City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this meeting order at 2.09 PM. Clerk, please call the roll. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Council Member Kaplan? Here. Council Member Dickinson? Here. Council Member Plekibon? Here. Council Member Maple? I'm here. Mayor Potemka is expected momentarily. Council Member Jennings? Here. Council Member Vang?

Here.

Mayor McCarty will be absent this afternoon, and Vice Mayor Telemontes? Here. Thank you, you have a quorum.

Council Member Plekibon, will you please lead us in the acknowledgement and pledge of allegiance?

Please rise if you're able. To the original people of this land, the Nisenan people, the Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains, Miwok, Patwin-Wentu peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe, may we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in the active practice of acknowledgement, appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous people's history, contribution, and lives. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right. City Attorney, any report out from closed session?

Nothing to report out.

Okay. Thank you so much. Consent calendar. Do we have any members of my colleagues that want to pull anything, speak on anything, ask questions?

Item number 12. Okay.

Just a comment. Anyone else? Going once, going twice. Okay. Council Member Acura.

Thank you. Just, again, I wanted to just thank all of the work that's been done. here for anti-displacement and housing anti-displacement again and to give my gratitude for the city and also habitat for humanity for the work that they've done which is most recently did rock the block in oak park council member maple was there as well with her whole team you know doing those great efforts but this home repair pilot program you know it's going to help at least 50 households in these very critical areas on uh... in the in in stock office stockton boulevard and uh... this is the kind of work that we need to continue to make sure that uh... we keep people housed uh... particularly folks who you know have uh... orange restricted incomes and we keep the quality of our housing stock there but i just wanted to thank the staff again for this good work so thank you vice mayor and appreciate with habitat in our city team and all those volunteers who have come out in support of this effort will you move consent i'll go ahead and move consent

Thank you.

Council Member Kaplan.

Thank you. Just a couple of questions that I hope staff can just follow back up on. I don't need them answered now. But when you look at consent item 8, 9, and 13 as they relate to our emergency shelter voucher program, our step off on Second Street, and our city motel program, with consent item 8, having a little trouble fully understanding and it's maybe because I'm confusing so I would love if I can get what impact will the switch from the motel program to emergency shelter vouchers have on those served in the motel program and then understanding what the cost savings will be And then on consent item nine, the step up on Second Street case carrying outreach services for street outreach. How are we tracking the funds that we give and what specific initiatives they're going to and the success rate that we're having with those services? And then on consent item 13, our city motel program agreement with the hotel motel. Council members, it's not the first time, but I would love that while we created this program for women and children and families, what is preventing us from potentially expanding it to include seniors knowing that the city auditors Report showed this is one of our more successful programs that is cost effective. Why wouldn't we open this up knowing that we're looking for ways to save money and get more seniors off the streets? I would love for that discussion or to occur at some point.

Yeah, Councilwoman Kaplan, we can definitely get out of City Council FYI, but also know that I'm working on a larger report regarding data in the homeless department. I can do one in the immediacy, and then if you give me a little bit of time to work on a comprehensive report, that'd be great.

Which I really appreciate, because I think that may answer a fair amount of questions that I'm having of what are we doing, why are we doing, why was something set up a certain way, and is it time to maybe re-look at how we do that, knowing we're getting less state money for this, but still trying to keep the amount of people off the streets as possible. So thank you, City Manager. That's it.

All right, thank you so much. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Noes, abstentions? One absence. Okay, good to go. And now we're going to move along to SHRA. Oh, no, there's no public comments. Now we will move along to the discussion calendar. We have SHRA with the authorization of the issuance of 501c3 bonds.

Good afternoon, Vice Mayor Telemontes, Council Members. I'm Keisha Boulware with SHRA. We're here today requesting approval of final bond documents for the Creek at 2645 Apartments. I was here last month before you seeking authorization of 501 bonds for this project. As you may recall, the project administrator, Art House Partners, is proposing to acquire and rehabilitate the existing multifamily housing development consisting of 368 one, two, and three bedroom apartments. 40% of the units will be restricted to 60% of the area median income, and an additional 35% of the units will be restricted to 80% AMI. The remaining 25% of the units will continue to be unrestricted and rented at market rates. Unlike the mortgage revenue bonds SHRA typically issues, the 501 bonds allow the rehabilitation of the development to take place over the first 36 months of ownership. Here, exterior improvements will include repairs to balconies, stucco, fencing, asphalt and sidewalks. In addition, there will be roof replacements and landscaping improvements. Interior renovation is expected to be completed over time through property operations and reinvestment of cash flow. For interior unit renovations, they will be renovated as the units turnover, minimizing displacement and bringing those units up to the standard of previously renovated units. The owner will be Integrity Housing, an established non-profit housing entity, and AMC Management will serve as the property manager. Project Access will provide 20 hours of resident services that will include after school programming. In closing, staff is requesting approval of the final bond documents associated with Creek at 2645, staff and the project sponsor are here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Kesha. Do you have any public comments on this item?

I have no speakers on this agenda item.

Okay, sounds good. So you can have a seat. I have a few comments and then a few questions. So this project is in my district, and this is the second time that I go through a welfare tax exemption project in my district, and I know that there's many more to come throughout the city of Sacramento and the county of Sacramento. So for people that don't know what a welfare tax exemption is, I'm going to go through it because I had a lot of community members asking me about this project. They had concerns. They wanted to know more. So I want to make sure that people can listen to this in the future and understand what it is that we're doing here. So projects can apply for welfare tax exemption, which means in exchange for not paying property taxes, they must do rehabilitation or renovation on their properties. And they must keep rents at a certain area median income. These do impact city, county, local schools, mosquito abatement, and everyone that collects a piece of property. So any money that was supposed to come to the city of Sacramento for property taxes or the county or mosquito abatement or RD-1000 goes back into the property and does not go into the government agency. Like I said, this is the second time I'm dealing with this. Last year, the Woodlands, which is 803 units, sought a welfare tax exemption. I asked them to work with SHRA in good faith, but eventually they got approval from CADA because it was taking too long and did not listen to the wish list from my community. So then I had a lot of constituents experiencing issues, and I didn't have anybody to call and pick up the phone to. Because usually when I have problems in my district, I just call SHRA, and SHRA deals with it and helps me find solutions for problems. So they went to a state agency. And so for me, going through the second time, I asked the developers of this project to work with me with SHRA on this project. Because one of my concerns is that developers and property owners can go to any state agency and get approval for their bonds. And they don't have to come to the city council. And for me, keeping that local control is really important because it gives me someone to pick up the phone and call when I am experiencing an issue. And so I do want to thank the applicants for working with us and working with SHRA to be able to get this done. According to the county assessor, 182 parcels in the city of Sacramento received a welfare tax exemption with a value of $1,427,402,734 for the 2025 calendar year. About 150 of those parcels are regulated by SHRA. The remaining parcels likely have tax credits or other restrictions like the CATA program or other tax state agencies, which make them eligible for a welfare tax exemption. So the question for me as we get these projects that come before us on the city council is, what are the wins for the community? What are the area median incomes? And what are we going to do to streamline our process here at the city of Sacramento so that we have an actual structure, an actual program of what people can expect for when they come to us for approval of these bonds? And so that's something direction for us, HRA and to our housing. You know, I see Greg and Matt in the audience and our city manager is creating a framework of what people can expect for the city of Sacramento for when they ask for these bond exemptions, because keeping that local control is so important to me. I'd rather have someone come to the city of Sacramento to sign off on those bonds than go to a state agency that we don't know, don't have any connections with. And also at the end of the day, it just helps us with streamlined communication and holding each other accountable. So I wanted to give that blurb because I did have a lot of constituents ask questions about this project when it came out in one of the news articles. For Kecia, can you tell me a little bit more about what this means? I had a lot of questions from the neighbors asking if, you know, saying, hey, the city of Sacramento is in a budget deficit. What does it mean for us with these bonds? Like, how are we giving them money if we have a budget deficit?

So I think as we've talked about here at the council, there is a need for new affordable housing, but there's also as big of a need for preservation of affordable housing. And to your point, other purchasers could buy this property, do minimal renovations, and just ratchet up the rents. So with this bond program authorized by the city and the welfare exemption, we can ensure that that money is reinvested, and we preserve affordability going forward.

OK, thank you so much. And then I have a question for Art Hall's partners. You want to introduce yourself?

My name is Shawn Leadingham. I work with Ardhouse Partners. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Thanks, Council.

Thank you so much. First of all, I want to thank you for working with SHRA. This is the first time that SHRA does this. I don't know if you want to expand on that, Keisha, when you come back up in a second. But can I know, how many of the units will require rehabilitation?

So 38 units are in classic condition. 189 have been renovated by Bridge, which is the current owner, and 141 were renovated by the previous owner. We will be doing minor renovations to the units that were already renovated to bring them all up to kind of the same standard. We'll be doing a more comprehensive renovation on the 38 classic units that were original to the construction building in 1986. Okay.

And then who will the new owners be?

The new owners will be Integrity Housing, which is a registered 501 nonprofit. They've done a number of these transactions across California, and we're lucky to have them as partners here.

OK, that was going to be my next question. Do they have experience managing affordable housing projects of this size?

They do, yeah. They have, in fact, direct 501 bond experience, which gave us a lot of comfort around their ability to help us out here.

OK. And then who will the property manager be?

The property will be AMC. They've done a number of conversions across Sacramento and specialized in mixed income housing, which is why they gave us a lot of comfort and they've got an institutional platform that has a lot of strength in this area.

Okay, and then my last question is, what programming will exist for the residents?

We'll have Project Access on site, which is currently in place. Under new ownership, the resident services would likely be eliminated. We're preserving that and are doing... after school care as well as some financial literacy courses and other things for the residents and providing at least 20 hours per week. Okay, thank you so much. Thanks.

And then, Keisha, if you can just come up here and tell us a little bit more about SHRA doing this.

Sure, so you're correct. SHRA has not issued 501 bonds in the past several decades. I think you all know Christine Weikert. She's been with the agency over 30 years and has not seen issuance of these types of bonds But they're coming more into fashion when there's an appropriate interest rate environment and when it is a soft seller's market. So we're seeing more and more of these, as you mentioned, Vice Mayor. And one of our critiques is that we've been a little bit more expensive than some of the other state issuers in this instance. We were able to work with the applicant. But that is because we do all of the underwriting. So you mentioned the property manager. SHRA underwrote them and made sure that they had the experience and were up to our standards, as well as integrity housing and project access. you know, you really are getting more bang for your buck. And as you said, you have someone to pick up the phone and ensure that the residents themselves are getting that extra investment and quality care.

Awesome. Thank you so much. So I'm happy to move the item. And again, just thank you to S.E. Turi and Art House for working together on this to make sure we dot our I's and cross our T's. And Yao Yin, thank you so much for your work on this. Thank you. No other members? All in favor say aye. Aye. Noes? Abstentions? Say amen. Thank you. All right, moving along to item 16, 2026 Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.

Good afternoon, Vice Mayor and Council. I'm Laura Teller. I'm an associate planner with the Community Development Department, and I'm here to present the second annual Climate Action and Adaptation Plan annual progress report. So just starting with a quick overview of how the report's structured, we'll walk through major progress across key sectors, including buildings, transportation, and water. We'll close with some opportunities and challenges we're facing, and then open it up for questions.

So this report provides a background on the CAP, including our emission reduction targets and key climate risks.

I do want to note that this is a narrative report. A more detailed quantitative report is planned for 2027 as part of the CAP update. In 2025, the city completed a range of key planning efforts. We adopted the Urban Forest Plan, adopted the Streets for People Active Transportation Plan, completed the SACADAP Transportation Infrastructure Adaptation Plan, which was funded by a Caltrans grant, and we participated in the Urban Land Institute Technical Assistance Leadership Exchange Program focused on extreme heat in partnership with Sacramento County. These efforts help guide and prioritize implementation. So starting with the built environment, SMUD's 2030 Zero Carbon Plan is a major driver of progress here. Since 2021, SMUD has added about 440 megawatts of renewable energy and storage. Key milestones in 2025 included the Slow House Solar Project and the Hatchet Ridge Wind Project pictured here in Shasta County. We also continue to see strong trends toward all-electric new construction. Over 80% of single-family homes and more than 90% of ADUs in 2025 were built all-electric. This reduces construction costs and provides ongoing bill savings for new residents. Existing buildings are a bit more of a challenge. Most water heater replacements in 2025 were still gas to gas, although electrification is gaining some traction. And 39% of permitted HVAC installations were for heat pumps in 2025. Do want to note that SMUD continues to provide strong incentives for gas to electric conversions. The transportation sector is still our largest emission source, but zero-emission vehicles are growing. About 25% of new sales in 2025 were for zero-emission vehicles. But we did see adoption slow slightly with changes in federal incentives, as you can see in the graph on the slide. Fueling an EV in Sacramento is generally less expensive than fueling a gas-powered car, which is great news. We also completed the EV Blueprint project, which expanded charging access and supported car share and an e-bike pilot program. We're also investing in active transportation. Key milestones in 2025 included completion of the Del Rio Trail and the Ninos Parkway Phase II, which improves connectivity and safety for active modes. In the water sector, we're advancing conservation and resilience. Since 2018, 95 projects have implemented low impact development measures, which helps manage stormwater and support groundwater recharge. The Department of Utilities also continues robust conservation programs from turf conversion to leak repair and efficiency upgrades. Adaptation to our climate impacts is increasingly critical. Our city parks are expanding shade and climate adapted landscaping, which you can see on the left. And regionally, the water bank improves drought resilience by storing water underground. Last year alone, the region banked about 23 billion gallons of water. Our climate progress really depends on strong coordination. Our city departments work closely together, and regionally we're partnering with agencies like Sacramento County, Elk Grove, and SMUD. While many climate solutions offer long-term cost savings for residents, funding the city's climate work remains a major challenge. We rely heavily on competitive grants to advance our work, and recent federal changes have resulted in about $11 million in lost or frozen funding. So ensuring sustained progress and equitable action will require sustained local investment and new funding strategies. That concludes my presentation. We appreciate the opportunity to share about progress and we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Do you have any public comment on this item?

I have no speakers on this agenda item.

I am.

Council Member Dickinson.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have a variety of areas I'd like to inquire into. I appreciate I appreciate the update and I just want to drill a little bit further down on some of the areas. I certainly embrace the efforts that we have made and obviously it's hard to get all the results you want when there are certain parties that aren't very supportive, shall we say, in this environment. This is one of those issues where I think truly we do have the opportunity to think globally and act locally. So what we do is important in this vein as far as I'm concerned. First, I wanted to ask a little bit about what is happening with respect to the climate emergency resolution that was, as I understand it, adopted. by the council, by the board of supervisors, by the SMUD directors, and then was a template supposedly for working together in concert with the other agents. Can you update us on the status of that?

You know, I'm not entirely clear on what you're referring to. Perhaps that's the city's climate emergency declaration. So I would say we have a range of efforts that have led to, well, you know, first the Mayor's Commission on Climate Change was a key milestone, delivered a set of recommendations that informed our climate action and adaptation plan. development, and we are actively working to implement those adopted cap policies. And then really working in a range of, as Laura noted, a range of partnerships with our local partners, SMUD being first and foremost, or a clear partner in work around electrification, but working with the county and Elk Grove as well. So really finding our opportunities to where we have the clearest path to successfully implement adopted cap policy is really where we're focused at the staff level.

Is there any sort of regular or routine convening of the staffs from SMUD and the county and the city to work on those implementation elements?

Yeah, so we have a standing memorandum of understanding with the city, SMUD, the county, and the city of Elk Grove around building electrification. So that's one partnership. We do have some other ad hoc convenings among staff between the agencies. We have a regional city and county climate working group that involves the cities in Yolo and Sacramento and both county agencies. So sustainability staff from each of those agencies meet monthly. That's kind of a little bit more informal convening. That's an opportunity to learn from each other's best practices, learn where we're all making progress and where some folks might be hitting some roadblocks that we want to be aware of. So a really good opportunity to build that, the community of practitioners and sustainability within the region.

So have those convenings turned more into information sharing as opposed to to adopting a platform or a work program across the three. I'm just talking about the county and SMUD for the moment. Adopting some work approach across the three and then implementing that

Yeah, we're actually actively in motion right now with the building electrification MOU partners to identify priority projects on which to collaborate. So they're looking to put some more structure around that collaboration. In the past, we've worked collaboratively through that MOU structure actually to prepare two separate projects larger grant proposals to the Department of Energy. One of those was given a conditional award not ultimately funded but that was a partnership project. We had one that was a reach code proposal that was all four partners. The other was for the development of a building performance standards program which was a city of Sacramento and SMUD partnership. Again that particular grant we did get a conditional award but we have not received that funding at this time. But we are looking for opportunities to structure those kind of partnerships to proactively message around the benefits of electrification and other decarbonization measures in Sacramento.

Is there someplace where the common work you're doing among the three, or on a bilateral basis, is recorded and available?

We do have an approved memorandum of understanding. Otherwise, it's a little bit more... Each agency then has to work through our own approval processes where we do find opportunity to collaborate on more structured projects. So there's not a website with information available for the MOU specific efforts. It's each of our agencies is communicating through our own website and other means of communication.

OK. I would appreciate that. What I'm thinking is when you meet do you agree on and memorialize agreement on we're going to do this together, we're going to work on that, that kind of recordation that if someone, a member of the public or an elected official said, gee, I'd really like to know what you guys have been talking about in those meetings and what you've agreed to do, that you could say, here, here it is.

we have we each meeting is agendized but it is there is some informality to it so there's not a formal meeting minutes from those meetings it's an opportunity for us to collaborate a little bit more informally as as staff but again then if there's formal action that we want to take we would work through our each of our respective leadership chains to get that approval to move that work forward okay okay yeah

I mean, I just think that partnership is crucially important to what we're trying to do universally in the area. And that's why I'm asking whether there's some place to be able to track that in effect. So maybe that's something, if it's not too difficult, you can incorporate in the next update or report you give us when you come back. I guess next year is when you're going to. We're gonna see you next, okay. The second thing I wanted to inquire about is what the city is doing as an institution to reduce its own emissions. So separate and apart from trying to get people to electrify their buildings or to buy zero emission vehicles, what we're doing, and I know There are elements to that, such as replacing cars in the fleet with EVs and things of that kind. So there are those singular elements. But is there any overarching plan that has been developed for the city as an institution to reduce its own emissions? whether it's replacing lights, reducing waste, EVs, and a target that we're working toward as an institution?

Yeah, so I would say it is sort of memorialized in the municipal measures of the CAP. I don't want to speak for facilities and public works, but yes, they are working on, I think, fleet electrification. We do have an electrification first policy, I think, for city facilities. So trying to work towards electrifying our buildings. We're working with extremely constrained resources, and so it is very challenging. And just providing sort of basic maintenance to our city facilities is a challenge in and of itself, I think.

Do you want to bring Assistant City Manager Ryan Moore? He's in the audience.

Sure. Yeah, that'd be great.

Thank you very much. Mayor, Council, Ryan Moore, Assistant City Manager. So I think you had it right. There are a number of things going on department by department. So there are everything from LED retrofits in our buildings. The Department of Utilities is working on a lot of The big energy user in the city, as I'm sure you know, is the water treatment plant and the pumps. So we are upgrading a lot of that equipment to bring energy use down. That's been a big effort in the Department of Utilities, fleet electrification. So it's not a larger unified effort. Each department has initiatives they're working on. To me, it would probably be a good idea to bring back an FYI memo to articulate everything that we're doing if it's something you're interested in.

Thanks, Ryan. I mean, I think it's helpful to have a goal as the city. Recognizing each department's going to have its part to play, but I know when I was on the Board of Supervisors in 2006, we set a goal by 2010 to reduce our emissions as the county by a certain Percentage and so everybody knew that everybody knew we were working toward that everybody knew what what we had to do and and I think it fostered more Appreciation for for what we were doing so I mean It's just something that that I found to be very useful in that context and thought might might be something here that would make sense Sure, be happy to bring something back. Yeah, okay. Thank thanks and In a slightly different vein, some of these things are cross-cutting. You know, there's good devotion to increasing our tree canopy in the Climate Action Plan. You know, we have a lot of private parking lots that are unshaded. I mean, we know the challenges of getting people in their neighborhoods to plant trees for a lot of reasons. But I wonder, would it make any sense from your perspective to, in addition to our public parks and lots trying to increase our tree canopy, to look for opportunities with some of the folks who have private parking lots and try to work out something where we combine tree donations, say, from the Tree Foundation with working with the property owner. I know there's one large parking lot, for example, in the district I represent where I've talked to the property owner and they've said, well, they'd be really interested. Now, they may be less interested if it has a significant price tag attached to it, but I can't remember where it was down in South Sacramento where actually there was a large private lot that got tree canopy, trees planted that could grow into a canopy. And there's so much heat island effect, especially in our more challenged neighborhoods from these asphalt roads or concrete open areas. So is that something that could make sense from your point of view to add to our program?

Jennifer, do you want to speak to the parking lot shading pilot?

Council Member Dickinson, Mayor, Council, Vice Mayor, Jennifer Donlan-Wyant, Division Manager for Mobility and Sustainability in Public Works, and one of my teams is the Climate Action and Sustainability team, who are working to do actually a parking lot greening program. We're piloting how can we install trees in parking lots, what are the things we need to think about, because it's one thing for trees to be planted, it's another thing to think about the irrigation they need, and often irrigation is the biggest cost that would be for the developers or the property owners at the time. So we're looking into that and we will create information packets. We're gonna be doing engagement to property owners about the outcomes of this pilot and how do we move it forward. So we're thinking about it and we're moving, just figuring out how we can make it work.

Okay, Jennifer, thank you. I'll be interested to talk to you about this particular location that I think would be a great pilot and I think irrigation is the big issue. So we can talk more about that, thanks. Then you were, and you note in the document that you were interested in working on building electrification strategy with a reach code and that AB 102 has limited the ability to pursue that. And so I don't know if you can, but I thought the way AB 102 came out is it largely preserved the ability of local governments to pursue reach codes. Can you talk a little bit more about the status of that? Okay.

Yeah, so the one thing that we have found with maybe AB 130, just want to make sure we're talking about the same legislation, that limited the ability of local agencies to adopt REACH codes. There are several exception pathways. One key one that we've tracked is an exception for if a local agency is implementing policy that was adopted in a general plan. our initial take is that leaves us some room for adopting reach codes. There is some uncertainty on how that's going to ultimately be interpreted by the California Building Standards Commission, which currently does have a number of applications from other local agencies around the state. So we're tracking how that process plays out HOW CBSC ULTIMATELY DETERMINES THEIR ULTIMATE DETERMINATION ON THOSE REACH CODE PROPOSALS.

SO AT THIS POINT YOU'RE IN A WAIT AND WATCH POSTURE. THAT'S CORRECT. AND DO YOU HAVE ANY EXPECTATION ABOUT WHEN THE BUILDING STANDARDS COMMISSION IS LIKELY TO CONCLUDE ON THIS?

We don't know. There's a number of cities who have adopted reach codes sort of following. There were a number of cities that actually rushed to adopt prior to the AB 130 deadline, which I think was last October. And then there were several, there's been a range of cities that have passed them sort of using this exemption for general plan policy since then. None of them have been accepted by the California Building Standards Commission, and we haven't heard any feedback from the California Building Standards Commission on sort of when they will make that determination. So they asked cities for some additional information regarding sort of how they felt they fell into this exemption pathway and haven't heard anything since then.

So when you say none of them have been accepted, have they been rejected?

They haven't been rejected either.

Not acted upon.

I think basically AB 130 was adopted by the legislature, but some of the language in the legislation is a bit unclear in sort of how it applies to the California Building Standards Code. And so I think it's really the California Building Standards Commission trying to sort of true up those two things.

the uh... and i mentioned that but i'm not in the same thing and answered i see that the bay area air management quality district airman quality quality management district uh... is on the cusp of adopting a requirement for replacement of of gas uh... water heaters with with water pumps electric water pumps given the litigation involving Berkeley a few years ago that caused the city, this city, to suspend its efforts to do the same thing. I'm wondering if you're tracking what's going on with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and what authority they think gives them the ability to do what seems to be the equivalent of what Berkeley was doing.

Yeah, and I might pass this over to Laura in a second here, because she's got some details. So the Bay Area Air Quality Management District is pursuing a zero NOx rule. So it really is looking at regulating nitrogen oxides rather than fuel type. And that really is the core difference between the Ninth Circuit's ruling against Berkeley's ordinance. That was really resting upon the energy policy, energy EPCA, please can you help me with that? Energy Policy Conservation Act. Energy Policy Conservation Act, thank you. And so really resting in different elements of the law. THERE'S BEEN A SIMILAR EFFORT IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AS WELL, WHICH I BELIEVE DID NOT PASS THROUGH THE SOUTH COAST AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT DISTRICT. SO THERE'S A LOT OF FOLKS AROUND THE STATE TRACKING WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE BARRIER AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT DISTRICT, BUT I WILL NOTE THAT WE MAY NOT HAVE THE SAME PATHWAY AVAILABLE TO US BASED ON OUR ATTAINMENT STATUS REGARDING NUTRITION OXIDES IN THE SACRAMENTO AIR MANAGEMENT DISTRICT.

OH, OKAY. So first of all, your opinion would be that something here would have to go through the APCD, the Air Quality Management District, and AQMD, I should say, as opposed to the control officer. But AQMD, and it's tied to reducing nitrogen oxides or oxides of nitrogen. Since we're in attainment status, you think that might not be available?

That's our understanding based on conversations with the Air District. Okay. Okay.

Okay, it's fascinating to see what they're doing and trying to look for an avenue to get to that point where we can ensure that the conversion happens to electrification, at least in that regard. I wanted to turn for a moment to transportation. You talked about it in your presentation. We've seen, at least in the new sales market, the numbers go down a little bit, the percentages go down a little bit for EVs with the demise of the federal credits. But from my observation, I'm not so sure that it's subsidizing EVs. the purchase price of EVs, the purchase prices are coming down, there are some less expensive options in that regard. I'm more concerned about the charging infrastructure. And I think that that is the hill a lot of people can't get over, is having confidence that if they have an EV, they'll easily be able to charge it, especially if they live in a a multi-family building that doesn't have charging, so they can't charge at home. There was a study, I don't know, three, four years ago now by the Energy Commission that found that 80% of charging happens at home. So I'm always looking for ways we can increase the availability of charging infrastructure in a public environment in order to try to compensate, since the efforts to at least at the state level, to require charging infrastructure in private buildings has been pretty much stuck over the years for a variety of reasons. So with that preamble, I had a couple questions. One, are you working on something to bring us as an ordinance to permit, or if it doesn't require an ordinance doing this at a staff level, to implement the legislation that was carried by the mayor as an assembly member to allow curbside charging.

Good afternoon. Jennifer Dolan-Lyant, Public Works. We are working on that. So that is our curbside charging policy. We've had a framework since before the pandemic. And my mobility, parking, and curb management team is working to bring that forward. We will have it before the end of the year as required by the legislation.

Okay, great. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you for that work. I look forward to seeing that.

Council Member, before Jennifer, can I dig in on that one? Yeah, yeah. So we had done a digital kiosk ordinance to try to look at on-site charging with that because sometimes the cost of metrics, the cost to actually put that charger in and pay for it could be offset by advertisement. What's the progress on that? Have we done anything on that?

Mayor Pretem-Garrett, I remember that. That was a number of years ago. I'll have to check with my team on that and get back to you. I remember we did pass that to cover the costs, because you're right, costs for installation of public charges is expensive. But we can report back to you.

Okay, thank you. Sure. And are there other initiatives that you're taking to try and increase the availability of charging infrastructure in the city?

So we have limited work in motion right now. I'll just preface everything by noting that the 2025 California building code more or less doubled requirements for new charging infrastructure and new development. So there is a substantial amount of new charging infrastructure coming online as new development happens. As you note, the existing buildings are really the challenge, especially existing multifamily buildings. So we don't have any formal work in progress. We have some work around tracking EV adoption and some conversations in motion with community partners. There is some interest certainly from SMUD in supporting retrofitting multifamily housing and seeing how that can happen. I don't want to speak to SMUD's work that they may be moving forward in the near term, MAYBE SOME OPPORTUNITIES TO SEE CHANGE THERE. CERTAINLY IN TRACKING TECHNOLOGY, THERE'S A LOT OF INNOVATION RIGHT NOW HAPPENING AROUND HOW DO WE GET CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE INTO EXISTING MULTIFAMILY AFFORDABLY. AND THERE'S SO MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF MULTIFAMILY DEVELOPMENTS THAT THERE'S NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL, BUT THERE ARE SOME OPPORTUNITIES I THINK THAT WILL BECOME MORE AVAILABLE GOING FORWARD. So I would just say that there's we have we have some light work with you know in coordination with with partners But very limited we don't have a clear ordinance pathway in front of us at this time. Okay.

Thanks one one aspect in in particular I have been I've been told by One of my fellow SMUD directors when I and when I was asking him about getting more charging uh... capacity and say the tenth and l garage or downtown garage and he told me that that the real obstacle is uh... transformer capacity that that they can't locate enough energy because it's hard to put a transfer on a parking garage to get more uh... stations or locations cited and uh... if that is the case then looping back to the work under the MOU, I'm wondering if that's something that you're talking to SMUD at all about how either you can, or SMUD, could add transformer capacity or you can have some other approach that could allow more charging units in the, I mean, Especially the there may be other garages, but especially the 10th and L garage where I see those units are so oversubscribed all the time that except on weekends and nights, I suppose. But during the during workday, normal workday, I wonder if there's just anything that's under discussion or planning with in that respect.

I would say first that I think SMUD is actively planning internally so that we don't necessarily always have transparency about their system planning. I will note that we have some early discussions in motion, again, First, I'll talk about the building electrification MOU is really structured around building electrification. So looking at in particular with an emphasis on our existing built environment. So thinking about charging for EVs is outside the scope of that particular partnership. But I'd say SMUD is planning for this. On the local agency level, we do have requirements that flow with the Local Electrification Planning Act, AB39. So we have until January 1, 2030 to comply with that act. But that is something that I think is going to drive coordination between SMUD and local agencies, including the city, to really plan at that finer grain scale that we need to to really meet the challenge of that increased demand at a particular, you know, charging nodes are really going to be a key piece.

Yeah, I mean, I think in the Memorial Auditorium garage, I think maybe in the same boat, but these garages are real opportunities, it seems to me, so. whatever we can do to push that envelope. Yes, thank you. Jennifer is here.

Thank you. Council Member Dickinson, if I just may add, part of the challenge we're seeing over capacity in our parking garages is that there's free charging. And so if you ever read the high cost of free parking, it also applies to the high cost of free charging. And so there's a great demand. We are working towards turning on charging for all of our publicly available car charging spots within our garages. One, of course, to recoup the costs. to pay for the maintenance, but also to get that turnover that we need so that people aren't parking there all day and are parking within the four hours. And then as we grow and we expand, ideally we'll have additional funding to not only help with the transformers, but also provide more chargers.

Well, speaking of which, I assume there is no enforcement of the, I mean, it says four hours max in some of the spaces, two hours max. I just assume there's no enforcement of that.

I don't do enforcement and our enforcing team is not here today, so I can't speak to that.

Here comes Matt.

Oh, great. Matt is here. Great.

Parking enforcement.

Good afternoon, vice mayor, members of the city council, Matt Ironman, director of public works. So to answer the question, yes, there is enforcement. We do two-hour enforcement or four-hour enforcement on all of the signage and city-owned parking facilities. And so we keep those turned over. We think a better way of doing it is going to be really a holding fee, right, or an overage fee where you start to charge over over the time, which would get people incentivized to move those cars quickly. And you are absolutely correct, Mr. Dickinson. It's a transformer issue, but a parcel of what Jennifer Dahlenwein is talking about is it's an imbalance of the system. If it's free in the city garages, most people will favor those versus paying for somewhere else. So we're trying to work with the state and the county to actually get on the same program so that way it's not an influx in our facilities only.

And when you say an overage charge, you mean if they're still charging after whatever the time limit is, then that bumps up the rate?

That's correct. Or if they're full and... and it's over two hours, we would charge a fee to stay there.

I think that would be a technically much better approach, wouldn't it? It feels better than a parking citation. It saves a parking enforcement officer having to circulate through the garage as well. That's correct. Okay. Well, thank you. Good luck with that. I think that would help. Turning over the spaces would really help, no question. And staying with vehicles for a moment, in your report, I don't know, this may be a Ryan question, I'm not sure. It says the city currently operates a total fleet of 2,190 vehicles, including 1,190 light-duty vehicles, of which 140 are ZEVs. So that's a little bit more than 10%. Now, I know we've got a policy on replacement of vehicles in the city, and from what I can recall after I heard about it, it's a good policy, but that does seem, after the period of time that I suspect this policy has been in place, to be a relatively small percentage. Is that just due to the turnover of the fleet primarily?

Some of it has to do with turnover, but it's also supply and demand as well, right? The type of vehicles that we require in our fleet. We are working on our heavy-duty equipment as well, right? And, you know, there's not a huge supply of vehicles for our emergency situations like the vac trucks or Uh, but we are buying up as many lightnings as we can. We, we pretty much bought up all the bolts, right? And so light duty where we are very on top of, it's just really a supply supply issue from the manufacturers. And, and we source these things, um, wherever we can, really. We try to stay local and supply through our local businesses, but we do outsource whenever we can.

So, you don't necessarily buy based on adding onto a state contract, for example, like some agencies do?

We do use custodium, you know, and get onto those as well. But we source them any which way we can get the vehicles. And as you can imagine, there's a high demand, especially in the public sector, for these vehicles. So often we find ourselves falling short. But normally the light duty, we'll work with each department to make sure that it works for them, and then we'll purchase those for the departments.

Okay. And this... I personally encourage as much as possible getting EVs in our fleet for a variety of reasons.

I'm a believer as well, and they work in many cases for our operations. You know, most departments have 100% adopted EV, but we're working through the heavy duty vehicles, because that's gonna be a big change for us, and whether it's gonna be electrification or hydrogen, but then there's the charging infrastructure, and then there's the really what SMUD can deliver at that point.

Yeah, absolutely. There are other limits. Thanks, Matt. And I'm sure to everyone's relief, the last thing I wanted to ask about is whether you have considered the desirability and feasibility of creating a climate resilience district, either with the city alone or with some of our sister Great piece of legislation, by the way.

Council Member Dickinson, Vice Mayor, Council, Jennifer Donlan-Wyant. We are evaluating the feasibility of that. One of the things that we're going to be meeting with our finance director to talk about what are the possibilities, what are the implications, what are things that we should consider as we consider the possibility of a district. But it's on our plate, it's on our work plan, something to look at.

I do think that we could create a district actually with not just the other general purpose jurisdictions, but with regional transit, with SMUD, with a host of agencies potentially. And as you probably know, it's got a variety of ways you can generate funding. So it may open some additional options for funding those kinds of things you're finding so challenging if we look into it and we're successful. OK. Thank you. Thanks for all the work. Thank you for the indulgence. I'll end where I began. I think this is the preeminent issue. We face a lot of current issues that are, in fact, our priorities. But if we or those who follow us can't breathe, the rest of it becomes pretty irrelevant. So thanks very much.

Thank you.

Council member Kaplan Thank You vice mayor ditto on everything councilmember Dickinson asked just want to follow up on a couple things because it's a balance of city of Sacramento but also our regional transit and In North Natomas, I have a lot of land that has been set aside and was supposed to be for the green line, which is, you know, light rail. But there is a timeline to encumber that land. And, you know, I am not on regional transit. Some of my colleagues are. I have talked to regional transit about how do we look at bus rapid transit, but I'm very concerned at the pace because I think those lands revert back to developers if we do not encumber them and have plans on them by 2029. And that is a massive loss for Natomas. When we talk about climate change in the future, we know that vehicle emissions are the number one driver of climate change. And getting people out of their cars and into reliable public transit is just the number one thing we can do. And while we aren't the complete drivers of that, it's how do we work with STA and SAC RT, it is so important that we actually as a city drive to make sure that one SACRT reopens up the green line so that the EIR allows for bus rapid transit and that we actually encumber those lands. Like we've got a little time, but considering at the rate that government works, uh, 2029 is not a long time away. And so I want to make sure we don't that gap that doesn't get missed because we know it's going to be billions of dollars and light rail isn't coming. Light rail is already over the river, but bus rapid transit going through Natomas to the airport should be a priority, being the 33rd largest city in the United States. The fact that we don't have true viable public transportation from the airport to downtown. In my 20s, it used to be the Yolo bus. The fact that Yolo bus is taking me to the airport and not anything within Sacramento County, we should do better. And that's 20 years ago, I was taking the Yolo bus to the airport. And then my second love, as we all know, is trees. And we've talked about like our canopy and Natomas. We have less than many other areas because we're a new growth area. But what I haven't really heard is how are we partnering? Because there's only so much land the city has. The next biggest landowner are our school districts. What are we doing to partner with our school districts? Because many of the areas that need more trees are also in our low income areas where we could also be helping those schools plant trees, which would have the benefit for the kids cleaning the air and the entire environment. Is that something we're looking at?

Thank you for being here today.

I am so glad I'm here today. Council Member Kaplan, Jennifer Donlon-Wyatt, Public Works. We are partnering with School Districts for Trees. Part of our challenge is we actually had a grant in District 8 funded through the federal government to partner with Sac City for trees. Rosa Parks, I believe, was the school. We lost that grant under the federal administration. Luckily, other partners were able to come together, and those trees were planted at the school. So it is definitely something on our radar. It's something that we are pursuing, and as funding opportunities arise, we partner with the school districts, all of the school districts in the city, to find opportunities for the trees.

So I think that's great, but I think also would be helpful because I have relationships with all of the schools in my area. What would that cost and what does that partnership look like? So if I go to the superintendent and say, this is how much it would cost for us to partner to do this, because then potentially site councils where the district may not have money, but the local site council or the PTA or the parents would want to get involved in that. And that's like the next stage I'm actually looking for of how can I partner with individual schools, it shouldn't depend on what the overarching budget is of the district, but, but, uh, each individual school site also gets money. Or if it's like, Hey, I can sponsor two 50 and I can get another community member to do two 50 and we raise a thousand dollars. How many trees do we get? Because then that becomes part of the facilities MNO of the school district, not necessarily the city, but what does that partnership look like? So if we have like, just a document that could see here's you want to do, here's what the cost is, I think we could actually work faster in getting those partnerships.

I will talk with my team about that.

That would be great. Thank you. You're welcome. I appreciate that. And besides, we all know we have amazing plans and no funding. That's just my comment. I don't know if there is a way when we look at these plans prioritizing what we should find funding first that has the greatest impact for the reduction on, you know, emissions and pollution. That's probably maybe the next thing I'm looking at is we've looked all of these and we have all of these plans. How do we look at instead of just the, you know, my famous Chuck E. Cheese whack-a-mole, What is the best return on investment? That would be just as something we think about moving forward. Thank you.

Seeing no other members to sign up to speak, let's just review, comment, and provide direction so we don't need a motion. Thank you so much for your presentation. And next up we have the 2040 General Plan Annual Report.

Welcome. Sorry, just waiting for the slides. Awesome. All right, thank you for your time today, Vice Mayor and Council Members. My name is Amy Yang, and I am a senior planner with the Long Range Planning Team in the Community Development Department. In this presentation this afternoon, I will be providing a high-level overview of the 2040 General Plan Annual Report for 2025. This presentation covers how the annual report is organized, the thematic framework for the report, a brief overview of each section of the report, as well as how we have reported on implementing actions and sustainability and equity indicators. The body of the 2040 general plan annual report spotlights major projects and city initiatives that exemplify the 2040 vision and guiding principles. Appendix A provides a copy of said 2040 vision and guiding principles. Appendix B includes a table of status updates on the general plan's 79 implementing actions. Updates are provided in partnership with multiple departments across the city who have key roles in helping to implement these actions. Appendix C includes a table of status updates on the general plan's nine sustainability and equity indicators where possible, which help track the city's progress toward a more sustainable and equitable community. The vision and guiding principles are the foundation for the goals, policies, and actions in the 2040 General Plan. Because of this, we have highlighted a number of city projects that align with and support these principles. The guiding principles for sustainable and responsible growth focus on issues such as promoting a compact development pattern, ensuring a broad mix of housing types, and creating a city that is a model of sustainable living. The guiding principles for resiliency and climate action focus on issues such as working toward carbon neutrality, addressing environmental hazards and promoting environmental health and resilience, as well as improving our city's tree canopy and green infrastructure. The guiding principles for safe, equitable, inclusive, excuse me, and just city focus on issues such as prioritizing community resources toward historically disadvantaged communities responsive public services, and care for the homeless. The guiding principles for regional economic hub focus on issues such as fostering small local businesses, cradle to career pipeline opportunities, and creating a civic and cultural hub. The guiding principles for livability and sense of place focus on issues such as pride of place, access to nature, and supporting the local arts community. And finally, the guiding principles for interconnected, accessible city focus on issues such as connection between Sacramento neighborhoods, multimodal transportation system, and prioritization of safety and human life on the streets. As mentioned earlier, the 2040 General Plan includes 79 implementing actions. Some actions have been completed, some are in progress, and some reflect ongoing city programs. Appendix B provides a status update of each action where available. The equity and sustainability indicators help track the city's progress toward a more sustainable and equitable community. They show us where we need improvement and also where we have seen success. Appendix C provides a status update of each indicator where available. Thank you for your time today. That concludes my presentation.

Okay, thank you, Madam Clerk. Is there any members of the public signed up to speak?

I have one speaker on this item, Lambert.

Mr. Davis.

The general plan, just the language of general plan, I was just trying to see the difference between the general fund. And this person who just made the presentation gave me clarity. I needed to get clarity. The millennials keep me busy, and they wanted to know what is the difference between the general plan and general fund, and I have that, so thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Davis. Council Member Mabel.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. And thank you for the presentation. I know this is, you know, the 2040 general plan has been, updates have been a lot, a lot of work over many years. They're very iterative and there's a lot of different components. So I appreciate that this is just a quick update. My question is actually pretty specific and that is to lot splits. So I know there's SB 9 and then SB 450, which allowed the sale for a lot splits and i last i heard i believe that we were updating our codes to allow for that do we have an update of timeline or has it already been done and i missed it i don't know i'm looking over here to the housing folks good afternoon council member remy mendoza long range planning manager i am not aware of the timeline off the top of my head but i'm happy to look into it and follow up Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just a follow-up over email would be great. Thank you. I'm just really curious. I recently attended an event hosted by the realtors and ended up basically pitching our ADU website to like 20 or 30 people, and they were amazed at, you know, the pre- the pre-approved plans on there, all the things that are being offered. And a lot of people genuinely didn't know it existed. And so I was pretty proud in that moment. I'm like, yes, look at all these cool things that we have and the tools on the website. But I did get some questions also from folks who have larger lots in places like Oak Park and I'm sure other places in the city where they might want to maybe build multiple different kinds of ADUs and be able to possibly sell those. And so I would love to get back to them. So with that, thank you.

All right, seeing no other members to sign up to speak, you're good to go. Thank you so much for your presentation. And now we will do public comment on items not on the agenda.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have eight speakers. The first is Lambert. Following Lambert is Calum Latto, Annabelle Gonzalez, Sandra Sharpe, Myra Bennett, then Abigail Tweeton.

Okay. I wanted to make an announcement to Mr. Dickerson and really the whole rostrum, those who care. During the Sweet 16, a lot of people, I don't know, The Sweet 16, when it was in Sacramento, the millennials, they approached me about a move that only they could come up with. And they said, hey, why don't we get cheesecakes and carrot cake to the players? You know, this is the women's basketball team. And I said, well, how are we going to do it? And they said, well, we'll reach out to the coaches through social media. All the coaches were women of the coaches. And so that came to Sacramento. And it worked because some of the coaches didn't even know me. They just reached out. And they're very famous coaches. They're very famous coaches. And some of the players... were drafted. I saw Mr. Dickerson and his wife at the game. He didn't see me because we were enjoying the game. We didn't want to talk politics and all that. Turns out now that some of these women have signed very lucrative contracts, if you look at the WNBA, and some of them have reached back to us. They reach to them. They don't reach to me. I just follow what they say. And these are some very young, very wealthy players, and I wish them well. They asked me one thing of advice, and I said, yeah, now that you're millionaires, get your parents out of debt and go from there. And don't forget about us.

Next speaker is Caleb Lotto, Annabelle Gonzalez. Annabelle Gonzalez.

Hi, my name is Caleb lotto. I'm a voter and little pocket and a lifelong sacramentan. I'm also a transfer student from Sacramento City Community College to Sacramento State University. So in addition to my roots here, I'm also the community organizer for a better ballot. Sacramento or rank choice voting or RCV initiative here launched by our counties League of Women Voters. We're supported by a huge coalition spanning the whole city, including neighborhood associations, political clubs, nonprofits, and we have been endorsed by many of those who seek to have upgraded elections here in Sacramento. I'm here to thank the members of the council who have signed our petition. Your support is essential. So I have another ask. If you could, we would love if you would support ranked choice voting by putting it on the ballot this November. This council has the power to give Sacramento the choice to strengthen democracy and upgrade our elections here. And this is a popular choice. In places where ranked choice voting has been adopted, voters understand and enjoy it. So again, please support rank choice voting by putting this initiative on the ballot so Sacramento has the opportunity to adopt a fair way to vote. Thank you.

Annabel Gonzalez, then Sandra Sharpe.

No data, no money. This is how the federal government runs HUD. If a program cannot show who came in, who came out, and where they went, it does not get funded. Sacramento does not follow that rule. Sacramento puts it on the consent calendar. Two words most people have not heard, but it is where the biggest decisions of the city quietly disappear. My name is Annabel Gonzalez, 12-year North Natomas homeowner, CEO of ASO. Today is my birthday. And thank you. And the only thing I'm asking for is transparency. What better way to spend my birthday than to learn and talk about the city I love? Today's agenda had 19 items. 14 of them get one vote. No debate, no discussion. Three of those 14 are homeless contracts. Emergency shelter vouchers, the city motel program, Step Up on Second Street. And I have to also mention, thank you, Lisa, and thank you, Eric, for speaking about items. on the consent calendar. So these three ask for $3.6 million today. They add to a program that has already cost more than $46 million in five years. Federal COVID money paid for most of it. That money is gone. State HHAP money is being cut in half. So who picks up the bill? The general fund? Our tax dollars? Last year, the city's auditor reported and only 32% of participants reach permanent housing and over 50,000 and invoices could not be verified. When was the public consulted on these contracts, on these operators, on the cost per night, on the outcomes? Sacramento says it has no money, but somehow there is always more for the same operators, the same motels, the same contracts. We are not out of money, we are out of accountability. Thank you.

Next speaker is Sandra Sharp, then Myra Bennett. then Abigail Tweeten, Daniel Maino, and then Paula Lee.

Good afternoon. I'm here seeking any kind of help I can get with, I'm gonna try not to get emotional. My dog about two weeks ago needed to have emergency life-saving surgery. And I cannot afford our vet bill. I'm homeless and have been homeless for about two and a half years now. And it was suggested by a friend that I come and talk to city council and see if maybe you guys could help me to get my dog returned home. I owned her mom and dad and I lost her mom to the same illness that my dog had. And thankfully they were able to save her. But it's been almost two weeks now and they're gonna put her up for adoption if I'm not able to get, if I'm not able to come up with some sort of finances or help. I've started a GoFundMe without much luck. And I don't know what to do. I'm seeking any help I can get on this matter. Even if it's just advice. Thank you for hearing me.

Next speaker is Myra Bennett and Abigail Tweeten.

Hello, my name is Myra Bennett and I live in the 95822 area of Sacramento. And I would just like to thank my council member, Mr. Jennings, for supporting ranked choice voting and to thank you in advance for voting to place it on the ballot in November.

Next speaker is Abigail. Following Abigail to Daniel, then Paula.

Hello City Council, my name is Abigail Tweeten. I represent a young voter base and I am vice president of the College Democrats of Sacramento State. On behalf of the College Democrats of Sacramento State, I'm here to let the council and mayor know that young voters and students are in strong support of ranked choice voting and want to see it on the ballot this upcoming November of 2026. Young voters will remember and support and thank you for putting ranked choice voting on the ballot. Thank you for your time. Next speaker is Daniel.

Good afternoon, my name is Daniel Mono and I'm a long time Sacramento citizen and a Sac State teaching credential program student who believes strongly in ranked choice voting. As you all know, not only does RCV change the system to allow votes to count, even if someone's first choice is not picked, it mitigates the recent surge in black and white or blue and red thinking that truly hampers a healthy democratic system. I'm here to advocate for ranked choice voting as someone who worked on Speaker Robert Rivas' first campaign for assembly. in 2018 and has worked with Andrew Cutchfield, a former national political director at United America, which has worked hard on race race voting across the country and whose slogan is county over party. He also was a former director of government for California philanthropy group that aims to help all Californians, regardless of party. You may know about it, but yeah. Andrew explained ranked choice voting to me about a decade ago, and I realized very quickly, and I still believe, that it's worth having in place, and it's important to have in place. So I'm understanding that a lot of you can agree with that, and I appreciate that. I think it's an important part of improving our democracy. I believe strongly in it can help Sacramento's help improve Sacramento's democratic process and thus assist in the best-serving Sacramentoans, please put this on the November 26th ballot. Thank you for all the work you do, and thank you for hearing from your voters.

Paula Lee will be our final speaker.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Council. Paula Lee, on behalf of Better Ballot Sacramento, I'm here to thank Council Member Vang for submitting a request that ranked choice voting be agendized. Thank you, my Vang. And I want to thank the Mayor for sending this to the Law and Ledge Committee. I note for the public that the members of the Law and Ledge Committee are Katie Maple, Phil Pluckybaum, Eric Guerra, and Roger Dickinson. I know many of you have signed our petition supporting putting ranked choice voting on the next ballot, maybe all of you. And I thank you because having it on the ballot as a question for voters allows us to debate whether or not we want this upgrade to our electoral system that many other jurisdictions have shown to be so positive for voters and candidates and for taxpayers. The coalition has provided the approved legal language for the ballot and the city attorney has written the ballot title and summary for the Ranked Choice Voting for Sacramento Act. We hope this will save the city the money and time we have already invested. If there are other ways to help move this process along in preparation for what Law and Ledge Committee might need prior to their June 9th meeting, please let us know. And if any of you would like a review of the benefits of our proposal, let us know. We'd be happy to meet with you. Or you can check out our website, betterballotsacramento.org. where we compare ranked choice voting to our current system. Thank you.

Vice Mayor, I have no more speakers.

Are there any council comments, AB 1234 reports? Seeing none, this meeting is adjourned at 3.30.

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