Ethics Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming to our personnel and public employees committee meeting. We will get started right now and we will start with a roll call.

Members, please unmute your microphone. Vice Mayor Talamantes. Here. Vice Chair Kaplan.

Here.

Council Member Vang. Here. And Chair Jennings.

I am here.

You have a quorum.

Thank you so much. Leading us in our land acknowledgement and our Pledge of Allegiance, if you'll stand with us as we lead, Councilmember Telemontes will lead us.

Please rise for the opening acknowledgements in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands. To the original people of this land, the Nisadong people, Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains Miwok, Patwin Wintun people, and the people of the Wheelchair 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 act of practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous people's history, contributions, and lives. Thank you. Salute, pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, council member. All right. We have the clerk who will call out our items, starting with item number one.

Thank you, Chair. The first order of business is the consent calendar, which consists of item number one, approval of personnel and public employees committee meeting minutes.

I'll move the item on consent. I'll second.

Okay, it has been moved and second. Any questions, comments, or thoughts? Do we have any public comment? We do not.

Thank you, Chair. We have none. Okay.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Abstain? Let the record show we are unanimous on item number one. Next item.

Thank you, Chair. Our next item is the review of applicants for the City of Sacramento Animal Wellbeing Commission. The seat meeting recommendation today is Seat M. The requirements for Seat M are as follows. A member must have an expressed interest or demonstrated history of community involvement in animal welfare, operation of an animal welfare center, or animal rescue, and must be at least 16 years old and not older than 22 years old at the time of appointment. We have four applicants for review today. Our first applicant is Rania Ahmed Amin. Did not appear to be in the audience. Hara Kosti. So not in the audience. Vivian Lee. They're not in the audience. They notified our office beforehand that they would not be able to attend due to prior responsibilities. and Itzel Martinez. Please come forward to the lectern, and you'll have two minutes to address the committee.

Welcome.

Hello, good morning. My name is Itzel Martinez, and I would be thrilled to serve on this commission because helping both people and animals has been a lifelong passion of mine. Growing up, my family experienced firsthand the challenges that many other families face when trying to access care for their own pets or even animals in need in our neighborhoods. I'm most proud of my immigrant family, my mother especially, whose commitment to helping both people and animals has inspired volunteer work of my own. She works tirelessly for our family, yet finds a way to help others. She taught me that even when you come from humble beginnings, you can still make a big difference helping others and believing in yourself. As president of my school's Latino club, as Miss Sacramento Teen Volunteer, and through school athletics, I've strengthened my leadership, communication, and teamwork skills. I met people from all walks of life, cultures, and backgrounds. And I've seen what happens when people come together with a shared purpose. Just as I initiated successful youth outreach programs for Shriners Hospital and underserved communities, I am excited to bring that same passion and commitment to helping animals. I look forward to using my tech, social media, and communication skills in both English and Spanish to increase humane awareness and education. I'm also excited to start volunteer work with two local rescue groups, one for cats and one for dogs. And I've seen firsthand the benefits of prevention programs like spay and neuter. I firmly believe that with determination, compassion, and giving spirit, anything is possible. And I would be honored to sit on the well-being commission. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you very much. I'm sorry, Council Member Kaplan.

Thank you, Chair. And Itzel, thank you for being here. You certainly have an impressive resume. I just want to read through because it says on our write-up that the member must have an expressed interest or demonstrated history of community involvement in animal welfare, operation of animal welfare, or animal rescue. In reading through the applications, the only student that actually meets those qualifications of having worked within the animal welfare and volunteering is Vivian Lee who had that experience. I just wanted to point that out because while I think Itzel has an amazing resume and would do well as a youth commissioner or even just a commissioner on all of our commissions. I think it's important that we also read what the description of the seat is and meet those qualifications, which if you read Vivian's resume, does fit that. So, I mean, at this time, wanting to fill the seat, you know, and meet the standards that we put forward for commissioners, I would put forward Vivian Lee's name for our youth commissioner for seat M, but know that, Itzel, there's a place for you somewhere, because I know we have other seats available.

Okay. Further comment on the subject matter? I know we have public comment on it as well, correct?

Yes, we do. OK. Thank you, Chair. We have one speaker slip for this item. Jared?

I would just like to recommend that the committee consider the unique challenges of a shelter that processes over 10,000 animals a year and is greatly over capacity. And I would encourage that any applicant who is considered volunteer directly at the shelter or work directly at the shelter so that they can become familiar with the unique challenges as well as with the language used within shelter programs. As I'm concerned that the committee sometimes seems to have a different view of what is going on down there. than the actual things I see on the ground as a volunteer operating in all parts of that shelter. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Vang.

I have a question because of the motion on the table is to have Vivian. Can I ask, they weren't able to be here today. Is that why? Only because it's always the only one that came today.

Correct Vivian indicated to our our office that they would not be able to be present today and they indicated that they would leave a an E comments which I believe they did.

OK. You know one of the things I think it's it's people can show up sometimes and they can't but I but this committee has a history of looking at the applications how people fill them out and When you read through Vivian's resume, she is the founder and president of Strive Against Stray and gained hands-on leadership experience in event planning and community outreach focused on animal welfare, as well as organizing fundraisers and toy drives and outreach efforts and working with Fosters and Paws and the SPCA. When we think about our youth and the experience, that is kind of somebody that we're looking for who has specifically within the animal welfare industry has spent time and effort. And I think that is something when we look at how can we bring qualified people into animal welfare, having somebody who has that built-in experience I think is needed on this commission.

So I think my question is for the candidate who was here today and spoke to us just right now. Is that something that was left off of her resume or something was left off of her application? And is there more than we know?

I just went by it said, well, I may not have formal professional experience in animal welfare yet. You know, it does say I have responsibility for pet care and helping animals.

So I was saying, should we bring her back up and ask the question? so that we can see that we're not missing an opportunity for the candidate that came and spoke today?

What was the question, sorry?

Can you describe, in reading your application, you said you had no experience in animal welfare. Can you just explain any further experience you've had with animals?

Most of the experience that I've had is throughout my own community. Seen dogs like strays on the streets. We my own family has even taken in a stray We helped him get back like feeding him and it's all been in my own community. I haven't done anything specifically with other Welfare commissions or like committees, but it's like mostly just from my own Personal like background and it's a passion of mine.

Have you worked with SPCA Front Street or Bradshaw animal shelter in any way?

Um, the actual, the dog that we were able to take in, we actually were, took him to the SPCA and he was able to find a home. So not directly with them, but you know, from bringing animals in there, that is something that I have done.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member, Council Member Telemontes.

I do think that Council Member Kaplan, I mean, makes a good point on like the resume. At the same time, Itzel is here in council chambers. And it sounds like even though she doesn't have the experience working at Front Street or volunteering, she has personally helped a four-legged friend. And I think that, you know, maybe moving forward itself, you can... make a commitment to volunteer a few hours at Front Street Animal Shelter to get that hands-on experience. As you navigate your role as a commissioner, I think that would seal the deal for me. So I'd be happy to make a motion to appoint Itzel to this position.

Yeah, I, before I decide which motion, well, that would be a counter motion. Well, actually.

She doesn't have a second yet. She doesn't have a second yet.

I don't have a second yet. Yeah. First, I just want to say thank you for being here today. And in your application, you did say, while you may not have formal professional experience, I actually feel like individuals like you that works in the community that oftentimes may not be part of the system is really important because you have that lens that you can bring and it's also a great learning opportunity. I do think that when I second the motion, you'll get the opportunity to be a commissioner, and you'll be able to provide that really lived experience of the informal professional experience, right? But oftentimes, I would say, even if you're not in the professional space, that often doesn't get the credit that it deserves and appreciate the work that you're already doing in the community. So I'd be happy to second Vice Mayor Talamante's motion and look forward to working with you as one of our commissioners.

Okay. Vice Chair Lisa Kaplan.

Thank you. I just want to explain, Itzel, my no vote today has nothing to do with you. But I think we do a disadvantage for our 16 to 22 year olds when we credit that they have to always be here for us to consider them. And Vivian was responsible enough. to say she had a prior commitment, couldn't be here, and put in an e-comment. And I think it's really important when people apply to boards and commissions, they put as much information as possible to their qualifications. Because people's schedule is different. This is during the day, so people may have to work. We don't know if she has a work obligation. So I feel it's important that we don't penalize, especially our youth that put in an application, are highly qualified for this, and we're responsible enough to tell us that they wouldn't be able to get here. And that is nothing on ITSL, but my no vote is just for the fact that Vivian was responsible and she is the most qualified, which I think we need more qualified individuals on animal welfare. But I know ITSL, you will do a great job, but I just wanted to explain why what my no vote today is going to be.

Okay, I got you. Okay, so we have a motion, two motions on the floor, one that does not have a second, and then the second that has a motion and a second. So we have to move forward with the motion that's on the table and vote on that.

Correct, the motion by Vice Mayor Telemont is for... Seconded by Council Member Bang.

So I'm going to call the question on that, and then we will then figure out what we do from there, depending on, huh? Call the roll. I'm sorry. Thank you. Call the roll. Okay. Let's call the roll.

Vice Mayor Talamantes? Aye. And Vice Chair Kaplan? No. Council Member Vang? Yes. Chair Jennings?

Yes.

Okay. The motion passes 3-1.

Thank you. Congratulations. If you'd like to come up and give a congratulations speech, we'd be more than happy to have you. I just wanna let you know why you're coming down. I think all of us were very impressed with what you had to say and what you've done. And I think you're gonna make an incredible commissioner. You're gonna stand up and do the things that are necessary in order for the commission to be able to move forward with all of its goals and objectives. And the experience that you may not have, we're gonna make sure that you find a way to get the experience that's necessary for you to never have to deal with this kind of an issue in the future going forward. You with me?

Yes. I would just like to say thank you and thank you guys for all your time. And I will really take this seriously, fully committed. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Congratulations.

Thank you. And Chair, if I can make a quick recommendation. Itzel, if you have time, there is a significant policy discussion about animal well-being control that is going to happen in a little bit. So if you have time, I would stay and listen.

Okay. Sounds good. I will be here. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today. The city clerk's office will follow up with you with next steps on confirmation.

Okay. Next item, please.

Next item is going to be the review of applicants for the Capital Area Development Authority Governing Board.

Thank you, Chair and Council Members. The seating recommendation today for the Capital Area Development Authority Governing Board is seat A. The requirements are as follows. A member who must be a resident of the City of Sacramento and remain a resident for the entirety of their term and must not be an employee of the City of Sacramento. We have one applicant for review today, Fedolia Harris. There in the audience. And you'll have two minutes to speak or to address the committee.

Mr. Harris, welcome.

I thought I should come since it didn't say Sparky. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the chance to explain why I'm interested in the seat and why I'm the right candidate for the appointment. Why not just retire and relax, right? It's pretty simple. I care, and I believe that I can help. Since leaving the city a year ago, I've stayed engaged with efforts to improve the quality of life for Sacramentoans in the central city and beyond. Serving on the CATA board would provide another avenue for me to use my passion and time to make our city a little better every day. Okay, but why me? Well, CADA's mission is to provide mixed income housing with superior property management, to develop complex and fill projects, to build neighborhood amenities, to advance its joint powers authority priorities, and to facilitate the relationship between the Sacramento community and the state of California and the city of Sacramento. I believe that I'm uniquely qualified for this seat because I have proven experience in each of these five areas and I'm a resident property owner within Kedah's R Street corridor. I've not only entitled housing through the development review process with the city, I also grew up in low income housing communities and have a strong appreciation for the difference that good property management has on the quality of life for our children. As city staff, I brought plans and ordinances to council to streamline the infill development process, as well as neighborhood amenities, including protected bikeways, the city's first two-way cycle track, and alleys improved with permeable pavers and public art. I was part of the team that created the Downtown Riverfront Streetcar Joint Powers Authority and staffed the JPA meetings throughout its existence. Finally, I have 30 years of professional experience coordinating with the state of California and the city of Sacramento, as well as our regional partners to advance complex projects from concept through implementation. I'm ready to serve and eager to begin.

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Thank you for being here today. Chair, we have no more applicants. I'm here for any questions.

Okay. Vice Mayor Telemontes.

Correct. We have no public comments on this item.

Okay. One thing that, you know, I've gone to a lot of retirement parties, and any time that anyone says that they're going to retire and they come from public service retirement, I just genuinely don't blame them. Go ahead. Like, they almost pick up, like, three or four different jobs and get more involved. Ms. Farkey, congratulations on applying, and I'm happy to make the appointment and pass a motion to apply.

It has been moved and seconded. If I could third it, I would third it. But it has been moved and there's no more, no one else signed up to speak. So with that said, really, really pleased with you stepping up and stepping out of retirement and applying for this position. Looking forward to having you continue the great work that you've done for so many years at the city of Sacramento. So, With that, I will second the motion. If it hasn't already been seconded, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Abstained? Congratulations, sir. We're looking forward to putting you back to work.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

And the clerk's office will follow up with you with next steps.

Next item, please.

Next item is number four, review of applicants for the City of Sacramento Parks and Community Enrichment Commission.

seat needing recommendations today for the parks and community enrichment commission is seats j requirements for cj are as follows member of the public at large must have an expressed interest or demonstrated history of community involvement in parks and community enrichment uh... we have thirteen applicants for review today one thing i will note is applicants randy case stevens uh... emailed us later last evening notifying our office that they are withdrawing their application from consideration due to work conflicts. So they will not be here for review today and they do not wish to be considered for the position. So our first applicant is Kelsey Brewer.

Welcome, Kelsey.

Thank you for the invitation to come and speak to you. My name is Dr. Kelsey Brewer. I'm a 15-year resident of Sacramento. I grew up in Amador County, just over in the Foothill region. Professionally, I'm an ecologist. I work for the state, where I model management of green spaces, urban green spaces, and the the management of urban green spaces and climate adaptation and mitigation. I also am a community organizer of about 10 years here in Sacramento, including co-founding two urban farming nonprofits, one Three Sisters Gardens based in West Sacramento, and also Seeds of Solidarity. We managed Seeds of Solidarity is a mutual aid farm that farms on public land and is a publicly open and accessible farm that demonstrates ecological farming methods and trains community members in farming. We operated that for five years in West Sacramento. We now operate in the College Glen neighborhood. We worked with Council Member Eric Gehr to get over to the Okie Park open space corridor. We've been there for a little under a year now as well. So I've worked with YPSE on a pathway for grassroots community organization to be able to manage underutilized publicly owned land. I think that's very valuable with the consideration of the Parks Plan 2040 and the ambitious goals and also with the recent cuts in the fiscal year 26-27 budget to YPSE and the need to think about creative solutions to how we grow public land accessibility through partnerships with community organizations. I'm also an educator. I've been teaching for about 10 years at the college level where I have published numerous peer-reviewed papers on pedagogy or the theory of education and And I've lectured in numerous classes for college students during that time. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Can you stay there for a second in case there's some questions for you?

Chair, typically we'll go through each applicant first.

That's right. You're absolutely right.

for kind of a, I wanna tag on for every applicant to answer a question?

Yeah, I think if every applicant at the end of their two minutes can say how many YPSE events they've attended throughout the year, that'd be great. Just say the number of events.

How many commission events I've attended?

No, just YPSE events where you volunteered at a park event through YPSE.

Yeah, I volunteered, have volunteered over a dozen times at Oakey Park events for YPSE. I've also worked with YPSE as well, Jason Weissman's group.

Yeah, if you guys could, the applicants, after you're done with your two minutes, just say how many times you've volunteered with YPSE, that'd be great.

Our next applicant is Ryan Chase.

Good morning.

How you doing, Mr. Chase?

Good, how are you? Good to be here. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here applying for this position with the Committee for Parks and Community Enrichment. My name is Ryan Chase. I live and work in Sacramento as a senior designer for a landscape architecture company. And so in my experience in that field, I've worked on a number of parks projects from the master planning process through construction and construction administration through the installation process. And I would like to serve on this commission because I believe that open spaces are an integral part of this city and what makes this city such a great place to live. The Trust for Public Land says that Sacramento has about 89% of our residents live within a 10 minute walk of a park, which puts us about 32% higher than nationwide averages. That doesn't account for any accessibility or mobility challenges that our community may face, but it does make this place a great place to live and a place that I would like to have an impact on this board. Part of that reason is because this commission is around parks, they have such a profound impact on the community that 90% of residents are that close to a park. It would be a pleasure to serve on the board for that purpose. I have a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and I've worked for about seven years in the profession of landscape architecture, working on parks from, you know, pocket parks, urban infill parks, all the way through to larger native developments along riverfronts and so forth. And thank you for your time. Thank you. And to answer your question, I have not yet had a chance to serve on any of those, so I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next applicant is Uriel Delgado. URIEL DELGADO Morning.

Morning. Good morning. My name is Uriel Delgado. I currently serve as the director of HSI at American River College. My interest in this commission is through my experience in working education. I've been in the educational field for over 10 years serving first-gen low-income students such as myself. It's through these experiences that I understand how public spaces, like public parks, impact students' well-being and educational paths. And in my experience in visiting these parks, I understand and see the inequities that some of these parks face when you go to parks that are not well-lit or have empty nets. And it's part of these inequities that give me the passion to serve on this committee to help bridge some of these gaps that these parks face. I believe my educational background and in serving my community makes me an ideal fit for this position and I'm looking forward to serving. And I haven't served on any of the volunteers. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for being here today. Our next applicant is Ryan Green.

Welcome, Mr. Green.

Thank you. My name is Ryan Green. I'm interested in this position just because I know how much Sacramento has to offer. I moved here from Buffalo, New York about eight years ago and fell in love. Basically described knowledge or interest is like seeing the poppies at fremont park and how that just made a reason for people to get outside super accessible it doesn't make sense how it was for 40 days and stopped i want to get involved in not just having it be there for 40 days but be there year round and then add it to other areas make a downtown walking tour. I'm on the board for the Capital Mansions Neighborhood Association as a treasurer and we have a historic walking tour that we've been developing and I'm on the board for the local Sierra Club chapter and so I'm California naturalist through UC Davis and it's just a passion of mine and I want to be able to use my passion to get involved give back and having two teenage step-sons that went to the UPC like skate park events over summer when those were going a couple years ago and how just Having events like that that are accessible for a wide range of people is important. And to answer the amount of times for the EPC volunteering, it hasn't been any directly with them. It's usually through alliance stuff with like Free Wild Sack at Cleaning Sutter's Landing or American River Cleanups. But I'm always looking to be involved. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next applicant is Anthony Jackson. They do not appear to be in the audience this morning. Julia Oil.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good morning, committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to interview for the Open Parks and Community Enrichment Commission seat. My name is Julia Jackson-Oil. I'm a resident of District 4, and I am eager to contribute to the Parks Commission. As a public health professional, I'm well versed on how equitable access to green spaces, opportunities for physical activity, and meaningful social connection can determine a community's health outcomes. Here in Sacramento, which neighborhood you live in directly impacts your life and experience. Where I live in District 4, I can easily walk to a number of parks, community activities, farmers markets, and more. Throughout the city, there is a stark contrast in those opportunities where, for example, just across the river in District 2, there's not a single city-funded community garden. A long history of racial discrimination and disinvestment have led to these present day disparities in our city. I'm interested in serving on this commission because I want to contribute to ensuring our community has equitable access to park space and recreation opportunities. I have a master's degree in public health, and I currently work at Civic Thread, a local nonprofit focused on achieving health equity in the built environment, where I contribute to designing opportunities for community voices to be prioritized in public plans, policies, and investment. And I've worked on advancing safe routes to parks, schools, and healthy retail throughout Sacramento, and particularly in North and South Sacramento, areas that have been identified in the Parks Plan 2040 as highest need due to park access gaps. Through these experiences, I've gained expertise in reviewing plans, making recommendations, and elevating community priorities with a lens of health equity. I'm excited to share my passion and expertise with the Parks Commission, and I thank you for your consideration. And I have yet to volunteer at a YIPC event.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today. Our next applicant is Kevin Murphy.

Welcome, Kevin. Thank you, Councilmember Jenny. Thank you, Councilmembers and city staff. Good morning again. My name is Kevin Murphy. I'm very excited. to share my qualifications for the opportunity to join the Parks and Community Enrichment Commission. I'm a lifelong resident of Sacramento County. I moved to midtown to the Newton Booth neighborhood about a year ago, where I'm a member of the neighborhood association. I currently work as a public information officer for California State Parks, where I represent the departments for public commissions to the media, elected officials, and community stakeholders. Through my previous experience as a public information officer for Caltrans, I worked with Sacramento City staff and residents in the planning of projects targeting underserved communities funded by the Clean California program. These projects included the recent beautification improvements to Highway 99 in South Sacramento and grant programs like the Floor and Road Community Beautification Project, the Dixie Ann Neighborhood Clean and Green Alleyways Project, which coincidentally I worked with Sparky Harris on, Great appointment, by the way. I also worked on the Del Rio Trail project. Aside from my work history, I was appointed the Carmichael Recreation and Park District Advisory Board of Directors, where I served for several years. And I was also Carmichael's community representative to the Sacramento Parks Foundation. I also served on the Facilities, Transportation, and Finance Advisory Committee for the San Juan Unified School District. I'm a graduate of Cal State Chico with a degree in Recreation Administration. Additionally, I'm an Eagle Scout and I've mentored young men and women as an adult leader for Scouting America for the last 20 years. For me, the field of Parks and Recreation has been a lifelong commitment and I hope to continue that commitment by offering my passion and my experience to both protect and expand access to the city's valuable recreational resources and programs for the enjoyment and enrichment of all. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today. Our next applicant is Brian Newman Lindsay.

Well, good morning. I'm here because parks matter to me individually and as a community, as a public. I grew up in a working class family in Oakland. We didn't have clubs, ski vacations. And we did have a park and a library and pool. And those things changed my life. I could go there every day. As a community, parks are really the only comment we have left. They're the only thing that we hold together, share together, access together. And I think when we steward those things, when we bring in the public to participate, it builds community. And so I'm really extremely motivated to support the work of the commission and the city. To the role, I bring 12 years of experience as an environmental engineer, planner, and manager. At the state, I manage a portfolio of more than $600 million of grants throughout the state of California. working on sustainable infrastructure and parks. I've worked on parks projects, one acre to 100,000 acres, $2,000 to $20 million, including here in Sacramento, where I led the Transformative Climate Communities Program, working with SHRA, Zach Trees, Alchemist, and others. I have more than 10 years of experience outside my professional career in extracurricular education, youth education. I'm a qualified naturalist, and I lead in volunteer events at and Parkway Cleanup and American Parkway Foundation events. I'd love to support the commission, and I think I'd really love to see and support the city in finding good fit grants and really building out those YIPC programs to really bring people together. I think there's so much opportunity to do that. So thanks for your time. I have been to or volunteered at, I believe, a couple of YIPC events. I'm sorry, I don't know which ones were YIPC and which ones weren't, but thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for being here today. Our next applicant is Candace Phillips. They do not appear to be in the audience. Serena Rye.

Welcome, Ms. Roy.

Hello. My name's Serena. And as someone who was born and raised in Sacramento, I was first introduced to the EFC department in high school when I participated in summer at City Hall. This civic engagement program was the start of my passion for public service and local government. I had the opportunity to learn about how our city operates. And I was even actually part of the group of students that helped launch EFC's Instagram page and brainstorm outreach strategies for EFC programs. Today, that Instagram page has over 5,000 followers and continues to connect residents to city programs and services. Whenever I come across it, I remember how passionate I was about being able to help make that happen, and it's still something that I'm passionate about, which is why I'm here today. YPSE was instrumental in forming my career interests and in giving me outlets to explore my passions in high school. It also provided me a space to meet other youth from around the city. So I'd like to serve on the Parks and Community Enrichment Commission to help make sure that other people, especially youth, continue to benefit from YPSE programs. My goal is to help shape YPSE policies so that all Sacramento residents feel supported and at home in the city in the same way that I do. I believe that Sacramento and its DFC department have a lot to offer to make life more fulfilling and more enjoyable, and I want to help bridge the gap between existing services and the people that would benefit from them but don't know they exist. I also want to improve programs to make them more accessible and beneficial for residents. I would use my experience as a former Sacramento Youth Commissioner to hit the ground running. I've already received training on Sacramento City policies and procedures related to boards and commissions, and I have experience reviewing master plans and annual budgets. After being away from Sacramento during college, it's great to be back at City Hall, and I would love the opportunity to give back to my community. Thank you for your consideration. And since being back from college and being back in Sacramento, I have recently discovered the Volunteer in Parks program. First, I did it in May at Land Park, and I was out of town during June, but I'm hoping to have that be a monthly thing I do, because that was actually really fun. I recommend it to everyone.

Thank you for being here today. Our next applicant is Michael Stone. Michael Stone is not in the audience. Stacey Tolles? They do not appear to be in the audience. Jose Verdeen? They're not in the audience as well. Chair, that concludes our review of applicants. I am here for any questions.

Great, thanks so much. Okay, we will now have the opportunity to, that is for this? Oh, okay, no problem, thank you. We will now deliberate and have my colleagues, Lisa Kaplan, Vice Chair.

Well, Chair, we certainly have a wealth of applicants. So thank you for making it extremely difficult. I'll just, overarching, all of you, every single one of you would bring some serious knowledge and wealth to the Parks Commission and differing perspectives that I think would be welcome. So now it comes down to what areas potentially does somebody have or experience that, you know, might be unique to Parks Commission so I mean I'm open because there there are a lot of them I will just say that really what what stood out to me was the significant amount of experience mr. Brewer brings just having already worked with and what you're working on and in the next stage of really where I could see our parks and Going of looking at our empty spaces. You're already doing that and having that experience for me listening to everyone that was just something that that grabbed me a little bit more because I know in my district while I have community gardens, we actually have a significant waitlist and and that's not something my district should just have where you know district 2 should have and you know, I want to just say Ms. Oil, your experience was amazing. I love, Ms. Rye, that you have come back and the experience that you have with the Youth Commission in our city, because I want everybody that applied, and Mr. Lindsay, your experience, like listening to all of this, please keep applying, whether it's Parks Commission or others. I want to have this difficult decision with every appointment, because we do have amazing residents in the city of Sacramento. I look forward to hearing my colleagues, but I will tell you, Mr. Brewer, there's your current experience, what you're doing, and that's something that I would just like to see more happen in the city of Sacramento outside of my district and what you're doing in District 5, but I look forward to hearing from my colleagues.

Council Member Maabang.

Thank you so much, Chair Jennings. I just want to thank everyone who came today and also thank you for stepping up to apply to be appointed. And thank you for also making this incredibly hard for us. I think it's always great when we have a strong palette of candidates. Sacramento rightfully deserves talented, passionate commissioners. And so really just want to thank each and every one of you for submitting your application. um yeah it's a tough one um i think out of all the candidates um mr brewer did speak out to did speak to to me most um but before i go to him i do also just want to acknowledge uh because um we have a public health person in the field as well julie i really just i want to give you kudos and thank you for for applying and talking about the ways in which how neighborhoods impact your livelihood. And then for Serena, thank you for launching the Instagram page for YPSE and being a product of summer at City Hall. And so it's really great. Congratulations on graduating and coming back home. And so just all really great applicants. But I think for me, Mr. Brewer stood out most, mainly because, especially as the council member for District 8, we've been talking to a lot of property owners about really making sure we don't have blight and how do we activate these spaces. And we've had a lot of conversations with the developers about activating these spaces. And I think actually what stood out for me was when you talked about needing to just have creative solutions, especially during these hard times, budget conversations. I know we just passed our budget recently. We're going to be engaging in really soon next budget already. And I think it's really important to also take a look at that as well. And you have also done dozens of YPCE events as well. And so my recommendation, although this is a hard one, would be to put a motion to appoint Dr. Brewer for the Sacramento Parks and Community Interpretation Commission. So that would be my motion on the table.

Okay.

noted that it's been moved in second we'll continue the discussion council member vice mayor karina telemontes i just want to echo what my colleagues have said that having so many qualified applicants that are eager to help change the landscape of sacramento and how we do parks our most important public space um it just makes us so grateful to have you apply and like they said like I mean, some of the things mentioned, mentioning D2 and the lack of parks out there, and Sierra Club, Cal Poly, American River Educational Field. Dr. Rudiel, thank you so much for applying. I think that there's a space for you here in one of our commissions. And Mr. Newman, I mean, getting creative on finding grants and figuring out how to secure more dollars. So I was really impressed with that. So I'm happy to support the motion on the table. I do thank Mr. Brewer for volunteering with the City of Sacramento and our Parks Department

throughout the years thank you very much i can't say much more than my colleagues have said i just will tell you that in my time at the city of sacramento and working on this committee this is probably the most qualified group that i've ever seen come before me and so i'm trying to take notes on this agenda item i have up here and i ran out of space And so I had to turn it over and try to write on the back and try to connect each one of you to the points that you made. So they've all spoken very highly. I'm willing to support the motion that's on the table. But I do want to make sure that all the talent that's in the room continues to apply for some committee that we have here where you can utilize your talents and help in the city of Sacramento to the greatness that we all want it to be. And so keep trying. Don't give up on this because we need your talent. So with that, there's a motion on the floor. Is that right, clerk? Yes. And we have a second. So I will call the question. All in favor for Dr. Brewer?

Aye.

We are unanimous in that decision. There's no opposition. Dr. Brewer, congratulations.

Good to see you.

And I hope to see all the rest of you as we continue on forward. Next item, clerk.

Before we move on to the next time, I just want to say thank you for all those who attended today. And Dr. Brewer, the clerk's office will reach out to you with next steps.

Moving on to item five, the City of Sacramento Ethics Commission 2025 Annual Report and 2026 Work Plan.

Good morning, Personnel and Public Employees Commission. I'm Mindy Cuppie, your Sacramento City Clerk, and I'm also staff to the Ethics Commission. This report is being presented by our immediate past chair, Linda Ng. She was chair when this report was written, and our current chair is also in the audience, Mr. Alan LaFasso. So, Ms. Ng.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. My name is Linda Ng, and I had the privilege of serving as chair of the Ethics Commission 24 and 25, following my service as a Commissioner from 2018 through 2025. And thank you for the opportunity to present the Ethics Commission's 2025 Annual Report and provide a brief overview of the Commission's work during the past year. The Commission's primary responsibilities is reviewing complaints involving elected and appointed city officials and helping ensure compliance with the city's ethics laws and policies. In 2025, the commissions received 15 complaints. Following an initial review, six complaints were dismissed. due to insufficient basis for further actions. The remaining nine complaints were referred to the independent evaluator for investigation and review. In each case, The independent evaluator found no cause for further actions, and the Commission adopted those findings and closed the matters. In addition to its complaint revealed responsibilities, the Commission continued its efforts to increase public awareness of its roles and services. During the year, the Commission approved a new outreach presentation to complement its existing educational materials. Commissioners also conducted outreach presentations for nine community organizations throughout Sacramento, helping residents better understand the commission's roles and the ethics resources available to them. The commissions also continue to operate in a fiscally responsible manner with total expenditures remaining under $50,000. The independent evaluator services continue to be an important component of the commission's work by ensuring an objective and independent review process. Looking ahead, the commission remains committed to strengthening public trust through outreach, education, and ethics training. The commission also recognizes the recommendations identified by the city auditor as valuable opportunities to enhance its effectiveness and guide future improvement. as I conclude this report, which is also my final report as a commissioner. I would like to thank this committee, the city council, my fellow commissioners, and city staff for their support and partnership over the years. Serving on the Ethics Commission has been a privilege. I am confident that the commission will continue to advance its mission and serve as a fair, independent, and trusted resources for the city of Sacramento. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for your service. I heard very clearly that you say this is my last, and that is, I think I heard that clearly, right?

My term expires at the end of last year. So I'm just coming back to present this report.

And I thank you for your service. You've done an incredible job. So congratulations on your service.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilman James.

Okay. We have public comment on this item?

We do have one public comment. Alan LaFazzo.

Thank you, Matt. Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I did think I was going to be under the two-minute limit. I embrace what my former colleague, 2025 Chair Ng, said. I'm the 2026 Chair. I just wanted to hit two points in our work plan as the current Chair relating to costs and training. I actually didn't know how the training item on our report was going to land from a cost standpoint. We had some really good training last night at our June meeting, and I learned something for the first time, which is that the enabling ordinance from 2017 mandates that commissioners are supposed to get training once a year. And in my estimation, my third year as a commissioner is really the first year that happened. And I, in many respects, attribute it to the pressing of my colleagues in these annual reports for that training, which, as you see from the report, was continued from last year and former Chair Ng alluded to. So I hope you'll embrace that part of the report. There may have been some costs, but I think we were very prudent in that the independent evaluator who did some of the training had to show up anyway. And if you watched our meeting, you'll see we were extremely attentive to some of the cost issues. And given that some of the budget discussions, and I know that the council is very concerned about every city expenditure, including commissions and including our commissions. I do want to underscore that even though there's a figure of about $33,000 for independent expenditure, excuse me, for independent... EVALUATOR EXPENDITURES, I DO THINK THAT IS A HIGH WATER MARK IN THE HISTORY OF THE COMMISSION AND EVEN WHAT WE'VE DONE THIS YEAR PROBABLY MEANS WE WON'T GET QUITE CLOSE TO THAT. I THINK I'VE HEARD SOME FIGURES BANDIED ABOUT ABOUT THE COMMISSION'S COST BEING IN THE LOW MID SIX FIGURES AND THAT'S NOT THE CASE. WE'RE CLEARLY IN THE LOW FIVE FIGURES. AND WITH THAT, I APPRECIATE YOUR CONSIDERATION OF OUR REPORT. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. ADDITIONAL COMMENTS?

that concludes our comments okay we'll move to our my colleagues vice chair kaplan thank you chair um you know a lot of conversation happened and i know there's some some talk about the need of the ethics commission i want you personally to know i believe in the ethics commission And I think the city auditor report was timely. And I think it's maybe a time, as you talked about, what is the strategy, continuing the training, but also making sure that our ethics commission is not used as a way for political punishment. Because people can continuously file frivolous charges against a staff member or a council member, and then the cost of investigations. And I think that's one thing of looking at how do we weigh and balance accountability and oversight, as well as another look at what should be under the authority of the FPPC. and what should be under the authority of our Ethics Commission in making it viable. And so that's really what I'm looking forward from the Ethics Commission as you do your work this year of the report next year of what is a way to make the Ethics Commission stronger, viable more. You know, it's the balance. I don't know more of what, but maybe pausing and looking at how do we make it so that it does have a statement and a say, but understanding, you know, certain decisions that have already been made by this council of what authority the Ethics Commission has. So I think there's a lot of work of, what can we do what does the future look like and how do we balance all competing needs which i don't think there is one answer but i know uh those commissioners who are still involved and alan you specifically are up to the task uh having been around for a long time so thank you continue your work um and i look forward to hearing more from from our commission and i would move this forward to council for approval

There is a motion on the floor to move it. And Vice Mayor Chalamontes.

I'm happy to second the motion and also request, like Council Member Kaplan said, to please work with our city clerk's office to determine if a complaint comes in, is it valid? Because otherwise, the city clerk's office is spending thousands and thousands of dollars on things that are not real. So one person can submit a complaint for 15 different things, and then the city clerk's office has to go investigate every single one of those. If you guys can just work with the city clerk's office to figure out a process for that for next year's work plan, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay. We have a motion on the table and seeing no other speakers and a second as well. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Abstain? We are unanimous. Good job, Ethics Commission. We appreciate you so much. Thank you very much. Next item, please.

Thank you, Chair. The next item is to initiate a final plea pilot program to promote adoption or rescue senior animals and animals at risk of euthanasia.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Chair Jennings and members of the committee. My name is Ryan Hinderman. I am the interim animal care services manager. And the Front Street Animal Shelter has initiated a seven-month pilot program designed to provide greater adoption and rescue support for animals at risk of euthanasia. For background, our shelter works very hard to provide life-saving outcomes for all animals that are safe enough and healthy enough to either adopt or send to rescue. Over the past quarter, April, May, and so far in June, we've averaged a 90% live release rate for dogs, which is considered no kill by many industry standards since there will always be a certain percentage of dogs in shelters that are too sick or injured or too dangerous to be adopted out. We are also highly successful at finding positive outcomes for healthy adoptable cats. While the live release rate for cats this quarter has averaged 75%, that's primarily driven by irremediably suffering sick and injured cats and a very high intake of neonatal kittens, which have a low rate of survival without their moms. However, there are some animals that have substantial behavioral issues or medical issues that make it very hard for them to find a home. And with our very high intake and limited shelter space, we sometimes must make difficult euthanasia decisions in order to operate humanely within our capacity. Final plea is one name for a marketing strategy used by some shelters. The strategy involves publicly advertising that individual animals are at risk of euthanasia, often with a specific date when euthanasia is planned. The goal is for potential adopters or rescues to act with urgency to find a positive outcome for that animal. This final plea pilot program was suggested by the Animal Wellbeing Commission and supported by staff. And the commission wanted to bring this item before the committee to continue the policy discussion of this pilot program as we embark on the remaining six months of the pilot. A working group of the Animal Wellbeing Commission was formed in April, and they have been meeting with staff with their ideas for the pilot program. Going forward, staff will continue to collaborate with the commission and collect feedback from our staff and our dedicated volunteers to determine the final plea pilot program procedures. We will also continue to meet with the working group periodically over the remaining six months of the pilot to check in. Prior to the conclusion of the pilot, staff will return to the Animal Wellbeing Commission to report on the results of the program and seek input on whether to continue, modify, or discontinue the pilot program. Staff will then determine how to proceed. Thank you.

Thank you very much. OK. Vice Chair Lisa Kaplan. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. So how many public comments do we have?

We have eight public comments slips. First speaker will be Susan. followed by Jared Dollar.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good morning. My name is Susan Falcon. I support the final plea. In 2025, Front Street killed 1,823 animals. That is roughly five animals intentionally killed every single day. That is exactly why Final Plea matters. Final Plea was meant to be a simple, life-saving notification tool, not a controversial concept, not a radical policy, just a basic effort to give animals one last chance. Yet there are serious concerns with how this rollout has begun. The current interim director, Henderman, has made it clear repeatedly that he is not in favor of this program or euthanasia transparency in general. Which raises the question as to why the first dog selected for the final please soft opening had aggression concerns with either humans or other animals. I have to wonder whether that selection was intentional in order to undermine the program. Clearly I wasn't alone in my concerns as even former director Zimmerman called out the aggressive nature of dogs selected and said Front Street was forced to implement final plea. And this isn't the larger problem here. Shouldn't animal shelters, whose duty it is to save lives, be transparent and open about animals at risk of euthanasia rather than try to hide it? What really makes Front Street look bad is its continued resistance to honest communication about their euthanasia protocols. What should be unacceptable is that there are still no written procedures clearly stating how euthanasia decisions are made. how animals are deemed available for public adoption, how rescue-only decisions are made, and how related life and death shelter policies are applied. This interim director has had more than enough time to make sure that those fundamental operating procedures are in place. Without them, not only is public safety put at risk, but animals will continue to be arbitrarily and unfairly labeled, misclassified, and set up. Thank you.

Jared Thaller.

As a volunteer adoption counselor at Front Street, I have been keeping a close eye on the rollout of this program, and I have some serious concerns. I can best illustrate these through two animals, Rupert and Suki. Rupert is an eight-year-old cat with early kidney disease that will require medical care for the rest of his life, likely shortened life. He went on final plea on June 3rd, and no rescues followed through after reading his file. He became eligible for euthanasia on June 10th. Since we were not 100% full, no action was taken immediately, and on June 16th, an adopter with a history of adopting older cats and cats with his condition came to the shelter, established he was prepared for his medical care, his likely shortened lifespan, and was approved to adopt when Rupert and Rupert went home. This is the ideal outcome for final plea. The animal is held as long as possible, even past the final date, and the plea reached the right individual. Now consider Suki. Suki is a photogenic small dog of highly sought after breed. If she were not extremely shy and extremely snappish around strangers, she would already have been adopted. Her final plea went viral. And on Saturday, we had a crowd of people on the wait list when we opened. Our extremely cramped front lobby was filled with people who waited. She was adopted within about half an hour. And our extremely crowded front lobby was filled with people who waited an hour to see a dog they would never get to meet. Most left without looking at any other animal. and the hour-long wait times cascaded through the day, causing others to watch out in frustration. 60% of our meet and greets were no-shows. No one who was there for Suki looked at either of the other two final animals or any of the other adoption event dogs. One dog, who could have been adopted via normal processes with a little more work, clogged up adoptions for the entire shelter, severely degraded our adoption event, and cost several other animals their chance to meet a new family. We need to make sure this program looks at both the costs to the shelter and to the animals in the shelter, as well as the benefit to the few animals selected for this program. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Our next speakers will be Leah Morris, followed by Paul Hefner.

Welcome.

Hello, thank you. Hi, I'm Leah Morris. I wanted to say first thanks Congratulations to all of you on your various election outcomes. Thank you for that. And also thank you for your appointment of a youth commissioner. I myself had read their applications and agreed that both Vivian and Itzel were the most qualified. And I appreciate the discussion today. I really do appreciate the idea of looking at the criteria and appointing and also making room for presence. And I look forward to working with Itzel and being part of public service. I'm here today to ask if you would hold this motion in your committee after hearing all the public discussion. I did send you an email discussing some of these points, and I just really want to reiterate that this at-risk proposal was presented to our commission in a very draft form in May, and we had a variety of discussion about what was the ultimate design of this pilot, It was not finished in May, and then the item was moved forward to your committee. Now we have seen another set of edits from the interim manager. I've never seen those before this today, so it's hard to say that that came from our commission to be moved to you. I agree with some of the points from the interim manager, but I just want to say that this was quite a hurried process, and the commission has not had the opportunity to fully vet this discussion. As you can hear, there's some possible unintended outcomes that I think we should be looking at and gathering, and I'd appreciate if you would consider holding this in your committee. Also, we absolutely have started, or the shelter has started the program, and I anticipate that we would report back to you on this in our annual report, as we've done in years prior when we've initiated new activities. So I appreciate your time to consider the reality of some of the process here. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

Paul Hefner.

Welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon. As a nine-year volunteer at Front Street Center and as the former chair of the Animal Well-Being Commission, I'm here today to urge you to also to table this proposal and actually I would ask you to suspend this pilot until a permanent shelter director can be named to evaluate it. Put very simply, there is no evidence that this program saves lives. The two shelters in our region that already use final plea messaging have dog death rates that are identical to Front Streets. They are not saving more animals. And what's more, this strategy directly contradicts what we know regarding public attitudes toward animal shelters. The fact is, more than two out of three people who add a pet to their home each year never visit an animal shelter. Wonder why? Well, so did the state's animal welfare directors, and they did a poll precisely on this issue. What did they find out? The biggest reasons people go elsewhere. They don't want to be sad, and they don't want to see animals who are at risk of euthanasia. This proposal takes that very messaging and makes it the centerpiece of their strategy. That doesn't bring people in. It drives people away. What's before you today are two sort of different versions of the same flawed approach. One that the legislature had an opportunity to consider and rejected. And it also fails to consider the things that the research shows truly do impact adoptions in a positive way. And that would be foot traffic, conversion rates, and animal returns. You're being asked to do all this without a permanent animal shelter director in place, the very person you would want to consult with about something like this. It's unwise. It's unadvised. And it puts at risk the very animals. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Those of us who spend time at Front Street that we're trying to save. Thank you.

Next, we have Dia Good, followed by Julie Verga.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I am here today to request that the committee temporarily postpone action on this item until a new shelter manager arrives because that is the person who will be ultimately responsible for its implementation and success. Please note there is no agreement on what even the plan should look like at this point. Plus, there is no urgency. The shelter is already implementing the program. I do want to point out that both drafts are woefully inadequate. There is no explanation of how success will be measured. There is no fiscal or operational analysis. How moving limited staff and work hours impacts the rest of the shelter operations. And most important, how it will impact the other 100 plus dogs that haven't yet deteriorated and are waiting new homes. Final plea is a misnomer. No initial plea exists at Front Street. It is reactionary and not preventative. And for it to work, it has to be part of a comprehensive program where dogs are ID'd and monitored for stress and concerning behaviors and dealt with at the front end, promoted, sent to foster or rescue. You shouldn't wait until a dog has deteriorated to the point where euthanasia is the most humane outcome to jump in. Lots more work needs to be done here, so please pause any action so deliberative conversations can continue. And I just wanna conclude with, I just don't wanna see dogs adopted under the threat of death, as opposed to a great fit for a loving home. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Welcome.

Thank you. Good morning. I was going to read from my notes, but I'm just going to throw them out the window and just kind of talk about why final plea or how it came to be. So we, as a commission, came together and voted for it, okay, after we'd had extensive working group conversations about why it was necessary. and what was important to make sure was included in the final plea. We've seen many shelters that have implemented a similar program, including Bradshaw and Stockton, and I also included an executive summary because I know this is a longer story than we have for today. But Stockton Shelter, um does a very simple notification of euthanasia which is really what this is about okay it's just to alert the public that these animals lives are at risk when you have over 2 000 animals you know a lot of animals that are dying and the question becomes are they really irremediably suffering do they have behavior issues or could they be available for public adoption could their lives be saved if people knew what they were up against or could a rescue save them which maybe sometimes oftentimes they need a little more work. So one of the key things that we found in this rollout is that initially some of these dogs were really aggressive, and that was of concern because this was supposed to be kind of a soft rollout. Nobody wants aggressive dogs available for public adoption, yet these dogs were not only on final plea, but they were available for public adoption. What became really clear and what is a larger concern is there are no written policies or procedures regarding euthanasia, regarding rescue only, regarding whether dogs are safe for public adoption or not. That needs to happen first before final plea will have any chance at all. Furthermore, we have in our own city code a great ordinance regarding dangerous dogs and potentially dangerous dogs that gives the language to Friends Street Shelter to utilize and make those... Thank you.

Your time is complete.

those corrections. Thank you.

Our last two speakers will be Hilary Bagley-Franzoya and Kelly Benedict.

Welcome.

Good morning.

My name's Hilary Bagley and I am on the wellbeing committee. I'm also on the team board with Bradshaw and I used to be on the SPCA board back in the 80s. So I've been doing this a long time. One thing that really concerns me, and you're gonna hear a lot about saving animals, but today I wanna bring you back to education, which is where all the shelters are lacking. Transparency is education. All of these programs are a level of education, whether it's punitive measures on abuse that educate people that there are consequences to heinous acts, or whether the public is finally understanding that there are consequences to irresponsible ownership and preventable breeding. One of my duties that I take on for Bradshaw is I talk to people and I schedule them for free spay and neuter. It's through the MASH events. It's perfectly free. I call people, I've talked to well over 2,000 people over the last year and a half. It's a wonderful program, paid for many times by the county representatives and board of supervisors. I try to pick people's brains to find out why Finally they've stopped procrastinating and they're fixing their animals and what I hear is their basis is an educational experience Because what they say is I'm finally tired of my dog coming home pregnant, and I've had to deal with two litters I hear that over and over and over they learned they got off their duff and finally stopped procrastinating and got their animal fixed and because it became inconvenient for them and a lot of work. Thank you for your comments. They learned, and you can teach, irresponsible owners. There's a bad consequence to breeding. Thank you.

Our final speaker is Kelly Benedict. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you all for this opportunity. Yes, Kelly Benedict. I am also Animal Well-Being Commissioner And my real job is I'm a corporate commercial pilot, but I founded a nonprofit called Pilots and Pups. Lisa, I've come to one of your, thank you for having the adoption events. And I heard that there's no evidence that this final plea works. Well, I can tell you there is evidence because my airplane is usually full of dogs that are being transported because there is a rescue who has found out about this dog potentially being euthanized. And then they call me to get the dog out. Fresno, Stanislaus, Stockton, Bradshaw. Next week, I'm flying a dog for Bradshaw to an adopter in Portland. Why? Because they found out through final plea It's kind of a no-brainer and almost every other shelter or every other shelter that I fly for knows about final plea or has a final plea, it may be called something else, but final plea works. And the animals can't wait. They can't wait for us to kick the can down the road. They're dying. There was even a dog, Red. We've had this program in place for nearly a month, I think. And so there was a dog, Red, that somebody called me from New Mexico. And the dog got adopted because of the final plea. He called me for transport. So I know that people are, you know, this advertising, they say, gets people. away keeps them away from the shelter but that is so not true people want transparency and they want to know that there's they're coming into the shelter they want to know the dogs that are available and that may be put down they want transparency they're not five years old they don't need their hands held so thank you i encourage you to move forward thank you thank you we have no more speaker slips okay

Now move to our discussion and I'm start off with the vice chair Lisa Kaplan.

Thank you chair. You know. I wish we had more PP&E meetings like this. This has definitely not been a simple one of a one and done and appointments. I really want to thank everybody who's here. I want to thank the Animal Wellbeing Commission. I know there is a split from current commissioners, former commissioners, those within the industry. I think what sits with me as the elected policymaker is recommendations from our Animal Wellbeing Commission, but generally how I experience is there is a fully baked proposal that comes to Council and Council says, yeah, and then we go back to the Commission and get Commission's input. And something that causes me to say, I don't know whether this is right or wrong, but I think we should pause, is we are truly in the middle of hiring a new manager of our animal care division. and as an elected i would you know we have an interim but we're in the process of hiring somebody and for me i'd want to talk to whom we'd officially hired who has experience in the industry that i can sit down and discuss the pros and cons because i did a fair amount of research I do, you know, and looking at the reports, I know the pros are visibility, community action, and transparency in trying to get those adopted. But the cons are potentially impulsive adoptions, placement risks if we truly don't understand the nature of behavior, the psychological toll on volunteers, and potentially compassion fatigue. and what's presented to me in the report i don't necessarily know what is right right now for front street and that for me is looking to the manager of saying sit down with me and walk through it so have i met with staff has staff met with my staff and have we gotten the reports and have i heard both sides and have I read every email that I'm getting on the pros and cons. But part of me also takes a step back and I go, if we're going to implement a new policy or a new program, which I find a little concerning that the pilot has started without council direction that it started. So part of when I say pause, I would like to pause even this pilot because I don't have all the information. And I think that generally this should come from the the the manager of animal care and if not the manager our assistant city manager and that's you know as a council i would want to pause until i have all the information but my ultimate underlying question i don't feel has been answered is does implementing this policy and pilot program address the systematic issues that we're looking at with overpopulation or with animals not getting adopted And so with that premise of a question, I'm not sure enough has been presented to me to say I know one way or another where I am going to be. So colleagues, I would like to pause. I'm not saying yes or no. I think I want to, as a council member, so that I have enough information, pause so that we can hire a new manager of animal care. and get that official hire done. Two, one of the things I did not see is for our Front Street volunteers, a survey of them. How do our volunteers feel about it? Because they're the ones that are actually going to be implementing And Jared, thank you for telling your story, because I hadn't heard that. But that shows the, it's a 50-50. It shows the good and the bad. And when we implement something, how do we learn from that so that we do it better? And I don't think the policy's baked that does that. And so that's one of the things I want to take into consideration. Because I do have just questions that haven't been answered that I would like to just hold until we get some more answers because I don't know whether this is gonna help address the problems we have, especially if we have a 90% live dog release and how do we do it better and truly get to the core of animals that can be saved or actually saved and they're saved the right way. And it could be maybe it's not the final plea and maybe a different education route. That we find out and so for me, I would want to pause we get a new director I would I want that director to actually finalize get all the answers what it would look like go back to the animal well-being Commission to get their input before it actually ever comes back to us because I think there's a fair amount of questions that need to be answered and whatever the final form is it should be finalized by the city and and go back to the Animal Wellbeing Commission before it ever comes back to us for that conversation. So that is the convoluted motion. that I will put on the table that I will summarize of pause, pause the current pilot, wait until we hire a new manager of animal care. In the meantime, I would like to survey volunteers as well as get more questions answered that have been brought up because I think Jared really highlighted that if we're going to implement a policy, we've got to figure out a way that a final plea isn't going to destroy the rest of those who want to adopt coming into Front Street and they leave without looking at everything else. So long-winded, but that would be my motion.

Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Telemontes.

Let's see, sir. I just want to thank everyone who works in this space to help support and love and save our four-legged friends from the Front Street Animal Shelter staff to friends of the Front Street Animal Shelter to all the volunteers that dedicate countless hours to helping our four-legged friends, the commission, and the advocates who push us to challenge our own systems and to make it, to improve it. I do want to acknowledge that there are conversations about an MOU being put in place to better, so that we can better communicate with each other. And I truly hope that we can hit the refresh button on our relationships and truly build trust and communication moving forward so that we can help save more animals. With that being said, you know, I know that this policy is truly a mixed bag. There's some people, some commissioners that abstain, some that support it, some that just have concerns. And so that makes me uncomfortable being able to vote on it today just because I really want to empower our animal well-being commission. and listen to their expertise in this space. And along like what Council Member Kaplan said is, and it's also like hiring our permanent Front Street Animal Shelter director. I think that everybody has a role to play and having that accountability is gonna be really important for next steps. I mean, this program, Ryan, can you come up to the podium? Or, which, oh, Ryan, either one. Assistant City Manager Ryan or Ryan. Is that meant for me? Yeah. So we already started this program because I saw some news coverage on it and some Facebook posts. Can you tell me, like, the history behind us already starting it and what happened? Because I feel like... It's kind of awkward that we started the program already, and then now we're back at personnel committee to decide whether to pause it, continue it. Like, why didn't it come here first? I guess if you can give us background on that.

Yeah, so the whole history. So, you know, this program was something we had been considering for a while. And it was, you know, with our relationship with Bradshaw, obviously we watch their social media. We keep tabs on, you know, their strategies to see what we might be able to implement that could benefit our shelter as well. So this was something that myself and our public information coordinator had been discussing. It came up as a suggestion with the commission. And we met with the Bradshaw team. This was back in February, I believe. And had a discussion with them about the program. They had a lot of positive things to say. They didn't have hard data supporting sort of the cause and effect relationship of some of their marketing strategies. But they said, hey, correlation-wise, almost all the animals that we put in this program end up getting you know, adopted or rescued. So I myself and our public information coordinator met with Director Zimmerman at the time, kind of pitched the idea and, you know, the director at that time was not particularly supportive of the idea, but then retired shortly after. I was placed in interim and then we had the commission meeting. I had conversations with with Matt and with Tom Pace at the time, and Assistant City Manager Michael Jasso, and we said, hey, on our end, we would support some version of this program. We have our concerns, and I'll present those concerns at the March Animal Wellbeing Commission, because I think some shelters, the way they do this program, raises a lot of concerns for me as far as outcomes for animals, public image, and some of the things that some members in the audience today brought up. But I was comfortable with some version of that program. At that meeting, Assistant City Manager Jasso was on the dais and said, hey, we are comfortable with a six-month pilot program. The commission also wanted this to go to council to get sort of a formal support for it. We found out that this committee was actually the right place for that to go. Although normally, my understanding was it's normally done at the annual work plan. Um, but, uh, so it was kind of done concurrently. The, the, the commitment for staff to try a pilot was sort of done, uh, was sort of, was sort of committed to. And then, uh, bringing this to PNPE was, um, was also committed to as sort of a way just to solidify and gain input on, on this process. Um, and the, the commission then requested seven months that we could sort of have a month of, um, Ironing things out figuring out the procedures. It has been pretty much exactly a month So if we were to continue the pilot program, we'll be looking at six months from from now forward.

That's the history Okay, that's helpful. So everything that's written in a staff report today Is that what was presented at the animal well-being Commission or was more information added? after the input of the Commission

The attachment, I believe it's attachment two, but it's after the report, but there's the working group's version of the final plea procedure. That was presented at the April meeting right before a motion was passed to bring it to P&PE. The second attachment is the result of basically staff revising that, the initial draft after having a meeting with the working group from the commission and saying, hey, and we met and we talked about a lot of the different changes and I said, okay, we'll take this meeting for about like an hour and a half or so. we'll take this information, we'll go back, we'll kind of create a draft, we'll keep as much as we can, but we'll change some things so that we feel comfortable and that matches our operational staffing and abilities and processes. And then we sent that back to the working group, but there wasn't enough time to bring that back to the entire commission or basically work collaboratively to complete the staff version where everyone agreed on prior to it's coming to this committee.

Got it and you know in fairness I do think it's good that you came here right after the first meeting and that way we can also partake in the conversation and then provide additional direction on such an important matter. Now who is making the decisions of an at-risk animal?

So that is, for animals at risk of euthanasia, that is a process that involves many different staff. The primary staff are going to be our senior animal care technicians, those are the supervisors over our animal care technicians who have the most exposure to animals' behavior. We have a team's channel called Shelter Rounds that everyone has access to and can weigh in and say, hey, I agree with this animal being a candidate for euthanasia, or I disagree with that. So it's meant to be very open for staff to be able to give those perspectives. But we keep really detailed behavior notes on all of our interactions.

It's trained staff, not volunteers, right?

That's right. Volunteers do put notes into the system that may be considered, but it is staff that are making those decisions.

Got it. And then is there a behaviorist on site?

We do not have a behaviorist on staff currently. We hope to soon.

And is that a vacancy that we have, or is that just not budgeted?

We did an add and delete. We removed an animal care technician position and added an animal services coordinator position that is going to be focused on behavior and rescue support. That was approved on June 9th. So we anticipate being able to start that hiring process in July.

Okay. And then my last question is, what type of support is offered to adopters so dogs are not returned with a mark against them?

First, it starts with counseling. So at the last Animal Wellbeing Commission meeting, one of our, Jared here, one of our dog adoption counselors talked about the counseling for one of the dogs that went out, that it was an hour-long counseling session. And typically for these dogs, they're very long, in-depth, to really make sure people are prepared. We also send them home with an adoption packet with basically a sheet of QR codes that goes over a lot of common behavior issues that dogs might have in the home. But we don't have a formal post-adoption behavioral support program.

OK. So when is the next animal well-being commission? Do we know off the top of our head?

We're skipping July.

July is council recess, so probably August. So then I think those are all really important answers. So I agree with Council Member Kaplan on pausing this, but I also feel like I mean, I think it was Commissioner Caley, one of our commissioners said, I can't wait. We need to work for our four-legged friends and it needs to be like immediately. So, you know, I feel a little torn about, you know, about waiting, which I agree because we should wait for our permanent director of Front Street. But then I also feel like not waiting because these are our four-legged friends and this is a big challenge. And obviously that's why you guys did take initiative to try and come up with a creative strategy. But, you know, working together is the most important that we can do. So I guess that I'll be supportive of the motion to pause because I know that the city manager is hiring uh in the next few days maybe weeks um our permanent director for this position and would love to get that person to to take a take a look at it um but having it go back to the animal well-being commission and then coming straight to council uh for final adoption does it need to come to council or can it or conversation for direction i think it needs to come to council for direction whether

and let all of council decide whether they want to adopt it or not.

Yeah, because I don't want you guys to come back here because then that's going to delay it more. So after your animal well-being commission, where you guys all talk about it and be able to answer these questions, come directly to council and have it be agendized immediately. Yeah, and I think that...

I'm okay with that as long as we've officially hired and the new director and the policy is in final format. So it's not changing in between. So if a final format goes to the Animal Wellbeing Commission and they change it, then they've got to, like, I think there should be, you can't change it and approve it and send it to council, kind of almost like the first hearing and the second hearing. so that people have an opportunity when it's final, final. So if it takes two animal well-being commissions to get the final, final, then come to council, I'd be supportive of that. I'm hesitant when things are amended on the fly and then come straight without giving the public or others the opportunity to have an opinion.

Like a fully baked product.

Fully baked that doesn't change.

Okay. Committee, the next animal well-being commission meeting is August 12th.

That works. It gives time. But I don't want that item to come if we haven't hired a new director. Yeah, that's part of the question.

Yes. So, yes, ma'am.

Yeah, I was just going to ask, what is the timeline on hiring the director? Oh, soon.

Soon, very soon.

Okay. So the answer is soon, okay. Okay. Okay.

So just to clarify the motion that's on the table, to pause the pilot program, to wait to hire the new director, and to survey the volunteers to get an idea.

For that to be part of the consideration?

Mm-hmm. Okay. Anything else I missed?

That when the new manager is hired, for them to fully bake a policy and take it back to the Animal Wellbeing Commission.

And then come back to council.

Come straight to council as opposed to coming back to this body.

Yeah.

Okay.

Did you get that direction? Got it.

Yeah, I think the one thing I would say with a fully baked is that something we've learned in this first month is, you know, you don't know what you don't know. Like, it's been such a learning process, and there's so many intricacies to it that, you know, this would be a pilot that would be implemented, not like a permanent policy. So I would hope that we could have some flexibility with... changing things as it goes, as we learn that one thing works better than another, that we're seeing certain negative effects in certain areas, some flexibility as being a pilot to modify, to kind of perfect it as time goes on and fine tune.

And I think that's expected in a pilot, but when you have the policy, the language should be baked. So we need the language baked. where the implementation of the language is where you learn in a policy of how you do that, but the language of the policy should not be changing.

Okay. So just checking legally to make sure what we're doing doesn't cross any lines?

The only thing that causes me some concern is that is the suspension of the pilot program itself. And that is a day-to-day operational issue that is within this jurisdiction of the city manager. These policies, both of them are very, very detailed and they talk about meetings and things like that. The manager runs the shelter, the council does not. So the idea that we can tell staff to stop the program

Problematic that would violate the Charter now if you want to suggest that they do and they are willing to go along So part of my motion then would be to direct The city manager to make a decision that is in consideration of the direction of the P and PE Committee and then I will just publicly state that that on issues of this significance, and this is just Lisa Kaplan's personal opinion, I'm a little disappointed and flummoxed that an issue of this magnitude would be implemented without council input prior to.

I do agree with you. It can go to council for a comment. That's true. That's perfectly fine. Your strong suggestion, Lynn, would be noted for the motion, I suppose.

Thank you.

Okay, it looks like I have one more speaker. Vice Mayor Telemontes.

So just to get attorney, just clarification then. This pilot program, I mean, right now we've made a recommendation and hopefully our city manager, I'm sure she's watching, she'll take note of it. But we are currently making the motion to send this back to the commission to you know fully bake it and bring it back to council but the program the pilot program right now is not being stopped because we don't have like that power to fully stop it like right now the city manager does the city manager does but we don't so we're not so here we are not making a motion to fully to stop this program to cease the program so that is not a decision that we're making right now the decision that we're making is on policy uh to send back to the animal well-being commission then to come to council

But what is included is a direction to the city manager to strongly consider the position of P&PE and make a decision whether to continue or pause.

Can I ask a point of clarification? My understanding is that when you make a direction to the city manager, it has to be the full mayor and council and not a subcommittee. She can just take the subcommittee into consideration.

Okay. Not direction.

Okay. So it's not direction. Okay.

Okay. Strong, strong suggestion. I got it.

Okay.

Okay. So are we clear on the motion that's on the table?

Okay.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain?

I'm sorry, Chair, to clarify, the motion was made by Councilmember Kaplan and the second was made by Councilmember Telemontes. Thank you.

There you go. Okay. So our next item is committee ideas, comments, questions, and meeting reports. Hearing none, seeing none. Public comment on items not on the agenda? All in? All done? Okay. So with that, we will adjourn this meeting and thank all of you for being here with us. It's been an exciting two hours. We will be back in 15 minutes.