there. So thank you, everyone, for your hard work in helping us get there. I have just a couple of questions. I will start out with one that I have in my mind right now. Only nice things. Only nice things. Okay, I did say nice things.

I said we're almost there.

That's a great thing for everyone. And then it's summer break. That doesn't count to my time, right? Quick question on slide 43 of the paper. Again, the slides on line don't match yet.

They will.

They will. I know they will. They've got 16 pages only in there. There's a lot more.

You see all the work that happens Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday?

It's just me. And then last week's is not up yet. So just like where I am. But my question, though, page 43, the Hilltop Green wildfire mitigation reallocation. So I want to understand the reallocation piece.

That was originally, there was a bucket for essentially in operation maintenance that was for grazing primarily. And so we split it up between grazing for goats and sheep. OR OTHER METHODS THAT LIKE IF DARREN SAYS, OH, OUR MOWER DIED, RIGHT, THEN HE WOULD POTENTIALLY SAY, OH, I NEED $5,000 TO BUY ANOTHER MOWER. AND SO 60,000 OF THAT BECAUSE IT'S RELATED TO WILDFIRE MITIGATION FROM THAT BUCKET WAS PROPOSED TO BE ALLOCATED FROM THE LAST COUNCIL MEETING. THE COUNCIL DIRECTED US TO ALLOCATE 60,000 FROM THAT BUCKET TO SUPPORT THIS WORK.

Thank you. So maybe ask sort of a slightly different, because back on May 23rd of 2023, we appropriated $70,000. $100,000. SO THERE'S SO MANY DIFFERENT NUMBERS.

I'M JUST TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHEN SOMETHING GETS APPROPRIATED LIKE THAT, IT WASN'T AN ACTIVE CIP SO IT WASN'T ROLLED FORWARD. THAT'S THE ISSUE. THAT COUNCIL MEMBER HAS IDENTIFIED.

MY QUESTION ON THAT THERE, JUST THIS ONE KIND OF REMINDED ME, BUT WHEN WE COME TO COUNCIL AND WE SAY LET'S BUDGET X AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR THIS PARTICULAR YEAR AND IF IT DOESN'T GET USED, WE HAVE TO COME BACK AGAIN THE NEXT YEAR AND SAY PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, GIVE ME THE MONEY AGAIN BECAUSE WE WEREN'T ABLE TO. Yes. How do we not do that?

You want to do that because if not, then you can be carrying over things that are not priorities. Because if you always budget every single thing the same way that you did like every single dollar, then what if there's something new you want to do? Where would we find the money?

Then we can maybe have a list of things. Here's what we did last time we haven't used the funding versus it goes away.

Make it the CIP.

We have to try to figure out, because if it hasn't gotten completed yet, THEN I DON'T HAVE THE ANSWER, AND THIS MIGHT BE TOO MUCH OF A QUESTION FOR NOW, BUT I THINK WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT SOMETHING, BECAUSE WE ALL TRY TO FIGURE OUT, LIKE, HOW AM I GOING TO GET MY FOUR VOTES? HOW DO I DO THIS? AND THEN WE GET OUR FOUR VOTES, WE GO, WHOO, WE GOT OUR FOUR VOTES, AND THEN I GOT TO DO IT AGAIN NEXT YEAR.

WELL, I THINK IF THE COUNCIL HAD A LIMITED SET OF PRIORITIES, RIGHT? SO COUNCILMEMBER BONNA HAS BEEN REALLY, REALLY FOCUSED ON HILLTOP GREEN, RIGHT? WE WERE EMAILING, AND SHE WAS LIKE, THIS IS MY NUMBER ONE THING I'M REALLY WORKING ON. THEN IF EACH COUNCIL MEMBER HAD SOMETHING THEY WERE REALLY FOCUSED ON, IT WOULD BE EASIER FOR US TO TRACK. I THINK RIGHT NOW WE HAVE SO MANY THAT WE'RE ALSO TRYING TO GAUGE, OKAY, WHAT IS THE CONSENSUS OF THE COMMUNITY OF THE CITY COUNCIL YOU KNOW COLLECTIVELY NOT JUST LIKE WHAT ARE THE INDIVIDUAL REQUESTS AND SO WE'RE TRYING TO BALANCE THAT AND STILL DELIVER A BALANCED BUDGET SO THIS PROCESS RIGHT WHERE WE HAVE THESE MEETINGS AND WE DISCUSS WITH THE COUNCIL WHAT YOUR PRIORITIES ARE LIKE WE DID THIS YEAR IS THE APPROPRIATE WAY THAT WE SHOULD HANDLE AND MANAGE REAPPROPRIATIONS THANK YOU ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY'RE COUNCIL DRIVEN THESE ARE NOT STAFF DRIVEN REQUESTS

Willing to work on that process for future. Absolutely. And then on page 46 for the sponsored events, I want to understand, and I had asked this before as well, but sort of sponsored versus maybe created. Because some of these events, we just give money and then we say, okay, that's it. Other events, we're actually creating them, like the Literacy Festival. So it's 7,000 plus plus, plus staff time, plus waving of the Civic Center, plus other stuff. This is us doing it. There's nobody else. Then you've got... I'm just picking up here, the Cinco de Mayo Festival. We give them $20,000. There's also plus plus because we have police and other stuff in there. Right, so everything here. But someone's doing the event themselves.

Right, so as I understand it, and feel free because, again, the council office doesn't report to me, so I'm not sure of what you all have said. INDICATED TO THEM THEIR PRIORITIES ARE OR WHAT THEY'RE WORKING ON. BUT MY UNDERSTANDING FROM THIS LIST IS WE HAVE 17 EVENTS WHERE BOTH CITY STAFF AND OR THE COUNCIL OFFICE, THERE'S 17 CITY-SPONSORED EVENTS. THAT MEANS OUR LOGO IS ON THE MATERIALS, STAFF IS INVOLVED, AND WE ARE VERY ENGAGED. THAT COULD BE ANYTHING FROM PUBLIC WORK SET UP, FOR EXAMPLE, THE POINT RICHMOND MUSIC FESTIVAL. WE PROVIDE A FISCAL SPONSORSHIP. WE MAKE SURE THE EVENT IS CLEAN. WE PICK UP AFTER. WE DO A LOT. THE OTHER EVENTS THAT ARE TO THE RIGHT HERE THAT I WANTED TO MAKE SURE WERE ALLOCATED BECAUSE THESE ARE THINGS THAT COUNCIL BROUGHT UP, THE ASIAN AMERICAN PACIFIC ISLANDER, MOTHER'S DAY, THE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT. AFFINITY GRADUATIONS AND FAITH LEADERS LUNCHEON, THESE ARE THINGS RECENTLY THAT HAVE COME OUT OF THE COUNCIL OFFICES EITHER TO THE CITY COUNCIL AS AN AGENDA ITEM, RIGHT, OR THEY HAVE PERCOLATED. THROUGH THE CITY SYSTEM. I THINK WHAT WE JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE IS THAT FOR NEXT FISCAL YEAR, IF THESE ARE THE RIGHT COMBINATION OF EVENTS OR IF THERE'S SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE REMOVED OR ADDED, WE'RE HAPPY TO DO SO.

I DON'T THINK WE HAVE A PROCESS. I JUST HEARD A LITTLE BIT AGO THAT THE WAIVERS THAT ARE ON THE RIGHT, FOR EXAMPLE, ALL CAME THROUGH SOME TYPE OF AGENDA ITEM AND THAT'S HOW THEY GET WAIVED THROUGH THE CITY COUNCIL.

EXCEPT FOR MY UNDERSTANDING FOR TRANSPARENCY, UNLESS I MISSED IT, IS EXCEPT FOR THE FAITH LEADERS LUNCHEON. IS THAT ACCURATE?

WE'RE PAYING RENT FOR IT OUT OF THE OFFICE BUDGET.

OUT OF WHAT BUDGET?

MY OFFICE BUDGET.

Okay, the office budget, and I think this is where the, we'll have to have a follow-up offline. I think the office budget is, and the finance staff can confirm, historically that line item is noted for travel and professional conferences.

Yeah, it's a conference.

It, I don't, okay.

Thank you.

So, I'm going to look. So, but we're about to vote. So this is, I think maybe the council members provide a rental fee waiver.

So council members have paid it. I think this might be an opera because I haven't been involved in the planning. I, and I don't think any of us here have. So that might be a question for council member Bona.

Okay. So then when we vote for this, we're not waving anything.

WE'RE SAYING FOR NEXT FISCAL YEAR THAT IF THE CITY COUNCIL IS SO INCLINED AND SO THEN IT WOULDN'T BE AN EVENT FROM A COUNCIL MEMBER, IT WOULD BE AN EVENT IT COULD FROM LIKE WITH THE CITY OF RICHMOND OR THE CITY OF RICHMOND CITY COUNCIL, HOWEVER YOU ALL DECIDE, IT'S JUST WE WERE TRYING TO MITIGATE THE NEED TO HAVE ADDITIONAL ITEMS COMING BACK.

Because, again, I'm just trying to follow a process. We're supposed to have an agenda item, not just for that one. You picked that one there, but just for any, just so we can understand and then make sure that we follow.

No, we should, but I don't know. It's not clear to me. The items that city council work on with their staff do not come to me for signature, right? So that goes to the vice mayor, and she signs off on those items, and then they're routed. That is my understanding of how your procurement process works. It doesn't come to me. So I apologize I'm unable to answer the specifics about this event because I wasn't involved.

And then if there's a way to kind of figure out a process on how we, because some of these events, and I love all these events, but how do we give funding? How much to each? Is it based on the people, the time, the whatever? I think if we can figure that out, it would help us to make sure that we're.

Yes, we made increases last fiscal year in particular. We added events, and we increased dollar amounts in 23, 24, and 24, 25. because of some of the events had been, for example, Juneteenth and Cinco de Mayo had been, they're the largest festivals. They had been at the same amount for years and years and years. And then we were adding events and those events were like five, 7,000. So it started to look like, oh, okay, here we have thousands of people that come out for these two events. Maybe it's more appropriate since they do an inordinate amount of fundraising that we increase those. Those are sort of the marquee ones in addition to 3rd of July. And so that's how that came about and every year. We've been very transparent and providing this list and Then there was concern around whether the second pride festival was in the city of Richmond or in the county and so My understanding is that it will be at cheese park to ensure that it's in the city of Richmond And so that's why that $2,000 was provided there But we're happy to follow whatever the direction of the City Council is on these we are just trying to Make it an easy process

I'M LOOKING FOR SOME GUIDANCE POLICY BECAUSE I GET A LOT OF REQUESTS SAYING CAN YOU FUND THIS, CAN YOU FUND THAT. THERE'S THE HALLOWEEN EVENT. IT'S NOT ON HERE. DO WE GIVE ANY MONEY? HALLOWEEN WHERE? ON 23rd STREET.

Well, that's very important because actually on Halloween, I don't know that that should be a city-sponsored event because we have very narrow sidewalks, right? So anything where I'm really concerned about public safety, we will provide support for the event to try to support public safety. But I do have concerns for risk reasons to say like, oh, this is a city-sponsored event in a small area. But if that's something the city council wants us to try to figure out, we can. SOMETIMES THERE'S CONCERNS AROUND THE BUSINESSES DON'T ACTUALLY WANT THE STREET CLOSED, RIGHT? SO IT'S BALANCING BETWEEN RIGHT NOW WHAT WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO DO IS WORK COLLABORATIVELY WITH THE MERCHANTS ON 23rd STREET TO SUPPORT HALLOWEEN BUT NOT CLOSE THE STREET BECAUSE MY UNDERSTANDING IS THERE WAS SOME CONCERNS WITH THAT SO POLICE DOES WORK WITH THEM BUT IT'S NOT A SANCTIONED CITY SPONSORED EVENT.

And I guess that's, again, I'm trying to get some guidance so that we could also say, hey, now you are, you get X amount of money, and how much is that money? So, again, it might not be an answer for today, but we want to create something. So if somebody comes in, it could be anybody, they want to have a national duck day and they want to have an event and they want $10,000, we can say, look, here's the criteria. You meet it, you don't meet it.

YEAH, AND I BELIEVE DEPUTY CITY MANAGER WHITE MIGHT BE ABLE TO BETTER ANSWER SOME OF THESE QUESTIONS. SHE HAS BROUGHT THINGS BACK TO THE CITY COUNCIL REGARDING THIS MATTER. THERE HAVE BEEN SORT OF HISTORICALLY THERE WAS JUST A VERY QUICK PROCESS THAT THE NONPROFITS HAD, AND I BELIEVE THAT THERE HAVE BEEN ADDITIONS TO SUPPORT HOW THESE ITEMS, THE BUDGETS AND SO FORTH.

THANK YOU. SO I UNDERSTAND YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A POLICY OR SOME SORT OF future events. We are working, and that's one of the things I mentioned when we did our presentation for community services, that there's some things we want to work on internally so that there is a more efficient, effective process that is cleaner for community. So we're working on upgrading our special events permits process as well as looking at our fee waiver process to make those upgrades. But the list of the items that are city-sponsored really have been historical items that we have continued for over a decade, in all honesty, right? And so as city council, because you provide policy direction, every year city council looks at those lists and says, you know, there's another event we want to do. And so council has brought up additional events. Literacy event was a newer one. The Nauruz Festival was a newer event that council brought forward as part of the budget process and said, we want to do this. here's the dollar amount that we want to provide so that's how that list has grown over the years and as the city manager mentioned we have provided additional funding just because inflation you know things cost more so if the council has a desire to revise the list of items we are proposing based on historically on what we have done this is to me the time to be able to have that conversation for the ones that we provide funding to they really have come from council city staff have not been the ones Historically to bring those items forward for the items that Shasta mentioned that are on the right that are listed The first minus the faith leaders all of those City Council members in terms of a process It has been especially that it's because they've all been at the auditorium That we tell the council members for those organizations that have come to council members that because we cannot waive us We don't have the ability of city staff to waive fees for the auditorium that the process is to go to a council You know to work with a council member A council member brings an item. You work with registration staff and recreation to say how much it would cost if they were to pay for it. And that's part of the agenda item so that the council, the community understands we are waiving, you know, $8,000 worth of fees for the auditorium. And none of these things include overtime for parks, overtime for recreation, overtime for police or fire. So everything that is listed, there is an additional cost that we don't, that you don't see that isn't discussed. BUT WE ARE HAPPY IF THERE'S SOMETHING THAT IS DESIRED IN TERMS OF A MORE ARTICULATED PROCESS, WE CAN CREATE SOMETHING.

IF WE COULD, PLEASE, SO THAT WAY WE CAN KNOW WHEN PEOPLE COME UP, GET SEVERAL EMAILS FROM DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS AND IT WOULD BE GREAT TO SAY HERE'S THE CRITERIA AND DO WE BRING IT TO COUNCIL AND NOT COUNCIL.

WE'LL CREATE SOMETHING AND BRING IT BACK TO COUNCIL SO COUNCIL CAN AGREE TO WHATEVER CRITERIA WE COME UP WITH SO THAT EVERYONE IS ON THE SAME PAGE.

AND WE CAN MAKE SURE THE PROCESS IN THERE INCLUDES EVENTS THAT WE CAN LEGALLY waive fees for because some of them we might not be able to legally waive fees for.

We will always work with our city attorney's office to make sure we're doing things correctly.

Thank you. And then on page 47, thank you. This is a great list. I know that we've asked for it last time as well. Question on the Richmond Saturday STEM field days. The time and venue is not listed, more particularly the venue. What are we waiving there?

I'M SORRY, WHAT NUMBER IS THIS?

PAGE 47. THE RICHMOND SATURDAY STEM FIELD DAYS. GO AHEAD.

DEPUTY CITY MANAGER WHITE, DO YOU HAVE A SENSE?

WE'RE WAVING SOMETHING.

IT SAYS DISCOUNT 603. IT DOESN'T HAVE THE VENUE LOCATION. We may need to get back to you on that one.

We need to get back to you on that one. I just asked Rajana Maharaj if she knew offhand what that one is. We don't remember. So we can provide that information if you want details on what was waived there. And these are individual ones that are approved because they're either at a community center or at a park, which is included as part of the council-approved fee waiver process. So individuals have applied for a fee waiver, and city staff have approved those per council. Perfect.

Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. I have some here. Let me start my time here. I wanted to say that this year we've created a lot of events that we haven't had before. And I've been curious about the process, just as Councilmember Zepeda has. I believe we do need a process because we're creating a lot of cost, a lot of work for our staff, and we're doing it piecemeal. You know, something comes up, you know, we say, hey, that's a great idea, let's do it. And there's some events that the public has been doing, but with hard times, they need support from the city. And so as mayor and as council members, we want to support what our community's doing. For instance, uh, something that wasn't mentioned was, uh, 20 23rd street has a Christmas celebration, which they've been doing and we have not been, uh, giving them money to do it. Uh, they have gotten donations from various council members, but, uh, uh, it would be a bigger better event if they were able to get some support from the city for that christmas event so uh... i would like to find some way that we could support uh... those sorts of events you know a way that's that's control the way that's that's uh... uh... accountable you know and and for all these other events that we do we need to find some way to to quantify the amount of hours and extra work that staff is is putting into making these events happen so that we actually know what the true cost of these are and I would also like to find some way to make the Mother's Day celebration something that that is one of the 17 city sponsored events. And then it would be nice to have something, I know that staff members, not staff members, but the community has been hoping to put together a Valentine's Day event. to spread the joy of love within our city. So the Latinx graduation, we've had a lot of requests to make that an ongoing event. But we also want to be equitable to other communities. ethnic groups and not just have the Latinx, but have other ethnic groups be able to celebrate their community's celebrations, graduations. But what we need is a process and a way to quantify what is expended by the city, what is donated by the city. anyway I'm glad that you included the page 47 the fiscal year 2025 26 city sponsored events and fee waivers so I hope that we can continue to increase the support of the city to to community groups that celebrate Our citizens our residents the people who visit our city To make it to make the quality of life even better And I know that we have another event that we will be talking about and so and so you know that will be something that that We should probably be added to this list, but you know as council will decide whether or not we go that way So thank you. That's

And I think Mayor, Deputy City Manager White, if we may, through you as the chair, if she had anything to add.

I did want to add something really quickly. For the past 10 plus years, as part of the ECIA, the Environmental Community Investment Agreement, there was a line item for grants. And one of them for 10 years was called a mini grant. And we purposely created that mini grant program to allow nonprofit organizations to apply for funding The lift was a lot lighter than our regular RFCY grant. It was for a smaller amount, I think under $5,000, and you could apply for funding if you were having an event at a community center or a park. So we allowed organizations, if they wanted to have a Mother's Day event, they could have applied annually to get up to $5,000 to help pay for anything regarding the event as long as it was connected to a city of Richmond facility. The reason we even created that mini grant program was because we heard and we were realizing that there were organizations who didn't have the capacity to use our facilities, didn't have the funding to put on community events. So I just wanted to make sure the council and the community understood that in addition to the ECIA mini grant, which once again was a lighter lift, we also then have the fee waiver process. So organizations could have got a fee waiver for an event to have access to a space, but then also receive funding through a grant to pay for other things related to that event. So we have been trying to have multiple ways to provide organizations in our community with opportunities to have either funding or access to space. ECIA is, we're shutting down because the funding is ending, so we do need to think about what additional process there is to provide some funding to organizations and what that may look like. But I do want to point out that that has been available TO ORGANIZATIONS AND WE HAVE BEEN PROVIDING FUNDING TO ORGANIZATIONS FOR MANY YEARS AND IN JULY THERE WILL BE A LIST OF NEW ORGANIZATIONS THAT ARE RECEIVING FUNDING THROUGH THE MINI GRANT PROCESS. THIS WILL BE OUR LAST YEAR.

SO MAYOR, IF WE CAN BRING IT BACK, I THINK WE CAN WORK ON IT OVER THE RECESS AND THEN BRING SOMETHING BACK TO CITY COUNCIL IN TERMS OF AN INITIAL DRAFT AND TRY TO HAVE SOMETHING UP AND READY FOR MID-YEAR.

Yeah. And I know that we basically have two soccer clubs that get most of the recognition and most of the support from the city. But there's more than those two soccer clubs. And I believe that we should start supporting all the others. I know there's a Yemeni soccer club that does great work. and uh... uh... we should include them in terms of uh... support for for uh... uh... use of fields and uh... uh... you know uh... the any other way that we can help them financially uh... uh... and and i know that there's the that that there's other groups i'm not thinking of them right now but uh... we should make sure that that it's not just one or two clubs that get that get the funds and the use of the fields but that uh... all of them HAVE AN EQUITABLE ACCESS TO CITY FACILITIES.

OKAY. WE CAN BRING BACK THE POLICY AND A DRAFT COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT OUTREACH DOCUMENT WITH IT. OKAY. GREAT. THANK YOU.

SO ARE THERE ANY OTHER COMMENTS? YES. GO AHEAD.

I JUST WANTED TO ADD THAT I SUPPORT WHAT Deputy Manager White said, in terms of promoting more events and having grants, that's how community building is done. More celebrations, more coming together, helping the community to have more events. I would like to acknowledge what Council Member Wilson said about, you know, having connections to do that. That's why I said in the application, maybe we want to reveal it to anybody who applies, that there is this option, grant, or if you reach out to a council member, the city council, you know, CAN APPROVE IT. IT SHOULDN'T BE JUST THROUGH CONNECTION. IT SHOULD BE KNOWN TO THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY. SO IF YOU COULD FACILITATE THAT IN THE FUTURE, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WORKING ON THIS.

WE'LL BRING THAT BACK WITH THE DRAFT POLICY TO HAVE A CLARITY REGARDING THE PROCESS AND OUTREACH.

YEAH. AND THAT FAITH LEADERS CONFERENCE IS IN THE AUDITORIUM LOBBY. WE COULDN'T AFFORD THE ENTIRE AUDITORIUM. AND IT'S A CONFERENCE PAID BY MY OFFICE. THANK YOU. BY THE WAY, I HOPE NEXT YEAR THE CITY SPONSORS IT IF IT GOES WELL AND EXPANDS.

COUNCILMEMBER?

Jimenez. Thank you so much. I had just a question for the CIP. How much money we are putting in the pavement for this year? And the other one is for the street calming program, how much money we are adding for this year as well?

Unfortunately, Daniel's not with us this evening, so Avinash and Joseph, if you could please assist in answering those questions.

Yes. Joseph is the person here.

Avinash, are you coming or are you just leaving Joseph? And you can also say I need a moment so we can, if we can take, is there any other questions, Mayor, while they're looking for the, Joseph and Avinash, can you confer to make sure you're on the same page before you answer with Emily? With Emily, Avinash, and Joseph? Okay.

Were there any other questions while they're yeah, I can add a question if I'm a mayor you you had a map of the pavements It's a different staff councilmember Bonner, okay So this is our last question there, yes Okay He's the chair so

Okay, so two more questions. Is it to Public Works Council Member Robinson or is it to other staff? Okay, yes. Mayor, do you want to?

Yeah. So while they're getting their things together, it's actually more of a comment about what we've been talking about and I hear it coming up over and over again and that is there's a need for policies that dictate how we do spending. And that it shouldn't be that you need to know a council person in order to get that RFP or that contract or that access to building or that you know, sponsorship of special program. In fact, you shouldn't, no, that's like not the way that we should be doing any of these things. That's why I moved the unhoused services to an RFP so it would be an open process so anyone could apply so you wouldn't have to know somebody to get access to city funds. I think that that's where corruption starts and that we need to be moving away from that in all venues and in all avenues. I just wanted to bring that up, that the RFP process allows for transparency. It allows for equal competition, equal access. And I... I ENCOURAGE US TO THINK ABOUT THAT WITH ALL OF THE DIFFERENT THINGS WHEN WE'RE SUPPORTING, YOU KNOW, ALL OF THESE DIFFERENT WAYS AND COME UP WITH POLICIES INSTEAD OF, YOU KNOW, KIND OF ACCESS.

NO, WE AGREE THAT THAT WOULD BE THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO AS THE NUMBER OF COUNCIL REQUESTS HAS INCREASED AND SO WE NEED TO WOULD LIKE TO WORK ON UPDATING THE POLICY. AND ALSO I THINK DOING SO A LITTLE BIT AFTER THE RIGHT NOW COMMUNITY SERVICES HAS A HUGE INFLUX OF YOUNG PEOPLE THAT THEY'RE PROVIDING DIRECT SERVICE TO EVERY DAY. SO I THINK THERE WILL BE SOME MORE CAPACITY TO DO THAT AS DURING THE RECESS ONCE THE YOUNG PEOPLE ARE BACK IN SCHOOL.

GOOD EVENING MAYOR MARTINEZ AND FELLOW COUNCIL MEMBERS. MY NAME IS DANIEL I MEAN JOSEPH MUNOZ. assistant deputy director of Public Works so to answer your guys's questions in the City Council budget checklist line 83 we do have a response there for the total funding for paving which is six point eight million dollars and change so you guys can refer to that for fiscal year 26-27. And in terms of safety and calming, we have an allocation of a total of $900,000 through two programs. One is called the Neighborhood Safety and Access Program, and the other one is the Complete Streets Program, which is all funded through and by Measure J.

Thank you. But like the 6.8 is general fund, right? OR IS TOTAL?

MEASURE J.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. FINANCE MANAGER FROM THE BUDGET DIVISION. THE 6.8 YOU'RE REFERRING TO, IS THAT THE COMPLETE STREETS?

NO, THE PAYMENT.

So the pavement program funding allocation gas tax fund, which is the highway user tax account, gets $3.6 million. And then we have the road maintenance rehabilitation account, which is the SB1 fund. And we get $3.2 million. So they make up the $6.8 million for the pavement program budget.

So we are not putting any money from the general fund?

There is no allocation from general fund for the payment. That is correct.

So how are we going to do this when we need $18 million?

There is quite a few programs here that, you know, need additional funding. We'll continue to look through grants and when funding becomes available address those. But at this time, this is the budget that is balanced and that we're moving forward with.

I just got confused because in the pavement management fiscal year 26, 27, and 27, 28, you are allocating $11 million and then the other $11.6 million.

Council Member Jimenez, can you please indicate what attachment you're looking at? AND ALSO I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT.

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS 10 YEAR FORECAST. IT'S ALSO IMPORTANT.

That 11 million is the funding gap so we it's it's the it's the shortfall in the program, okay?

It's also important for the council to note that when you're approving specific grant funded projects that are related to complete streets and THAT IS HOW THOSE GRANTS ARE ALSO WHAT ENABLE THE CITY TO INCREASE ITS PAVING INDEX IS APPLYING FOR THOSE COMPLETE STREETS GRANTS. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN POINT OUT SOME OF THOSE ON THE CIP LIST THAT ARE FUNDED OR PARTIALLY FUNDED AS EXAMPLES.

Yeah, we have the 13th Complete Streets project that will be under construction shortly. That was also partially funded through a grant. We also have some active grants that we've applied for through our transportation team, Gail and Jannie, that will assist us with hopefully leveraging future gas tax dollars with these larger Complete Streets projects. That was presented. I believe on May 26 to you guys When we showed you guys the future plan active projects and future plan and that future plan outlined the exact grants We were going for based off the high injury network corridor that suits well and fits well with those types of grants All right, can we Make a motion

I move that we approve the budget as is.

This item, Mayor, it's very important. Can the clerk read it into the record? And because it has a resolution that's adopted, we need to make sure it's exactly how it's noted.

Okay. Would you read it into the record?

Okay. I read it earlier, but you want me to read it in two?

Just so they can recall what they're voting on, Madam Clerk, please.

Recommended action is to adopt a resolution approving fiscal year 20 to 26 through 27 proposed operating budget and fiscal year 26 to 27 to fiscal year 2030 to 31 proposed five-year capital improvement plan budget Okay, so I move okay, I'll second that Councilmember Bonner. Yes Councilmember Jimenez Yes. Council Member Wilson? Yes. Vice Mayor Robinson?

Yes.

Council Member Zepeda?

Yes.

And Mayor Martinez?

Yes.

The motion passes with Council Member Brown absent.

I also want to remind you that you've gotten direction to look at various things in terms of policy.

YES, WE WILL COME BACK AFTER THE RECESS AND THEN OUR GOAL WILL BE TO HAVE THE COUNCIL WITH A POLICY FOR ADOPTION FOR MIDYEAR.

THANK YOU.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, CITY COUNCIL AND CITY STAFF. GREAT JOB.

ITEM 02 IS TO RECEIVE A PRESENTATION ON EMERGENCY RESPONSE MEASURE SURVEY KEY FINDING PRESENTATION. Approve the findings and direct the city manager to proceed with phase two, ballot readiness and informational work to evaluate revenue options supporting advanced life support, emergency services, fire station improvement, and replacement. We have two speakers, in-person speakers on this item. We'd like to address the council on this item. Joining us online, please raise your hand at this time.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS. TONIGHT WE ARE BRINGING THE KEY FINDINGS FROM THE RECENTLY COMPLETED VOTER SURVEY REGARDING A POTENTIAL REVENUE FUNDING MEASURE TO SUPPORT ALS. SO TO WALK THROUGH THESE RESULTS, METHODOLOGY AND IMPLICATIONS, WE HAVE JOHN BLISS FROM SCI WHO HAS BEEN SUPPORTING THE CITY IN EVALUATING VARIOUS FUNDING MECHANISMS AND WE HAVE SHAKARI BYERLY FROM AND THE RESEARCH FIRM WE USE TO HELP US CONDUCT THE SURVEY. WITH THAT, I'LL TURN IT OVER TO THEM.

IF I MAY JUST FOR A BIT MORE BACKGROUND INFORMATION. SO CITY COUNCIL, THIS IS AN ITEM THIS EVENING THAT IS SOMEWHAT TIME SENSITIVE. We are very pleased to be working with Chief Osorio and members of the Richmond Fire Department and Richmond Finance Department and Public Works to try to think through, as you saw this evening with our regular budget, that we are constrained financially with our capacity to provide the level of service and the level of built environment improvements that are needed to our fire stations. And we think that this is a critical opportunity based on the information that you're going to receive this evening and the positive results that this is really an opportunity for us to move forward in a very timely manner for the November ballot, potentially with a go bond. And so this evening, once we walk through the findings, we would like your direction to proceed because we have very limited time. AND WE WOULD BE COMING BACK TO YOU WITH ADDITIONAL FOLLOW-UP ITEMS IN JULY. AND SO I KNOW THAT THERE'S A LOT OF REQUESTS FROM THE COUNCIL RIGHT NOW. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT EMILY AND I IN CHIEF HAVE BEEN SPENDING A LOT OF TIME ON WORKING WITH OUR CONSULTANTS. And we think we are on a very positive path forward and we appreciate your support. And in particular, again, I want to acknowledge Chief Osorio for his leadership. I think it's been really great to have a police chief that is willing to be innovative and motivated. And I think even when he came out and met, the consultant team came out and met with him on site and toured the fire stations. We're at a very important inflection point where we think that this is something that can work. So thank you. With that, I'll turn it over to the team.

Great. Thank you, Mayor Martinez, members of the City Council. My name is John Bliss and I'm with SCI Consulting. I'm joined by my colleague, my team member, Dr. Byerly next to me. She will be doing most of the speaking. She's from the polling firm. And then there's a gentleman, Tom Clifford, who couldn't be here, of Clifford Moss. So the three of us have been working with the chief and staff and looking at kind of the challenge of funding for fire protection services and the fire department. And there are two areas that we were asked to look at. One is the need to reconstruct some and renovate others of the fire station. So that's one of the challenges. The other financial challenge is to provide, to go from what's basic life services, which we call EMT, up to the paramedics. So to improve our emergency medical response here and make it consistent with the rest of the county. And so there are two mechanisms we looked at, and one is a special tax that's typically an annual revenue source, and that dovetails well or supports well the idea of the funding necessary for long-term sustainable paramedic service. And then there's something called a bond measure. And I know most of you or all of you know this. But the bond measure in California is really good for facilities. It's good for capital. And it's a slightly different ballot question and a slightly different process. So Dr. Byerly and her team looked at a, A SPECIAL TAX IN SUPPORT OF FUNDING FOR PARAMEDICS AND A BOND MEASURE IN SUPPORT OF FUNDING FOR IMPROVED FIRE STATIONS TO REBUILD THESE FIRE STATIONS. AND THE CONCLUSIONS I'LL JUMP TO THE END AND THEN SHE'LL PROVIDE THE BACKGROUND BECAUSE IT'S THE DECISION AND THE STRATEGY IS REALLY DRIVEN BY THE SURVEY RESULTS AND WHAT WE'RE RECOMMENDING HERE TODAY IS THAT THE CITY GO FORWARD WITH THE BOND MEASURE IN SUPPORT OF THE FIRE STATIONS IN NOVEMBER 2026 AND THAT AT A SUBSEQUENT DATE maybe two years later, to consider looking at that special tax to permanently fund paramedics. So if we can see, I'm not sure if you guys can see the PowerPoint presentation.

Yeah, KCRT, if you can please put up the slide deck. And so in the interim, and Chief can explain this later, what we would be recommending is that the Chief continue to move forward with ALS, as we've talked about, and we would be commencing with the squad model while, so we're, renovating the stations, getting the squad model going, and then once we've got some traction, then potentially depending on how the polling presents in two years, go back around more specific funding just for ALS.

Perfect. And let's go to the next slide. And then go ahead to the next slide. We'll cut to the chase. I've already kind of gone over the research objectives, so let's go for two more slides. Actually, excuse me. I'm sorry. Go back to that key findings, and I'm going to pass off to Dr. Beierle.

Thank you so much, John, and to Mayor Martinez and the council. Thank you for this opportunity as well as Shasta Curl for the opportunity to conduct this research. So as John alluded to, we do see significant support among Richmond voters to invest in improving 911 emergency response and fire protection infrastructure. Both the bond measure and the partial tax options do have nearly two-thirds support, which is what is required for passage given the special purpose here. But support is what we call soft, which means that we have fewer voters that are definitely committed to supporting a measure and more people who are undecided are leaning towards supporting the measure. which suggests that voters would like additional information about the benefits and also the considerations associated with these two measures. We do model that in this survey, and we'll go through the methodology as well as the specific language of the measures that were tested, but what we find when we present voters with information about the needs and the benefits of investment It solidifies support. We get more voters who say that they will either definitely vote yes or they will probably vote yes now that they understand more about the condition of the fire stations, for example, and also the need for paramedic services. It really resonates with voters, the importance of bringing Richmond up to standard with other cities around the county particularly for life saving care where every moment matters. It's important to consider however that negative information or considerations do have the potential to erode support particularly for the parcel tax measure with affordability concerns being high on the list of what voters find compelling as a reason not to move forward. The bond measure, however, is more durable and retains two-thirds support after voters hear both positive and negative considerations about the measure. So on the next slide, you'll see a bit about our survey methodology. We talked to 800 City of Richmond likely voters. We conducted the research in mid to late May of this year. We did something called split sampling. So because we are testing two mechanisms here, the bond measure as well as the parcel tax measure, we don't want to create any bias by voters hearing one measure first compared to the second measure receiving less of a full consideration. So we divided the sample of 800 people in half. So half of the voters, a subsample of 400 received questions about the bond measure and the other 400 received questions about the parcel tax measures. Voters did not hear both measures. They were both considered independently and we have the results here presented to you separately. The margin of error for the full sample when we tested many of the funding priorities, for example, is going to be around plus or minus 3.44%. For each split sample, your margin of error is going to be closer to about 5%. It's under that plus or minus 4.88. We did do interviewing both by telephone as well as providing voters with the opportunity to complete the study online. The interviews and the responses were collected in both English and Spanish, and we've weighted the responses so that they reflect the actual distribution of Richmond City voters across council districts, across age, across partisanship. So this is a representative sample of likely voters. We go on to the next slide. We'll get into some of the detailed findings, starting with the language that we tested for both of these measures. So on the next slide, you'll see on the left our ballot measure assessments on the next slide. The bond measure, you can see the level at which we tested here and the language, which conforms to what a 75-word ballot question may look like for a bond measure versus a parcel tax measure. And you can see the $120 million level for the bond and for the parcel tax, $67 annually on all taxable parcels. What we find on the next slide is that support is comparable on initial ask for both measures. So we've broken out, we asked voters, hearing that language, would you be inclined to vote yes in favor or no? to oppose and to what extent. And you can see that 65% say yes, they would at least be inclined to vote yes on a bond measure and a comparable percentage for the parcel, 66% vote yes. So these are statistically equal results essentially across both of these measures. What you'll see on the next slide, and we'll start with the bond measure, we have somewhat more durable support for the bond. So you can see the initial support. We start at 65%. It is soft. So as I said initially, your soft support, your probably yes, and your undecided lean yes outweigh those who are committed to voting definitely yes. So we start at 37%, probably undecided lean, and 28% definitely yes. After we present voters with information about how the funds might be spent if a bond were to move forward and also some of the considerations that the city has for moving forward with a bond, and we'll get into the details of that as we get through slides, We asked them again, now that you've heard more information, would you be inclined to vote in favor, yes in favor, no to oppose? And you can see here support solidifies with that additional information. We like to see that number for a two-thirds measure at the definitely yes at about 40%. We don't quite see it there, but it's much closer than when we initially started. We do lose some support when we present the other side of the argument, the negative considerations why a bond might not be a good idea to move forward, and we'll lay out some of the information that we shared. But we see we come down a little bit from 72% to 69%, but we're still around just above that two-thirds, 66%, vote threshold, which is good news, especially in times such as these. The no vote hovers around 1 in 5 or 1 in 4 over the course of the survey with very few voters that are undecided. Now for the parcel. You'll see very similar numbers on the next slide for the parcel tax measure. Again, soft support on the initial vote with 39% overall saying that they would probably vote yes or they're undecided or they're inclined to vote yes. And then that outweighs those that are committed to voting yes or definitely yes on the initial vote, that 27%. Again, when they hear about potential uses of parcel tax funding and the reasons or considerations why operations funding might be needed in particular, we see a similar uptick in support. We get closer to that 40% or 2 in 5 that would say definitely, yes, they are in support, and overall 73%, well above the two-thirds threshold. We drop, however, once we get to the negative considerations, reasons not to move forward. We drop just down below that two-thirds threshold within the margin of error. So that is behind our assessment that the bond measure has a bit more durability, if you will, than the parcel tax measure. Let's move forward and dig further into the details, particularly with the funding priorities. On the next slide, we'll go through each of the different potential uses that we presented to voters and get their reactions. What we find is very high levels of priority around our infrastructure as well as some of the operations needs. First, the infrastructure priorities. We presented voters with a series of different potential uses of the funds and asked them if they thought it was important or not for those particular items to be funded. And if so, to what extent? Extremely important, very important, somewhat important. We're presenting here the combined total percentage of voters who say that these services and priorities, rather, are extremely or very important. And these numbers are very solid. We are looking for these to have two-thirds consensus or more, given the vote threshold for the measure. 83% are saying it's highly important to improve 911 emergency response times. 71% say ensuring the structural resiliency of fire stations during disasters is important. Seventy percent say replacing deteriorating electrical systems, leaky pipes and roofs and fire stations is highly important. And likewise, bringing Richmond fire stations up to current building and safety code standards. And you'll see that theme of bringing Richmond up to standard really resonating with the community. Among the top tier concerns on the next slide is also rehabilitating unsafe firefighter housing, protecting the health and safety of firefighters is highly important to your voters. 69% say that that should be a priority. Other priorities that resonate with voters, although the consensus is not as strong as the items on the first slide or the top item here, are upgrading the stations to create living quarters for female firefighters, reconstructing or modernizing and enlarging seismically unsafe fire stations, and ensuring that all of the renovations or the renovated buildings meet those energy efficiency standards. You have a majority of voters that say all of these items are highly important. Likewise for the parcel tax funding priorities, which you'll see on the next two slides. So here, providing 24-7 paramedic emergency services ranks as the top priority. 85% say that that life-saving care, particularly for victims of heart attacks, strokes, overdoses, serious traumatic industry and other significant medical conditions is highly important. And when we get to the positive information, making the case for the measure, you'll see that that really resonates in terms of upgrading to paramedic services. Also bringing firefighter apparatus and equipment up to standard, providing the same level of emergency medical response as is received by other county residents also resonates with four and five Richmond voters. On the next slide, you'll see the second-tier priorities, which includes hiring paramedics to ensure that Richmond has the most highly trained and skilled personnel available does well, as well as improving firefighter equipment for faster response times. Notably, hiring paramedics does rank higher than upgrading firefighter training specifically. having paramedics on staff, adding that staff, resonates to a higher degree than simply upgrading the training there. So how does that translate when we actually make the case for investing in a bond measure or moving forward with the tax? So you'll see both the positive information and the negative information on the next slide. So first we'll start with the bond measure. All of these messages and statements test extremely well as reasons to move forward or reasons voters would support a bond measure in particular. So 84%, including 49% who say that the top statement is very convincing. Identify having 911 emergency response times, being able to be there as soon as possible is highly important as voters think about the reasons to move forward with a bond measure. They also care deeply about the health and safety of firefighters. And when we share the condition of some of the existing stations, it really resonates with the public. On the next slide, you'll see the second tier information that voters find compelling. Again, very high degrees of resonance with four and five voters saying that these are compelling reasons to move forward. THE FACT THAT SOME OF THE STATIONS ARE TOO SMALL TO ACCOMMODATE MODERN FIRE EQUIPMENT AND ALSO THE IMPORTANCE OF ENSURING THAT RICHMOND REMAINS RESILIENT. AS WE MOVE THROUGH I'LL GO A BIT MORE QUICKLY SIMILAR THEMES FOR THE PARCEL TAX MEASURE ON THE NEXT SLIDE. The positive information about bringing Richmond up to standard resonates well, as well as the specific types of care and services available if paramedic training and paramedics are brought on staff, particularly that paramedics are trained to perform EKG monitoring, cardiac pacing, IV treatments, and other lifesaving forms of care. you can see that these resonate even more deeply with the public than the infrastructure needs. We rarely see three in five or nearly 60% of voters saying that these are highly compelling reasons to move forward. This is really, I can't say enough how remarkable this is in terms of the commitment of voters to making these investments. We also presented voters with considerations for not moving forward. And so you'll see on the next slide, Actually, we have a couple of more positive statements that resonate well with our parcel tax measure, and these echo what we saw for the bond, which is that 911 emergency response times, making those as short as possible, resonates with voters. And the cost seems to be a good investment for voters, so about $5.66. Since a month would enable the fire department to hire 20 more paramedics and make other improvements. And voters say that that's a small price to pay to ensure that highly trained staff emergency response personnel are on staff. Now to the negative considerations on the next slide. As I mentioned at the top of the presentation, affordability is the number one issue that has the potential to erode support. A full two in five voters, or 40%, find it very convincing reason to vote no, considering that the measure will increase the taxes. And that's the same case for the bond as it is for the parcel. particularly in the context of the affordability challenges that many families or households are facing. Likewise, the consideration that Richmond has received money from the Chevron settlement when voters consider that they find it compelling. It doesn't resonate as highly as the affordability challenge, but 7 in 10 is a remarkable number who say that is a reason to vote no, even if it may not indeed be permissible to use those Chevron dollars for emergency response services. The argument that investing in infrastructure won't reduce response times does not resonate with a majority of Richmond voters, but 45% do say that that is a consideration that may make them inclined to vote no. Again, as I close, in the final analysis, you will see on the next slide that the bond appears to be more durable. So on the initial vote, voters only received or were presented with the 75-word ballot questions, and you can see the dark shaded blue bar is the bond measure yes vote, and the lighter shaded blue bar at the top is, or blue line, is the parcel. They both start at 65 and 66% respectively. When they hear positive information, the reasons to invest, the measure, support for the measures move together, 73% and 72% respectively. HOWEVER, WHEN PERCENTED WITH NEGATIVE CONSIDERATIONS, WE SEE THAT SUPPORT FOR THE PARCEL DIPS NOTABLY MORE THAN SUPPORT FOR THE BOND. SO THE BOND REMAINS AT 69% ABOVE THE TWO THIRDS THRESHOLD AND THE PARCEL DIPS BELOW THAT THRESHOLD TO 64%. AND YOU CAN SEE ON THE BOTTOM SIDE OF THE GRAPH THE MOVEMENT IN THE NO VOTE OR THE NEGATIVES. The darker bar, the darker red bar is for the bond measure and the lighter red bar is for the parcel. So we have a higher no vote in the final analysis for the parcel at 29% saying they're at least inclined to vote no. And that number is 25% right at the margin of error for the bond measure. So I want to thank you for your time and attention and happy to answer any questions that the mayor or council may have.

MAYBE WE HAVE, DO WE HAVE ANY PUBLIC COMMENTS, SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKER NO, WE DO NOT. NEW SPEAKER OKAY. IN THAT CASE, WE'LL MOVE RIGHT INTO COUNCILMEMBER COMMENTS, QUESTIONS. ANYONE? YES, COUNCILMEMBER BONA.

So to make it clear, it's the one group you asked these questions. It's not two group baseline and two group with positive and negative, or one group baseline positive and then negative?

MS. So everyone received positive and negative information. We do have two groups, one measure who heard, one group who heard about the bond, and the second group who heard about the parcel. Each group received positive information and negative considerations for their respective measure.

OK. And if it goes on the ballot, who do you suppose would provide that negative information? Is it going to be on the ballot, pros and cons, or groups would go against it?

WE DON'T KNOW, BUT WE THINK THAT IT'S IMPORTANT THAT THE CITY COUNCIL UNDERSTAND WHAT COULD TRANSPIRE. THE ROLE OF THE CITY WOULD BE TO PROVIDE INFORMATION AND ALL OF THE INFORMATION WOULD BE REVIEWED BY THE CONSULTANT TEAM AND THEN REVIEWED BY THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE TO MAKE SURE THAT IT MEETS THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CITY COUNCIL AND THE COMMUNITY TO RECEIVE INFORMATION PERTAINING TO A POTENTIAL BALLOT MEASURE.

I UNDERSTAND. BUT MY QUESTION IS, A POTENTIAL BALLOT MEASURE, WHO PROVIDES PRO AND CON?

GENERALLY WHENEVER THERE'S A TAX OR A PARCEL TAX OR A BOND MEASURE, THE JARVIS PEOPLE GENERALLY COME OUT AND SAY THAT, YOU KNOW, ANY BOND OR TAX IS NOT A GOOD THING.

So the example statements, right? So the final language would be prepared by the consultant team and then reviewed by the city attorney's office for the actual ballot measure, right? And then there's a period of time and the city attorney's office and clerk's office, they're involved with this, prepare the information that would then be transmitted to the Contra Costa County clerk. So we don't know definitively yet who would, but there is a process for that.

OKAY, SO WE DON'T KNOW THE EXACT PROCESS. OKAY, HERE, WHAT IS THE FACE TO BALLOT?

NO, THAT'S NOT WHAT I SAID. WE KNOW THE PROCESS. WE DON'T KNOW THE PLAYERS.

NO. SO ON THE BALLOT, IT DOES SAYS PROS AND CONS. WHO DRAFTS THEM? DO WE?

DO YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO THAT IN CLERK? A COUNCILMEMBER COULD DRAFT A REBUTTAL. THERE COULD BE, YOU COULD SUBMIT I forget what you call it, though. Argument in favor. Thank you. Argument in favor, and then there's a period where it could be an argument against the argument in favor.

Yeah, who provides that argument?

We don't know who's going to provide that, but whoever provides it first when it's time for it to be.

Okay, thank you. And what is the phase two ballot readiness and informational work to evaluate revenue options?

That's what we're going to commence if you approve this item this evening.

I know, but what is it?

It's information that goes out to the public so that they're aware of this potential, of this information as written pertaining to the GO bond.

Okay, so if we approve it, it's just going to go on the ballot and then we start, you know?

No, we come back for two more meetings with specific readings, but we have to start getting information out to the community so that way they're aware of the, because we have a tight timeline. We basically have July.

To do what?

Provide information to the public.

So what is the role of the public? I mean, you're talking phrases. I cannot connect the pieces together. I'm sorry.

Okay, I'm trying to be... What is the process?

We approve it here at the city council. What is the community outreach about?

Okay, so there's going to... We'll let the team speak to that. But essentially, there's flyers and mailers that go out with information.

Yes, thank you Council Member Bona. Great question. So what the city is deciding today is to engage the team and we have the advantage of the survey information to go to the next step and there's a number of things that are part of that. Part of that is there's a drafting of documents, like the 75 word and the full ballot text. There's all of that kind of legal stuff, and that's part of the role. And then another part of the role, as the city manager said, is to provide non-advocacy, kind of fair and balanced information to make sure there's participation and that Richmond voters know what they're voting on. So there's a big role of educational outreach. and that's an important role, and that's what would be covered by phase two. And just to kind of glom on to what was previously said, advocacy arguments in favor or against, the city is not gonna be involved in that. That would be done by separate advocacy groups. We don't know who those are, but there's a role for the city to provide the basic non-advocacy information, and that's an important role, and that would be covered under phase two.

Thank you. So the month of July is important to file for the ballot and come up with the wordings, get it approved here and everything. Yes. But for the advocacy and public outreach, we have until November.

Right, but we need to start like tomorrow.

Yeah. Yeah, for the non-advocacy we have, but you're absolutely right. We anticipate that there will be advocates in support of this and perhaps advocates against this, and they have the ability within the law to advocate on their behalf all the way through the election day. So you're exactly right.

So just the information portion, that is the city's role, is just information. That would be commencing, if this is approved by the city council, that would be commencing tomorrow.

Okay. And do we have any idea about the advocacy groups for or against?

We would only be speculating at this point. My firm works with fire measures up and down the state, and there's usually a robust support of citizens groups, homeowners associations, people that are concerned. usually happens organically and we would anticipate it would happen organically. In terms of opponents, sometimes they're active and sometimes they're not. The mayor mentioned one group that is occasionally active, sometimes they're not. But we believe there will probably be an organic, robust group in support would be our guess.

And we think it's very important, especially for council members, since this is something that we're proposing on behalf of the city, that we will continue to make available John and members of his team, as well as the city attorney's office and finance for council members to meet with us individually to answer questions so that city council is clear on what the guardrails are when it comes to election in your capacity as a council member and when you're SPEAKING AS A COUNCILMEMBER, AS AN INDIVIDUAL, VERSUS THE COUNCIL AS A WHOLE. SO WE'RE HAPPY TO MEET TO HAVE THOSE CONVERSATIONS OUTSIDE OF CITY COUNCIL.

I THOUGHT WE WOULD BE THE NATURAL GROUP OF ADVOCATES FOR THIS.

ARE WE NOT? COUNCILMEMBER BONNA, I RESPECTFULLY REQUEST THAT WE MEET WITH YOU OFFLINE.

OKAY. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I RESPECTFULLY RESPECT WHAT YOU SAID.

THANK YOU. We offered to meet with everyone. We understand everyone's busy, but we're happy to meet with you. But we need to make sure that in this capacity here, we are providing, we're suggesting we put this on the ballot. We will be providing information, and that is all.

And I respectfully appreciate the respect that we're sharing among ourselves. But I also want to thank you for the time that you took out yesterday to provide questions and answers to Councilmembers and staff. So it was very, very informative. So thank you for taking that extra time. So Councilmember Jimenez.

Yeah, thank you for the information. So Councilmember Banner, usually when there is ballot initiatives, the city cannot be in the role of advocating. You as a city council member can do that, but usually how has work in the city of Richmond is that the unions WHO ARE INTERESTED IN BRINGING MORE REVENUE TO THE CITY ARE THE ONES WHO PUT THE MONEY TO SUPPORT THE ADVOCACY. THIS IS HOW IT HAS WORKED HERE. SO I DON'T KNOW IF LOCAL 188 WILL BE BEHIND THAT. THAT WILL BE MY QUESTION AND MAYBE YOU DON'T HAVE TO RESPOND RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THESE ARE

I THINK WE ARE NOT ABLE TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION AT THIS TIME.

I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR A STRAIGHTFORWARD ANSWER. THANK YOU. YOU'RE WELCOME. In one of the slides, you asked the questions, and one of the top funding priorities for the residents are providing 24-7 paramedic emergency, but this is not something that a bond will do. So can you talk about how if this is the most important thing, you come out with the bond? MEASURING INSTEAD OF THE OTHER ONE.

LET ME TRY TO RESPOND AND I THINK THE CITY MANAGER WILL PROBABLY HELP ME. IT'S A GREAT QUESTION AND I WANT TO MAKE SURE WE THINK OF THAT BIG PICTURE ARC. AND SO THE BOND MEASURE YOU ARE CORRECT IN SAYING IS FOR And we do believe a stronger infrastructure, a more reliable and sustainable, vibrant infrastructure does support and is the foundation for improved rapid emergency response. In addition to that, we talked about attacks THAT WOULD ULTIMATELY PAY FOR THAT WOULD ULTIMATELY PAY FOR SUSTAINABLE LONG-TERM EMERGENCY SUSTAINABLE LONG-TERM EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO PARAMEDIC. RESPONSE TO PARAMEDIC. BUT AS THE CITY MANAGER POINTED BUT AS THE CITY MANAGER POINTED OUT, THERE'S AN INTERIM THAT THE OUT, THERE'S AN INTERIM THAT THE CITY IS CONSIDERING AND WOULD CITY IS CONSIDERING AND WOULD IMPLEMENT AND WE CALL THAT THE IMPLEMENT AND WE CALL THAT THE SQUAD MODEL. SQUAD MODEL. WHERE THE SQUAD MODEL WOULD paramedic level in the very near term at about the same time as we do the as you all and the voters hopefully will invest in the bond measures to do that capital and that would be followed up with long-term sustainable funding for that emergency response over time did i get that correct is that

YES, AND IT MIGHT BE HELPFUL, CHIEF, IF YOU CAN ELABORATE A LITTLE BIT MORE. I KNOW WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS A FEW TIMES AT THE COUNCIL, BUT JUST ABOUT HOW, YOU KNOW, WHERE YOU'RE AT AND THAT THIS WILL BE PARALLEL WITH THE SQUAD, CHIEF?

CAN I ADD SOMETHING HERE? SO SINCE YOU'RE GOING TO DO IT. WE JUST APPROVED A BUDGET THAT According to the city manager is not going to allow us to hire anybody. So I just wondering where is the money in this meantime where we are not going to have extra money is going to be like, where are we going to get the money to do this quad model. UNTIL WE GET THE ONGOING SERVICES IN 2028.

NEW HIRES WOULD BE DEPLOYED TO IN ADDITION TO THE POSITIONS THAT HAVE BEEN REQUESTED BY CITY COUNCIL FOR ROCK WOULD BE DEPLOYED TO ALS BECAUSE AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE DATA IT'S A HIGH PRIORITY FOR THE COMMUNITY.

Can you elaborate more? Because I just feel like, in one hand, and I support this, and I want this to be, but also we have RAC, we have other priorities, we want to staff that as well, because it's also higher priority for our community as well. So I just, we just approved a budget. We had this conversation, so how would you see that?

Well, I think right now where we're at is laying the groundwork to start the program. Ultimately, you as a council have shown support in me taking those steps. What I have yet to have clarity on is what type of budget you are expecting me to work with. And I propose what the program and the model and the feasibility study showed. I would anticipate that there would be further discussion in regards to that amount of money and the scope of that program. But as that stands right now, the only way to start filling these program vacancies And there's a lot of steps before we can start doing that because there's job descriptions that we are already, basically they're in their final draft version, but there's a process to get those as actual job descriptions. But as it stands right now, if those were to be continued and approved, we would have to start this program through filling the vacancies we get through attrition. So as we have staff turnover and retire, we would have to consider starting recruiting of paramedics. And that comes with its own challenges about maintaining their training and certifications until we can actively deploy them on the streets and have enough to do that. I would anticipate that there's gonna have to be a discussion with this group, this body at some point about, What type of program could we have for X amount of dollars? I presented a proposal or a program that potentially would cost 20 million to implement, let's say. Maybe that's something we need to look at. What can I do for 15? What can I try to come up with for 10? I don't know. But the analogy I've been using when I spoke with you that we've had a chance to have conversations about is, This is like going out to buy a home. It's gonna be the most significant investment you're gonna make. You don't do that without knowing how much you can afford. What's my budget? And this is a serious investment, long-term investment that I believe you up to now have said you wanted to make as a council, but the next step is figuring out what can we afford.

SO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT. SO MY QUESTION IS, WE ARE GOING TO PUT THIS ON THE BALLOT. WHAT ARE THE CONSIDERATIONS IF THIS DOESN'T PASS? LIKE WHAT CAN WE AFFORD? BECAUSE RIGHT NOW IT SEEMS THAT WE CANNOT AFFORD IT IF WE DON'T HAVE THESE MEASURES. passed by the voters?

If I might intervene, the way I see it, there's two steps. The first step is making sure we have the facilities that can facilitate the teams that we want to assemble. And the bond is what would create the money to improve the fire station so that we can actually have a going program when the program is instituted. And on top of that, when the public sees what we're doing with our fire department, they can get even more excited about the improvement in the services that will be forthcoming because of the improvements that we're making with the facilities.

Yeah, I understand that and I am not against it and I am hopeful that this past, it depends on, What is the coalition that is going to support these and fund these to get a good campaign? My question is just to have certainty about we are moving these with the constraints of a budget and that we are going to ask the voters to give us some wiggle rooms so we can support that. But in case that that doesn't happen, what is your plan?

Well, I think ultimately, if this does not pass, if you choose to move forward and put it on the ballot and this doesn't pass, there's a decision needs to be made whether or not this is a program that as a council you would like to still have happen. And that's just like any other program we would implement that's at this cost this much and this type of staffing. I can't, that is the exact reason why this program has failed to get off the ground four other times because the council did not agree that at the time, the time was right or the budget was there for whatever reasons that the city could move forward with it. So, I mean, it's really gonna come down to whether or not this program is gonna take a priority or not because there's not enough money to do this program without this type of measures passing. And we are here today because of the request to find other ways to fund this that didn't come from the general fund. So we're kind of in this perpetual, right? We are doing what you asked us to do, but it doesn't come with guarantees. And unfortunately that's gonna come with a tough decision THAT WE HAVE TO COME TO IF IT DOESN'T PASS, UNFORTUNATELY.

I'M SUPPORTING IT AND I SUPPORT THAT IT'S THE VOTERS WHO DECIDE. FOR ME, IF THIS PASSES, IT'S A MANDATE FROM THE VOTERS. IF IT DOESN'T PASS IT, THAT WILL HELP US TO UNDERSTAND THAT MAYBE THIS IS NOT A PRIORITY FOR RESIDENTS IN RICHMOND. SO I THINK LET THE VOTERS DECIDE. IF THIS IS A REAL PRIORITY FOR EVERYBODY. IT SEEMS FROM THE SURVEY THAT IT LOOKS LIKE IT. AND LET'S SEE HOW THAT PLAYS OUT IN NOVEMBER. THANK YOU.

Mayor, as we discussed when we met with the consultant team, it might be helpful for the council. We discussed that part of why we think we got positive data is because the city council and city staff have shown in their work throughout the community, whether it's the libraries or the parks or the paving and the streetscapes, that everything is looking better. So we've built trust with the public that we are doing a good job. If we weren't doing a good job, THEN THE DATA WOULD LOOK DIFFERENT, AND I THINK THAT'S PART OF WHAT WE DISCUSSED WITH JOHN WHEN WE MET WITH THE MAYOR, IS THAT THE DATA IS POSITIVE BECAUSE PEOPLE THINK WE'RE DOING A GOOD JOB. BUT I DON'T KNOW THAT I WOULD AUTOMATICALLY SAY THAT IF IT DOESN'T PASS, THERE ISN'T A MANDATE. I THINK WE ALSO HAVE TO BE SENSITIVE THAT PEOPLE ARE FEELING CONSTRAINED FINANCIALLY, BUT THAT WE HAVE POSITIVE HEADWINDS. And so we think that this is an important opportunity, that our data looks much better than, say, we saw that the consultants are seeing for other types of measures statewide. And so our data looks good. So we are saying we should proceed.

Thank you.

Yeah, I want to add that we have had the fire stations on our list of things that need to be worked on. So we're actually doing two things at once. We're reducing our creating capital for the many things OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS THAT WE'VE ALREADY IDENTIFIED AND NUMBER TWO, WE'RE ADVANCING THE PROGRAM THAT WE'VE BEEN PUSHING. SO VICE MAYOR ROBINSON.

SO THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK ON THIS. I APPRECIATE MOVING THIS REALLY DIFFICULT LIFT FORWARD. I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO REITERATE WHAT MAYOR MARTINEZ JUST SAID IN TERMS OF THE CAPITAL PROJECTS AND IN TERMS OF THE BOND We need to do this anyway. Whether or not we're able to eventually get to the support and the funds for ALS, we absolutely have to address the poor state of our fire stations. Again, I took that one tour in my first year and the things that I saw when I actually toured with the now chief, We're horrendous. It's crazy. It's crazy the conditions that we're asking firefighters to work in. And we need to be responsible and take care of it. So irregardless of what's happening with the ALS program, which I also support and I hope it moves forward, I feel like we need to move forward on the bond and move forward on the capital improvements. And I do have, you know, I don't think this is the environment for parcel taxes. We saw, you know, all of the taxes in the last primary just fail miserably. And I think that that would be the result of any other tax we try to put on the ballot in November. And I do have some concerns about the squad model and I just wanted to ask some clarifying questions if I can just to. So I'm not clear on if there were funds added into the approved, now approved 26-27 budget to support the squad model. Were there funds in that budget for that or no?

Are you referring to something you saw that said squad in the?

No, I'm not. I'm just trying to understand.

Well, because there was an item in the fleet budget that was carried over, and it says squad, purchase of squads. That was about, I believe, $800,000 that was earmarked for purchasing the vehicles if we were going to go down this path because, OF SUCH LONG LEAD TIMES TO GET APPARATUS. IF WE WAITED, WE HAVE TO BE ABLE TO PULL THE TRIGGER AS SOON AS WE KNOW BECAUSE IT COULD TAKE A YEAR AND A HALF TO GET THOSE VEHICLES BECAUSE THEY'RE CUSTOM BUILT. SO THAT WAS CARRIED OVER. AS IT STANDS RIGHT NOW, THOUGH, I THINK THE ONLY THING THAT MIGHT BE IN THE BUDGET, I WOULD HAVE TO LOOK, WOULD BE FOR DESIGN CONSULTATION. for some of the station short-term remodels to accommodate the extra personnel if we were going to do it. Not construction, but the cost to design basically a dormitory remodel, maybe remodel a bathroom to have more capacity. There were small items just to tie us over until larger capital improvement projects could be done.

And so I guess I want to roll back for a second to the squad vehicles. Didn't that get zeroed in order to make money for the four projects or no?

That was a different line item for fire. That was to replace a smaller type six wildland engine.

So that money is still in the budget. If we were to move forward, it would be available. Okay, great. And then my other concern is, you know, so we, You just said that if we were to move forward with the capital, the way that we can move forward with the squad is to wait for somebody to retire and have something open so that we could hire for squad members. THAT WOULD BE PARAMEDICS. SO MY QUESTION IS IF I'M UNDERSTANDING THIS TODAY, IS THIS RIGHT, WOULD THAT IMPACT THE SUCCESSES WE'VE JUST BEEN ABLE TO MAKE OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS IN REDUCING MANDATORY OVERTIME? WILL THAT IMPACT YOUR FIREFIGHTERS AND BY REDUCING THE NUMBER OF FIREFIGHTERS, WOULD IT NEGATIVELY IMPACT QUALITY OF LIFE FOR FIREFIGHTERS BY DOING THAT?

I think we want to be oversimplifying just by saying it that way. That's one creative way to try to transition our staff so we start recruiting. But it wouldn't be to, they would have to fill the current role that the firefighter is. We would have to look at CHANGING THE MODEL A LITTLE BIT BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL ONE WAS SINGLE WORLD PARAMEDICS FOR SPOTS, RIGHT? IF THE COUNCIL, THE EXPECTATION OR THERE'S NOT THE FUNDS TO DO IT RIGHT NOW AND WE HAD TO FIGURE OUT HOW DO WE START ON BOARDING MEDICS SO WE CAN START BUILDING OUR MEDIC NUMBERS, WE WOULD ACTUALLY NOT BE ABLE TO HIRE SINGLE WORLD PARAMEDICS. WE WOULD HAVE TO HIRE FIREFIGHTER MEDICS BECAUSE WE STILL HAVE THE VACANCIES THROUGH ATTRITION OF OUR CURRENT MINIMUM STAFFING. There is a lot of what if this, we have to do that. OK, if we're doing this, then we have to massage the plan this way to fit it. So that's the dilemma I'm in as the fire chief. I can't come up with a definitive roadmap without knowing for sure what is the commitment. Are we going down this path? Are we taking this model, but are we adjusting it a little bit? Or are we going this completely different model because we want to do that way? Because they are completely different pathways that end with the same objective, which is going ALS.

Okay. So what I'm hearing is that if we were to try to move forward with this kind of model without having additional funds to hire dedicated paramedics, we would move away from the proposal THAT WAS ON THE TABLE BEFORE, WHICH WAS THIS DEDICATED PARAMEDIC MODEL THAT WOULD MAKE IT, MY UNDERSTANDING WAS THAT IT WOULD MAKE IT SO THAT IT WOULD BE EASIER TO HIRE THOSE POSITIONS.

POTENTIALLY. YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT RECLASSIFYING EXISTING POSITIONS IN A BARGAINING UNIT. WE CAN'T JUST SAY WE'RE GOING TO TAKE THEM AWAY. THERE'S A PROCESS.

RIGHT. WE ALSO HAVE TEMPORARY POSITIONS. SO CHIEF, WE'VE DONE THREE, FOUR, I THINK WE'RE ON OUR FOURTH ACADEMY NOW, RIGHT, CHIEF? SO WE'VE HAD A SERIES OF ACADEMIES WHERE WE DID TEMPORARY ALLOCATIONS, RIGHT, FOR THE FIREFIGHTER POSITION AND BECAUSE THERE'S AN ACADEMY TAKING PLACE NOW. SO WE DID AN INCREASE. SO WE CAN MOVE ON PARALLEL PATHS TO DEVELOP, MEET AND CONFER, ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED. WE COULD ESSENTIALLY HAVE TWO POTENTIAL JOB DESCRIPTIONS, THERE'S GOING TO BE MORE, BUT THERE COULD BE LIKE THE SINGLE ROLE PARAMEDIC AND THERE COULD BE A FIREFIGHTER PARAMEDIC POSITION, RIGHT? AND THEN SUBJECT TO WHAT THE BUDGET CONSTRAINTS ARE, THAT AND WHAT FTEs ARE AVAILABLE, BOTH COULD BE POSTED, BOTH LISTS COULD BE ESTABLISHED, AND BASED ON THE RESOURCES THAT ARE AVAILABLE, THE CHIEF COULD, YOU KNOW, WILL FILL THE APPROPRIATE POSITIONS. BUT WE STILL HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE SAME PROCESS. WE WOULD JUST QUEUE UP TWO OPTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION.

So I am willing to continue to move forward tonight, but I would like, as we move forward, TO KEEP KIND OF REPORTING BACK OUT, I WOULD ASK THAT WE KEEP REPORTING BACK OUT ON WHETHER OR NOT THE STEPS THAT WE'RE TAKING MAY NEGATIVELY IMPACT EXISTING FIREFIGHTERS IN TERMS OF RETURNING US TO THAT MANDATORY OVER TIME, NOT ENOUGH FIREFIGHTERS ON DUTY.

NO, I WANT TO SAY DEFINITIVELY THAT THAT'S NOT AT ALL WHAT WE'RE TRYING TO DO. WE'RE HAPPY TO CONTINUE TO REPORT OUT, BUT IN NO WAY IS THE INTENTION.

I KNOW THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO DO, BUT I'M ALSO JUST WORRIED ABOUT I GUESS I'M NOT SEEING CLEARLY HOW UNLESS WE DON'T GO WITH THE DEDICATED PARAMEDIC MODEL, I'M NOT SEEING CLEARLY HOW THAT COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE AN OUTCOME.

TONIGHT IS ABOUT, WELL, YOUR COUNCIL'S DECISION WHICH WAY TO GO. IT SEEMS LIKE THE RECOMMENDATION IS THE BOND FOR CIP. we need to get to a place where I have clarity on the path forward, if there is a path forward for ALS, because I am getting to the point where I have, as an organization, we have made, we've laid all the groundwork and started to develop job specs, and you start to run out of roadway, without knowing your destination. And that's where I'm at right now is, you know, we've done a lot of the work. We're kind of in a holding pattern. So there will need to be subsequent decisions about, hey, we can only do one squad initially. We can't afford to do.

Can you, I'm sorry, can you remind me again in, YEAR IN THE FIRST COUPLE OF YEARS YOU HAVE BUDGET ESTIMATES FOR WHAT YOU WOULD NEED FOR THAT ADDITIONAL STAFFING. CAN YOU REMIND ME WHAT THAT WAS IF YOU HAVE IT? IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT YOU CAN E-MAIL IT LATER.

WE'RE HAPPY TO E-MAIL IT BUT COUNCILMEMBER ROBINSON IN TERMS OF OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH OUR REPRESENTED STAFF ESPECIALLY IN FIRE I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT that they hear from chief and I that we are we are committed to maintaining their staffing and we're committed to Identifying resources to work with the City Council to with our goal of Starting with the squad model as the preferred approach And so what we'll need to do is come back to City Council once your mo user finalized to figure out how we're prioritizing Expenditures to accomplish that

I would like to interrupt to extend time. So do we have a motion to extend?

I MAKE A MOTION THAT WE FINISH THIS ITEM.

CAN I JUST STEP IN HERE? ITEM Q1 NEEDS TO GO TONIGHT BECAUSE WE'RE REQUIRED BY STATE LAW TO ADOPT THIS DISRUPTION POLICY BY JULY 1.

I'LL BE QUICK. AND FOR THE ENGINEERS REPORTS, ARE THOSE TIME SENSITIVE?

ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THE PUBLIC HEARINGS?

Yeah, because we already had the first reading so if we if we could get those done too as well That would be extremely move me continue until 11 p.m Okay, I'll second that House member Bonner.

Yes House member Jimenez. Yes Councilmember Wilson. Yes, vice mayor Robinson. Yes council members of payday Yes, and mayor Martinez

Yes, and considering the number of items that we have, I suggest that we move as quickly as possible. And if there's questions that you have that will not alter your decision to move forward or not, I suggest that we save them and have offline conversations with the people who are doing the study for us. Okay, you can continue now.

Yeah, so I just want to kind of wrap it up and say that I feel like, I feel like I feel your pain, Chief Asario, but I also feel like I don't think we have the tools to, we don't have, there's no budget to give you an answer to your question, so I'm hoping that when you come back and after we've closed the rest of the MOUs, we'll have a better picture, but I don't think we can do anything else.

Right, and we'll bring an updated position control list for the City Council's consideration. That includes ALS. Thank you.

Will they have quick answers?

Yeah.

So there are yes or no questions? Yeah, yeah. Okay, go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry. That's right. Okay, so I guess we're not going to get things done. Go ahead.

Is it my turn? Yes. Great. So I understand how a parcel tax works in terms of repayment, but I do not understand this bond measure. How does it get repaid by taxpayers? Is it a property tax increase or is it just come out of our general fund?

I think John's going to take that.

Great question. So the way they are repaid is very similar. So a bond measure would be an agreement between the voter and the city. The city would be able to sell bonds to raise the money up front in year one. And then those bonds or loans would be paid back by a line item on the property tax bill each year for 20 or 30 years, depending on the specific. So it shows up right on the property tax bill. It's associated with that property, and it's paid off over the life of the bonds. The parcel tax, as you correctly say, is just kind of a one-year operational pay-as-you-go, and that would also be a line item on the property tax bill.

Okay, and so I saw your numbers, but I also saw the June election where a number of tax increases locally failed. Some of them because there were strong opposition campaigns, but some of them there was no opposition and it still failed. And then to see if I was crazy, I Googled it. And then the New York Times like two days ago has a whole story about how Californians have rejected tax increases. Like it's a whole trend. And so it's possible we're operating in a slightly different, and I've got to assume all of these things that went forward and failed in June also had some research behind it that said this is going, you know, they wouldn't have put it on the ballot if they also didn't have some good numbers. And so this is a roundabout way of saying what is the consequences? As far as I can tell, there's no consequence if we fail other than that we've wasted some money on all of the setup of it. Am I correct? It's low stakes.

Yeah, so I think that let me give you kind of the answer to that. If you go for a measure and fail, the consequences are the election costs. And also, frankly, you may lose some political capital, some political credibility with the voters. So that's kind of your risk. If the bond measure passes, I'll speak on behalf of the chief, the fire department will continue to provide the highest level of service but within that limited infrastructure. The same would be true with the special task. So your risks are the costs and arguably a little political credibility over time.

John, can you guys talk, though, about what you saw here in Richmond that you're not seeing in other places in terms of the data?

Yeah, and that's the piece that I was going to add. And, you know, as council members probably appreciate, your decision to go or not go is not solely based on the survey. So we have been in a position, and we worked in Los Angeles, for example. They had, the county had a sales tax measure. The polling was not particularly strong. You know, elected leaders sometimes decide to move forward when they don't have good numbers because the need is there and they want to make the case. We have seen tax sensitivity increase dramatically up and down the state. this cycle and that bore out as you correctly mentioned with the election results. I think I speak for our consultant team that we have rarely seen numbers this strong in terms of voter registering the level of priority. on emergency response and concern about the condition of facilities as they stand.

Yeah, that's helpful to know. And as I said, I don't think there's a disaster if we try and we fail. I like putting it in the hands of voters. In order for this to be on the ballot as a bond measure, How much detail will we be giving in terms of how the money will be spent? Do we have a highly detailed list of which capital projects at which fire stations? Or is it just sort of like, no, we've got a bucket of money? How detailed do we get?

Sure. So it's a great question. And the level of detail will be, it partially is a political filter. We want to provide enough detail that the voter is comfortable with what they're getting so they can make an informed decision, but also leave latitude for change conditions and that type of thing. So maybe a way to describe it is there will be the ballot measure. You saw the 75 word, but there's also what we call the full text. And the full text, think of it as five or six pages of information, and a page or two of those would be the specifics of how it would be spent. So it's a reasonable amount. This is a consultant's answer, but it's a reasonable amount of detail, certainly more than in that 75 word.

And we're going to get a chance to see that before we turn around. That's right.

So that's one of the important documents.

And so, and then my next question I will try to wrap up is, I KNOW WE'VE HAD PRESENTATIONS ON THIS, BUT FORGIVE ME FOR NOT REMEMBERING THE EXACT DETAILS, IS THAT WILL WE BE LOOKING TO FUND IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS? I KNOW SOME OF THEM ARE NECESSARY IN ORDER TO HAVE THE ALS SYSTEM. AND THEN MY UNDERSTANDING IS SOME OF THEM ARE ALSO JUST NECESSARY BECAUSE OF THE POOR CONDITION OF THE FIRE STATION. WE HAVE BOTH THINGS GOING ON. If we do get this bond measure funded to repair the fire station, and then later on we go for a parcel tax to start the ALS program, and they're like, hell no, we're not giving you any more money, does it do all of the things that we'll be funding in this budget measure still make sense? STILL MAKES SENSE IN THIS BOND MEASURE? IS IT STILL LIKE I'M SO GLAD WE TOOK THE MONEY AND DID X, Y, AND Z OR WHY THE HELL DID WE DO THAT BECAUSE WE DIDN'T GET TO DO ALS FOR X, Y, AND Z REASONS?

WHAT WE'RE TRYING TO DO IS WE'RE TRYING TO HAVE THE VOTERS CONSIDER THE BOND MEASURE WHILE WE'RE CONCURRENTLY MOVING FORWARD WITH ALS BECAUSE THAT ILLUSTRATES A COMMITMENT TO THE VOTERS THAT WE ARE MOVING IN THE DIRECTION THAT WE'RE ASKING THEM TO INVEST IN. THAT MEANS WE'LL COME BACK TO THE CITY COUNCIL WITH AN UPDATED POSITION CONTROL THAT INCORPORATES ALS AFTER WE FINISH MOU NEGOTIATIONS AND POTENTIALLY AROUND THE TIME THAT you know, we'll think about the timing, we'll look at the budget either as part of mid-year or slightly before mid-year for some positions for the squad, right, and for the chief person that, the chief needs to effectuate the program. So that would be happening concurrently while we're trying to get funding to make the built environment improvements. But what we don't want to say, I think it's very important from a messaging perspective that it's clear to the public that we are trying to stand up, that we're standing up the ALS program we're improving the fire stations but to have the whole comprehensive ALS program right we depending on how it goes in November then we could potentially as John indicated come back in in two years do additional polling and see if there's appetite for that to be absorbed through A TAX TO SUPPORT FURTHER EXPANSION.

I GUESS I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THIS. BASICALLY, BY MOVING FORWARD WITH THIS, WE ARE ALSO AGREEING TO FUND THE ALS PROGRAM OUT OF THE GENERAL FUND AT LEAST FOR A COUPLE YEARS AND THEN IT'S A QUESTION MARK ABOUT WHETHER WE'LL HAVE A PARCEL TAX TO SORT OF HELP US FUND IT MOVING FORWARD.

I think that should be the council should anticipate that if you're moving forward with the GO bond that you should anticipate improving a position control for the squad and the other positions that are needed to launch the program out of the general fund as a starting point.

CAN WE MAYBE GET MORE INFORMATION ON THE IMPACT ON THE GENERAL FUND? I KNOW WE'VE HAD PRESENTATIONS ON THIS, BUT IT'S BEEN A LITTLE BIT OF A WHILE.

WE'RE HAPPY TO BRING THAT BACK IN JULY FOR THE CITY COUNCIL, BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO For full transparency, it doesn't have to 100% be that way. But I think that in the past, when there's been things that have been put on the ballot, I think to the degree to which what we've done so far is resonating with the voters, like they see positive momentum. And so we want to continue to show positive momentum. That's what I'm saying.

And again, I want this to work. This isn't offered in a way of me trying to sandbag this. But it's a huge cost. And again, my fear would be that people are good with giving us this money to do the physical space. FIX UP THE PHYSICAL SPACE, WE STAND UP THE ALS PROGRAM AND THEN WHEN WE GO BACK A SECOND TIME AND SAY NOW HELP US PAY FOR THE ALS PROGRAM, THEY'RE LIKE NOT ON THIS ONE. AND THEN THAT'S GOING TO HAVE PRETTY BIG REPERCUSSIONS IN TERMS OF WHAT WE CAN AFFORD IN THE REST OF THE BUDGET. AND SO I THINK WE HAVE TO REALLY THINK THAT THROUGH.

UNDERSTOOD.

OKAY. I'M GOING TO COMPLAIN A LITTLE BIT HERE. I WAS LOOKING AT THE COUNCIL MEMBER'S LIST OF QUESTIONS. And how many questions do you have, really? Because these nine questions, so those nine questions will take the rest of the time and I bet most of those nine questions could have been answered if, we had gone to the presentation that you made yesterday. I didn't have that many questions because I went and I listened to you and I asked my questions there. And I'm asking council members to save your questions and ask them later because I think where I'm coming from is that whether or not we go with the ALS program, The bond is going to do what we need to do. So whether we have the program or not, having the bond and making the investment in our firehouses is a must thing to do. And solely on that, all of us should be voting yes. So I'm begging everyone to please hold your questions so that we can get on and take care of all the other items.

I have way more than I have. All right. All right.

Shall we make a motion? So if we don't finish things, I'm going to blame you. Perfect. All right. Are you sure?

So I brought and I agree with your statement about we should be voting for this, which is why I brought this to a vote two years ago and we didn't get support at the council. So here we are again. I am in 100% support of having our stations be redone and upgraded. So that's where I start. When I brought this up before, two years ago, we learned about different types of bonds. My question is, why did we choose to go with this bond? We have bonds that we don't have to ask the voters to pay anything into. So I just want to start there.

From my perspective, we have over $1.1 billion in capital needs in our community. That was present value. So if you look at like a 10-year trajectory, and we've talked with consultants, you know, every six, seven years, things double in cost. There's no way that we're ever going to catch up in terms of THE PAVING, THE COMMUNITY CENTERS, THE LIBRARIES, THE FIRE STATIONS, ALL OF THOSE THINGS IF WE DON'T MOVE ON PARALLEL PATHS CONCURRENTLY. SO WE'VE SHOWN WE HAVE OVER $300 MILLION WORTH OF GRANTS, RIGHT?

So why did we go with this bond versus the other bonds? So the GO bond is the one that we're taxing people. There's two other bonds that we don't have to tax them, but we can still get the same thing.

Because there's other things that the city council has directed us to do on that $1.1 million list, right? That could be for different types of bonds down the road. We know that fire stations and fire poles well in our community. So that is why. Because the data supports it and because the residents support it.

I'm not 100% sure there, because the presentation, which does not match what was given to us, my questions were based on what's online, so we have a different presentation online. It shows District 3 has the highest support, but unfortunately District 3 is one of the districts with lower voter turnout. We understand that. So if we're basing it off of a district that has lower voter turnout, I want to make sure, and again, I'm 100% in support of it, but I just want to make sure that we're quantifying it correctly. And then what is the threshold that we need to pass for the bond measure?

So to your first question about the support for the measure across districts, that is in the appendix. So I'm happy to bring up all of the slides and go through that information, Council Member Cepeda, if you would like me to do so. THE, HOWEVER, THE NUMBERS THAT I PRESENTED WERE FOR ALL VOTERS. SO NOT EXCLUSIVELY DISTRICT THREE, BUT WE HAVE THE HIGHEST SUPPORT IN COUNCIL DISTRICT THREE, BUT COMBINED WITH THE SUPPORT FROM THE OTHER DISTRICTS, AT LEAST FOR THE BOND, YOU ARE CONSISTENTLY AT THAT TWO-THIRDS THRESHOLD, WHICH IS REQUIRED AFTER PUBLIC EDUCATION, AS WELL AS THE NEGATIVE CONSIDERATIONS. SO THE BOND, The final support level is at 69%, and that is inclusive of all districts. So that's not relying on PARTICULARLY HIGH TURNOUT FROM ONE DISTRICT VERSUS THE OTHER.

SO DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT WE'RE ASKING IS JUST FOR 10% OF WHAT WE NEED FOR CAPITAL? SO IF WE'RE SAYING THIS COULD YIELD $120 MILLION, RIGHT, AND WE HAVE 1.1 BILLION AND COUNTING OF NEEDS FOR THE OVERALL CIP, THIS IS JUST COVERING 10% ABOUT APPROXIMATELY 10% OF WHAT WE NEED.

I understand.

So I'm just trying to put it at scale. We're just talking about fire stuff. No, no, but I'm trying to put it at scale so that you understand that this isn't like, this is just 10% of what we need citywide.

So that's the rationale for the go bond. If the trend, if people realize that this is going to be costing them more and if we can't get it approved, we're not going to build anything. So can we go with a bond that's not going to cost people anything so we make sure we get it approved and we start building. This is the need that we have today. We know we have a lot of other stuff as well, but this is what's in the conversation. Also for the parcel tax, is it sunsetting in 20 years? Because the wording here is annually for 20 years. So is it going to sunset in 20 years?

That was what we tested in the survey. That has not been said, and that would likely be in several years, but that was tested would be what we call a 20-year sunset.

Okay. And then what is the threshold for the bond to pass?

The bond is two-thirds of registered voters.

So it's going to be two-thirds. Okay. And then... August 7th, we have that as a deadline. August 7th will be in recess. So just so that you know, you have to bring in this by the last meeting in July or we don't have anything.

Understood. Thank you.

All right. That's it for now. Thank you.

All right. Do we have a motion?

I move that we pass this item.

I second.

Okay.

Council Member Urbana? Yes. Council Member Jimenez? Yes. Council Member Wilson? Yes. Vice Mayor Robinson? Yes. Council Member Zepeda?

And just to clarify, it says phase two, but are we going with the bond or are we going, which is going to be phase two?

The bond.

So it is the bond. Right. Okay. So that's just to put that into the, into the. Right. That, that, that was, that was understood. Okay. Then yes.

MAYOR MARTINEZ?

YES.

THE MOTION PASSES WITH COUNCIL MEMBER BROWN ABSENT.

NEXT ITEM. LET'S MOVE FAST.

THANK YOU.

IS THE TRAINING CENTER INCLUDED?

NEXT ITEM UNDER PUBLIC HEARING. PURSUANT TO PUBLIC NOTICE, IT'S TIME TO HOLD TWO PUBLIC HEARINGS. FIRST ONE IS ITEM P1. to adopt a resolution approving the engineer's report and ordering the levy and collection of assessments in the Marina Bay Landscape and Lighting Maintenance District for the fiscal year 26 through 27, providing for a 3% increase in annual assessments. We have two in-person speakers. Anyone joining us online that would like to address the council on this item, please raise your hand.

I am so irritated. I am so irritated. At what? At people not paying attention when we got so much to do.

They should go because we should. See, so Shannon says don't ask too many questions. We need to get into that.

What are we waiting for?