City Council - Regular Meeting

And welcome to the September 15th, 2026, Salinas City Council meeting. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and kick it over to the city clerk.

This meeting is available in Spanish for members of the public in attendance and on Zoom. Translation devices can be obtained in the foyer.

OK, Zoom webinar participation is available for members of the public. The Zoom webinar ID and link are available on the posted agenda on the city website. And with that, will everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. All right, let's call the roll.

Councilmember Barajas? Present. Councilmember Barrera?

Here.

Councilmember DeRigo? Present. Councilmember De La Rosa? Here. Councilmember Salazar?

Here.

Councilmember Sandoval?

Here.

Mayor Donahue?

I am here.

Thank you.

All right, with that, before we head into closed session, are there any, does anybody from the public wish to comment on the closed session items? All right, are there any Zoomers? There is not. City Council will reconvene at the rotunda at 5 p.m. Thank you.

Well, that says 5 o'clock.

All right. All right. The council is now reconvening. There's nothing to report out from closed session. And with that, we will do some proclamations. The first is National Hispanic Heritage Month. And who do I have? Do I have somebody here for that proclamation?

Tradición por siempre.

OK. Good. All right. Well, let me read the proclamation, then we'll turn it over to you. Does that sound OK? Terrific. OK. Great. Whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 through October 15, with the intent of celebrating the culture, history, and contributions of Hispanics and Latinos, and whereas the Hispanic and Latino population of the United States totals over 62 million individuals, and whereas Hispanics and Latinos have contributed and positively influenced the city of Salinas with its centuries, old traditions and diverse perspectives, and whereas the Hispanic and Latino people represent a vibrant and thriving part of our community, making up nearly 80% of the city of Salinas population, and whereas the city of Salinas community is filled with Hispanics and Latinos that serve as civil rights leaders, educators, public servants, business owners, activists, politicians, and much more. And whereas Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to honor the invaluable ways Hispanics and Latinos have contributed to our common goals and the community as a whole, now, therefore, I, Mayor Dennis Donahue, on behalf of the Salinas City Council, do hereby proclaim September 15 to October 15, 2026, as Hispanic Heritage Month and invite the community to celebrate this occasion that's dated this 15th day of September, 2026.

Thank you. I have a lot to say, but I will try to keep it as short as I can. Good evening, mayor, city manager, city council members. I'm here to publicly thank the city of Salinas for its support for our event, El Grito Celebration, here on East Salinas. This event was free and open to the entire community, and it brought together families of Salinas and surrounding areas to celebrate Mexican heritage. But by the Flacorico, ASIC performers, live music, Lucha Libre, we're all honored to have our Mexican Consul from San Jose join us as well. And none of this happens without partnership. I want to personally thank the city manager and the city staff, like Permanent Center. You know, with every step of the way, I know it was a challenge, given the time we've had. to give a couple thank yous as well to our sponsors like republic services with christina urquidez resources like with tony barrera um i mean it goes even uh gloria de la rosa margaret de rigo um jose luis barajas you you have all contributed in one way or another Sandra Sandoval as well. Thank you guys so much. And we also want to recognize the police department and fire department because of their presence and support. Our event has zero incidents of violence, so that was absolutely great. And finally, our volunteers, dozens of community members who gave their time and hard work to make this happen, thank you. Events like El Grito Matter, they give us community a place to celebrate who we are, pass our traditions to the next generation, and show what's possible when a city and its community work together. Just thank you to everybody. Another thank you to Christmas in Cluster Park with the resources as well with Hernando Sornio. And yeah, everybody, just the community has really reached out to us and we've all came together. And with the time we were given, it was a really successful event for us. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Hang tight towards the front and then we'll do the other proclamation and then we'll all come up and we'll do photos Okay, so all right the council will be the same but we'll shuffle we'll shuffle the receivers. Okay. All right Next up stormwater awareness week and We're gonna we're Heidi's gonna come up and receive a come up and receive this. I see she's influenced the whereases. There are a lot of them. So it's Stormwater Awareness Week, September 21 through 25, 2026. Whereas stormwater that does not soak into the ground becomes runoff, that can be come polluted by automotive fluids fertilizers and pesticides bacteria dirt litter and or pet waste as it runs along roads sidewalks parking lots roofs and lawns and whereas runoff flows into storm drains that eventually flow into nearby waterways and whereas plants and soil filter water and improve water quality on-site improvements such as porous pavements stormwater ponds, rain gardens, and bioswales help with pollution prevention and stormwater runoff, and whereas the City of Salinas National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program promotes pollution prevention for stormwater discharge, and whereas it is currently recognized that the control of stormwater quantity and quality is most effectively implemented when people and organizations understand the related causes and consequences of polluted stormwater runoff, and the actions they can take to control these. And whereas by focusing attention on pollution prevention in stormwater runoff, the City of Salinas will meet the challenges of environmental protection and regulation, and whereas Stormwater Awareness Week is an opportunity for government, industry, and environmental organizations to recognize the potential of stormwater pollution prevention, within our local creeks and the ocean. Now, therefore, I, Mayor Dennis Donahue, on behalf of the Salinas City Council, hereby recognize and proclaim the week of September 21 through the 25th of 2026 as Stormwater Awareness Week and urge the community to protect local waterways by participating in stormwater awareness workshops and visiting the Clean Water Salinas website dated this 15th day of September 2026. And Heidi, I knew I saw you out there somewhere. Come on.

Good afternoon, Mayor, council members. You know, it's been a real pleasure to manage the city's stormwater program for the past 10 plus years. And Salinas is a really great community. You know, they really care about protecting the environment and the local waterways. And they show up for all of the wonderful, big community engagement events that we have, like the Amor Salinas litter cleanups. So next week is Stormwater Awareness Week. And we're very lucky that we have a community like we do. It makes my job easy. So if anybody would like to learn more about the city of Salinas' stormwater program or stormwater in general, you can go to cleanwater.salinas.gov.

Thank you. All right. Don't go far. You'll be coming back up.

Mr. Mayor, if I may, usually during Hispanic Heritage Month, we have the horses and the bull, as you know, outside. But today... because of the good work of El Grito and the Gomez family. The Gomez family and the El Grito committee right now as we speak, they're in San Jose being honored by the Consulate of Mexico for the event. And Mr. Mayor, we may, when we are taking pictures of Mr. Gomez Jr. can come with his team. I see Orlando as well and another gentleman, if they can just come and join with the picture. Thank you.

Well, that's the first photo op, so come on up.

Thanks.

I'll take a picture with Mr. Jacobs. Thank you.

All right. We are now open for public comment on items not on the agenda and that are in the city Of Salinas' subject matter jurisdiction, comments on consideration, public hearing items, and the consent agenda should be held until the items are reached. Public comment will be limited to two minutes. Each person who addresses the City Council during public comment shall do so in an orderly manner and shall not make any personal, slanderous, or profane remarks to any member of the City Council, City staff, or the general public. Any person who makes such remarks or who uses threatening personal or abusive language or who engages in any other disorderly conduct which disrupts or disturbs the meeting may be asked to leave the city council chambers. And with that, we are open for public comment. Two minutes.

Karen Cameron concerns Salinas resident continue to track data on spray days, the world's first notification system for toxic restricted pesticides in the world. And what I'm finding at the two schools I'm tracking is really appalling. It's become even worse this week, in my opinion, at McKinnon Elementary, where they're not only having 5 AM fumigation, but 7 AM fumigation of chloropicrin and 1,3-D. As I told you last week, that 1,3-D does show up on the Prop 65 list for a carcinogen. Major concerns there. Now, the Ag Commissioner has authorized three such Notifications at 7 AM. And I am really concerned because the law legally permits him to do that within one quarter mile of the school. I believe that law really needs to be changed. There is no fence. There's no boundary. I'd encourage anyone who's out in that area to videotape in the morning and see what you see. Because if they're coming closer than that, he's in violation. How do we really know? We just have to trust, and that's concerning to me. One other program in the state is called Bee Ware, B-E-E-W-H-E-R-E. If you're not familiar with that, it's a program that protects beekeepers, that they can register their address, and they will get 48 hours notification, and they have a one-mile buffer zone. Now, I have nothing against that, because bees are critical to our environment. But do we really value children and school teachers less than we do bees? They get one quarter mile buffer zone. Now, I want to make it clear that there were five toxins that were used at McKinnon this week. Methamolanic, methamalneutrin, chlorpyrrhicrin, 1,3-D, and another one I can't quite pronounce that starts with potassium. I asked the Ag Commissioner for fact sheets on these, and he did supply links. The public can do the same so that you can at least get facts on what is being applied. Again, I just really feel that we need to change the law at the California level because this is unsafe. And it's not unique to Salinas. If I had another two minutes, I'd spell that out.

Thanks, Karen.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and City Council. My name is Theresa Holman, and I came to introduce myself. I'm the new executive director at the Monterey and Salinas Valley Railroad Museum. And so I wanted to come and personally thank the City Council for the support that you guys have been recently giving us. We have received donations from Council Member Salazar, thank you so very much, and also Council Member DiIorigo, thank you so, so much. This is such a pivotal time for the Monterey Salinas Valley Railroad Museum. I started off as a fundraiser there because they didn't have money for a grant writer, so I started off as a fundraiser, and then I became their grant writer. And then when I finished my master's degree program, got the opportunity to be the executive director. And when I was the grant writer, the museum was getting approximately 48 visitors a year. They weren't able to get the message out. The schools had restrictions on their transportation funds, so the schools weren't bringing students into the museum. So we created programs to go out into the community. And so this year, we will reach approximately 10,000 students. And it all started with us going to Graves Elementary School. I was told when I first started writing grants that you guys don't have enough impact. You need to increase your impact. So this school was kind enough to let us come in and run our program. And then they gave us feedback. And then after they gave us the feedback, I went in front of the board of superintendents and showed them our program. And all the superintendents allowed us to start bringing Monterey Salinas Valley Railroad and agriculture history into the schools. So I just wanted to come and say thank you so much for your donations because they really have gone to positive use and the kids are gonna learn everything that we can give about Monterey Railroad and agriculture history. So thank you so much. Okay.

Hello, Mayor Donahue and council members, resident of Mesilla Rosa's Area 4, John Aaron, and I taught at Grave School last year. All 28 students. It was a fantastic little school towards Castroville. And we did have Mark and Ms. Holman come from the train museum. It was just fantastic. And the kids loved it. You know, they could back up the train. But, of course, you can leave so much history without trains. I don't think we'd have the valley we had so much. It's fascinating, isn't it? And why they chose Salinas over Castroville, because Salinas donated land. It's a fascinating history. I just encourage you to go the first weekend of each month. They have the, it's open to everybody. I can hear, I'm so close, I can hear the whistle. You can blow the whistle when you want to. Sacred Heart says, please, during mass time. It's a little distracting. But it's fascinating, and I encourage you to go. Now it's part of Heritage Park. So do come over and visit, and people in the public. It's fantastic. And we had lots of visitors last year at Little Grave School, and that was the favorite one. And it was just fantastic. So thank you for your time.

Thanks.

Good evening. My name is Eric Peterson. And at the last meeting, I plagiarized Wes White's Facebook page with some comments about how Austin, Texas is dealing with homeless and how much better it is because they care enough to actually take it seriously. And that's a state with a bunch of secessionists. I thought I'd wear one of my Texas secession t-shirts tonight. Poll results are that approximately 10% of people who favor Texas secession are like me. They want rid of them. But I'm going to go to a different part of the world tonight. And this, again, is something that I took off West White's Facebook page this morning. A Norwegian's message to MAGA. Hi, Norwegian here. A hard thing to explain about social democracy is that we want our taxes to go to the undeserving, not because we're naive, because it works. Healthy people cost less, educated people contribute more, housed people are more stable. The undeserving are actually pretty good investments. But the main point is that there is a healthy society there. In a healthy society, there are no undeserving. There are just people. And Norwegian's a little country. They don't have a lot of areas, but they are quite prosperous. They do things very well. And maybe we should learn from our Scandinavian friends. Thank you.

Thank you, Eric.

Good evening, members of the council and mayor. I'm here to address some concerns I have about our community. As I have seen, our community members, especially those who are unhoused, are, especially considering the navigation center being shut down, I don't see how shutting down a shelter is helping them. I see it as more of a hindrance. I, myself, being housed by community services, to which I am thankful for, people of my age, especially being autistic, it's really hard, especially when we land at that position. And even because I'm housed, and I may be married, I'm having to come up with different ideas every day on how to sustainably survive. With the minimal resources one has, especially being on SSI, it just stuck by itself. Seeking help from the county and the city has been virtually impossible. And with the future baby on the way, I'm finding it really hard through the city to even just maintain a housing. Rent is so high, it's uncontrollable. Even Section 8 is barely able to help because they're thinned out by the homelessness population not trying to help them. So the question I have is, what are we doing? What are we doing to make an impact? What are we doing to make a change? And that is what I want to leave you guys with today. Let's choose the choices we make today, the choices we can live with tomorrow, simply. Thank you.

Thank you.

good afternoon mayor and members of the city council my name is benjamin mancias i'd like to propose an idea for the city of salinas to explore creating a city-wide streets team with the former downtown streets team no longer operating i believe we should look at bringing back the parts of that model that worked while exploring and redesigning it specifically for the entire city of salinas The name City Wide Streets Team is important because this would not just be a downtown program. It could serve downtown, Alisal, Chinatown, North Salinas, South Salinas, our parks and commercial corridors throughout the city. This would create an additional workforce dedicated to helping make Salinas cleaner, safer, and more welcoming. team members could assist with litter and debris removal beautification maintaining public areas and addressing areas that need extra attention working alongside our existing city crews rather than replacing them At the same time, the program could provide unemployed residents and people facing barriers to employment, including people transitioning out of homelessness with an opportunity to work, earn an income, gain job experience, develop skills, and connect with employment and housing services. How much time I got? I believe there is something powerful about giving someone more than assistance. Give them a uniform responsibility, money in their pocket, and an opportunity to contribute to their own community. When someone can look at a street or neighborhood and say, hey, I helped make that better, it can create a sense of pride, purpose, dignity, and belonging. I'm asking that the city explore what a citywide streets team could look like, including potential funding, nonprofit partnerships, and a possible pilot program. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, Council. My name is Salvador Tavares. I'm from District 1. And I'm just here as a friendly reminder about, like, always, like, trying to figure out, like, I guess, like, strategies that are effective to address the homeless and also the things that go in hand with it, like, also, like, like exploring like effective I guess like an effective approach that will help people with addiction because it seems like a very complex thing and other than that I just hope that you guys will really listen to all concerns especially like two speakers before me I think one of them was talking about like Like I think chemicals, you know, being sprayed perhaps. And it's something that I support too in getting that resolved because it's just like a very maybe microscopic detail. And I think it just adds diligently like if leaders could listen to those concerns. But that's all for my comments. Thank you.

Thank you.

good afternoon city council lisa from district six i have previously spoken to a few council members who were curious about my sudden appearance not my direct supervisor council member unfortunately i will admit my lack of participation in local government is a bit shameful i have always proudly represented salinas everywhere around the world salinas you know the solid capital of the world i have often gotten shocked faces when i state i love salinas which makes me wonder why are so many people surprised? With a bit of reflection, I believe I have come to understand. Salinas is a relatively small city. Salinas is majority agricultural. Salinas housing is ridiculously unaffordable. Salinas has an issue with homelessness and previously with gang violence. Salinas has terrible public transit. Salinas has issues with disaster preparedness. And honestly and unfortunately, the list can go on and on. But what Salinas does have, is a resilient population of hardworking people. Now, what does a first generation Latina like myself have to do in a small town like this? Objectively speaking, not much. I've dreamed of living in Chicago, New York, DC, where career opportunities seem endless. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market in Salinas consists of office admin support, followed by ag, trucking, fast food, and retail. Salinas people want jobs that can afford mortgage and rent with proper healthcare and a secure retirement. The youth are pursuing higher education and you guys are surprised by they're not coming back. city council is mainly focused on short-term goals looking to improve your districts but with things like the amazon warehouse that has a history of bad labor practices flock the repeal of rent stabilization and about the 15 plus starbucks that are coming into the city they're all a direct contradiction thank you

So the reason why I'm covering my shirt is because I know it's an issue. I seen as soon as I walked in here, Jose Luis Barraja started talking in the ear of Chris Callahan. And then Chris Callahan walked over and told Patricia about my t-shirt. I know that's what happened because I could sniff it out. So good job for being petty, Jose Luis Barraja. That's why you're getting recalled. Now, I just want to say that we don't want flock cameras, so I urge the council to cancel the contract and throw it in the garbage. Nobody wants flock cameras. The majority of the people do not want flock cameras. We all realize how it's problematic. Another issue I want to bring up is these measured G and H signs that are at all of these schools. Now there's a bond measure G and H that paid for some stuff that happened at the schools. But there's signs at all the schools saying measure G and H. Medida G and H. So that's very confusing that we have a different measure G and H on the ballot in November. Very sneaky, whoever decided on doing this. Is it a coincidence? I don't think so. I think it's wrong and those signs should be taken down immediately because it's confusing the public on what measure G and H even funded. People are going to think that it's the same thing. It's not like you're explaining on the signs that this is a bond measure G and H. It just says measure G and H. So how is that not confusing? You see how this looks? This makes it look like you guys are cooking the election year and rigging it against the renters like you guys did when you voted against them. Take down the flood cameras and stop with this trying to confuse the public stuff. We need change here. And yeah, I'm wearing a shirt that says Munoz for mayor. Big deal. Come on, Jose. You're being petty. That's why you're getting a recall.

You'll be removed from the chambers with no clapping. It's not a spectator sport.

Don't go nowhere. Stand right there. Hello. Greetings. You're probably wondering why we came this way, but it just, with all these flock cameras, there's a real concern for safety for ourselves, for our children. This does not include, we don't feel safer with them. We actually feel more, How can I say the word condescending because it's infringing on our rights to privacy in a way. I mean, it's creating bio, I mean, it's reading the biometric algorithm of our face, it's measuring, it's creating a profile, and it creates a profile on our children. Now, we have to wonder, how long is this data being stored? Who has access to it? And there's just not enough study for us to feel safe with this new technology in a way. So I'm a concerned citizen for my children, my children's safety, and we do not feel safe. And it's come down to this. So I do think that we could do something else with those funds, maybe allocate them in schools, create more programs for the children, make Salinas a better place. But the flock system is just not it. They're just storing the data and selling it to third parties, which is not what we want. Thank you.

Hi, thank you for the council sign. My name is Israel Rodriguez. I'm a native of Salinas. The main issue here is the Flock cameras that are being proposed to be installed. It has zero to do with public safety. It has everything to do with surveillance. We know that. There are several cities, Eugene, Oregon, Stratford, Massachusetts, Cleveland, Ohio, where the city council, where the elected officials have told Flock to cancel all recordings and all operations because they no longer suited the community's needs. Flock, the company, and its affiliates still kept on collecting data afterwards on every single citizen, on every single resident without a warrant. That is illegal. So it is not about public safety, it is about surveillance and selling your data for people that say, I have nothing to hide. Okay, so then you would open your door right now to the police, to anybody, everybody here, and say you don't need a warrant, anybody and everybody could come into my office, into my home, into my children's bedroom, into whatever they want because I have nothing to hide. That is not America. We have constitutional rights. We have the law. That's what separates us from every other country, quote unquote. Not no more. Now we're being sold out. And we're being sold out by the people that are supposed to represent us. You guys. We picked you guys. We can do away with you guys. We picked the sheriff, we can do away with her. What she did to the poor victim of incest and rape, 14 year old victim of incest and rape, that she blamed for a murder of flock information. She said that according to flock evidence, she was the suspect of a murder when she was the victim of rape and incest and they ran with it. So we don't need more surveillance. We need better leadership. We need a better sheriff. And we certainly need people that will represent us. Because if not, come election time, we will definitely remember that and act upon it. Thank you.

Good afternoon, councillors. I'm here to speak against the upcoming flock contract. We can say that we should not be afraid to be watched if we have nothing to hide. But the fact is, even if what we are all doing in our daily lives is not against the law at this moment, the law can change at any time. It has been shown repeatedly that these flock cameras are weaponized against our community. False flags cause traumatizing situations where children and families who have committed no crime are exposed to police violence. Our police forces and law enforcement say that they are here to protect and serve, and it is clear that that protection and service does not extend equally or uniformly to all of our members. As long as our police departments cannot prove that they are here to protect the safety of all people in an equitable fashion, rather than the interests of the few and the interests of property, then I don't understand how we can assume that Flock is a trustworthy agent to intermediate between the public and the police. Furthermore, we are currently living at the time that, while AI is an extremely powerful and useful tool, is at its most dangerous. This is the time when this technology is largely untested and misunderstood, when there has not been time to develop the guardrails. Bringing this AI-powered technology into our life, our law enforcement, is running a sick experiment on our communities and on the lives of the people in this city. You were all chosen again to protect, to serve, to uplift this community. And moving forward with this plan of mass surveillance is a slap in each of our faces. We urge you to do the right thing to protect the community from this menace and to uphold the dignity of all the members of our city. Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members. Jorge Rojas, District 1. I come before you because I've been sending emails and no response in regards to incident or actually removal of us from the World Bank Stadium. So I'm a community advocate. I'm just like other community leaders like Jose Guerra, Daniel Lujan, Roberto Reyes, who come before you and speak on behalf of our community. I come represent Monterey County Soccer Club. We're the largest nonprofit organization in Northern California with the membership of over 10,000 members and still growing. So we were told by the World Bank that we are no longer allowed to use it because of incidents in regards to the police. Well, having a big organization, there's going to be incidents, but if you look at the reports, which I looked at, there were no fiscal injuries. There were no arrests. It was just these criminal families or parents over soccer games. So I looked over the lease agreement that the city signed back in... January 12 2010 for a 50-year lease at a base rate of a dollar per year with the road bank And under that lease it's a 60 page there's an oversight committee which I have been pushing we need to create the oversight committee and there's supposed to be three representatives from the city and three Association members by the rodeo and you're supposed to be meeting twice, at least twice a year, and resolve any resolution of facilities-related complaints. This is a facility-related complaint that has not been addressed. I communicated with General Manager Barba, And on the 22nd of June, she sent an email saying, we are no longer going to renew your agreement. And I have talked with the board of directors. I go, well, show me the minutes. Show me the decision. Who decided this? To this day, I have not received any information. And I will simply... That's too short, two minutes. Okay. I guess I'll email you guys. Thank you.

I came here today to say I strongly oppose the measure to introduce flawed cameras to Monterey County. Aside from the fact that I believe it to be a gross waste of resources and a violation of the Fourth Amendment, there is profound evidence to show that these cameras do not work as advertised. For example, in Aurora, Colorado, an ALPR camera mistakenly registered a vehicle as stolen, resulting in Brittany Gillian and her six-year-old daughter being taken from the car at gunpoint. despite the fact that the stolen vehicle was registered in Montana and not Colorado. On a similar note, Demetria Heard, alongside her husband and 13-year-old nephew, were detained in almost identical fashion in Frisco, Texas, all because of a typo in the database. Finally, and most egregiously of all, Isoke Robinson and her two-year-old autistic son were thrown in the back of a police car because their Dodge Challenge was mistaken for one that took part in a drive-by shooting three miles away. And to add insult to injury, every single one of those individuals I mentioned who were incorrectly detained was a person of color. So I want to ask you, do you want to introduce this technology to a county that is 80% Latino? Do you want to introduce this technology that not only does not function correctly, but seems to exist only to compound systemic injustice? If you agree with me, I would strongly urge that you vote against the motion to introduce flock cameras to Monterey County. Thank you.

Hello, it's been a while. Wes Weiss, Salinas-Monterey County Homeless Union Co-President. Hey, election's almost going to happen right now, so we're looking at a brand new council, hopefully. I mean, if you're not saying stop the sweeps, if you're belittling people who live outside, too poor to afford rent, you know, I mean, freedom is only free for as long as you can afford it. And once you can't, you're now part of that red carpet meat grinder. We're supposed to destroy you into the iddiest, bittiest, tiniest bit because... You know, you didn't pay for it, so we're going to make money off you instead. The book of Matthew actually points out, you know, Jesus scolds the Pharisees for tithing for jail and cumin, but neglecting the weightier matters of the law, like justice, righteousness, and mercy. You all claim to be Christians, but I don't see it. When are you actually going to follow Christ? You're not doing it yet. What we need to do is allow people a place to be. Think about Sun Street Park right there. It's got running water and electricity. We've talked about it before, Tony. That can fit people 400 square feet. 400 square feet in a structure, 20 feet by 20 feet. And let them build something, a tiny home, whatever. They need four walls and a door that locks. Without that, there's no security. Without that, you can claim they have mental trauma and issues and, you know, criminal, they're soiled, they're dirty, they're vagrants, but yet you close down the navigation center. You did that. And so did all you all. And so what are we doing here? Well, we're making the problem worse, of course, because desperate people pay more. Let's make more desperate people. The moon gate's got all kinds of structural issues too. That's supposed to be people's way out. We need to stop the sweeps. We need to allow people affordable housing. You think about measure H right now, that's the rent of protections, rent stabilization, tenant protections, anti-harassment, and a rental registry. We need those immediately. And if candidates are not supporting a no on H, or they're not saying stop the sweeps, you cannot be voted in.

Just a brief reminder to the members of the public, we welcome public comments from anyone that's here present. However, as a reminder again for everyone, no political campaigning on any candidates or measures that are within the city of Salinas jurisdiction. Thank you.

Hello.

That includes signage also. So please, if you do have signs for in support or opposition of any candidates or measures, please do not have them visible in the rotunda at all.

Hello, my name is Anthony Madrigal Espinosa, and I'm a resident here in Salinas. I'm pleased willing you to vote no with the flock safety contract for automated license plate readers in our county. This proposed 10-year contract would lock our community into mass surveillance infrastructure with a steep cancellation policy, making it nearly impossible to reverse course if our community changes its mind. Flock safety cameras track the movement of every person who drives past them without a warrant, without community oversight, and without our consent. I don't want to be tracked everywhere I go. I'm just trying to live my daily life and walk wherever. Communities across California are pushing back against this technology. ALPRs create chilling effects on freedom movement and assembly and disproportionately impact immigrant, black and brown communities who are already over-policed. I urge you to reject this contract and invest in public safety solutions that build community trust rather than surveilling it. Please vote no on flat camera safety. There's already an abundance of evidence saying why this is a bad idea. I've heard many cases of cops misusing it. People using it to stalk their ex-girlfriends and whatnot. And like other people have already said, it gets license or cars wrong and can incorrectly accuse people. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello, counsel. Can you hear me? I'm Karen Green Gray. I'm a mom who raised black children. And so over those years, I got the experience of how surveillance and how policing has disproportionately affected them. It breaks my heart. need to encourage the council to not continue with a 10-year contract with Flock. These are treading on our rights to have privacy. And with AI expanding, we don't need more data out there. We need more guardrails. We need more people looking out who we can trust, building those relationships, community policing. That's what we need in our community, not more data that they can use against us. So please, I urge you to not sign that 10-year contract with Flock, please. Thank you.

Hello, Council. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for the decision that you made to protect our communities. My name is Alexis Daniel Munoz and I am an MSW student at CSUMB and I am a part of the Alianza for Opportunity internship program and so one of the things that I would like to address to you today and to the public community is not to explain what ice is to you every single individual in this room knows who ice is every single individual in this room knows what flock is and according to my understanding of the opposing side you're using it to keep the community accountable with AI intelligence so today I'm gonna sit here and keep you all accountable using the same technology and And if the argument is that this technology is incorrect or unjust, I ask you to look at the reflection of the same when it comes to assessing our community members and putting them in ice encampments using flock cameras. So, I'm gonna go down the list here. ICE detention custody deaths, at least 57. Fatal shootings by immigration ICE agents, at least nine. During fleeing immigration enforcement operations, at least four additional documented cases. Deaths alleged to involve inadequate neglected medical care. They can't even count the number. Thank you, AI. Minimum documented deaths associated with the enforcement system, 70. Now let's list the individuals who have been killed by ICE. And yes, I am using AI technology, so if you want to correct me, please do so. That is why I'm here. I'm here to correct the use of artificial intelligence for flock cameras, because in my opinion and the community's opinion, it is a misjudgment of the individuals who pick your lettuce, who build your homes, and who watch your children and take care of your elders. So here are the names of those individuals who stood on behalf of the community who lost their lives. Miss Renee Good, Alex Preti, Severo Villegas Gonzalez. You all know the rest, thank you.

Good evening. Um, council members, Dennis Donahue, Renee Mendez. I am here against flock cameras against pesticides that are being used in our community. Um, where China and India have banned them and 27 other United Kingdom countries have banned them and we're not treating our homeless. Well, we have many issues. Another issue I have is I'm still taking issue with our trees. We need our canopy. We need more trees planted. And unfortunately, I'm here because our trees were trimmed a couple of months ago on my court. They were trimmed improperly, and now my magnolia has aphids. Then they went to pave the trees. And the first thing that they did was a city crew was sent out with chainsaws and ruined more of the canopy. They took branches because the equipment that were brought in was highway and thoroughfare equipment that needed like 20 feet up in the air to get to the edge of the sidewalks. And that is inappropriate. well it it's it's ruining I want to ask you each do you guys know what a tree canopy actually is I'd like I'd like the city to send their people up to Brentwood and do a show-and-tell up there they have great canopies up in the city of Brentwood it shouldn't be that difficult and that would help with everything aesthetics mental health stormwater drainage, you name it, having a great canopy will help our microclimates in Salinas as well. And I'd like to end on perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.

Okay, thank you. And I want that. Okay, thank you.

Hi. Thank you. My name's Colleen Ingram. I'm a member of Roots of Resistance, the People's School, and I'm also here on behalf of Get the Flock Out Monterey County. We just started, and I believe we've all heard a lot of concern about the 10-year flock contract for the county. Now, we know that that's the county contract and that you have your own separate contract that's probably on auto renewal and probably also has in it a clause that allows flock employees to look at our data and also share it with any federal agencies that they see fit. And that is against our constitutional rights. So I just want to let you know that we started with Sheriff Nieto's 10 year contract, but we're going to go to every city in Monterey County and we're going to talk to each council about their contract and that we do not want to be surveilled. We want these contracts taken out. It's the same thing with ICE. You can't reform a corrupt system, abolish flock. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Karina McKinley. I am a Salinas resident lifelong. And so there's a couple of things I want to talk about. Flock cameras. Like my colleague Colleen said, we are aware that it's the county's decision coming up. We're also aware that the city of Salinas has a contract. And so we will be asking for you all to cancel that contract very soon. WITH THE COUNTY, THEY'RE GOING TO BE DROPPING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON CAMERAS TO CONTINUE SURVEILLING US, WHICH LETS FEDERAL AGENCIES BASICALLY IN THE SIDE DOOR THAT PRETTY MUCH LITERALLY SAYS ICE ON THAT DOOR. SO WE DON'T WANT YOU ALL TO CONTINUE TO UTILIZE ANYTHING THAT TURNS OUR STREETS INTO A PIPELINE FOR FEDERAL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT. SO WE NEED TO GET RID OF THE CITY'S CONTRACT. Homelessness, while the rest of Monterey County saw homelessness drop 15%, Salinas went up 3%. We are now 60% of the county's entire homeless population. And we did that while the Chinatown Navigation Center closed and took 40 shelter beds with it. You can't cut shelter capacity and then act surprised when the numbers go up in the wrong direction, right? So I wanna know what the council is doing to replace those beds and not next year, but right now. Me and my fellow activists go out and we pass out food and basic necessities to the unhoused population. We go to the encampments. And so this should be the city helping these folks because they are human beings. So I urge you to go have a conversation with them. Measure H, we're going to call it what it is because it's confusing and it kills the rent stabilization and it kills just cause eviction protections and anti-harassment ordinances. For over 30,000 renter families in this city, unacceptable. That's all I have to say about that. So between surveillance, homelessness, housing, there's plenty other things, but these are not separate issues.

They're intersectional. Thank you.

I could actually say that would be a community. First of all, I think every that spoke up here. God bless everybody because you know what we have a lot of issues in the city in. I don't know if you guys care about that you should mean some you're looking down something looking looking away. Respect your public first of all. I'm going to go right into their I'm going to I couldn't even grade you the other day when we had a little forum. There was no letter for you. Mr. Mendez, I gave you an F. I had to. We need more production. And Mr. Callahan, I gave you a D because you actually do get a hold of people. You do. I appreciate it when it benefits the city, but not when it benefits a regular person like me. But at least I rated you guys. I'm going to let you guys know so you don't find in the newspaper and someone tells you a rumor here and there. By the way, I'm not going to say what your candidates rated you at, They did pretty good, a lot better than me. But nothing personal, guys. We need to fix the city. Mr. Mendez, you got to step it up. I appreciate you. I really like you. I do. Mr. Donahue, I like you, too. You need to step it up, too. Mr. Callahan, you got to represent just the city, the people, too, because we're part of the city, too. I know that you're the lawyer and you do your own thing, but remember, you have a job because of us. We pay for your services. Yeah, you can look away and sigh. What do you want to do, sir? It's OK. Tony, heard you're in the area today. It's pretty good. Good job. Good job. Mr. Arrigo, I see you coming out a lot more like that. I like that about you. Jose La Rosa, you too, came out. I really haven't seen you, man. People are looking for you. district, your district's looking for you. Mr. Barajas, good to see you every day. It's pretty good. You're coming out. Sound of all, always doing a good job. Keep it up. But guys, step it up, please. Man, do your job. We need change in the city. We need you guys to help us. Please. God bless you guys. Have a good evening. We'll see you later.

Hi. Peter Salai. I want Maya Cinemas to succeed. Its closing would cost jobs, hurt downtown businesses, and leave another large building vulnerable to blight. But Maya reportedly closed because of financial pressure and declining attendance. Those conditions did not disappear four days later. We are now hearing vague suggestions about using the theater for meetings and other activities. That might be worth exploring, but it is not a business plan. and no major change in operations could have been developed in four days. So what caused Maya's owners to reverse their decision? Salinas has a council manager government. The mayor can bring people together and advocate for solutions, but he cannot unilaterally commit city money or bind Salinas to an open-ended private business subsidy. What did Mayor Donahue promise? City funding, staff support, rent or parking concessions, assistance with improvements? For how much and for how long? Were the city manager and council involved? Is anything in writing? Why was this business selected for extraordinary intervention when other Salinas businesses have been allowed to close without similar assistance? The city already spends substantial public money supporting downtown parking before creating another potentially open-ended obligation Residents deserve to know whether the underlying business can become sustainable or whether taxpayers will be asked to support it indefinitely. Coming immediately before an election, this announcement requires more transparency, not less. The mayor needs to immediately disclose every commitment he's made and bring any proposed city support before the full council. Thank you.

OK, thank you. All right, anyone on Zoom? OK. All right. OK, is it? I can't quite see. Sophia.

Good evening. So I just wanted to share something because in going over the agenda today, I would like to know why you all are having a cold session on the performance of our city manager when nobody is doing a performance evaluation on our mayor and de la Rosa. I HAVE COME TO FIND THAT IN THE MIDST OF ME GATHERING INFORMATION FOR MY DISCOVERY AND MY REPORT THAT I'M GOING TO BE SHARING, THAT THERE HAS NEVER BEEN AN OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE SINCE DELA ROSA, GUNTER, AND DONAHUE WERE ON IN 2010. SINCE 2024 WHEN ANDREW WAS THERE. Nobody has been sitting on that oversight committee. So for 14 years, this city has let that Rodeo Association run amok and do what they want unaccounted for until Andrew came in and started rattling the cages. And then all of a sudden, here comes election and out of the grave comes Donahue and De La Rosa once again. And here we are again with the same problem. and accountability needs to take place. So I'm asking the attorney and the city manager to hold them accountable for their fiduciary duties that they have failed repeatedly. The only thing De La Rosa did when there was a panel there from the Rodeo was congratulate them on a great event that happened. We can't even throw this on Tony, being that he's inherited anything. Barajas is, I don't even want to comment on that. The fact of the matter is you came in and you took Andrew off, put yourself there, put Barajas there and De La Rosa. Then days later, days later, there was another switch off. You went off. You are not a good mayor. And in my opinion, the city of Salinas needs to clean house and the whole council needs to clean house.

Okay, Christian.

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes.

Oh, yes. Hi, my name is Matthew King, and I represent the Christian Animal Rights Association. And after the horrific cruelty that we all saw done to that bull a few weeks ago, I asked that the city of Salinas please consider a measure to ban the most overt forms of cruelty at rodeos, like flank straps, electric prods, and calf roping. The veterinary coalition known as Sentient states, we strongly advocate that rodeos be banned outright under all animal welfare legislation. However, in the meantime, we submit that flank straps, one of the most overt forms of cruelty, along with electric prods, be prohibited by the rodeo industry's regulations as well as through legislation. And so a reasonable compromise can be made where these events continue without the most obvious forms of cruelty. Again, I ask that the Salinas City Council please consider banning flank straps, electric prods and calf roping within rodeo events in order to prevent a tragedy like what was done to that bull from ever happening again. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Heather, you.

Yes, I'm sorry. I was trying to get my video to work. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I'm calling so that I can speak up for a bull named Maximo. who suffered horrifically at the Salinas Sports Complex on August 1st, 2026, during a rodeo event. The man was bucked off. It appears that he suffered maybe a catastrophic injury. He landed on his head, not looking good. And then the crowd retaliated on this poor animal. Yet this bull was doing exactly what was expected of him. He was bucking, spinning, jumping because he was being tormented with flank straps, spurs, and electric prods. This poor animal was corralled, he was knocked to the ground, he was stomped on, he was kicked, he was drugged by his tail, and he had his ear sliced with a pocket knife. It is against California Penal Code 597 to mutilate and torture and harm and maim or kill an animal intentionally. It is also a violation of California Penal Code 596.7 to not report injuries and fatalities to the California State Veterinary Medical Board with the Department of Consumer Affairs. I filed a Public Records Act request. There is no record of this poor animal, Maximo. So I would like to know what is being done with this investigation and what is being done so that this does not happen again. By prohibiting these cruel tools of torture, you can prevent another tragedy from happening. This animal suffered unspeakably, and this is shameful that Salinas allows animal torture to be considered entertainment and doesn't do anything about it. So please give this animal some justice. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. All right, Eric? Eric, you're up.

Hello, can you hear me?

We can.

OK, hi. So I'm speaking out in regards of the bull riding event last month. I want to urge and demand justice for the bull who was abused at the Salinas Sport Complex on August 1st. This bull was beaten, stomped on, mutilated after getting a bull rider off of his back. I want to remind you that these animals are forced to endure this. They don't want people on their backs. So that by itself is inherently cruel and abusive and exploitative. So I wanted to urge you to please stop allowing these abusive events. They put animals at risk and like I previously mentioned, they're inherently cruel and abusive. Culture tradition is not an excuse for any of this type of behavior towards animals. It's absolutely unacceptable. And I just wanted to remind you that animals are not objects and they deserve moral consideration. Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right. Ozzy.

Hello?

Yes, we can hear you. Hello?

We can hear you. We can hear you. Okay. Hello, so I do want to address the dysfunction happening at Salinas City Council. I do want to address the dysfunction happening at Salinas City Council. The dysfunction coming from the city council is pretty terrible, especially from the council members. I'm Mayor Donahue. I do want to show my disappointment. Every time I come to this meeting this last year, I've been censored a lot by you. I need to have a city clerk meet me and I need to stop it. I have a right to use swear words that I mean if I want to. Swear words are protected. Also, years of the quorum are very outdated, and they are a violation of our freedom of speech. So please no more of the quorum. And I just want to comment about the correction having the city council. I'm council member La Rosa, and you were recently called out because you didn't show up to community meetings, so shame on council member La Rosa because she's a piruja who doesn't even care about her people. Council member Baraja needs to go for sure. Mr. Baraja, which is the better, but... Mr. Barrera, I wish you the better, but I'll be supporting Mr. Guerra for city council. Mr. Barrera, I have your complete embarrassment in his grace. Please resign ASAP. Mr. Salazar, you're an embarrassment to Mr. Salazar. Mr. Salazar, you're an embarrassment as well. And you, Mr. Mayor, you're a scumbag and you should resign and go to prison. You're a scumbag, Mr. All right, Jody.

Jody, you're up.

Good evening, Salinas officials. Can you hear me?

We can.

My name is Jody Whitaker, and along with so many, I was horrified when I saw the footage of the bull who was tortured on August 1st of this year at the Salinas Sports Complex. Supposedly, the Monterey SPCA has taken over this investigation from the Salinas Police Department. For more than a month, I have asked if charges have been sent to the Monterey County District Attorney's Office, but more than a month and a half later, no charges have been filed, It's not surprising, but it is incredibly frustrating. Has anyone involved in this investigation put pressure on the event promoter, whom I've been told is Juan de Impresas and Fuego? In addition, the Bulls owner is responsible for this abuse. If the owner and event promoter refuse to cooperate with investigators and provide the abusers names and contact information, They should be also charged with crimes. California law makes it illegal to maliciously and intentionally maim, mutilate, torture, wound, or kill a living animal. Yet this defenseless animal was cut with a knife, jumped and stomped on, kicked and dragged by a mob of men, and it was illegal. Everyone in Salinas should be angry about this incident, which is definitely not uncommon at unsanctioned, unregulated, and unmonitored rodeo events. This one just happened to be caught on video. Animal cruelty is directly linked to violence against other humans, so nobody should want this suffering in your community. Even the FBI has published studies on this correlation. On behalf of millions who are as upset as I, I'm urging every Salinas official to do everything they can to ensure that those who tortured this bull are charged with crimes as soon as possible. Lastly, if we want these horror stories to end, We must ban the tools of torment that are inherent in rodeos to make domesticated animals appear wild, vicious, and dangerous. Please prohibit the shocking of animals with electricity and flank straps and only allow animals to be used once. That would help. Thank you for your time and consideration. Okay, thank you.

All right, we're going to go ahead and close public comment. And we will then proceed to have a presentation from the Youth Council. Are they there? There they are.

Hello, my name is Ximena, community outreach assistant with the city's communications team. The youth council representative for today had a last-minute scheduling conflict and sends his apologies, but I will be providing an update on their behalf.

Okay.

The youth council fully supports the Ensign Park restoration project. They view this initiative as a fantastic opportunity for the community to gain an outlet for exercise and attract more visitors to Salinas. They believe spaces like these greatly benefit people's mental health and it's an excellent use of the land, particularly since prioritizing our ecosystems is crucial. The Youth Council feels this project offers a beneficial year-round purpose for the area since it is largely unused during the rainy season and hopes everyone will join the grand opening celebration this Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be bird watching, community booths, guided bike rides, raffles, family-friendly activities, and a free espresso bar. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Very good. All right. With that, we are going to proceed to public hearing items. And we're looking for Courtney Grossman, who I think you might win the longest title for something for the year. But it starts planned unit development dot, dot, dot, commercial retail zoning district. I'll let you fill in the blanks. Hi, Lisa.

Are we hearing this? Perfect. Next slide, please. Okay. This is a request coming from Monterey Signs representing the property owner, Ethan Conrad Properties. This applies to the Northridge Mall. The building in front of you on the screen is the former Sears store.

Hang on for a second, Courtney.

We can't quite hear you. I think the wire is caught and that may be causing the problem. I got a green light at least.

That was better, yeah.

How about now? Yeah, even better. Check, check. Okay, great. The store or the visual in front of us is representing the former Sears store at Northridge Mall. This is located at the southerly portion of Northridge Mall, Madrid Street, North Main or to the bottom and to the right of the screen. This store went vacant about six years ago. This is a plan unit development amendment request. It represents the fifth amendment to the current PUD that regulates development at the mall. All the development at the mall is subject to plan unit development permit, including the signs. This existing building went through a number of land use entitlements and building permits over the years, which have cut up the building or bifurcated it into approximately six different tenants. Burlington O'Reilly's Dave and Buster's Gohan buffet smash an axe and Gold's gym this Pewdie amendment request specifically applies to the Burlington space. In this case, the current sign area authorized by the PUD is 131 square feet. This request would move that number up to 287. In support of the request, a hardship study was submitted by the applicant. The hardship study indicates that there is a proportionate to area issue. meaning that the frontage of the building in relation to the size of the sign are out of proportion, and we'll show that in the next slide. Also, the study indicates that there's a lack of visibility. This particular part of the building is 500 feet away from North Main Street. 90% of the letters in the sign are small case letters, which result in a another disproportionate issue in terms of the square footage of the sign not being immediately realized with the area proposed. Also, there is a note that other mall signs exceed sign area. The council may remember we've been to the council in the past increasing sign area for a number of tenants in the past. This is the elevation drawing I was just referring to. The one on the left is the 131 square feet. The one on the right represents the larger one. I think it's the 287, if I'm not mistaken. The Planning Commission recommended approval back in August, August 19th. Staff recommends that the council find the project categorically exempt from CEQA per Section 153, 11a, Accessory Structures, and approve the PUD. This concludes staff's presentation. Staff's available for questions.

OK. Thank you. All right. I'll start to my right. Andrew, I'll start with you. Any questions?

My only question is, you know, I know that there's been businesses over the last couple of years that have said the city of Salinas sign ordinances are more restrictive than other cities. What is our plan to address? I mean, right now we have this before us, but what's our plan to address future businesses and signing requirements?

Yes, so we have the opportunity through our comprehensive zoning code update to revisit the signed ordinance. And it is anticipated that that will come either in phase two or phase three of the zoning code update. Given the current slight delay with the release of the general plan, we are evaluating other aspects of the zoning code update that we could move forward at this time.

What kind of timeframe are we looking at?

So at this point, we are soliciting a scope of work. So right now, phase two would not be scheduled to start until after the general plan is adopted, which is spring, summer of 2027. So we are looking at what we could take on in this interim period, starting before the end of the year and then moving through its engagement evaluation recommendation phase. So we are working with our consultant place work to come up with a proposal as to what we could take on at this time.

Thank you. Tony? No questions, but I do have similar issues. I know this is about one specific business, but I think we have to be more business friendly. There's been businesses that have been held for months because of these signages, and we've got to do better. Thank you.

All right, thank you. How long did it take the applicant to get through this process to get to today?

While Mr. Grossman is looking up that information, I do want to clarify that in this instance, the planned unit development allowed the original signage to deviate from the zoning code requirements. That's the purpose of having a planned unit development. It allows more flexibility with design and development standards, and so that was the original intent. However, that then creates a situation if there is further deviation or need to amend, you do have to come back through this process. So it's not, they were already given, not an exception, but a deviation from the zoning code through the PUD. Okay.

Looking at the record, it looks like it's a 2026 permit, the first one, so I'm guessing it was sometime but I don't have that information in front of me. The logging and the submittal of the application is not available right now. But it did go to Planning Commission just in August of 2016.

And is that kind of like the final step that's keeping the applicant from opening up or moving forward with development or construction on the site?

No, they still have a building permit for the tenant improvements and they have not completed those improvements at this time.

And it's very clear to me, based on the responses to my colleagues' questions as to what the next phases are, and that's working through the zoning code update to kind of implement some of the changes. However, we're still one to two years out And as the gentleman mentioned, the applicant applied early on this year. We're in mid to late September now. Not every business has that same financial wherewithal to kind of hold off and put off these types of improvements. So what can we do in the interim, in the short term to kind of help address some of these issues that businesses are dealing with?

So one thing we can do is look at advancing a review of the sign ordinance earlier than a phase two or phase three. So we would be starting that this looking at initiating a scope of work that would look potentially at objective design standards for residential development as well as then adding on a revisiting of our sign ordinance.

As it relates to the zoning code update itself, and I may or may not be deviating from the actual content here at hand, would it be best if the council wanted to create a priority list of advancing the sign ordinance If we wanted to create that out of that into phase two, could staff provide perhaps an update at a future date in the next 60 to 90 days on, hey, this is what we had planned initially for phase two and phase three. What does the council want to be advanced or prioritized based on our priorities?

Yes, we could have that conversation.

Yes, I'd definitely be inclined to see that happen. Thank you. All right.

Yes, I had an opportunity to take a look at staff's report. No questions, just comments. After looking at the renditions and the argument regarding making it proportional makes sense because it did look quite small. I think residents might question because it is a fairly large building. I recall when it was Sears and it felt like that. uh that those letters that were used at that time also felt that they were proportional to the size of the building i do concur with my other council members that would like to see a future presentation on signs you know signs are also evolving i know that i've seen some signs that are LED-powered multi-lights and other signage that, you know, they're just very large screens. And so as technology continues to advance, we also need to keep up with the times in terms of signage and our signage policy. But thank you for your presentation.

Thanks, Arielle. Gloria?

I have no questions. I'm glad that we've been working with them. And I saw that the Planning Commission It was unanimously decided by all of them to approve, right?

Okay, thank you. Just a couple comments. I agree. I think the Planning Commission does a really good job of asking the right questions on these type of projects, well, on all projects. So I really rely on them to make recommendations to us because they know the real details. I think when businesses come and invest in Salinas, we should give them every opportunity to be successful. Signage is the least we can do is make sure that people can find what they're looking for. And I don't believe Burlington is a brand that's common in this area. I've only seen it in bigger cities, so I'm happy they're coming here, but we've got to give them the best chance of success by making sure people can find them and go through those doors and buy things. So thank you for, I hope the council will support this.

Thank you, Margaret. All right, anyone from the public?

Good afternoon. This is kind of, I don't understand how we cannot Have somebody get the proper size of the sign. I mean, how many people are in this department that can take care of this? I'm going to tell you, because when I did my signs, it's not that hard. The computer does everything for you if you know what you're doing. I don't see how we have all these talented people in the city, and we can't get the sign the right size. Now we've got to go back and waste more time. Now we're going to waste about an hour on here. TO TRY TO FIX A SIGN THING THAT COULD HAVE BEEN FIXED BY SOMEBODY GOING DOWN THERE AND SHOWING THEM A COMPUTER GENERATED PICTURE OF HOW A SIGN SHOULD LOOK. IT'S COMMON SENSE, GUYS. NOBODY ASKS THAT QUESTION. DON'T GLORIFY PEOPLE WHEN THEY DON'T DO THINGS RIGHT. IT DOESN'T MAKE THEM BETTER PEOPLE. IT DOESN'T MAKE THEM BETTER EMPLOYEES. WE NEED TO HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE. COME ON, GUYS. WE HAVE TO DO THE RIGHT THING. EVERYBODY IS LOOKING DOWN. You guys are the leaders of the city. You guys need to lead us in the right direction. And the permit center is a joke. I'm sorry. I've been down there. We need to fix that. We have people there that are not qualified to work there. You need to get people that are qualified. I don't know if because you don't pay them or you just don't train them right, but you need to do that first. People don't want to come here because it's a headache to try to build anything here. It just takes too much time to do anything in Salinas. Guys, make it friendly. Work together. Let's do this. You don't agree? Yeah, you're right. I'm not a businessman, but I got common sense. Know how to use a computer. Know how to talk to people. I know how to go down to a building and say, hey, that's not going to work. Think of this. Think of this thing. It's not rocket science, guys. Well, God bless you guys. Good luck. Hope you guys get it done right. Stop wasting time.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Eric Peterson and I live a very short distance from Northridge Mall. I would urge you to reject this and any other proposals from Northridge Mall until they make the place pedestrian friendly. It is not. As I say, I live a very short distance. First I quit walking the best by taking my business elsewhere. Now I don't go there at all because the only way to get there on sidewalks is a very roundabout route and I'm not going to go there. The other alternative is to bash elbows with cars and I'm not that good anymore. I brought this up some years back when I was the first time I was on traffic and transportation commission. We had a meeting and there was a representative of Northridge Mall and I pointed this out. So that was when Steve McShane was still on council. It's been years. So it would be nice if the management of Northridge Mall decided to take pedestrian safety into consideration before something happens. Because it's not going to happen to me. I just don't go there anymore. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, anyone on Zoom? All right, we will come back. I'll look for a motion. Motion to approve. Is there a second?

I'll second.

I'll second.

All right, Patty, I'd like for any final comments.

Yeah, I think this is an excellent opportunity. We heard from our economic development director that there's going to be an opportunity to revisit the signage ordinance in a future update. So my ask for the staff is to reach out to the sign companies so we can start soliciting their feedback. And now reflecting back, I've actually encountered quite a few who have raised concerns and just shared that it affects not only small businesses, but obviously their businesses as well to be able to navigate through that process. And to Eric, I will reach out to Northridge Mall Management. I know that Ethan Conrad owns one portion of Northridge Mall and the other side is owned by MRSHOP now, so I will reach out to them. And we do definitely need to address pedestrian safety because now, I mean, I don't walk there a whole lot, but now reflecting back, I can see where there is no pedestrian pathway. So I will help facilitate that meeting. Thank you.

OK, thank you. Anyone else? All right, let's go ahead and call for the question.

Council Member Barajas? Yes. Council Member Barrera? Yes. Council Member DeRigo? Yes. Council Member De La Rosa? Yes. Council Member Salazar? Yes. Council Member Sandoval?

Yes.

Mayor Donahue? Yes. Motion passes. Okay, thank you.

All right, and now we're going to hear an annual HUD consolidated performance and evaluation report. And we're looking for Orlando, and he is here. So you have the stage.

Good evening. My name is Orlando. I'm the Assistant Director for the Community Development Department. Tonight I'll be providing a report on the HUD Consolidated Annual Performance Report. This report provides a comprehensive summary of the expenditures and activities and accomplishments for the city's past fiscal year. Please note, this report is a snapshot in time. What that means is expenditures can change as activities and the projects described in the report move at different paces and phases of their completion. The city is an entitlement jurisdiction, and as defined by HUD, this means we received an annual allocation of funding. Each funding source described in the report has specific guidelines and eligible uses. For reference, the city receives approximately 2 million in CDBG funds, approximately between 500 to 800 in home funds, and about 170,000 in ESG funds. The fluctuation depends on the administration and the funds received. Next slide, please. Thank you. As a reminder, on June 17, 2025, City Council approved the fiscal year 25 to 2029 consolidated plan. The consolidated plan was informed by the community and helped us identify the priorities for the city. Included on June 17, 2025, the fiscal year 2025-2026 annual action plan was also approved. Today's report is a summary of those expenditures and accomplishments for 25 through 2026. This report will need to be submitted to HUD by September 28, 2026. Per HUD, the approved citizen participation plan, this process requires a minimum of 15-day public comment period and a minimum of one public hearing. The public comment period started August 26 and will end with the public hearing today. Notices informing the public of the availability of this draft CAPER document and comment period were published on the Monterey Herald city's website, city hall, CDD offices, libraries, gov delivery, through the housing distribution list, and as requested via email. It was also provided in multiple languages, Spanish and English. On the screen, what we see is a general overview of all the programs for fiscal year 25 through 26. Following this slide, we'll go individually into each of the different programs and their funding. What you see above is for CDBG, $7 million was allocated, about $7.7 in CDBG, and expenditures are about $3.7 For HOME, 4.6 was available. In funding, 176 was expended. Again, I'll reemphasize the timings of the projects for each of these categories, each project that was funded by CDBG, HOME, ESG, are at different stages. Thus, some of the expenditures will be higher than others as they move down through the development cycle. This year, unlike previous years, we also received a little over $1 million in program income from the sale of 342 Front Street. This sale was to the Monterey County Office of Education, which was leasing the property and purchased the property. Those funds, a million dollars, are found within the CDBG and home allocations above. This is an unusual amount. It's atypical to receive these funds, but they are reprogrammed as part of the CDBG and home categories. The next slides will describe the categories for each in more detail. Oh, and the image that you see on the screen, that's an image of one of the projects, the Sherwood Recreation Center and Natividad Creek Park Restroom Rehab. So beginning with CDBG program, as you can see on the screen, it's noted into four categories. We have program administration, public facility, housing, and public services. All different funding grants allow an allocation for the program administration piece. That means the oversight of the program by staff. And then the other categories, again, tying back to the consolidated plan, which was approved with city council's approval and the community's feedback, was for public facility housing and public services. For public facilities, 6.6 was available, 3.3 has been expended. What this means is that of the six public facility projects, Two have been completed, those being the Hebron Family Center and the rehab of the Natividad Creek Public Restroom. The third project is at the cusp of almost finishing by end of November this year. That would be the Sherwood Recreation Center. That image was shown earlier. The remaining three projects include the Chinatown neighborhood improvements and the Alisal neighborhood. And the last is the acquisition of victory missions parcel. The status of the Chinatown neighborhood improvements and Alisal neighborhood are that they are moving closer to deployment and construction. The process there has been, because these are federal dollars, they all have to go through the environmental process. That environmental process can be lengthy. Through staff's help, we've accelerated and compressed that schedule as much as possible, resulting in the Chinatown neighborhood revitalization improvements getting clearance as of this week. With the ANZRA, we are scheduling and targeting about three to four weeks out, we should have clearance for the environmental to proceed with the process of procurement for the installation of the lights in ANZRA. What you can also see on the screen above is that public services was a component that was funded supporting SORT and ECHO and the public services of outreach. 509 assisted individuals were assisted. For housing, it says up to 40 units. We'll describe that a little more in the following slides, but again, that is part of the funding that was allocated to the development of housing, and those developers are still working through their development phase, and in this case, their capital stack phase of collecting all the necessary funding to develop the projects. So you'll see that zero under expenditures for Chispa change as it moves and progresses through that development process. In this case, securing the additional funding to develop the site. Next slide is CDBG-CV program. Again, this is community development block grant funds like the earlier one, the previous slide, although this one specifies CV. CV stands for the CARES Act under the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act. Of that, it was received in 2021 for about approximately $2.4 million. What we see on the screen today is the final stage of those dollars being spent. The two categories being public service for economic development and technical assistance. And the other portion was for program administration as shown above. This would have been reflected in an earlier consolidated plan as part of the CARES Act deployment. That was under the 2021-2025 con plan or so. So it was prior to this current con plan. Next, we'll go into the home program. So what you'll see on the screen above is three projects and program administration. This is again reflecting that both CDBG and home dollars were allocated for the development of housing. Those were issued and released through a NOFA or a notice of funding on June 24, 2025, where the city announced the availability of approximately 8 million. of those 8 million 4.4 was from home dollars to be used as gap financing for the affordable housing projects gap finding gap financing simply means this it's the city is one of many sources of which the developer developer needs to secure to develop these expensive development sites On November 18, 2025, after the application review, City Council approved the preliminary award for these various proposed affordable multifamily projects. That includes the rehab of Vista de la Terraza by Chispa, the construction of new senior housing development for St. George Apartments, again, the developer Chispa, and a new housing development at 200 Casentini in collaboration with Milestone Housing and the Housing Authority of County Monterey. The awards, again, are preliminary based on the condition that they secure the added funding, additional funding to complete the proposed development projects. In terms of timing, Vista de la Terraza is targeting to be done by March 2027, assuming a start date out of November. St. George is progressing to apply for the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, or SIDLAC, by March 2027. Should they be awarded, that'll proceed that project forward into construction into the tail end of December 2027. And with Milestone, they're applying to SIDLAC in September, September the 8th. Should they be awarded, that can advance the project further forward. Home ARP program is the next project, sorry, the next grant. This was a one-time allocation similar to the COVID or CDBG-CV, but this one allocation was part of the American Rescue Plan Act. originally 2.4 of these uh 2.4 million of these home funds was to be used for the operations to support the operations of the two homekeep properties one at 10 30 fairview and the other at 180 south sanborn the 10 30 fairview project has been completed and funding which was originally intended to support the rental assistance for fairview After funding was originally supposed to support the rental assistance at Fairview. However, HACM identified, sorry, the Housing Authority for County of Monterey identified the availability of project-based vouchers. After consultation with the HUD representative, HUD confirmed that both home ARP funds and project-based vouchers could not be layered on top of one another. As such, we pivoted after reviewing carefully by identifying an alternate source that could support the Fairview operations. That was the National Opioid Settlement Funds. And in turn, the Home ARP funds were reallocated per City Council's approval on May 12, 2026 to the SORT, Salinas Outreach Response Team, to support the supportive services. UNDER EXPENDITURES, YOU'LL SEE THAT SORT SHOWS ZERO. SORT WILL BEGIN TO DRAW DOWN ON THESE HOME ARP FUNDS IN THE THIRD QUARTER OF FISCAL YEAR 26 TO 27. SO YOU'LL SEE THOSE NUMBERS CHANGE. THE 1.2 MILLION UNDER TBD SUPPORTIVE SERVICES, THE CITY IS ACTIVELY COMMUNICATING WITH ITS PARTNERS TO EVALUATE POTENTIAL USES OF THOSE 1.2 UNDER THE ELIGIBLE USES OF HOME ARP And finally, under the column called Outcomes, you'll see currently just as persons under sort, that number, that outcome will change once those expenditures start being drawn on. And it will reflect the outcome. The next program is called the Emergency Solutions Grant, or ESG. A total of 216,000 was allocated to two programs. One was street outreach and rapid rehousing, and the other was the Community Homeless Solutions, CHS, rapid rehousing. The result or outcome of those is 49 individuals were helped through the street outreach and rapid rehousing through SORT. and through the community homeless solutions, 177 persons were assisted. That translated collectively to 31 persons permanently housed that previously were unhoused. Under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, the proposed action is not a project as defined by CEQA. the hud funded activities are supportive of the 2025-2028 city of salinas strategic plans goals and strategies as identified under those five bullet points and then there is no impact to the general funds under fiscal and sustainability impacts Staff's recommendation is to approve a resolution approving the fiscal year 2526 consolidated plan and to authorize submittal to HUD, or the United States Department of Urban Development. That concludes this presentation. I'm open for any questions.

OK. Thank you, Orlando. Margaret, we'll start with you.

Thank you for the report. It's a lot of information. A lot of good news coming in terms of housing. So I like seeing those numbers. And it looks like some of them, I noticed you had a disclaimer about the numbers are changing all the time. And they've changed since this report was handed to us. So that's good. They're going in the right direction. Let's put it that way. So I'm happy to see that. So you said the city is one of the partner funders. And then I'm assuming developers have to come in with money as well as I guess I'm kind of curious, like what part, like for the Chinatown project, what's the total cost? What percentage is the city picking up in terms of their costs? And then what's left on the table for funding to come through to make that actually happen? I don't know if you have that number. I mean, just even broad, I've been kind of trying to find those numbers somewhere. That's a big project.

Good question. In terms of the projects identified here, the only one that's in Chinatown is the Victory Mission Acquisition. The other projects that were funded both through HOME and CDBG, like Vista de la Terraza, St. George, and Milestone, those projects, the developer will seek additional funding through Bonds California Development. They also do tax credits. Those are the major sources of funds. They will also leverage conventional financing, depending on what income those projects produce. And collectively, the developer may also contribute its own cash to the projects. That begins to create the layer of financing necessary to move those projects forward. The city's assistance is crucial and has been crucial. It allows them to be competitive for those applications, which are competitive applications for tax credits and such. And that helps move those projects forward.

Thank you. That's really helpful. I can see where the city has to put our best foot forward in the beginning, make sure that we're investing in the project as well as others. So that makes total sense. And then when do you expect us to get an update on some of these projects? Can we get a semiannual update just to kind of see how we're tracking over the next year? Because a lot of things are happening in March of 2027. It'd be nice to get an update. see kind of where we are.

Yes, we can provide updates. I think I heard, oh, through the dashboard, yes. Oh, perfect. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Gloria?

I had a question, and I should have probably asked during our briefing. Where is El Rey Motel in this? Because we're being told constantly about the homelessness. Could you tell us?

So thank you for your question. You may recall that the city council approved entering into a memorandum of understanding with the county of Monterey to submit an application to operate a low barrier navigation center at that site. And that would include the grant application, ASK includes the funds to not only just do the street outreach, but to also repair and prepare the site for occupation as well as its operation. And so we have submitted that application and so it's in the review period. So El Rey is not being funded through these federal funding sources.

Right, not through the feds. Okay, so that's good to hear. And mine is not so much questions, I'll go back for comments, because I have a lot of comments, a lot of good things, so.

Aurelio? No comments, no questions at this time, thank you.

Okay, Tony? Thank you. Mr. Reyes, I'm going to ask you some questions that make it as layman as you can. Because I'll be honest with you, I read this report and I read it and there are a lot of numbers. My concern is how do we keep track? There's a lot of stuff here, but you just put 40 units, 36 units, 88 units. How do we keep track of, for example, go to Vista de la Terraza. Your report says housing $610,000 up to 40 units ongoing. And remember, I read this, but just tell me so the public can understand. Okay, so we're putting $610,000 and it says 40 units ongoing. What exactly does that mean?

specifically for the 610 for Vista La Terraza. It's funding to support Chiefs by the developer to rehab an existing property that had deferred maintenance to make it livable for the community. It's affordable housing.

See, that part I understand. How do we keep track of the work? Did it get done? We spend this money. And you know what, and I'm going to ask with a lot of respect, because I know your department is very tedious in making sure every, like they say, all the T's are crossed and all the dots are dotted. But my God, it takes a long time. When you're dealing within your own government, sometimes why do we take so long for some of these things to, I know you mentioned developers, but why does it take so long? I'm sure there's a good answer there, but I don't understand it.

Great question. There's a lot of factors. I mean, there's no one answer. Each developer has its own challenges, whether it be financing, whether it be procuring their contractor, whether it be having the necessary staff to work through their pipeline of projects. The city's to answer your question. How do we track all this? We have an amazing staff a very diligent committed staff We have excellent tools to track this we use third-party tools also through Itis and CDS and other tools and diligent staff that really not only monitors and Documents with the help also document through the legal aspect. Thanks to our attorney also We have legal documents, we have spreadsheets, we have follow-through and frequent connections with the developers to ensure where are they in the process, that we continue to retain a pulse as they move through the process and to ensure that we're available to help them.

Yeah, yeah. And that's understandable. Mr. Mendez, to Ms. Councilmember DeRigo's question, and I think there's great work here, but is it possible where your staff, as they're proceeding and getting this money spent and good work is being done, where the public can start seeing, hey, there's development. We're actually seeing where these dollars are going to.

So like our staff.

And I know I heard about the dashboard. I heard that. But I'm talking about bringing some kind of report back to this council as well.

So the dashboard is a continuing thing you can check on on a daily basis. Yes. So that was at the direction of the council that was stood up. uh and it's continuously being updated number two as we bring back cd for example has a few times during the year where they bring updates to the council on variety of things so they can be added to that We are, we will be starting launching a bi-monthly update to the council. The first one will be this Friday. So as these projects develop, there will be another, and this is all public record by the way. So we give it to the council, we probably put it on our website. But it will be, so we'll continue to sort of update you as these projects develop. In addition to that is we can certainly work with the team and just bring even if it's a quarterly kind of summary of what's going on, we can certainly do that as well.

And Mr. Mendez, and the reason I bring that, Mr. Reyes, I know we're looking forward to the Chispa St. George Apartments, which is an exciting project for seniors. You mentioned something about September 2027. Is that when it's going to start?

March 2027 is when they're applying for the other layer of financing. If they're successful in getting awarded that financing, that project can move forward to the next stage, which ideally would be the beginning of construction. Yes, that's great. But it is another step that they, the developer, has to compete for against many other developers throughout the entire state.

And Mr. Reyes, and I think where this is exciting, because as you hear the people that we work for, on a weekly basis are coming in and ask us when are we gonna start building houses, whether it's for seniors, whether it's for houses, apartments, but it seems like it's coming to fruition. Another question, Mr. Reyes, on the SORT. Again, remember I read this, but I'm really trying to understand it. SORT, supportive services, 1,190,000 plus, zero persons.

you explain that again please sure so uh you're referring to the slide that talks about home art program there's 1.19 million 1.1 million and change as available funding thank you can you talk into the mic a little bit more sorry about that So what you're referring to is the 1.1 million allocated under the home ARP slide on the screen. It shows expenditure zeros and it shows outcome persons, no persons. The reason that you're seeing both zero expenditures and zero persons is because The Salinas Outreach and Response Team will begin drawing down or utilizing those funds beginning the third quarter of fiscal year 26-27. Once that happens, the result of their activity, their supportive services will yield expenditures and will yield outcomes just like we saw in the other slide where it talks about the number of individuals that the SORT team has helped. So you'll see that change, and you'll see those numbers start ramping up.

And Mr. Reyes, as your SORT team has helped these folks, do we have some kind of track record? Some of these people were housed here, others are doing this, or do we have those? Do we have that? Yes. Yeah? And I'm just going to ask Just one last question. On the housing, we have some recreation centers. And Mr. Mendez, maybe you can help us with this. Within your own government, we have recreation centers that need some work. We have the Firehouse Recreation Center right now. I believe Sherwood just got completed. I think it did. How can we make those, why is the Firehouse Recreation Center taking so long? And I apologize for being redundant, but that's, are we waiting on other developers as well?

No, so great question. Let me sort of answer. When we talk about developers here in this space, we're not necessarily talking about developers that are building our new growth areas and like Stonebridge and some of those developers. We're talking about affordable housing developers that also have boards, have agencies, and are in a very incredible competitive environment. The federal government has shifted a lot of this right now. So these projects are being delayed because of the environment that we exist today. The city provides our funding. The city is an entitlement city. So we receive a block of funding that we disperse through a public process. We get community input. The council approves it. So there's an incredible process that we have to follow. The other thing we have to follow is we have to report back what we're doing with those dollars. So that's all part of an annual process that cities do. We're one of the few entitlement cities in the Detroit County area, actually. A lot of folks are, and we, I think, believe, receive a larger funding capacity than even some of the county does because they're just set up differently. So that's one. As far as why projects take time, The firehouse specifically, as we reported, you're aware, we ran into issues where we were moving forward on something and then the contractor broke a pipe and we had to sort a process and then we stopped. And when we stopped it, we had to go through another procurement process, an admitting process, because these are public works projects. So the funding that's available is held in reserve while we move these projects forward. So sometimes you'll see zero dollars because the projects have not moved forward. So another example is Sherwood. Project took a while to get it started. And now that we started it last year, or earlier this year, we're actually tracking to finish it fairly quickly from when we started it, right? So again, our construction projects take time. So that's part of what just happens. But I think what's important to point out and focus on is this. Once the community provides the feedback, the public hearings are held, we go through all the process, some of this requires a lot of environmental work, assembling funding, working with our partners, the council approves those projects. Once they are approved, that funding is set in reserve. Any changes to that funding has to come back to the council. And what you've actually done over the last year, you've adjusted based on opportunities that presented themselves. So that's why sometimes it just takes time. And even if everybody had the funding and everybody agreed on the project, we're probably talking at least three months on just process, public hearing, noticing alone. So I want to bring this to you next Tuesday if there's a council meeting, but I need a 45-day hearing process, so I can't. And if we don't follow the rules, the guidelines, then we're at danger of returning the money, being asked to return the money. Because this money is an entitlement to the city, so we get our pot. We have to spend it. And actually, when we work with our partners, we are now the granting agency. So in many ways, we behave like the state and federal government behaves with us when we get a grant. because we're the ones that now have to affirm and confirm that the money was spent appropriately, we have an audit, and all of that. So that's why it's up from a process. I mean, I get it, it seems like tedious, but that's just the nature because then we're in danger of having to return the money back.

Well, it is tedious, but you know what? I think the education is great because sometimes the public, the people that we serve, You know, I may look at something and say, man, why is it taking so long? But then you explained it. There's bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy here, which is needed, like you say. Or it's not needed, but you're supposed to do it. So I think it's always great to be able to explain that to the public as well. So with that said, let me, when do we cut the ribbon at the Firehouse Recreation Center?

Excuse me as I run up here to the mic.

So we're currently in the abatement, right? So we're addressing hazardous materials inside the facility and that's about a 15-day project. We expect to bring a contract for the interior renovations to the City Council at the first meeting in October. And so then we'll You know, it probably takes about a month to get all the documents signed and all everything sorted out before we can start construction. But we are moving very quickly at this point.

So we're looking at next year.

Yes.

Okay. Well, the new council will be able to celebrate. I will be there whether in person or on the Thank you.

Andrew, and then Jose will come back.

Thank you very much for your report. Well, my question is for the city manager. And you all touched about some of the barriers to some of this housing. But there's been some claims that rent stabilization and the other rental ordinances are impacting the development of new housing, specifically affordable housing. But could you identify maybe the two or three top reasons why there's been some delays in some of these projects, or what's taking so long?

So again, I think let's talk about these types of projects and other sort of projects. Here we're addressing projects, great question, we're addressing projects that pertains to the affordable component. That's what this funding is set aside for. So the LASTER, like our assistant director explained, are they trying to layer the financing? Trying to and sometimes you know get through the development process as far as the actual architect and construction base of it I am not I don't believe and maybe the team can help me I don't believe we have any sort of permit application and yet for some of these projects or we're getting close so that's just what happens with these projects that's different than the general housing development market and At this point, some of those projects are in various stages. I don't have a great answer yet on why we'll be delaying those projects. I don't believe there's any evidence for or against whether our ordinances are causing delays. I think it's just sort of a totality of the entire environment.

Thank you. Is there anything you think we can do as a city to help expedite it or are we kind of doing everything we can and now we're relying on federal agencies or the developers?

I think so, but I'm looking at the team to maybe give a little bit more

Really, the, the city's role is a two-fold. One, to provide that gap financing so that they can be more competitive when they are applying for their other funding sources. And then the second piece is to help facilitate any entitlement or permit process and make sure that that approval is coming in line with the timing of their funding. So, so keep in mind They may have a concept that they submitted. We award, you know, gap financing based on their identified need. They're in a precarious position in terms these are a lot of times non-profit organizations. So they have to balance the timing, the money that they're investing in preparing and submitting the application. with the timing of receiving commitment of a fund. So there is a little bit of a dance between those two sides, queuing it up, but not getting too far ahead of their investment in the project.

Right, and specifically to the El Rey project, how much additional funding do we need to move that project forward? And then kind of when will we know from our federal grant that we submitted?

I'll turn it over to our assistant director to provide the estimated cost that was submitted as part of the application and what that timing is.

So the joint application with the county, the award should be announced by the end of the month, September. It's ERF funding. The funding application that went in was for around approximately 10 million. That's inclusive of the rehab, it's inclusive of the operational, sustaining of the operations there for three years, I believe.

So when we get that response, will the city council be brought back like a decision whether to pivot with that funding or what will we do next with the El Rey Hotel?

So I'd have to look back at the original approval, the authorization. We may have to come back to council to then accept the funds and appropriate the grant funds is typically the next phase unless that was authorized when we submitted the grant through the MOU. So that would be the next phase, to come back to council, say we did receive the grant, we need you to accept it, appropriate the funds, authorize the execution of the grant agreement, and then we would begin working with the county according to the MOU as to who's responsible for what piece in terms of the renovation of the facility, who's responsible for then identifying the operator and setting up the operations.

I guess my question is if we're not awarded the funds.

If we're not awarded funds, then we will need to come back to council with a plan B. Yeah, that's what I'm asking is, are we going to need a pivot?

I mean, considering we still have a need, but if we don't get those funds, we need to do something.

Yes, we will need to come back to council for decisions as to what we want to do with that asset. If we want to continue pursuing funding for a low barrier navigation center or other use.

Those are all my questions, thank you.

Okay, thank you. Jose? Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. I want to start off with a quick comment and before I move into my questions. I heard from my colleagues, I think we all agree on kind of communicating this report and this information a little bit more publicly. I know the city manager made some suggestions on that there's the Housing dashboard there's updates to the housing and land use committee There's the bi-monthly update to the City Council that we all will be getting starting this this Friday moving forward But another suggestion I would have I think what we all want essentially is for there to be more communication that's more publicly facing that's more oriented towards the residents and in terms that residents can understand, right? Just like the PIO's office is currently highlighting a lot of the work that our public's works department is doing, I think we should also highlight some of the work that housing is doing, right? $6 million for cheese spa for X number of units, X hundred thousand dollars for homeless services, right? Highlight all those services and activities that the city is doing. Now onto questions. Could I please pull up slide number five on fiscal year 25-26 CDBG program? So for the second line item on outcomes public facilities to complete for ongoing, were any of the completed projects initiated and completed within the fiscal year timeline or were they carryovers from past fiscal years?

This type of project is also usually multi-year projects, and that's the nature of those type of projects. For example, Sherwood Recreation Center has been going on for quite a few years in order for us to get to this stage where we're going to be able to finalize it. The other ones, for example, the one for Natividad, we had some hiccups on the initial contractor, so we had to pivot look for a different contractor in order for that project to be completed. But those type of projects are usually multi-year projects.

Thank you for that clarification. That answered my follow-up question. Can we pull up slide number seven on the HOME program? So it's pretty clear that there's a precedent for partnerships, particularly with the county, as it relates to this. You know, I think Mr. Orlando mentioned, you know, that our funding makes applications more competitive for HUD in particular. Would we be able to partner with the county moving forward, perhaps with like some of these CHSPA projects that aren't necessarily tied to homelessness directly for RENA numbers, even though they're within city limits or on like the jurisdiction? Yes.

We definitely can engage with the county and look for regional opportunities to facilitate the production of housing to enable all jurisdictions in the county to achieve their RENA numbers. So that is something we can definitely explore.

And then I know some dates were mentioned, March 27, December 27, I think September 26, as for dates for submissions of applications for various tax credits and funding opportunities. How long will we wait for Chispa and Milestone Housing to acquire the funding before the city pulls the funding back and reallocates it or pivots to Plan B or C?

I'd have to look specifically at the conditional awards, but typically we allow the applicant to at least apply twice, two rounds. So there are rounds for these applications of funding. Sometimes it's two, sometimes it's four. We have a consistent rounds that's allowed in the conditional. I just don't remember what it is at the moment, but it could be two rounds up to four rounds. There's a total of four rounds in one year, but depending on where we're at in the timing, they might have one more round before the end of this year, and next year they would have a full four rounds. And the reason that we typically allow that is generally applicants of tax credit applications or bonds don't get it the first round. It's just by nature, it's that competitive. They have to tune their performa or their financials to become more attractive. They'll reduce costs. They'll readjust and then go back in. And so at minimum, it's two rounds to give them that opportunity to be selected.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification. And then where within this presentation were the share center, Paul? Or is the Sheriff's Center funding separate from all this? Oh, yeah. OK, fine. Thank you. That's all my questions.

All right. Let's go ahead and go out to the public.

When I see a lot of zeros, it makes me question why you can't forecast and predict Like your personal finances, you know, I'm going to pay for this, I'm going to do this. Why can't there be a number there? And then if you don't spend that number, you can deduct it and give it a different number when you're done with the project. When I see open and zero numbers like that, I see an open checkbook, which means I don't trust where the money is going to go there. Because we don't know what HUD or Chispa is going to do, or any other nonprofit organization that you have involved in this. We don't know. You need to tell us that. You need to be up front. And you're not doing that. That really bothers me. And I know you guys are all looking, oh my god. You don't have to be a special finance person to know that. It's very simple math. Guys, pad it, put it somewhere, put a number in there. Now we know what you're doing. At least we know where the money is going or where it might go. And then how many of these jobs are going to be union local? Because I know you guys outsource a lot of your work. That's wrong too, by the way. Right, Tony? You're part of the union. You know what that's like. I've been in a union. You don't want to be outsourced. And you do that a lot, Salinas. Why do you guys do that? Your builders here outsource a lot of stuff. And I'm not sure if Chief Spot does or HUD or whoever, but stop outsourcing work. We have people that need to buy and pay for their homes here. People live here in this town. Stop doing that. Well, I don't like open checkbooks, but God bless you guys. Let me keep an eye on this. Have a good night.

Thank you.

so good evening city council i'm eloise shim and mayor um so i didn't notice i don't know if i should even be speaking about it but um i noticed there wasn't any mention about the um section 8 and section 8 is part of It's administered, the Housing Authority administers HUD through Section 8. And I noticed that you haven't mentioned it in this report. But what I do want to say about Section 8, since I received Section 8 and have for about three years, is when I first started getting it, I was, it was very awkward and very intimidating. I last year sort of reached out to a state politician and mentioned it, and I felt embarrassed that it was sort of daunting for me. And that person, I'm not sure if they did reach out to the housing authority, but this year my experience with the housing authority was better. And I just think that post-COVID people, they feel isolated, whether it's seniors or young people or just any group, they feel isolated. The role of you as politicians is to kind of ease the anxiety And I just want to report that that did help me when I talked about it. And this year, my experience with the whole registration was easier, was helpful.

Good evening. My name is Eric Peterson. And there were some comments about things taking a long time. That is really up to council. Allocate more money for more employees. I deal mostly now with the traffic folks. The employees are excellent. There aren't very many of them. We get more employees there, we get more done. But council has to allocate the money. think what the police department could do with a fully staffed traffic unit but council has to allocate the money all goes back what we should do is get harry truman signs the buck stops here and put in front of council and i think they're available online thank you

I've been a bookkeeper before. That was my first job out of college. And all these numbers don't make a lot of sense. How much of these projects are going to help our homeless? And is it going to happen in 27, 28? How far do they project these to be carried out? Our homeless rate's gone up. And the head is for home staff, or is it just for people vying to move to this area?

I'm at a loss. Go ahead and make your comments. Go ahead and make your comments. It's not an opportunity for two-way dialogue. So staff can speak to you afterwards to address those questions, or council can make their final comments.

OK, I'm just wondering what steps, because I thought HUD was to lower our homeless and make and get people in homes when they're doubled and tripled up as they are. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else from the public? All right. We'll see what we have on Zoom. OK, I've seen nothing on Zoom. We will come back to council for final comments, and then we'll look for a motion. So I'll start over here to my right.

Honey? Mayor and city manager, I think to The lady's point, I think that's what the goal is to be able to create more housing so people can be housed. And I think we're going in the right direction. It takes a long time. But I think to the zeros where people trust us or don't trust us, I think what's important is that our financial reports need to reflect where all the money is going. And if people are asking it, we should be able to report out. And with that said, to Mr. Reyes, I want to thank you for this, because it's not easy. But there's a lot of people that are being helped because of housing. And I think the St. George apartments, I'm looking forward to that project on Albany, good senior housing. And you know what? And on that same note, Mr. Mayor, you know that Stonebridge is getting ready to, as a matter of fact, at the end of the year, they're going to start breaking ground, which is great. More housing. You bet. So with that, I'm going to make a motion to approve. Second. Okay, there's a motion and a second.

Just want to thank you all for the presentation once again And wanted to share with the rest of the council that the housing and land use committee did approve this item unanimously Also, just thank you all for the hard work that you all do I think the numbers reflect the you know the outcomes reflect the hard work that staff has done I've had an opportunity to do tours of the moon gate Plaza and and do some outreach myself with the SORT team and also go out in the back roads of Natividad Creek Park, walk those areas, walk through the Sheriff's Center and see how all this interconnects. So I know it's not an easy undertaking and I know we ask a lot of questions and this is probably one of the most daunting challenges of our time. But I know you guys, the issues in good hands with the staff we have here. Thank you. Thank you.

Anything over here?

no i've just just concurred it's always nice to see numbers or anticipated numbers served if there are any programs that we've implemented in the past as as an entitlement city i know that whenever you have a new program obviously we don't know we would have to project out i do i do agree with council members remember the public just wanting to know in general with any such programs if it's anticipated for going to serve households of 10 or individuals 100 or more helps put the plan in perspective. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lisa. Thank you to your staff, Mr. Reyes. And I just want to say, you know, I remember mr infante coming and talking to us about the rehab in those apartments and the other day when i went to cesar chavez park you can see you can see it looks beautiful those apartments were going down like this they were sloping and now with the rehab it looks Beautiful. Then they did a paint job. The asphalt, the driveway has been revitalized. They look so beautiful now from the park. And of course, the residents. They're so happy, and it's rehab. So we could see where the money has gone to. And also, I want to say also for all the good things that are happening in District 4 right now, Chinatown, we have that to look forward to. Chiswell Apartments, Senior Apartments on St. George, you know, the Cassatini that we just approved, and Sherwood, our Sherwood Center. And we're doing a lot, a lot for housing. We need to do more. And also to thank you, for answering my question on el rey motel for the homeless right so again thank you for everything that you're doing it's a lot of information on all these hud monies that come into the city but i like the idea that council member barrera brought brought out that you come back and give us a report how these projects are doing that would be great thank you okay margaret

I just want to end with, I just encourage the people that spoke out today about transparency and numbers and I appreciate you being here and caring enough to ask those questions and holding us accountable and that you look at the dashboard if that's something that you're interested in and really drilling down at the numbers and if you have problem accessing or you don't know how to utilize it, there's city staff here that can help you. So that's a tool that we have been insisting on for some time to really just get, like you said, public-facing, and I think those are great tools for the public to utilize to stay abreast of what's happening, and it's good news, so thank you.

Thank you. All right, Patty, go ahead and call for the question. There's a motion and a second.

Motion made by Councilmember Barrera, second by Councilmember Barajas. Councilmember Barajas?

Yes.

Councilmember Barrera?

Yes.

Councilmember DeRigo? Yes. Councilmember De La Rosa? Yes. Councilmember Salazar?

Yes.

Councilmember Sandoval? Yes. Mayor Donahue? Yes. Motion passes.

Okay, very good. All right, thank you. All right, we will now proceed to the consent agenda. Matters listed under the consent agenda may be enacted by one motion unless a member of the council requests a separate vote or discussion. Members of the public may comment on the consent agenda items collectively during their public comment. Would any council member like any item pulled? No. All right.

I can move for approval.

second okay well noted noted in interim step uh would any would anyone from uh okay so we'll now take public item public comment on the consent agenda good evening community once again mayor i'd like to have those two minutes per item it'd be great to have

I'm going to keep saying, I'm going to keep coming up here. And no one wants to discuss any of this. That's kind of, I find that alarming. I mean, it's just, you guys all want to go home, I guess. That's pretty sad. For all my comments, God bless you guys. Good night.

Thank you.

All right, anyone else from public? So my apologies, the Burlington, is this on the consent agenda? The Burlington Coal Factory thing?

No.

Okay, because I wasn't sure. I just wanted to say, open Burlington already. I stopped it.

Good evening again. My name is Eric Peterson. I'd just like to agree with what Jose said. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, anyone on Zoom? Nobody on Zoom. None on Zoom. We will come back. There was a motion to approve and a second. Patty, go ahead and call for the question.

Motion made by Council Member Salazar, second by Council Member De La Rosa for the consent agenda in its entirety. Council Member Barajas?

Yes.

Council Member Barrera?

Yes.

Council Member DiRigo? Yes. Council Member De La Rosa? Yes. Council Member Salazar? Yes. Council Member Sandoval? Yes. Mayor Donahue? Yes.

Motion passes. Thank you. All right. We will take a report from the City Manager.

Yeah, Mayor, Council, just a few items to report on. Archer, who's been at the airport, they continue to move forward on occupying the old building that was leased by Coke. And so now we've issued another four permits. So that's moving forward nicely. And they're exploring other opportunities. Amazon, the construction at the warehouse continues. The majority of the work in construction is construction of the conveyor. So they're inside now. A temporary occupancy permit was granted to start moving in the furniture and some of that. We are also working as the off-site improvements continue There has been a disruption of traffic because as you are improving those so the team by the works team is working with Contractors that our project. It's the Amazon project to try to smooth some of that traffic Thank you for a couple of council members. They reached out to me in the mayor on you know, can we connect with folks out there? so this team's moving forward or economic development team is working with COSMA to engage in a hotel study. We are working with our community partners on that, the Chamber and others. The soccer complex, as we kind of try to leverage hotel opportunities that we have, we need some information and data. It's not as easy as just saying, come build a hotel here. Also, we just issued 515 firefighter conditional offers of employment for 515 firefighters. All right. So that's moving forward. Great. LCS, the council, did bring forward adding more staff to that. I'm happy to report that we have hired the senior parks maintenance. Broker position was filled and a job offer has gone out on the other one. uh as we today you took action on picture land trust and so forth as that comes in we will have the additional staffing that the council wanted us to move forward and finally i know you don't need the reminder but september 26 27 is the annual air show yes well you're on a roll thank you all right uh let's see andrew why don't we go ahead and oh oh let's okay do you want okay it's listed after but do you want to go okay tony

Yes, thank you, Mayor. For those folks that are not aware, I'm the chair of the Rodeo Oversight Committee, and I needed to make a report. Along with that are my colleagues, Council Member De La Rosa and Council Member Barajas are on the Rodeo Subcommittee. And the reason I need to read it, because if I'm going to be judged, I want to be judged correctly on every word that I say. So this is not a script, I just wanted to make sure I take care of myself. Some of you may recall a recent video showing what appeared to be a bull rider being injured in a bull by the name of Maximo, mistreated, was mistreated at a bull riding event held on August 1st at the Salinas Sports Complex. A lot of the public commented on this video and reached out to the city council. So being that the mayor does have a Rodeo subcommittee, We took it up, and as chair of the Rodeo Oversight Committee, I had asked for a meeting to be held on September 21st so that we could review these events with the Rodeo Association and with the public. My goal in calling for the Oversight Committee meeting was to be transparent so that the public could learn about what happened with the rider and with Maximo the bull, so we could talk about what could be done differently in the future to make sure both the riders and the animals are safe and treated well at these events. Right now there is an investigation spearheaded by the SPCA, which I don't know where we're at with that, but I understand they were working closely with the Salinas Police Department and this investigation is ongoing. Because this investigation is ongoing, it was too early to hold an oversight committee, which I'm going to take responsibility for that. I jumped the gun on that. Literally jumped the gun, get it? To discuss these events. So the meeting that was scheduled for this September 21st, we have to cancel it because we don't have any substance. We don't have any information to give. We do not know at this time how the investigation is going. But we will make sure when it is completed, we can then share and we will share information with the public. And that's my report, Mayor. Thank you, City Attorney, for helping me with this.

All right.

Well, since you have been speaking, why don't you go ahead and we'll start with you for your council reports. Thank you. I want to thank El Grito, volunteers, the city, the police department, firefighters. Man, it was an awesome event. I know all the council was there. It was a fantastic event. Somebody, I don't know who gets up on the roof, maybe at a Taco Bell or something and they start counting. They said we had about 30,000 plus. I don't know how they do that, but that's what I heard. And Mr. Mendez, you have an awesome leader Lizbeth Garcia and her team, along with Alisal High School students on Saturday, they went and cleaned up a very nice path that's over there by Los Padres Elementary School, where grandparents and parents walk their children to and from school. They did a phenomenal job. So please let Lizbeth Garcia and her team know about the great work that they did. I don't know if you guys heard about Miracle on Main Street. I heard about it yesterday. I heard that there was going to be a press conference. So guess what? I went on and put on my suit because I want to check out this press conference. You know, economic development came in action along with public service. The information that I'm briefly going to give, I got this information not from a politician, but from the CEO, the chief. What's CEO? Chief what? Chief Executive Officer. That's a big title there. Chief Executive Officer. Francisco Schlotzenbeck, he's the Maya Cinema CEO. He's the one who gave me this information. We sat down briefly, and I asked him point blank, wait a minute, you just shut down the Maya. You're opening it up again in less than a week. How did that happen? Well, he said, Mayor Dennis Donahue reached out to me. And remember this same gentleman. He's got about eight or nine cinemas throughout California that are on the brink. If they haven't shut down already, they're getting ready to shut down. He came back to Salinas. The city mayor put a team together, the city manager along with his staff. and they got down to talking. Well, conversation was going on social media, and I was worried. I also spoke to four merchants personally that are close to the cinema. They weren't concerned, they were worried, because the Maya Cinema is an anchor business. They were worried about their small business. When they heard, Mayor, that Cinema Maya was gonna reopen, and this is what the gentleman told me. He said, what we're gonna do, and remember, it's not gonna be easy. There's a lot of money involved here and zero money from the city, zero. The city is not paying one single penny. But what happened here, economic development through your city, through the people that you've elected, they put a team together thanks to the mayor and the city manager. They brought in the Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce. They brought in Salinas City Center Improvement Association. And also 1 Main Street. I don't know who they are. Sounds like a band or something. 1 Main Street. But they put this team together. So October 9th, Maya Cinemas reopening. The CEO said he's going to start fixing up some of the seats, the bathrooms. They got work to do, but they got three weeks to do it. This did not come from politics. This came from public service. I didn't have nothing to do with this. It was the mayor, the city manager, and their team and private sector. October 9th, the Senate was opening again. They're going to look at a marketing strategy that I'm sure they're working on. Where I feel great that these four merchants that I spoke to, they're happy. You know why? Because going to be able to bring in more people the cinema is going to bring more people so mr mayor and mr and this thank you for bringing uh council member derrigo's district three back to life the maya cinema thank you thank you tony all right andrew

Thank you. I want to bring forward a request from some Northridge Drive residents. And to be honest, I can understand their frustration. There's a red zone that they've been requesting to get painted for like five years. It's ridiculous, to be honest. And, you know, so much that they basically have lost faith in the city to be able to take care of some of this low hanging fruit. So I talked to Councilmember De La Rosa a little bit ago, and so I'm going to be inviting the mayor and Councilmember De La Rosa to the Northridge area neighborhood to talk to residents and see how we can come up with some solutions. Also, I spoke to Tyrone, a resident from, I think, District 6, and he was sharing that he got a citation for parking on the left side of his garage. Now, we all know that residents across Salinas have a third parking space to the left of their garage. I mean, some people installed those 30, 40, 50 years ago. And they'll probably be surprised to find out those are not allowed unless you get a specific permit, which costs about $800 to $900. And if you are going to redo your roof or make an addition to your property and the city finds out about this dirt parking space, they're probably going to have you remove it. If you take a drive across District three and District six, you'll see that there used to be some cement pads, but they've been taken out and including District five. And I know many years ago, the council made a pathway to allow residents to be able to make that cement piece legal, but it's still expensive. And considering all the ADAs we're encouraging residents to build and the parking nightmares that we face because of overcrowding and expensive rents and all those things, I'd like the city council to consider some type of change either to our ordinances or to the way we enforce things now. There's a big difference between parking on the grass and parking on a piece of cement that's probably been there for 30 years. I don't think we should be penalizing residents because that's not the type of enforcement I think that residents are asking for. Health and safety issues are one thing, but penalizing residents for not being able to find parking and then having a parking, I think, is inappropriate. So I'm going to ask for support on that. Thank you on bringing some kind of a change. Thank you. And Northridge Mall this Wednesday is having a big celebration for Mexican independence. So you're all invited. They're going to have some music out there. And I want to give props to Northridge Mall because they are doing things that previous mall management hasn't done. There is a lot of small business opportunities that they're providing. And I want to highlight one of them. There's a cotton candy vendor, Sugar Sugar, who maybe in the past wouldn't have been given that opportunity. But thanks to their new specialty leasing manager, Rebecca Spear, she's providing a lot of opportunities to small businesses. And so I want to give them big props. And Celia as well, their marketing manager, I saw that she's going to be, I think, the young professional of the year. Very well deserved. She works very hard to bring community together, not just for business, but really trying to unite communities. So congratulations to her and to Northridge Mall. Just a reminder for our city manager, uh the residents of jackson street and northridge drive are waiting for some updates and then also you know i was excited to hear from our city manager that we had uh 25 businesses apply for our our small business grants so i'd like to get an update on how that's going um and uh with that uh i'll conclude my comments thank you thank you andrew okay jose okay um

I'm going to start off by sharing that I'm a little bit frustrated and disappointed that we canceled the Rodeo Oversight Committee meeting because the fact of the matter was although the reason for calling for the meeting was initiated by the bull incident, there's still a lot more work to be done with the Rodeo Oversight Committee. I remember very clearly when we made that request, we requested to oversee the financials, specifically the 26 financials. And if they didn't have 26 financials, the 25 financials. Starting with that. Second item was overseeing the leases and all the issues, like with the gentleman that came with the soccer league. So I'm going to ask, although the issue about the investigation is outstanding, that's a separate issue altogether, aside from what the rodeo oversight committee is meant to do. So I'm going to ask my fellow colleague on the rodeo oversight committee meeting to convene a meeting within the next 60 days.

to oversee all the other issues that are within the purview of the road oversight committee i i don't disagree with that i'm going to look and i and i appreciate what you're saying and and i'm all for that but i want to look to uh the city manager the city attorney and ms lundquist which is in charge of compiling the information and yeah if uh we can speak to them and we can we can put something together like that yeah thank you thank you

All right. Next one is, I also have a brief statement to share, and I will also be looking at my laptop just so I can cross my teeth, dot my I's. At the last council meeting, we had an item where I was made the vote by proxy for the City of Salinas at the League of Cities Conference that we're having next week. And the item is on the housing, on a housing issue. So I wanted to share that the League of California Cities 2026 policy resolution submitted by the City of Murrieta and is supported by multiple cities calls for the creation of a statewide working group to explore a state constitutional amendment or other legislative strategies that restore and strengthen local authority over housing and land use decisions. The resolution emphasizes the need for cities to retain control over zoning, general plans, and development standards while still supporting statewide housing goals and civil rights protections. It responds to concerns about state mandates that override local planning and infrastructure considerations, advocating for a balanced approach that respects local expertise and community needs. This resolution directly aligns with the City of Salinas' strategic plan and legislative platform priorities as it highlights housing, infrastructure and economic development as core goals, emphasizing streamlined permitting, local control and responsible growth. It further advocates for local authority, opposes unfunded mandates, and supports policies that reduce regulatory barriers to housing while protecting municipal interests. I will be voting in support of the League's resolution as it reinforces our commitment to local governance, balancing housing development, and advocacy for state policies that empower cities to address their unique challenges and opportunities. This week, I will be attending the State Youth Commission Forum at the epicenter on Friday from 3.30 to 5.30, and they will also be convening here in the city of Salinas on Saturday. I will also be attending tomorrow a two-week Policy and Operations Board annual meeting where we will adopt the fiscal year 26-27 budget, and I am also running for vice chair for the five-county policy board. I'll also be attending C-Monterey's annual meeting later this week. On Saturday, we will be having a District 1 Amor Salinas cleanup at Netsividar Creek Park. Hope to see you guys there. We also have the Ensign Restoration grand opening on Sunday at noon. And then next week, some of us will be at the League of Cities annual conference. Looking forward to learning lots and engaging with a lot of our colleagues across the state. And looking forward to hosting an informational meeting on the city's permitted parking program. And also just wanted to clarify one quick thing before we move on. As regarding political attire within the council, Mr. Salai has been previously called out for wearing political attire within the council. room so just wanted to make it clear we wanted to hold everyone to the same standard just like if mr guerra wore some sort of political attire anyone else wore some sort of political attire that's not allowed within you know our rules and regulations they should all be applied equally right so just wanted to point that out it's nothing personal in particular it's just if it's going to be applied to mr salai i think it should be applied evenly across the board

right thank you all right aurelio uh yes i have a couple of things i'll try to um get through this as quickly as possible i had the opportunity to attend the agrito festival with fellow council members uh just want to also make sure that we acknowledge and thank uh council um perez rodriguez and our very own honorary council uh blanca sarasua and uh i really enjoyed having the opportunity to meet donald and his son NOT AN EASY EVENT TO PUT TOGETHER AND JUST WANT TO THANK ALL THE EVENT ORGANIZERS. GOT THERE A LITTLE BIT EARLY AND MEET WITH SOME OF THE VENDORS THAT WERE OUT IN FULL FORCE. ALSO NOT EASY TO ORGANIZE, BUT GREAT EVENT. THIS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, THE SALINAS VALLEY SOLID WASTE AUTHORITY we're having our next meeting in gonzalez at 6 p.m i'll be there i do know that we'll be receiving a presentation regarding their 25 26 annual report i'll bring back some meeting highlights again reminder relay for life is this saturday i'm sure you'll probably hear this a couple more times begins at 4 p.m over at the salinas city center you know just I just want to extend my condolences to all those who have had family members or friends who have passed away from cancer, including my own family. We've gone through, had family members go through throat cancer, colon cancer, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer. It's a real disease that can affect anyone. I also just wanted to thank edward alvarez high school senior jacob jacob g for reaching out to me he has a request and i want to bring that request to the council he would like a traffic safety review of new haven and nantucket boulevard I KNOW THAT THERE'S BEEN SOME ONGOING CONCERNS REGARDING TRAFFIC AND STUDENT SAFETY IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOLS. I DID REACH OUT TO THE PRINCIPAL LAST OCTOBER 21, 2025. SO IT'S ALMOST BEEN A YEAR THAT I'VE REACHED OUT TO THE SCHOOL ASKING ABOUT THIS. I THINK WE NEED TO WORK WITH OUR LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS TO ADDRESS ISSUES LIKE THIS. VERONDA ROAD IS HEAVILY TRAVELED. a bunch of cars double parking and we need to develop a joint a joint solution and i just want to thank him and did reply to him letting him know that we would follow up again those of you that have never been to the salinas valley railroad museum you have to check it out it is free to the public the first weekend of the of the month it is a very special place for our local youth um and uh it's something you really don't want to miss out on i think i think attending it and seeing um their turnout and those that support it will give you a better idea of what it's about and what they do Also just reiterate again, air show is 10 days away. If memory serves me correct, they'll probably be practicing this weekend. So we'll hear the Thunderbirds flying overhead. I just want to remind our local residents that the event does support our local nonprofit organizations. So if you can attend, please do so. um in terms of the maya cinema also was following that as as well and i was concerned it serving as a anchor organizations and a lot of people like to watch a movie and then grab a bite to eat either before or after the event um you know if i can just chime in and throw my two cents at um at the situation you know i would suggest maybe even considering partnering up with the local nonprofit sector. Salinas has never had its own Sundance Film Festival or Salinas Sundance Film Festival, where we bring in local, upcoming, amateur, semi-professional producers. WATSONVILLE HAS A GREAT FILM FESTIVAL. I'VE BEEN TO THE FILM FESTIVAL ALONG THE PENINSULA AND WE HAVE A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF TALENT HERE LOCALLY AND I CAN SEE HOW OUR LOCAL RESIDENTS WOULD COME AND SUPPORT. And in terms of the League of California Cities conference that's coming up, just again, those that are attending, I'm not attending this year. I did take a look at the workshops. And if any one of you attend the disaster preparedness, or I believe there's also a workshop on AI, I'd like to call it creepy AI if anybody's there. Regarding AI, I would really like to hear what our other local cities are doing throughout the state regarding disaster preparedness and artificial intelligence. Lastly, just want to thank the residents that came out regarding flock cameras and just wanted to open up an invitation to any individual or group, whether you're in support or in opposition to flock cameras. As a city council member, we have the responsibility to listen to both sides and come back and make an informed decision. So however long, any individual group wants to sit down and meet, I want to hear that information. Those that know me and my academic background, I know that there's studies out there regarding flat cameras, and I would encourage you if you have the time to research it, I will do my fair share as well, just so that I can also continue to be informed about the issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Arianna. Gloria?

on that tone on the flock cameras i'm i'm going to ask that we get a report from our police department on the flock cameras so that the community really so that we understand

I support you, Gloria.

Thank you.

I'll support you as well.

My next thing is, yeah, a lot of things are happening. First, I want to give kudos to El Grito Committee, and I want to thank the volunteers. I want to thank the staff. I want to thank all the community that came out. It was a wonderful event. Also, this Saturday on the 19th, council members mentioned it already, but I want to give kudos to the Relay for Life, all the volunteers, you know, Nancy Valdez who works really, really hard in her committees and the city the city staff thank you Alexis Patty because you put a lot of energy and into the relay for life you I know you have baskets you you have a table and just thank you for all that you know so we have to give them kudos so come out It's a big block party and we wanna support the businesses from downtown by eating there and music and everything until eight o'clock. It starts from four to eight. So that, and then Ensign Park, which is in District Four, that was mentioned, 73 acres. We were waiting for those 73 acres. And that starts at 12 noon. And let's see. Another one. This Thursday, council member Salazar mentioned we have the Solid Waste Authority meeting and I have a community human service meeting same day in Pacific Grove. And let's see what else. Well, that's it for that. And... I would like to make a comment. I want to make a comment on the food trucks. We need to make that an agenda item, this council. We need to bring that forward. It's not working right now. We need to make it work for everyone, for the food trucks and for the brick and mortars. We need to come together on that. So we need to agendize that item. I have been asking for that because as council members, we have to hear both sides. And I'm hearing all the restaurants over there in the LSL that are having a difficult time because of the way the ordinance is and not being enforced. We need to really make this work or changes, whatever, but we need to. bring it forward. So I'm asking that too. Thank you.

All right, Margaret. For a buddy.

I'll be your buddy.

Thank you.

OK, thank you, Mr. Mayor. As you can see, there are lots of events happening in our community. And people say there's nothing to do. They're crazy. Because if you can see from all of us that have been to events for the last two weeks, we're tired. There's a lot going on. But it's real positive, a lot of family-friendly events. One that was not mentioned was the first he had their annual event, and as you know, the city's a partner in that venture, and it's great. They had probably 40 or 50 kids out there greeting everybody with pom-poms and really representing the organization very well, very professional. I was super impressed, and the food's always incredible. And of course, we were all at El Grito, and Let's see. See Monterey. I'll see you there, Jose, this Thursday. And I want to thank Councilmember Buera for what you said about the Maya cinemas. Because we're getting a lot of, there's a lot of social media out there that is simply not true. And people feed off of that. And they get excited. And the rumors start flying. But I think you stated it very well tonight. And I appreciate you putting that into the public. Because that's the facts. And I think people need to have the facts. And we are very excited about them coming back in on October 9th. I want to see all of you guys there and your friends and family. I think it's a, is that a first Friday's night too? Yeah, so invite everybody you know. Let's go to the movies. Let's, you know, do the first Fridays and just make it a real big community event. I encourage all of you to be there. And then I did meet the Hampton Inn, who's another partner in our community. They're doing such a beautiful job. What a lovely hotel. They even have an indoor swimming pool, which I wasn't aware of. Their occupancy rate is close to 90%, I think it's 87, 88%, which is remarkable, well above what their corporate goals are. And Michael's just doing a great job. He really wants to partner with the city, and I was really excited to have him say, whatever you need, I'm here for you guys. We want to be part of this community. So I love people like that. Okay, so a couple forward-thinking things. I've been talking with the city manager and Mayor Donahue about the Amazon project, which is moving right along. Don't know what the weather's going to do to it this winter, but right now we're trying to move it as fast as we can. But we need better communication from... from the city out to the businesses that are being affected by it and and people that are driving to work so that we um so we let them know when there's going to be road closures or you know detours or things like that in advance i think they deserve that and some of the businesses have been really um hampered by it and i think we have to do a better job at helping them solve those problems And then finally, I brought it up a couple of times, and I'm going to ask Gloria to back me on this one. Yes. This is for the Historic Resource Board. They meet monthly. And the Heritage Park, who is another one of our partners, in fact, we're giving them a nice sum of money so they can really expand their services and make that a beautiful place to visit. And they've been wanting to make a presentation to the committee. It's been denied. It's been taken off the agenda, I believe, three months in a row. So I want to really insist that we give them their time to present their presentation, regardless of how we feel about it. I don't know what's blocking it, but something's happening. And I want to meet with the city manager and Lisa Britton to find out what the real issue is, because as far as I'm concerned, Salinas City Center presents, the Rodeo Committee presents. These are community partners that should have an opportunity to tell us what they're doing and share their information. And they're doing some great work down there. So I can't see a reason why they're being denied that opportunity to present. So I'm going to keep bringing it up until it happens. I hope it will happen in October. Otherwise, you're going to hear from me again. I'll be your third buddy. Third buddy, good. OK, I think it's just really important. And I know there's a lot of people that are counting on us to make that decision. And then I think that's it. I'm with the League of Cities Center or city, whatever, California cities next week. So you won't see much of me out and about. But we'll be doing some good work. And we'll definitely bring back reports from that. I know I get kind of lazy about taking my notes and actually putting them into writing and sharing with you all. So I'll be more diligent this time. But those are great opportunities for us to meet with our colleagues and learn about trends and what's happening in the state of California in general. So thank you for your time.

OK. All right. Just a couple of things. Two deliberately, well, actually all three will be a little repetitive. Just I want to call out the Railroad Museum. And I appreciate the fact they came and visited council. It's really a fun little spot. And they get really excited when folks come visit them. And it means a lot to them what people do. And like I say, It's actually really fun to spend some time there, so I want to recognize them. The thing that I'm always struck by our Relay for Life, several years ago we had two big departures, or two serial changes, material changes, One of the major ag companies was sold to out-of-town interests, which is fine, but not necessarily the same commitment to Relay for Life. And then when HSB sold out to Cap One, and then they pulled out. So at the time, that was one of the top one, two, three Relay for Life's in the country. and tracking it at about a million dollars in terms of what they raised. Today, that number, this just really underscores the importance of business attraction and retention and the numbers are closer to, let's say, some $600,000. But even today, top one, two, three in the entire country. So this is a Relay for Life that's really special. And what it speaks to, how folks really come together and how well organized it is. So really some kudos to Nancy and the whole team. the whole team. So I think those, one's kind of small and under the radar, but fun and worth attending to, and then Relay for Life, just really another testimony that Salinas is a pretty good community. The other thing is, I want to, and I appreciate your remarks, Tony. And so I do want to reiterate there was no commitment of public dollars. And I think what this really speaks to, and I think this made a big impression on the CEO, it is very unusual for a business to reverse course once a decision has been made. And I believe I acted appropriately in my role as mayor to reach out and ask if you'd reconsider it. And we had some great folks that immediately came together and helped in that process, certainly the chamber. But what you saw, really, in my mind, and I know this impressed the CEO, that Yes, and the city has, Salinas City Center has, all of the downtown interests. And frankly, one of the most moving segments I saw on this was the night the closure was announced. and that the KSPW piece, and just folks in the community, what this meant to them. So it was appropriate, certainly in my mind, to reach out and say, hey, let's see what can happen. And Francisco agreed to come up. Those conversations took place on a Thursday. He was here on a Monday morning. But the thing to recognize, and one of the things I told him, and he heard this from other folks, so one Main Street, Tony, it is a good name for a band, but it's actually the entity, the old... What used to be the Steinbeck Center is one main street. It's the Hartnell Foundation and the National Steinbeck Center. And so that's what one main street is. So the surrounding stakeholders came together and said, hey, this is really important to downtown. And it is important. to maintain downtown's momentum because, you know, the Maya was really a signature aspect of redevelopment back in the day. And it meant a lot to Maya also because Salinas is where they first, you know, kind of planted their flag. But one of the things that was conveyed, so there were conversations about additional opportunities in terms of the building types of films and one of the things that was conveyed is Salinas is becoming it's always been a community of a lot of creativity but it is starting to become intentional around the opportunities that are associated with the arts, whether it was the Alibrijes, and I've already heard from some of the film people, as I know Colleen did, but we conveyed that the arts, besides being a personal economic opportunity, is also an event-based opportunity, and we certainly felt film is part of that conversation. And the CEO certainly heard that, and in terms of getting more folks downtown, certainly views that as part of the mix. So I think it's a great opportunity for the city, and I appreciate your clarifying. There was no representation of any financial commitments by the council? or on behalf of the council or the city. But certainly the city, given its commitment to economic development, being part of Salinas City Center, we're one of the stakeholders. And we represent the community, and the entire community enjoys the Maya. So, you know, there's a lot going on, a lot of it really, really good, and it was nice to add to the pile of really, really good that day. It was a good day for Salinas. So with that, we are adjourned. Oh, well, as far as the public's concerned, they're not going to see us anymore, but the council is returning to closed session, and we will be back September 29th. With that, back to closed session, and thank you, everyone.