City Council - Regular Meeting

to facilitate city business without disruption in the meeting. Applause is appropriate for items listed in the presentation portion of the agenda only. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, this will bring us to our oral communications opportunity. Any member of the public may address the council on agency related matters that are not on the agenda by requesting to speak during this section of the agenda. If you're participating via Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or press star nine now if you'd like to speak. The number of speakers that will be heard during this segment is limited to 10. Any remaining speakers will be heard under the second oral communications item if there are more than 10. And we are gonna begin this evening with Patty Taylor. And then we'll hear from Omer, I think it's Ekel, Esekiel.

Good evening. I am Patty Taylor, HOA President of Shadow Ridge Sunrise Association. I am here to speak about safety. An easement agreement was signed November 7, 1991, between the Shadow Ridge Golf Club and the Shadow Ridge Sunrise Association, designating a path crossing over the private street spyglass circle to get from the 7th to the 8th fairways of the golf club. Shadow Ridge golf members do not use the golf cart path, but trespass onto our private street spyglass circle, stopping traffic and escape being hit by cars that are coming from a blind corner turn. When the cars and walkers meet, head on with the oncoming traffic, the golfers drive around the cars or drive on the front yards of the homes. to use the maintenance entrance to the eighth fairway. Delivery trucks and contracted workers are not expecting the carts and walkers outside of the golf cart path. When we asked the golfers to please use the path, They replied that Spyglass Circle is a public street and, quote, from the City of Vista ordinance, they have the right to use it. So I conferred with the City of Vista as to clarification. May 4th, 2026, Darren Rudy, Assistant Engineer, responded. The Vista Municipal Code Chapter 16.57.020 states, standards for private streets. H, the city shall assume no responsibility for enforcement of parking and traffic control except fire lane enforcements unless specifically requested and approved. Digging deeper, on May 12th, 2026, Sam Hasen, Division Manager, Traffic Engineering Division, sent the City Council Resolution 98, which specifically lists 81 street names that golf carts can travel on, including the public street, excuse me, they can travel on, including the private street Spyglass Circle. His conclusion, I consulted with the city attorney's office and confirmed that the city council resolution 9438 should not include designating private streets for the use of golf carts as the vehicle code only gives the city the authority to designate public streets. We will be going to the city council to correct the resolution in the next few months. Therefore, the issues you expressed with the golf carts using Spyglass Circle need to be resolved within the HOA and the golf course without city involvement. I am thanking the engineers from the City of Vista. They went all out for us. And that's the way City of Vista is. And now I want to thank you for attending to this as soon as... And I have to apologize because that should, but...

But we will follow up on this and appreciate you bringing this issue to our attention. And it sounds like you're already in touch with some city staff, but if you want to visit with Imelda Huerta, she'll be available to help you further this evening. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Omer, and I apologize. Is it... It's Achiquel? Achiquel. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you for trying. Um, Good evening. I'm here to talk about the short-term rental enforcement that City of Vista passed the regulations about two years ago.

Speak directly into the microphone and we'll hear you better.

For sure. I'm going to call short-term not as STRs. And this regulation regulates the unhosted STRs, which the whole house are rented for renters. So that's a defense line. defense line for us to live peacefully in a neighborhood that there's a short-term rental next to us. And this past two years I had number of violations that I filed with the city and I will say this much, it's frustrating and recently it's downright, I find it like some city employees are actually Dismissive. And I have an email I sent the city council members on Monday with the email trail that I had with the city employees with the evidence that I show from the owner's listings on listings. This is a five-bedroom short-term rental with a pool in the backyard. It's advertised as a... backyard paradise, vacation home. And specifically, I'm gonna talk about today three of the items that is dear to me. One is the fire code violation, the second one is the occupancy limitation, and the 24-7 agent. So I'm gonna read the... I won't have time, I'm not going to read, but if you can look at the picture, there's a barbecue just below an awning, which is a wood structure and strictly violation of the STR code as it's written, like plain English. And the fire code, I mean, fire department just says it's okay. And I cannot believe this, but we are living next to, and then there are renters that they, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, I smell they are using barbecue, for example, and that increases the likelihood of a fire. And number two, the occupancy. The city actually gave a license to the owner, which shows it should be 11 because it's a five bedroom, five times two plus one. And that's violated because he lists more than that. And recently, court enforcement said a living room, which I have also a picture of, is count as a bedroom to increase the occupancy. So, and the last one is 24 seven agent, which I tried to contact to this given phone number, odd hours, 1 a.m., 2 a.m., there's yelling and screaming and nobody answered the phone. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Now we're gonna go to Zoom. We'll hear first from Justin Searcy and then from Madison Rapp and then from Becky Rapp. Justin Searcy.

Hi, yes. Thank you for taking the call. So I am a resident of Shadow Ridge, very close to Thibodeau Park. And I know there's been a lot of back and forth regarding the Thibodeau Park pickleball and especially the, you know, the kind of the noise, the excessive noise. And I'm really close to that. park. And maybe if I took my laptop outside, you could hear the pops. But I just was because it is very distracting and really is having a major impact on I know me and my wife and probably lots of other neighbors as well. I just was curious if we could get kind of a update. I know we're coming up on almost two years ago that there was discussion about removing and converting those courts back to tennis courts. Is there any kind of update we can get to make it at least make us feel better? Um, you know, cause we have to live with this. I mean, literally from the time the gates open at 7.00 AM till nine o'clock at night, it's pretty constant. Um, and definitely has a massive impact. So I just was curious if there would, could be some kind of updates. I know that there was talk about adding some courts at Bringled, Terrace Park, which I think was done. I don't know. We're just kind of curious. We're searching for any kind of solution to help remedy this. I'm taking sound meter readings and stuff, and it definitely, I think, is breaching decibel levels for kind of noise. complaint type situation. So anyway, I just was curious if you had some kind of updates that you could maybe give us and my neighbors some thoughts or feedback. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Searcy, if you'll email mayor at vista.gov, we'll make sure that you get a response. We do have some information on that. Next, we'll hear from Madison Rapp, followed by Becky Rapp.

Hi, thank you mayor and city council members. So tonight I wanted to share about my concern about the growing normalization of marijuana use and what science tells us about its impact on young people. When silver is a San Diego based public health physician and advocate focused on protecting youth health through evidence based policy, prevention and education. Her work centers on reducing the harms of substance use and supporting healthier communities, and she shared recent research that shows that when it comes to cannabis, three factors matter most. How often it is used, how young someone is when they start, and the potency of the THC. Unfortunately, today's marijuana products are far more potent than those used in previous generations, and young people are particularly vulnerable to the effects. Studies have found that heavy cannabis use is associated with changes in brain connectivity, reduced working memory, and an increased risk of psychosis-like symptoms. Perhaps most concerning, adolescents who used cannabis within the previous year were found to have double the risk of developing a psychotic or bipolar disorder by age 26. We're also seeing other serious consequences. Cases of cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a condition that causes severe and repeated vomiting, have quadrupled among young adults in recent years. Researchers have concluded that cannabis is not supported as a treatment for many mental health conditions, despite claims often made by the industry. The takeaway from this research is that there is no safe limit for youth cannabis use the developing brain is uniquely susceptible to harm and early exposure carries measurable risks that can last well into adulthood. As policymakers, you have a responsibility to put the health and well being of young people first, so I urge you to continue supporting policies that reduce youth exposure limit normalization and prioritize prevention and education, thank you.

Next is Becky Rapp followed by Judy String. Becky Rapp.

Good evening. My name is Becky Rapp and I wanted to raise concerns regarding California Assembly Bill 2697, which is currently advancing through the State Assembly and would allow marijuana storefronts to operate drive-through sales. If this bill becomes law, we'd see an increase in normalization and commercialization, increased convenience leading to higher consumption, public safety concerns leading to impaired driving. And if that's not enough, one major concern is that the bill contains no safeguards regarding children being present in vehicles during marijuana purchases. An adult could potentially drive through a pot shop with children in the backseat while purchasing high-potency THC products. We continue hearing from public health experts about increasing youth mental health challenges, like the previous speaker described. Rising THC potency, accidental ingestion, and normalization of drug use among children and teens. Yet Sacramento is moving forward with policies that further commercialize and normalize marijuana consumption. Drive-thru marijuana sales send the message that marijuana should be treated like a fast food or coffee. This seems contradictory while the state and local jurisdictions continue investing millions into prevention, behavioral health, homelessness response, and public safety. I urge this council to formally communicate with state assembly members and ask them to oppose AB 62697. Thank you.

And our final Zoom speaker is Judy String.

Good evening, Mayor Franklin and Vista City Council. I came to share some information from one of my favorite monthly newsletters, a national newsletter of a group that care about youth prevention. It's called One Chance to Grow Up. They're reminding us, and we're hearing this terminology more and more, regarding the products that are grouped together and called gas station heroin. Now, these products aren't heroin, but they are found at gas station, and they include things like psilocybin, which is sometimes called magic mushrooms, nitrous oxide, kratom. That's the one we commonly see up here in North County. In fact, you see Vista stores that have kratom actually out on a sign. And other hemp derived, so they seem to be okay, CBD products, but indeed have high concentrations of THC. All these products are illegal to sell. And we do find them at gas stations. We also find them at tobacco retailers in your city. And I realize that your TRL ordinance deals with the sale of tobacco to young people, but I think it's important to know that that's where our young people are getting these type of products, are at our tobacco retailers, at VISTA's vape shops, and at gas stations. And that it would serve us all well if we could have some code enforcement, perhaps some help from the sheriff's office, and go in and seize. We know that that's been happening in VISTA. And in Encinitas. And I think that if you haven't already begun those operations in VISTA, it's time because that's where our children are getting the products that they're using. They're highly intoxicating. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll now close the opportunity for oral communications at tonight's meeting. And that'll bring us to our consent calendar. The recommendations on the following consent calendar will be enacted in one motion unless an item is removed from the calendar. Any member of the public may remove an item by submitting a request to speak card to the clerk secretary or by using the raise their hand feature on Zoom or by pressing star nine. Item is removed from the consent calendar will be considered immediately following the adoption of the calendar. We have 11 consent items this evening. Council Member Contreras.

Yes, thank you. I would like to move adoption of the consent calendar. And I just want to make a brief comment on C7, which is designed for North Santa Fe Avenue sewer capacity improvements. I have had communication with the city because this is going to be very disruptive on North Santa Fe. And so the city is going to be reaching out to businesses. I'll be reaching out to folks to make sure that everybody knows this is happening. And with that, I'll go ahead and move approval. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Melendez.

I'll second.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. That item passes unanimously with Councilmember O'Donnell absent. And that'll bring us to the first of three public hearings this evening. Our first is regarding amendments to the VISTA's Municipal Code Chapter 2.12. The public hearing is now open. If any member of the public wishes to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise their hand feature by pressing star 9 or submitting a request to speak card here at the dais. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our City Attorney, Walter Chung, will provide the staff report.

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor and council members, this item is to make amendments to the Vista Municipal Code to come into compliance with a new state law that went into effect October 2025 that amends parts of the Brown Act with the intent of diversifying and increasing public engagement during our city council meetings and commission meetings. So among the various new requirements under the new law, the city council must offer hybrid meetings, which we already do. That's a meeting that allows both in-person and remote participation. We do that via Zoom and language translation, which we do through Wordly. However, we also need to amend the code to meet some new requirements that we don't currently use, and that is to adopt a policy that addresses procedures for disruption of internet service and The state is mandating that the legislative body take a recess of one hour in order to try to fix the services. We've had a policy. It's on our agenda since the COVID time where we had an eruption in Internet. We would try to fix it. And if we couldn't, within 10 minutes, we would adjourn the meeting. But this would now formalize a new policy that we have to staff has to work for at least an hour to try to fix. to fix it. Notably, during that time, if the council needs to meet in closed session, it can do so. And after the one hour, if the services can't be restored after a vote of the council, if there's a majority vote, the council can continue to meet in person, even though the technology is not available. So the other is, the other is amendments to the code. This is not specifically based on the state law, but we're taking the opportunity to amend this chapter to clarify that the decorum rules that apply to in-person now apply to people appearing virtually. So basically it's people in person or virtually will be treated the same and they need to behave in this in the same manner and then finally it was just a few code amendments to update I Took the liberty of adding the 1030 hard stop on the City Council meetings into the code since it was only a minute It was a minute order in the in a previous meeting and with that I would recommend that the council the conduct this public hearing, close it after any comments from the public or the council, and then introduce and adopt the ordinance as drafted in the packet.

Thank you very much. Council Member Contreras.

I'm assuming we don't have anybody that wants to speak on it.

I don't see any public comments on this item.

Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much for updating our municipal code. I know there's a lot of updates that need to happen, dust the cobwebs off and modernize it. So with that, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and move adoption of the updates on the code.

Can I add one thing? I did also remove all the smoking prohibitions. So there used to be no smoking allowed in the council chambers. However, we are non-smoking, all public facilities are non-smoking. So I did remove that out of the chapter just for complete awareness. Very good, Council Member Fox.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm glad to see we're already in compliance with most of this. That's great, and I'll second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. That motion is passed unanimously by the members present. That'll bring us with four in favor and one absent. That'll bring us to public hearing number two, a public hearing regarding commercial and residential solid waste collection service rates for fiscal years 26-27 through 2030-2031. The public hearing is now open. If any member of the public wishes to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise their hand feature or by pressing star nine or by submitting a request to speak card here at the dais. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Anyone wishing to submit a written protest should do so at this time. Protest letters must be received by the city clerk prior to the close of this public hearing. Letters received after the close of this public hearing will not be counted. Administrative Programs Manager Leslie Webb Blanca will provide the staff report.

Thank you and good evening Mayor, Council Members.

Just bring that microphone all the way close to your mouth there.

Is that better?

Get as close to it as you can. There you go.

Good evening. Okay. My name is Leslie Webb Blanco and I am the Public Works Administrative Programs Manager. The item before you this evening is to consider the proposed commercial and residential solid waste collection service rates for fiscal years 2026-27 and future inflationary adjustments through fiscal year 2030-31. For a quick background, the city has an exclusive franchise agreement with EDCO Disposal Corporation for citywide solid waste and recycling collection services. Under the terms of the agreement, EDCO may request an annual rate review to adjust the amount charged for providing service. Rate adjustments are limited to consumer price index increases and tipping fee increases as regulated by the Regional Solid Waste Association, of which VISTA is a member agency. The city reviews all adjustment requests for consistency with the franchise agreement and rate adjustments are subject to the noticing and public hearing requirements of Proposition 218. On March 18th, 2026, EDCO submitted a rate adjustment request for fiscal year 2026-27, reflecting a 3.863% CPI increase and a 3.01% tipping fee increase. For the most common level of residential service, a 95-gallon cart service weekly, the current rate is $36.97, and the proposed rate is $38.32, an increase of $1.35 per month. For the most common commercial trash level service, a three yard bin service one time per week, the current rate is $179.93 and the proposed rate is $186.56, an increase of $6.63 per month. For reference, the complete rate package is included in exhibit two of the agenda report. To streamline the annual rate setting process, staff recommends allowing future annual adjustments limited to CPI and tipping fee cost changes as authorized by the franchise agreement through fiscal year 2030-31. If approved, fiscal year 2026-27 rates would take effect on July 1st, 2026. At the April 28th, 2026 council meeting, council authorized city to proceed with Proposition 218, noticing requirements to conduct a majority protest vote. On May 4th, 2026, approximately 22,000 public hearing notices in both English and Spanish were sent to property owners citywide, allowing more than 45 days notice of this public hearing. Public hearing notices detailed the formal protest process and included a link to a dedicated website with additional information and resources. Under Proposition 218, if a majority of property owners protest the rate increases, the proposed rates must be rejected. As of tonight's hearing, 23 protest letters have been received and are on file with the city clerk's office. In conclusion, staff recommends that council conduct and close the public hearing and should the council choose so, adopt the resolution establishing the 2026-27 commercial and residential solid waste collection service rates and authorizing future annual inflationary adjustments through fiscal year 2030-31 in accordance with the franchise agreement. This concludes my presentation. I'd like to acknowledge that Matthew Cleary General Manager of EDCO is in attendance this evening as well, and we are available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Contreras.

Great, you know what, I have some questions. So the current franchise agreement, does that already specify the consumer price index and tipping fee changes to be adjusted with CPI?

The franchise agreement allows for CPI increases and tipping fee increases, which are set by RISWA, which is the Regional Solid Waste Association.

So we don't have any authority to renegotiate the contract as is during this meeting? I'm seeing head shakes of no. Okay. And has it been that we usually just increase with consumer price index and tipping fee charges like as the CPI goes up? Or is this a new addition to the franchise? I'm just trying to figure out where.

No, actually, we had a five-year rate schedule set. We brought that forward in 2020, I believe, and 2021, that would be five years. So, yeah, so there was a five-year schedule set then, and at this point, we're asking to set another, establish the 26, 27 rates, which we know, and then just allow for the inflationary increases that are part of the franchise agreement already for the next four years through 2030-31.

Okay. Usually this is normal course of business. However, I'm really concerned about the inflationary environment that we're in right now. although folks have the ability to protest and we've received several protests, I think most people don't really know that or don't know how to go about it. But it doesn't seem like there's anything that we can do. I'm just concerned that there's gonna be higher inflation and we're gonna see people's bills go up and I understand that the cost of business for EDCO goes up, they do a great job, so I don't wanna put any burden on their ability to collect our waste, because that would be a huge problem, but I do have some serious concerns about future inflation and what that looks like. I'll just hear what the rest of my council has to say, thanks.

Okay, not seeing any requests from other council members to speak on this. I just want to say thanks to Mr. Cleary and Mr. South for being with us tonight. In 11 and a half years that I've been on this council, I think Ed goes on a really fine job for the city of Vista. And I just want to say thank you. You're a great locally owned, family owned firm and part of our community in every way. sponsor a lot of great charitable endeavors in the community and just want to say thank you for taking great care of our residents and for being a genuine part of our North County community. So thank you for that. And with that, I see Councilmember Fox wants to speak. Was there public speakers?

No, I just wanted to announce we received one protest letter at the meeting tonight from Mr. Mendez at 1329 Bluegrass Road.

OKAY. I'D LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION TO I'D LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING AND CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING AND ADOPT STAFF'S RECOMMENDATIONS. ADOPT STAFF'S RECOMMENDATIONS. I'LL SECOND THAT.

I'LL SECOND THAT. AND OF COURSE WE ALL LAMENT THAT AND OF COURSE WE ALL LAMENT THAT THE PRICE OF THINGS IS GOING UP. THE PRICE OF THINGS IS GOING UP. BUT IN REVIEW OF THIS CONTRACT BUT IN REVIEW OF THIS CONTRACT SEEMS THAT THE INCREASES ARE SEEMS THAT THE INCREASES ARE CONSISTENT WITH INFLATION OF JUST CONSISTENT WITH INFLATION OF JUST ABOUT EVERY OTHER GOOD AND ABOUT EVERY OTHER GOOD AND SERVICE IN OUR ECONOMY. SER You know, EDCO has to pay fees to tip or dump their trucks at the dump sites, at the landfills, and does not control those fees and has to pass them along to the ratepayers. So with that, I'll second the motion. And we have a motion to second. Please cast your votes. That item is approved with four in favor and one absent. And again, thank you to the EDCO team, we appreciate you. Okay, this will bring us to public hearing number three, Our final public hearing regarding the collection of delinquent 2025 weed abatement charges. The public hearing is now open. If any member of the public wishes to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise your hand feature by pressing star nine or submitting a request to speak card. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our management analyst, Joshua Cena-Cruz, will provide the staff report.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the City Council. Tonight's hearing is for the collection of delinquent 2025 weed abatement charges. So each year, fire prevention staff inspects properties for hazardous weeds and vegetation in accordance with VISTA Municipal Code Chapter 8.60. During the 2025 program, 597 properties within the city received notices to clear hazardous vegetation in April. Follow-up inspections began in June and by December 2025, two properties remained that required the city to perform weed abatement through a contractor. The outstanding balance for those two properties totals $5,840, which includes the contractor's costs and the associated administrative fee. The required public hearing notice was posted and advertised for tonight's meeting. Property owners were provided notice of the weed abatement requirements and were subsequently invoiced for the contractor's work and admin fee after the city completed the abatement. Due to the remaining outstanding balance, staff recommends conducting and closing the public hearing, approving and confirming the fiscal year 25-26 report of proceedings and accounts of costs, and ordering the unpaid charges to be placed on the fiscal year 26-27 property tax roll for collection. This concludes staff's presentation, and we're available to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. And Callison, if the gentleman would like to be heard, I'd be happy to give him three minutes to be heard if he'd like to address the council. No? Oh, different item, okay. All right. Okay, with that, Council Member Fox.

Perfect. Thank you for putting this on there. I'd like to make a motion to close the public hearing and approve the fiscal year report and place the assessment on the property tax rolls.

Council Member Contreras.

Yes, I just have a question. Do we provide any kind of financial grant assistance for folks that maybe just don't have the funds to be able to do weed abatement.

I think the chief has some information about programs that are available, ask him to come down.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, I just would like a review of that and also just on the website under vegetation management, I don't see that there's any programs listed.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Gerard Washington, Fire Chief. To answer your question, you asked this question probably about four months ago, five months ago. It was relative to working out the details with an agency we're working with, CCC, and hoping to build something to support those individuals that have a financial burden. And so we haven't finalized. worked all the details yet, but that is definitely on top of our radar. Recognition of people being financially strapped to have this weed abatement taken care of. But we do take it seriously and we work with, just so everyone knows here, that we do work with the homeowners. There's a lot of work put into And what we find with some of the forced abatements, they ditch us. We can't get a hold of them. And so we'll go out, inspectors do everything we're required to do and then some. And when it comes to that point of being forced, our hands are tied at that point. But we try and work it out long before it's forced.

Okay, Chief Washington, I appreciate that. Yeah, this is something that I'll continue to ask about until I see it in front of me. Can we anticipate that this is something that in the next few months the Council will be able to review, or is this not going to the Council level?

I will bring it to this Council and just go over our agreement and working relationship with CCC.

Okay, yeah, and then we can always, you know, I know you're great at building relationships within the city and outside of the city with different agencies, which I really appreciate the direction that you've taken, Vista Fire Rescue. So I look forward to seeing what we can do because, One of the big things for me is some of these properties, I mean, it just costs a lot of money to do weed abatement more than you would think, depending on the severity and extent of how big the parcel is. maybe there's not a huge need now, but potentially you just never know. So being able to have some kind of program established, I think is just beneficial to everybody. It's certainly beneficial to the city if we can tackle this sooner rather than later, right? Instead of having to wait to put it on property tax between, you know, the first initial contact to having to wait, it could be, it's just a long time, so. Thank you so much. With that, I'll go ahead and move, let's see, what is this? I will close the public hearing and move forward the resolution. Oh, I'll second your motion. I totally forgot you made a motion. All right, thank you.

Okay, and Chief, just to clarify for everybody, if somebody doesn't have the resources, then we will do the abatement for them. And then this hearing will add the cost of that to the property tax rolls, just for everybody. So if somebody can't afford, then basically we're doing it at the city's expense, but then this will assign it to the property tax rolls and the homeowner. Effectively, let's say when they sell the house or potentially, when they pass and they transfer the property, the property tax rolls are going to, eventually they're going to wind up paying for it out of the equity of their property. So as much as we don't ever want to place an economic burden on anybody, this is, and I'll just say, our fire department's doing a great job. I think we're about 8,000 inspections a year now. And I got to say, my fire insurance just went up to $2,700, which is almost double. And that's not something that the fire department can directly control, but through these inspections that I know you've joined in, Council Member Contreras and real concerned as I do about the ability to afford homeowners insurance and to be safe from these wildfires. And I just want to commend our fire department is doing a great job with these inspections and as much as we would hate to ever have to force abatement it has to be done to control wildfire. So I just want the public to understand why we're doing this and sort of the finance mechanism if you can't afford it is we'll do it for you. But at some point when the property is sold, the county, the city is made whole immediately by the county. And then at some point the county, which then will carry the debt will be made whole when the property tax bill is settled.

So, but I would like to add last year, it took us three months to get through all those parcels. And we had over 2000 re-inspections this year. We've gotten them done in one month and we've had 200 re-inspections. So the programs are working and some of the homeowners that weren't too happy with us last year, they say they get it now. They understand. And we'll continue to work to try and make it as painless as possible for all. We appreciate that, Chief. Council Member Contreras, did you have another thought?

I did, I did. And so is this part of the zone zero philosophy? This is outside of that, right?

It's outside of that. That's coming. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves with that one, but it's coming.

And has there ever been a presentation to the council about, this is the Conservation Corps, or what's the- CCC, yes. Have we ever had a presentation about The nexus between them, our relationship, and...

The fire chief mentioned it when they presented, but we haven't given you a full presentation of the program yet. They're still working on it, so we'll bring it before you when it's all ready to go.

Okay. Yeah, and then just, you know, I... You'll hear me say this over and over again. I really want to have a community fire prevention type of fair in the downtown, probably utilizing the AVO, and just letting folks know about these different things, the programs that we have, why they're important, some of the stats, and potentially how they can... you know, prevent wildfires and also lastly, how folks can evacuate in some of these areas that are in high fire, very high fire severity zones. So I look forward to bringing that sometime to the community as well. Thank you so much.

Okay, thank you. Okay, we have a motion to second, please cast your votes. Okay, that item is approved with four in favor and one absent. And then council, we had a resident that wanted to be heard. I think on the last item, would there be unanimous consent to allow this gentleman an oral communications opportunity? We've closed the public hearing, but I want this gentleman to have the opportunity to be heard if he'd like to speak to the council. I believe, I'm not exactly sure what he's speaking to, but I know he wanted to be heard.

My name is Albert, and Mr. and Mrs. Albert are in English, Spanish, Espanol, Irma, Hazan, Jr., And my wife and I have lived in our home Casa here in Vista for 46 years. And we've never seen anything like this, this inflation is. And which I know the city of Vista has nothing to do with San Diego gas and electric bill. But the San Diego gas and electric bill is costing us $190 a month. It's over $6 a day. We even do our gas and electric. At hours, they say do not do it between 5 o'clock in the evening to 9 o'clock at night. We do early in the morning or late in the afternoon. I mean, not late in the afternoon, late at night. and only three times a week, and we're still getting outrageous bills. And then we received this notice that they're planning on increasing the salt waste collection fee, and that's what we're coming here to protest. And my recommendation is, for that company, is bite the bullet. Bite the bullet. No, no, no. Tell them, bite the bullet. And I hope I'll get through to them and to all of you to please help Ayuda Mucho. And I appreciate your time and your patience to listen to me. This is the first time I've ever had to come up and protest something like this. So I appreciate if I could get an answer today or as soon as possible. Or if you'd like me to put it in the writing, I'll put it in writing and send you a letter. But the assistant here told me that's not necessary. So I'm probably like a small fish in a big barrel, but there's probably many, many people out there that feel the same, but just have them come to a meeting to speak what they feel. And I'm just, you know, Vista has really grown. Yeah. Thank you, gracias, for your time and patience. And if there's anything you would like to tell me...

Thank you very much. And I apologize that our rules don't allow for a back and forth, but if you will put your contact information on one of these speaker slips, then I will personally follow up with you. If you want to wait until the meeting is over, I'll personally visit with you. I understand. So if you'll write your name and your contact information on one of these forms Callison's holding right here, then I'll personally follow up with you, or if you'd like to wait until the conclusion of the meeting, then I'll visit with you, okay? Thank you, sir, okay. All right, thank you, Council, for that. Okay, that's going to bring us to item D1, our first discussion item regarding regulations for candidate statements to be submitted to the voters for the November 3rd, 2026 general municipal election. If any members of the public wish to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise their hand feature, by pressing star nine, or submitting a request to speak card. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our study clerk, Kathy Valdez, will provide the staff report.

Thank you, Mayor. California Elections Code permits each candidate at any local election to prepare a candidate statement of qualifications to be printed in the voter information pamphlet no longer than 200 words unless the local agency authorizes statements up to 400 words. The code also permits the local agency to charge the candidate an estimated pro rata share of the cost of language translation and printing the statement in the voter information pamphlet. The San Diego County Registrar of Voters has estimated the cost to be $1,300 for a 200 word statement and $2,000 for a 400 word statement. The City Council has three options this evening. You may, one, take no action and each candidate will be allowed to submit a 200-word statement, which the city will be required to pay the full cost for, or you can adopt a resolution limiting the candidate statement qualification to 200 words and requiring the candidate to pay the cost of their statement, or adopt a resolution limiting candidate statement qualifications to 400 words and requiring the candidate to pay the cost of their statement. If the City Council chooses to authorize a 400-word statement, all candidates would be subject to the estimated $2,000 fee or need to opt out of submitting a candidate statement of qualification. That completes my report. I'm available to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. We've always had a 400-word candidate statement. I personally think it provides candidates the greatest opportunity at the lowest cost way to make their case to voters. And I would urge the council to continue offering candidates that opportunity for 400 words. For many candidates, it might be the fullest, complete way that they get their message to all the voters. Council Member Fox.

Thank you, yeah, I mean, I think when I was running that I appreciated the 400 words myself, but I'm open to whatever council, to hear from the rest of my council.

Council Member Contreras.

You know, we've been doing the 400 word statement for quite some time. I know that this is sometimes one of the biggest costs, you know, for some candidates, but I like the 400 words. So that's kind of where I'm at. See if anybody else has anything else to say.

Seeing no other requests to speak, I'll second your motion if you'll make one to adopt the 400 words and the fee associated as described. Yeah.

Okay, yeah, I'll make a motion to accept 400 word statement with the designated fee for 400 words.

Okay, we have a motion and a second, please cast your votes. That item is approved with a four in favor and one not present. That'll bring us to item D2 regarding the process to resolve a tie vote for the November 3rd, 2026 general municipal election. If any members of the public wish to speak on the side of the meeting, indicate so by using the raise your hand feature by pressing star nine or submitting requests to speak. Our speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our city clerk, Kathy Valdez, will provide the report.

Thank you. California Election Code provides that a tie vote is to be determined by the Elections Board, in our case, the County Board of Supervisors, by lot, unless the City Council adopts a resolution providing for a special runoff election prior to the election. The County Board of Supervisors may determine a tie vote by flipping a coin, drawing the name from a bowl, or some other method of chance. The elections code allows a legislative body within San Diego County to choose to have an all-mail ballot election to fill a vacancy on the city council. San Diego registered voters estimates the cost for holding a special election by an all-mail ballot to be between $250,000 and $325,000, and the cost to hold a special standalone election, which would include both mail and in-person voting, to be between $275,000 and $400,000. A city council resolution is required to provide for a special runoff election to be held to fill a vacancy on the city council in the event of a tie vote and to specify if it would be conducted by an all-mail ballot or a standalone election. No city council action is required to provide for a tie vote to be turned by the elections board by lot. That completes my report. I'm available to answer any questions.

I would just say we've always allowed the board to settle a tie vote by lot. I think it's never happened before.

in the past 19 elections anyway, it has not.

That's as far back as I know. It certainly could, but I certainly wouldn't want to spend $300,000 to settle a tie vote. And were I a candidate in one of those elections, which I will not be, but if I were, I would opt for the coin toss versus a new election, which would be very expensive to run and time consuming. And Council Member Contreras.

All right, is that a motion, Mayor?

We don't actually need a motion. If we take no action, then the decision would be by lot.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, for me, I personally would rather have an election. I think it's ridiculous that we have to pay to have an election and that the cost is so high. So because of the extraordinary cost in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, I'll go ahead and I'll be supporting...

Determining it by law even though a determination by you know a dance-off or karaoke would be much better Very good seeing no other comment on that item that will conclude that item and will be determined by lot according to state law and our next discussion item is item d3 prop L reserve update and If any members of the public wish to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise their hand feature by pressing star nine or submitting a request to speak card. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our finance director, Mike Silvia, will provide the staff report.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Council. I don't have any karaoke songs tonight, but maybe some other time at Smitty's.

Interpretive dance will come later.

Yep. Tonight's item was an initial request from Council back in April to do a review of the Prop L reserves, the current reserve sort of overview of is that they've accumulated for a number of reasons, mostly through debt service savings, sales tax growth, and then also conservative appropriations from Council. As of the last audited fiscal year, the balance stood at about 20.5, which was for fiscal year 24-25. Staff estimates at the end of the current fiscal year that's going to end in a week or so that it'll be about $17 million, so it is a significant downturn, and I'll get into the reasons behind that. But I would also add that Prop L's reserved budgetary allocations to date have been completely consistent with voter approved purposes and that detail is included on exhibit one, pages four through 10 of the agenda report and it includes the ballot question as well as the ordinance, the city attorney's impartial analysis as well as statements for and against the proposition and rebuttals to both of those. And so panning the camera back just a bit, we can see what the voters actually approved in November of 2006. There were four specific components of the ballot question, which included public safety, both police and I do, police is there on purpose. I know our law enforcement is done by sheriff, but the ballot question did say police. So police and fire, emergency response improvements. The capital improvements related to that function included the construction of fire stations five and six, and a rebuild and modernization of station one. The second component was general government, and the capital component of that was this civic center. For parks and recreation, the Vista Sports Park and Moonlight Fieldhouse facilities were constructed. The fourth component, street and pothole repair, actually no Prop L money has been spent for that function to date. There is an Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, and annual audits are conducted. It was designed as a 30-year local funding source and it's scheduled to sunset in March of 2037. And so looking at key dates and factors that have driven this reserve growth. Again, it was approved by voters in November of 2006 as a half-cent general sales tax. On April 1, 2007, the Prop L sales tax collections began and bonds were issued that same year to construct the facilities I just mentioned on the prior slide. IN 2015 THE FIRST REFUNDING OCCURRED AND THAT REDUCED DEBT SERVICE OBLIGATIONS BY ABOUT $1 MILLION PER YEAR OR $22 MILLION IN AGGREGATE. A PORTION OF THAT SAVINGS DID COMMENCE BEING USED TO THE TUNE OF $1.2 MILLION AS AN ALLOCATION FOR fire operations, so it did use some of that capacity. The next significant event in the lifespan so far of Prop Bell occurred in April of 2020, and that was when California codified the U.S. Supreme Court's South Dakota versus Wayfair decision, which allowed for online sales tax collection. For Prop L itself, that was about a 25% increase when you compare fiscal year 18-19 to 2021, which was the year just prior and the year just after the change. Also post COVID inflation, as well as retail sales growth, due to the fiscal stimulus because of the pandemic drove sales tax higher and consumer behavior was a bit different there in the early 2020s because there was a lot less spending on services, which of course aren't taxable. People were spending more money on goods. The next significant date was last year when the second bond refunding happened and that created about $11 million in savings. And it's also notable that this latest debt service schedule is different than the 2007 and the 2015 bonds in that it has a level debt service versus an escalating one for the first two issues. And the specific example on that is in the final year of debt service, with the first bonds, it was almost $11 million. With the second bonds, it was 9.8. And with the current refunding, it's now down to 7.7. The annual revenues have generally exceeded appropriations in most of the years, and that can be seen on Exhibit 2 on page 11 of the Agenda Report. There was a few years early on after the Great Recession and then recently with the spend for one-time maintenance items that created single year imbalances, and those additional spends were primarily centered around the facility's master plan, which was recently reviewed and approved by Council in April. And again, the proposition is scheduled to sunset in March of 2037. And so it's worth noting, I made mention of the facilities master plan. Overtime capital assets do need, obviously, servicing, repair, component replacements. In the last three years, approximately $12.9 million has been allocated to fund this capital asset renewal and preservation. That's detailed on Exhibit 3 of the Agenda Report. Of that total, nearly 11 million or 85% of the total is shown here with these six highlighted projects, largest of which is the Fire Station 3 reconstruction that was just completed, about 4 million. The wave water park allocation from last August, which is 3.5 million. Two fire projects, which was the alerting and extraction systems that totaled 1.5 million. Reserve ladder truck for 800,000. The moonlight roof replacement, which was $650, and the conversion of the sports park's lighting to LED, just over half a million dollars. This demonstrates intergenerational equity for the significant city assets built with the original 2007 bonds, and obviously these assets are intended to city facilities with a much longer usable life than the 30-year term of Prop L. So in terms of the current position and outlook, I've mentioned the last audited number that we had for the reserve was, I've got a typo here, it's 20.5 million, not 20.7. And we do estimate for the current fiscal year, it's gonna be about $17 million. Projecting a couple points in the future, in about five years, we estimate the annual reserve in fiscal 31 to be about 4.3 million with an aggregate at about 36.6. And in the last full fiscal year of the proposition, fiscal year ending 36, we estimate it to be about 5.7 for that year and an aggregate of 62.2 million. In terms of optional bond redemption, the next date that that would be possible would be May 1st of 2035. The 2025 bondholders did require a 10-year bond call protection that is standard for tax-exempt municipal bond issuance and refundings. At that time, about $14.3 million in bonds will be remaining, and options at that time could be a full bond call, a partial bond call, or a third refunding, most likely a bank-qualified loan, which typically has much lower origination fees versus the full cost of issuance of new bonds, and it obviously would be a much shorter-term indebtedness of just two years. The final debt service payment of $7.7 million is due May 1, 2037, shortly after the March 31, 2037 sunset. This slide is just a graphical depiction of the table that's in Exhibit 2 on page 11 of the Agenda Report. It shows the actual results to date, as well as estimates of future fiscal years on the left. Vertical axis, we can see the annual revenue and expenditures shown by the green and red bars. And then on the right vertical axis, it's a measurement of the ongoing aggregate Prop L reserve that obviously escalates going forward because there is no other operating allocations besides the 1.2 million for fire as well as the $7.7 million debt service. And so to conclude, if staff were to make one recommendation to council, it would provide direction to staff to compose a city policy, for future Prop L Reserve strategy and utilization. Specific recommendations would be consistent with Government Finance Officers Association best practices, which would include total operating expenditures not to exceed the current period's revenues, basically to have structural balance on a year-to-year basis, and for one-time expenditures such as those for the Facilities Master Program, that they be funded by existing Prop L Reserves. Other direction for reserve utilization through 2037 would be welcome from council and staff is available for questions.

Okay, I don't see any public comment on this item. So we'll hear from Council Member Contreras.

Okay, you know what, this is something that I brought up before, and first of all, thank you so much for the presentation and for all your work that you do to keep us financially solvent and exceeding solvency, being in a good position. But I do have a question regarding the Vista Sports Park and the Prop L program. because originally the schematics of the Vista Sports Park included a future community center. However, that does not exist. So I don't know what the history is as to why we didn't move forward with that, but... I do believe that this is something folks thought was gonna happen. And to our city clerk, I just sent you an email. I don't know if you have the ability to pull it up, but I sent a screenshot of the schematics of the sports park that show a future community center. Mr. Conley, I know you've been here for some time. Can you provide any explanation as to why we didn't move forward with a community center at the sports park?

Yes, my memory is that the sports park project was closing in on their budget allowance, and they were afraid that adding the community center would exceed the available revenue that they had to build the park. So the decision was made to defer that to a later date. So there's a pad next to the parking lot that was reserved for that, and that's just something we've never revisited, frankly.

Well, I would like to put that on the agenda to revisit because I think we've got into that later date and seeing that we have funds in the Prop L reserve, I do think that we need to follow through on our commitment to create a community center in District 1. So I do look forward to having a much more robust discussion with the council and I would like for that to happen in the next few months, understanding that we're going dark in July. And Kathy, were you able to... to pull that up. I know I just sent it right now. I just wanted to enter this into the public record. As you can see, there is the future community center there that has not been built, and I think it's definitely time to have this conversation. So thank you so much, I appreciate the update, and I look forward to talking more about our Prop L commitments, thanks.

Council Member Fox.

Sorry, I was admiring the plans. Do we have any kind of analysis on how much it would cost to maintain the buildings and the projects that were built with using Prop L money?

Nothing specific. I would say within the facilities master plan, Prop L funded projects are a subset of that planning going off of memory. I think this year's allocation, it was around a third. I want to think it was 3.5 or 3.6 total and about 1.1 or 1.2 was this year's allocation for Prop L projects. there's no calculus as to it would be that type of commitment on an ongoing annual basis.

Right. I don't know if this was a really big or a really small year for large capital projects, repairs and stuff like that. I think to me the best use of the funds would be to guarantee the full life of them. I know that's one thing that we've seen with the wave and some other projects is that we built these great projects without having any kind of deferred maintenance budget A MAINTENANCE BUDGET AVAILABLE SO WE DEFERRED THE MAINTENANCE OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL WE PASSED COUNCIL'S MILLION PLUS DOLLAR BILLS AND I THINK IT WOULD BE REALLY IT WOULD BEHOOVE US TO NOT DO THE SAME TO FUTURE COUNCILS SO I WOULD BE CURIOUS I MEAN I WOULD ASSUME THAT WITH THE AMOUNT THAT'S IN THERE AT THE 64 WELL THE CHART ASSUMES WITH EVERYTHING GOING HOW IT IS IT'S I THINK THE ONE IN THE AGENDA REPORT SAYS 64 AND A HALF MILLION BY THE END OF IT Oh yeah, same there too, great. I'm assuming that deferred maintenance on properties like the Civic Center fire stations could very much add up to potentially more than that over their entire life cycles, but is that a reasonable estimate? I know this is probably a hundred year building or something, but.

Right, I mean. Over 100 years, certainly, would it exceed it? Would it exceed it over the remaining life of Prop L? Probably not because of the efforts that have been made in recent years. But certainly those efforts in the next, you know, 10 or 12 years, or I guess 11 years, it's... Prop L has left, it would probably be a multi-million dollar proposition, but I don't have a specific estimate for that.

I'd be very curious. I mean, that would be something where if I'd feel a lot more comfortable using it for anything else if I knew that we had everything else covered, you know, that we weren't going to leave a future bill to a future council for something that, like, we don't give them the same kind of problems that we, you know, sometimes we receive. So that's kind of... That's kind of something that I'd like to see if it's possible. I don't know how difficult it would be to do a life cycle analysis on that many properties over that long of a period of time, but that'd be something I'd be curious about if it's reasonable. But other than that, I mean, if it does seem like there is something left over at the end, then I think there would be, then the conversation should be, well, how much, and when would we know that for sure? Should we wait on some projects, or should we see closer to the end of the life cycle of the fund, the prop, or that kind of thing? So thank you so much. If that seems reasonable and doable, I'd love to see it, and I'll let the rest of my council speak, thanks.

So our interim purpose for the reserve is to ensure that during time of economic downturn or reduced sales tax revenue that we can afford to make the bond payments. That's kind of our highest priority for the reserve fund. Would you say that's true?

That's, I would say that's true, but even year to year, I mean, at this point, it's generating about $12 million in revenue. Yeah. And debt service is now flat at 7.7. So even, you know, within year to year revenues, there's a lot of coverage right there without even touching the- Sure.

Oh, no, there's definitely a surplus funding available. I'm just saying that's kind of the, that's the first purpose is to make sure we repay the bonds. Yeah. I would think that, and I agree with Council Member Contreras, this was, what was it, 08? What year was Prop El Pas? 06, yeah. None of us were on the council. I think we were all much younger. But I agree. I think honoring the promises that were made to taxpayers when they adopted it is the most important thing. If that community center was promised, then yeah, I think we had to go back and look at any unkept promises and make sure that we can meet them if possible. The $64.5 million, that's not adjusted for inflation, correct?

Actually, it is adjusted. The first five years estimates are from our sales tax consultant. And after, I believe it's fiscal 2031, the assumption is a 2% appreciation. So yes, it is adjusting.

Well, you're assuming it's going to grow, right? Correct. But are you saying that that's $64 million in today's dollars? It's in today's dollars. Oh, it is. Okay. All right. Well, that's a pretty substantial amount. But when you look at all of the assets that were purchased with Prop L, including the Civic Center and all the parks and the firehouses, I think you probably barely have enough money at the end of a 30 year life to do some major rehab and life extension. And so I think that extending the lifespan of, uh... those capital assets as council member fox said i think that should be the highest priority of the council obviously it's something that this council and councils between now and twenty thirty seven are going to have uh... the ability to debate how to use those funds but that would be my priority and my hope for the future of the City of Vista is that we look at how we can use those funds to prolong and extend and renew the life of those assets. Council Member Contreras.

Yeah, this has been a really great discussion and I agree with both Council Member Fox and Mayor in that I would love to see whatever makes sense from your professional standpoint you know, the life expectancy of our buildings, the cost of it, just even if it's a rough ballpark figure. And then, as an extension of that, any promises that were made to taxpayers, such as the community center at Sports Park, what that, not just the cost, and this will be a big discussion, but not just the cost to build a community center, but what it would cost to maintain. I think in perpetuity is kind of a difficult thing when you only have certain funding for a certain amount of time, so I feel like there's not a lot of congruency with having projections for in perpetuity. But I definitely want to see what the actual amount of funding is available once we have kind of like a more thorough discussion on some of the facilities that we need to maintain with this reserve fund. So that's it. Thank you.

By the way, I think you should bring back for the council. We spent $15 million on a firehouse. I'm guessing a firehouse costs at least $5 million more than a community center. But let's say we spent $8 million on a community center or whatever it's going to cost. that's going to probably cut by at least one half, if not by more, the amount of the projected $64.5 million, because you lose the opportunity for whatever compounding is going to happen there. So I know our investments aren't quite as good as our our CalPERS portfolio, for example. But it would be interesting to see if we spent that money now, what would it do to projected future balances? Just a Prop L note for the taxpayers. The City of Vista, it was included in Prop L in the original projection, the original proposal to taxpayers, and we funded 12 firefighters at a cost of $1.2 million each year for the 30-year duration. We have never used more than that amount, which was promised to the taxpayers for operations. And I think it's really important that we note historically that we kept our promise to the taxpayers that we did not convert Prop L, which was intended for capital asset improvements and maintenance. We never converted those funds to operating funds. We did use, was it 3.4 million for the wave? 3.5. 3.5 million. That was an expense that was not originally intended for Prop L, but it was certainly something that was a pressing need and was not outside the spirit of Prop L. But as was described to me 12 years ago, the $1.2 million would become such a small amount of money over the 30 years that it would be easily absorbed into the city's general fund expenditures And that certainly is true. I mean, if we had to absorb it right now, I think we could figure out how to absorb 1.2 million, but certainly by 2037, $1.2 million is going to be a very small number in relation to, you know, what I would expect probably at that time, we'll probably have a $500 million general fund expenditure, maybe 600 million, something like that. You don't think by 2037? You don't think it'll double?

We're at 131 right now for 26, 27.

Well, we're a total expenditure of 180 million. Yeah, 187. So yeah, I think that you don't think it'll double in the next 11 years? It'll be pretty fast. I mean, you know, my inflation, my BLS inflation calculator says it will. We'll see. Maybe not. But anyway, it's going to be more. Can we agree on that? It's going to be more. Yeah. I know we don't have our thousand parallel universes here, but, you know, I just got to throw that in. But anyway.

You can build your aggression for that.

I know. I know. That's all right. It's only six more months. My point is... We've done a great job as an organization. The council has done a great job. Staff has done a great job. You've done a great job as finance director of making sure we honored the promises that were made under Prop L. And I just want to respect and appreciate all the council's that governed under Prop L and ones that will in the future for keeping promises made to voters. I think that's so important. And I'm just putting this on the record in my final months on the council that I hope that this council will take great attention to honoring promises made to the taxpayers and the voters. I think that's so important that And I just think it's really cool that we've honored our commitment. And I think the city as an organization and all the councils, this one included that came before us, deserve to be recognized. And our city management team, this one and the previous one, for making sure that that was a priority. So I just want to say thank you for that. And with that, I think we'll conclude this item. Thank you. Oh, yes.

I just inquired, is there a desire from council to put together a policy or not at this time?

Well, give us the CliffsNotes on the policy. I mean, the policy, I'm okay with creating a policy, although the policy doesn't bind a future council. So it's sort of a lofty statement of thought. I'm good with it. Do we have, I see one nodding agreement. I see sort of a, yeah, it looks like there is agreement that we would like a sort of a mission statement. If we don't, do we not already have one with regard to Prop L? I guess not, no. Okay, so yeah, let's do that. Very good. Thank you, appreciate it. Okay, that'll bring us to item D4, a discussion regarding a proclamation for Christian American Heritage Month. This is an item that I asked to be brought forward. I did not expect this to be a controversial item, but I'm not sure if everybody is in agreement on this item, so just really quickly for the benefit of the public, I'll read through the proposed proclamation, which is very similar to several other proclamations regarding several other groups that are important within our community. This one reads, whereas the City of Vista recognizes the importance of acknowledging the historical, cultural, and civic contributions of the individuals and communities whose efforts have shaped the United States and strengthened our local community. Whereas for more than four centuries, Christians have contributed to the development of the United States through civic institutions, charitable organizations, and educational establishments, and the advancement of moral and civic values, while many of the earliest settlers in North America sought the freedom to practice their faith, helping to establish principles of religious liberty, later reflected in the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights, whereas Christian Americans have helped found and sustain schools, colleges, hospitals, churches, ministries, charitable organizations, serving generations through education, healthcare, disaster relief, compassion and care for those in need and have served their community and nation as educators, public servants, military personnel, first responders, healthcare professionals, business leaders, volunteers, advocates for human dignity, justice, compassion, religious liberty, and service to others, whereas the City of Vista values the contributions of all faith communities and recognizes that the free exercise of religion enriches civic life, strengthens community bonds, and merits the recognition of the enduring contributions of Christian Americans to our nation, state, and community Now therefore be it proclaimed by the mayor and the city council at the City of Vista that the month of June, 2026 is hereby designated as Christian American Heritage Month in the City of Vista. Be it further proclaimed that the City of Vista encourages residents to learn about and reflect upon the history and contributions of Christian Americans and recognizes with appreciation the churches, ministries, faith-based organizations and individuals, individual Christians who continue to serve our community through acts of service, compassion, charity, generosity, civic responsibility, and dedication to others. The reason that I wrote this and brought this forward is I thought we have many great leaders. We've recognized the Jewish American leaders and heritage. We've recognized some other groups And I think we have many great Christian churches within the city of Vista, congregations, faith leaders who have played an integral part in the fabric of our community. And I'd like to be able to recognize them as well. So I would ask the council to vote tonight to approve this proclamation. Oh, and we have a speaker on this, James Fox.

Good evening.

I am fascinated by the presentations talking about the assets, the capital assets, and the economic planning that goes on. The community doesn't appreciate nearly what I've been exposed to tonight, and I thank you all, and I don't know. Well, I do know one thing that will help. As I looked at your email from the city announcing this meeting tonight, I did pick up about the American Christian heritage, and I'm all for the kind of things that make us appreciate what our forefathers and what our different religious leaders have led us through. However, as I did a little bit of internet searching, I found out that you're not the only ones who've considered something like this. There's a little place in Northern California called El Dorado County, and they essentially came up with the same idea. Everything looked hunky-dory, everybody, well, not everybody. I found out that it was not unanimous. And as things go, people objected and came up with some kind of reasonable thoughts about why this maybe wouldn't fly. And lo and behold, after they found out that the objectors had the will to bring in legal presentation, they stepped back from this and they rescinded their idea. And I just would be excited if you could join me in that internet search. For instance, I came across today something called the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. Your consideration of the American Christian history, to me, sounds like a minefield. And I would hate to see us get involved in spending money just because we had good intentions, but forgot that there are a lot of people that are not Christians. interested in such a matter and to keep us from being deluged by the cost of legal ramifications. I think it's a good idea at least to table this and consider a little more research because I think it would be valuable.

Thank you very much. Just to address that concern, thank you very much. To address that concern that was raised, there's nothing in this proclamation that acknowledges one faith over another uh... and uh... you know the first amendment says the congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion uh... this certainly does not uh... create an establishment of religion uh... or advance the idea that uh... christianity is superior to any other religion it simply acknowledges the role that uh... christians and christian faith leaders have played in the shaping of our community in our nation So I see no reason, in fact, this was very carefully created to avoid any First Amendment concerns. The First Amendment does not prohibit any governmental organization from having a prayer at the beginning of a meeting, from acknowledging establishments of religion, but it does prohibit the exclusion of any person based on their faith It clearly protects the right to practice our faith according to our own conscience or to not practice faith according to our own conscience. And we have had imams and rabbis and clerics of all faith. We had the Baha'i faith here. In fact, I believe, didn't we even have a proclamation for the Baha'i faith? I think we might have, but we certainly had them here and had a formal recognition. And I think if we can recognize the Baha'i faith and, you know, we had, again, we had our Muslim clerics here and our Jewish faith leaders, I don't see why we wouldn't also be able to acknowledge our Christian faith and our Christian faith leaders as well. So with that, let's hear from our council, Council Member Melendez.

Yes, thank you to the speaker and for those who sent in comments. I did read everyone's comments. As many of you know, faith is very important to me. I'm someone who has a deep faith of my own. And for a long time, I thought I was going to be a pastor and I have a degree in biblical studies. I took many courses on church history and religion and the texts that are being referenced here in the name of Christianity. And in preparing for this item, I did a lot of research, and I really thought about it a lot. I would have to look back on our city minutes to see when we would have acknowledged any particular religion. We may have acknowledged ethnic groups, Jewish people, and other groups, but our role here on the City Council is very secular, I believe. We are swearing an oath to the Constitution when we take our oath of office. And I did a lot of research. I want to be able to share that with the city council, but also with the public, because, you know, I hear what you're saying, Mayor, right? And I really think that there's big parts of this conversation that are missing. So here's what I noticed in the proclamation. It describes Christian heritage in the United States and entails ambiguous contributions to civic institutions, charity, education, and moral values, but it doesn't offer much in terms of facts and historical statements. This is unsurprising. This, unsurprisingly, is one of the shortest and blandest proclamations I've seen in my six years serving on this Council, and this is likely because a comprehensive history of Christian heritage is extremely unsettling. Unfortunately, I can't approve of this sterilized presentation of Christian heritage and I have to reject revisionist history. There are a large number of atrocious historical events carried out in the name of Christianity left out in this Christian heritage proclamation. While this proclamation paints one religious group as an example of good deeds, Christianity in America includes a history wrought with murder and human rights violations. We cannot ignore a Christian heritage that includes the killing of women in so-called witch hunts, the justification of slavery and the KKK, and colonialism and white supremacy. The proclamation names the early settlers of America as an exemplar of religious freedom. This ignores the history of forced conversion and land seizure of indigenous people by these early settlers. Christian churches partnered with federal governments in the United States to open boarding schools for indigenous people, especially children who were ripped from their families. In the name of Christianity, native languages and cultural practices were eradicated. Victims of these Christian boarding schools face physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. This conversion effort can be summarized by the popular phrase, kill the Indian, save the man. Captain Richard Henry Pratt, founder of the Carousel Indian Industrial School, used the phrase in a speech in 1892 at the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, stating, a great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with that statement, but only in this. that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him and save the man. The goal of Christian boarding schools was to commit ethnocide of Native Americans in favor of the Christian religion. Captain Pratt's boarding school was federally funded by our American government. His model was replicated by over 400 institutions. If we believe in religious freedom, our proclamation should condemn this Christian history. Also in my research on this topic, I came across projects and resources by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, and I think we should be including their group in our efforts to tell Christian history, including referencing their existing proclamations. The proclamation presented today also states that the City of Vista recognizes the free exercise of religion that the free exercise of religion enriches civic life. This is true. It is not the devotion to a particular religion that enriches our lives as Americans, but it's the principle of freedom of religious belief that is such a rewarding facet of American history and American life. This proclamation would better serve the public good by celebrating secularism and upholding the separation of church and state, rather than offer a biased gesture to a religious group. So that's my position on this. I would like to see us acknowledge the comprehensive history of Christian heritage in the United States, which has yet to be, we've yet to take full accountability for what we did to Native Americans in our forced conversion. in the name of Christianity. Most of my good friends are Christians, and I've seen a lot of wonderful work done by Christians. We could state in the proclamation many good works done by Christians for human rights and civil liberties. But I do not stand for revisionist history. We have to tell the full history. And I'm grateful for this conversation because I was able to do some research and learn about events that I did not know about and it really truly broke my heart. So I can't support this. I'M NOT SURE WHAT THIS GESTURE IS FOR, BUT MY TRUTH IS THAT, YOU KNOW, WE NEED TO REALLY CONDEMN THE SINS THAT WERE COMMITTED. THANK YOU.

COUNCIL MEMBER CONTRERAS.

YOU KNOW, I, FOR ME, I DECIDED TO PUT THIS ON DISCUSSION. that I was raised Catholic, went to St. Francis, to the Mission, to the Abbey. My family is overwhelmingly Christian, devout, but I really do see my role here in City Council being much different. Hopefully we can espouse the good works and the good word of our Lord. the good work and words of Jesus Christ. But I just don't see that this proclamation, I think there's some factual inaccuracies, and I don't see the city council being a place, especially right now, with some of the violence that has been committed against other religious groups so recently, here in San Diego, I just don't see that this is appropriate to adopt. I thank you for bringing it forward. I think this is an important discussion, but I cannot support it at this time. Thank you.

Are there any specific factual inaccuracies that we could address here?

I would think it would need to be completely rewritten. You know, even just looking at, you know, while the part of the proclamation that says, while many of the earliest settlers in North America sought the freedom to practice their faith, helping establish principles of religious liberty later reflected in the Constitution of the United States and Bill of Rights, I find that there's a lot of factual inaccuracies in that. in that as well, especially because our Constitution is not a reflection of Christian faith, and it is devoid of references to Christianity, and that was done intentionally. And so I want to honor the legacy of our forefathers in moving forward things that unite us, things that help us get to a more perfect union, and I just don't see that this proclamation, especially in the times that we're in right now, serves a purpose for that.

I appreciate that, and I don't mean to be argumentative, but it says that they, you know, helping establish principles of religious liberty later reflected in the Constitution, but it doesn't say that they established any Christian language in the Constitution. It just says establish principles of religious liberty later reflected in the Constitution. I just want to make sure that your understanding of that phrase was the same as mine.

I understand the phrase. It is devoid of enumeration of what those reflections are in the Constitution, and I think that could be subject to a lot of debate. If we want to have a debate about that, we can bring it forward again as another discussion item. But I'm just picking out one of many different things that I see that... I think need to be reworked. Yeah. And one of the things too, you know, I mean, if we want to look at, uh, There are a lot of Christian groups around the world that are oppressed. Palestinian Christians is a group, right? I mean, maybe we bring a proclamation recognizing the hardships of some of the Christian groups internationally, but I think here in the United States, we don't really see the persecution of Christians and Christian groups. So that's where I land on it.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Fox.

Thank you. Yeah, and I had the opportunity to read a lot of the public comments and everything, and I guess I kind of looked at it a little bit differently. I saw this as more as an opportunity with, we have a lot of really amazing faith-based groups in our city, and I saw this as a great opportunity to potentially honor them, and so I know that we have the text of the proclamation here, but there wasn't necessarily a group mentioned as who was going to be receiving it, and so You know for me. I was thinking oh, there's we have you know between st. Francis North Coast just Calvary There's a bunch of different groups that do a lot of volunteering in our city and give like you helped build the Boys and Girls Club rooms and all kinds of really amazing projects and so you know I was thinking this sounds like a great opportunity to To potentially honor them for a lot of the work that they're doing here so that was the way that I looked at it is that these are these different religious Christian institutions and Not that other groups don't also contribute greatly to our city, because they absolutely do, just as an opportunity to honor people. So I don't necessarily have any, it seems pretty measured in its language and didn't try to call for any kind of superiority or anything that was that I saw as problematic in it. In fact, City of Vista values the contribution of all faith communities. It's right in there. It's a lot like that. I didn't necessarily see anything that was offensive in it, that called for any superiority or anything like that. I just saw it as an opportunity to potentially honor some of our local organizations that do amazing work here. I don't seem to have any problem with it. Yeah, we've four on council today, so it's gonna be a very interesting debate.

I think that Council Member Melendez was next, or did you want to defer to Council Member Contreras? Then Council Member Contreras.

Yes, and I just wanted to add, I haven't seen that this is, that Christian Heritage Month is an official, federally recognized event. So, I think that if there was some advocacy that you wanted to do to the federal government to recognize that, potentially that's a different discussion, but just seeing all the layers of complexity that other cities have had when trying to pass this, I feel like we don't need to go there at all. But I miss having different faith leaders come and share their words. So if you wanted to re-institute that practice, I know we started that when you first came on as mayor. I think it's always a great time to reflect spiritually. But I also don't think that this proclamation even affords the ability to reflect in a spiritual way. Again, I appreciate you bringing this forward.

Thank you. Council Member Melendez.

Yes, thank you, Council Member, for giving credit to some of our awesome organizations. You led with We have many great faith-based, right? You're not coming out and saying Christian heritage is X, Y, and Z. This proclamation is saying Christian American heritage is nice and sterile and clean and has no problems and we are not going to acknowledge any of the bad. So I'm a believer of truth, right? If we want to get together and we want to put a proclamation together for some of our service-oriented churches and we want to bring them in here and we want to name them and we want to Celebrate them. I think we should do that that makes sense that's relevant to the work that we do as civic leaders This is historically inaccurate because when we're describing Educational establishments are we celebrating? Are we celebrating the boarding schools I Can't support that it stays here Christians have contributed to the development of the United States through civic institutions, charitable organizations, educational establishments, and the advancements of moral and civic values, and then it references the early settlers. If we were to actually acknowledge Christian American heritage As this proclamation is trying to do, we would have to acknowledge Christian boarding schools funded by the federal government that assimilated and forced conversions of up to over 100,000 indigenous people. And so I cannot support this. And if we were to just sterilize it and just turn a blind eye and pretend like it never happened, I don't do that. I can't do that. So I like it when we can be in the here and now. I really believe in being in the here and now. We should talk about how our faith community makes us stronger, absolutely. We can talk about our local Christian churches. We can recognize local pastors. As I said, I thought for some time that I was going to be a lady pastor, but I ended up finding civic service, and this is where I serve at this time. Maybe one day I will be a member of the clergy or a pastor. whatever that calling is for me, I continue to follow that guidance. But what I feel really guided to do now is call out the hypocrisy, where we're not really stating out loud what we mean when we say educational establishments. And I went to a private Christian university, so of course there are some positive educational establishments, just like there are positive civic advancements from Christian leaders, right? But just as much as there were Christian leaders who were fighting for equal rights for black Americans, the KKK also claims to be a Protestant Christian organization. That's part of Christian American heritage. And while all of us here condemn the KKK, it's still part of Christian American heritage. So I really have to contest that when we talk about our history of education, our policy, our civic advancements in the United States, Christian leaders and institutions and congregants and members absolutely were part of those moments. And actually, we're totally allowed to do this legally. We can proclaim whatever we want, right? We're not gonna get into any, I see City Attorney nodding his head. We can endorse whoever and whatever we want. But there's a huge flaw in this that I just can't get away from, and so I got to share some history tonight. So I'm satisfied. I got to share history of our Christian boarding schools in the United States, which I grew up in the church, Went to Christian college. I have a degree in biblical studies. I have a lot of involvement with faith communities. And there were still things I didn't know about the Christian boarding schools that our federal government paid for. And it was just not OK. So at the end of the day, trying to be humble and learn and be a public servant myself, there's a lot that I need to learn too. So I got to learn more about Christian American heritage during this process.

Well, thank you for your comments on this item. I was not thinking about the mission schools, more thinking along the lines of the university that you said you graduated from. I graduated from a university that was chartered by active Congress in 1893 and was created as a Methodist college to train leaders in public life. So there are a lot of, certainly even here in our own community of Vista, there are many like Tri-City Christian School, Christian educational organizations that I do not believe share in the heritage that you're mentioning. I don't disagree with the factual account. I would only maybe take umbrage with the fact that with some of the other religious groups that we have recognized in the past, We didn't feel the need to call out any past misdeeds that were no longer current transgressions. But there are certainly, you know, and no one can deny that in the name of religion, many immoral and ungodly acts, sinful acts have been committed. There's no question about that. The question is whether we find enough good in the organization that we're honoring to honor them without mentioning historical past misdeeds. Because in truth, I think every single one of us as individuals and probably every single organization is certainly City of Vista has made mistakes in our now, what is it? 63 years or something. but there's still enough good to be recognized that we find a reason to honor. So I'm seeing obviously that we have strong feelings about this. I am gonna, because this is important to me, I'm gonna make a motion that we adopt and pass this and we'll see what the will of the council is on that. So I'll be looking for a second to my motion. Council Member Contreras.

Yes, I can't remember a religious group that we have given a proclamation to. Can you state that for the record? What is the religious group?

Yeah, so again, I'm almost certain that we did give a proclamation to the Baha'i faith. We had them here and honored them. We just did the Jewish American Heritage Proclamation, which was exceptionally similarly worded to this one. We've also, again, we've had our, you know, the Tri-City Islamic Center here. We've recognized them. So I think there are absolutely other parallels to this. As you said, we can have further conversations where you having brought this point forward, I certainly will do my research on the question you posed and bring those if ever we discuss this item again.

Okay, yeah, and city manager, maybe you could send the council an enumerated list of religious proclamations. I've been on the council since 2018 and I'm not recalling something that was particular because the Jewish American heritage is kind of a different situation than Christian American heritage. But what I'll do is I'll go ahead and make a substitute motion to table this discussion. this proclamation.

Council Member Fox.

As long as we're honoring one of the local church organizations, something like that, I would second the motion, the original motion.

Okay. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Seeing no other requests to speak, please cast your votes. Okay, that item fails with two in favor and two opposed and one not present. And we will now proceed to comments from council, actually from staff. Do we have any comments tonight from our city clerk's office? City attorney? City manager?

Just acknowledging that July will be dark, so hope everyone enjoys a little time off. We'll see you again on August 11th. And I want to wish Councilman Fox happy birthday next week.

Happy birthday. Happy birthday. All right, Mr. Birthday Councilman, your comments.

Well, I'm on my way tomorrow to an economic development trip to Denver, and I leave at 5 a.m., so I love my wife. Thank you very much.

All right, Councilmember Melendez.

Well, thank you all for joining us tonight. Looking forward to my next assignment. I'll be chairing the Clean Energy Alliance board meeting this Thursday. Lots of good things happening there. But again, if you ever have any customer service calls, Clean Energy Alliance staff is readily available for you. And I also, I want to say happy birthday to my colleague, Council Member Fox, but I also want to say happy birthday to America, 250 years. We won't be seeing you until after our little break. I hope you all have a wonderful, safe, blessed Fourth of July weekend. And join us for some of the city activities we really... We do so much, staff, you guys do so much to make sure that everybody is having a fun, safe, inclusive time. We have a free fireworks show. We have, I know, lots of local businesses and organizers that are putting on events over the weekend. So we have some great calendaring on the Chamber of Commerce website. City of Vista events, of course, you can find everything that's happening there.

And I just want to say thank you all for being part of a great community and happy birthday America Councilmember Contreras Happy birthday, are we not singing happy birthday to you because I feel like we've sang happy birth and the mayor has a great voice so Would you guys be okay with singing happy birthday to councilmember for us off?

I? Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, dear Jax.

Happy birthday to you. Thanks, everybody. I appreciate it.

If I knew all the words to the mañanitas, I would sing that to you, but I actually do not. And happy birthday, America. Tomorrow, as always, is Wednesday. Following our council meetings, there's a great trash pickup in District 1 that has been going for six years strong under Jovita Serafin and Guerreras en Acción por un Vista Limpio. If you want to join them early in the morning, they would love to have you. You can find them on Instagram. If you have a hard time connecting with them but you want to, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'll put you in communication. Also, I know that there was an invite sent to everybody. If you can make it to Bill de la Fuente's scholarship dinner tomorrow, it'll be great. I'll be there, and I look forward to seeing you. I think we owe, like, this city does such a great job celebrating the 4th of July. I think the fact that we have an incredible park like Bringle Terrace Park that we have committed to do upgrades only helps us celebrate all these different occasions, including our Independence Day. So thank you to the council. I know we have difficult discussions sometimes, but I appreciate all the different perspectives and that we're able to carry out the business of the city. and make the city safer, stronger, more united, cleaner, and just a better place than we found it when we first got here. I mean, we continue to make it such an incredible city. And I got to tell you, I hear... people throughout the region talk about how great Vista is. So I really appreciate our council and our leadership for many years that we've been able to move this city into a great direction. And lastly, I don't know if you read the Coast News article, but I have been on Sandag's because I am really, really upset about not getting planning done and the fact that we have to return any funds for the Inland Rail Trail. But I am working with SANDAG to make sure that VISTA isn't lost in that conversation. And so I do have a meeting. I have a board of directors meeting this Friday. And after the board of directors meeting, I have a meeting to discuss the Inland Rail Trail, which I have created between SANDAG staff and myself. So that way we can maybe all get on the same page about how we move forward and And just finish the Vista Inland Rail Trail because it's already 25 years in the making, this whole rail trail. So anyways, thank you all so much. I hope you have a great night.

Thank you. Okay, July 11th, the city is offering a free e-bike safety training class at the Civic Center from 9 a.m. to noon. Participants will receive a free helmet. Later that evening, enjoy the city's next free movie in the park featuring Goat at Bringle Terrace Park softball fields. For more information on these events, visit vista.gov slash calendar. And as we prepare to celebrate America's 250th birthday, Independence Day, our anniversary of our nation's founding, I want to personally invite visitors and residents to join us for VISTA's 58th annual Independence Day celebration, July 4th at Bringle Terrace Park. The evening begins with a presentation from the city council at 7.15, followed by live music from Cassie B, who always does a great job, at 7.35 at the Moonlight Amphitheater stage. Then at 9 p.m., enjoy a spectacular fireworks show lighting up the night sky. As a reminding, fireworks are illegal in Vista and can cause serious injuries, fires, and property damage. Please do not light off your own fireworks. Please leave the fireworks to the professionals and celebrate safely with family and friends at the city's official fireworks display done by professionals. For event details and parking information, visit vista.gov slash July 4th. I am looking forward to seeing you all there, and I'm looking forward to seeing my beautiful wife, Shauna, in just a few minutes when I get home. Thank you to her for allowing me to serve. Thanks. Good night, everyone. We're adjourned.