City Council and Authorities - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to today's Stockton City Council meeting for the 23rd of June. Let's go ahead and do roll call.

Councilmember blower. President councilmember and we can present Councilmember on saying present Councilmember Padilla is absent Councilmember the up to a president and vice mayor Lee president and mayor for Dossie as we have a quorum.

So we are going to there are no additions to regular session. I skipped one we're going on to invocation. and Lars Knudsen is going to be doing an invocation and nobody be afraid.

Good afternoon. I want to thank Mayor Fregazi, Vice Mayor, City Council Members. It's an honor and I'm very thankful to God Almighty, open this door for me to bring encouragement and light to this dark and evil time in the United States. I'm a retired firefighter. I did 31 years from 1979 till 2010, and I've been out 16 years, and I get to do great work now and keep up the great work. When I pulled into town, I was very disturbed because the Lord brought me to an intersection called Hunter and Church Street, and there was another homicide there. And I know it wasn't by chance that it was driven there by the Holy Spirit. And so I asked God to touch that place right now, touch this Stockton. PD like never before. I want to also thank Mario Morello. I got to be a part of his tent. If you didn't come out to the tent meeting, we can have a tent meeting here right now and greater today than it was last week. So I want to thank Mario and his team for hosting the tent that was set up in Stockton for 52 days. What an amazing time. Thank you, Lord. Tens of thousands came and got to experience God. We don't have tens of thousands, but I pray that today you guys will experience the peace and love of truth. I'm going to get to the prayer. This last three weeks has been a blessing. I got to speak to the L.A. City Council, and I got to speak to our county, Godorado County or Eldorado County where I live, and a blessing today to meet you guys and pray with you guys. And this is what I want to tell you the message that I got three weeks ago was this. Amend your crooked ways, Los Angeles, El Dorado County. Amend your ways, Stockton, California. And return to God Almighty, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. There's no political solution to a spiritual problem. The only solution is through reconciliation with God Almighty. Prayer is communicating with God. And I know he's hearing more than just my prayer. I've already talked to some people. God bless you. And this is the message I got from the Lord. Comfort. My people, says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and announce to her that her time of forced labor is over. Her iniquity has been pardoned, and she has received from the Lord's hand double for her sins a voice of one crying, prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness. Make a straight highway for our God in the desert. Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled, and uneven ground will become smooth, and the rough places a plain, and the glory of Yahweh our Lord will appear, and all humanity together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And I also pray, Lord, that wisdom, knowledge, and understanding be upon Stockton and these leaders and these people, so when they go back to their neighborhoods, God, that you would bring great peace. I'm almost done. The one who commits sin is of the devil. I used to be a sinner. Hebrews 11. This is a good one. Seek Yahweh and live. Seek good and not evil so that you may live and the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you as you have claimed. Hate evil, love good, establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. Amos 5, 15, one of my favorite. And this is another one of my favorite. God bless you. Number six. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace, shalom, salam. So they shall put my name on the children of Israel and I will bless them. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believed with his heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confessed with his mouth, resulting in salvation. Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will exalt you. May the greatness of God Almighty, Yahweh, bring hope, light, love, faith, and liberty upon this place. And we give you all the praise and glory.

Can I have the honor?

It's a little loud. Thank you.

Next, we will be having our flag salute, and we are blessed with having one of our summer youth employment students, Kimberly Sanchez.

Everyone rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic in which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Can you tell everybody what department you work in? I work in the Department Optic. Franklin High School.

Are you enjoying what you're doing?

Yes.

I'm giving you a pin so you're officially a city representative. So there's a pin. And then come back a little.

Yeah, you'll have that.

If you haven't noticed, there's quite a few individuals in the back of the room. I don't think the fire marshal is going to throw them out. But they have blue shirts on because they are representing one of our most important departments, I would say, in the city of Stockton. And we will be recognizing them today. So city clerk.

Whereas parks and recreation are an integral part of communities throughout this country, including the city of Stockton, and contribute to the health, wellness, and quality of life of residents of all ages. And parks and recreation promote physical and mental well-being by providing opportunities for exercise, outdoor activity, youth programs, community events, and time spent in nature. And parks and recreation programs and facilities support youth development, environmental stewardship, community engagement, and neighborhood livability while helping strengthen the economic vitality of our community. And Parks and Recreation professionals, volunteers, and community partners work year-round to maintain safe, welcoming, and accessible parks, trails, facilities, and programs throughout Stockton. And Parks and Recreation Month is celebrated nationwide each July to recognize the important role parks and recreation play in building healthy, resilient, and connected communities. Now, therefore, I, Christina Fugazi, Mayor of the City of Stockton and members of the Stockton City Council, do hereby proclaim July 2026 as Park and Recreation Month.

in case you didn't know we have a new community services director that's just started recently so I'm gonna have him introduce himself and then we will have Spencer Lockwood who sits on the Parks and Rec Commission also share some words

All right. Thank you, Mayor. Excuse me. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council for this recognition and your continued support of parks, recreation programs, and community service. Thank you, Mayor Fugazi, Vice Mayor Lee, and members of the council. It is a great pleasure to receive this proclamation and thank you for your continued support. All right, so the history of this event is National Recreation and Parks has designated this month as Parks and Rec Month to highlight the essential role parks and recreation play in building strong, vibrant, and resilient communities. This year's theme recognizes the power of parks and recreation to strengthen community, build connections, support health and well-being, and improve quality of life. It also lifts up the people who make the work possible, the dedicated staff, volunteers, and partners who serve our community on a daily basis. Parks and Recreation bring people together across neighborhoods, cultures, and generations. Our programs, green spaces, and community centers foster belonging, support healthy lifestyles, and provide safe gathering places. We see the power play every day through accessible activities, youth programs, special events, and partnerships that strengthen our city. I want to acknowledge the incredible commitment of our Recreation Service Division team, the seasonal staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to serve the community. Their work ensures that our parks stay active, inclusive, and welcoming, especially during the summer months. And so lastly, just thank you again for this proclamation and recognizing the importance of parks and recreation in creating a healthy, connected, and resilient Stockton. We look forward to celebrating throughout July and continue to build a community through the power of parks and recreation. Thank you.

Thank you, Dante. Thank you, Mayor Fregazzi. Thank you, City Council. And thank you to my park staff as well. I am in my eighth year on the commission for Parks and Recs. It's been a ride. And I hope to continue. Thank you, Mayor Fregazzi, for letting me continue. It's been an honor. recently I've had the privilege of going out to Columbus Park for the ribbon-cutting and also the other day the ribbon-cutting at Oak Park for their pool so thank you council member Enriquez for that like I said eight years parks and recs THE CITY PARKS ARE NEAR TO ME BECAUSE I'M A SINGLE PARENT I CAN TAKE MY DAUGHTER TO THE PARK WE CAN TAKE OUR DOG TO THE PARK ESPECIALLY ON A BEAUTIFUL DAY LIKE TODAY AND JUST HAVE FUN THIS LAST YEAR 2026 WAS A PHENOMENAL YEAR ESPECIALLY WITH THE OPENING OF ERSTENMAYER I KNOW ALL STOCKTONIANS WILL HAVE THE CHANCE TO ENJOY THAT BUT THIS NEXT YEAR 2026 AND 2027 WILL BE AN EVEN BETTER YEAR AND THAT'S ON LARGE PART THANKS TO COMMUNITY THE STAFF AND THANK YOU CITY COUNCIL

Okay guys, you're gonna have to squeeze in. Stand sideways, stand sideways. There we go, we'll be able to get, we'll look that way. Who's in, we're doing sideways.

Somebody's hiding.

Thank you.

yes so far we've had a very active summer and uh... we hope it continues uh... with our uh... parks and recreation programs and our activity guide in case you didn't know tons of stuff for kids and adults of all ages uh... to take advantage of so many free things in there and uh... While we have them, please use them. So we are going to now move on to a public comment and this is for matters that are not on the agenda.

The City of Stockton invites the public to participate in various ways. If you have any questions regarding forms of participation, please contact the Office of the City Clerk. This is the time for public comments for items not on the agenda, announcements, or invitations. You may comment on any subject that is not on the agenda within the jurisdiction of the City Council. If you wish to speak on a specific agenda item, comments will be heard during the item. To ensure sufficient public participation and conduct the agendized city business, the public is limited to one three-minute comment opportunity. Citizens' public comments are not a time for discussions with the council regarding subjects not on the agenda for this meeting, as the Brown Act limits such discussions. Comments made by members of the public or council may not reflect the viewpoint of the council. We ask that you maintain the rules of decorum as outlined in city council meeting decorum policy. The mayor shall preserve strict order and decorum at all meetings. Persons addressing the council shall not make personal, impertinent, unduly repetitive, slanderous, or profane remarks to the council, any member of the council, city staff, or the general public, nor utter loud, threatening, personal, or abusive language, nor engage in any other conduct that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise unreasonably impedes the orderly conduct of the council meeting. The city council members will practice civility and decorum in their discussions and debate. A member shall not delay or interrupt the proceedings of the council or use personal, impertinent, or slanderous remarks. Council members will not speak twice on any given subject unless all other council members have been given the opportunity to speak. Every member once recognized shall be limited in their debate to five minutes. Any council member who violates the rules repeatedly shall be sanctioned and be barred from further participation other than voting on the subject. Members shall not disturb any council members while speaking nor disobey the orders of the presiding officer. If a point of order is requested, the presiding officer will ask the interrupter to state their point and the presiding officer shall make a ruling. The rules of decorum set forth above shall be enforced in the following manner. Warning. The presiding officer shall request that a person who is reaching the rules of decorum be orderly and silent. If, after receiving a warning from the presiding officer, a person persists in disturbing the meeting, the presiding officer shall order him or her to leave the council meeting. If such a person does not remove himself or herself, the presiding officer may order any law enforcement officer who is on duty at the meeting to remove that person from the council chambers. May I have Kenneth Huntley to the podium, followed by Leslie Herron.

Good afternoon, City Council. My name is Kenneth Huntley, and I just wanted to invite everybody on the council, including the mayor, to attend Valley Mount Regional Disability Resource and Cultural Fair. They'll be coming up October 9th. It's a chance to meet self-advocates and family advocates that are registered voters in the city. and also get to learn to know about the resources that VMRC provides, including other agencies within the city and county. And it's always fun too, free food and usually free entertainment like music too. So come check us out on October 9th and get to know a little bit more about your community members.

Leslie Herron, followed by Thomas Alfieri.

Mayor Christina, Vice Mayor Lee, and City Council, I just came up for a word of praise, how good you guys are all doing. All the parks opened and the swimming pools, and I was told by two of my prayer partners that Oak Park is outstanding right now. They're so pleased with it, so I want to tell you that. And thank you all also for Columbus Park, Victory Park, and thank you Mayor Christina for going out of your way to try to bring businesses to Stockton, to all the way in LA and all the way to Washington DC. And I hope this could be a peaceful, unified meeting that can we just agree to disagree. And when people make a comment, if it could be a helpful suggestion that the council could possibly work on instead of an insult. And God gave me Luke 6, 45. Good people bring good things out of the good they stored in their hearts. But evil people... bring evil things out of the evil they stored in their hearts. People speak the things that are in their hearts. Let's have a good positive meeting and hit everything on the agenda. Thank you.

Thomas Alfieri followed by Mary Elizabeth.

I want to discuss something that I noticed below the agendas were canceled meetings. Mr. Lee brought up at the end of last year's council meeting about missed meetings because of a lack of a quorum. Do you remember that? And like today, there's crime prevention, planning commission, a little later, a water advisory board on 71. It's, I don't know. My question is, who supervises them? Who gets the people besides nominating yourself on the county clerk page or the meetings and such page? And if you want to volunteer, I'm right here. Qualified, available, any committee or vice report you'd like. If I don't know much about it, I'll find out about it. Thank you. My name's on the blue card.

Mary Elizabeth followed by Yolanda Amen.

Mary Elizabeth, founding family of San Joaquin representative. And I have two comments, papers that I submitted to you. One is a non-agenda and the second is no center without data first. So I'm going to spend a bit of time on the non-agenda comments. So there's two community outreach plans. So there was a move, Stockton, that you'll be approving later. There was an outreach plan. I was able to get that outreach plan. I have not been able to get the downtown visioning master plan, which is in the contract for an outreach plan, and the Stockton Urban Forest Master Plant. So those are very important to our community, especially folks that live downtown and are around downtown are looking for a grocery store. And not just more housing. And, you know, when you're looking at that move Stockton, I did not see any planning for a congregate area where there can be a lot of parking and a lot of people going in and out as in a grocery store. So that's number one. Also the trees, it was counted as number one in the climate action plan surveys as that canopy is so important. And both of those plans have been submitted to the founder. There's currently a temporary climate action plan advisory committee looking at some implementation, but that's to be, discovered as time goes on next i gave you a picture here this is a picture of an area of stockton that is very neglected up there in northwest and also a very high crime area and so when you're looking at developing that sustainable master plan i hope that not only will all city departments but that those that draft plan will be presented to many CITY COMMITTEES BECAUSE IT IS SO IMPORTANT THAT WE HAVE THAT AND THAT WE GET INPUT. AND ALONG THOSE SAME LINES AS AN ANNOUNCEMENT, THERE'S CURRENTLY AVAILABLE THE SJCOG SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL PLAN FOR THE COUNTY THAT IS AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW. AND I PROVIDED AN UPDATE THERE FROM SJCOG. Second, I have no data, no centers. I had meetings myself on Saturday, so I was not able to attend, but reports are that folks are thinking about bringing in a data center. So with the data centers, over 182 residents in the greater Stockton area signed a petition This was previously submitted. It was submitted to you on a worker's day, May 1st, and I wanted to put it in the record. Thank you.

Yolanda Amen, followed by Lawrence McClure.

Good afternoon. I wanted to discuss if it would be possible to look into some type of interpreters. uh... when we have our community meetings when we have larger events we tend to exclude those that don't speak the language english obviously and we just did a meeting with our police officers in western ranch and i had four individuals come up to ask if we can try to get interpreters we have a community forum meeting this saturday in western ranch and it took me Probably about three or four days I had to call El Concilio, so they're going to be sending somebody out, but they're very short staffed. They're willing to come out and help and interpret, they just don't have a large staff. I would like for someone to possibly look into that and not just language interpreters, but also sign language as well. I feel that they want to be represented and be here as well. They just cannot because there's no one here to interpret for them. So that's something that you can look at on openings of parks, larger things that we're doing. We really need to do something to make sure that everybody's represented in the community. So thank you.

Lawrence McClure, followed by Mark Stebbins.

Oh, we on now? How y'all doing? I'm Lawrence McClure. This is my first time, but I basically came here to ask for suggestions, advice, and help. I'm a military veteran. I'm Army, and where I stay at is in French Camp right by you, you know, but to make it long story short, it's like I've been dealing with DKD. That's the property management. I'm under housing, so I'm under HUD-VASC, but it's like uh i've been going through some things with them as far as first of all my property manager you know um you know it's she's it's crazy because you know i deny her sexual advances and now i'm facing discrimination she don't like us veterans but she's there but what she don't understand what hurts me the most is that i offer my life for a bunch of people i even know You understand me? So it's like, how can I've earned my right to be respected? You know, so it's like, how can you actually intimidate, harass and then retaliate when I complain? So in the place where I stay, it is called Victory Gardens. right down here by dialysis you know and it's i mean i just want help on how to go about it you know saying without without going into combat mode because i got ptsd and i'm military minded so it's like you come at me i get at you but I'm trying not to do that because I'm a changed man. I love the Lord, my father. I love the Lord. You know what I'm saying? He's blessed. He done walked me through a lot of things, bro. He done got me from getting shot, but I'm here. I'm here. You know what I'm saying? By the grace of God, man, I'm here. But I just need some help. Maybe you can point me in the right direction or have somebody contact me. My number is on that paper right there. Just contact me. Let me know what actions to do or how do I go about it because I'm complaining about it because I'm disturbed. I mean, I don't feel like I have that coming. You know, I pay my rent. I pay my PG&E. Everything is paid. I've been there coming up on four years. I don't bother nobody. I only have a couple people I talk to there. I normally sit up under my tree, you know, and it's like, I don't know, it's heartbreaking, you know, I mean, to know that some people in society, not all, some people in society don't appreciate what we went through. Eighteen years old, you go into the military, what did you know, high school diploma? uh senior prom and i ain't gonna say it now but you know getting your first girl you know i mean but you know those are the things what else do we know at 18 but we went and learned how to fight but for our country from the heart not the mind but we were trained so it just just kind of bothers me so i just i need some help and you know

So Esperanza from my office will speak with you. Thank you.

Mark Stebbins, followed by Alex Lima. Mark Stebbins, followed by Alex Lima.

First, I'd be out of order if I didn't congratulate you on your hiring of your new Parks and Recreation Director, and we hope that that program will be fully funded and implemented and especially in south stockton it's not enough to only have a new park and some playground equipment We need some bodies and programming that takes place at the park. So Victory Park is very good because they've got some music going on every weekend. But nobody's thought about South Stockton. It needs to be thought of. Secondly, I just wanted to bring home to you, and I'm sure you recognize it, this fire at the warehouse in Tracy. Just think about the huge impact, a huge impact of trucking and warehousing in Stockton and how trucking and warehousing is almost the antithesis of a livable and vibrant people community in Stockton. Please concentrate on Stockton people. Thank you.

Alex Lima.

Hello, council, mayor. I want to clarify that I am speaking as a private citizen because I am going to speak later on behalf of my organization. But really cool seeing the community services department out here. I also, and not to rain on the parade because there's been a lot of ribbon-cuttings lately. We love seeing the Columbus Park stuff. We love seeing Ursula Meyer. It's awesome. I work for an organization that publishes the Park Score. It's the ranking of the 100 most populous cities in America. Stockton, two years ago we had the worst investment score. We invested the worst per capita of the 100 cities. That has improved over the last two years. Last year we were four, this year we are five, but still we are five out of 100. The spending that we have around here in Stockton is about 56 per capita, $56. The national benchmark is 154. successful as we are being we are about a third of what we should be spending on parks also the vast majority of these park projects are currently grant-funded they're prop 68 dollars awesome it's great that the city is going for that however I want to take it back to 2008 when we had an actual parks department that parks department for those of you who do not know was dissolved and spread across several departments. So public works does capital improvements, community services does programming, economic development will do grants. There's a vast majority of like, there's like silos. And so the city council people can create ordinances. when are we going to have sustainable park funding? When are we going to pass another special tax measure like Measure M, which expires in 2033? When are we going to have an actual parks department that can collaborate with maintenance, with people like the county, with people like Sajafka? Because all these projects are ongoing and they're all one-time projects right now. We have a bunch of planning documents and nowhere where those are housed. So I'm asking the council, Like, please, if we could have a parks advocate, these should be 7-0 votes, easy, these are easy wins. This is essential infrastructure. It's not just like, you know, it's nice to have a park. These are safety concerns, these are public health concerns, these will bring in money into our city. We have data that backs this up. And so, please, if we could have a real, true park advocate to try to restart our parks department.

That concludes general public comment.

Wonderful. So we're going to move on now to the consent items. And I will ask people what items they'd like to pull. I will go ahead and say 6.1.

6.3, 6.11.

Any others? OK, hearing none, we'll move on then to public comment on items on the agenda, on consent agenda.

For item 6.2, I have Robert O'Prandy. Hi.

Good afternoon. Press your button, Bob.

Good afternoon. Sorry, I just wrote this about a couple of hours ago, so I may just have to read it. I'm Bob O'Prandy, a board member of Delta Sculling Center, and I'm here in place of Pat Turone, our executive director. Our programs get people of all backgrounds and abilities to row together out on the Delta. We're delighted to see that this improvement to Lewis Park is moving forward. It will help our community be out in nature, find recreation in human-powered watercraft on those waterways, and reap the physical and emotional benefits of rowing and paddling sports. I'D LIKE TO GIVE SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT HOW THIS GRANT CAME ABOUT. OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND HEAD COACH PAT TERRONE ATTENDED A DIVISION OF BOATING AND WATERWAYS MEETING. AND AT THAT MEETING, SHE LEARNED ABOUT THIS GRANT AND APPROACHED THEIR LEADERS. THEIR LEADERS KNEW ABOUT THE WORK THAT WE DO AND HOW IMPORTANT IT IS. AND SO THEY STRONGLY ENCOURAGED HER TO APPLY FOR THIS GRANT AND TO WORK WITH THE CITY ON DOING THAT. She arranged a meeting with the city's Department of Economic Development leaders, and Madison Lozada got to work writing the grant proposal with lots of input from Delta Sculling Center and from Trust for Public Land. Alex is gonna represent them in a minute, I think. And Trust for Public Land is a national nonprofit organization that's been working in Stockton on improving parks and trails and all of open spaces. Our combined expertise was invaluable in putting together the successful grant proposal. Delta Sculling Center gave our time pro bono as did Trust for Public Land. I want to remind you of how important it is for the city to listen to its community partners who have hands-on frontline expertise in a number of the areas that would make the city better. We want to remain consultants on this project because we know what kind of dock construction and other amenities will work best for the people that we're going to be serving, the human-powered boaters who are the end users of this project. delta sculling center and trust republic land have done a great deal of work to initiate this project so we want to be at the table with city leaders to see it through completion thanks for your understanding and congratulations for what we all have accomplished in helping to revitalize lewis park which we envision to be perceived in the future as a destination rather than a place to be avoided

Also for item 6.2, Mary Elizabeth, followed by Alex Lima.

Hello, Mary Elizabeth. I'm really excited about this. And I saw, because I sign up for the bids, I saw when they put this out to bid that they were going to have ability to have a canoe or a kayak dock where people can go out there, which is different than a motorboat. And I would also like to ask that Delta Sculling and Trust for Public Land continue to be involved. Because I know all the time what happens is this is the end of any public input. And then the department goes out and does whatever they think. You know, this doesn't work for the long term. You know, I talk always about, you know, like enunciation, you know, and the sidewalk designs. And so this is really important that some actual users can be involved. And then the other thing that I wanted to say in thanksgiving to programming for community services department is the lap swimming that has been made available. And I feel so blessed that I am able to take advantage of that, to walk over there to Victory Park, pay $3, and swim up and down in a line. And I think to myself, oh my goodness, we need to have this at 5.30 for people that are working during the day that don't have that flexibility so that they can go out and get some lap swim time too. You know, a whole area of our population. And so thank you. That's all that I have for that. Oh, and I can give thanks to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for paying for that dredging study that is going to be about on the harmful algal blooms that the port is administering. And, you know, hopefully we can look forward to even better water quality. Thank you.

Alex Lima.

good afternoon mayor council members and city staff on behalf of the trust for public land we want to congratulate the city on advancing the boat launch improvements project at lewis park it's this is an important investment in public water access recreation and the long-term potential of stockton's delta we also want to recognize that this project came through through partnership came forward through partnership our partner delta sculling center brought this grant opportunity to the city's economic development department after the Department of Boating Waterways expressed interest in DSC's vision. Delta Scullion Center are experts on getting people out upon the water on human-powered boats from all corners of life, from veterans to students to people with ambulatory disabilities. But the docks at their current home in Buckley Cove are the only ones in the city suitable for ADA access. Lewis would... Lewis Park would provide a high visibility new place for rowers to safe launch. We envision Stockton where you can canoe at one park and canoe down to another park, get out on like a water trail. DSC joined the city on the site tour with the Department of Boating and Waterways and the group impressed the agency so much that they encouraged them to go for the full construction because originally the plan was just to go for the planning but it was such a slam dunk project they encouraged them to go for the two million and so we helped support the grant development through in-kind work we provided grant writers and obviously DSC being the subject matter experts were critical in that process and we secured the funding specifically tied to the broad vision of water access green space access and the future water trail. So we're very proud to lay that groundwork. And we want to emphasize that these projects should not be viewed as one-time improvements. Lewis Park is part of a much larger opportunity that you council have in front of you guys, which is connecting the city to our greatest and most at-risk resource. I was 27 years old. I grew up right off of Napa River Drive. It's right down the street from Houston. I was never on the river until last year, and it's stunning. Like, when you get out in the middle of the water, I'm sure there's people in this room who've never been in the middle of the water. So expanding that access is really, really important. Expanding that infrastructure is key to our city's growth, and there are already significant documents, visions, partner-led efforts that can and should be leveraged together. The Parks Master Plan, the Lower San Joaquin River Project, the Bike Master Plan, the Climate Action Plan. When the city aligns all of these and works closely with the community partners, the city can maximize the public benefit, attract more funding, build a more connected network of trails, launches, and access points. And so we encourage you guys to continue engaging with the partners, with the essential user base. Us, Delta Sculling Center, other community partners are committed to working with the city to ensure that Lewis Park is a catalyst to broader Delta benefit. And so again, we congratulate the city and staff for advancing this investment, and we look forward to collaborating with the city to build up the larger vision it represents.

For item 6.4, Thomas Alfieri.

Yes, I noticed when I go over the agenda before I come here that there's six no bid contracts tonight for a bunch of money. And I looked it up that you're trying to get not have a affect you and there's five reasons and well it's it's code 6.68.070 I looked it up and it says there's five reasons emergencies which you have to fill out something sole source vendors, design-built projects that I don't understand, cooperating purchasing. It sounds great. This might have to do with it. I don't know. And a negotiated proposal, which I don't understand what it means. But I would like, if you would at least, list the reason for this exemption. Like I said, it's a lot of times. Like I said, six times tonight, three or four times last meeting. And please look into it.

Thank you.

For item 6.5, Mary Elizabeth.

All right, water, water, water, human right to water, right? We need to have water. And we have representatives that sit on the Eastern San Joaquin Groundwater Authority. Here we have representatives here that sit on the San Joaquin County Advisory Water Commission. And in that meeting, we learned about the importance this recharge project and it's a great project taking flood flows. I'd just like to call your attention to the fact that there's currently a draft environmental impact report that is out for review on that project and there's some serious concerns about the lack of definition of when those flows will be taken. So there's lots of opportunities to condition those so that not to affect the flow out of sediment. So we need those high flows to get some sediment to move out and to the delta. And we also need them for temperature and water quality. And so having the exact A time and understanding of when those flows can be taken to safely be used for groundwater recharge is essential. Thank you.

For item 615, Mary Elizabeth.

Thank you.

Parks pest control. And so one thing, you know, we had some discussion at a meeting recently in regards to garbage collection in municipal services in that regard. And I had occasion to look at the contract and there's, it's not quite clear to me that we have enough trash bins in the parks. for people to put their trash in and there's only a limited number in the contract with the service providers to pick up trash and i just wonder you know like how much how much we can control pests by you know properly handling our garbage thank you that concludes public comment for items that were not pulled we will have public comment for 6.1 and 6.11.

Okay, so I will look for a motion for the rest of the consent agenda minus 6.1, 6.3, and 6.11. Motion to approve.

Second.

Everybody. Okay, we have a motion from Allada and a second from the Vice Mayor. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Okay, moving on then to item 6.1. Adoption of an ordinance establishing Title IX Chapter 9.18 of the Stockton Municipal Code regulation use of facial coverings. So I pulled this agenda item because there was an article that was written and I just followed up on some of the information. I will start off by saying, you know, as a teacher working at a high school where we have dress code that students are to abide by, one of them is no ski masks. and one of the reasons why that is so important is because we have to make sure that who's wearing it is actually a student on our campus that they're supposed to be there that they're not somebody else and so it's very important that uh... you know i would say you have to put down if you just want to cover your mouth because you're worried about catching something okay but that the hood and that top of it uh... needed to go down My concern with this as a blanket resolution or ordinance is the fact that people have inalienable rights. And if it's in conjunction with committing a crime, leaving a crime that was committed, I get that. But in terms of somebody that is just happening to walk around with it on, I don't want to violate, like I said, people's rights. It makes me think of, well, we can talk about, it was brought up earlier, about guns. You know, people have a right to bear arms. It's in the Constitution that they can have it. If you're law-abiding, great. If you're using it in the commission of a crime, yeah, you shouldn't have it, and we should be able to, of course, grab that individual and move from there. But again, going back to this in Modesto, there's currently the ACLU, NorCal ACLU is currently suing the city of Modesto for something very similar. And I just don't want us to go down that road. I know Deputy Chief Morris is here. And I know that our city attorney can tell us if there is already law existing on the books for the wearing of a mask in the commission of a crime.

Through the chair. If I can just clarify one thing, the article that has been brought to my attention date, it's dated June 19th, 2026. It quotes my name in the article. I was not even employed by the city of Stockton when these quotes were made. So these are not my quotes, even though they are done in quotation. So I just wanted to set the record straight on that. Um, I'm not saying they're incorrect, but that they were made, I believe by my predecessor.

so in terms of uh case um the law as it is deputy chief if you want to come up morris and just let me know about that what the law is because i know we've had smashing grabs that we all hate we've had i mean we've had a lot of negative things that have happened and people have worn mass in the commission of those crimes

Correct. So I'm Deputy Chief Morris with the Stockton Police Department, currently assigned to engagement and logistics. And so as it relates to the penal code section, there is one in place, as the WC attorney mentioned, and it states that if a person is wearing a mask, fake whiskers, any personal disguise, whether it's complete or partial, during the time they're evading escaping discovery, recognition, or identification in the commission of a crime, during public offense, that is when it's applicable. The second one is concealment, fight, escape, when charged with, arrested for, or convicted of any public offense. Again, any person violating any of the provisions of that section will be guilty of misdemeanor, not unlike the ordinance that is now you were looking at to perhaps put in place. The differences for this would be a $1,000 fine to include a administrative fee, which would be the $1,000, and then an opportunity for them to appeal.

Thank you. Moving on to Councilwoman Padilla.

Thank you, Mayor. So my opinion on this is that COVID is over. And honestly, with Stockton's weather, wearing masks all the time doesn't make sense to me. As our Vice Mayor has mentioned before, we don't have snow and we don't have heavily cold weather here in Stockton and I have to be honest if I see somebody out in the public wearing a mask I do kind of get apprehensive and nervous because typically when someone is wearing a mask that means they want to hide their identity or they're sheltering themselves from something and you know we just had multiple homicides over the weekend and I'm not saying that those involved individuals wearing masks, but typically crimes that are committed, we have people wearing masks so that specifically they can't be identified. But that said, I also understand that we simply can't create and violate our constitutional rights. Just like some people use guns for crimes, We can't eliminate the Second Amendment right and say no longer can we have guns. We can't impose that and have those principles apply in the same way. You know, there are bad people who misuse masks that commit crimes. But any ordinance would have to be legally permissible and withstand constitutional scrutiny. If it were legally allowed, I believe that this whole council would support this unanimously. However, I strongly feel that by imposing this, it would violate people's constitutional rights and then most likely set up the city for risk and liability. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you to my colleague for her comments. And so I'm going to start by saying that I'm going to root all of what I have to say initially in facts. And then I will give my opinion because I think facts are important. The fact is I own a media company and Beyonce said that the media controls the minds of the people. Sometimes when you put stories out, people read it and they believe it's absolutely true. They're referring to the Stockton Observer article that was written on the date that the city attorney just said, titled Stockton Council to Vote on Controversial Mask Ordinance. a couple things i appreciate our city attorney noting that she was not the person who was referenced in the article because she wasn't even employed at the time so that was one error the second thing is that this this uh... mag this uh... newspaper was uh... moved to stockton in march of to march sixteen two thousand twenty six is when the stock observer moved in the stock and i was born in this community raises community shot in this community buried my brother in this community so as a stocktonian i want to say thank you to the stock observer for their story, but there were some inaccuracies. The other thing is that they did is they talk about the comparison between Stockton and Modesto. I did a quick little Google search to see the violence in Stockton versus the violence in Modesto. Modesto reported zero homicides. We had a homicide on June 15th, June 21st, June 23rd, and just today we had a homicide in our city. The mayor talks about working in schools. She worked at Sag High School where a young girl named Lala was murdered. She was murdered when a person just wandered on the campus and stabbed her right in front of her colleagues. So when I sit here today, I think of people wandering on our schools, the school that has a dress code that prohibits face coverings as part of their dress code. City Attorney, do we have any lawsuits in our city right now by officer involved shootings where an officer has shot somebody, whether they shot them incorrectly or correctly?

Through the chair. Yes, Vice Mayor, we do.

So I believe in our police department. I don't want to politicize this matter. I believe in our officers. I believe in officers that are in here to protect us. I'm not concerned about my safety. I have a great amount of respect for Deputy Chief Annabelle Morris. We bestow the state, our country bestows rights to our officers to protect our community, including the right to take a life if they believe in doing so will protect citizens in this community. So I'm not going to say that we're going to remove to say that to pass a face covering. ban ordinance to protect our kids, to protect our community, to protect our colleagues who just said that they feel unsafe when they see people with the ski mask on, absent snow in our community. It's to say that we don't believe our officers will use proper discretion, that we don't believe that our officers will be mindful when they withdraw their gun because somebody has a mask on. We say that we believe our officers when we say that to implement an ordinance that would add protection to our constituents that by doing so means our officers will all of a sudden use some improper discretion. Because they use discretion to protect us by firing on individuals, potentially harming or killing somebody in the commission of a crime. I don't know the details for the cases that were just referenced by our city attorney, but we still ended up in a lawsuit. And our city attorney will tell you that you can get sued just for walking down the street and spitting on the ground if somebody wanted to sue you. But let me talk as a black man in America who was a part of the Black Lives Matter movement that never supported defunding police but understands the importance of protecting the lives of people who may be improperly targeted for whatever reason. We are in a Donald Trump world right now where white Americans are being shot in the face for supporting those who oppose ICE. So I just want to say to my colleagues who were at Steve Hilton's event recently, who's running for governor of California, who's supported by MAGA, He actually supports the policies that are shooting white Americans in the face, and you were there to support them. But back to Stockton. There was recently a young man named, 14-year-old named Cyrus in South Carolina who was killed by a convenience store owner just for getting water and walking out. He wasn't wearing a face covering. He was shot because he was black. And let's be clear, if an officer wants to kill you because you're black and brown, they're going to kill you whether you have a mask on, whether you have a hoodie on, or whether you're just walking down the street being black or brown. So I'm not going to throw our police in this conversation as if they don't have ethics and responsibilities to serve all people in Stockton. The reason why this ordinance was brought forward by me and my colleagues from the legislative committee was because we saw robberies happen in Weberstown Mall, we saw them in Lincoln Center, and we've seen robberies throughout the city with people wearing masks. I was in Chase Bank doing a withdrawal and some people walked in with a mask. I don't know why you're walking in the bank with a mask on. And as a city council person who just watched this council vote down police substations because they said it had monetary impact to the city, This face covering ban is not a constitutional right to anybody here. It is about officers using proper discretion, but we have a responsibility as a council to do more than simply sit here.

Councilman Blower.

Thank you, Mayor. City Attorney, I just have some questions about the lawsuit going on in Modesto. Have you had a chance to look at their ordinance and how does it compare to ours?

Do the chair know I have not councilmember flower looked at the Modesto But I am I can tell you that this has been I think through four three or four to six Committees with legal review and so as I understand that it is something you could explore and pursue But I am not familiar with the Modesto.

So some of the questions like I that article that we're talking about and one of the groups. Pacific Media Workers Guild is a plaintiff and they're arguing that reporters routinely rely on helmets goggles respirators protective equipment while covering protests. The ordinance that you drafted seems to have a number of exceptions. So one of those including occupational safety. So would that mollify that particular group with that. I mean I would think if they could make the argument that they have occupational safety, that that would be an exemption allowing them to wear masks without.

Oh, sorry.

I apologize. Can you go through the exceptions?

Sure. I have it in front of me, but I do not want to get into the merits and the constitutionality arguments for the public to see to challenge potentially whatever laws we're trying to pass. However, with that being said, I can go through the exceptions as they are provided to you in the agenda, which I have before me. And there are under 9.18.040, A through F, there's religious garments exception, medical necessity exception, occupational safety, theatrical and sporting events, traditional holiday costumes, and law enforcement and emergency personnel. So those are the exceptions that have been provided for in this particular Stockton Municipal Code.

Okay, thank you. I'd also like to hear from our police department. Deputy Chief, can you kind of give us your input on this? Does this add another arrow in your quiver? Is this something you think will be helpful or do you think it'll be more of a pain?

I think it overlaps the penal code that we currently follow with the state of California. However, understand that our officers are experienced, well-trained, and understand the importance of recognizing when perhaps someone is a suspicious individual, that they need to stop or detain, or is possibly getting into a situation where perhaps they're going to commit some sort of crime. Are we always there at that exact time? No. Can we be called there at a specific time if someone perhaps sees someone with a sea mask? Yes. Does that mean that it's going to be a priority call for service? No. We will respond. However, again, we have more ability to contact people within a government space, the city property, public space, sidewalk. When it comes to private property, it's a bit different. They have an opportunity, for example, Mayor Fugazi mentioned Stagg High School. If they see someone on campus and part of their policy is that they're not supposed to wear masks and she calls and is concerned for the safety of the children, absolutely, we're going to respond. That would be a priority and a concern because we don't know if this person is trespassing. That is another reason they can contact us if they're not unsure about that. Now, we would be responding for the trespassing. At this point, there's no ordinance, so we would not be responding for the mask. The priority would be the trespassing.

So do you think if this does pass, I mean, that does give you another tool to use?

It's definitely another tool to use, and it would be up to the officers to make an assessment because we do have to protect the rights of individuals. Again, it is an additional tool, and I do know that our officers will enforce the law and be unbiased to ensure that the community remains safe.

Thank you.

Councilman Villapudua.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Question for city attorney. I got some calls and emails and I've seen a lot of traction on the social media. Didn't this go before federal court and it got denied in the court in the past? So, how many of you can answer that question?

The First Amendment is probably one of the most litigated areas of the law. So it is constantly evolving and constantly being litigated.

Okay. Well, I mean, I just see it as this, how are we going to pass it locally if it didn't get past higher courts? That's how I feel about what's going on right now. So, thank you.

I'm going to go to Councilman Enriquez and then public comment and then back to Vice Mayor.

Thank you mayor. So city attorney, one of the things that, and just for the public, I know when this was first initially discussed at our legislation committee last year, and I know he got, he got brought to council and we had a discussion and you know, the police who all gave your perspective, which I appreciate a lot has happened since ledge meeting to the last time he was brought to full council to now having a new city attorney to the lawsuit in Modesto and just the crime rates that have been lowered here in Stockton, and that's something that we want to talk more about how crime is down here in our city. But with all those moving parts, we also have to figure out where we're at. So to Council Member Blauer's point about having a thorough legal analysis of where we are now, because one of the things that I know Vice Mayor Lee, Council Member Padilla, and our committee were discussing was when we gave direction initially, we had said, draft an ordinance that is a Stockton version, but it also doesn't impede with the First Amendment right or the Constitution. And the staff at the time said, yes, we will draft something that doesn't go against constitutional law, which is the priority. So I understand the discussion. I understand the concern now because, of course, that's something that we don't want to impede on. At the same time, I've always been under the impression that this draft has been something that was cleared legally through the legal lens that it doesn't impede on constitutional rights. So if that's the case, I understand when I look at section c private space you know if you're wearing a ski mask at a business a retail store a school a restaurant parking lots private property you know ultimately every owner has a right to say you know we're going to sell your we're going to sell uh you can use our business or an hour we can say no to you that'd be the same thing if it's if you're within 100 feet of a school you're wearing a ski mat hey you cannot wear a ski mask or if you're within a restaurant or an office You know, I think that's where I think my focus is on more than if I just see someone randomly on the street. Because then you fall into this category of making an assumption. But if you're within, again, a school, a business, city, property, etc., I think that's a little bit more different. I think also it protects us from that legal case. I don't know what the Modesto version is, but my worry with Modesto, and again, it's a different city, so I don't want to say it's the exact same thing we should be worried about here in Stockton, but I know their legal fees are pretty high up. I mean, I could be wrong, but I was looking online and they have a couple hundred thousand already in legal fees that they're battling with that ordinance but again not to say that we'll have the same legal fees but I say that to ensure that I was always under the impression that this draft ordinance was separate from again going against potentially facing lawsuits but again I could be wrong but I think I don't know how much time you have had to educate yourself on this ordinance since you started but I think having a clear analysis of where we are now with all the moving parts I had shared I think would be very helpful for us to consider but I think again the the the parts that I mentioned I think are the focus points. I think all we all care about are kids, going to libraries, going to restaurants, our schools. Just like we have our street vendor or our food trucks. You have to be a certain amount of feet away from a brick and mortar. I think that's where, if it's not already in place, I would like to see that. But again, I will lean on your opinion. Thank you.

Was there, I apologize, was there a question, Councilmember, for me?

Not necessarily a question, but just something to think about in terms of having a proper legal analysis. Again, just if you had the time to really review this and considering all the moving parts I shared, I think would be helpful for this council.

Thank you. Public comment?

May I have Michelle J Sherman to the podium, followed by David .

Thank you. Good afternoon. So I am opposed of the proposed face covering ordinance because California already has a law addressing this issue. Penal Code 185 has been in effect for more than 150 years and it makes it unlawful to wear a mask and disguise to avoid identification while committing a crime. The challenge Stockton is facing is not the lack of laws. The challenge is enforcement. Stockton is the 11th largest city in California with more than 325,000 residents. Yes, our police department remains short, more than 100 officers. Before creating additional ordinances, we should focus on ensuring that our police department has the staffing and resources necessary to enforce the laws already on the books. Public safety is a foundation of a strong economy. residents feel safe business businesses invest customer shop locally and neighbors thrive cities priority should be recruiting and retaining officers so that existing laws can be a force effectively throughout our community is my understanding i believe we have what seventeen eighteen hundred uh... employees here with the city of stockton And reporting up under the chief police's umbrella is 700. He has vacancies throughout. People complain about code enforcement. They are understaffed. People complain about stray dogs running around. They're understaffed. And I also want to mention when people say that 700 of our fund is due to the police, 70% of the general fund is attributed to the police, but people fail to mention that that's because of the Hannibal Hospital and that's because of the... the animal station. So that's why the fun is that way. But I think that if we're able to get these departments up and running code enforcement, 911 operators were down. I think we can strive. I think stopped it stopped and can really be good. If we're able to fill these vacancies, people would, you know, love to go out to restaurants. They will love to shop. People will love to take walks. Our seniors will love to take morning walks, evening walks, feeling safe. Our youth can feel safe. Businesses can stay open. And businesses will love to come to Stockton. And I think it really starts with public safety. Thank you.

David St. I.

So plus one, everything Ms. Sherman just said. Thank you for that.

Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon, Mayor Fugazi, Vice Mayor Leak, City Council. My name is David Sengta. I'm a recent Stanford graduate, back at home full-time now. And with that being said, I appreciate the acknowledgement of the lives that this city lost this past weekend. It's tragic, and I support our police department in everything they do to protect and serve our community. But I also want our local city council to empower our local law enforcement with the tools that genuinely reduce violence. And that's why I'm respectfully asking that we pull this item from the consent agenda and give it further review in ledge committee. I want to point first to the evidence. With PD's own data presented to the alleged committee in October of last year, it showed that mass robberies declined 15% from 23 to 24, and another 29% in the first half of 2025. The original ordinance had text that cited an increase in criminal activity when that's not simply true. And so the language was then removed from this current ordinance to reflect that. And so I believe that sound public policy should rest on findings that can fully stand on their own. Another concern that's been brought up in our council members' deliberation is the litigation concern. The ACLU of NorCal is challenging Modesto's mask ordinance in federal court. I acknowledge, and I did some research, our ordinance is drafted more narrowly, but I would argue it shares the same fundamental vulnerability. a subjective standard that turns on individual officer discretion with no objective task and no clear exemption for lawful protest and public assembly. In Modesto, the arrests that were made under that standard were dismissed at the first court proceeding, and I think that example and our neighbors down south should give us a bit of pause before adopting a similar framework in this ordinance. And I want to respectfully ask this question of enforcement equity. Stockton is a majority people of color community. An ordinance that relies on officer discretion without no objective standard carries a real risk of uneven application even amongst the most trained and skilled police officers. That risk should give us pause before we move forward with this ordinance. I believe our city can come forward with a better measure that has a factual basis that is rooted in reality and that this ordinance should be revised to reflect that. In fact, I would suggest looking at focused evidence-based investment in violence reduction for our community. Focus deterrence, and I'm going to be a big proponent of that since last December after that tragedy, focus deterrence is what gets down to violence. I don't believe this ordinance in its current form is enough to empower our PD and creates even further concern for our local city council for litigation and our police department that we simply cannot afford. Thank you.

That concludes public comment for this item.

Okay, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the public comments. I want to call Deputy Chief Morris up to the podium, and please be mindful of my time when she's speaking. The article that we referenced earlier quoted you. It says, Deputy Chief Annabelle Morris of the Stockton Police Department said she did not have statistics, and it quoted you saying, I do know that there are situations where masks are used during crimes. That's your statement?

I cannot recall, but maybe, sir, if you have it printed somewhere.

Okay. Because the other thing I want to quote from the same article was Councilman Padilla was quoted as saying that you compare the issue to vehicle window tent violations, noting that enforcement often depends on officer discretion. They quoted you in that article as saying that. So going back to the issue of discretion, officers would have to use the same discretion in whether or not to engage a person that has a mask on as they do whether or not they have to pull their firearm and shoot a person.

Correct, it's officer discretion.

And discretion, it stays with the officer to make that determination. Correct. One of the public comments from Michelle Sherman, she just said that she opposes it because the city needs to prioritize recruiting officers. That's an indication of what the department's efforts are because we don't recruit officers. You all recruit officers. Are you all doing everything you can to recruit officers to the city?

Yes.

And do you believe that you have all the support of this council to recruit whoever you need to wherever you need to?

Yes.

Okay. And then the other thing that was said by Mr. Sanghai, congratulations on your graduation. that we need to support the department with all the tools they need. We sat in a meeting with the congressman about support for drones. We got that. We talked about the real-time crime center. We got that. Do you believe that this council is giving you the tools that you need to support your department? Yes. Okay, thank you. That's all I have. Sometimes elected, we socialize issues and we get caught up in the emotion of it all. Again, talking to you not only as an elected official, but as a black man in America, Now, the reason why I brought this here to make a vote was because we all are promising public safety. We're running campaigns on public safety. We're talking to people in our community about public safety. All day long, it's about public safety. I want to remind you that I just said four days in a row, so four homicides in the last week in this city. Modesto reports zero homicides. So to compare us to Modesto is comparing apples to asparagus. Not going to do that. The other thing is I think it's important is that Every single resident, 326,000 deserve to live in a city that as a council that prioritizes every opportunity to keep them safer. It's not about socializing the issue. That's not saying it's not a potential issue, but we just heard from our one of our second highest in command of our whole police department, that it's about officer discretion. And I believe in our police department to use the same discretion in engaging people with face coverings as they would whether or not to take a life of somebody who's in the commission of a crime. I don't want to push this back to Ledge because it's been here for a year. It's been back and forth to Ledge and to Councilman Mariquez's question to our new city attorney. This did go through a full examination of our city attorney's office because we used the Philadelphia ordinance as a basis for the discussion in Ledge. It went to Ledge, I think, two or three times. It's come to Council now two or three times. So tonight, I want us to make a determination and a vote on whether or not to implement it. Now, here's the deal. I said in one meeting that my dogs are safer in the city than your children. And some people kind of laughed at it as if it was a joke. No, it's reality. Because the reality is, my colleague just said as an elected, one of the highest ranking officials in the city, that she doesn't feel safe in a city when somebody has a ski mask on. So I say to my colleagues, why would we not support doing something? It's almost like saying that people have the right to live in our parks and in our streets. They have a right to not live in a house. They don't have a right to live in our parks and in front of our homes and businesses. So when we talk about constitutional rights and how we engage people in the streets, we can't say that a constitutional right, I believe it's the Second Amendment, to bear arms, which is in the Constitution that still matters in a Donald Trump country, is different than whether or not a person has a constitutional right to walk into Chase Bank with a mask on. I want to commend our school employees and our school leadership because they took the initiative to create a dress code policy saying students can't wear masks on their campuses. And they had the courage to do that in the face of the very same conversation we're having today. And I want to say to my colleagues, do we have the same courage to example the same leadership, exemplify the same leadership for our entire city? to mirror what they're doing for our kids in our schools because our seniors deserve it, our veterans deserve it, my grandmother, grandfather, my cousins, uncles, your cousins, uncles, every kid that walks the streets deserves for us to take a chance at making the city safer again. And again, trusting in our officers that we all say we do to use the proper discretion they use every day. But I do wanna make a determination today so that way we can stand on our legislative records.

Councilman Padilla.

Thank you, Mayor. I understand we have brought it to ledge two times. We brought it to council again two times. And I know how important public safety is to our city. But with listening to public comments and also what my colleagues have said, I just don't feel that we have enough conversation or topic that warrants this policy. including city council's, I mean, sorry, city attorney's thorough and legal analysis that this doesn't impede on the First Amendment. I don't know if you saw us passing notes back and forth, but city attorney, is my understanding that this was created prior to you coming to city of Stockton? What's before us?

It was created before I came here. That's correct.

Okay. So I, I mean, I, I understand, you know, you want a decision and I understand the importance. Um, I don't want to send it back to ledge. I wouldn't mind seeing it coming back to council at the next meeting. Um, I'm, I'm open to suggestions. I don't want to say that I'm a fully opposed, um, as I'm always open to discussion and more conversation.

Councilwoman Ponce.

Mayor, I just have a question for city attorney. As written in the ordinance, does it violate anyone's constitutional rights?

Like did you have a chance to review it?

I trust in my staff who gave provided legal review and at this time we would not put something before you we felt rose to that level.

Okay, thank you. Okay, and before I go to Vice Mayor, I would say thank you, David and Michelle, for your comments. It brought up some things that made me think about enforcement can be unequal. And, you know, is it, you know, with a minority majority city, we don't want to unknowingly target our black and brown community, but you can't tell when somebody's got a ski mask on, I'll put it, I'll put it like that. But officers still need a legal, you know, a legal precedence, not precedence, a legal justification in order to stop somebody as it is, because wearing a ski mask in and of itself is not a crime. Just like we say, you know, being unsheltered is not a crime. There's a lot of things, but we have laws and we have ordinances. So let me be devil's advocate. We have this ordinance. Some choose to stop people and some choose not to. Is there going to be a disciplinary action then against potentially an officer who does not go through the ordinance? But I also think about ordinances that we have that we currently don't do anything with anyway. We already have a ton of ordinances. And so I know we're spending all this time on this issue, but in the end, it's whether or not the department and the members of the department who are the enforcers of this. And the last thing I want to say, our libraries, our rec centers, we have security. We have security at our buildings, at our offices. Banks have security at theirs. a number of businesses do as well. And so when you think about, oh, somebody wanting to come in, I would like to say that if you're going into the bank, somebody's gonna be like, wait a second, you need to take your ski mask down or whatnot. I've never seen somebody go into a bank with a ski mask. I'm not saying it can or can't happen, but in the end, we have a security in many places police are going to code blue going on on higher priority calls getting caught up in the weeds with somebody walking down the street or walking to the mall let's say to the mall with a ski mask i i don't think that is a an opportunity for us to stop them at that point and begin questioning them vice mayor

Thank you, Mary, and thank you for those comments. I'm going to use them as reference points in my response to that. Stop and frisk in our country. If you think about New York City, that is very diverse. It's one of the most diverse cities in our country. I was just there this weekend. If you walk in Times Square, you literally see a sea of everything, every type of person, every type of background. And I think that's the thing that makes that city beautiful. But that's also the thing that's the heart of our city, that we are a very diverse community. If you look at this dais, we represent the diversity. I think sometimes we don't think about that through the lens of policy making, but I do think we look like what we represent. But how we create policy, how we shape policy, how we fund initiatives, how we support our community is either a representation of us having clear lenses or an indictment on our blindness. Um, I do want to say that the city attorney for the record said that she would never bring anything before this council that violated people's constitutional rights. Uh, and, and I appreciate that because that's important that her and her staff have done the work, uh, deputy city attorney, Taryn Jones, for all the work that you did in committee to review this. and all the work that was done with the prior city attorney to get here. The mayor said that we're spending a lot of time on this. Those four deaths that I just said are lifelong death sentences. Those families have to deal with that forever. That is an eternal time. of a person dying, so I'm here representing that. When we talk about the mass shooting that happened in District 1, and again, I know I get criticized online for saying Amari Peterson's name because that kid had a significant impact on me, and I sat at that kid's funeral next to our sheriff, and when I think about that, I think two things. One, one of the people that was in jail as a result of whatever happened in that incident, not to say that they were involved or not, but they were in jail, was in OVP and said to me, are you passing a ban on ski masks? Because I can't go outside if I can't wear a mask. Because people know me from this side of town. Well, guess what? I'm not going to make it easier for you to create problems in our community because you're concerned about face coverings to protect you to go out in the community when you're committing crimes and inflicting pain on families. And I said that to them. Yes, I'm proudly going to support and sponsor this because I believe our department will do the right thing in enforcing it. And I don't believe that you have the right to cover your face if you're out using it to commit crimes or to protect yourself from those you committed crimes against. The other thing is the mayor just said, and a lot of us laughed at this, and I didn't laugh. She said there's a lot of ordinances not being followed right now. That may be true. That is a concern of mine, because that means we employ staff and officers who decide when they implement the rules that we pass as the governing body. And that sentence really concerns me, and I hope everybody heard it, and I hope our department heard that, because that is an indictment on our lack of enforcement, which again, I'm not saying is or isn't true because I don't know how we measure that. But if that's a general sense or feeling, I am concerned about that because I spent a lot of time with my colleagues, Councilman Padilla and Councilman Mariquez in ledge, coming up with ideas of how we can be innovative to make the city safer. And Councilman Padilla, I appreciate your offering because you know as much as I do, I don't like going to ledge, coming back, going back. I mean, we've spent a year on this now and I don't know how many homicides or shootings we've had since then. But guess what? If putting a face covering ban ordinance saves one person from being shot, saves one business from being burglarized, saves one neighborhood from having people come through and vandalize, then guess what? It was worth it, right? And I want to go back to Omari because what I heard, and I don't know if it's in talking to law enforcement or the streets because I have my ear on both sides of the city. When that mass shooting happened in District 1, there was a kid reportedly standing outside, and the person or people that were going in to do the shooting had a mask on and said, get out of here. So if for that we don't pause and think about the potential, whether or not, if or when, what the weather looks like or this or that, all those are all ways of just socializing this issue back into a committee to stay there and die. I brought it here to make a determination of what we do and how we move forward. And I will say to Councilman Padilla, I would say I'm fine with bringing this back to the very next council meeting that gives all seven of us an opportunity to do our own research. Our city attorney, who's now in the seat, who I think has done a great job presenting our position on it today, but given her a fair opportunity to review it with her team. And to look at Philadelphia and look at Modesto, although I don't want to keep hearing about Modesto because when I ran for office, y'all kept telling me, oh, you live in LA, you from LA. Okay, well, now we talk about Modesto. I'm talking about Stockton. We bring it back to the very next council. We all have a chance to do our own research, be very well-versed. We can all go into our districts and have community conversations if we choose, but there should be no excuse coming back to pass something. So that would be my recommendation. We bring it back to next month. Next council.

Councilwoman Padilla.

I would also like some input from the police department with regards to enforcement. I know you mentioned that if there was a call for a crime versus the face mask, the serious crime would be, you know, enforced prior to. Just if you can elaborate more on the enforcement piece.

Correct. So the difference is whether this person is wearing a mask, whether it be a medical mask or whether it's for religious purposes, it's for us to make an assessment and for that person that is in a specific location to call should they feel that it is inappropriate or there's a concern. Now, if we receive a call, for example, dispatch says there's a gentleman or lady contacting us about a lady on the road where a gentleman covered with a face mask or a ski mask, we would respond to that call for service as soon as we had a unit available. That does not correlate to it being an emergency situation where we need to send a unit immediately. We would have to go to a priority call where something is in progress and perhaps someone's life is in danger. question you asked about as it relates to maybe trespassing, it could be a school, it could be a, I don't know, a store, and they're saying, hey, these kids, oftentimes we get the skateboarding, right, on a, store property and so they're concerned about that. Maybe this kid decides to wear a scarf that day or something to cover the nose because it's cold and they want to call about that. I'm not responding at this current time because there's no Stockton Municipal Code or ordinance in place other than the penal code which still overlaps. I am not responding for that penal code section. No one is saying that there is an immediate threat. Someone is in the process of perhaps robbing someone or that there is a concern for a suspicious individual other than the skateboarding. I'm responding for the possible trespassing. Perhaps that person has already been asked to leave and they didn't leave and they did not comply. Therefore, an officer is going to respond. contact that person and say, excuse me, sir, gentlemen, you have been asked to leave off the property. They do have the right to refuse service and or for you to be on their property, and it is posted accordingly. So we will inform them, document that, and then they should be on their way. That would then trespass them for 30 days. Should they not want to leave, then that person can be placed under citizen's arrest, or we can arrest them themselves for a misdemeanor.

Thank you. And I apologize for so many questions, but I do want to be thorough in my information. What if somebody is, like you said, skateboarding around and they have a mask on and someone calls and says, I feel nervous. I don't feel comfortable. I fear for my life or I don't feel safe. And he's wearing a mask or someone's wearing a mask.

It depends. We have extremely trained telecommunicators that would ask additional questions to make a thorough assessment. And they would respond based on that information. I think it just is call to call. It depends on the situation. Thank you.

Okay, so no more lights blinking. What is the pleasure of council? Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor. I'll put the recommendation out there, but if I can really quick, if you get a call because somebody's skateboarding and wearing a mask and the officer engages them and they have a gun on them, will they be arrested?

If they were to be found with a gun on them, absolutely. If they don't have a carried concealed weapon authorization permit and they have a gun and it's on their person, yes, sir.

Or if they have a warrant for robbery or homicide, they'll be arrested.

Correct. They could be arrested if they do have one in the system.

Thank you. And thank you for all of your presentation. I mean, given the conversation, and I appreciate this dialogue because I think, you know, whether we agree, disagree, or the debate is good for the safety of our city thank you mayor for allowing us to have that debate I would say we can bring this back to the very next council it gives our city attorney an opportunity to do a full review put her eyes on it talk with our city manager and our police department and take all their considerations and then council members can have discussions in their respective areas and I will commit to hosting a community citywide community forum on this topic if folks want to come out those of you who are here check my social media promoted but mayor if we can bring it back to the next council for a final decision That'd be my motion.

I'll second. I'd like to make an amendment.

Okay. Sorry. Is it a friendly amendment? It's a very friendly amendment.

After conversation, dialogue, debate, and I would just like to make a motion to proceed with, no, not proceed with conversation, to approve the motion as it is. I'll second that.

Through the chair, I apologize. I just want definitive direction. Would that be the next, immediate next council meeting, which would be the seventh?

No. So I'm making an amendment to this.

So we'll vote on her motion first, and then we may not need to answer that question.

Okay. Thank you. Apologies. Please state your motion.

I make a motion to approve item 6.1.

Second.

She's second. Okay. Council, please vote. Motion carries 6-1 with Fugazi dissenting. Okay, moving on then to item 6.3, which is approve a motion authorizing five-year agreements for Stockton Fire Department to provide fire and EMS dispatch services to regional partners. Pulled by Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I just wanted to acknowledge publicly acknowledge the chief in the fire department for all the creativity you all are doing to be innovative and move us forward um and what i looked i think what i saw in this report was that this is going to be making us money is that accurate

Uh, making, excuse me, making money is a relative term. Brian Carr, your fire chief. Um, we're doing cost recovery, so it is providing a substantial portion of cost recovery. Uh, previous fiscal year, uh, we would have needed about 3.8 million from the general fund to subsidize our dispatch operation. Uh, with this con with these four contracts, as well as the Sen Cal dispatching contract, We only need 2.4 million from the general fund. So we're cutting the expense by a million and a half dollars.

I mean, you're helping to save money, okay? Yes, correct. Okay, and so with this, do you see us being able to recover even more revenue later or down the road? Or how does this work for those who are watching and learning?

Yeah, so it's all cost recovery, and most of our cost is in our employees that are our dispatchers. So every year we do an analysis on what the costs are. We divide it by a percentage of the cost the stakeholders in the dispatch agreement. So we have four fire departments in the county that use our services. We have Sen Cal, which is now the Ambulance Transport that uses our services. And I had a meeting yesterday with 13 fire districts in the county, and we're looking at bringing them into the dispatch center, which would help offset some more of the cost. So every year we do an analysis and hopefully the goal would one day be, yeah, net zero, no additional money needed from the general fund for Stockton's portion.

Yeah, I just wanted to pull it to acknowledge the work and just say thank you.

Yes, I appreciate that and I will highlight that this is all mostly staff. One of the things I presented in our budget docs was we have $101 million operating budget and approximately 30 million in contract revenue that comes back to the department through dispatching, fire districts, Measure W, and our fully funded Fire Prevention Bureau. So our actual operating net cost to the city is really only about 70 million. So we are super proud of that as well, and thank you.

And I pulled the item, but there's lots of conversation with this dais individually and in groups about the need to continue to support the fire department, the work that you're doing, but I wanted to pull it to just publicly acknowledge it in any way that we can save money is great, so thank you. Absolutely, thank you. I'll make a motion to approve.

Is there public comment on this item? There is not. Okay.

Motion to approve. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to the next item pulled by Vice Mayor, it is 6.11. Approve motion to award service contracts for the debris removal and pickup program.

Thank you, Mayor. So I was able to meet with Penny from public. So thank you for answering some of my questions. I've received lots of calls and text messages about this item and I wasn't, I don't know if I was, well maybe I was around last time we did the award but I had questions around it. One of the questions was what is the RFP process for this? I understand we put our RFP out. We have received I think six to seven applicants. I asked how they were selected. and where the actual plans for each of the contractors, my understanding, similar to when we do NOFA work, where we can review the applications and we can review everything. I didn't have that opportunity with this, so i had lots of questions but i was able to get answers and then the other thing was payment terms and understand that the city pays on a reimbursable system where there is oversight checks and balances to people supply supplying receipts of tonnage in order to be reimbursed did want to have a conversation about the timeline because met with city manager who had some really good ideas about improving that system and then i had questions around termination if the city wants to at any terminate the contracts of those here and then the last thing I asked was if we had talked to the sheriff department around the program they have that we have a contract on and what the reimbursement rate for that is in consideration of cost savings so I know that was a lot but if you want to just jump in wherever there would be helpful

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor and members of the Council. So with regards to those questions, Mr. Vice Mayor, so there were six applicants that supplied RFP for these services. Three of them were evaluated by staff, and they were deemed qualified to provide the services. And all three companies are from here in Stockton locally. Staff met with each company and evaluated their proposals along with the rates that they had proposed for the services. What was negotiated as part of this proposal was the performance, the prices, as well as the number of days. One of the elements of the proposal was when staff noticed that the prices were a little bit too high, there was a negotiation held in terms of whether the prices could be lowered or the days of service could be cut back. And so there was a compromise made between all three of them and the rates or the prices that are on the report today is what was negotiated with all three companies.

And were you able to examine the program we have with the sheriff's office? I know we have a contract in speaking to the sheriff that we reimburse or pay for. Were you able to confirm what that rate is?

I have not, I know we spoke last evening. I have not been able to confirm that yet.

Okay, but you can follow up with them.

Yes, sir.

Okay, thank you. The one thing that I wanted to highlight in pulling this item too is one of our vendors here, 209 Cares, I do want to say, during the Wild and Out investigation, this individual who runs this company was all over social media creating narratives about me allegedly being involved in taking money and using my position, and they were going on and on and on bashing me. And I just want to be very clear that if we have vendors in our city providing services to our taxpayers that elected us to govern, I think they should be very mindful of how they utilize their time because I'm not going to use taxpayer dollars to fund campaigns against my colleagues or against myself. I think everybody has a right to their own opinion, but I think there were lots of people on the comments calling individuals out, and I would be one to definitely terminate a contract if I believe our vendors are doing things to hurt the city or hurt the integrity of the work that me and my colleagues are doing. But that said, the only follow-up that I have is that we talk with the Sheriff's Department to assess the cost and see if there's cost saving in partnership with them to do the same work that we are having these contractors do. Thank you. Oh, there's nothing else. I'll make a motion to approve. Public comment.

Yolanda Amen, please.

So I'm going to read this in its entirety, although I just learned some additional information. I'm just going to read the whole thing. It's not going to make sense. I support the efforts to keep Stockton clean and address illegal dumping, blight, and debris. However, before approving more than $2.2 million in contracts, and potentially that can exceed $3.7 million through extensions, I believe that the public deserves greater transparency. I first would like to understand why the council is being asked to approve something without the exception of competitive bidding, which we as a public did not know anything about. Second, I would like to see measurable performance data for each organization. How many illegal dumping sites have they cleared? How many tons of debris have they removed? What is the cost per cleanup? What results have taxpayers received from previous contracts? Third, I would like clarification on how these funds will be spent. What percentage goes towards labor, equipment, disposable fees, administration, and overhead? How will the city monitor performance and ensure accountability? And finally, I ask that any relationships between any one of these decision makers be a recipient organization, be fully disclosed so the public can have confidence that this process is fair, transparent, and based on merit and not friendships. Given the amount of taxpayer money involved, I respectfully request that the council postpone this item until additional information is available. Specifically, I would like to see a full account of how the process city funds were spent, what measurable results were achieved, and exactly how these funds will be allocated. I ask council to also consider whether the procurement process should be reopened to ensure all qualified organizations have a fair opportunity to participate. Transparency, competition, and accountability strengthen public trust and help ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. This is not opposing any organizations. It's just about making sure that the process is open, fair, and fully transparent before committing millions of public dollars. Thank you.

That concludes public comment for this item.

Okay, so I'd like to make a comment off that, just letting the people know that this is an RFP process. The city puts it out to bid to any and everybody, and they can submit, there's a deadline for it, and there's actually criteria that you have to meet in order to be eligible. A selection committee comprised of public work staff evaluated and ranked all proposals based on each firm's experience with similar kinds of work, quality work, equipment, and cost. This is a process that has been long standing for, I would say, decades. And the bids are all sealed. You don't know who applied. They purposely do that so that there are not any improper abilities to not be unbiased. um so i'd like to do that a cleanup information i agree i'd like to know the tonnage of everybody picking up trash i think we've had that conversation before um and making sure that people are doing what they are i think is there a 30-day hold on this i mean not a 30-day hold but if we vote for it tonight when does the new contract then begin the hope is to begin the new contract at the beginning of the fiscal year okay that's the hope yes that's the hope um because i what i want the public to know is that that contract ends june 30th if everything's not set up there are going to be a few weeks where the only crew out there would be the city crew would yes um so i just i just want to make that really clear the entire rfp is in the item if you go into it it has it there and it has each one inside it has a attachment a then there's another attachment that breaks it all down it has the debris removal and pickup om26-008 specifications which outlines exactly what they have to do the general uh uh requirements to even qualify to get the bid and i don't think was there a local preference put on this a five percent local preference no because they didn't need it this is uh uh the the level is is too low and then um uh There was one more thing I wanted to say, and now it just jumped out of my head. Oh, you said you negotiated down to work fewer days, but the RFP said five days. You needed to work Monday through Friday.

Monday through Friday, but we also factored in what they were proposing as far as costs are concerned.

Okay, so is there going to be a day when people don't work?

If those are days that they are not able to work, because for example, last year, all the work days were not filled. And so we can make adjustments. And also with the assistance of the city crew, whatever the contractors are not able to pick up, city crew is able to make up the needs over there.

Okay, because currently only one of the vendors is going to do five days and the other two vendors are doing four days.

That's what they have proposed.

Mayor, I also wanted to say we do follow all state and federal bid laws.

Okay. I'm going to go to Councilman Enriquez and then back to Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Just really quick, Penny. Maybe you already answered this, so I apologize if you have to repeat yourself. But in terms of the six bids that were out and three were chosen, Why three? Why not two? Is it just based on you staggered the hours that they could do per week? Why three out of six, not two out of six or one out of six? We could have gone with one out of six. Is it normal to do? Was it three before or is it three this time around?

Three was before. In previous practice, there was three. But we also looked at the needs of the city. This is a big city. And so, for example, District 5 and District 6, the demand for cleaning up of illegal dumping is huge. So to have just one company focus on District 5 and District 6, we're going to neglect the other districts. And so the current thought process with staff is to allow one company to focus on two districts. And that creates accountability of services and also the promised or the negotiated service that they're going to be providing. So if these individuals are making a commitment to the city that this is what you're going to do in Districts 1 and 2 or Districts 3 and 4, and we assess and evaluate the performance and it's not working out the way that they promised it to be, then there's going to be some conversation that needs to take place. Yeah.

No, and I appreciate that, and thank you for saying that because I'm sure, I mean, I didn't know that, so I don't know how many, the public knew that until just now, so it's good to hear, and also I think I had the same thoughts as the mayor had about just the tracking, how much is picked up per district throughout the city. I know we get it once a year, but if there were emails that maybe I didn't get, my apologies, but even if it's something as simple as quarterly updates about what these three partners, especially if they were previously having done this, you know if there are focus areas I think you all just said district five and six so that's something I learned today because again whether I asked or didn't but it's important to know quarterly at least you know how much is being picked up what areas what are hot spots that way we can know as as council members and mayor, we can update our constituents about what's going on. And also to what some folks in the public comment have said about they also knowing where our taxpayer dollars are going. So I appreciate it.

And that's, if I may, council member, and that's an adjustment that we're making to these years' contracts. Previous years, most of the work are done on just work orders. So we're going to work and negotiate again with these three companies to focus in on specific districts. And so, again, the need for accountability and improvement in services and helping improve the quality of life for our citizens is one of the main focus. Thank you.

Councilmember Villapudua.

Yeah, I just want to say, yeah, I agree with my colleagues on the data, but I've been around with these three partners with us. They've been tremendous working with them. I've been on ride-alongs. I know I email you guys just every day. But they've been a big impact in our community. So I give them kudos for what they do every day in our community, cleanups. And I want to thank you guys being in those emails as well. So I support what they're doing and I continue to support them going on in the future. So thanks.

Vice Mayor.

thank you Mary yeah I want to echo what my colleague said and I haven't been on trash ride-alongs and I probably won't but what I will say is I do want to echo what he said that you know a woman stopped me yesterday and she said I just have to tell you district 6 has been cleaner than it ever has I'm not cleaning that up that's your team and I just want to say I appreciate You I know that you did a ride-along throughout the whole district with all my commissioners looking at areas hot spots The illegal dumping and you guys have put a plan together Thank You city manager for being responsive to that And and and I want to acknowledge the mayor did say when we started we would start in the south and move north and our clean city initiative moving throughout the city uh... in tandem with the light of stock initiative i mean the work is happening so that the other thing i do want to say enough names sitting here thinking how to say it without given up uh... you know we did need to talk about the economics of these proposals and without getting into the full details uh... we did get a deal and so i do want to say that this this this is a bill for the city uh... and this is a the these numbers you see covers three years of work it's not this every year so that i do want to say that i'm not gonna go any deeper into that conversation but uh... we did look at the economics and thank our partners for given us a a good deal to my colleague uh... cousin rick is point about one out one two three i love competition i love people being able to demonstrate that they want to go above and beyond and that's be able to evaluate that i will echo their point though not defer to the mayor of what that looks like but i do think a regular update Because when people say, oh, you're not doing anything. Well, if you see, we took X tons of trash. We took this. I saw a chandelier thrown in the middle of French Camp Road today. I'm like, who throws a chandelier outside the car? But anyway, it's our public work staff and these partners who go out and pick that stuff up. So I'll defer to the mayor on what that report looks like. But I just think a consistent reminder that the work is happening so people see their dollars at work would be helpful. But thank you.

Yeah, because at the State of the City, we talked about the tonnage, about how much was picked up. But knowing each month, is there a particular month where there's more than another month? And I do believe those hotspots, we need to have cameras, we need to have eyes on it, we need to be fully prosecuting, going after the people that are doing this illegal dumping. They could take it out to the dump and pay their $35 or whatnot, or we can fine them $10,000, which would you rather have?

And, Mayor, we are bringing that to ledge.

Good, because that's what I want. Oops, I said that out loud. I shouldn't have.

If I may, Madam Mayor, so Public Works is already in conversation with a couple of vendors to help us out with that aspect in managing illegal dumping. And to him at the council, you know, trash talking is not cheap. Right?

But I'm fine.

I do want to just acknowledge the role that the public plays. There's several of the parts of our community that Public Works has gone out to. And we're very impressed with the role that the public is doing to keep our city clean. And so we're grateful for the efforts. And I've heard expressed from this dais before, the famous Maya Angelou quote, when you know better, you do better. And so and that's part of a public works efforts to continue to educate the public and do what we can along with this with this community partners to keep our city clean.

And I will echo Councilmember Enriquez you know having staggered a service because I know this last year we did have people going out on weekends but if they're just going out Monday through Thursday with every other Friday off or Monday through Friday. come Monday, they're going to have a whole lot to pick up because Saturday and Sunday nobody was out there. But hopefully we'll be able to deter that so it won't continue to happen at the level it is because we're talking about millions of pounds of trash that are picked up off of our streets. And it's wrong.

Last year was 8 million pounds last year.

Yeah. So, yeah, with that, I heard Vice Mayor. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Okay, so that is all of our items there. We are now moving on to administrative matters. Are there any administrative matters? Vice Mayor?

Yeah, I have some that I put on. Okay, so let me go here to my note because I was going to do it during council comments. uh okay first you know we've had i appreciate us doing making the decision today thank you councilman padilla on the face cover band to take down the list but there were other things that i've seen uh that we've addressed here that we have not just taken a definitive stance on that i do want to agendize for a a very near upcoming meeting fire services at the port i want us to make a determination finally if we're going to direct staff to pursue that If I can get a second for that would be helpful.

I'll second.

Okay. The second one. I'm sorry. Oh, I received at the meeting that I wasn't here in May. Apparently there were comments about me that were potentially in violation of our decorum policy by a person who is not only a committee member, but now has been added to other committees, specifically Mr. Toffoli. I'd like to agendize his appointment to committees at the next council meeting for discussion and potential action. Second. All right. And that's it for now.

I'd like to also add on, agendize, talk about dogs in our communities and our streets, if I could add.

I'll second that.

If you want to do something.

Thank you, Mayor. So yeah, thank you, Council Member Villalpudo for bringing that up. I know we did ask that for it to come to ledge. So any animal related ordinances is gonna be presented to our future ledge meeting. And we know that's a priority throughout the entire city. And then also I wanna just, even though I am chair, I wanna just reiterate to the public that we are bringing back slight amendment for street vendor ordinance, a very slight amendment just through the ongoing work. As we said, it's been six months, but we also know that there's been a lot of lessons learned, but we wanna make sure that we get it right. So that is coming up to ledge as well, as well as immigration related draft ordinance that we did give staff direction at last ledge meeting to come to a future ledge meeting as well. and then I don't know if it's coming up or if it's already set for this summer for a council meeting but I know three meetings ago or so we asked about an update on the the trees overall map of the trees throughout Stockton so I know that's coming up but just so the public is aware that it is coming and I think that is if I can get a second for all those that I just mentioned to be safe second right thank you

Okay, no unfinished business. Moving on to public hearing. 9.1, adopt a resolution for the formation of the Five Mile Slough Assessment District. Approve an engineered report and authorize a levy of the proposed assessment. District 3, I need to recuse myself so I won't even open the public hearing. And I have to recuse myself because I own a piece of property that resides on that

Give me a second. I didn't know I was going to have to come over here. All right, declaring the hearing open.

Do you have some results?

Okay. Having counted all the ballots, the ballot determination is yes at 66.81% and no at 33.19% and it passes.

I don't think I've ever received an applause. Good afternoon, Council. Paul Schneider with Siegfried, the engineer working with the city to prepare the engineer's report and then work on getting the ballot out. As you can see, the results are positive. So I'll just give a quick little summary of what it is and why we're here and what we're going to ask you to do to finalize the process. So the Five Mile Slough Assessment District is largely from all the way out in Lincoln Village West, all the way at White Slough. along past into the golf course which is the big gray box and then it kind of wiggles its way up to pacific avenue and rivara largely the the area the special benefit is for those that that experience in some way the water quality along the water and only those that are within that zone are part of the assessment district. So again, it's formed for the operation and maintenance to help with the invasive weeds. All of this again is related to an overarching theme of water quality. Sediment reduction measures. erosion repair, supplemental weed spraying to help with Sajafka's efforts, as well as debris removal in the administration. One of the things that's also in here is the potential for this entity, which is now a public entity, to actually write grants and look for grant opportunities in the future to mirror some other waterways within the Central Valley that have been very successful at getting grants to clean up their waterways. um so much like many of our other assessment districts this has an escalation factor of three percent per year um the maximum assessment and i apologize for the error here this is on me it's not per frontage foot it's per square foot of parcels so the larger your parcel bigger your assessment and then the right now the maximum total budget that's in front of you as part of the engineer's report is eighty seven thousand dollars eight hundred and seventy eight dollars And I'd want to remind you, if you read the details of the reports, that is the maximum assessment, not the actual one that would come out in year one. There's a lot in there that'll take years to come to fruition. So what we're asking for you tonight, now that we know it's a positive vote, is to overrule any public hearing protests and approve and adopt the engineer's report, the maximum allowable assessment, the budget, and then confirm what the clerk just told you about the vote.

are there any questions for members of the council no okay thank you so i'm going to close the hearing and there's no public comments i'll bring it back for council discussion okay council member enriquez

oh councilman blower it says enrique i'm just saying thank you vice mayor uh first of all i'm i'm just thrilled that we're finally here this thing has been in the in the works for quite some time um This whole thing started with constituents coming to me talking about their slough and how it was totally overrun with duckweed and water hyacinth, and it just smelled bad, looked bad. At the time, I was able to get some one-time funds to clean up that waterway. The problem is, anything like that is eventually going to come back, and whether or not the city's gonna have extra money to do that, is up in the air, and so coming up with something to bring a permanent solution to that waterway, this is what it is, which is having the people assess themselves and everybody that lives there that takes the benefit. will now be assessed some money and they'll have to pay into that but that means there will be a fund that going forward uh from now on that waterway will be um be able to be beautified be able to have all these different areas that they're going to do to take care of the invasive weed control sediment reduction erosion repair supplemental weed spraying debris removal and the administration of it and one other thing that to point out that's also built into this is there will be money to do grant writing and there are apparently a lot of grants out there that can be used and and from what uh mr schneider has said some of it's pretty low hanging fruit that you just need to have somebody that knows how to write a good grant to get uh different equipment that can further fix this water. So I just wanna thank staff, I wanna thank Mr. Schneider for all your efforts on this, and thank the people that live there that they did, what was that, 66%, so 2 3rds of them voted in favor of assessing themselves to improve this. So I'm just thrilled. So with that, I'll make a motion to approve all of that. I second. Council, please vote.

Passes 6-0 with the mayor absent, recusing.

Thank you.

I got to do it again. 9.2, public hearing authorizing the continued use, funding, and acquisition of military equipment established in the military equipment policy as mandated by chapter 12.8, commencing with section 7070 to division seven of title one of the government code relating to military equipment. I declare the public hearing open.

All right. My name is Lieutenant Brandon Ezell with the Stockton Police Department. I'm the Training Section Manager, as well as the SWAT Commander and the Hostage Negotiations Team Commander. Today we're going to be going over the Assembly Bill 41, Military Use Equipment Policy. Is this up? I'm sorry? Okay. All right. Today we are here to present our policy request continued and future use of assets and provide a summary of the 2025 annual report. As a reminder, we're going to present the 2026 report today. And as a reminder, the 2025 report was presented in April 2025. It is the department's intent to provide subsequent annual reports in April or May. Assembly Bill 41 establishes oversight for the responsible use, funding, and acquisition of military equipment. We must have a public hearing annually to present our report and request the continued and future acquisition of assets. This meeting is that public hearing. The Stockton Police Department has established itself as a forward-thinking agency that continually seeks to enhance the safety and effectiveness of our police services through the adoption of cutting-edge equipment. Recognizing the dynamic nature of law enforcement, we proactively explore and invest in innovative tools and technologies. The commitment to staying updated with the latest advancements enables our officers to respond to a diverse range of situations with heightened efficiency and minimized risk. By investing in the state of the art equipment from advanced communication systems to specialized tactical gear, the department showcases its dedication to ensure the highest level of safety for both the community and officers. This product of pursuit of new equipment underscores the Stockton Police Department's unwavering dedication to uphold public safety through the integration of modern resources. The first requirement for the AB 481 report requires the Stockton Police Department to create a military equipment use policy. We created this use policy in April 2024 and it was revised in July 2025 and approved by Council. This policy contains military equipment used by us, unmanned remotely piloted vehicles, command and control vehicles, noise flash diversionary devices, kinetic energy weapons, and munitions. All items in this policy currently in use at the Stockton Police Department and have use policies in place. This policy is available to the public through the Stockton Police Department's website. The second requirement of AB 481 is for City Council to approve the use of funding acquisition and continued use of already approved equipment. Stockton Police Department recognizes the public's ongoing interest in how military equipment is used to protect our community and our officers. We are committed to maintaining our community's trust in providing professional and responsive police services effectively and safely for all involved. The term military equipment as used in Assembly Bill 481 does not necessarily indicate the equipment is or has been used by the military. Many items defined as military equipment by the bill are often used by law enforcement to preserve life and enhance public and officer safety while remaining prepared to handle the various challenges facing our communities. Stockton Police Department uses use of military equipment is consistent with overall best practices employed employed by the police departments throughout the country. Assembly Bill 481 establishes oversight for the responsible use funding and acquisition of military equipment. Requirement three, the annual report including the purpose, complaints, annual costs, and quantity possessed by intended acquisitions. The Stockton Police Department Military Equipment Annual Report is available to the public and can be found online through the Stockton Police Department's website. The annual military equipment use report outlines a summary of the equipment usage guidelines, inventory, fiscal impact, complaints, and reported community concerns for calendar year 2025, which was January 1st, 2025 through December 31st, 2025. Now we'll move on to the highlights from the 2026 report. So in category one, the Stockton Police Department currently has 24 UAS, which are unmanned aerial systems drones. In service, two EOD hazardous duty robots, which are explosive ordnance disposal robots. And these vehicles are used for search and rescue, tactical situations, and bomb defusal. Under category two, armored personnel carriers. Category three is vehicles that have a breaching or entry apparatus attached. The Stockton Police Department has two armored vehicles, one with breaching capabilities, These vehicles are used for emergency operations and provide both officers and public with the level of ballistic protection through critical incidents and rescues. In 2024, we acquired an MRAP, which is a mine resistant ambush protected vehicle. We intend to use this for ballistic protection and critical incident rescues during flood incidents or natural disasters. Category five, command and control vehicles. The Stockton Police Department has four command and control vehicles. Two are dedicated as mobile command posts and crisis negotiation vehicles. One is a tactical command post for emergency response, and one is a command vehicle for EOD team. Category seven includes battering rams, slugs, breaching apparatuses that are explosive in nature. The Stockton Police Department is currently equipped with breaching slugs, explosive breaching apparatus, and battering rams. Each of these tools are utilized for extremely dangerous situations where failure to gain entry is not an option. The breaching slugs and battering ram of explosive nature will be utilized by both patrol and the SWAT team. The battering ram of explosive nature is a kinetic breaching tool, a KBT. It uses a .45 caliber blank and deploys a metal object surrounded by a sheath. As we move to category 10, specialized firearms and ammunition of less than 50 caliber. Category 12, flashbangs, explosive breaching, tear gas, pepper balls. Category 14, kinetic energy weapons and munitions. The Stockton Police Department utilizes a variety of tools and equipment to safely respond to rapidly evolving critical incidents with the goal of peaceful resolution and safety for all parties involved. These tools and equipment consist of but are not limited to less lethal munitions, bean bag rounds, 40 millimeter sponge rounds, tasers, et cetera. Patrol rifles, precision rifles, flash bangs, and chemical munitions, these tools are industry standard and commonly used by law enforcement across the nation. They provide capabilities and options while prioritizing the sanctity of life. In 2024, the Stockton Police Department SWAT team trained and established a explosive breaching program. This program and the components of it are to be used in the most serious critical situations where failure to make entry will result in loss of life. This is an example of having tools necessary and being operationally ready for the most serious of situations. We move on to anticipated acquisitions. These are for future approval for purchase. EOD is anticipating the purchase of a new bomb truck. The truck would be utilized as a command and control vehicle capable of immediate response and rendering devices safe, with an anticipated cost of $300,000. The LRAD is a specialized loudspeaker used for communicating at a distance, negotiations with barricaded suspects, mass notifications, and natural emergencies. It should be noted that LRAD was approved in 2023 and 2024 for purchase. Furthermore, on anticipated acquisitions, the Stockton Police Department is anticipating the acquisition of a second Bearcat. The Bearcat armored personnel carrier is utilized for preplanned operations, critical incidents, and citizen rescue. We have had the original Bearcat in our possession since 2012. It's used for our SWAT team as well as our patrol officers. Recent examples can include an armed individual on Charter Way pointing a gun at passing vehicles. The armor provides protection for us, which affords the opportunity for de-escalation and communication. The initial cost is approximately $465,000, and the annual fiscal impact would be a yearly maintenance fee. Stockton Police Department is anticipating the acquisition of a Rook armored track vehicle, which can be seen on the right-hand side. The protection and size of the vehicle allow for access to scenes not feasible by the Bearcat. The initial cost would be approximately $478,000, and the annual fiscal impact would be yearly maintenance. An example of a critical incident we could not get armor to that a Rook could have been vital in occurred in 2024, where officers were shot at. And thank goodness nobody was injured. Stockton Police Department is anticipating the acquisition of a command and control vehicle to improve our ability to effectively respond to multiple negotiations and or complex investigations occurring simultaneously. The initial cost is approximately $2 million and the annual fiscal impact would be yearly maintenance. Excuse me. The Stockton Police Department is committed to training our staff to be professional by advancing their expertise with de-escalation, firearms, less lethal devices, and technology with the goal of reducing the use of force and providing great service to our community. To accomplish this goal, we must constantly train with these devices. We anticipate the expenditure of $250,000 in specialty ammunition, less than .50 caliber, to ensure proficiency. Proficiency builds confidence. Confidence allows us to slow down and make the right decisions when they matter the most. Additionally, replacing outdated weapon systems is necessary to ensure the ability of the police department to keep our community safe. We intend to acquire several rifles to replace deteriorating weapon systems. We anticipate the cost of the new rifles to be $15,000. Less lethal training is being expanded within our ranks. To accomplish this, we anticipate the expenditure of approximately $32,000 for less lethal munitions to ensure the entire agency is proficient. These munitions include gas, flashbangs, and impact rounds. Stockton Police Department plans to acquire approximately 25 Pepperball TAC SA hopper-fed launchers with optics. These launchers are capable of deploying less lethal irritants from a distance, allowing for de-escalation and increased public safety. The purchase of these items are approximately $77,000. Stockton Police Department deployed UAS 1,236 times in 2025. These deployments often led to the apprehension of fleeing suspects, provided safer alternatives for tactical situations, and assisted in the collection of valuable evidence, not only justifying our actions, but aiding in the prosecution of the most violent criminals. The Stockton Police Department plans to acquire nine additional UAS devices to further our aerial capabilities in support of the DFR, which is the Drone First Responder Program. Stockton Police Department developed an explosive breaching program designed to be utilized in life and death situations. Training is essential for this program to ensure the safe application. We anticipate the acquisition of $8,500 for replacement and maintenance costs under this. So as we close out, the recommendation action is to continue the use of the equipment currently used by the Stockton Police Department in accordance with the current policy and approval for the acquisition of the LRAD, which is the Long Range Acoustic Device, second Bearcat, Rook Armored Track Vehicle, unmanned aerial systems, replacement of weapons and munitions less lethal, mobile command post, and explosive ordnance disposal response vehicle.

OK, thank you. Do we have any questions? Okay. Public comment needed to be provided when the item was announced. Okay. So I will then close the public hearing and bring it back to Vice Mayor.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to I just want to refer back to an earlier public comment around giving our officers the tools they need to keep our community safe because I know oftentimes when we have items like this come before us or flock cameras or other things, it becomes a topic where it's like, oh, well, why are we using this or why are we using that? And I will say, uh... i just want to use an example uh... last weekend uh... my family and i we decided to go to sacramento for the day and we went out there all day went to two different uh... situations and uh... everybody was extremely pleasant very positive very uh... had lots of compliments about the work we're doing in stockton other personal stuff or whatever people who who recognize me then i found out about something happening in stockton and i came back and i went to that event and within 15 minutes. It was like conflict, just stuff. So no matter what we approve of the officers to use, there's a culture, there's a, there's a, there's a thing that needs to happen in the city where we can really acknowledge that we play in a significant role in public safety too. It's not just our officers, not just the council, the mayor, whatever. I just kind of want to put that out there, because as I'm looking at this and thinking earlier, sometimes when these opportunities come before us to decide to support our department in giving them the tools that they need, I want to lean back on the comment I heard earlier from a recent Stanford grad about giving our officers the tools, and this is a tool. And so I'm in support of our department in providing whatever resources we need to have a safer Stockton, and grateful for the opportunity to do that.

Okay, what's the pleasure of council?

Motion to approve. Second.

Motion is second, council please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Okay, moving on to item 12, I mean, excuse me, new business 10.1, proposition 218 to consider storm water rate adjustments.

So after the close of the public hearing at our last meeting on June 9th, the city clerk's office did open and count all 11,444 ballots. Unfortunately, this did not pass. Total votes cast for yes, 42.8%, and no, 57.2%. Excuse me.

No. So, yeah, there's no public comment on this item, but colleagues, do you have any questions? Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I mean, obviously this is disappointing, you know, and I understand, you know, affordability is a constant conversation and how we spend our resources and for some people limited resources is always a concern. I first want to say acknowledge staff for doing a great job of educating the community. Our community leaders who held multiple meetings throughout the city to talk to people about the need to consider this, and it's disappointing to see that it not pass. I guess my question would be, now that this vote has happened, can't come back before the council, can't come back before the city, or is there a period in which

My understanding is that you have to redo the entire process again.

Got it, and it costs a lot of money. Got it, okay.

You do tonight have to accept the results of this one before anything can happen.

You say we have to accept it? Yeah. What if we don't wanna accept it? Just plain, just plain. I know, I know, I know. No, I'm just playing. But again, it is disappointing because we need more to do more. And when we look at district, again, I'm a little biased because I'm looking at my district where we're prioritizing economic development. I'm going to be talking about that soon. And part of our ability to develop, yeah, these side conversations are really hard for me to stay focused, by the way. In order for us to fully develop South Stockton, Southeast Stockton, Conway, some of our challenged communities that have been disinvested in, we need more resources. And in our city and in some areas are very vulnerable and need those extra resources. So to folks watching or listening, I'm not sure what the determining factor was in voting it down. But this is not a vanity vote. This is something that's critical to services provided here in the community. So I don't have any other comments.

And piggybacking off of that, 34 years, it's been 34 years since there was a rate increase. And so if pipes get backed up, if there is flooding that happens, just know our staff is doing everything they can, but we cannot update our infrastructure if we don't have the funds to do so. But everybody, this is United States of America, everybody's entitled to their vote. And obviously the public has spoken. Council Member Villapudua.

yeah mayor um yeah it's very um sad news but before it came um i was saying that we had to the message wasn't clear out there all we saw was water rates were going up there was no town hall meetings in the different districts to letting people know the right language the social media took initiative real quick oh water's going up that's not I ain't going to vote on that but for future items we need to get ahead of way ahead of the time before it even comes here before it goes out there it wasn't we weren't having enough meetings in our communities community centers to get that language correctly so I'm just saying not putting you guys down but I wish we could have had more town hall meetings that's all

Councilman Enriquez.

Just for clarity, thank you, Mayor. If you don't mind just sharing how many meetings you did to get to this point. because again, I do disagree with my colleague, because I know in my district, I did talk about the water rate, so I wouldn't speak on behalf of everyone up here, but I would just say for the record, if you all can just give us a ballpark of how many meetings you all did, how many letters you put out there, and especially Council Member Villaputua, we're on the Water Committee together, and we discussed this very heavily about the public and sharing the video links to the public, so it is something that we did share, so I say that as a member of the Water Committee.

Good afternoon, Council. Travis Small, Deputy Director of Water Resources. I'm filling in for Jeff Marisevich, our Deputy Director for Stormwater. With me is Dagmar, and she'll speak on how many meetings that we had.

Thank you very much, Council, for your time. We had an online open house that was up for three months that was able to educate everyone who visited the site. We advertised the site through different social media. We had over 11 meetings with residents and we had one town hall meeting for downtown here. It was during graduation so we had a low turnout unfortunately but we had over 11 meetings plus the town hall meeting.

No, and I appreciate that because I know one of the asks during our Water Committee meeting was to be able to share that link and that resource so we can share it amongst ourselves, which you all did. And I know I took advantage of it, so I wanted to say thank you for that. And a lot of my constituents did ask questions, so we had good dialogues. I know during my mornings with Mario, I always make that a topic, a priority to discuss. So I mean, we all work in different ways, but I don't want to take away the work that you all did to get here. And also, I would say for anyone that did give a narrative, a false narrative online. I mean, we all have an opportunity to correct the false information out there. And whenever there was false information, we would, I mean, at least I would share the link, say, hey, there's an open house. Come out and learn more. This is actually not true. This is what you need to do to be informed. So I think it's a lesson learned moving forward that whether it's the public, whether it's my colleagues up here, doing more intentional town halls, maybe planning them out there a little bit more effectively. But again, I don't want to take away what you all have done, and again, fighting the misinformation. So anything else we can do to be creative, utilizing our media team, anything else, but I know it's really a priority. Like the mayor said, it's been 34 years, so when things start, negatively impacting people's homes. I don't want to see the online chatter. People complain to the city of Stockton. We had a lot of opportunities to get this right. And again, I would like to see this back as soon as possible. So if it's a year from now, I would like to see it back. And then from now, I don't know if legally we can, but and you can do just continue the education of why this is needed and why it needs to come back. I think I'm all for it. And I hope my colleagues also are for it as well. But thank you all.

Councilman Blower.

I also serve on the Water Committee. And I'm also very, very disappointed this didn't pass. I mean, our crumbling infrastructure is going to cost us. And the next atmospheric river that comes through And when you see the streets that are flooded and all that water there and we don't have the ability to pump that water away is really going to be a hindrance to us. And I do want to thank staff for the work that they've done on this. Kim Floyd, I know she worked very hard on this. I know I personally brought, had Kim Floyd speak at my Rotary Club, at my, office sales meeting, I think the next time that we do get this, because again, as the mayor said, it's been 34 years, 34 years. And it's not water, it's not the water rate, it's the storm water rate. So that's one of three portions of the bill. The Municipal Utilities District deals with three things. your clean water that you drink, so everybody seems to understand that, and when you have to pass the rate, that passes. Number two is the waste water, and everybody flushes their toilet every day, so they understand that, and you get those to pass, but I think people have this where they don't think about the storms very often because that doesn't happen every day but it does happen and when it does happen we have to be prepared so again very very disappointed that that it didn't pass um and again 34 years that's that's a long time so so my hope is we'll you know be able to do this again but boy this is this is a self-inflicted wound that um that our citizens have imposed on ourselves so i'm i'm hopeful hopeful that we can take another run at this somewhere in the future and that it'll be successful because I'm telling you that the infrastructure is very old, it's crumbling, and when the big storm comes in and a bunch of people get flooded, I mean, you can look back to this result. Thank you.

Councilwoman Petia. Thank you, Mayor. City Clerk, just for information, how many ballots did come back?

11,444. Okay, thank you.

And just to echo Councilmember Enriquez, if there's any way possible if we can start education now, I think that would be beneficial. Thank you.

And I would say it doesn't necessarily come down to education. When I did my town hall, we had a conversation about low voter turnout. I mean, how many ballots were sent out? We got 11,444 back, but how many did we put out? Did we send out 100,000? 85,000. 85,000. So actually we had more people vote than we, I think the percentage was higher for voters than we did for people returning this ballot. So it is, you know, we used to have a very active well, newspaper, we did, very active newspaper. I was a subscription holder for the record for many years. That was a way that you could get information. Nowadays, people go to social media, but if they don't have social media, they're not getting any information. And to think it was $1.75, $1.75, I don't know how many budgets out there that $1.75 is going to break the bank. But when that flooding comes, and if your house happens to get flooded because it's all backed up, I mean, hopefully you have insurance that will take care of that, but some things are irreplaceable. And I mean, it sounds like we're beating up on people, but $1.75 and it's been 34 years, I can't, yeah. So council, we have to accept this item, but there's no action on it, correct? Or is there, you were accepting it, right?

Yeah, you're just accepting the result of the vote, yes.

Okay, and yeah, we don't need public comment because we already brought this before us before. So, council, you want to accept it?

I make a motion to accept 10.1.

Okay, council, please vote. No, 7-0, I just was saying that. Okay, item 10.2, we are having a civil service overview presentation. This is an informational item. And after this, we'll take a break, I promise. So, you're on.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and council members. My name is Alicia Figueroa. I'm the Deputy Director for Human Resources. Angeline Pate and Eric Tor will be presenting today as requested during the April 14, 2026 council meeting. Council requested a presentation on civil service process and its role in public safety hearing. This presentation provides an overview of the civil service system how it promotes merit-based hiring and the way in which civil service rules guide the recruitment, examination, certification and selection of public safety candidates. TODAY'S PRESENTATION WILL PROVIDE AN OVERVIEW OF CITY CIVIL SERVICE SYSTEM AND HOW IT RELATES TO THE RECRUITMENT AND HIRING OF BOTH MISCELLANEOUS AND PUBLIC SAFETY EMPLOYEES. WE WILL BEGIN BY REVIEWING THE CIVIL SERVICE RULES AND REGULATIONS WHICH ESTABLISH A FRAMEWORK FOR MERIT-BASED HIRING AND GOVERN THE CITY'S CLASSIFIED RECRUITMENT PROCESS. NEXT WE WILL DISCUSS THE ROLE OF THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION AND ITS RESPONSIBILITIES WITHIN THE CIVIL SERVICE SYSTEM. We will then review examination procedures, including how candidates are evaluated and assessed throughout the recruitment process, followed by an overview of eligible lists and how they are used to fulfill vacancies. Then we will walk through the miscellaneous recruitment process and provide hiring data from 2025 to illustrate recruitment activity across city departments. The presentation will then shift to the public safety hiring. We will review the police officer trainee recruitment process, including the additional testing and screening requirements unique to the law enforcement positions and provide 2025 hiring data for the departments. Finally, we will discuss the Fire Department recruitment process, including specialized recruitments for firefighters, firefighter candidates, and conclude with 2020-25 data for the Fire Department recruitment. Feel free to ask questions as we move through these topics. Now I'd like to introduce Andrew Lynn. She is our supervising for the Workforce Planning Department.

Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. So I'm going to start off by, like she said, going over our miscellaneous recruitment process, which I know we kind of touched upon at our last council meeting. So I wanted to start off by really just defining what civil service is. So civil service was created to establish, as Alicia mentioned, an equitable merit-based system for employment, ensuring best qualified candidates are hired and personnel matters are handled uniformly. So this is authorized by the city charter and these rules can regulate things like our hiring practices our promotion Discipline and dismissals for city classified employees including specific guidelines for police and fire personnel So in civil service, there's rules and regulations for miscellaneous employees and then additionally there's rules and regulations for police and fire employees and So next, I just wanted to just give a short description of the role of the Civil Service Commission. So the commission, like I stated, was established to create that equitable and uniform procedure for dealing with personnel matters and to place municipal employment on a merit based for the city. And the commission does meet every third Thursday of the month. So with civil service, I know you've probably heard a lot about our examination procedures. So part of our recruitment process for classified positions is to conduct an examination for individuals who have passed the minimum qualifications for classification specifications. So some examples of examinations that Human Resources conducts in accordance to civil service rules would be our written examinations, which we've mostly went online for. our oral examinations, performance examinations, demonstration, and then lastly physical fitness. And those are specifically for our police and fire positions. And then I also wanted to also give a summary about how eligible lists are established. So essentially how it works is an eligible list is a ranking of candidates from a classified competitive process who are eligible for appointment for a vacancy based on civil service rules. So if a department does identify one vacancy, they are given 10 names for that vacancy from our certified eligible list. And these are just a list of different reasons of why candidates can be removed from a certified eligible list. So these can include things like if they did not pass a physical or a medical examination, they refused an offer of employment, they did not respond to correspondence, and then they also failed to complete or successfully pass a background investigation. So as I mentioned, when we certify names, the department, they do have three options based on civil service rules. So that first option you'll see is the certification of the top 10 names from that eligible list. And then again, if they do have an additional vacancy, they are given an additional name. So for example, if they have two vacancies, the department is owed 11 names from the certified eligible list. That second option there talks about the certification of the top three names from the promotional eligible list. How to get on a promotional eligible list is if HR verifies that the individuals on the promotional eligible list are internal city staff who have met regular status with the city, meaning that they've passed their probationary period and that's how we create a promotional eligible list. And then lastly, they also have the option to certify the top seven names from the open list. So again, open is typically external candidates to include individuals who may also work for the city but have not met regular status. And then they can also request the three names from the certified promotional list for the vacancy. And then again, this is just an overview of what I went over previously. But essentially, when a vacancy occurs, the department is instructed to open a requisition in the applicant tracking system, which is NeoGov. That requisition is approved by the department head as well as the budget office. And then that's what creates the vacancy and initiates the recruitment process for human resources. This specifically outlines if the case that there is no certified eligible list, these are the steps that we would follow in accordance to civil service, which includes, as I mentioned, an applicant screening, competitive process for the examination, as well as a certification of the eligible list. Then once the eligibilist has been certified, we can refer the names over to the department dependent on number of vacancies. And then from there they can start their interview process, select a candidate, and then of course we go through our pre-employment process. And then I also wanted to provide some data as far as the year of 2025. And I do just want to preface this by saying, as you can see the numbers here, we've received upwards of 5,000 applications. We've placed 1,710 candidates on the eligible list and we've hired 161 candidates. I know that with these numbers, again, I wanted to preface, we do build robust eligible lists for citywide department classifications. So an example would be our office support series where we gather a lot of applications because we know across all of our departments they utilize our office support series. So we build those really robust eligible lists to be able to support vacancies across all city departments. But essentially, we also wanted to again mention a department can receive ten names per one vacancy in their department. Any questions on the miscellaneous civil service process before we move forward and start talking about the police officer training? Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I have a question. So in terms of this process that you just presented, How, is it outdated? Does there need to be updates? I'm assuming, when was the last time it was updated?

So I know that there have been amendments throughout with the civil service rules and regulations. During my time here, I've been with the city for about two years. I haven't seen an amendment. Now that's not to say that there hasn't been one. I will say there is definitely been a conversation surrounding amending specific rules in the civil service. And then, of course, following the process that the charter outlines to ensure when we are going through a rule amendment, we're kind of going through all the authorized parties. But I can say at least within the last two years that I've been here, we have not amended the civil service rule.

Is there a staff process to review and determine if there's needed changes that can go before, whether it's the commission, the council? I mean, I don't know, maybe some of my colleagues who have more experience. i just don't know how outdated this process is and if we're doing everything we can to to improve it if i may do the chair sorry

I've been doing the civil service kind of since 2009, so I have a long history. And in my experience, they have followed just the process that council follows in bringing proposed rules to the committee for consideration. And as I understand, because I'm also part of the Civil Service Commission sitting as their attorney, they are currently working on updating and reviewing the rules.

Okay, thank you.

So I have a question. So it was brought up earlier. Of course, we have vacancies. Some vacancies fall under the civil service, you know, criteria, and some don't. So people have talked to me about code enforcement and those officers. They have to go through this similar process, correct? Yes.

Yes. They are classified positions. So code enforcement officer is a classification that falls under civil service system.

Okay. So when it says testing, I'm just... Curious, what would a testing for a code enforcement or animal services officer, what kind of testing do they have?

I know historically what we've done is written examinations, and I know currently our practice is to do oral examinations. I have Eric Tor here who does our recruitment for the police department, but it would fall under those listed examinations that I mentioned. So yeah, written and typically also oral examinations as well.

Because we do get a number of applications for those positions. And last I heard, we were fully staffed with our code enforcement. That's what Omarosa told me, that they were fully staffed, which was a good thing, but maybe it's not enough. Who knows? But anyway, I digress. Continue.

All right. So I'm going to go ahead and introduce Eric Torr. He's our HR analyst over at the police department, and he'll talk about the police officer training process.

All right, so good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, council members. My name is Eric Tor. I am an HR analyst, too, under the Workforce Planning Division here in the city. And today I'm gonna be going over the police officer trainee recruitment process. So as you'll see up here on the board here, it's a little bit different with the police officer trainee. There are a lot of elements of it that are actually under police and what they do with their jurisdiction on it as far as the background process. And that's kind of what all those white boxes are up there. So to start off with the police officer trainee, this is a continuous recruitment. We always have this position open. And I can kind of go through how that looks and what that looks like in a slide coming up here. So once we have it posted, we'll go ahead and screen out our applicants just to make sure they do meet the minimum qualifications, and we'll also go through that on a later slide as well. We'll do the testing for the positions, and then we'll go and create what we call the eligibility list for those. Once that eligibility list is created, and then it is moved over to Stockton Police, and then they'll drive the process from that point forward. And then once that has been completed, they will go ahead and let us know that someone is ready for hire. We'll set up that orientation date for that candidate. They'll also let us know if they have failed the background. And once that list is approved by civil service, we'll go ahead and let the applicants know that did not pass backgrounds, that they unfortunately did not, they'll receive an email notification.

Vice Mayor has a question.

Yeah, really quick. Yeah. Just looking at this process, we've had conversations about recruitment, retention. I think we heard earlier about supporting our departments to be able to recruit. I know we've talked about diversity and all these things. I'd be interested in hearing really quick while we're on this slide from Fire and PD, just their thoughts on this, if it's okay. I just gave them the heads up that I was going to be asking them to come out, so. You can start with whichever wants to start. My question is just looking at this, because I'm learning as I'm talking, are there needed updates here that we need to consider as a city as it relates to this process?

Absolutely.

Well, we would love to hear.

I know one of the conversations I've been having with Eric is, and it's not just for sworn staff, it's for all my staff, is when we're interviewing someone, we're forced to re-interview three times. And it's really not taking us three times, it's a waste of time for staff, it's a waste of time for the candidates. There's no other industry where you have to interview the same person for the same job three times. And I know I saw it in the charter. It's not in the charter, but it has been a practice is my understanding. And that would absolutely help us if we did not have to do that. And I would imagine that would help other departments as well if we can conduct our interviews and then conduct business as necessary.

Is that the only part?

another part which I know some things are in the works as far as our lateral applicant you know please don't be shy from controversy so if there are things that we need to think about you know for laterals I think they're fixing that where it's going from 18 months to 12 months again I need someone in my department from HR and I know there's ways to make that happen and if we're really trying to fill the amount of vacancies I have That's the way to do it. I would think HR would want that. It would make their job easier. Instead of my staff having to lean over to HR, we would have that internal person that's on our team and is at these events with us and helps us to facilitate the process right then. uh... other than that my suggestion would be wish they have implemented implemented which is comes a civil service when they have to have to certify a list uh... the social service commission has has been very accessible they've been making it happen so we do need to certify a list for example uh... we have a police aid list coming up or they're able to create a meeting date to create that list for us instead of where it was i think it was a third thursday of every month before so you could just miss a civil service meeting and now you have to wait thirty days for that candidate before the next certification process and then there's that delay after that Something else that would be very helpful to our department is when we're pushing people to background. We know the failure rate for either officer or dispatcher. I know our dispatcher manager has been begging for the ability, say she has 10 openings. She would love to be able to send 15 to backgrounds knowing that there's going to be complications through that process. But when she's not allowed to do that and she can only send the 10 through, so much time is lost because the background process itself is several months. So if they could have that cushion to where they can send some additional folks to backgrounds, that'd be very helpful to the process again. I think that's probably it from PD. Thank you.

Chief, I think I brought up during budget how nice it would be just to have somebody designated, and maybe Eric can be that person to do it all for you. I don't know, just throwing it out there. He might not be interested, but it seems like he knows his stuff.

Well, I think it's very true that he may not be But what I know about Eric, he's willing to do what's best for the organization and the city as a whole. So I think if he was placed in that capacity, he would excel. He's plug and play. He's been doing the work. He answers the phone when he doesn't have to answer the phone, which we appreciate. And D.C. Morris is here. She might have something else that relates to civil service and how we could partner more with HR. Is there something else that we missed?

I will just reinforce the fact that it does take a while for the background process and so when we have for example the 10 this is the big one is when we have 10 vacancies and when if we could please get the support to provide those 15 names or maybe even twice as many names 20 it does take two two and a half months for a background for a professional staff. When we've been there for that long, to only for the last two weeks for them to say they did not pass, we could have been working on two or three or five other backgrounds and get this process going before another city picks them up or another employer. And so from that perspective, it is extremely frustrating sometimes because we have eight people that we may be missing out on. And so out of maybe perhaps 10 that we have in background, we may hire two. And so now we've missed out on two months for each of the other eight people where we could have hired other other folks and have gotten some of these vacancies not only for us but for other departments uh that we are consistently attempting to hire now when it and i'm going to reinforce the one also with the hiring and processing of the civil service i'll give you another example for the second week now we have a second lateral that left from our agency coming back to our organization During lunchtime, I sent an email to HR, Eric, Waleed, and Malik. I said, gentlemen, we are ready to proceed with this gentleman to process him. Can I please have him processed by a specific date? I know civil service meets this Thursday, but I need a special meeting for that because I cannot allow it to continue past a specific date. Otherwise, other requirements go into play, and that's going to prolong it even longer. I need people hired now. And so from that perspective, he's effective, and we need him in our organization. Thank you.

well I just fortunately you have Commissioner Sherman here and I think she's heard you loud and clear and needs to make sure working with the city clerk's office about scheduling those special meetings so that we get people you know hired and on their way to working for the city of Stockton they've been amazing by the way where they have reconvened for special meeting and they're responsive and it's been working I heard they they don't have any problems with quorum either yeah

I appreciate your time.

No, no, thank you. And it sounds like Eric is somebody we should really look into for this so we can get the ball rolling. And Padilla had her, so I'll come to Vice Mayor after Councilman Padilla.

Thank you, Mayor. And just to echo what you said with regards to the three interviews, I'm sure that the directors in each department are very well educated to determine on the first interview if that candidate is either going to make it or or not be a part of the department and so I can see definitely why that is something that's very important even though they know that that might be not a right fit they are still required to interview them two more times And if I were a candidate, assuming that, oh, I have two more interviews, maybe I'm going to go up to another panel and thinking that I might be a potential when in reality they're not. Also, just a question for city attorney. You mentioned that you are working with civil service on these items that they mentioned. Are they going to be cumulative and brought to council?

approval or how does that process work if we wanted to entertain the items that are presented here so I have been working with the police department and the Civil Service Commission to obtain the goal some of the goals that they're talking about basically it's going to reside with the Civil Service Commission you won't see those changes it is solely within their discretion we work just like the City Council Commission so HR typically would propose red line changes in an agenda and then the civil service would approve and adopt those okay so council doesn't have a say no it's you can urge and encourage okay well we support you and Michelle you heard us so thank you

I think it's important to note that you know some of these lists are extremely large a gap 90 to a 100 folks on the list and if you're having to go to them 3 times is very labor intensive and time consuming is not the most effective way to do business.

Vice mayor.

Be careful what you ask for, all the support now to get this hiring process expedited. So thank you for bringing that up earlier. My question is, if you do a background, I mean, well, first of all, Eric, congratulations on moving to the police department. It's a nice building. The second thing is, I think there's consensus. When you put the 10 people through or the 15 people, if that's what happens, and say then you have... eight to make it through or whatever. Do you keep, I guess my question is if you fill all the positions with those that go through the background and we have extras, not that that's been an issue, but if you do, do you keep those people for a certain amount of time where you have them and you can, they're on a list and you can go back to them if the openings come up or?

That would be the plan and that's consistent with other cities. It's an eligibility list. I mean, these folks are ready, right? There just was not enough spots for them.

But does that happen now or no? No, it does not. So that's something to consider. Right?

Yes. Oh, absolutely.

Okay.

Chief, if I may, for those folks that do make it through the process and are hired, they are onboarded and hired. For those that do not make it through the background process, they do not remain on the list. Likewise with interviews. For those that are interviewed and do not make the list, Malik, Waleed, and Eric are notified so that they are either A, no show, they fail to attend, and are removed from the list. For those that did make it but perhaps weren't selected, they remain on the list for a year.

But I guess the scenario I'm asking is say we say yes put 15 through there's 10 positions all 10 all 15 pass so now 10 are selected and they fill those positions do we keep those extra five that have gone through background on a list that we can just access say somebody retires or somebody quits or something like that.

That's where we create an eligibility list for this saying there's five more of our way to be dispatchers as soon as positions are available.

This is kind of like ask for everything you want day.

I was going to say, we do have more slides in some of them. Oh, Chief Carr wants to be called up.

Okay, my apologies.

Yes, sir. Oh, she brought up that we just, we had an opening for one analyst that we had to interview for, right? Well, two analysts, but they interviewed for one job, and two of them were incredible, so we called animal services for another open position of the same classification where we had that position filled, right? So that's where, if it's a universal position where that person would be eligible for not only our department, but any city department, But when we're speaking of, like, dispatching where it's very specific, then we would want to have that eligibility list to where they are ready to go, right, just waiting for the opening, and where we could even have them in a volunteer capacity where we're already training them. So there's so much more we could do if we had access to more.

OK. Eric, you can continue. Are you still? Or who's up next?

I don't have anything to add other than what Chief McFadden already mentioned, the three, interviewing three times. It's kind of an obstacle to getting things done. Andrew Lynn was our – she's leaving, but she was our – supervising she's going to supervising yeah but she was our specific workforce person great to work with super great problem solver so we would run into little issues here or there and then we'd find a solution to work around them so I don't think from fires perspective we our recruitment process is pretty streamlined we've got a posting out right now we got the date it's gonna go and then it's 30 days and then Andrew Lynn has it like clockwork between you know, backgrounds, you know, all that kind of stuff. So we've actually tightened down our timeline to get people onboarded. That used to be a really big thing was the onboarding. We would lose paramedics or something like that that would go to another department. So we've done a lot better with that. A few little rules that could be tweaked, and they're always open to listening to those suggestions. So it's been good.

All right, Eric, I'll see you after the presentation.

There you go, yes.

All right, well, after that, all right. All right, so just quickly, I'll go through the application posting schedule. As I mentioned, this position for police officer trainee is continuous. So just as an example here, I have one of our recent recruitments. It opened on February 16th. We opened that at midnight. And then it posts through April 26th with a testing date of May 2nd for that particular recruitment. And then right as that one closes on 4-26 and 11-59, April 27th, 4-27 at midnight, we have the next recruitment open. So that police officer trainee is always open, always available to be recruited for. And then just to kind of go to some of the nitty gritty details with regards to the application. So as I mentioned earlier, there are minimum qualifications for police officer trainees. They are, age requirement for police officer candidate must be 20 years of age at the time of the application submittal. Education, they must have the minimum of a high school diploma or a GED certificate. and they must have or able to obtain prior to employment a Class C driver's license. And then just to kind of go over POST. So basically those minimum qualifications come from POST. POST is the Peace Officer Standards and Training. It is basically the governing body for police officers when it's in the state of California. and they do set, as I mentioned, those minimum qualifications for law enforcement officers and dispatchers, and that's basically just to ensure that they are properly trained, certified, and capable to perform the duties of their positions. All right, and as I mentioned, there's some testing involved. So with regard to police officer trainee, first step in the testing process is the physical ability test, or the PAT, the city of Stockton the requirements are air squats 30 and 90 seconds push-ups 15 and 90 seconds plank they must hold for 75 seconds and there is a 500 yard run which must be completed within 150 seconds sure I wish Candidates must pass all stages to move on to the written exam. And what we do at the training position for testing, in the morning we do the physical ability test, and I do attend those on Saturdays. So we'll do the physical ability test in the morning, and then we'll do the written test in the afternoon. And then speaking of that written, The written test for police officer is what they call the Pellet B, and that stands for the Post-Entry-Level Law Enforcement Test Battery. And it is, again, the entry-level written position for all candidates for police officer. The exam consists of multiple choice questions covering various sections, including writing ability, gaining comprehension, and reasoning skills. And again, that test is presented by post. We have to request that once a month from them. They'll send us out the test, and that is the test we use for those exams. And then my final slide here is just some information with regard to the hiring data for police officer, excuse me, the police officer trainee position, as well as our police lateral, our police recruit, and police academy graduate. An academy graduate is for those who have just completed an academy on their own. They may have paid their way through the academy, which some candidates do do. Police officer lateral is for any officers with another department that are looking to come to Stockton. Then we also have the police officer recruit. And that is for folks that are currently in a police academy, maybe they paid for it themselves, and they are reaching out to different agencies to apply. And then the rest here, we have the data throughout the year of 2025, and how many applicants we received, how many candidates tested, and then how many were moved to the eligibility list.

All right, any questions?

All right, I will turn it back over to my colleague, Angela.

All right, so last part of the presentation is to go over the firefighter trainees. As Chief Carr mentioned, they're recruitment analysts for the fire department. So a lot of it is kind of similar process, right? We follow our application screening process, our civil service process. With the firefighter trainees, we are in collaboration with FCTC. FCTC is the Firefighter Candidate Testing Center that issues the statewide eligibility list where all agencies across the state of California pull from that list to receive eligible firefighter candidates. So we are opening our annual recruitment for firefighters on July 1st of 2026 to collect applications for the EMT and the medic. But essentially, as Chief Carr mentioned, our onboarding process, so pre-employment screenings, it includes a background investigation, our chief's interview, any pre-employment medical screenings, as well as a psychological examination, and then, of course, fingerprinting per our HR directive. And then if the candidate does pass through the process and is successful, they're issued a final job offer and then invited to the FIRE Academy. Okay. So annually, HR does meet with the Stockton Fire Department, and when we do those meetings, we basically recognize any upcoming vacancies in the new fiscal year to include how many fire academies the department plans on having for the fiscal year so we can ensure we have those eligible lists established for the department, as well as recognize any promotional exams, so any vacancies in the higher ranks, and how we can collaborate to ensure we're meeting civil service deadlines and working with our timeline for recruitment for promotional as well as our entry-level firefighter trainees. The application process. So these go through the minimum qualifications for firefighter trainees. So it's possession of a high school diploma or equivalent, a valid Class C driver's license issued by the state of California, a valid CalJAC candidate physical ability card, which again is issued by FCTC. So they do that physical agility test there at that organization. And that's how they're placed on the statewide eligible list. And then lastly, they also have to have a valid EMT or medic issued card from the National Registry. So our posting schedule. So as I mentioned, we're posting our EMT on July 1st. So we're really excited to start collecting applications. And then also concurrently, we also post separately our medic position. So we have our firefighter trainee EMTs and then our firefighter trainee paramedics. And I'd say with recruitment, and I recognize this and I know the department does as well, we usually only do one eligible list for EMTs, but with the paramedics, because it's a very competitive job market, we typically open it twice a year. And essentially being a medic, you go through a longer education process to receive your certification. So I did also just want to provide some insight. So what's FCTC? Like I mentioned before, they are the leader and they do all of the recruitment, outreach, and standardized training programs for firefighters in California. We work in collaboration with them to receive our candidates and ensure they're on that statewide eligible list before we start our examination process. And then this is just lastly our hiring data. So again, just looking at those two numbers between the EMT and the medic. So you could see we've received for EMT 275 applications, for our medics we received 112. I'd say you could see that stark difference of where the candidates that were tested for our medics were 38 candidates, and then for our EMTs was 124. On the medic side, it's harder for them to meet those qualifications and getting that certification. We were able to hire two paramedics in the year of 2025, and then we hired 26 EMTs in 2025. So this does conclude our presentation. We also just wanted to see if you had any follow-up questions as well.

Are there any questions? This is an informational item, so we're not voting on anything. Okay, thank you so much. With that, I would like to take, if possible, a 16-minute break, having us come back at 4.30. Okay, so 4.30, come back. Are we good, Gabriel? Okay, let's call the meeting back to order. We are moving on to item 10.3, a presentation from Restore the Delta, Restoring Mormon Slough, a Community-Led Economic Development and Green Space Revival.

Great. Ah, thank you. Just to remove my face for one quick second, Barbara Berrigan-Perio with Restore the Delta. I'm sorry, I can't. The city council was very gracious and I want to thank mayor fugazi your entire staff and vice mayor lee for really helping me out with my medical accommodation today i am under cancer treatment and i have a low white blood count and i cannot remove my mask but i want to make sure you can hear me am i doing all right okay great thank you um the mormon slough restoration project really began back in 2018 and 2019 when Restore the Delta was asked by CalEPA to be the convener for a 56-agency multi-agency task force of state, federal, and local agencies to study environmental justice challenges in Stockton. And at that time, a significant report was produced on all the areas needed for improvement. It was published by Kelly PA. And as happens all too often, those government agencies that participated disappeared after the report was published. But it was from that work and from working with community through that process that we decided that we were going to go ahead and create a project to deal with a significant environmental justice issue in Stockton from the ground up. Another thing I'd like the council to know and to understand, this project is not my vision. My job was to hire staff, find resources, and create a group based on local community organizations, scientists, engineers, flood control experts, environmental stewards who do significant research, and economists and housing experts. to create the initial plan for this project and the idea behind putting this plan together is all too often people in government you know they hear from community i don't like this i don't like that but community doesn't come to you with a well articulated vision. So through this process, we have been working with community in hand in hand with experts so that when we get to the end of our grant planning process, you will be invited for a public presentation on a completed plan that would take decades for multiple government agencies to implement. We believe not only that this project is important for the economic and environmental health of Stockton. We also believe it is a model project for the state of California and the country as to how community can work hand in hand with government to create a vision with climate change for restoration and economic development that benefits the greater community. So we are analyzing and working on a high-level plan at this point for really restoration of the entire nine-mile slough, including an element that would provide water back into the slough to transform it back into a green space. But that's not all it would be. The most important part, well, there are two important parts. One, to understand what historically happened to the slough. And the slough is a story of disinvestment. When the diverting canal was built in 1910, water was pumped out of the slough and sewage was pumped into the slough for five years, causing great harm to communities of color in South Stockton. Uh, working class leaders did come together and get that process stopped, but it laid the groundwork for the area decade after decade to be perceived as a dumping zone for the city, making it worse. There's been continued disinvestment from the army Corps of engineers who are the parties who are ultimately responsible for those levies. And because of the way the army Corps had been operating, there were, um, There was a lack of flood protection measurements that had been put in. There was a cost benefit analysis done almost 30 years ago where they just decided, oh, the community is poor. We don't want to make investments there. There's been a lot of groundwork done through the environmental justice movement to change those outcomes. Flood risks along Mormon Slough, and I think this is really important to understand, When you think about what this project would entail for multiple decades, it is like building a wedding cake. You gotta get the engineering right first as the platform to protect people against sea level rise, climate change, runoff of rivers. And there is a major effort behind this to protect people from flooding on the Calaveras side of the river and to stop back up into the slough from the deep water shipping channel. That's the basis of the cake. The restoration is the next layer on the cake. Think of it like you're getting the cream between the layers of the cake, all right? Then what goes on top of all of that? The economic development, the community planning, the arts scene, the bike paths, all the aspirational goals of the community. And that's the order to get things done. You have to have a solid basis and then you can move forward. So between 2019 and the end of 2022, we did a lot of pre-work to bring people into the Mormon Slough Association, various groups. I probably did about 100 tours with parties who were interested in restoration for the project during that period. And then in 2023, we were funded by philanthropy to begin building the Mormon Slough Association. You know, we have everyone at the table from Building and Trades Council in San Joaquin County to tribes who are the historic tribes whose villages exist, the remnants of their villages on Mormon Slough, federally recognized tribes. We have science experts like San Francisco Estuary Institute and locally groups like Little Manila Rising, the NAACP, Catholic Charities, and the list goes on. and today we have convened seventy meetings to reimagine the slew and we are in the middle of a charrette process i know we invited you all for the main one you can come to the july one if you'd like to spend a half a day participating with community to see what their hopes and their aspirations are in the design process which will lead to the final report that will be ready for public use in october So I'm going to turn this over to our program and policy manager, Morgan Snyder. And she has Buster with her, who is our employee of the month every month. And she's going to tell you where we're at with the work presently.

Thanks, Barbara. Hi, Mayor Fugazi, Vice Mayor Lee, city council members. Thank you so much for allowing us to come here and speak today. We're really excited to share about this project. So I'm going to talk a little bit about where we are at right now, but first I want to give you sort of a bird's eye view of how we envision this project benefiting community. So from a bird's eye view, there's so much that can be done in terms of the restoration and revitalization of Mormon SLU. It has the opportunity to reduce urban heat impacts that we experience across Stockton, particularly in South Stockton. It has the opportunity to build economic development for the region. It has opportunities to restore the natural habitat and create new fish and wildlife habitat. It has the opportunity to cultivate the art and history of Stockton, bring in some of that historical knowledge that we've gained from some of our partners like the tribe Buena Vista Rancheria. So all of this we see as the long term visioning of restoring Mormon Slough. So this is like a 30 year bird's eye view of what we would love to see down the road. But again, all of this is being built with and through community to gain their input on what they would like to see along the slough to benefit their communities. So right now, we are in the pre-design and visioning phase of this project. We are in the very, very early developments, but we wanted to bring in the community as early as possible in order to really build this project from the ground up with community. We know that this project in implementation is going to take a lot more than this Mormon Slough Association that we've built. It's going to take the city. It's going to take the county. It's going to take a wide breadth of partners to see this through to the finish line But we want to be able to bring you all something that is built with the community And that it that is a true vision that we can run with from there so back In 2025, we received the North Valley Thrive Catalyst Grant, which spurred this most recent stream of work that we're doing on the Mormon Slough Restoration Project. We really started the work in September 2025, although the grant was awarded a little bit earlier than that, and the grant runs through September 2026. So as Barbara mentioned, we will have completed work products for you all come October at the conclusion of this grant. So some of the outcomes that are anticipated that are well in process right now include a site inventory. Barbara mentioned the San Francisco Estuary Institute, which are landscape architects and design who have helped do this site inventory that's looked at heat impacts across the slough. It's looked at the historical ecology of the slough. I mean, all of that feeds into the vision that we're currently building for two pilot restoration sites. So these two sites are meant to be demonstration sites as we build out a broader vision for the entirety of the SLU. And so these two sites would be the first to be implemented, the first realization of the restoration of the Mormon SLU. So the two sites that we're building conceptual designs for right now are Solari Ranch and the Emergency Food Bank site. So right behind that Emergency Food Bank, you can see the SLU that I know the The city's done a lot of cleanup on. We've hosted some cleanups there as well. And we've been working in partnership with the emergency food bank on this project, as well as the developer at Solari Ranch. So come October, we will have two fully conceptual designs with community input. These community meetings that we're hosting right now are meant to gain that community input, hear what they want to see at the sites based on all of that back work that SFDI and Restore the Delta and the Mormon Slough Restoration Association have done over the past several years. We're also going to have an art installation guide. I talked about that art and history cultivation piece. So this will really feed into that and provide an overall vision of how we can Amplify the the beauty and the art in the city across the Mormon slough and the implementation of that and then we are also conducting an economic cost benefits analysis So this will outline the overall benefits both environmental and economic to the community at a very high level again this report is not completed yet, but it looks like upwards of 500 million and and public benefits can be seen from this project. It'll bring a number of high paying jobs to the area as well, from construction all the way to maintenance and ongoing stewardship of the sites along Mormon Slough. So we really see this as an opportunity not only to promote environmental health and safety across the Mormon Slough, but also provide economic development opportunities for community as well. Now with that being said, we would love to invite all of you to join us on July 25th at the Sycamore for our second community event that we'll be hosting. And then in addition, once we wrap up this grant in September, we would really love to invite all of you to a full briefing on the outcomes of this grant and what we've produced to share with you all the next and start to plan with you all the next steps where we get to implementation, the fun part. Awesome. Well, thank you all so much again, and we're happy to take any questions.

What time is it?

Vice? It starts at 10 a.m. Yeah. Vice Mayor Lee.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Mayor and City Manager, for scheduling this presentation. First, I want to say, as you're talking, I'm getting excited, and this is not even my project. I'm up here like, oh, my God, getting excited. But what I'm excited about is that In my opinion, this is really what community is about. And I think public-private partnerships and figuring out ways of us supporting initiatives like this that are critical. I look down at the end of the day as my colleague, And I recently had to be responsive to concerns from the Anderson Street Church that was responding to folks that were down in the slough and some of the damage they were creating on their property. And sometimes I think as a city, we get reactive to situations where we're responding to stuff on social media or complaints that we're getting from the community, whereas I think we could be more proactive, right? So we did have a meeting. um about how we can address some of the concerns there i know the city manager and his team are coming up with ideas on how to um better that area but i think that when i think about what mayor viragosa told me when i ran for office was that politics is about mathematics how you how you add and multiply instead of subtract and divide so when i think about that how do we how do we add to the value of what you're doing how can we support what you're doing i think all the boxes for me are checked off community participation, community leadership, integrated partnerships, longevity, dedication. And there's a heart to do good for people who, not only in this area that are challenged with the salute, but those that are living down there, who we do have a plan to remove them and that area up, but we would love, I think we should be exploring how we could do it together. A couple of things is I will be the first to say that I'll be there on July 25th. I'm also willing to host a meeting with some of my colleagues from the county, the state, and I think our congressmen who are equally interested. I know Adam Gray and I've been, Adam Gray and I've been talking, Congressman Gray and I've been talking about the SLU, District 6, and I know that Assemblywoman Ransom and I have had conversations about the SLU, and I think that she'll get some support from my colleagues, so I'm willing to do that. The other thing is, I guess my question for you is, is SJ CARES involved at all with what you're doing? Have you been able to collaborate with them? Because I know they do a lot of work within our county as it relates to the population that's in the SLU.

They do a magnificent job working within the community. We have done outreach to groups and invited them in, and the Mormon Slough Association now is a functioning association, has a process for extending invitations for more groups to come in. I would say when we get to the end of this in September and we do the community-led discussion on what the findings were from the original core groups that were involved, then they'll be able to extend the invitation to other groups who want to sign up and be at the table for the process. It's a lot of work. People have to prepare for meetings. They attend meetings every month. They participate in the process. They have deadlines. And we raise money to compensate those groups. So recommendations as to groups you believe should be involved in this as it can be expanded out. Because ultimately what this is really going to take, and I'm glad you're talking about other elected officials and agencies it's really going to take a joint powers authority to pull this project off between the city the county the federal government the flood control agencies all the federal and state agencies that have permitting oversights and the community and what we're setting up is the community part so they can be at the table every step of the way wouldn't it be great to build a project that didn't run into a lot of sequa fighting

Well, the reason why I asked the question, I'll look at Mary Elizabeth on the CEQA piece. You can have a conversation with her on that. I won't touch that. But what I will say is, you know, the mantra at SEIU was stronger together, right? Like, we're stronger together. City government doesn't fix everything. I mean, I would have to ask my colleague, Councilman Padilla, what she was able to do with state. I mean, I don't even know who has control. Is it state lands? I mean, she was able to cut through a lot of yellow tape for Trinity Parkway. And I'm just, what I know is that I can get people to the table to listen and help to support the effort. I would just look at our city manager and our city staff to say whatever we can do to make it a collaborative effort because I would love to see this challenge that's existed in our community for the last several years to be fixed permanently. And I know that the mayor has spoken out about Mormon SLU and wanting to make it a priority as well. So July 25th, I'll be there. I'll commit to getting the meeting with some folks together. SJ Cares is in the meeting that we had about the SLU. Unanimous around the table from PD to our partners at all the different agencies. They said SJ Cares is a significant component to the work that we're doing to help the unhoused crisis that we have and some of the challenges that you are going to run into there. So I would definitely be open to making an intro if you haven't connected with them.

Thank you.

But thank you for the presentation. Thank you for the work.

Thank you. Councilman Villapudua.

Yes, thank you mayor and as well. Thank you for presentation. I agree with the vice mayor as well. I will be joining the July 25th as well. Just a few things you guys mentioned. You've had 70 meetings OK from when to. So now I went on these meetings occurred.

yeah that's a great question so these are a combination of community meetings the mormon slough restoration association meetings um so they've started all the way back in 2018 is that right 2023 is when we started counting the 70 meetings okay yeah as first i was like that's a lot i think i only probably known maybe about three of them um

Are urban native communities involved, like SCC, Native American Indian Centers, are they involved in this?

I don't believe that they've been involved today. We've been primarily working with Buena Vista Rancheria, but again, yeah, we're happy to take suggestions on groups that we should reach out to and that should participate in the Restoration Association as well.

They also, though, I think are aware of the project because they partner with Buena Vista Rancheria. So we first started with working with the federally recognized tribe that has ancestral ties directly rather than the tribal nonprofits, but There like I said, there's gonna be a whole second round after this to bring in additional groups.

Okay, and then The landlord the land owners around there. Who are you guys working with? I

At Soleri Ranch, the developer, Ernie Vasty, I believe is his name, we've been working really closely with. We've also been doing canvassing. So Artie Valencia, the program manager who's been leading this, has been out almost every single weekend knocking on doors, talking to people, leaving flyers and information, and specifically looking at the areas that border on the slough that would benefit from this.

And what's the feedback with the rest of the landowners?

The feedback has generally been very positive. People are excited to see something moving forward, excited to see the opportunity for revitalization of the slough. A lot of people generally see this as an area that's unsafe and want to see opportunities to create safety and beauty in the area. So it's been really positive. I don't have the exact numbers for how many doors we've knocked on, how many people we've talked to, but I'm happy to get those numbers for you.

It's 3,000. and um it's 3 000 doors knocked there have been surveys collected and the surveys that have been collected have gone directly to the economist who used to live in stockton for a number of years and holly michael did the community economic analysis for communities that were harmed by the exxon valdez and that's important because she can then do an assessment of really what is owed to people here by the state and federal government for restoration second piece in terms of the meetings and the input the data is being collected that will be in the final report for everyone it'll all be statistically broken down but prior to when we even started in 2023 Artie Valencia was working to canvas businesses throughout the slough, and people are aware of it. Some people didn't have the time or capacity to join the group, but they're aware, they know it works, they interact with our people regularly.

You mentioned data. Have we done any testing to see if these areas are contaminated or anything?

We have a grant out right now to be able to do some of that for one of the test sites where we would like to start restoration. We haven't been funded to do that right now. It's been about organizing community.

And what do we think about the funding? How are we going to come out with this?

The funding ultimately is going to have to be a public-private partnership. It'll be probably a combination of philanthropy, state funding, federal funding, local funding. And that's to begin with the two beta sites. Long-term planning, that's why you have to form a JPA. This is what's been done on the LA River, the San Antonio Riverwalk, the Bridges Project in Washington, D.C. We've had models we've looked at how these JPAs function, who needs to be at the table. You know, we started with this task force with CalEPA. It's really going to be about bringing that task force back together to actually create something this time.

And as I know, being a vice mayor in the same area, have we reached out to Supervisor Gardea to get involved as well?

This is our first government presentation other than for the entities that have come to some meetings. It's just a question. That's all.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Councilwoman Padilla. Thank you, Mayor. No questions, just a comment. I want to commend you on all the work that you've been doing. And the city can't do everything and fund everything. And I really appreciate the fact that you guys took this upon yourself to build an organization just to better our city and make it environmentally safe. So I just appreciate all your work and thank you so much.

Thank you. Councilman Enriquez.

Thank you, Mayor. Morgan, I just want to say thank you for this presentation to Barbara and the entire team. And I know I've been to a couple meetings. One thing already, because I think we first met, I think it was we were in South Stockton. There was a presentation. I forget where we were at, but it was my first introduction to the Mormon slew restoration and all the efforts you all were doing. And I know I've been to two that you all had at your main office and then one recently at the well. But resharing your content online has been really informative for me at least. I know it has been for my constituents in my district and a lot of folks do reply back on Instagram about, oh, this is so cool. Thanks for sharing this. So this is the next meeting. So I know just to break down in, I think also, For someone that came back from DC about four years ago, what's really interesting is all the relationships. And one of the things I just want to emphasize is that no matter what the level of relationship is, and I think Barbara really made a good point about partnerships, is that even if you may necessarily not be the person that is the most insightful or has the most knowledge base in a certain area, we have to really rely on each other to learn different expertise in different levels. you know, really putting our ego aside to say, hey, how can I work with you? I mean, I know everything. I mean, I know all the answers, but I'm in a position that I can work with you and understand more. And I think that's really what it takes. So it's going to be a lot of all of us up here and every elected official, put your ego on the side and let's get to work and let's really do what we can to support this effort because it's vital for our downtown and our city. And there's a lot of history, but it's going to take all of us. So I really do appreciate that. So thank you.

Okay. Oh, we have public comment. Go ahead with the public comment.

Mark Stebbins, please.

In 1986, the South Stockton Merchants Association first proposed a renovation of Mormon Slough and re-watering the entire area. Needless to say, it didn't go anywhere. flooding in the Mormon slough last occurred in 1956 with the flood that inundated much of South Stockton and Some of the roads some of the bridges On streets across Mormon slough were never rebuilt I'm I'm happy that Restore the Delta has taken this project on, I'm unhappy that they seem to neglect those of us who live and work and have businesses in South Stockton. There just is no incorporation of our vision in their vision. And this hopefully will be, you know, corrected in the future. But there needs to be real in-depth community contact, personal contact with merchants, with landowners, and with Residents in South Stockton that have been historically affected by this Mormons flu. So I would hope that. That direction might be taken. And a vision. Come that's much different than the vision that. Comes down from on top from. Washington bridges or any of these kind of. city upper government projects that the vision be sustained for the economic businesses and the people who live in Mormon Slough, around Mormon Slough and even in Mormon Slough because their vision part of it is just remove the homeless. But our vision is that the homeless are residents, the homeless are citizens, and the homeless have a right to real estate in South Stockton.

That concludes public comment for the item.

Thank you. So I just want to say back after I got elected in 2015-16 when Kurt Wilson was the city manager, I had talked to him specifically about Mormon slough and I had said, hey, what's prohibiting us from allowing water to flow back down the slew and he says, oh, can't do that. There's an agreement with DWR and they'll never have water in again. And I was like, wow, you know, that's sad because everything, you know, kind of comes full circle. and we should be doing habitat restoration. It's something I did with my students. We put the elderberry bush back in, so then we would have a habitat for the riparian wildlife that come there. I mean, not here in Stockton, but I've done it in other places, and then we built owl boxes and all that kind of stuff, but that's that whole cycle of life. Mr. Stebbins brought something up because you know in talking when I first tried to do something talking to some of the business owners I did not realize that there are roughly 438 parcels along the stretch 438 a different property owners and so in thinking about what we just did 218 I mean when we just did the process would that be something that that we would have to put to a vote with all of those property owners. City of Stockton is a property owner, State of California, Union Pacific, Stockton Unified School District, the county, PG&E. I mean, I'm thinking about all the people. And those are public entities, but then there's all the private entities. There are a number of places of worship there. as well as, I think, a marble palace, because marble palace would ask for help, ask for help, ask for help, because their property would get routinely broken into. But what would we have to do to incorporate all these property owners into a project such as this? Everybody's looking at each other. Sorry, I don't know.

I can definitely look into it and get back to the council.

Yeah, because you know we're talking well actually it's the it's for peace of public private philanthropic partnership, so it's there's for peace and all those people have to be peas in a pod working together moving in the same direction and if we leave. If we leave anybody out, we don't want to face objection on things of this nature, because to go all the way through the process and then have people say, nope, I don't want it done. I don't know what that would mean for a project as magnanimous as this. Because it's not just a little, it's that whole slew needs attention. And if you just do one section, it's like if you have... you know I was trying to make an example but it's not a good example but if there's a little mold on your bread you know and you cut off that piece of mold but doesn't mean that you know anyway that's not a good example either I didn't want to use the one I wanted to use but anyhow looking at potentially 438 parcel owners That concerns me, but I, for one, think that water should flow back through it, hearing that there hasn't been a flood since 1956, knowing that there has been serious contamination, even as recently as October, September, October of 2025, and making sure that we are protecting our resources and not harming our resources, so. I didn't know if you wanted to say something.

Well, and we could work with the city attorney's office and maybe look at some type of assessment district because that's in essence what it would be.

And would we need to have an MOU?

I'm sure.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Okay, so I'm going to respond to everything I just heard and say that I'm very protective of my district and the neighboring district that I share with my colleague. And I don't like there being advanced thoughts or movement on my district without considerations that involve the public and me. And I'm not saying that that happened, I just want to put that out there because I will become a champion with CEQA. against anything that the city moves forward without the people and without me being involved so let me just start by saying that that's just put that out for the whole room to hear public i'm not that's not to you that's just for everybody here the second thing is that i agree with the mayor 438 houses i don't know what consideration was given to this council and the community at trinity parkway when we moved forward and displaced all those people and did whatever happened out there there weren't lots of conversations there were lots of ppp considerations they went out there and cleared that thing out And we didn't even get a full report on what happened there. We saw it on social media. So I want to be very clear that we are not going to do to the South what we didn't do in the north. We have to have a consistent plan whatever we do because people are watching. I know I'm watching. I'm keeping a scorecard of when we follow the rules and when we don't. The other thing is I want to go back to what I heard. I heard you give a very clear presentation. I don't know enough about the work that has or hasn't been done or who is engaged or not because Mr. Stebbins, with all due respect, if you love the south side as much as I do, she just invited you to a meeting on July 25th, and I better see you there because anybody that gets up here and complains that, people aren't including them, and then you find out when you can go and then you don't show up, then you're a part of the problem, not you, but us, right? Because I often complain about things that I may not show up for, and then people say, well, you were invited. I go, oh, well, maybe I should show up. So I'm joining in on that, and I'm going to pick up Mark, and we're going to come together. Okay, I offer you a ride, okay? uh so i say that that yes all right i'll be there i will do what i can to help promote because i do agree as we just saw earlier where one of our own initiatives failed that's important to the city that you know people get engaged when they want or don't but it's important that we at least do our best to the council's point of getting the information out so people have an opportunity to participate I don't have an idea of what's going to go down there. I don't live down there. I don't hang out down there. I don't live around that area. But I do think the decision of what happens down there has to involve the people who live in that area, who surround that area, and who have been invested in a solution for the many years that this problem has existed. I also want to say to, I'll use Jessica Rabbit, I think that's Jessica from Red Rabbit as an example. uh... and i was and i'll say publicly what i said to her privately you know if we are advocates for change we also can't become a part of the chaos in creating the change if you come down and you say you want to help and provide housing for homeless but then you don't get people out of jail because you don't think they should be in jail the police are here to do their job the jails are here to do their job with the city we're here to do our job but but if advocacy for change can also be a part of the chaos that we see in our city we have to be very clear in that the other thing is I think our city manager said in meetings that I know he said straight out publicly in a meeting recently that the mayor and I were in with some of our nonprofits there's lots of people competing for dollars for the same thing so we're all looking for consolidation I do like the idea of bringing organizations under one veil under one roof to to target a challenge because, you know, if you have this group out trying to do it, this group trying to do it, this group, and then now the county's getting hit up for money, the state's getting hit up for money, and the city's getting hit up for money, we want to make sure that we're consolidating our efforts as much as we can so that way there's a very concentrated investment because these taxpayer dollars that go towards restorations or addresses challenges are are are an investment of our taxpayer resources so again i just appreciate the work that you have done and i think if if we do anything uh... i think the mayor highlight the four hundred thirty homes those should be targets of forty hundred thirty parcels those should be targets along the way of who were communicating to who were inviting into the conversation uh... and uh... and i'm sure we can get four hundred thirty eight flyers short that that's all i have to say

The 3,000 doors we have knocked on and we have flyered and we have met with people include the 438 parcels. We have been up and down the slew for quite some time now with a good team. We never started this work thinking we were keeping the work because it's going to have to be led by government and it's going to require a JPA. the intent of this project where we're at right now again is to come to government agencies with a thought out community-driven plan that was also informed by community working with experts and then for the JPA to be able to move forward while keeping community at the table we don't see ourselves being the conveners of that so this is the kickstart project to move it forward

And I'll just add, you know, there's other work that's happening that will be in tandem to both of your districts because you have the Stockton Diamond Project that's going to have a flyover that will also be creating issues in the SLU. They want to, of course, work with others, too. They already have... terms of what it would be like they work with Paul Schneider who was here last week with Siegfried and associates so they've done a number of community meetings on that project but just so that we're clear would we have to have a or the people that own these properties or parcels would they have to vacate them potential you know these are all questions I'm thinking would they have to vacate their their section if we were to you know cover it with whatever Would they be then donating it or whatnot? Just so we understand moving forward because, yeah, as mentioned, the government, local, state government are going to have to work on pushing this forward. And then I was gonna say thank you for the invitation. This is the first invitation I've gotten to a meeting of this and I definitely care a lot about our water. I don't know how many times I've said between trees and water that it's life. We can't have one without the other. Same with the air we breathe. So thank you and we appreciate you coming. Okay. Mary Elizabeth, come on. Moving on to item 10.4, adopt a resolution to approve and adopt the move downtown final report addressing downtown Stockton multimodal transportation network and land use compatibility, which my last statement kind of segues right into. Hi, Jordan.

Hi, Mayor, and good afternoon, Council. Jordan Peterson, Economic Development Department. I'll just give it a moment while the chambers clear out. So as the mayor mentioned, this item is to approve and adopt what's called the Move Downtown Final Report. And to just give some brief background before I turn it over to the consultant from Mark Thomas and Company to provide an overview of the plan and the process and the end result. Just to give some background is that, This process really started about three years ago when the city was approached by the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission, which owns and operates the Altamont Corridor Express train that operates from Stockton to San Jose. They are working on a very large expansion effort up and down the valley from Sacramento down to hopefully eventually a series of Merced. Maybe beyond eventually and they are working with different jurisdictions Sacramento Modesto on similar types of plans and really this has to do with transit oriented development thinking about you know our great transit Agencies that are in the downtown the transit station The downtown transit center the Cabral station where the ace train operates and then the Amtrak San Joaquin State San Joaquin Street station which serves the gold runner service recently changed their name And so really what this plan does is create a long-term framework around transit oriented development to really envision with our transit partners What could be in terms of advancing mobility downtown and a more vibrant downtown With with the transit system so with that I'm going to turn it over to Sam Sharvini from Mark Thomas and company to walk us through kind of the process and the plan itself

Yes, hello, Mark Thomas has a lot of business in this area, I would say, between COG, rail, us, so happy to have you.

Thank you. Thank you, Jordan. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor and members of the council for this opportunity to present the Move Downtown project and final report to you. Just making sure we got the slide deck up. Okay, excellent. So over the next few slides, I'll be providing a overview of our process that we embarked on over the last 18 months with this project, what some of those major takeaways are and what it means now for next steps with this vision that we put together. Starting on this slide, I wanted to provide a just brief background and overview of what this project was and where we were looking at. So this box that you see highlighted in purple on the map on the screen defines the project area that we looked at as part of this move downtown effort. It was bounded by Oak Street to the north, Center Street to the west, the Amtrak San Joaquin's rail corridor to the south, and airport way to the east. So this vision that we came up with was a comprehensive land use, or sorry, not comprehensive, but combined land use and transportation vision that was focused on this square project area. Our recommendations were focused within this area, but we also analyzed and considered factors that were influencing this area beyond this immediate study. Now, our project process or essentially our scope of work is highlighted on this slide. We did initiate this project by doing a existing conditions analysis. We complemented the technical analysis we did with this project with a 18-month effort of robust community engagement broken into three phases of public outreach, which I will share some of our highlights and takeaways from that engagement campaign. We also did a equity and displacement analysis as part of our technical work, and then towards the end of the project, of course, identifying recommended strategies that included both programmatic level considerations as well as infrastructure and capital investments that can be made. That was put together through an alternatives analysis and complemented with a benefit-cost analysis to also determine where the return on investment would support the preferred alternative identified. Last thing here, the action and phasing plan. Ultimately, we wanted to make sure that this plan doesn't just sit on a shelf, but ultimately results in action and builds momentum for the vision we've identified here. So we identified several strategies to keep that momentum moving forward once this project is complete. Now, I mentioned I'll share some of the highlights when it comes to community engagement. On this screen, I'm not going to go over everything here, but just some of the quick things I did want to mention. Through three phases of public engagement, we did manage to engage with over 1,200 people throughout that process, receiving over 400 survey responses broken out into those phases. And a number of community events and organizations were collaborators in that process. Some of the things I did want to also mention too, a lot of the people that participated in this process were not just residents or business owners within the immediate downtown project area, but of course downtown is an amenity and a tractor for all residents within the city, so we did engage with a number of people from outside the immediate study area. And to that point, 27%, almost one third of people that we spoke with identified that they do walk regularly in the project area. That was very important for us to identify. And also 15% are regular users of transit. As far as takeaways go, as I said, I'm not gonna go through everything here, but I did want to highlight that when we spoke with community members, business owners, residents, one of the things that we repeatedly heard is that El Dorado Street, Center Street, and Weber Avenue are the top priorities for the community and they do want to see regular improvements made to those three identified corridors. Now the alternatives analysis that we completed was broken into three primary alternatives for this process. This alternatives evaluation broke them out into what we called the foundation plan, the focus plan, and the full vision plan. The foundation plan was really looking at more spot treatments, thinking about lower hanging fruit, things that the city and its partner agencies can do More immediately, that might require less funding, less capital and engineering efforts, and are really efforts that we can build momentum on for the rest of the vision going forward. The focus plan then built on that and said, okay, well, if we're going to do spot treatments under the foundation plan, if we're going to broaden that effort, what are specific corridors that we should then prioritize for maybe more large-scale investments? And this would include more holistic upgrades, mixed-use nodes for land use, and then also really looking at density along key corridors that can be benefiting those improvements. And then the last thing here, the full vision plan. This was alternative three. alternative was the most comprehensive, really looking at systemic levels of change throughout the project area that would still require more long-term investments, more collaboration between partner agencies, and would require more funding to ultimately be built. But with that being said, it did have the highest potential for benefits and change in the downtown area. So I mentioned all three alternatives did look at both land use and transportation. This slide is just showing how those alternatives essentially built on one another. So alternative one, the foundation plan, was that initial set of improvements both for land use and transportation. That could be adopted to really get the momentum going, but we wanted to continue to grow from that and look at If funding is not an issue, if engineering capacity is not an issue, and if political will and collaboration with partner agencies is not a hurdle, this is really the full scope of items that you can accomplish moving all the way to Alternative 3. So as I said, Alternative 2 and Alternative 3, they build on each of the preceding alternatives to capture all of those improvements and add on additionals. I mentioned there was also a benefit cost analysis completed through this effort. That benefit cost analysis looked at these three set alternatives to identify what would be the corresponding cost, but also which alternative ultimately would have the best return on investment when factoring in those costs and expenditures. That identified, ultimately, that alternative three, which we identified as the preferred alternative, was going to be the best alternative for completing the goals and objectives identified by this effort and aligned with the vision that the city and its partner agencies were looking to accomplish. So this benefit-cost analysis looked at a number of things, system performance, benefit durability, long-term economic influence, to name a few. And then ultimately, the additive structure of the alternatives really gave us the capacity to identify an implementation strategy that can build these improvements out into phasing, which again really benefits the cost and benefit analysis when it comes to the return on investment for alternative three. The other thing I'll note is when it came to the alternatives evaluation, we did not want to have a goals and objectives that were adopted and approved by our stakeholders, our partner agencies through this process to make sure we are identifying a vision that everyone can get behind and we are building that consensus collaboratively. So these goals and objectives identified here, there's six total and the corresponding weighting that were given to these goals are also identified on the screen. Ultimately, these goals were used to vet the alternatives that were evaluated and create the, or identify and support the preferred alternative that was eventually resulting from that process. So the other factors that were considered, cost, complexity, coordination needs, right of way, there was a number of things that we looked at through these goals and objectives that were also ultimately used to evaluate these alternatives.

Okay, before you go to the next slide, got a question. What we have found, and I'm wondering if you have, is that we have residential, we have mixed use, with commercial on the bottom and residential on top. That's within this footprint. So you have the Medici building, you have Grandview, ours is just outside of it, but We have people who are some, well, I'd like to say like landlocked from getting to a grocery store. They're gonna have to use one of these modes of transportation in order to get to, well, they're gonna have to use RTD to get to a grocery store or they have to have their own car. But we have a number of people that are disabled as well. So when we're looking at mobility and we're looking at economic vitality, okay, social equity, improved land use, but I would go to the health, air quality, health and sustainability. Has that been part of the discussions at all? Like how we can provide healthy food options for people within this footprint?

Yes, so that was actually a very common thing we did hear from community members when we did engage with them through this process. And there were a number of evaluations our team did to identify specific focus areas actually within the project area that was defined to say if you were to identify specific parcels, which we didn't go to that level of depth as part of this process, but on a focus area level, If you were to identify specific strategies that can further the goal of creating more health food vendors, creating more grocery stores, where should those strategies be prioritized within the downtown core? So that level of analysis was completed, but like I said, it was not completed on a parcel level. That detail was beyond our scope.

Because we have a number of vacant buildings that are within this footprint as well. And when you have vacant buildings, you have people that maybe won't come downtown, then they can't support the businesses that are downtown in that area. working smarter, not harder, and you say, oh, what do you do? Do you build the workforce and then ask an employer to come, or do you find the employer and then build their workforce? So that's kind of what I feel like here, where we've created spaces, but then nobody will use the space. So, Jordan, go ahead.

Just to chime in, we do have the downtown master plan that is gonna feed in directly what's been done here in terms of looking at specific buildings, potential funding strategies, mechanisms to create space like the grocery store. What do we do with City Hall and the adjoining property that the city owns? This is all going to directly feed into that more parcel specific project development strategy that's going to be forthcoming in the next few months.

Yeah. And I think outside of CMC, where would people go to like a drugstore? I mean, there's nothing there. You'd have to go to CMC and that's not always convenient for people. So, OK, thank you. Not a problem.

Okay, I think we covered everything on this slide. So just getting through the last few slides here, I did want to identify that this is not, of course, a full list of all the projects that were identified as part of our plan, but these are the top five ranked projects that came out of this effort. So SR4 Crossings project, this was, again, something that we wanted to make sure reflects the feedback we got from the community. In general, one of the things was that people were consistently voicing that the SR4 highway is a barrier effectively for mobility, it divides communities, and we want to look for ways to bridge that divide and mitigate that physical barrier that is there. So we identified that further analysis will need to be done to look at how you can mitigate that physical barrier today. That was the top-ranked project, and then a number of these other projects were corridor studies, so El Dorado Street, Airport Way were two of the corridors that, again, the community voiced as high priorities for reinvestment or improvement, or, in the case of Airport Way, was a significant corridor when it came to crash data and had a high volume of crashes occurring. In fact, the highest volume of crashes occurring within the study area. So again, just to give you a sense of the type of projects that were identified in this plan, so this top five overview gives that sense. Now, the next steps I wanted to mention here to just close things out, we did do a 30-day public review of this plan that was completed through the end of the month of March going to the beginning of May. And now here we are today on the 23rd of June providing this presentation to Council with the intention of hopefully adopting the provided plan. That being said, we want to be clear that this does not mark the end of this effort. This is just the beginning. This report, as we said, we wanted to provide the resources and tools that city staff will need to further the vision that has been identified through this plan. And so this is a resource that we want to empower the city to move this vision forward. So with that being said, funding pursuits to advance this vision would be the coming next steps that the city and its partner agencies can pursue moving forward. And with that, I will turn it back to Jordan for questions.

And one more quick question. Was parking at all discussed during any of this? Because since we're talking about transportation, if you've ever tried to find a parking place downtown and the parking garages are full, because they've diverted all juries

Duty people now because there's not enough spaces in the SCB, but I'm just thinking about that as well Yes, so our the focus of our transportation analysis was more on infrastructure So we didn't do a detailed traffic analysis, but as I understand the downtown master plan is doing Okay, thank you

And with that, Mayor, we are seeking Council's approval to approve and adopt the move downtown final report and authorize the city manager to take appropriate and necessary actions to carry out the purpose and intent of the resolution.

Any questions from Council? Otherwise, I'll entertain a motion.

Motion to approve. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Thank you. 7-0, it passes. Relatively painless, right? Okay, moving on to item 10.5, a resolution ratifying the local emergency proclamation due to the golden muscle infestation.

Good evening, Travis Small, Deputy Director of Water Resources with Municipal Utilities Department. Good to see you again, Council. I'm up here to speak on our local emergency declaration due to the gold mussel infestation. And all the pictures you're going to see in here are pictures that were collected by staff. So I forgot to credit the picture, but Matt Baker, our senior maintenance mechanic at the Delta Water Treatment Plant, took these photos. Well, except for this one. So we first detected golden mussels at the Port of Stockton in October 2024. It was detected at our intake pump station out off Empire Tract in September 2025 by staff when we were pulling oil containment booms that were in front of our intake pump station. We hired a dive inspector to go into our wet well and inspect for if we had evidence of gold mussels inside wet well. And right here, this photo right here is a fish screen, and it's the backside of the fish screen, and you can see little clusters of, I think there's a little laser right there, some clusters of gold mussel. We We had a pretty thorough report that was put together, and then the last few months we put together a plan to clean the wet well, clean the fish screens, also repair any damage on the fish screens as a result of any of the clusters on the screens. And then we're also going to be... looking at other remediation on the site. Again, we observed that the intake pump station hired a contractor, and then we developed the work plan. And then this week, our contractor is on site cleaning the fish screens, cleaning the wet well, cleaning our intake pumps, removing any of the colonization of the clusters. And the report that was given to me earlier today is that our fish screen was 30 to 40 percent impacted with golden mussels. And so one of the risks of an infestation like this is reducing capacity to provide our water supply. So right now we're cleaning the site, getting all the infestation back to basically a zero status, and then we're going to be looking at long-term plans, which are going to include more frequent inspections, chemical treatment, We have to be careful with what we treat because if we put too much, like some places are using copper derivatives to treat muscles. We can't do that with some of the drinking water, so we have to look at some alternative chemicals that are safe to provide to the public, and there's not very many of them. Looking at possible UV systems.

I don't think that's gonna be viable at this location So I think it's gonna be a lot of mechanical type cleaning Yeah, some elbow grease Vice mayor has a question for yes I'm not afraid to ask what may be perceived as a stupid question because there's people out there there are people out there watching that don't know what we're talking about and I'm trying to catch on to everything because I mean, these look like the things I go fishing with, and I haven't been fishing in a while, so I don't know. Let me ask the question. So what we're gonna be asked to do is to ratify the recommendation by the city manager making this state emergency. So just walk me through, how did they get here? What impact is it having in layman terms? In the most layman of terms. All right, sorry. And where is it? Is it one location? Is it multiple locations?

So most likely arrived here in a ship ballast. And so the golden mussels originated in Southeast Asia. They showed up like in Brazil and South America in some of those shipping ports down there. And they really did a good job of expanding their range once they got into new habitat. When we detected them in the Delta in 2024, we have very suitable habitat for golden mussel. The biology of it is that one female mussel could produce a million offspring in one year. And so when they have their offspring, they float around in the water kind of like plankton, and they're called veligers. They're naked to the eye. And as they start to settle, they're actually called settlers, and then they start to colonize. And within a year, so some of our oil containment buoys were out for less than a year. And you see the picture right here? That's not our picture. But this picture right here came off of our oil containment buoy. And so you can see how clustered it is. The other problem with them is that they can grow on top of one another. And so as they colonize, they will actually restrict. Like if they're inside a pipe, you'll get the first layer. As a new generation starts settling in there, they actually start building on top of each other, and eventually they'll restrict the pipe diameter down to almost nothing.

And the pipes do what?

So it could be our raw water pipes providing water to our treatment. It could be agricultural pipes. So some of the farmers in the Delta have siphons off the Delta, and they're yanking their siphons out, and the pipes are being restricted down to almost nothing in basically a one-year period of time.

And so has this been something that's gradually happened, or it just came out? It's rapid. It's rapid. So we didn't see this coming.

It showed up in October 2024, and we're having major impacts already.

Right. So I saw on the news there was a business person who I know has come down here as part of the downtown discussions that we had, but he's at the marina, and it was impacting his business. So how is it impacting businesses or businesses?

uh... so like the marinas and everybody who has boats everybody's boats are getting fouled so the intake of the boats coming in so there's the economic impact of having to pull everybody's boats out clean them get them back down where there's no muscles put them back in. There's the economic impact of recreation. East Bay Mud shut down their facilities last year to where you couldn't do any boating, so no water skiing, fishing, or anything like that out of a boat. So there's a huge impact. Anybody who has a boat in the Delta, you pretty much can't put it in any other lake right now. So, I mean, just on the fishing side of it, on the water ski recreation, that kind of stuff, there's a huge impact. The farmers are having a big impact because they can't get water to their fields because they can't get any water through their pipes because they're encrusted. And then all their fish screens and that kind of thing are totally encrusted. So they're all having to spend a lot of money to keep everything clean. The news report, was it the news report that you've seen down here at the marina where... it you know that the main operators discussing how the impact that the boat owners have had and then also uh... just the way the water looks different and everything with how you can see fish five feet down that you can see uh... you can They're basically taking all the nutrients from all the other fish and that kind of stuff, too. So there's going to be a huge economic impact. There's going to be a biological impact. They're the very definition of an invasive species. Thank you.

Councilman Blauer?

Well, it's, there's, outside of, I don't know what eats them yet. So they're only about an inch long. So I don't think they're good for human consumption. Mm-hmm. Those aren't golden mussels. Those are for quaggas or zebras. But they're using a product called EarthTech. When they dose it, what it does is there's a copper derivative that's in the chemical, and it creates their body from metabolizing. So it shuts their metabolism down. So it kills them. Yeah.

Yes, and I'd like to say this is our first time. I'm thinking of mitten crabs.

Correct.

Remember mitten crabs, the hyacinth, nutria, and now we have this golden mussel. It's like we get a new invasive species every couple of years that falls upon the city of Stockton.

it seems like the uh... delta is a very challenging environment whether it's you know water exports whether it's biological threats uh... could be political threats you know of losing rights you know to the delta so i mean it's it's a very challenging environment and so one thing we're gonna have to do is more frequent dive inspections more frequent uh... Underwater work with divers going in there and cleaning our screens. We're gonna have to research You know products like the boaters are using like a whole shield prod product that sends some type of wave that where it prevents them from settling in there on the on the surfaces so we have to look at everything and so we're We're in a reactive stage still, and so hopefully we can get to where we can be a little bit more proactive with more long-term solutions. But for right now, we just have to do extensive cleaning and to keep our system as operating as good as possible.

Councilman Villapudua?

Yeah, I just had one question there so. The removal of the golden muscle. So we we clean this up. Can this come back again? Absolutely. So what's the solution we keep working?

We keep working on it until we have a long term solution so. And that's that's going to assist going to have to be a system wide solution within the delta.

And every time it's going to cost us $209,000.

Yeah, so this week's going to cost us $209,000.

And one of the reasons going in this direction and declaring an emergency, this is for financial reimbursements through the state of California. So that's why we're getting to this stage.

And so, you know, locally we do have our, San Joaquin County has a Golden Muscle Ad Hoc Committee and listed are all the agency stakeholders. And so this is going to impact everything from agricultural irrigation water, water conveyance infrastructure, water systems reclamation districts, hydropower facilities, all the pumping facilities. uh... the entire state water projects can be impacted by it the federal water projects can be impacted by it and all the ecosystems are vital to our fisheries and recreation again be impacted uh... San Joaquin County declared their state of emergency on gold mussels back on their April, I believe it was 25th or 27th, Board of Supervisors meeting. The Sacramento County is following suit. I believe they already declared their state of emergency or were in the process of it. uh... the state of california uh... in their senate committee uh... passed funding through a subcommittee today and then there's gonna be an assembly bill allocating money for uh... gold muscles and so we need to need to declare our state of emergency in order to get in line for funding to help us out And then last week, our city manager on June 19th signed a proclamation of the existence of the local emergency. Because right now, the gold mussels pose an immediate threat to our water conveyance at our Delta intake pump station. And then in the process moving forward, we're going to have to, for emergency declaration, We need to prevent us from having a catastrophic failure at our intake pump station. And then also, we need to be able to provide water to our residents. And so, if we lose our intake pump station, it's gonna be really tough to meet our summer demands. then this right here we get the emergency declaration declared it's going to grant our city departments under our California emergency service act to bypass time-consuming public bidding to allow us to get contracts in place sooner than later and also activate some of the sequel exemptions And then the important thing is unlocking direct emergency funding streams, whether that be from local, state, or the federal. And with that said, the recommendation is that you ratify our city manager's proclamation of the existence of a local emergency, authorize our city manager to execute contracts and make purchases related to public health and safety utilizing the city's emergency procurement policy, and authorize the city manager to utilize general fund contingency as needed to cover emergency response and expenses, and authorize the city manager to take all necessary and appropriate actions to carry out the purpose of the resolution we're going to ask you to pass.

Okay. Councilman Blauer.

Thank you, Mayor. I think this proclamation makes a lot of sense, gives us a lot of tools to deal with this problem. what is the plan in terms of like this passes moving forward like how are we going to work with say the county the state

and the feds so rate right now like the the county with their emergency declaration they have a uh... a funding worksheet that they give you and you whatever expenses you have related to gold muscles e you fill out give the evidence heard about the evidence but the backup documentation for the expense and then you turn it in on our end of it with our own declaration uh... We could either partner, I believe we could either partner with them or we could go directly to external funding sources. The other thing is, too, we do fund for emergency items in our water fund. We do have a contingency fund for emergencies similar to this. However, we're going to try to get either state or federal funding to help us out.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor. Along with what Council Member Villalpudo asked in terms of whether or not this can come back and understanding that it can and the rapid rate in which they reproduce, we don't have an endless bank of money to deal with this. And my question is, are we talking to the state and the county? Are we coordinating with other funding partners on this?

We've been having some. There's been a little bit of communication from the county, but not much yet. Just basically, since they declared the emergency, they sent over the forms to fill out just for the backup documentation for your expenses. And so this week we're having our first expense related to golden mussels.

Then the county, there will be stronger coordination with the county?

There's going to be stronger coordination through the task force. Okay, thank you.

Yes, and I know that there's a grant because Supervisor Gardea called me and said they did their state of emergency and then time ran out to get the grant. So I know I talked to City Manager Ford and said make sure we have that and that we are on the timeline to get that funding so we can try to eradicate as much as we can to keep that flow. Okay, so there's no public comment. Oh. One final question.

Okay, go ahead. Is it safe for people or other people? I mean, does it affect the skin of people? I mean, any of that? I mean, I just want to know. I got questions out of that.

No, it doesn't. Like, if you go swimming in the Delta, there's not going to be, like, a skin irritant from golden mussels.

Because what I understand...

It's an extreme... The best way to describe it would be like an extreme nuisance. Where it's going to foul up our intake screens, could foul up our intake pipes, pump.

Because I understand like even...

in Lake Tahoe, right?

You can't just bring your boat into that lake, okay? So how do we, is there maybe a certain way that we can do that type of stuff that we don't bring other boats?

There's going to be, and I'm probably going to have the number wrong, but I believe there's going to be some, I think there's going to be five decontamination sites for boaters, but I don't know the details of that. Well, in the Delta. Yeah. But as far as, so there's going to be some decontamination sites. That was on Radiza's page. All right. Thanks.

I was joking because when they have their offspring and you can't even see it with the eye, but you Let's say you swallowed some water. Is it going to be in your stomach or whatnot? And we're talking about muscles, but not that kind of muscle.

You just get your daily dose of plankton.

Not that we're drinking that water. Vice Mayor.

And this is why I don't go in the water. I just don't. I'm not a fan of the water like that. Yeah, this may be a no-brainer, but I'm assuming there's coordination with the port too, right? yeah i sent i sent a message over to one of my colleagues over there and i haven't heard back yet i would just email kirk directly i mean i don't know i know the mayor's in touch with him i can support that i do think we should talk to the port director um given the significance and the investment that we're going to make but um would love to get an update from the city manager's office on coordination with the port perfect but i'll make a motion to approve second we have a motion a second count oh sorry chief

I was just going to add one thing. The fire department is involved, not as a subject matter expert, but the emergency manager works underneath the fire chief. So the emergency manager sort of came forward with city manager declaring the emergency. So we will kind of, I will take the role and my staff will take the role of overseeing the working group, the task force, the collaboration of all the stakeholders. And like Travis has indicated, the key to this is accessing funding that otherwise we wouldn't be able for or to obtain. And that's the entire goal, a lot of the goal of declaring the emergency. So that's kind of how it's stepping aside and letting Mudd handle the subject matter expert of their water system. They know how to deal with it. but from an emergency management perspective to provide oversight and collaboration with the other partners and stakeholders.

I wasn't sure if you were going to say you were sending divers, but I thought you got rid of your diving equipment.

Diving equipment is gone. Yes, no longer here.

So we have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to item 10.6, receive a presentation on Rosenberg's Rules of Order.

Okay, good afternoon council, honorable mayor, members of the city council, good afternoon. My name is David Lim. I'm a city attorney with the firm of Richards, Watson, and Gershon. It's my pleasure to be here today at Council's invitation, I guess, on December 9th, U.S., for a presentation on Rosenberg's Rules of Order. I have a number of slides. I'm going to go through them. At any point, because this is a presentation only and not an action item, feel free to interrupt me and ask me any questions you like, or I'll go through the whole presentation and then take questions at the end. Oh, I have a pointer here, so awesome. So a little bit about me. I am a licensed attorney with the state of California. I've been an attorney since 1999. I served as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County from 1999 to 2019. But I couldn't retire because I have three kids, two of them still in college, one getting ready for college. So I couldn't ride off into the sunset once I retired as a prosecutor. I've actually been sort of in your seat. I was a former city council member for the city of San Mateo. From 2009 through 2017, we were a charter city, but we didn't have an appointed mayor. We did a rotating system. So I served as a mayor from 2013 to 2017. So I have some practical experience with Rosenberg's Rules of Order, as it were. I am currently the assigned city attorney through the firm for the city of Fairfield, just to your north, up Highway 12. And I'm also the appointed city attorney for the city of Dunsmuir, up in Siskiyou County, up on the Oregon border. Beautiful town, a lot of fun to be their city attorney, as well as Fairfield's. I also serve as the general counsel for the Ross Valley Fire Department in Marin County. And then I do the odd police practices work and litigation for other clients as needed. So that's me. That's why I'm here. But not here to talk about me. I'm here to talk about the goals of this course. And the goals of this course pursuant to your direction, counsel, is to give you a primer on Rosenberg's Rules of Order, basically parliamentary procedure. So in this presentation, I'm going to present to you what is parliamentary procedure and why do we have it. Two, what are the legal requirements of parliamentary procedure? And third, what is an overview and examples of Rosenberg's Rules of Order? I've given training for the League of California Cities, for the City Clerks Association of California. This is easily... a half day if not a full day presentation, but fear not, I have condensed this all down into a manageable 20 minutes if you let me go without interruption. So, here we go. What is parliamentary procedure? Parliamentary procedures defined in the Oxford English Dictionary is a rule that defines how a particular situation is to be handled or a particular outcome achieved in a legislative or deliberative body. The notion of parliamentary procedure dates, as you probably all are aware, way back to ancient Greece, right? We all learned in, what, third or fourth grade about the ancient Greeks. You did our, you know, classic civilization thing. You probably got dressed in your parents' white bedsheets, and you put on some olive, you know, uh, crowns and paraded around in third grade and you ate olives and did all that fun stuff. And you learned that Greek was a cradle of civilization for democracy and parliamentary procedure actually goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Uh, it has its roots, um, in their, you know, documents in forming a democracy. So parliamentary procedure has a long storied and very impressive history. Um, It provides a structured framework for the conducting of meetings and making decisions within groups. It helps to ensure productive discussions and fair outcomes. All kidding aside, the reason it's lasted so long is, quite frankly, it works. And for representative democracies, for any type of representative government, people really fall back on parliamentary procedure. It helps ensure productive discussions and fair outcomes. The system facilitates orderly deliberation, allowing organizations to achieve their objectives efficiently. Now, why do we have parliamentary procedure? Well, people have been opining about this since going back to the days of ancient Greeks. In Demeter's manual of parliamentary law and procedure, which dates back a long time, Mr. Demeter states, without rules, there would be injustice and confusion. Hence, it is as necessary to follow the rules of parliamentary law as it is to follow the rules of a ball game or a card game. Walter Bagshot, a famous journalist, businessman, and observer of constitutional law in England from which our system of government derives, For those of you who watch The Crown on Netflix, there's, I think, an episode where they talk heavily about Mr. Bagshot. But he was a real person. And his rules or treatises on parliamentary procedure are still quoted to this day by many democracies. He said it best. Why do we have parliamentary procedure? Bagshot said, dullness in matters of government is a good sign and not a bad one. In particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellent in indication of its success. And I bring that to you because in today's day and age, right, we're all Americans. We live in a day and age where our information is coming at us fast and furiously, right? We have social media accounts. We have phones. I have this phone in my pocket which has more information than any human being in the history of the world has ever had. I can now access more information than I was able to access even 10 years ago. The amount of information, the amount of things that we can send and learn, it's at hyper speed now. And it's more important now than ever to remember people like Bagshot and the reason we have parliamentary procedure. According to the experts, And I can't hammer this home enough. This is what I would train new council members on at the League of Cities when we have the new council members and new mayors. Dullness is good. I'll repeat it because that's the most important thing. If you take nothing away from this, that's my main message. Dullness is good. Why? It allows for orderly decision-making. It allows for orderly discussion, free from emotion and bias. It respects all points of view. And most importantly, it promotes confidence and well-being to the community and their elected leaders. Honorable members of the City Council, when I was sitting where you were on the San Mateo City Council, I would often tell my constituents, they would come to the meetings, they would sit in these chairs, they would look up at me, and they would come to me after we'd had a long discussion on an emergency presentation for Golden Muscles. We did not have a presentation for Golden Muscles, but you know what I'm talking about. And they would come up to me and they'd say, David, that was so dull. I mean, why did we have to sit through that? And I would tell them, Doing what's best for the community isn't supposed to be sexy, isn't supposed to be exciting, it's supposed to be fair. And we're here to make sure everyone is heard, everyone gets their say, and at the end of the day, we make the decision that is best for the community. And if it puts you to sleep while we're doing it, sorry, but we're gonna take our time, okay? So that, again, if you want me to stop now, I think we could be done. Dullness is good, okay? There are extreme examples of times in our nation's history and times in democracy's history where parliamentary procedure is broken down. I'm not going to speak on current events because that's not my role here as the attorney assigned to handle this presentation. So I'm going to go back further in time to 1856. And those of you who, I was, by the way, just another background I didn't put in my bio, I was a secondary school history teacher. I taught middle school history and high school history. So I'm a history geek, so you gotta apologize. I dig deep into the archives of my brain for historical information. This is a photo, famous photo from 1856. You all know your American history. This is four years before the American Civil War. The issue of slavery was hot, it was a hot topic. in the country, the country was divided, and there are people who say that this event on the floor of the U.S. Senate is what ultimately led to the Civil War. This is a famous drawing that made all the local papers of Charles Sumner, a northern senator, being beaten with a cane by a southern senator after Mr. Sumner had given a speech on the Senate floor using parliamentary procedure to advocate against slavery. And the southern senator from South Carolina came up to him two days later, flanked by two southern members of the House of Representatives who acted as his bodyguards, and he proceeded to come up to Mr. Sumner, who was sitting at a desk that was bolted to the floor. And his chair was pushed all the way up and was on railings so that Senator Sumner could not get out of the chair. And without warning, he said, you have disgraced the South and proceeded to almost beat Senator Sumner to death. This is an extreme example of parliamentary procedure breaking down, okay? The southern senator attacked the northern senator merely for the expression of his ideas under parliamentary procedure. And when the sergeant at arms tried to come to Mr. Senator Sumner's aid, the two southern representatives pulled pistols and said back up, everyone back up. And people will say that it was this incident and the attendant news coverage, that caused a fur in the north, that caused a final breaking of any meaningful discussion and debate of the legislative bodies to try to solve the issue of slavery. And we all know what happened. Four years later, civil war, hundreds of thousands dead. Now, let's not get carried away. I'm not here to say that any city council is doing this. But I think what's important for you all to remember in that example is if you're not into history, if you're like, OK, I don't care. What's this guy talking about Civil War for? That was over 100 years ago, right? How about this? In a poll, this was from 2023. So it's a little dated, but it's as close as I could find. This was a Gallup poll on annual government survey. I think you should all be happy about this. Most Americans, by I think a two-to-one margin, trusted their local government way more than Congress. Right? You are all the boots on the ground, right? You go to the same shopping grocery stores as your constituents. They see you in the stores. They see you out on the street. Your kids, your family are in the neighborhood. You're in the neighborhood. You are their first line of government. When they see local government, you know, I sat where you sat, right? You all don't get to hide behind a large amount of staff, right? You don't have somebody say, oh, I'll call my secretary. I said, you guys are out there. You're going to the Rotary meetings. You're going to the ribbon cuttings, right? How you behave, how we all behave as council members is how our community sees us, and it's reflected in the fact that our community citizens, our constituents, our fellow citizens trust us more than they trust state or national government. I used to hear from people, you know, when I was involved in politics in San Mateo County, people say, oh, I want to become a supervisor. I want to be a congressman, congresswoman. That's awesome. But if you think about who the people trust the most, I think the congresspeople should be like, I want to be on the council. Because we do the hard work. You all do the hard work. You get none of the glory for it. And so the parliamentary procedure is really a way for you to do that in a way that is most meaningful to the residents of Stockton. I want to share with you great advice I got when I was a young council member just starting out. This man you will not have known. There's no reason for you to know him. His name is John Lee. no relation to the honorable Jason Lee, I don't think. John Lee was the appointed mayor when I became a council member for the city of San Mateo. I will be honest, I'm not going to share any political stories, but we were about as opposite as you could be on the political spectrum. I'm not going to tell you which side he was on, not going to tell you which side I was on. But we were about as divergent on political views as people could be. And I would come in, you know, young council member, ah, I'm going to change the world, I'm going to do all these wonderful things. And I would start to talk about positions that I wanted to take, and he would just hammer me from the dais. That is a horrible idea. You haven't been here long enough to make those decisions. You don't know how much that's going to cost. And he would come at me, and I would respond, and we would debate. But as the mayor, he would always do it under parliamentary procedure. He would say, we'd go down the aisle just like I saw you guys doing. Anybody want to say anything? And when it was my turn to talk, he would let me talk. Then he would disagree. And if I needed to say something, I would. And then after a certain amount of time, he'd be like, OK, let's cut debate. Call the question. Let's vote. I would vote. Oftentimes, we would be on opposite ends of the vote. Not always, but a lot of times we would. What I liked about him is he had a saying that he would say just ad nauseum. He would say, you know, we're here to disagree without being disagreeable. And I'll never forget one of the first times we were on I can't remember what the issue was but it was it was pretty you know we were debating pretty well and I was kind of nervous because you know he'd been around for a long time he was a pillar in our community and after the meeting I thought oh he's really going to be mad at me and I'll never forget he came up he walked up and I'm like gathering my stuff and I'm on the end of the desk and he's in the center and he comes walking over because he's got to get out and he comes over to me and he goes shakes my hand he goes good job let's do it again in two weeks And then he would literally do that for the four years we were on the council together. We'd debate, and it was a 3-2 vote, a 4-1 vote. He would say, good job. Let's do it again in two weeks. And he would always use this phrase when people kind of came up, right? You've all probably had meetings where people are acting up. And he would tell people. He goes, hey, hey, hey, we are here to hear you out. You can disagree, but we're going to do it. We're going to disagree without being disagreeable. And to this day, as a city attorney in Fairfield and Dunsmuir, I still use this. And I give him credit for it. Anytime people start to get all fired up, I'm like, hey, hey. You know, if they ask me, right? A city attorney is not my job anymore, right? To tell people what to do. But I'll say, hey, we can disagree without being disagreeable. So John Lee made that. I don't want to take credit for it. That's why I put his photo up here. Really nice man.

All right. So now, here's the kicker.

right you can all throw me out of here right now after I tell you this because I'm an attorney and you're going to be like well why are we paying this attorney to come tell us this here's the secret there is no specific parliamentary procedure required by law none You can go through the government code. You can go through your city charter. There is no requirement that says thou shalt use Rosenberg's Rules of Orders. Thou shalt use any other Rules of Orders, right? There's nothing that says the word parliamentary procedure. Failure to follow parliamentary procedures exactly will not invalidate a decision of the city council. Parliamentary procedure exists as a form of best practices and good governance, basically to help you all do your jobs, to help your city manager, city attorney, city clerk get what they need to enact laws, to pass resolutions in a way that avoids somebody coming up to somebody else with a cane and beating the crap out of them. I mean, honestly, that's it. Let me repeat this. Failure to follow parliamentary procedures to the letter does not usually invalidate its decision of the city council. Your wonderful city attorney will tell you that really there are very narrow things that will cause a decision to be invalidated. There are very specific provisions for passing an ordinance, right? You got to do a first reading. You got to do a second reading. You got to let it simmer for five days, right? You got to do a full reading unless you waive that full reading. Certain budgetary things have to be passed by ordinance. But the manner in which you do it, right, debating, motion, second, Hmm, probably you could get away with doing it in many different ways, okay? So that's the big secret about parliamentary procedure. It exists to help all of you, to make you all look good, quite frankly. Again, just to hammer the point home, there is a case from the California Court of Appeal from 1954, parliamentary rules are procedural only. A city council's failure to follow parliamentary or procedural rules will not invalidate an action. Now, I am not suggesting that you throw away Rosenberg's Rules of Orders and just say, you know, we're going to have a free-for-all. We're going to have a dance-off, and whoever dances the best dance gets to pass that resolution. No, that is not what I'm saying. What I am saying, however, is that if somebody makes a motion and a second and then you all vote for it and it's unanimous, and then somebody goes, well, they didn't really state the motion precisely, doesn't matter. Okay? The legislature actually has given us all great tools where it used to be you used to have to read the ordinance in full or actually say the magic words I waive reading they've made it even easier now your clerk will tell you now it says as long as you publish the ordinance title and you put a copy of the ordinance attached to the agenda you can just say I move approval of item you know 10.4 and boom it passes again Parliamentary rules are procedural only. It's a trap to start arguing over the fine minutia of rules of order, okay? Again, I believe in this so much, this is such a big part of my training, I'm gonna say it again. Failure to follow parliamentary procedure exactly will usually not invalidate a decision of the city council. Now, to give you the what for about why that works is if somebody were to challenge a ruling of this body or any city council, the standard of review in the courts. So let's say somebody says, you all did it wrong. And your city attorney and clerk and city manager says, no, they didn't. And they're going, well, I'm going to sue you. Not a laughing matter. But if they did, if somebody brought a lawsuit in the Superior Court for a decision of this body, the standard of review by a court is what's called a deferential standard of review. Meaning, we all remember our, what do you call it, three branches of government, Why am I blanking? Somebody help me. No, no. Three branches of government. Power is diverse. Anyways, the judicial branch of government gives great deference to the legislative branch. You are all the legislative branch of the city of Stockton. So the Superior Court is going to grant great deference to the seven of you in your decision making. And they will say that only if a finding is clearly erroneous, when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed, only then will they overturn your decision. Meaning they're going to give you such deference, they're going to say, look, we're not going to try to go into the minds of why these seven council members, why Council Member Enriquez voted the way he did. He voted yes. We're not going to try to get into his brain and say, well, why did he do it? Or Council Member Ponce, why did she do that? We don't care. As long as they voted and we have evidence that they had the evidence before them to consider it, We're going to leave their decision alone. One thing I hear from a lot of people not versed in the law is they say, well, you know, it was a 200-page packet. It was a 200-page packet, and they blew through that thing. They passed that resolution like that. How could they have considered it? Well, first of all, you get it 72 hours, if not earlier. The courts assume that you read and consider the packet, which you do. I tell you this to remind you that when it's talking about parliamentary procedure, the decisions you make are yours and yours alone, because you are the elected representatives of the residents of Stockton. And so even if there is a minor deficiency in the rules of procedure, a court is going to grant you great deference. Based on the court ruling I just cited you, and under the deferential standard of review, a court is unlikely to be like, oh yeah, you know, Somebody's mic cut out, and so we didn't fully hear them say motion. We're going to overturn it. No, it doesn't work like that. So that's your legal grounding. I've given you the philosophical reasons. That's your legal grounding. Now let's talk about things that you probably already know, but I've been asked to go over it. So here we go. So under the Stockton Municipal Code, these are the laws governing parliamentary procedures of the city council that you and your fellow former council members have put into effect for the city of Stockton. Code 2.04.010. says all comprehensive procedures for the city council meeting shall be contained into council city council policy one hundred dash three now chapter four point zero six which must be approved and amended by council resolution so you did that and so i went and looked at four point zero six point zero one zero subsection one which states the city council adopts rosenberg's rules of order unless provided otherwise in this policy awesome So in 2016, your former council members said, you know what, the Greeks had a good thing going. They seemed to know what they were talking about. Let's do what the Greeks did. The English seemed to have a good idea with their parliament. Let's use what they did. We don't want to do what they did prior to the Civil War, so we're not going to do that. Your council has adopted Rosenberg's Rules of Orders. That's what you're governed by under your own policy manual, OK? Now, to get a question that people ask is like, can we change it? Sure you can. Do I recommend as an attorney that you do it? I'll defer to your city attorney, but I think the answer would be no, because Rosenberg's Rules of Orders are great. I would say probably 99% of city councils around the country use Rosenberg's Rules of Orders. So even though I put in there no specific requirement to use any particular procedure, Um, yeah, as your friend, not as your attorney, I wouldn't touch it personally. I'd leave it. Okay. All right. So it also says the presiding officer of the council shall be the mayor. Um, and I know you guys have a, um, directly elected mayor. So, you know, there you go. You got a mayor. She presides. Awesome. Um, now. These are her duties, right? So we know the mayor, we know all of you took your oath to support and defend the Constitution, and it encompasses city council policy manual. The mayor shall preserve strict order and decorum of all meetings, announce the decisions of the council, and decide all questions of order consistent with Rosenberg's rules of order, subject, however, to an appeal of the council in which event a two-thirds vote of the council shall govern and conclusively determine such questions or order. and I'm seeing the mayor is highlighting and showing it to me. So let me give you an example, kind of tying all this together, because you've asked me to present, with what I shared with you with my mayor and my mentor, John Lee, told me, because you do have tools here. tools here to make sure that the mayor is doing what the body wants. Because the mayor presides, but the mayor is not all powerful in our system. We all know that. We are a democracy. So the mayor preserves strict order. The mayor decides questions of order. However, you do have a mechanism where if somebody disagrees with a procedure of the mayor, you have a right to say, I appeal it. You get a second right. If you get a motion and a second, then if two-thirds of you agree that this should be overturned, and that's four, no, two-thirds is five. Two-thirds is five. If five of you agree, then you can change the policy or procedure outlined by the mayor. And I'll remind you again of what my mayor told me is like, you can do that and disagree without being disagreeable. And that accounts for both the mayor, right? For the mayor, if that happens, the mayor's like, okay, all right, that's what we're doing, right? And if a council member disagrees with it, and they can't get a two-thirds vote, okay, that's the decision. We're rolling with what we got, right? So you got tools, but within the parliamentary procedure, it's supposed to be dull, right? It's not supposed to become dramatic. It's just supposed to be dull, and you go on, and if you lose the vote, you move on. So again, this is what we just talked about. The biggest thing that I instruct young city council members at the league, and especially in our day and age where, let's be honest, everything is hypersensitized, everyone's kind of, you know, putting things on social media or YouTube or whatever, you want to avoid weaponizing these policies. They're not designed as weapons. They are designed as tools. If you notice, the way that I describe each of them is I said, here is a tool you have. I never say, here's a weapon you have to like, right? A weapon is the cane, that photo of the cane, right? We don't want these to be canes, we want them to be dull instruments that you use to just do the people's business, okay? Don't do it, is my point. Don't do it, right? Now, Rosenberg Rules of Order, I attached for all of you a copy of what I'm about to go through. I take no credit for this particular book. It came from the League of Cities, so there's no copyright violations. It's free for every member of the League, which I think all of us are. I like it. It's a simplified common sense of rules and procedures for California cities. This book was developed by the California League of Cities, and it's free. So again, I gave you all a copy. You can find it online. they update it every now and then I think I gave you the most updated copy so we're gonna go through it real quick and then I'm gonna be done so some obvious stuff obviously you all know you need a quorum right so there's got to be at least four of you here before you can conduct a meeting then you need quorum to conduct a meeting kind of funny thing happened in fairfield recently we had two members who were out so no we had three outs we had a quorum of four and nobody could use the bathroom because we're like you can't get up and use the bathroom or we'll lose our quorum so we had to take a break every time someone got up to use the bathroom so that was kind of funny because they you know usually like seven of you there's one council member gone i think to use the bathroom i don't know i don't want to Again, it was personal life, but we can keep going. But when you only have a few, if four of you got up and left, we'd have to just stop and wait for you to come back. That's the easy part. The role of the chair, again, pursuant to the Stockton City Policy Manual and under Rosenberg's Rules of Orders, you need someone to run the meeting, and that's your mayor, okay? Okay, so here's the standard process that most cities use, and I'm sure your clerk and your city manager have you follow something similar. There's little tweaks here and there depending on idiosyncrasies of any particular city, but this is basically how agenda items usually go. City clerk announces the item, reads the title, staff comes up, reports on it, accept consent calendar. City Council will ask staff some questions. The mayor will open public comment, or if it's a public hearing, open and close a public hearing, take comments from the public. You'll run a timer, usually three minutes, sometimes one minute, just depends. And then you return to City Council for comments, debate, and or a motion, right? You've all probably done it so many times, you probably haven't even thought recently, like, hey, this is what we do. But this is what you do, right? Okay, within that framework... This is, I told you already about Government Code 25131. This was recently added, I think within the last two years, three years, and it says a reading of the title or ordinance shall not be required if the title is included on the published agenda and a copy of the full ordinance is made available to the public online and in print at the meeting before the introduction or passage.

So I don't need to read the long inner... You don't have to.

If your city clerk reads it, and I... She doesn't read it.

I read it.

You can read it then. Someone needs to read it. Yeah. Actually, you don't need to read it if it's there. You could just say, although I will say...

Item 10.4.

Yeah. Although I will say most cities just read it all out.

Okay.

Yeah. Somebody reads the full thing. And actually, that's good because if you have somebody with a hearing or with a sight impairment... you cover your ADA accessibility rules by saying it out loud. But yeah, technically you're right. You don't have to. And then your basic motion, which I saw you all doing on the last item, is you get I move approval. I think Councilmember Lee approved it. I second. Somebody seconded it. And then say, okay, all in favor, aye. All opposed? Okay. And for most standard motions, I don't know. I notice you have a board. Does the board work? Yes. Okay. So you can use the board. I didn't look at the board. I was sitting over here. The board is awesome. We had a board. I loved the board because you had to press a button. It's kind of the fun part of the meeting. So yeah, you can just do the board, you can do a voice vote. There are certain laws that your city attorney will tell you if it comes up that require a roll call vote. Usually it has to do with something about money or contracts for an employee that call for a roll call vote, but those are kind of rare. So standard rule is, boom, I move approval, second vote. Just a quick reminder that if somebody says, I move approval of Resolution 26-4, that's awesome, that's a better practice that me and your city attorney, as attorneys, we like, we're like, oh yay, you know, it's more specific, we like that. But if somebody just said, I move approval, and they second it, that's fine, right, because everyone knows what item you're talking about. And anybody who challenges it, probably not gonna succeed. Now, let's talk about amendments. So amendments are an added thing. So let's say somebody says, I move approval of the resolution, and somebody says, I second, and then somebody says, I move to amend the motion, and then somebody seconds it, you then have what are called competing motions. on the table. And we're going to go through that very quickly. Remember the beginning of the presentation that all of parliamentary procedure is designed to be dull. So even when I said competing motions, it's not a reason to be like, oh, competing motions. We're going to start yelling. No. It's just you have two competing motions. And you just deal with them. Here's a tip. And this is part of kind of why I told you that Rosenberg's Rules of Order orders and parliamentary procedures do not have to be followed to a T. There's no legal requirement to do it. Many cities use what are called friendly amendments. And even if they don't call it a friendly amendment, they do it. And here's an example. Somebody says, I move approval of the resolution. I second. I move approval of a different version of the amendment. I second that. Now you've got two competing motions. The chair can say, hey, You know, why don't we just talk it over? Can you both withdraw your motions and then let's talk it over, see if we can reach consensus on it, and then make one motion that everyone agrees to. And I think I made an example. Well, actually, I don't know why. Sorry, this is really out of order. Before I get to friendly amendments, let me do my example. So if you have multiple motions, it's very easy. What you do is you take the most recent motion first and then work your way back. it is actually counter-intuitive. When I first got on council, even though I was a lawyer, I was like, wouldn't you take the last motion first and then go back forward? That seemed to make more sense to me. It still kind of does. But if you think about it, it makes more sense. You take the most recent motion first. So you got motion A, second it. Then somebody says, oh, I make motion B, and second it. You start with B. If B passes, then A is done. It disappears. If B fails, then you go back to A. In theory, you could have more than two motions. You could have as many as you want, right? You could have like 100 motions. That would be kind of silly because there's seven of you. So assuming everybody makes one motion and somebody seconds it, I think, realistically, the most you could have is seven. I'm not daring you to make seven motions because I'm not sure exactly how that would work. That would be crazy. And remember, we want to be dull. But in theory, you can have as many as you want. And then you just take them in order backwards, OK? What I meant by a friendly amendment, the second bullet point, is it is okay for the mayor, or actually anybody, to try to informally try to consolidate the motions to get clarity and avoid argument. Okay? There's no procedural rule that says, oh, somebody made a motion in a second, we got to vote on it. If everybody agrees that it might be better to just kind of reopen discussion, you can do that. Right? You just say, okay, we're going to put that motion aside. Hey, whoever made that motion, are you okay putting aside that motion so we can discuss it some more? And if everyone's okay with it, then you go. If the person says, no, I want to vote on that motion, then I would say parliamentary procedure, say, okay, you have a right to have that motion voted on. You're not withdrawing it. I understand. We don't get angry about it. You're just like, no, you have a right. You don't want to withdraw it? Okay. Or you don't want to withdraw the second? Okay. Okay? Here's an example of how it works. So council member one says I move approval of resolution to allocate $5,000 to purchase new playground equipment at central park. Council member two says I second that motion. So now you've got a motion and a second on the table. You want to vote on it, but then council member three says, well, I'd like to make a motion to amend the current motion to allocate 10,000 instead of 5,000 council member four says I second the amended motion. Now, if everybody keeps their motions on the table, you do. The 10,000 motion first. If it fails, then you go to the $5,000 motion. If 10,000 motion passes, then 5,000 becomes moot and you've passed the resolution, okay? What I'm talking about with the friendly amendment is the mayor or somebody can say, hey, listen, it sounds like we all agree that playgrounds are a good thing. We're just sort of disagreeing about the amount. Is everybody okay with drawing their motions and maybe let's discuss it some more? And if everybody says, yeah, I'm good, then the motions can just kind of wither away and you can just have the conversation, okay? Now, again, for good parliamentary procedure, if council members one and two say, you know what, no, respectfully, I would like to keep my motion up there, then I recommend, again, that you just vote on it, right? And see where you stand, okay? But again, there's nothing wrong with the people making the motion saying, you know what, I'm okay with drawing it and let's talk about it, okay? So this is all I just talked about. Yeah, and that's what I talked about, withdrawing it. I hope, I mean, you all get my point, right? That there's nothing sacred about the motions in SEC and other than it encourages good procedure. So if people are willing to continue to discuss rationally, then you can do it. But if somebody stands on their motion, then Madam Mayor probably just take the vote, right? Just let it go, let it go through. Okay, now. Another motion which can be used and is in the Rules of Procedure outlined in your policy is what's called a motion to table or more commonly known as a motion to continue. And if passed, the item that is the subject of the motion is placed on hold to a time either indicated by the motion or at a later date determined by the mayor or city staff. A motion to continue requires a majority vote. So for example, going back to the park thing, somebody says, okay, agenda item 3B allocates $5,000 to build playground equipment at Central Park. Madam Mayor, I wanna make a motion to table this item to the first meeting in July. And they might even make what's called a speaking amendment or a speaking motion saying, you know, I have information that there may be a better vendor for the playground equipment and I want to give them a chance to call the Parks and Rec Department. I'm making this up, okay? If somebody makes a motion to table and then somebody says, I second that, you then have a motion and a second on the table, the mayor has to take that motion. On a motion to continue, that has to be voted on. There can be discussion, there can be public comment, but then it's gotta be voted on, and if the majority of you say, we're tabling this, Then that item is done. It's taken off the board. It cannot be reconsidered at that meeting until either the date that it's been continued to or if there's no date, then it just comes back at some further point in time. So that's a key. You can move to table or continue with no determinate date or you can set a specific date. and then whatever the body decides, that's what happens. This is a good tool sometimes that frankly I don't think a lot of councils use enough that really helps the dullness of the parliamentary procedure because if there is an item right where one council member thinks that look I don't have enough information to make a decision that's their right to say you know I don't have enough information to make a decision but rather than scream at everybody else and be like I'm not ready just make a motion to continue and if you can get the majority on board you get someone to second and the majority continue then you're done Right, and it avoids a lot of hard feelings. It avoids a lot of, you know, you got an audience full of people and they're all wondering what's happening, right? You just say, you know, we're continuing it to a later date. We're gonna gather more information. You know, whoever made the motion, can you talk to the city manager, get with staff and find out what you need so that you're comfortable making that decision, okay? Again, not a highly used motion, but something, again, that kind of keeps temperatures down and is part of the rules of order. Motions governing debate. These are also ones that are not really used. I've seen a couple councils in cities use them, but again, a lot of councils don't. And these are also ways to kind of keep things dull, as we say. The first one is called a motion to limit debate. It's also more historically known as calling the question. This is probably the most exciting that you should ever get as a council, calling the question. And basically, a motion to limit debate or calling the question is a motion that says, I wanna end this debate, I'm tired. Okay? So you have an issue. I'm just going to keep using the park playground equipment. And people are debating. It should be 5,000. It should be 10,000. It should be 12,000. And you're going back and forth, back and forth. People are talking. You've heard public comment. You've got half the room saying 5,000, half the room saying 10,000. And you're split, right? There's four of you, or three that say 10,000, three that say 5,000, one saying 12,000, right? And you're like, oh my gosh, we don't have a majority. And you're going back and forth, back and forth. And it's apparent to somebody at some point, you're like, I don't think we're moving. I don't think we're going anywhere, right? And, you know, people are starting to get angry because it's late and no one's at dinner yet and somebody's got to use the bathroom and you're all standing there and you're arguing. Calling the question is a good way to say, you know what? I think we're done. I think we just need to vote. Right? And we're split 3-3-1. No one wants to budge. I'm just going to call the question. So basically what you do is you say, I move to limit debate. And it can be made at any time. And the reason I say this is probably the most exciting it ever gets is it can be made literally at any time. Right? And somebody can be in the middle of speaking or say, you know, I want to have my say. And somebody could say, Madam Mayor, I call the question. And if you do that, debate stops. and you wait for a second the mayor says the question has been called is there a second now you need a second if you don't get a second then that motion dies and then you all keep going back to debating but if somebody says madam mayor i call the question and somebody who also needs to use the bathroom says second okay then you have a motion and a second you need to take a vote immediately Immediately, and if two-thirds, if five of you are like, yes, we're done, then debate stops, okay? Very powerful tool, and it's done in a way that it's not like, Well, you're not nice. Well, you're not nice. It's just a parliamentary polite way to be like, we're done talking. Now, sorry, one more thing, Madam Mayor, and then I'll take your question off course. A lot of times this comes after someone has made a motion in a second and somebody keeps arguing. Because a lot of councils, which is OK, somebody makes a motion in a second and then there's debate about whether you want to pass it. Or somebody says, well, I want to be heard one more time. And if there's a motion and a second on the table, somebody can say, I call the question. Somebody seconds it. If five of you are like, we're done, then you just proceed to the motion and vote.

And so anybody can call the question.

Anybody can call the question, including, you know, under your rules, even though you're the mayor, you're one of seven, just like, you know, so you can call the question. Vice mayor can call the question. Any of the seven can call the question. And like I said, it's the most probably the excitement that you should ever have as a council member because you do say, I called a question. And it's like, oh.

You haven't watched any of our meetings, obviously. Councilwoman Padilla has a question.

So you gave an example when there's a motion on the floor, but if we're still having discussion, do we just interrupt the person talking?

To call the question? Yes. Yes. Okay. You can. Under parliamentary procedure, you can call, because the whole idea is you're limiting debate. Okay. Right? And so you can call the question. It's the civilized way to stop the debate, right? And that's what I want everyone to get their heads wrapped around is that it's not designed, remember what I said, it's not a weapon, right? But it's just you honestly feel as a council member, look, I think we've had enough discussion. I think we're ready to move on and vote. And I think everyone needs to get around that this is what it's for. Then the person who gets, listen, I've been in debates when John Lee, my mayor, called the question in the middle of my talk. Because he's like, ah, David, young kid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Called the question. I did not get upset. Now, at the time, you're like, oh, man, you know, he's not letting me speak. But you get over it, right? Your job as elected representatives, as council members, right, is like, okay, that's the rules that I signed up to play under. That's the rules I agreed to when I took this oath. I'm not pleased, you know, but them's the brakes, them's the rules. And if five of my colleagues say we want to move on, that's their right.

Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, that was a question, so it's five votes. The second thing is you said that the question can be called at any time, but the rules require us to have some debate, right? You can't just, item 6.2 of this, call the question, right? We have to be able to discuss and debate or not? Nope.

There's no rules in the parliamentary procedures that say you have to have debate. You could call the item, make a motion to approve it, get a second to approve it. You don't even need the staff report. right staff report is for the benefit of the community to have an open and public debate you do have to take public comment okay you do have to so you have a motion a second to say okay we have a motion second any public comment but you don't even have to take the staff report unless There's some items requiring a public hearing, then you obviously have to open and close a public hearing. But let's be honest, that's public comment, right? It's just called a different thing. So yes, you have to allow members of the public because this is their chamber, right? You're just stewards of the chamber. But in terms of you talking and debating it, No, because remember, just to give you some context, the idea is that you've all been provided the packet and have read and considered the packet. And so you don't need to talk about it. And that's the argument that someone up there would make is like, I'm calling the question. They don't need to tell you that, but they can say, well, I read this thing this weekend. It took me five hours to read it on Sunday and I'm ready to vote. Now, it's a political question, right? If the people are like, You didn't even debate it, right? That's their right to say it, but parliamentary procedure-wise, you don't have to.

Thank you.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not saying you should do it. I think your city manager might have something to say.

Excuse me. You talk about a cane and all the weaponry that you just talked about a minute ago. If that ever happened over here, it would just tear this council apart. Not that we've not been there before. But my question was just to understand, to the point somebody made, it would take five of us to say we want to end the debate. So obviously this group's never going to get there out the gate.

but but thank you it's good to know what the rule is yeah right yeah and I don't and thank you councilmember I appreciate that clarification the other thing I was saying is you know your city manager is looking at me because obviously you have wonderful staff and staff work hard to present with you items and it and sometimes they you know they need to give you important important information and It's always good to let staff make their presentation. I'm not suggesting, I was doing it to be dramatic that you could pass it without their say so, but then you're not gonna have a very happy staff. And I'm now staff, I was a council member, but I'm now staff. If I've got a presentation, I'll be like, come on, man, I put on this suit, I put on a tie, just let me make the presentation. But again, legally, you're in charge. If you don't wanna do it, you don't have to. Other motions, the second bullet point is you can request a time limit on debate. So somebody at the outset can say, you know, Madam Mayor, I want to make a motion that we limit debate to 15 minutes. Okay, Madam Clerk, please start the clock. Or do I have a second? Second, all approved. That's a majority vote. If you get a majority vote, Madam Clerk, please start the clock. We will debate this item for 15 minutes and then cut off debate and move on with a motion and or a second, okay?

Super majority, not just a majority?

No, super majority is only to call the question. If you want to limit debate, just a majority. Thank you. Yeah.

remember to that all of these motions require a second so somebody can't just say i want to limit debate the five minutes okay five minutes you need a second the you need a formal vote vice mayor has a question thank you yeah i mean today has been a great example of how we can debate items and have uh... robust discussion but let's be very clear right with every action there's a reaction if you limit they had one thing you said here you'd be put Indicators there to emphasize your point is not to weaponize these tools. I'll use the word tools versus rules, but the tools are to guide us and give us options to navigate through these meetings as I understand it. But again, as I am hearing these tools, I'm hearing them as tools, not as opportunities to circumvent debate or dissension. are all elected by our constituents and all of us in our respective districts and the Mayor of City White have maybe different lenses because of the communities that we serve directly, right? And we govern the entire city. To your point of not weaponizing the process, I think is important for us to hear because the reason why we asked for this meeting or this training was because we've all weaponized it to just survive up here. And I think we're hopefully getting to a point where this becomes less survivor and more will of fortune. I don't know if that's the best analogy, but that's just kind of what's in my mind as I hear you talk.

Well, I appreciate that. You know, I want to be very clear because I usually give this admonition when I do this training for the League of Cities and I didn't give it as fully because I was trying to be mindful of the time. I'm not your city attorney. I've never been in these chambers until today. You all look like lovely people. When I give this training to the League of Cities, I'm giving it to a wide range of council members, and I'm very clear to tell people, as an attorney, I'm giving you training on Rosenberg's Rules of Orders, and I'm not opining on how this body conducts their business, why you're asking for this training. Quite frankly, that's the reason.

I want my colleagues to hear this conversation because we can't afford to have another training on Robert's Rules of Order, and we cannot afford to have another breakdown because I've just resolved myself to saying that I'm going to come in here and fight for my constituents regardless of the optics and what people take from that. But I think part of it is getting to a place where Um, you know, we, we obviously will disagree on things and we will take position on them and we will do it publicly and we will do it on social media and we'll do it wherever we do it. But understanding how we govern and how we seven, um, you know, coexist on this platform to get through this debate is critical. So I don't, I don't want that to be lost in any side discussions because We will find ourselves here again if we don't at least try to learn something today.

Yeah. No, I appreciate that, Councilman. My point was, and I appreciate that, and it coincides with what I'm saying, is I'm not here to judge this body. I was asked to come do training, which I've done for lots of bodies. I don't know anything about what's going on with this body. it's your city right I advise I tell you what the law is and then how you all decide to use it I have ultimate respect and deference to you as the elected members of the city of Stockton right it's a great city great community you're the seven leaders of it so if I'm giving any indications that I'm telling you what to do I would never deemed to do that. I was asked to come here, present, you know, this, I didn't make this presentation special for Stockton. It's, you know, they're like, hey, come train, you know, come down to Palm Springs and do training for the league. Okay, Palm Springs, yes, I'm going to go do it. So thank you, Council Member. I appreciate the input. Yeah, I want to be very clear. I'm not telling anybody how they should serve their constituents. Absolutely not.

Yeah, so it was a question that Councilman Padilla had, but we have Councilman Enriquez that has a question.

No, thank you, Miss. I appreciate it. I just had a quick question, and I think you just said it. The slide where it has motions governing debate, motion to limit debate. So if someone calls the question, they can do it whenever. uh requires two-thirds approval so you do need to so do you first caught a question you get a second and then the majority two-thirds have to approve that after the second yes okay and i asked that because i think that i don't know if this happened when my three of my colleagues were here before the four of us came on if called a question has ever happened i've never seen it and i attended a lot of council meetings when i was campaigning but i've only ever seen it happen twice this last year and a half and the first time it happened nobody knew The proper rules, and we realized after the meeting that it wasn't done correctly, and we were educated by our then former city attorney. And then the 2nd time it happened, we didn't have a super majority approved the 2nd. So I want to just put that for the record in and to my colleagues point about the perception. I always want to think about I trust my colleagues if they do it, they do it for a reason. And that's that I don't take a personal want to leave this dice at the same time. Uh, the perception can be, you know, with all that's happened over the last year and a half, the perception, not to say that I believe that when the, the, the slides of weaponizing, you know, I, I wanna have full faith at the end of the day that it was done for a reason, but also knowing the rules. So knowing that on the record, we haven't done it the right way. Those two times it's happened. Uh, now moving forward, I think this has been really helpful because then now we know the, in terms of call to question and, you know, again, I've only ever seen it happen twice, at least for this council, but again, I want to caution my colleagues when it comes to that because I use it lightly because at the end of the day I understand if you don't want to hear someone talk and debate but at the same time To the Vice Mayor's point, our constituents, their voices do need to be heard, and if there's a perspective we need to give out, I think it's also important. But again, I think it depends on the topic, so I don't want to get too into the weeds, but I appreciate it.

I'm going to stray a little bit from my normal presentation because I'm honored that the seven of you asked me to come here, so I'll go a little bit further than I would, let's say, for new council members at a league conference. But I've actually given this advice, too. And I want to be very clear, I am not telling any of you how to do your jobs. This is a personal anecdote, because I agree with you, Councilmember Enriquez, I've only seen the question called, when I was a councilmember, I think we used it twice. Once on me, and then another time with another councilmember, and both times it was pretty late at night. And so I think either fatigue and or hunger played a part in the person making the motion, because they were like, I'm just tired. The called question to me came early in my council career, within my first year of being on the council. And again, I am not telling any member of this body how to conduct their business. You do what is best for your constituents. I have 100% respect for it. But in hindsight, as I reflected on why the question was called for me, I realized that I kept debating after I knew how my colleagues were gonna vote. We'd gone down the line, it was very clear that it was gonna be a four to one vote, and I was the one. And I knew that, and I kept arguing. And then I got the question called, and in hindsight, I was like, yeah, you know, that probably was the right thing for the mayor to do. Because I agree, and again, I'm not telling people how to do the job, I realized as I got more experience as a council, I can advocate for my constituents, and I did it by saying this is why I believe this, but the biggest way I support my constituents is by vote, right? I voted no. So I was on the record, I did not support that. But to continue to debate after I was listened, and I'm like, These four are not, you know, they've indicated their preference. And as I got older, as a council member, I learned it's unlikely that my continuing to argue is going to change their mind, right? I'm pretty sure they're going to stay where they are. So later in my career, I'd just be like, I'd say what I had to say, right, to speak for my constituents, state my position. usually tried to keep it to under five minutes, 10 minutes, then heard everybody else. And if I thought that somebody like, you know, like Council Member Ponce, if she said something that kind of, you know, was sort of like, I don't know, I'd say, are you open to, you know, I would directly say, Madam Mayor, can I, you know, it sounds like maybe you're open to hearing me out. Can we talk about this a little more? And if she said, sure, fine. But then at a certain point where they're all like, nah, I'm not, I know where I am on this. I was like, I'm done debating, right? I'm gonna use my ultimate power, which is my vote, that speaks for my community, and then I moved on. So I agree with you, council member, that calling the question became extremely rare, but I think it had to do, at least from my experience, that I learned you know, at a certain point you keep banging your head against the wall and all it does is get everyone frustrated and hungry because it's now 11 o'clock and you're all still sitting there. So that's my perspective. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to do their jobs. Was there another question?

Well, I think it's on the second bullet point there. Motion can request a time limit on debate. So the first one and the third one are a super majority and the second one is a simple majority?

Yes. Okay. Does it say differently in the thing?

No, no, no. I'm just saying the order that you have.

I freely say I don't have Rosenberg's fully memorized. So if the time limit on debate. The other thing I'll say about number two, just to kind of... You know, I don't think, as I'm thinking, I don't think I've ever seen a time limit on debate called either as a council member or as an attorney. You know, usually... either the presiders I've known, or when I was on council, we just kept talking, and then if someone needed to call the question, they called the question. I never saw a mayor or a presider set a time limit right off the bat, because you never know how the conversation's gonna go. Sometimes you think, oh, this is gonna be a long one, and then everyone's done in five minutes, and you're like, oh, right?

And then- I did a time limit, I did a time limit, but it was for public comment.

Yeah, that's different.

So that we could get to the business.

Generally, I've never seen anyone set a time limit on the people on the dais self-policing themselves because you just want to hear from everybody.

Vice Mayor has another question.

Thank you, Mayor. No, actually, there were time limits placed on discussion on the dice. I think early on when we were really trying to get our footing and there was, you know, disagreements or whatever there was. And I think for me, there was a point where I attract how many times we change public comments, how many times we limited debate or whatever to just try to understand the method. i think it's it's it's helpful to hear this um i mean today i think was a great example of how far we've come as a council where we had great debate great you know we challenge each other's thoughts and ask for information and i think today was if you look back at the tape was a great example of how we can work to how we can work together and how we should have been working together but without going into the past and looking forward i think um all of us um at least i can speak for myself uh you know I come here with clear intentions on what my initiatives are, what my interests are, and what I've heard from the people, and we'll debate it out. But I think having an opportunity to be heard lessens the reaction to not being heard, so not having the debate. I think if I came in and I knew with two of my colleagues that Councilman Padilla's gonna wanna talk about something, so as soon as it comes up, we're gonna make a motion to shut it down and stop the conversation. I mean, obviously that's gonna create tension among me and my colleagues. And I know that I haven't done that, so I'm just hopeful, again, like we used today as an example, this training, your expertise, this 46-slide presentation, which is a lot of helpful information for us, which is great, that we actually consider it as we move forward.

And I think there's Rosenberg's and then we have council policy too. And those differ where in council policy it does put a time limit for, it says here, time limit every member once recognized shall be limited in their debate to five minutes and shall upon expiration of said time relinquish the floor and then it says on the other one it says council members no council member shall speak twice on any given subject unless all the other council members have been given the opportunity to speak so that's not in Rosenberg's but that is in our council policy

Yeah, and just to be clear, I was asked to come speak on Rosenberg's, and I specifically, Marcy and I planned this. When I come and present to bodies, I don't wanna overstep my authority. I'm here kinda just as outside counsel presenting on Rosenberg's. The policy, you've got a great city attorney, she's gonna tell you, you know, and a city clerk, you know, they're gonna tell you how the policy works or not. I don't look at it on purpose because I don't, again, I have great respect for every council. I don't want it to look like I'm telling you like, okay, you gotta do it this way. I'm just here to tell you what Rosenberg's allows you to do and then how you use those tools is up to you. All right, I'm gonna keep going if it's okay with the group. I'm almost done. So there's a motion to object to consideration of an item, meaning it's kind of like tabling, basically. This and tabling are often confused, even through attorneys. So if you get a motion and a second to object to consideration of the item, it may not be considered at the meeting and no further debate. I mean, if you think about it, it's basically tabling, because you can't consider that meeting, it gets pushed to another date. There's actually debate as to whether they should take the two out because they seem so similar. But again, I'm just telling you that it's in there, okay?

Did you guys do the reconsideration motion today?

We have.

Oh, okay. I heard.

We did it.

We had the Downtown Stockton Alliance that we went through, and we said continue it, but it was, we found out later we couldn't continue it.

Got it. And then we had to vote as a council, all of us, to bring it back.

Because it's, what, six months or?

I don't know. No. Anyways, motions are reconsidered. This one's often misconstrued by the public. This is a motion that can be made, but there's very strict restrictions. It can only be made at the same meeting, at the time it was passed, and it has to be made by a person who originally voted in favor of the motion. So it's basically, I like to call it a changed my mind motion. I changed my mind, I voted for this, I made a mistake. I wanna vote against it. And it can only happen at the time of the meeting. Like members of the public will always come to you and they'll be on social media, like you'll pass something, and they'll be like, I'm not in favor of that, you should make a motion to reconsider it. You can't. Once a decision is made by the body, you can't bring it back. The reason, just in case you care, is You know, people who think hard about our democracy is like, there's got to be some finality to something, right? Once a body makes a decision, you got to stop. We all got to just kind of get behind it and push, put our shoulder to the wheel and push, even if you voted against it. That's the whole theory of voting. And so if you could bring a motion back to reconsider something like that got passed two weeks ago, I mean, you guys would be here till like midnight. Like people would make motions to reconsider everything. uh... don't don't know if you had to be determined that i'm not going to be here tonight uh... i'm kidding so motion reconsider can be made it's got to be at the same meeting and it's got to be somebody who passed it okay then you get a second uh... and if that motion we consider passes and basically it's like uh... freeze tag everyone's unfrozen you start over you just basically start again as if you hadn't done it to answer some very common sense questions if you start over do you gotta start all the way over public comment and everything no if you've taken public comment you don't have to do it again you don't have to take the staff report again but you can now reconsider it again take another motion a second to pass it you know realistically if you have a seven to zero and somebody makes a motion to reconsider Yeah, seven to zero, you get a motion to reconsider and someone passes it, and you know, then you probably know those two are reconsidering it, still probably a five, two vote. So usually I tell people to be like, anybody, you know, again, thinking about the informality, I think the mayor just looks up and down the rows and be like, okay, other than these two, does anybody change their minds? No, okay, I make a motion to pass. I second, all in favor, aye, all opposed, opposed, that passes five, two, right? Again, you're not taking it personally. You're not like, why did you change your mind? No, you're just like, okay, change your mind, fine, right? If they want to be heard, let them be heard. But again, the practicalities and the realities are if, you know, now if it's a 5-2 vote, then you're like, oh, well now we're 4-3. Well, we got a second, it might be, you know, 4, or it might switch 3-4.

Councilwoman Padilla has a question.

Oh, sure.

Does that have to occur right after the vote?

No, any time during the meeting.

Okay, thank you.

And also, because this question will come up, I'll be gone in like two years from now, someone will make a motion to reconsider. Rosenberg's does not say if the person who seconds has to have voted in favor of. It's silent, it does not say. I think if it doesn't say, I think the answer is no. I think if somebody says, I pass it, I want a motion to reconsider, I think somebody who voted no can be like, well, I want them on my side, I'm going to second this. So I think common sense tells me the person who seconds it can be someone who didn't vote in favor of it, right? Otherwise, I don't think this would ever pass. But it makes sense that somebody who passed it has to make the motion to reconsider. You don't want the person who voted no to make the motion to reconsider, or they'll just keep doing it in an infinity loop, right? And you'll be stuck in a time vortex and never move off that motion. Okay, enough of that. Okay, your city attorney asked me to cover a couple items sorta related to Rosenberg's Rules of Orders, and they are, so let me kinda go through them, but they're not in Rosenberg's Rules of Orders. important rule that i the league has gotten pretty good now at training this up but for a while it was kind of lost there is now a government code section under the brown act that says any response to any communication on an internet-based social media platform regarding a matter in the subject matter of the city council may not be liked or commented on by even one member of the other of the body so you all are trained you know in the brown act as we all all are that a brown act means a majority right so four of you cannot talk about subject matter outside of an open and public meeting without violating the brown act and we know that right tam it into our heads from the day you become a council member don't talk to three other people you're violating the brown act this new law that came in two or three years ago says if just two of you comment on a social media post, that is a violation of the Brown Act. So just two. So what that means for all intents and purposes, if one of your colleagues writes something on social media and another one of you gives a thumbs up emoji or a heart emoji on Instagram, and I'm old, I don't know what TikTok does. You swipe it to like it? I have no idea. Anyways, if you like it in some way, shape, or form, you have violated the Brown Act. The practical uh... consequence of this is that none of you should be commenting liking basically even looking at your fellow council members social media posts like you can give it a thumbs down you can give it a mad emoji you can't I know look at the city website look at the city social media page but your own social media pages you must not comment on it and so the legislature was very clear about that there was just too much abuse by council members fighting about not you all I'm not saying you but councils fighting about issues on social media in the comments I'm saying this I'm saying this I like this I don't like this I heart this right they were like enough we got to stop it and so that's it okay that's real important uh... public participation i know you both you all know this but uh... weeks we talked about it that you know we can limit debate except that members of the public have a right to speak on any item on the agenda on any specific item city cannot prohibit public criticism of policies procedures programs of cities or acts of the city council uh... they're strong first amendment protections uh... that basically anybody coming up to this podium in speaking to all of you unless they threatened bodily harm right unless they say i'm going to do acts to you They're pretty much protected. They can say you're a loser, that you're dumb, that you don't know what you're doing. All of that is fair game. Other things, we'll talk a little bit about criticism in a little bit. You all know and your city clerk will remind you that nobody's required to register. They don't have to fill out a speaker card. You are entitled to have rules of decorum. Time limits are definitely okay. My recommendations to my clients are always, if you're gonna set a time limit, you announce it before somebody speaks. Like, it's bad form for me to come up like, I'm the first speaker. I'm gonna speak three minutes. And then somebody else comes up, and you're like, oh, I know this person. They're not going to be on my seat. You get one minute. That's going to draw a First Amendment challenge. Once you go three minutes, you've got to stay three minutes. If you're going to go two minutes or less or even five minutes, you should say it right off the bat, and then you're kind of locked in. That's where you are. Recording is permitted, right? Sometimes you get the constitutional rights people. They come in with a camera.

I'm recording all of you.

Fine. Enjoy. Record to your heart's content. This is a public body, open chambers. There is a new legislation that I would urge you to talk to Marcy about if you need to enact it along with the city clerk that establishes very clear legal procedures for removing a disruptive individual from public meetings. Spoiler alert, you gotta give them at least one warning before you ask them to be removed. Other spoiler alert, I would not ever do this without talking to your police chief or these two fine officers sitting here. If you just suddenly be like, Lim, you're out. And they're like, what? We don't have the manpower to do this. And I came with a bunch of protesters. They're going to be like, what in the world is going on here? So practical tip, if you're even thinking about doing it, you need to talk ahead of time with your security and be like, can we do this? And if they're like, no, then you're like, OK, we better not do that. Don't tell anyone you're not going to do it. But just a practical tip. We actually have that going on in Fairfield. If you want to watch our meetings, the last three meetings. I don't know why you would watch somebody else's city council meetings after sitting here all afternoon, but if that's what you like, go for it. Okay, criticism of council members, and now this is important. I was talking about how other than threatening you or your family or your friends with harm, Pretty much they can say whatever they want to you. Now obviously vulgar terms, not a good look for anybody. So if somebody starts cursing at you guys and dropping F-bombs, I think it's right to bang the gavel and admonish them. But quite frankly, that would probably be protected under the First Amendment. The reason why is there is a case called New York Times. It's a very famous US Supreme Court case. And it basically said that for defamation, um... the law treats you seven elected officials differently than private citizens you have less protection under defamation and free speech laws. The reason being is that you, movie stars, sports stars, are what are deemed either all-purpose or limited-purpose public figures, meaning you ran for election, you wanted to be a representative for your city, and when you did that, you gave up some of your rights as a private citizen because you're representing, as Councilmember Lee was saying, you represent a bunch of people. And when you do that, you take it upon yourself to get not only you know that shaking hands, kissing babies, cutting ribbons, fun part, you get the, you're horrible. That's part of it, right? That's part of what happens. So under this United States Supreme Court rule, you are a all-purpose public figure here in Stockton, right? Anybody can come and say anything to you. In order to prove defamation, you would have to show actual malice. You would have to show that they knew that what they were saying was false and they still said it. It is a very high, if not impossible, threshold to meet in a court of law. So I'm not your attorney on that, so I'm not going to say more. Frankly, Marcy's not your attorney on that. If you want to sue someone for defamation, you've got to probably hire your own attorney. But I'm telling you just from the training, It's very hard. Now the goal that the Supreme Court said is it is to prevent a chilling effect on free and open debate in our government affairs, right? Our society places a great amount of weight on the ability of anybody, all three people left here, to come to this podium at any time and say what's on their mind to their elected representatives, even if it hurts your feelings, right?

Vice Mayor has a question. Sure.

Thank you, Mayor. So let me be clear. You have free speech rights on a plane, but you can't say bomb. We have decorum policies here that do set the tone for our chamber and how members of the public engage the council. For example, can a member of the community get up here and start saying homophobic attacks against council members who are openly gay? Are you saying they have the First Amendment right to do that?

Yeah.

And so even our decorum policies, if they prohibit that, which I believe they do, that's still okay.

Yeah.

So we don't have to follow our rule.

You want to mean you don't have to follow?

If we have a decorum rule for how we govern our council meetings, does that mean that we should change our rule? Because if we have a rule that says no personal attacks or address the chair or whatever, I mean, I'm thick skinned, I'm a public figure outside here, so I can deal with whatever and give whatever, I just wanna know the rules, right? And I wanna make sure we follow them consistently. So if our decorum rule for the chamber is that anybody can come and say anything, or we can say anything, I think it just becomes the Wild Wild West. So let me kinda parse that out a little bit. Yeah, you may need to parse that, because I just wanna understand what.

So the distinction that I'm making, is that the courts have ruled that an individual private citizen has an absolute First Amendment right and that you all have less protections when it comes to suing that person for defamation. So if somebody came up here and made a homophobic remark to somebody, that's protected speech. And I'll give you a personal example from something that happened to me as a council member. I've had racial epithets thrown at me. Obviously, I'm a minority, I'm Asian American, I've had people come and be like, oh, you're in league with the communist Chinese government. And my grandparents fled communist China, so it is one of the most insulting things you could say to me in the way I was raised to call me a communist. Absolutely, hands down. It's absolutely offensive to me. What do you think I did?

Nothing.

When you take that oath and sit where you all sit, like it or not, I would submit you hold yourself to a higher standard. So to answer your question, could you as a council member discard the rules? 100%. I'm not here to tell any of you how to be a council member. I told you at the beginning that the rules of Rosenberg's Rules of Orders are advisory only, but what is it designed to do? It's helped to maintain decorum. It's helped to keep you all dull so that you do the people's business. What do we all learn from our parents? They tell you, when they go low, we go high. My parents taught me that from a young age. Hey, David, someone's calling you. I'm not going to utter the words. I grew up where people made fun of me because I'm Chinese. They said, you don't respond. You don't respond, David. We do not expect you to get in a fight. And the advice I got in elementary school from my mom is the same advice I had now. What I do, just again, because I'm not telling you how to do your job, but I'm just giving you anecdotal advice, is I was subject to attacks. And so what I did, and I learned this again from another council member, he said, you know, people come at me, and what I do is he would, you know, I think you've all learned this trick, right? So I'm looking at the mayor. Does it look like I'm looking at the mayor? I'm not looking at the mayor. I'm looking right over her right shoulder. So what I would do when I would get speakers who were gonna bring hate to me, I would just kinda look over the right shoulder, maybe at the security guard, maybe at the clock. And then I'd think like, what am I gonna eat when I get home? What am I gonna shop at Costco tonight? What movie am I gonna watch tonight? Ooh, this is a good series that I gotta start binge watching on Netflix, right? The law says that they get three minutes to say whatever they want to me. It doesn't say I have to listen. So I would just look and go to my happy place and then they'd be done. And I'd hear the mayor say, or if I was the mayor, I'd be like, okay, thank you next. And then somebody else came and they're chewing on someone else. Just go back to my happy place. Right. as council members you are afforded a great amount of power right you are you're you're 100 in charge so you can do whatever you want but again my this the purpose of this presentation is to give you tools on how to maintain decorum at your meetings and so i would submit that if somebody comes and they are just a mean person i mean i don't want to get too like uh you know pollyannish but i actually you know i got to a point where i was a council member even now as a city attorney because the city attorney we still get attacked sometimes right quite frankly i feel sorry for those people i'm like what is wrong with your life that you have the need to attack me you don't know anything about me you know my race you know what i stand for an election but if you want to come and hammer at me and throw things at me go ahead I will sort of pretend to listen to you, but then I'm just going to hope that you find something happier and better to do.

So let me just say, again, this is less about emotional fragility for me. I can handle whatever, and I can also give it out. You say when they go low, you go high. When they go low, I go to hell. That's just who I am in real life. My point is understanding the rule and being very clear on it. If the rule here is anybody can say whatever they want, great, I'm done. It's just a matter of, like, Consistently being about that right so like if that's what it is the rule has to apply to Council Blower the same as Councilman Padilla the same as me. It's when the world switches up we've had people thrown out the chamber that attack one councilmember and then we've had people come in here and say homophobic remarks and it's been okay so i just want to be clear on the rule so now we know the rule if we have to review our own decorum policy to say hey first amendment this this this new decorum policy is going to be called the the first amendment decorum policy anybody can say whatever they want cool i'm fine with that i just think it's important if that's what the will of the council is is whatever i whatever i think is important to me is that it's consistent so that way once we just know the rule then we just know okay public comments we're gonna strap our seat belts on we're gonna go and whatever's gonna be said is gonna be said and we're just gonna keep a straight face and power through it um and i know a lot of us up here have the grit to do it the mayor does all the time i mean that's i'm fine with that but it's just i think for me it's understanding the rule because when i know the rule then i know how to operate when the rules change mid-game that's when you That's when the canes come out. And so, again, just trying to understand the role. Maybe we have to review our decorum policy.

And I would say those are guidelines that we want them. That's why we say them. We want people to do that. But ultimately, that's what I learned at my U.S. Conference of Mayors. They said, nope, somebody can get up there and say you're a piece of poop if they want to. And that's their First Amendment right. But we try to not have people do that by reading out our expected decorum for people in the audience, as well as us up here.

Yeah, and Council Member Lee and Mayor Fugazi, It's a tough position for me because I'm just here to train you on Rosenberg's Rules of Orders. I've never met any of you before today. You all seem, I mean, you are lovely council members. You've got a great staff. You know, your questions seem like, you know, I don't want to speak for the city manager or the city attorney. I mean, it sounds like something you do on a retreat, on a council retreat, and you guys just have a You guys have it out then and have the discussion. That's what it sounds like. But I'll defer to your city manager. I'm not going to wade into that.

No, no, no. What you gave, what you provided was great. I mean, what she confirmed at the meeting with the mayors is consistent. I mean, if that's the policy, I think we just, I mean, if that's the right, we just have to review our policy and it is what it is.

Yeah. That is a great segue to my last slide. Thank you. Oh, darn, I got to the last one.

I just had one question. So from that side, they can say anything as long as it's not a threat, correct? Correct.

Okay. And even, you know, even a physical threat. So again, I was a district attorney. I practiced in Oakland. So you, you know, not to speak ill of Oakland, but it's a pretty heavy town. There's a lot of crime. If I had had a dollar for every time some defendant was like, when I get out, I'm going to come find you prosecutor. And I'd be like, Okay, fine, you know, I'm just doing my job. I'm not saying you should take it lightly, but yeah, if you get a physical threat, your first, these gentlemen right here are here, they're not sitting here because They want to. I mean, no offense. They're here because they've got badges and they're here to protect you. So I always say, if you feel threatened, all of my training goes out the window. If you feel threatened, your family feels threatened, you need to call 911. You need to turn to a police officer and say, hey, he said that. And let them make the call. What you don't want to do is if somebody says something and you're like, you start engaging them. I think all you do at that point is you turn to the person over your left shoulder and say, hey, did you hear that? I'm not feeling safe right now. And let them. They're trained. They've got way more training than they're going to ever tell you because they're modest guys. But they get a ton of training in conflict management, threat de-escalation, assessing threats. You let them know. You let the chief know. My point is, even if you're getting something like that, I wouldn't... Like yelling back, you know, put it this way. Somebody's yelling something at you and then they threaten you. Do you think you being like, are you threatening me? Is going to make them be like, oh no. It's going to amp it up. So I just would immediately turn and say, hey, you know, I'm not feeling safe here. Let the presider know. Because, you know, I don't want to make light of it, but

Now I bring that up because I know the mayor mayor for guys he has her her rules before we start a meeting, I know former mayor. We can had his rules and have yet to say look directly towards me so that's why I'm looking towards what's the difference from Bloomberg's rules and then the mayor has own rules, I mean I just want to make sure

that all of those are the same rules of rosenberg's yeah rosenberg is really parliamentary procedure right how do you pass resolutions and laws what you're talking about decorum it talks about it slightly but really that's more in your policy manual and it i will go so far as to say you know the mayor's given wide latitude to set the rules of decorum because she needs to preside he or she needs to preside over the meeting And then you need to kind of keep the meeting running. And every mayor is different. I got to be mayor for two years and I don't wanna speak for Mayor Fugazi and she did not pay me to say this, but it's harder to do than you think. First time you get up there, you're like, oh man, there's a lot going on here. And you're trying to remember how you're gonna vote on something while you're remembering who's speaking and who's next. I mean, there's a lot going on. And, you know, I make it sound like I'm up here and, you know, if you listen to me, you would make it seem like, well, he was a great council member. I made a ton of mistakes, right? There were definitely times where I said something like, you're out of order. And I'm like, oh, oh, wish I hadn't said that, right? So I'm not perfect.

You didn't talk about point of order. So that is something we talk about up here quite a bit.

Yeah.

And that's under decorum. So I was waiting for your slide on point of order, but you didn't go there, so.

Are you talking about point of order to a member of the council or to?

Well, Rosenberg's has point of order in it. And then sometimes council members have used other points, points of this, point of that, that isn't in Rosenberg's. But if somebody out there is talking ill, council will say, you know, point of order because we have these rules that we want them to abide by. Or even amongst ourselves, point of order is used. and then I say, oh, well, what's the point? What rule has been broken?

Right, so you can do that, and Rosenberg's does have that, and it sounds like you're using it correctly, right? Someone says point of order, then you acknowledge them, they state what the point of order is, and then you rule on it. But remember what I said in my presentation, that Rosenberg's is a framework to help you stay dull, right? And remember I talked about the friendly amendments. So between the seven of you, I would, again, me personally, not telling you how to do your jobs, but what I've seen is the less you use points of order amongst each other, the better off you are. Because what you want to do is just get to a point where you are all working in such harmony that, you know, Everybody is going to get a chance to say their point. You're going to go down the line. Everyone's going to say what they have to say, but they're not going to monopolize 20 minutes. They're going to say what they got to say, speak up for their constituents, and then move down the line. And then what they're going to do then is when then another council member speaks, they're not going to interrupt. That's where you want to get, where you're all saying your thing, no one interrupts each other. And then when everyone has had their turn, you know the mayor will say anybody else and if somebody else has to make another point then they can but you want to get to a point where no one feels that they have to shout point of order because everyone's given a chance to speak does that make sense that's just from my experience that you don't want to use it that often but it is there if you want to use it and Rosenberg gives you the policy to do it now regarding a point of order with people speaking I can't speak to the exact circumstance in which it happened, but generally if someone's up here speaking, what I did as a council member and my advice as an attorney is you never interrupt them. You can disagree 100% with what they're saying, you can be offended 100% with what they're doing, it can be the most vile thing they've ever said, and I say you just let the timer go down from three to zero and then say thank you. Because if you interrupt them, then they're like, they keep going. And well, you didn't give me my three minutes. You cut me off. Right? You talk for 30 seconds. I want that 30 seconds back. I know you've all heard this, right? I haven't even seen your meetings and I can tell you what people say, right? So better is just to let the timer go from three to zero and then kind of look over their shoulder, think about something else and then be like, you're done. My advice only, I don't think point of order for people in the audience. Now it's different if people are just shouting and you're losing control of the room, then you gotta bang the gavel and be like, but then it's not point of order. That's just, hey, everyone calm down. You're all gonna get a chance to speak and once you're done with your three minutes, you're done. yeah so anyways you've all been wonderful thank you for letting me be last and I you know I tried to keep it short because I kneels like am I the last public presenter in this chambers exciting yeah you got closed session yeah but I'm the last public can I take a picture yeah No, look, this is one of the nicest city hall chambers I've ever been in, right? It's iconic. No, but I mean, this has so much historical, I mean, you guys are one of the oldest cities in the state. You know, you guys are Gold Rush, so. We're three months behind Sacramento.

Yeah, can I take a selfie? You gonna do a flower selfie? Oh, he is.

Look at that. All right, ready? honorable mayor members of the council thank you so much I hope this was helpful thank you for giving me the honor of coming and speaking to you guys and good luck okay thank you moving on to item 11 city managers update roll that footage no I'm just guessing okay so we'll go on then to council comments

everybody's buzzing in at once okay vice mayor thank you mayor okay this has been a pretty productive day all right so first I want to say and coming right off that last comment that it is historic that you know we are the last council to be in this building this building has lots of history I remember coming down here as a kid and finding Gary Podesto I didn't know what a mayor was I just knew he was in charge and asking him to support my endeavors of creating the first teen club in Stockton, at least during my generation, and he wrote me a check, and I did that, and it was great while it lasted, but lots of history here, and I just want to say to all the staff that has been holding this building down for years, hopefully you're enjoying the new environment. It's growing on me. I've only been there a couple days, but for staff who've been here, I hope you're enjoying the new building and also to all of our colleagues who've been here before us that have governed in this city. I mean, it takes a lot of grit and a lot of patience and a lot of ambition to to govern. And it's a thankless position, but nonetheless an important one. So I'm hopeful that when we do the ribbon cutting at the new place on that same day, we as a council can come and do a photo with our appointees or something or staff or something in front of City Hall just to have that that photo that should last forever. Okay, so I have been talking with Florence about how we track council directions and agenda items because, you know, we add a lot of things and then we leave here and then life starts lifing and there's a lot going on and then we lose track and then months later we find out that things have not been put on the agenda or things did not get followed up on. So just in a, within two weeks if council members and the mayor can just get an email telling us what the process is to track directives here at council um and and and our and the things that we follow up with staff on because it's been really hard for me to track certain things and you know you can look up in four months later time has just flown by um I just want to thank the council on the uh face covering ordinance um and I want to thank the mayor for allowing us to have the amount of debate that we did have on it um the debate wasn't about disagreeing. It was about ensuring that we thought about all the rights of all our constituents and all the opportunities to create a safer city. And I will continue to be open to having conversations in the community with people about concerns, thoughts, reactions. And we'll look to some of my colleagues who may want to join me in that and create a forum to have a discussion, but I do think education is important in making sure that the public is fully aware beyond, you know, catching it on the news that they actually understand it. So, uh, open to ideas on that. Um, I did go to the county register this week, um, uh, to, uh, talk with them about a news article that I read where it said that the African-American vote was down. And that concerned me because nationally I promote the importance of the black vote in the south. Some of my friends in Congress are dealing with the tax on democracy in a way that we may not see. But nonetheless, the apathy of voters of color across the country is something that is growing. And I think now more than ever is important that people are voting. Um, in particular, I'll speak directly to the black community. I think it's important that we are voting. And because of that, um, I, uh, had conceptualized my black vote matters campaign, but in talking to my colleague council member, Enrique's, I think the brown vote is important too. And so I will be working with him at getting out to the city the importance of voting and making sure that we are reaching as many people as possible so our constituents get registered and can share with their families. But I did want to thank the register for having her interns here today. Some high school interns were here for most of our meeting. It'd be interesting to hear their thoughts on this process. Audit committee updates. I want to thank our city attorney and her team for updating the audit committee on the referrals. As a council, I directed staff to send referrals to the district attorney, the grand jury, and to the attorney general. I shared my frustration at the audit committee meeting about how you can get a ticket speeding and stocking faster than you can get follow-up from some of these agencies. And we're talking about concerns related to ethical governance and protecting the resources of our constituents. And I think sometimes I kind of built the correlation between people who call 911 when they're getting robbed and the police don't show up, at some point you just stop calling the police. And I think that for me, having worked in the union for 11 years, the fight doesn't stop because the police don't come, you keep going. And I think there's lots of unresolved issues concerns that have been raised, and at least for me, I can say none of them have been politically motivated. They are all based on and rooted in what I believe to be serious concerns. And although we're getting along better, you know, until there's closure on those things and other things that I'll mention shortly, I will still have concerns on ethical governance and how we move forward as a group. Optic last meeting when we approved the budget I made two requests one the staff come back within 30 days with a definitive plan and two that I'd set a meeting with Meta regarding our social media accounts to assess information presented by staff on growth and engagement we did get an email from Meta today that did I asked them to do an assessment of our social media handles they sent us very thorough reports that I asked Patty to forward to the council so the mayor and the council should have that in their email and I know a meeting is set up with Meta and staff and I for next week to dig into our social media and then we'll come back with a report. I just want to say Trinity Parkway, I heard somewhere that we have not been reimbursed yet by state lands. I don't know if that's true or not but what I like is an update sent to council on where we are with that. And if we haven't been reimbursed, what the plan is to get that reimbursement from the state. I don't know the exact number, but I did want to get that out there. Um, let's see district six economic development priorities. I know the staff I've asked for months to get the presentation together. I was just told that that presentation has been updated and we're scheduling that meeting. So I look forward to that. Uh, but we're going to focus on, you know, Western ranch in the Southeast Stockton development for at least the next two and a half years while I'm in this seat, um, to explore how we are prioritizing the development. and how we can accelerate the development of that district because there's been lots of promises over the years and I want to make sure that we're delivering on that. All right. To my previous point about tracking direction given to staff, I asked for an RTD presentation back on April 14th. That was the last time that we discussed it. I don't know where RTD is with that. I just saw a new article recently about more transition and leadership there. My concern has always been about the stability of our transit system for our residents. and wanting to understand where we are with that. I did receive a letter from former board chair and 18-year board member of RTD. His name is Gary Giovannetti. I believe I've met him once in passing. He sent a multi-page complaint asking for an immediate outside investigation. I have not read it thoroughly, but I did forward to the state controller. as part of a previous inquiry that I had referred there to look into. I know each member of the council also received it and I would ask the council to read that and I just want to again direct staff to schedule RTD, the presentation.

Yes, and we will put that request in to RTD and their board. The last time we did that, they did not show up, but we'd be more than happy to do it again.

Okay, yeah, and Miguel Villalpudo is now a consultant over there handling government affairs, so maybe talking with him too, maybe now that he's there, he can be helpful in helping us to get that. Also, we passed the CESP agreement where we had come to council and we extended for five years against the recommended 10-year extension. I know that I've had multiple conversations with BIA, NAACP, and staff about the follow-up to the CESP agreement, in particular the partnership between BIA and NAACP in creating a program to create jobs for the disadvantaged communities. I know staff has been working diligently with them on that, but I would like to add one more thing to a future agenda within the next 30 to 45 days, a follow-up here presentation. Can I get a second? Second. Um, Western ranch, there was a comment about police interpretation or interpreters at the police meetings. And I do know that SPD has done a really good job of having translation there with officers and headsets for certain folks. So, um, I don't know where that came from, but I will follow up with that because they they've been really good about making sure that, um, uh, interpreters are available there. I want to thank the CSD staff for the pool event at Western Ranch High and for the work in creating our joint use agreement with MUSD and being able to allowed the community to access the pool. It was well attended and the pool is still open through July. And it's really important that people know that staff at the city are working diligently to ensure that the joint use agreements are in effect and that the pools are being open. And it's great to see Oak Park pool, such an iconic pool that I swam in. It was the only pool I think we had in the city with a high dive as a kid. It's good to see it open again. It's just very reminiscent of the days when I used to run the streets. And I have much to do, but found things to do at the parks. I was running the streets. I was a latchkey kid. Don't judge me, Council Member Rodriguez. All right. So I want to also address, you know, When I first got elected and there would be people that would come down and complain, complain, complain. All of us are pretty protective of the work that we're doing in our districts because we love our districts. And I really didn't notice who was complaining because it was just whoever's complaining from District 6, I make a note and I follow up. But then I started noticing it was people that I beat in the election. And I would be mad if I was sitting up here and I mean, if I beat you too, I would be mad, you know, the Ralph Whites and the Zoilas of the world. But here's the thing, you know, when I listen to Zoila's complaints over and over and over and her trying to acknowledge some of my peers, I understand she's probably just a poor sport that got beat in an election. Because the thing that she's complained about that I found to be just very frustrating is that the ladies who do Zumba in the park have been prohibited from using our joint use agreement, our facilities, which is absolutely not true. Staff worked really hard to make it possible for our community that does Zumba at the Paul Weston Park to go into the facilities. And the ladies who lead the Zumba classes said they don't want to do it. I was shopping in the mall the other day and ran into Mama Cora, who leads the group out there. And she said, please ask her to stop saying that we're not being allowed in because we don't want to go in. She said that over and over and over. uh... and so i just want to say publicly i think it's it's it's important that people have concerns uh... of uh... things not happening in their district that they come down to use their three minutes or whatever is provided by the mayor to complain uh... but if you're mad because you got being an election don't use this form to uh... spew out propaganda and lies because they will be called out uh... all right let's see uh... Mayor and I met with a group called Common Unity and the city manager as well. They wanted to focus on strategic investment in disinvested communities. And I thought it was a really good discussion between all of us and them around unifying nonprofit efforts, finding alignment. but also in uh their request was us using five percent of our budget to go towards disinvested communities which obviously would not work because we don't have that money but what we talked about was we explored ways of really defining what it is that they're trying to accomplish i think the question the city manager always asked each one of us is what are you trying to accomplish that was poised to them and i think for us it was really wanting to understand how this would work. And I think we've talked about identifying hot zones or opportunity zones, is what we called it, and what that investment would look like, how we would do public-private partnerships, how we would consolidate some nonprofits to do that, and how we as staff could look at a target number of businesses monetary investment we can pursue to support those efforts, work in progress. But it was a great conversation and I think it was a needed conversation. So I want to thank the mayor for providing a platform for that and the city manager. And then the last thing I had was Cynthia Gail Boyd, I think in the last meeting brought up the mayor's ad hoc committee that was chaired by Councilman Padilla. It was created on November 12th. Seven months ago, I asked Councilman Padilla not too long ago, like, what's up? What's up with the ad hoc? Like, what are we going to see anything? And she had mentioned in passing that the group had not even met yet. And so what I'd like to do is just agenda this for our next meeting to get a status update. If there's findings, refer them to whatever agency you want or dissolve the ad hoc because I'm not going to be in support using any more taxpayer resources for anything else is politically motivated and that is not for the basis of finding that's going to help us govern more effectively if there are concerns that have been found or discovered in this ad hoc I think that the council should take appropriate action whether it's censure whether it's referral to the police department or Attorney General or whatever, but I think to leave a looming ad hoc out there that has not met in seven months that's taxpayer funded with an unlimited bankroll in pursuit of nothing is a waste of our time and flies in the face of the commitment we've made to our taxpayers. And the money that we just approved our city attorney, another $475,000, I would absolutely not be in support of putting a dollar towards that unless there's significant concerns of public interest with that said great meeting I think we're on our way to doing better and I'm hopeful that we are able to continue to have the debate that the mayor allowed today because it helped us get to a conclusion on something that's been in existing in conversation for the last year and I'm done thanks council member Blauer thank you mayor

Okay, it's been a busy couple weeks since the last meeting. On June 10th, we had the big press conference. I joined the Mayor and Councilmember Villaputua, the big, am I taking some of your thunder? Yes, go ahead. Or crusaders, as this one were. So the big announcement that Stockton is getting arena football back. So very, very excited for that. Really great press conference. I mean, gosh, the energy in that room was wonderful. So hopefully... the city will rally around this team and get their season tickets and promote that. Then later that, after the press conference was the annual employee appreciation luncheon. And I just hope the employees that were there really did feel the appreciation because without them, we can't get the day to day done here. Then the very next day, the next press conference, also joined the mayor, where the big announcement for the hockey team, and I was very glad to see them go back to the Stockton Thunder. So that was exciting. I know that a lot of the nostalgia people feel for the original Stockton Thunder. We saw a lot of people with hats on. I had my jersey, and I think that's gonna be great. On the 13th, I joined, actually the city manager was there with me at the NAACP prayer breakfast, and it was good to be there to represent the city. Later that night was the Taste of the Mile, and I just want to thank, even though he's out of the room, but... Councilmember Enriquez, I appreciate being invited to that. On the 15th, we saluted the U.S. Army and raised their flag on their birthday, and it's the 176th birthday of the U.S. Army. On the 19th, the Oak Park pool ribbon cutting. I'd like to go on the record as stating that I was the first one to dunk Councilmember Enriquez in the dunk tank. And I legitimately did it on my second throw, so. So that was great, and a great win for the community there. Then let's see, I had a busy day that day, so then I went to Atherton Park, Sisters in Unity had their second annual Juneteenth celebration. So I was glad to be able to visit with that group and give them a certificate. And then that evening, one of my favorite events of the year, the Pixie Woods Beer and Wine Tasting. And it was packed. It was a great crowd there, good food, good wine, good music. It was a great event. Then, let's see, a couple days later on Father's Day, I went to the United Cambodian American Network's first annual golf tournament, and they are raising money for the Cambodian Heritage Center, and that's a $10 million project. It's going to take a while for them to raise those funds, but that is what the... the eventual goal is. And I found it interesting that the city of Stockton has the fifth largest Cambodian community in the country. So second largest in the state. And so for them to get to eventually build this $10 million cultural center, I think that will bring a lot of the Cambodian community around the country will come visit Stockton. Looking to the future, I just want to remind everybody that on the 4th of July, The parade will start at 10. If you guys haven't registered yet, I'm sure they can probably still get you in. I am planning to do that. Again, that will be 10 a.m., and the Carl Ross Post is the one that's in charge of that. And then the city, we are hosting down at Weber Point. Oh, I'm sorry. Am I taking— more of your stuff okay i'll leave the rest of that part to you i'll just mention the uh the parade um couple a couple of other just quick notes um very pleased that the five mile assessment district uh that that passed i think that's a big big win for that area that's something i've been working on for a while and you just cross your fingers and hope that the the people affected will see the same way you do. And I think that's going to be one of those things that years from now, that's going to be a beautiful waterway for many, many years to come. So I'm pretty excited about that. Also, just to let people in my district know that the street resurfacing at Ben Holt and Hammer right by I-5, that has begun. So it is underway. and it will be a little inconvenient for a while, but it will give us a nice smooth drive when it's done. And then I guess the last thing, and I'll just keep my comments fairly short, just kind of a bittersweet moment having this be our final meeting here at Historic City Hall. This building was first dedicated on December 3rd, 1926, so we made almost 100 years of having meetings in this building. Very interesting, at the time it was built, it cost $500,000 to build, which... That's a lot of money. It was a lot of money in 1926, and the city was, the population, I think in 1930 was 46,000 people, so it was much smaller, but if you take that money, though, and you convert it to to current money, it's about nine, nine and a half million. So if you think about it, it actually wasn't too bad of a deal, but it was a much smaller city at the time. But I have a lot of pleasant memories in this building. I remember as a high school student coming here for, you know, government class where you came and watched a council meeting. I got to see Mrs. Nguyen, I got to see her yell at that council, and then I served in 2016, and I remember being here on, I think it was February 23rd of 2016, when I got appointed by council, and the meeting went so late, I got sworn in, it was already the next day. And so then in 2016, I got to serve on the council and be on this side of the dais and hear Mrs. Winn yelling at the council. So lots of good memories in this building. I look forward to seeing what will be the next step of this building and I'm dedicated to doing what I can to help preserve it and continue to have this be a landmark. And those are my comments.

Thank you. Councilman Villaputua.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. It's been a last good couple weeks as you see last week. We had the grand opening of Columbus Park. It was very joyful to see all the kids, seeing the mayor, seeing the city manager, and everyone just enjoying a beautiful park. been going every day picking up trash maintaining the park and other parks and you know I recommend some of my colleagues you know check on your parks as well but Anyways, I want to wish everyone who had a great, happy Father's Day this past weekend. I enjoyed it. It's one of my most important days of the year, just hanging out with my son and watch Toy Story 5. If you haven't seen it, go watch it. Kind of what's going on up to date right now with... toys and gadgets and tech. So hope everyone had also had a happy Juneteenth. We had a great, great event at the water point. That line was crazy. I was talking to the mayor about it. I mean, if you think there wasn't anything going on, if you don't think it was safe, there was a lot of people there. As well as other colleagues, it's great to have, you know, soon starting football arena. But I just want to recognize as well our city manager, our public works director for everything you guys are doing. This next week, I will be taking another tour with the economic developer, Ricardo. We've got some great plans in a few weeks. I've got a big, big announcement I'm going to be announcing, another great thing in District 5. I just want to recognize also Christina, our deputy city manager. uh she's just been doing a lot of great things and christina i know you don't get recognized i want to make sure we all think you're doing great so we appreciate you um as well i know there's a few things yeah our last meeting here um you know there's a lot of history has been here. You know a lot of mayors throughout the past from Gary Podesto, Mayor Ann Johnson, Ed Chavez, Mayor Tubbs, Mayor Lincoln, Mayor Silva, our current Mayor Fugazi. I mean it's been fantastic seeing a lot of great things here. You know all of a sudden Always could throw a shout out to one of our great leaders, Ralph White, for all the great things he's done at his district. But this place will never be forgotten. It's going to be here. It's not going to be teared down. We're going to another great place to make even better memories and a lot of great things. It's going to be a great HVAC. There's going to be more parking and more people to sit down. So I'm really looking forward to that. It's been some really great wins tonight with my colleagues, and we got a lot of great things down the road. So I just want to wish everyone a great week. Oh, one last thing. I just want to... recognize 29 cares public works ready to work our code enforcement sergeant high and everyone just doing great things and and our city staff everything they're doing great so wish everyone a great week great weekend and looking forward to see everyone the next meeting in the new city hall thanks

Councilwoman Padilla.

Thank you, Mayor. So it's unfortunate in North Stockton, we have recently been hit by a specific group. I'm just going to say it's Spider and Purple Paint. They are tagging every poll utility box, mailbox. I actually reported two yesterday in the morning through Ask Stockton. And by the late evening, they were already cleared up. So we have to really thank our graffiti removal team, because they are expediting graffiti cleanups just as fast as it's happening. So I really appreciate the work that they're doing. And graffiti really impacts our city. I drive down the freeway, and when I see graffiti on those concrete walls, I just imagine other people coming to our city and seeing the same thing. So if you do see graffiti, please report it to ask Stockton and because it does work and they do do it right away. If you're not, um, app friendly, just please shoot me an email with the photo and location and I'll make sure that that gets taken care of right away. I was really happy to see the Lewis Park boat launch on the agenda this week. With regards to speaking of water access, it just so happened that this weekend I was reached out by a constituent and she had mentioned that her family was on the water this weekend, and they wanted to tie and dock right here by the waterfront so that they can eat at a couple of the restaurants, but they weren't able to. So I am not familiar with the what type of access or what kind of docking situation there is. So if just if our city manager can look into that because with our retail and restaurants there we want to make sure that they thrive especially during the summertime because people are out on the water and do like to stop and have lunch or dinner and just take a break from the water. Um, I want to take a moment and provide an update with regards to our safe grounds initiative. And, um, also I had proposed a one, two, three model, um, with regards to addressing homelessness in our city. Um, it's been approximately six months now since we've been discussing this, um, in our ad hoc meeting and even longer since I presented the one, two, three model. I want the public to know that our city manager has been extremely supportive throughout the whole process and I appreciate his commitment and willingness to move both these items forward. Unfortunately, local government can be a lengthy process and one of the biggest challenge that we continue to face is identifying a suitable location that is operationally and effective and financially feasible. While I understand that these things take time, I also believe that we need to be moving from discussion to action. Because when I first took the seat as chair, I made a commitment that I did not want to be just a discussion committee, but I wanted to be an action committee. As it relates to the 1, 2, 3 model, I did present that to our city attorney to research the legal and enforcement implications to ensure that that program that we implement is legally sound and enforceable as well. I want to be clear that the 1, 2, 3 model can't move forward without the completion and implementation of Safe Grounds because they work hand in hand. Safe Grounds is the foundation that must be in place before we can move forward to consider any additional enforcement options. So I also want to apologize for not holding an ad hoc homeless committee in June. The transition to New City Hall coupled with July holiday schedule created some logistical challenges. However, I do plan on holding a meeting in July and at that meeting we will receive updates on safe grounds and also discuss the status of the 1-2-3 model and also continue the next steps so we can move forward with both initiatives. As we move forward with the future discussions regarding illegal dumping, I want to just emphasize how important it is, see something, say something We need the public support to address this issue effectively. When residents report illegal dumping, it gives us, our enforcement teams, the information needed to investigate and take action. I can personally say that reporting does make a difference. We currently have an active investigation underway in District 1 as a result of information provided. and I am hopeful that this action will lead to meaningful results. Combating illegal dumping is a community effort and together we can keep our neighborhoods clean and safe. Unfortunately, mail theft continues to be a broken record in our community. Please be proactive and pick up your mail regularly to reduce the risk of becoming a victim. I have continued to make our congressman, Josh Harder, aware of these ongoing issues, but unfortunately we still have not seen a long-term solution. So I believe it's time once again to request an in-person meeting with our mayor and federal partners because our residents deserve answers and more importantly results. With the 4th of July approaching, people are already beginning to celebrate. If you can safely identify where illegal fireworks are coming from, I encourage you to contact the non-emergency police line and report it. Community cooperation is essential in helping keep our neighborhoods safe and preventing fires as well as injuries. Lastly, I will be hosting my monthly coffee hour this Saturday. at SK Donuts on Lower Sacramento Road at 10.30 a.m. We will have the presence of our Public Works Director, which he will be in attendance for education and also answer any city-related concerns. And that is all I have to report this week. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Enriquez.

Thank you, Mayor. So I'll start off like I normally do. I will start off with infrastructure. I want to just let my constituents know, and I did do some follow ups, but for now we have three potholes we're able to get fixed the force 4600 block of venicia boulevard the 1500 block of bacardi drive and the 1400 block of columbia avenue near victory park and that one in particular was about six small potholes and that was really important because as we all know and i mentioned at the last council meeting we have our concerts in the park now happening again at victory park so a lot of folks park the neighborhood streets so we wanted to make sure again that that was fixed so as people are parking they don't have issues with their alignment as they know that is a big issue for a lot of people We also had some graffiti cleared up at Billy Hebert Ballpark. That was an ongoing issue, but I'm thankful to our graffiti abatement team for clearing that up. And then also, I did talk to our public works director. We were able to get the metal guardrail fixed on Cleveland Street. The second time this year that it was fixed, again, speeding. People have to continue to just slow down. That was something that I think was within nine months ago i did a before after photo and then two weeks ago they were able to get it fixed again so again i know that's a it's a tough street to turn on but again please slow down as i know there's a lot of families and folks that live in that neighborhood also we're currently going to be doing a traffic study on that street just because some constituents flag that there's not a crosswalk onto that left turn that you make onto center street Again, there's some complications with that, but at least, the very least we can do is do a traffic study, which I know we, city manager and I discussed probably about two weeks ago, give or take. In terms of continuing with infrastructure, Oxford Circle and Bianchi Road, for those that know, we've had several community meetings that Oxford Circle that I led, I know our public works did a lot with Bianchi Road community, and I believe over 80% voted yes for the Bianchi Road traffic calming, so we'll be having speed bumps. THROUGHOUT BEYONCUE ROAD WHEN YOU'RE ON PACIFIC AVENUE. BEFORE YOU GET TO MARCH LANE GOING NORTH, YOU TAKE A RIGHT, THAT WHOLE STRIP OF BEYONCUE ROAD WILL BE SLOWED DOWN AS WELL AS RESTRIPING AND RUMBLES, RUMBLE PATS, BUMPS, I SHOULD SAY, WILL BE INSTALLED. BUT I'LL BE SURE TO LET YOU ALL KNOW WHEN THE TIMELINE IS, BUT AGAIN, 80 plus percent was yes. So that is going to be ongoing. And then also several constituents already have ballots for Oxford Circle. So we will share the results once we know those as well. And then the last thing with infrastructure in my district, we have the fall. This fall, we are still on track for the left turn signals, one on Harding Way turning into Pacific and the other one on Alpine turning into Alvarado, which is right by Oak Park. So those would be great ways, again, to slow down traffic in my district. In terms of events, on June 13th, I attended, it was a pretty busy day with three events. I did the American Legion Park cleanup, part of the Clean City Initiative. So we were there from about 8 to 11. I WAS THERE FOR THE FIRST TWO HOURS BECAUSE THEN I HAD TO HEAD TO VICTORY PARK FOR FATHERFEST, WHICH WAS I THINK MY THIRD OUT OF THE FOUR YEARS THEY'VE DONE IT ATTENDING. AND IT WAS GREAT. WE HAD, WE WERE ABLE TO GIVE AN AWARD, NOT ME, THE ORGANIZERS WERE ABLE TO GIVE OUT AN AWARD TO THE FATHER OF THE YEAR. AND WHAT WAS REALLY SPECIAL ABOUT THAT IS THAT HE DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS GETTING THE AWARD. So it was really special just to acknowledge who he is, the person that he is for his family. And then I was able to welcome everybody there. And not just fathers, but father figures. the single moms who play both roles or two moms, two dads, whatever the family dynamic is, plant dads, dog dads, you name it. But we want to celebrate all kinds of dads, and I think it was just a great way to bring people together. And then the third event that day was Taste of the Mile, which is one of my favorite events. It's also one of the biggest fundraisers for the Miracle Mile in my district. It was cowboy-themed. And I want to thank Vice Mayor Lee and Council Member Blower for joining me for that evening. And we had to make it very Latino, so we did request Caballo Dorado. And if you don't know Caballo Dorado, come to the next event and you will learn how to do that form of dance. But again, it was just great to be with everybody in community. And also to congratulate Kaylani, who's the executive director. I know her and the board did a lot of work. to continue to make Taste of the Mile just a great event. And it's all the small businesses throughout the mile that will go out there and provide a sample of their food, iced coffee, you name it. There's all types of options for folks, but just want to thank them for that. And then continuing our leg, our marathon of flag raisings, we had the second of the seven flags that we raised. We had our Army flag, which is the first of six of our veterans that we honor on June 15th. I know a lot of our veterans were there, Council Member Blower, and then I know Supervisor Gardea was there too to support. I want to congratulate Huddle for their second quarterly open house downtown on June 18th. And then my favorite one, I want to thank Council Member Blower and the mayor for the Oak Park pool opening. For those that saw videos on Instagram, yes, I did ride a mechanical bull and it lasted a good five minutes, give or take. Five minutes. I WON'T SAY THAT JOKE. BUT IT WAS A GREAT, WE HAD EVERYTHING. WE HAD JUMP HOUSES, WE HAD FACE PAINTING, WE HAD ABOUT TEN PEOPLE THAT DUMPED ME IN THE WATER TANK. I KNOW COUNCILMEMBER BLOWER GOT HIS REVENGE FULFILLED TWO SUMMERS AGO. Councilman Padilla and I were in line to get Councilmember Blauer, and we both got him in our own different ways, but we got him, and I think now he had to pay it back and get me, so you did really well, Councilmember. But no, it was just, I would say that was probably one of the first events I've had in a really long time in my district where you just felt full joy. You just felt, everybody just felt happy. Everybody was having a good time. You know, everything was structured so well. I want to thank Audrey, Penny, Dante, just the whole team. It was all hands on deck. Everybody rolled up their sleeves. Nobody was complaining. Everybody was just doing their part because we knew that we were delivering for the people that were there. Whether you were in my district, we had folks from all districts that were there. And again, that was the highlight, I think, that I've had in a really long time to do an event for people I know we had El Concilio was there as well. And then we also honored one of our youth baseball teams who they won their championship. I know last year we honored the Delta, I think Sunshine Group at the Ports game. I want to make sure we honor this team as well. Sunrise, thank you. I want to make sure we honor this team because this was the first time they won in 15 years. So I did say, I spoke with the city manager, if we can honor them at a future city hall meeting, I think that would be deeply appreciated. And I know that the kids will really enjoy it as well. Going back to the Oak Park, I forgot to mention too that that team as well, the coaches were so invested in their kids that they also took it upon themselves to cook burgers and hot dogs for the event. They didn't have to do it, but again, they just wanted to make sure that their kids were fed and everybody there was fed. So I want to thank them as well for stepping up and doing that because they didn't have to. And then we also had some tickets we provided as well, swim passes for families. And then also, I want to put it out there for my constituents, if there's any families that Can't afford to go to the pool, please let me know. I do have passes, so I'd like to be able to contribute that for folks who maybe can't afford $3, and not everybody can, and that's okay. But I want to make sure our city delivers, and I know Audrey has been really great about, we don't deny anybody any of the activities that we provide for our city, and I know we mean it. um that evening i know councilmember blauer mentioned it pixie woods fundraiser was great i want to think again mary and all the volunteers that do that work and that make that event possible this was my i think my third event but it was great i got to take my mom who it was her first her first time going to that event And then I also want to thank our city staff. I know I talk a lot about how there was so much joy at the Oak Park pool. It was just really cool to see city staff outside of the Tiger Street food truck outside of our new city hall. And, you know, Councilmember Villaputua, Florence, and I, we walked over. And it was just great because, you know, it wasn't a traditional ribbon cutting. It wasn't a typical certificate of recognition. It was just to say, wow, staff is out here to support this business. And I know Caroline, the owner, was really thankful. And she DMed me on Instagram later on to just say thank you. And I did tell the city staff that Council Member Villapurua and I were not cutting. We just had to get to the window to say hello and congratulations. So we were not cutting. It was a lie. Yes, exactly. So we weren't cutting. But no, it was really good to see that. I know Caroline mentioned that she started this business and it took her about almost a year to make that food truck happen. And she said that she first started that or she felt inspired to do it because she saw what we did with the street vendor ordinance. And from that, she was really just ready to go and say, you know, I want to have a small business and feed people the food of my culture to Stockton. So I thought that was really special.

She needs to bring it back.

Oh, of course. Yeah, she has to come back to New City Hall. At least once a week. Yes, once a week. Try the Dunkin' Noodles. And then also, I want to thank Stockton Service Corps. They had their alumni induction ceremony over the weekend. I know Congressman Harder was there. And a couple other staff were there, but it was really great to be there because we had a lot of the students that were there. They came to City Hall and I want to think our city clerk in our city manager. We got to meet about 20 of them who were here and just kind of really give them a lay of the land of the politics, government, how local government works. And I think it was one of the probably one of the most educational, fulfilling experiences I had just because of the discussions we had and. And I want to thank the presentation we had tonight about Rosenberg's rules of order because it was one of those things where as he was talking, I was thinking about what one of my former bosses, Anise Parker, who was the former mayor of Houston. But I learned through her that out of respect, whatever the last position you had in elected office, it's courtesy to call them that. And even though she wasn't the mayor of Houston for I think 10, 15 years, since she became the president of the nonprofit I worked out, we always called her Mayor Parker. And one of the first things she told me, we trained about 3,000 LGBTQ people to run for office throughout the country. And I did that for four years. And one of the things she always said, you know, Mara, I was a controller. I was a council member. I was the mayor. You know, she had about five positions in throughout Harris County in Houston. And she always said, local is where it's at. Local is where you see the most change, more than anything, whether it's state, uh... legislature whether it's congress locals where you see the most change and i think what he said just really resonated with what mayor parker uh... had always told the staff over the years about why uh... i was inspired to come back and run for city council versus anything else but it really is important we think about when you wake up you see government in action you see your street lights are on you see your your trash is being picked up you have no potholes in front of your street and that's something that's really important because you know, as someone that has worked for another council member, who has worked for a congress member, who has worked for a U.S. senator in D.C., federal government is very slow, and I was very impatient, and I hated how we wrote a policy memo and we didn't see a movement 12 months later, and it was very frustrating because there's all these committees, and there's all this back and forth, and there's all these markups you have to do, and it's very slow, but I'm glad here we can see at least some more movement than other levels of government. Upcoming events, we will be doing the Tenants Rights Town Hall in mid-July, so more details to come on that. So that is something that I have been committed to doing when it comes to affordability and rent stabilization. And then also this Monday, June 29th at 7 a.m., the county is raising the pride flag outside of the county administration building. So please join us. It is early. It is 7 a.m. But again, I'm really thankful that our county leadership is also recognizing the pride flag. And then with that, I know they recently raised the Juneteenth flag. And I know Vice Mayor and I have been having conversations. So that will be coming to our alleged committee meeting to add Juneteenth for the flag raisings for next year. And then tomorrow, to continue the District 4 fun, for anyone that wants to join me and cheer on Mexico, I will be having a World Cup watch party at Valley Brew at 6 p.m. You get to cheer on Mexico, support a local business, and, you know, it's a good time. And people might say, well, why don't you do other teams, and why don't you do other dates and times? It's really hard to be consistent with the World Cup schedule, and... It's great because it's on a weekday and it's at six in the evening and it's not at 10 a.m. or eight in the morning. So I think it's a reasonable time to cheer on a team that I think the majority of Stocktonians would likely cheer for. If you all want to join me, please come out tomorrow at Valley Brew. Mexico versus, I think, Chia. And then EMAC, a local immigrants' rights organization, is having their first barbecue stick cook-off from 2 to 5, located at 4520 Kwashnik Road. Please come out again. It's just to support their ongoing work. for immigrant rights, and I think that's their first annual. And then as legislation committee, as some of my colleagues that we've mentioned earlier throughout the council meeting, we're gonna be discussing ordinances related to animals, street vendors coming back to do a slight amendment on times, throughout our parks as council member padilla mentioned about legal dumping project sentinel will be doing the presentation they weren't able to at the last meeting due to a last-minute emergency but they will be coming to present on the housing work they're doing on their side that way we can differentiate what they're doing what the city's doing and what else needs to be done for tenant protections Happy Juneteenth. Happy Immigrant Heritage Month. And again, please call me 209-645-2711. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. So I first want to start with why I voted no on 6.1. I did go into it, my feelings and thoughts on that, but I also had members of the public that reached out to me and spoke about it. But when you go into the actual redlined or final adopted ordinance, just know it goes into effect in 30 days, so that's July 23rd. But the fact is, it says it's unlawful for any person, in any school building, rec center, daycare, park, city-owned building, or on any mode of public transportation. It says, but not limited to buses and trains, of course, but I didn't know we had trolleys or subways, but I know we used somebody else's. Also that this will be a misdemeanor, and subject to criminal sanctions and that the penalty it's subject to a administrative penalty in the amount of a thousand dollars and that there will be citations issued and enforcement of the provisions of the ordinance and then lastly the confiscation piece and I just want people to comply, comply. Don't put yourself in a position where it can get out of hand. So if an officer asks you to remove it, please just remove it. I think that that's the best path forward on that. Ad hoc, we've spent zero dollars. In a year, it automatically expires unless it's extended, so I just wanted to put that there. Mailboxes, in terms of the mailbox theft, I would like ledge committee to look at a mailbox ordinance that was brought to me by Congressman Harder, and that is for new construction on homes that they actually have a mailbox at their house. as opposed to one of those mailbox towers. So let's try to cut it off at the head and have that. But Congressman Harder referenced ordinances that are in other municipalities. I'm looking forward to when rent stabilization comes. uh to council i don't know when that is but i know that you have been uh talking about that uh town halls um oh no i want to address comments from the public first of all the fact that we got the score of five out of 100 on parks i say i don't believe it if you've been to our parks we have some amazing parks in stockton so to say we're five out of a hundred i don't believe it i'm shocked by it item 16 6.2 uh i agree i'm very happy about that item with lewis park yes please make sure it's ada compliant make sure that that you involve the public in the drafting of that. And I also want to recommend Open Water Sports because they will help us with funding and create open water rowing, canoeing, all that kind of good stuff, but specifically rowing. And also, I agree with Mary Elizabeth that we do need more trash bins in the park. I think that's all of that one. And then going over, my town halls started out slow, but that's okay, I don't mind. There were 15 people and then it dropped off to like 14 people and then it dropped off to 11 people. I did three in one day. There will be another round in other districts. I waited until after the election just so that nobody would think I was doing anything to hold them. And everybody's invited. So I had candidates at them, but they didn't talk other than to ask questions. And one of the questions they asked was if there could be a parking pass. where a member of the public instead of paying 20 bucks 20 bucks 20 bucks 20 bucks 20 bucks and i thought that was a great idea they want to attend events then let them do a get a parking pass so i think we should maybe look into that um stockton thunder yes it was brought up but what wasn't brought up was that there's going to be glow-in-the-dark shirts that when they put out the lights, it will have the S and lightning bolts going down the sleeves, which I can't wait to wear one of those. Yes, you did. And the Stockton Crusaders, there will not be another arena football team within a 90 mile radius. So Sacramento, you're going to have to come to Stockton to see arena football. Just saying. Columbus Park, great time for that. And Congressman Harder showed up for that event. And there's a community garden there that I hope that that gets up and running because there are a lot of people that support that and it would be good for that area Oak Park free swimming thank you so much councilman that we have free swimming nobody had to pay for anything they went in there and got to just have fun I was at the Juneteenth 50th anniversary gala and And it was, again, a really nice event. It was at Victory and Praise. Everybody was dressed to the nines, and they were there. We had a performance by children doing the anthem and a phenomenal job by them and then the Jazz Festival as well as the Juneteenth Festival was the next day and I will tell you where there were thousands of people in downtown Stockton it was on Saturday and Sunday but the line went all the way up center it went down too but up here to fremont and then down to the hotel that's how long the line was and they weren't single file they were in groups so if you saw pictures there wasn't a space available on the lawn at weber point event center it was packed So I didn't hear of any incidents, but I would like to say that thank you for coming to Stockton. If you came from out of town in Stockton, folks, thank you for going to an event in Stockton. Women Veterans and Military Members Summit, they just had one, and it was very well attended from all branches except space. There was no space branch there. This morning I gave a tour of New City Hall to a group from the Native American Indian Center, and there were about 50 people or so that we did a little tour, and they were asking great questions. I mean, they were little kids, like four-year-olds asking questions. They were so cute. Fourth of July, yes, come out for the parade at 10. Festival gates will open at 5. The symphony will be playing. It's America's 250th anniversary. It's the symphony's 100th anniversary. It's been 20 years since they performed last, and it is free. The fireworks, don't do illegal fireworks. We're going to have the best show around. So you think you're going to do it at your house, but guess what? We're going to be out there. Well, not me, but there will be people out enforcing. Just don't do it. You can do the safe and sane, but don't do the big fireworks because you all know we've got drones now and we can zoom in right on you and take a picture of you and have your address and be there to get you. If we don't get you that night or the next night, we will get you eventually. And during our fireworks, so I'm hoping there should be 16 cannon shots. because the 1812 overture will be played and I'm hoping the fireworks are timed directly for that and I think I got to everything on my list so thank you and that concludes council comments so moving on then to closed session this uh... for item fourteen point one conference with labor negotiator this closed session is authorized pursuant to section five four nine five seven point six eight of the government code uh... item four teen point two conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation this closed session is authorized pursuant to section five four nine five six point nine subsection d one of the government code item fourteen point three conference with legal counsel significant exposure to litigation this closed session is authorized pursuant to section five four nine five six point nine uh... seven d two and eat too of the government code and then items fourteen point four and fourteen point five uh... that has to do with are public uh... employee annual uh... performance evaluation and this body will recess to close session pursuant to government code section five four nine five seven b uh... to discuss that item Do we have any public comment?

For closed session? No, we do not.

No, we don't. Okay. So this body will now recess. Report out after coming, exiting closed session.

No, Mayor. No, Vice Mayor. No reportable actions.

Okay. Is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. 1057.