Okay, welcome everyone to closed session meeting for City Council on July 15th, 2025. Let's go ahead and do roll call. Council Member Blauer. Present. Council Member Enriquez. Present. Council Member Ponce. Present. Council Member Padilla. Present. Council Member Villapadua. Present. Vice Mayor Lee. Present. And Mayor Fugazi. Present. We have a quorum. Wonderful. Okay, so let us go ahead and move on to the next section, which is... Well, it's not on here, but public comment. So we can go ahead and get started. We do have public comment. May I have Tony Nocetti to the podium, please? And you'll have two minutes. I bring more money than anybody else does in this whole town. I own the Asparagus Festival. We're bringing the Garlic Festival back in Stockton 99 Speedway. This man right here got sucked into a job over there at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds about four or five years ago. I've been there longer than anybody else. They brought him in to straighten out the BS around there. Once he got the computer cracked, that man helped me to get it cracked when they brought it around. Long story short, he started uncovering everything over there at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds and Brian Mays and that crew could not get rid of him quick enough because they were all scared because Kelly Olds poisoned that place. Again, I bring money here from the speedways, the dirt tracks, the festivals. I'm a local person. My family's beer is 1905. He's in the community. This lady's in the community. Thank you for helping the Asparagus Festival. Thank you for helping the Asparagus Festival, Villa Poudoi. And thank you also, Steve, for helping the Asparagus Festival. It's your guys' festival. Y'all ran it. Will Hoyt killed it when it broke. I took it over. I'm just some little farmer out in Fridge Camp. This guy needs to stay. He's local. He's involved here. I'm involved here. I got a lot to say here. Again, we're coming back in 2026 with asparagus and garlic. It's going to be the Italian Garlic Festival when it comes back. Sorry that I'm jittery. I don't like sitting here complaining about this stuff. But again, I wasted my time coming out of the fields for this show today. I'm not on a payroll over here. This is another good friend of ours. We need to keep this man in office. He's very honest. Let him do his job. Look at my hat. I don't care about the red color. It says make Stockton great again. That's what I'm doing. When I reopened 99 Speedway and I went to close and took over the festival when it closed, 40 years you're coming up on for the Asparagus Festival this year. Y'all should be proud. I would love you to come to some of our meetings and help support us. Please. It's your festival. Thank you. Wayne Pierce. Funny how that worked out, that I was right behind Tony. I've known Tony for about 40 years. I've been a lifelong resident of Stockton. This is my town. I share it with everyone else. I really do. But to watch it go from a theme from a summer place to what it has become, it's just not Stockton. It's the valley. It's the times. There's not a more hardworking, diligent person than this cat right here and supports many, many people. And every time that he goes for some little permit or something over on Hazleton Street or something, they fight him. They make him wait outside on the sidewalk and so on and so forth. And they treat him like a third world citizen. It's horrible. I mean, the guy, yeah, he's like my family. I've married into a family that's been here since 1905. So we're very deeply rooted, Tony and myself. But, you know, here we are, public servants, you know, to help and to aid. But when he goes down for a permit, it's all of a sudden he's the enemy. He's the guy with the, and it's just wrong. It's very, very wrong. I'm disgusted. 22 years an announcer at 99 Speedway. And then finally, you know, I got a sense of clarity and retired a couple years ago. Christine has been right there on the front stretch with us. We help get elected, and we put people on a forum out there is what we do. We give them a place to speak. But then again, you know, he works harder than he should at times, but nevertheless, Cat needs a little help. And Steve, thank you for everything that you've done for us and with us along the way. It's been a treat and a pleasure to have you on board. Thank you. Devin Robson. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. Devin Robeson, president of Local 456. I just wanted to address that we're currently 15 days without a contract. The high priority of public safety has been a constant message from this entire council and was actually ran on during recent campaigns. Today you have an opportunity to stand by that commitment and uphold your pledge to prioritize public safety again. The proposal before you is a good faith effort by Local 456 to address the city's concerns about fiscal uncertainty while also helping us stay competitive in recruiting and retaining firefighters. I urge you to seriously consider the facts and information that have been presented. Staffing challenges in our fire department are real and growing, and a fair contract is a very key part to the solution. Thank you. Pat Barrett. Pat Barrett. I SPEAK FROM THE HEART THROUGH OBSERVATION. WOW, THAT'S LOUD. ONE, CITY CLERK KATHERINE ROLLIN, EXCELLENT CITY CLERK, COMPASSIONATE, THOROUGH, EXPLAINS SO ANYONE CAN UNDERSTAND AND IS VERY HELPFUL. NUMBER TWO, ICM, OBSERVATION. I HEAR I HAVE TO SPEAK ABOUT EVERYTHING IN ONE TIME, OKAY? SO WE'RE RUNNING THROUGH THIS REAL QUICK, MARATHON TIME. OBSERVATION, DOESN'T KEEP HIS WORDS. NIKKI'S STILL WAITING FOR HIM TO CALL ME BACK. Undermining, not transparent, is unaccountable and inhumane at any expense. And I talk about our own house. What's going on in this city is despicable, and you as his bosses are allowing it. And we go to church on Monday and we received Holy Communion. And we walked away and still ripped unhoused people and displaced them. We knocked from my house to his house to his house to his house. It doesn't make it a circuit. They're just derelicts. It doesn't matter. Y'all just agree on that one. Number three, dismissal. So I'm going to assume that the plan is, and I pray this is not a three-card molly, evaluate. That was the first one. Evaluate to ICM. dismiss his position, and then hire him for city manager. Boy, does that sound like a blind shot. Number four, city manager has, as a resident of Stockton, and speak for many, we demand, and it sounded more like Tony was running for city manager due to that other man, speak for many, we demand you as representatives to hire a competent, qualified city manager, not from here, WE ALL GREW UP TOGETHER. WE ALL WENT TO SCHOOL TOGETHER. WE ARE FRIENDS. NOT HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS THERE. CITY MANAGER NOT FROM HERE. NEW BLOOD, NEW EYES AND NOT A FRIEND. ANDY ABBOTT. Everyone on this dais who understands what they're supposed to be doing here knows that this man never belonged in that seat. Everyone in Stockton paying any attention knows that whoever brought him to your attention in the first place never belonged anywhere near City Hall. But by Sam Fantastic coincidence, there he sits still. Doesn't take a genius to figure out how the Colangelo item got on the closed session agenda this evening. If the right thing happens, It'll be because the mayor can read the tea leaves and know that the, you know, that'll tamp down the hype of the recall potential. Or because one of you remembers himself and does the right thing. There's only one way the wrong thing happens, though. Someone continues to insist she's right. Someone still acts in the interests of her campaign manager and her management team. Someone does what it says on her notes. And someone broke. Someone forgot the indignity of the garbage thrown at him by 209 times. Someone thought it would be easier to just give in and go along instead of standing tall and fighting for his constituents. If Colangelo stays, it won't be a secret why, and the voters will not let you forget about it. You can take the easy way out and let the folks in your district know that you don't care, or you can do the right thing. To the mayor, the stated purpose of the ad hoc committee was both to choose a recruiter and to recommend candidates to interview before the full council. The work of the committee, formed unanimously by this entire council, isn't done and cannot simply be dissolved. If the man survives the vote tonight and somehow ends up on your short list because you exceeded your power and dissolved the committee, recall won't just be hype, it'll be real. Reinstate the committee. Do the right thing. Ralph White. I'm good at recall. I was the best. I recall a couple of two or three times and I've hired the city manager, a couple of them. This man deserved to stay in his position until you choose a city manager and let her make that appointment because that's her job. I don't care if you have to go through four or five appointments trying to get someone to get the right person. Leave them in this position. You do not change that tonight. It's bad to even think about it. Don't vote against it. Next thing, don't worry about no damn recall. You ain't got one person up there better than me at recall. And whoever talking about recalling you, they got to come through me. It's not going to happen. Neither one, you and nobody else. But I think what you need to do is take a good look at the recall and anything else. Look at the person that's talking about calling recall. Hell, he don't even live in Stockton, never even lived in Stockton. And everything, Mr. Clerk, everything from now on, every vote he makes, write it down, because I'm going to take every one of them back off the table, and you're going to go all over again. So whatever you do back there, don't count his vote, because it don't mean nothing. That concludes public comment. Okay, this, as I move on, this closed session is authorized pursuant to section 54957.6A of the government code. We will be recessing for that, as well as government code 54956.9D1, section 54957B of the government code, 54957. of the government code section 54957B again of the government code section 54957 and again 54957. So we will go ahead and recess to close session. GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE. I REALLY WANT TO THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PATIENCE. CLOSED SESSION WENT LONGER THAN WE HAD ANTICIPATED, BUT WE'RE GLAD YOU STUCK AROUND. SO, CALLING THIS MEETING TO ORDER, ROLL CALL. COUNCIL MEMBER BLAUER. PRESENT. COUNCIL MEMBER HENRIQUEZ. PRESENT. COUNCIL MEMBER PONCE. PRESENT. COUNCIL MEMBER PADILLA. PRESENT. COUNCIL MEMBER VILLA-PEDUA. PRESENT. VICE MAYOR LEE. PRESENT. AND MAYOR FUGAZI. PRESENT. WE HAVE A QUORUM. Wonderful. So I would like to invite up Deputy Senior Chaplain Renee Bennett to do our invocation. Press the button. Oh, sorry. I don't know that. I actually have a very loud voice. I think it would carry. But if you'll pray with me. Almighty God, gracious God, we pray right now for your provision. your protection, and most of all your presence here in this room tonight. Lord, we're asking for your grace and your wisdom to prevail. God, we acknowledge that you see the whole picture, not the bigger picture, but the entire picture. Lord, we all today come and bring our perspectives, our ideas, perceptions that are a reality to us. And Lord, I pray right now that we would all open our minds and our attitudes to listen in and with humility and grace. May we treat one another with the same respect that you, God, would treat each one of us. We pray, Lord, that your will for this city will prevail. We acknowledge, God, that you know what is best. God, we know that you do not bring an opinion to this council. You bring the truth. I lift up our mayor and our vice mayor and the entire city council to you right now, Lord. They have answered the call to give of their time and their talent to serve this city and represent the good of what can happen here. God, I pray that they are mindful of the gifts that they bring to this council and into this city, that those gifts come from you, God. and may they lead in the full knowledge of that reality. Now, God, we pray for this meeting. Lord, go before us as we know you have. Keep your presence and your peace and your wisdom before us all. I pray for a united vision to prevail and that your will would be done in our precious city as it would be done in heaven today. In Jesus' name, I pray. So next up we have Abigail Fogg, who is a sixth grader at Julia Morgan School, and she is going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Everyone please stand. Place your right hand on your heart. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. City Attorney, do we have anything reportable out from closed session? We have nothing to report, Mayor. Thank you. Moving on then to recognitions, announcements, or reports. We don't have any. That's a first. And now moving on then to public comments. We've received 44 cards so far, so we are going to have public comment for two minutes. Oh, and before we do that, let me remind everybody we are here to do the business of the people uh... disruptions in violation of the council's decorum policy will not be tolerated on that side of the dais or this side of the dais uh... as a reminder the policy uh... applies to everyone in this room violations by the public may result in warning and ultimately removal from the chambers for the remaining of the meeting Please silence your phones, put them on, you know, vibrate so they don't go off during the meeting. And if you want further information regarding the meeting decorum, it's up there on the screen. It's also on the front of your agenda. So with that, who is our speaker this evening? I'm going to be calling two names at a time so people can have time to get up to the second floor. So our first speaker will be Santi Fraser Mayfield followed by Yolanda Amon. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. I'm here to say I'm thoroughly appalled with our mayor. I feel like you are betraying our constituents for motivated political points, seemingly to have your way and obtain a controllable city manager that is not qualified, among other things. At the last meeting, I watched you disrespect and attempt to silence our vice mayor, the very person you piggybacked on to get in the seat over issues of DEI. I feel you used us as a whole, because when do we get what we voted for? When do we start to see the return on the promises you made to us when we were stuffing your envelopes, putting up your signs, going door to door with flyers, and asking the people that we build trust with to vote for you? It saddens me to see the council somewhat divided due to slander, disrespect, and character assassinations. I find as of recent, we have the city more involved in drama instead of growth of the community. The council needs to come together tight if the city wants to be strong. But how can the council be strong and tight if the team captain, aka the mayor, has ulterior motives? We are all human beings and we will make mistakes. However, in the same note, we can always be accountable and move with truth, trust, and transparency to lead with the utmost integrity. Thank you to the vice mayor and select council for maintaining the three Ts. And in conclusion, I would like to say to the mayor, promises were made when we chose you to lead over our city. And if you're thinking that you'll forget what we promised, good luck with that. Yolanda Amen, followed by Gabby Gonzalez. Good evening. I didn't know if I was going to speak today, but I wanted to kind of speak to something so that it's out there in the public. I know a lot of people do watch this after. I just want everyone in Stockton and my community to be aware that I feel that things that are being thrown out there, such as recall, we haven't heard anything. on this side of the fence that anyone is trying to recall anyone uh... i want to offer my support to mario i uh... know you personally and i just don't believe that you've done anything wrong you do have our support as well as district six i just feel right now we are being divided when you ran on your campaign when we were helping We talked about moving this dias forward and moving it forward differently. I feel we're kind of going back to where we were before. And I am standing on this and I told you I was going to come up here and call you on everything if I see something that's being done wrong. We need to do something to try to get us back together. I feel we're separated. I feel we're divided. All of this going back and forth with each other and kind of he said, she said. all the stuff that's on the internet i just feel that it's not in the best interest of the city and i don't think it's moving us forward to the things that we need to do and where we need to be going together so i'm gonna ask you're our mayor I'm really going to ask for your lead to kind of bring everyone together. You know, you worked in the school system. It's kind of maybe I'm expecting that of you because that's kind of part of the job that you used to have, to try to bring everyone together. I know you're not going to always agree, but I think where we're heading and some of the things that we are seeing, some of the things that are being displayed, I just don't think that's who we are as a city. And I think that we can be stronger than that. And I'm looking to you to help us change that. Thank you for your time. Gabby Gonzalez, followed by Matt Ellis. Good evening, Mayor Fugazi, Vice Mayor, and council members. I'm here tonight because I was deeply disappointed by what I saw at the last council meeting, especially Mayor Fugazi reacting... during the DEI discussion. DEI diversity, equity, and inclusion means recognizing and valuing the differences in our community, race, gender, age, ability, and more. It's about creating space where everyone feels seen, heard, and supported. But what we witnessed instead was a conversation being shut down. When Vice Mayor Jason Lee tried to ask tough, necessary questions about how DEI funding was being used, Mayor Fugazi slammed the gavel repeatedly to silence him. That didn't feel like leadership. It felt like control. And it was disrespectful not only to Vice Mayor Lee, but to us, the community, who want transparency and accountability. We've heard that around $40,000, which was meant for DEI, may have been used by intern city manager for other things and that some of that money even went towards food. That is unacceptable. DEI funds are meant to serve the people of Stockton, not to cover private coaching or lunch bills. And now, Mayor, you're saying there was never any DEI funding at all. That doesn't add up. Someone is either hiding the truth or spreading misinformation, and either way, the public deserves clear, honest answers. So, Vice Mayor Lee, please keep asking the hard question. Keep being truthful, transparent, and standing up for what's right. We see you, we support you, and we thank you for representing us with the courage and integrity. Thank you. Matt Ellis, followed by Dionne Smith. Good evening City Council members, Vice Mayor and Mayor. My name is Matt Ellis and I live in District 1 here in Stockton. Today I was going to go through the agenda for tonight and I was inspired to come down here and express my opinions. Later tonight you'll be talking in depth conversation about improving existing water and sewer infrastructure. As this is public comment period, that's not what I'm here to talk about directly. However, I'm here to discuss the city... removing our unhoused population from existing camps for the benefit of those individuals due to the current lack of sanitary conditions for the encampments. Some background by myself, I'm a civil engineer, senior staff engineer at a regional civil engineering firm and have 27 years experience in the industry. One of the most critical and often overlooked components to our health is the ability to have clean water to drink and to make dirty water sewage go away. In the most simple terms, this is what civil engineers do for our communities. Unfortunately, for the unhoused encampments, this is not their reality, nor can it be. Without proper sanitation, people might fall ill of any number of diseases, such as cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, hepatitis A, and even bubonic plague. I am grateful, finally, that our city council is standing up against the naysayers and doing what is right for the unhoused, including providing them opportunities to leave the unsafe and unhealthy encampments and to move forward towards a healthier future. While I hear the arguments for leaving the encampments intact, it really isn't what is best for Stockton, which does include those who are unhoused. Thank you all for your time tonight, and thank you for continuing to do what is best for all of Stockton's residents. Thank you. Dionne Smith, followed by Mary Elizabeth. Yes, I'm here on behalf of James Rivera, who was executed 15 years ago. And I'm still here today speaking on his anniversary. It's next week. I still don't have police cameras, I mean, police reports that I'm asking for. And all the reports y'all said that he possibly had did. And I still ain't seen the young man. Y'all said it was some people riding. I still know that this case should still be open. So have y'all found anyone regarding my son's case? This is what I asked y'all for. I know they're graphic, but I want y'all to see these. I can never sit down because this is what y'all gave me. This is what, and every time I see these pictures, I see these bullets, and these bullets still have not been answered. And I need some answers. I need y'all to grant me the police reports, and I also need y'all to grant me what happened that day. And I cannot get peace until them will be revealed to me. No justice, no peace. Mary Elizabeth, followed by Dan Richardson. MARY ELIZABETH, STOCKTON RESIDENT. SO I HAVE PREPARED SEVERAL COMMENTS ON ISSUES THAT YOU OFTEN HEAR ME SPEAK ABOUT. ALCOHOL, LICENSING, OVERCONCENTRATION, TOBACCO RETAIL, OVERCONCENTRATION, AND WATER. SO IN REGARDS TO THE ALCOHOL LAND USE PERMITS, SO BACK IN 2016, THERE WAS AN ORDINANCE PASSED And in that ordinance were specifications for revoking a land use permit for a particular location. So it's not forever, you know, it's an entitlement. And so I provided... INFORMATION BACK IN 2016, WHEN I WENT BACK AND I LOOKED, I WAS LIKE, WOW, I REALLY DID IT. AND I PROVIDED THAT INFORMATION TO THE CITY ATTORNEY. SO SINCE 2018, NO NEW BUSINESS LICENSES HAVE COME FOR THIS LOCATION SINCE 2019. THERE IS NO VALID OPERATIONAL ALCOHOL LICENSE ACCORDING TO ABC. There were several violations when it was in operation before it went off, and nothing is happening. So I put that out there, and we need to be enforcing to reduce these nuisances in our neighborhood. The same thing on the... THE HOT MESS ON HARDING WAY. THAT'S COMING UP FOR PERMIT RENEWAL. IT WAS IGNORED, THE LATE FEE, NO CHARGE. THERE WAS NO BUSINESS FEES THAT WERE OBTAINED AT THE LAST CYCLE. AND THEN IN TERMS OF WATER, THE CITY OF STOCKTON CHARGES CAL WATER RESIDENTS A UTILITY TAX AND NOT THE REST OF THE CITY. WHY? THANK YOU. DAN RICHARDSON FOLLOWED BY JULIE DUNNING. Evening Mayor, Council, City Manager. I don't want to get into all the political fray that's going on right now. I will say that I'm a little disappointed. I supported the majority of you in the last election, and I just hope we can get beyond the dysfunction that is happening and we can get on with the business of the city. Now on to some better notes and things that are happening. I live in the Midtown area, as most of you are aware. In Midtown, we have the pool coming on board at Victory Park in August. We have a new basketball court that is expanded from a half court to a full court. The Hawk Light has started, finally. PG&E and a number of other have gotten out there, and at least we have the USA Underground Service Alert marked and pavement marked for the installation of that. Those are all good things that are happening. Those things are happening across this city. the Mayor and Vice Mayor's initiative to light up Stockton. That is moving forward at a good pace and things are happening. Mario Enriquez with District 4 has filled potholes. We can laugh at that, some people do. I personally have hit him and done damage to my car. Other people have done the same. Those aren't small things. We're doing some good things. Please continue to move forward with doing the right things and getting the city moving in the direction it needs to. our police department. Hats off to them with the mayor's help and the police chief's help. We had a focused enforcement on Pershing Avenue last Thursday. In less than four hours, in less than four hours, they wrote 60 citations in four hours for people doing. And I know that they usually don't ticket people unless they're doing 45, which is 15 miles an hour over the speed limit. These are all good things. The city is moving forward. We need to continue to focus on that and get together and come together as a community and as a council to keep that happening. Thank you. Julie Dunning, followed by Nancy Lamb. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, and council members. Protocol dictates that I must direct my comments to you, Madam Mayor, but please know they are not targeted at you. My comments are for the entire council. Enough is enough. Can you count to four? Trust, truth, and transparency. These were promises we heard for almost a year. They gave hope to the citizens of Stockton. We rode on a wave of excitement that there would be a new way of doing things with a cohesive council that would be able to get things done. Now here we are seven months later and the current discord in this council is as bad, if not worse, than the previous council. You veered way off course and your failure at leadership is harming our city and negatively impacting city staff. I can't even imagine having to come to work each day in this type of climate. The finger pointing and accusations do nothing but create divisiveness and chaos amongst the citizens. People don't know who to believe or what to believe. And the positive energy that we once were riding high on has turned to a dark cloud. This is not the council we wanted and it's certainly not the council we voted for. The craziness needs to stop tonight. It's time to put your personal differences aside, start performing as a team and refocus all of your energy on strategic priorities of the city. public safety, homelessness, and infrastructure maintenance. We need a contract for the police department as soon as possible before officers start leaving. And since the chief has been able to reduce crime, improve morale, and retain officers, I would like to see him given a measure of security by providing him a contract as well. It's not unheard of, other cities have done it, and it's the least we can do for all he's given our city. He is one of the few positive things we have going for us right now. I know all of you and I know you're good at heart and I know you want to do the right things. So I beg of you, hear my pleas and respond accordingly. Thank you. Nancy Lamb followed by Mark Stebbins. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council. First and foremost, I have basically what Julie said. You know, we have amazing chief here. Our chief is out there, community policing. He's done a lot more than the chief prior. You know what I mean? He cares about this community. He needs to have that contract. He needs to be set so we don't lose him. We lose him, this city's going to be screwed, period. You know, we have amazing officers who are out on the streets. They are working 10 to 16 hours a day depending on how the call goes. Who does not have a contract? We need to be focusing on that right now. And then down the road, focusing on the substations. As of right now, we've got 70 new officers hired. But guess what? They're not trained. If they're not fully trained, they're not going to be safe out on our street for us, for our community, for them. You know, it takes six months for the academy. And then it takes six to eight months with a field training officer. Then they're on their own. They're on probation for another six months. And guess what? Not all of them make it. We need to focus on that before we focus on the substations. Once we get them trained, once we have, you know, fully staffed, then consider the substations. But right now at 2.8 million, I'm sorry, we have other things we need to do. Thank you. Mark Stebbins, followed by Dr. Danielle Hibbets. Dr. Danielle Hibbets. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. I'm standing here for three reasons. One, I was elected to the Citizens Advisory Committee for the California Department of Corrections for the City of Stockton. We've had one meeting. I would like to know how I can be best utilized to service what is my community of Stockton to deal with the 296 offenders, the clients that are riding around with ankle monitors, and they're part of the homeless community that we're dealing with. Again, I'm a forensic clinical psychologist, and I'm offering my services and would like to be utilized, but again, we've had no meetings. My second issue is our garbage, our water. Ava, I had to fight with them as a personal, individual person that lives here in Stockton. My garbage hasn't been picked up. My water bill has been increased by $40 this month based on our new municipal issues and the fact that we as a community joined with AVA and AVA is taking advantage of us as clients. That's it. Jessica Velez followed by Patty Lewis. Hello, Patty Lewis. I live in the 95205 district. My complaint is tonight that the city of Stockton has let me down. I've been to the city animal shelter, and I've been to the city code enforcer, city manager, and now I'm here at city council. There's a pig in the city zone. that is not allowed, but yet the code enforcer says that the city of Animal needed more pressure put on because it's not doing their job. I've complained. I got pictures. He's digging holes in my yard constantly. There's been two months, and nothing has happened. So I'm asking for the city to not let me or the community of 95205 down because the pig runs the street. He's not just in my yard. He's in other yards. I do not have $6,000 for offense. He's breaking the law, and I shouldn't have to have $6,000 for offense. Please. HAVE THE ANIMAL SHELTER OR WHOEVER ELSE THERE IS TO STOP ALLOWING THIS LAW BEING BROKEN IN THE CITY CODE AREA. THANK YOU. ONE OF MY STAFF MEMBERS WILL TALK TO YOU OUTSIDE, GET YOUR INFORMATION. THANK YOU. JESSICA VALLEZ FOLLOWED BY CYNTHIA GAYLE BOYD. GOOD EVENING. I WANTED TO CLEAR SOMETHING UP FROM THE LAST COUNCIL MEETING. First of all, the police officers that I work with, I have the most respect for them, and I honor my relationship with them. I came to speak about Trinity Parkway last week. I was not familiar with the gentleman or any of the people that came to talk about Mont Diablo. That was all of their comments, and I'm not speaking down on their perspectives because I wasn't there. But I wanted to come and set that straight with everyone here. uh... second of all i want to take the time to express my support for councilman enriquez from district four not just because of his position but who he is as a person and how he shows up for his community when people in our city raise concerns or complaints mario doesn't push them aside he comes and answers them the kind of accessibility responsiveness matters especially when many feel very ignored uh... i personally invited everyone to come out with me two encampments and see what's going on firsthand, and he has showed up not just once but twice. The truth is leadership isn't about only serving the citizens who live in nice neighborhoods, drive decent cars, or have stable jobs. True leadership means standing up for the most vulnerable, those who have nothing, those who are struggling every single day to survive. And I'm going to talk to you real quick about Trinity Parkway because I'm running out of time. I filed an ADA request on June 27th. which was confirmed received by deputy city manager will crew mayor for gauzy you indicated to me that that was not the city's responsibility to respond to that and that i needed to deal with s j cares probation that was filed with the city clerk so it very much is the city's responsibility you guys are out there right now dumping piles at truckloads of road base you have closed off the waterway and Before this ends, there's a man that was going to kill himself on Friday because of this displacement. So if that happens, I want you guys to think about what you're doing. Cynthia Gale-Boyd, followed by Mamie Dolores Chambers. I'm still alive. Got a little house cleaning to do. Start with City Councilwoman Padilla. When I was over at the town hall meeting... at Western Ranch, and you're supposed to be busy jotting down notes for the vice mayor. And I was speaking to him about why he had said he wanted to quit. And you took it upon yourself to come to the microphone and say that you think about quitting sometime too. And I said, well, some people need to quit. What is it? Pause the time. Can you direct the comments to me? You can still, but through me, okay? So she can't be shaking her head at me either? No, well, if you're looking at me, you won't see a shake of head. Well, I got peripheral vision. I'll see it. Thank you. All right, all right. All right, so she said that she thought about quitting, too. And I said, well, some people need to quit, right? But if I don't send for you, don't come. Stay in your own lane, whoever that is. At the grand opening of the swimming pool, at the grand opening, AT THE SWIMMING POOL AT MCKINLEY PARK, AND THE VICE MAYOR WAS SAYING, MAKE SURE WE TAKE CARE OF OUR PARK, MAKE SURE WE TAKE CARE OF OUR TREES. MAYBE YOU COULD ASK HIM IF HE KNOWS THE DEAD TREE THAT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF THE SWIMMING POOL. MIGHT WANT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT. NOW, ABOUT THE LOUD-ASS PARTIES. EVER SINCE YOU ALL CAME ONTO COUNCIL IN JANUARY, WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THOSE LOUD PARTIES. talking about condition, and I guess I can look at the rest of y'all, talking about the Stockton Police Department being on condition blue, which means the whole city shuts down. You can't get any police service. Now, the same people that I told you came to my home as a gang after they were cited because of one of them loud-ass parties. Last weekend, they had a whole, what you call them, chastity kind of people, them, one of them, in their front yard. I want to know when we can get on the agenda so you can figure out how to protect the citizenry, and especially my own council person. Thank you so much. Mamie Dolores Chambers, followed by Erin Paradiso. Hello. This is my first council. I'm born and raised in Stockton, right here, and I've never been to City Hall. Isn't that a shame? But you know what brought me here? This new election, Jason Lee, Mayor Fagazzi, ignited me. I never wanted to get back in politics since I left work and I had a little politics there. But I said I'm going to come check it out. So it excited me because I feel like Stockton is ready for a new banner, you know. I've never been to one of these meetings, so excuse me if I'm going to just go ahead and present my ideas of what I think Stockton is. could use and other ideas can come from this also. So what my idea is that when I was thinking of you two coming in here, especially with your social media, I was thinking, oh my God, Stockton will be maybe finally on the map of around the world. People will know who we are because we got Jason Lee here. We got some celebrities coming here. But it's gonna take a little bit more work. So I thought to myself to put this package together is that Stockton needs a new banner. We have an old banner and our old banner is saying we are the old crime written Stockton. And just like social media, you have to change your banner sometimes. And I have an idea to change our banner for Stockton. So we can be a Stockton of money, to get money city, The City of Trees. I got all kinds of names for us. And that's because we need a vision. We need a new banner. Okay? And with that, I have some proposals, some ideas here I want to share with the council, but not right now. But the new ideas is to give inspiration. I think growing up here, what I missed when I was younger is no inspiration, nothing to bring me out on a summer day. But excuse me, I won't keep up much of your time. I'll present this to you. Yeah, we can get it, and Lanisha will get your information. Okay. Thank you. Erin Paradiso followed by Denise Friday. Denise Friday followed by Anthony Abbott. i'm sorry andy abbott good evening mayor and vice mayor and city council members i'm just so happy to see all you guys again up there you look real nice despite of all the things that are going around but i don't know about that But I'm just here to say that I'm here today because, you know, my son, Kobe Friday, was executed in Stockton, California, in Kenfield area down in 2016 when David Wells killed my son for mistaken identity. It's still a hard thing for us to get past it, but, you know, In spite of everything, I'm just going to send you guys this here. I invited you guys out when we had the unveiling of the bench that we had worked with the Department of Public Works and everything like that. And it's so beautiful. And no one came to support us on that. And we're still having the backpack giveaway. Everybody say yay. Yeah, the backpack giveaway is gonna be August the 2nd, 2025 at Kenfield Park, and it's gonna be from 11 to 3 p.m., and we wanna give out the supplies. Once again, our mayor was a educator. She has supported us several times on this issue of making sure the children have what they need. We want the children to have the supplies they need to be successful in their school endeavors. So we're asking for everybody's support here at the City Council. You know, you can make your check payable to Loyalty and Family, CTF Incorporated, and we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Andy Abbott, followed by Becky Cameron. Becky Cameron followed by Nancy Cochran. Mayor Fugazi, Vice Mayor and Council Members. I'm here today to express my displeasure regarding how our very honest Council Member Mario Enriquez has been criticized and accused. When we were children and we made a mistake, we were usually quick to blame it on somebody else. Sissy did it. Johnny did another bad thing. When we're grownups, we don't do that anymore. When we make a decision and someone calls it into question, we have to do one of two things. One, own our mistake. Yes, I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I'll avoid repeating it. or we decide to defend our decision i think i made the right decision and here's why mayor fugazi you have failed to do that instead of dealing with the issue you accused an honest man of dishonesty i want a mayor and council that is transparent that tells the public what's going on and that tells the public why decisions have been made I challenge you to show a fraction of the integrity that Mario Enriquez has displayed and continues to display. The public can forgive bad decisions. We all make those now and then. But we can't forgive lack of transparency and dishonesty. If you can't lead the city in that way, then I regret my vote for you, and I would gladly sign a recall petition. Thank you. Nancy Cochran, followed by Latrell Green. Good evening. Greetings to Stockton City Council members. I'm Nancy Cochran. I have been a resident of Stockton for 32 years. As you evaluate our interim city manager, Steve Colangelo, I offer what I have observed in my occasional meetings with Steve in various groups. Working with others, Steve has consistently put together a game plan to reach a goal, to achieve a solution using a team approach. He appreciates each person's skills and puts their skills to work. Steve's upbeat, positive approach helps people work together. Not long ago, I read something that Steve wrote. It was a how-to manual, and it will really be helpful to those who are new to the task that he wrote about. What struck me about it was his respectful attitude toward each individual involved. He could relate to their point of view. Steve's approach goes a long way TO HELP PEOPLE DO THEIR JOBS. OUR CITY STAFF NEED THIS KIND OF ENCOURAGEMENT. THEY NEED TO BE APPRECIATED. PEOPLE WANT TO DO THEIR BEST WHEN THEY FEEL THEY ARE PART OF THE CITY OF STOCKTON TEAM. THANK YOU. LATRELL GREEN FOLLOWED BY KIMBERLY ALSTON. GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, VICE MAYOR, COUNCIL, My name is Latrell Green. I'm 20 years old. I was raised in Stockton. I've been sleeping on and off the streets since I was like 14, 15. I currently am in a shelter, so I know how it feels to be a disadvantaged youth, a troubled youth. So with that being said, Jason Lee, I'm aware of your, I'm fully aware of your I Am Ready program and how you like are like trying to assist the youth and like better the youth of Stockton. I like to build alongside you with an organization that I've been in the process of forming called Butterfly. With Butterfly, I plan on creating big competitive events in which a portion of the profit gained from each event goes towards the winner of said event and towards a partner in which we collaborate with on that certain event, such as homeless shelters. It's sort of like a fundraising thing, homeless shelters, churches, schools, et cetera. There's much more that I'd like to talk to you about privately, personally. I believe if this gets well-known around the city, I plan on it to go nationwide. I believe if this gets super big, it could revolutionize Stockton with the fundraising technique that I want to implement in the city. Yeah, that's all. Kimberly Alston, followed by Pat Barrett. Greetings. My name is Kimberly Alston. Hi, Jason. It's so good to have you home. I've been knowing Jason since he was a little boy, and he was a Stockton cadet. Always clean, shoes shining. You're the best Jason. I'm a longtime Stockton resident. My brother was one of the first black firefighters here in Stockton. It's unfortunate they call them the dirty dozen because they were hired through affirmative action. I just threw that out there for. Thank you. Amen. I'm here. I just moved back. My brother died, and he was a pastor here, Joel Alston, pastor of Christlike Ministry. And I was homeless, three years living in my truck with my big white pit bull. And it was very trying, trying to find housing. So I came home, and I found housing here. And I'm grateful. I was fortunate. It's awful for women. It's awful for black women, period, and to be homeless on top of it. And now that I'm living here downtown, I grew up here in Stockton, the YMCA, Eden Park. Chuck Connors did a movie there. I was a little girl. I got to meet Chuck Connors. Beretta, downtown. and Huggy Bear did a show. There's history, and I loved growing up here. Thank you, Jason, for restoring McKinley Park, where I learned how to swim. My firefighter brother threw me in the eight feet of water and told me, if I wanted to live, you'd swim. I swam. My mother was so mad, she put us in the YMCA to learn how to swim. So I'm here because I live downtown. My time is up. I live downtown, and we need a dog park. Pat Barrett, followed by Donnie Smith. Mayor Ferrazzi and members of the Stockton City Council, my name is Pat Barrett, and I serve as the Water Advisory Commissioner for District 6. I write to you not just in my official capacity, but as a concerned and deeply unsettled resident. A PUBLIC SERVANT WHO WAS TARGET OF AN AGGRESSION AND INAPPROPRIATE CONFRONTATION BY COUNCIL MEMBER AT A PUBLIC EVENT. ON THURSDAY THE 26TH, I WAS WALKING THROUGH THE PARKING LOT, I'M GOING TO CUT TO THE CHASE BECAUSE YOU ALL HAVE A LETTER OF THIS, BUT I WANTED TO CIRCLE BACK TO THE AMENDMENT. I WAS AT THE GREATER STOCKTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND I WAS QUESTIONED BY COUNCIL MEMBER ABOUT TALKING TO HIM AND I SAID YOU WERE ON THE PHONE. AT THAT POINT, WE WERE TALKING, AND THROUGH THE CONVERSATION, COUNCILMEMBER VILLA-PEDUA CONTINUED THE CONVERSATION BY SAYING, YOU SEE HOW I GOT THE AD HOC COMMUNITY BROKEN UP? AND I'M LIKE, OH, OKAY. YOU GOT POWER. AND THEN WE WENT ON WITH THE CONVERSATION. THIS IS LIKE THE THIRD OR FOURTH TIME, I'M SORRY, THAT HE HAS SHOWN MISAPPROPRIATION TO OTHER PEOPLE. HE DID THAT FLIPPING OFF OF THAT OTHER MAN HERE AT CITY COUNCIL. THERE WAS ANOTHER INCIDENT. BUT THIS WAS A PUBLIC VERBAL ATTACK. I DEAL WITH PTSD. You do not approach me in a safe place and think that I'm just going to sit down and be a victim. I will not be a victim ever again to anybody. My safe place at that Hilton Hotel, now I've got to watch my back over and over and over again because somebody wanted to put a hair up their what? Okay? Yelling at me, saying, I see what you are now. I see how you are. I see how you are. I'm like, oh, dude, sit down. Trying to de-escalate this. So I respectfully request the following. You have the letter. Please push it forward. This is inappropriate behavior. Donnie Smith followed by Zakiya Kareem. Zakiya Kareem. Nuri Muhammad. Good evening. In the name of Almighty God, to the mayor, to the vice mayor, the distinguished council, and city manager, and the activated public that are participating in the process, I'm thankful to have a few minutes to speak today. My subject matter that I wanted to talk about is the proposed eradication of the DEI policy of the city of Stockton. I don't know if that's true or if an investigation has gone into it on the validity of it, but I just wanted to broach that subject matter just for a short while. There's an adage that says that those that fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. In 1968, 1969, President Johnson ordered what is called the Kerner Commission to be formed and to examine the unrest that had just transpired in the United States all throughout America in cities all throughout the United States. Thirty years later, I mean, excuse me, 60 years later, we sit in that same type of atmosphere growing all over America. Stockton is one of the most diverse cities in America anywhere. However, Stockton sits in the same seat as all the other places if we allow ourselves to eradicate things that were put in place to meet the recommendations of that Kerner Commission that's over 60 years old. Anytime you have a woman come and talk about what transpired with her son and the lack of justice that was given to her in police brutality, how she can't get any of the information, if you've ever lost anyone, And gun violence, whether it's through police brutality or in the street, and you can't get answers, the pain never goes away. I was already your brother, but now I'm really your brother because I had a loss similar to yours. Not by the police, but it's black on black, but no answers. So when there's no answers, people... So pardon me, I didn't get to the DEI part, but I'll come back and maybe, God willing, next week or the week after, bring up why this lack of justice... is part of the DEI eradication. Nazia Whiteside-Rhodes, followed by Alyssa Leyva. Good evening all. My name is Nazia Whiteside-Rhodes. First and foremost, my condolences go to our Mayor, Ms. Christina Fugazi, regarding the death of her father. You have been receiving nothing but love and consideration as you take these moments to heal and come back strong. I am the president of my Uncle Jason's I Am Ready Youth Leadership Initiative. And with that being said, to say I love Stockton is an understatement. To say I think Stockton loves itself is a reach. I cannot proudly say that Stockton takes care of its people or anyone whom it may have influenced. For a city who is majority ruled by men, built by men, and protected by men, there aren't enough resources to directly and positively make an impact on men's mental health. Instead of empowering men, we feed off the killings, gang violence, and drug abuse of men created by other men. In our society, a man can no longer be seen as capable if they show any other emotion other than anger and rage. As the only sister of three brothers, Link, Eric, and Khali'i Rhodes, it's immensely difficult to see the only support system they have are the women in our family. To change the future, we must start from the source. Men need more familial support than we accommodate them, which means we need for them to have financial, mental, and emotional support to keep them educated on the importance of maintaining stability for not only themselves, but for their offspring as well. Thank you. Alyssa Leyva, followed by Tamika Small. Good evening, Alyssa Leyva, community organizer with Stockton Stands and Fixed SUSD. This week, we learned about the trial of Angelan Flores and the overall investigation, a repeat of the FICMA audit into SUSD. For those who are expressing grievance and contention for the status of our city today, this was predictable years ago with the chaos and violation of Brown Acts and lack of protocol and dysfunction within SUSD. and it has transferred here. Vice Mayor, when you were running for office, and I'm going to speak in general because I'm not speaking directly to you, I think it's a beautiful thing you were able to use your resources that the city did not have to amplify our pain and our lack of infrastructure in South Stockton. But when I asked you to mobilize about the FICMA audit, you deleted my comment. Every single one of you has worked with 209 Times at one point, except for Michael Blauer. And for the sake of the FBI and the DOJ checking every jurisdiction in this county as of right now, keep your hands clean. We deserve better. Mashallah Stockton will be free. Thank you. Tamika Small, followed by Nyla Benton. Good evening, Mayor Fugazi, Vice Mayor Lee, council members, and city staff. I want to take this time to sincerely thank you for the incredible experience you provided not only for my son, who's here with me today, but for all the youth who participated in this year's Summer Youth Employment Program. Each of them gained valuable work experience and had the opportunity to give back to their community in meaningful ways. My son was one of just 100 youth selected out of over 1,400 applicants. That alone speaks volumes about the need and interest in this program. I truly hope the city will be able to secure more funding in the future to expand it so even more young people can benefit. The laptops that the youth received at the conclusion of the program were such a beautiful and unexpected blessing, something that will continue to support their growth beyond the summer. Once again, thank you, Mayor Fugazi, Vice Mayor Lee, council members, and city staff for investing in our youth and their future. Thank you. Nyla Benton, followed by Rupinder Mangat. Good evening. My name is Nyla Benson, and this is Trinity Mauvel. And we are part of the Hollywood Cares Foundation, and we want to acknowledge the work and dedication Vice Mayor Jason Lee has put into our youth by helping our communities and funding with Stockton, like opening the McKinley Pool and having the Western Ranch Pool open to the public. And we also want to give our condolences to Christina Fugazi of her passing of her father. Thank you. Rupinder Mangat, followed by Brandy Boyd. Good evening, respected city council officials. My name is Rupinder Mangat, and I've introduced myself as a man of genuine human connections where everyone benefits, and all my life I have worked hard to make people's relationships stronger and stronger, as tomorrow is not granted. Some of you know me by Roger, and if you do not know me by now, where have you been? I never believe in politics. I never believed in politics since the last 29 years since I've been in America, but since I came across, respected Jason Lee, respected Mario, and respected Christina, and I mean, I respect everybody over there as well, I thought this is a new team that will turn tables. And I'm still positive they will, with Triple T, truth, stress, transparency. I hope my presence here will bring some positive impact. At least I tried. I want to take just a moment to share something important. We are all here because we care deeply about this town and its people. We have each taken on responsibility not for personal reasons but to serve a larger purpose. The citizens of this town have placed high hopes in us. They expect progress, stability, and leadership. And I truly believe everyone... And this room is capable of delivering that. You're all great leaders. You're all outstanding. We are all on this earth for a purpose. That is why I feel it's important to say this is not time or place to bring up internal matters. City needs positive changes. Our focus right now should be on the work we are doing, the goals we have set, and the path forward. There will always be moments of disagreement and misunderstandings, but those should be handled privately and with care, not in front of everyone, and not at the cost of our shared mission. Because if... A torn shoe is not repaired right away. It keeps on tearing more and more. Don't demoralize the citizens of Stockton. They have hopes. Teamwork makes dream work. Let's stay focused, stay united, and continue working for the people who are counting on us. During these vocals, I address the word us because I has never worked together by itself. Us and we have always won the battles. Let's show other cities and states what an amazing city council team mayor and council members of Stockton have. Please, I beg you all, let's stay united because hundreds of thousands of citizens of the city have hopes on all of us. Citizens, please come to these meetings. And God always sends someone to make a change. Change is a law of nature. Thank you very much. Brandy Boyd, followed by Pandora Crowder. Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Brandi Boyd, and I'm here as a proud supporter of Vice Mayor Lee. One of the key promises Jason made was public safety, including the establishment of police substations. Vice Mayor Lee chooses to serve Stockton because he genuinely believes in Stockton. He doesn't have to be here, but he sacrifices in order to show up for us, and that's why I believe in him 100%. I walked neighborhoods. I made calls and campaigned, not just for Jason, but also for you, Mayor. We didn't know you, but Jason believed in your leadership, and we stood behind you because he always spoke highly of you and believed in your leadership. One of the key promises made was public safety and the establishment of police substations. The Southside community needs structure and protection along with positive police relationships. The culture needs to change and this is where it starts for all of Stockton. To see that promise now questioned by people who don't care about South Stockton due to cost concerns feels like a betrayal. And honestly, it's not a surprise because this is the attitude we are used to. The South side is tired of being ignored, especially when far more money goes to less urgent non-protective projects. Thank you. Pandora Crowder. First of all, Mayor Fugazi, from one daughter who has buried her father to another, my heart goes out to you. I wasn't going to speak. A lot has happened this week and I was sitting here quietly. I'm going to remind you all of something that a very courageous young youth said back in March. If one of you is accountable, all of you, accountable all of you you go on social media and you talk and you slander each other those of you who are famous for your social medias you slander you ride certain council members like it's your job all of you are all of you are guilty of this we have enough going on We have a SUSD who's missing seven point something million dollars. Where is it? We have a council that's dysfunctional and you promised us better. I have children who can't get the backpacks because we lost federal funding. I have people who are begging for food because the emergency food bank had three fires in one week. Where are any of you? Are you standing in that line? I do. I stand in that line to get that food. You promised us better. Your personal issues aren't my problem. My problem is getting food onto everybody's table. My problem is making sure all of our children have backpacks. My problem is the simple fact I'm just trying to live here. I don't get to go to the Dominican Republic. I don't get to go to Hawaii. I don't get to go to these places. That concludes public comment. Okay, thank you. That brings us then to the consent agenda. Are there any items that council would like to pull? 12.8. 12.3. 12.19. 12.17. Okay. So we have four items to pull. Are there any items outside of that that have public comment? There are none. Okay. So I will entertain a motion for the rest of the consent calendar. Move to approve. I motion to approve the remainder. Second. Okay. Councilmember Blower got it out first. I'll second. Second. Okay. Council, please vote. Motion carries 6-0. Let's go in chronological order. One moment, Mayor. Correction, 7-0. You said 6. Oh, sorry, 7. 7-0. Sorry. Chronological order. We'll start with 12.3, which let me get to that page. I should know this one. Public records requests. That's with you, City Clerk. That is me. What can I answer for you? Well, I'm not sure. Does the public know that we've transferred that process from the management office to your office? I believe most public does know. We definitely have seen an uptick in requests. So, yes, it is now through the city clerk's office. You can request records multiple different routes, either emailing us directly, calling us directly, calling anybody in the city. But we also started a new email address, which is recordsrequest at StocktonCA.gov, to make it a little bit more streamlined. So before I ask the questions that I want to ask related to this process, you know, I realize requesting information and the right to information from my old days as a union leader where I would ask the big bad boss for information, they wouldn't give it to me, and then I had to go through the legal routes of not getting information. And information sharing is critical to people to be able to carry out the essential duties of the job if you're uh... union person in negotiations you have to share information in order to adequately represent your people i think that same rule applies to people in my position uh... i've the rule of law for my understanding you had a attorney can tell us is that when we're information is requested for members of the public there's a ten-day ticker that starts happening when that request goes in. Can you just share what that is? Sure. So the 10-day ticker is from the point that the request comes in, and of course it accepts things like weekends or holidays when we're not working. The 10-day ticker is for determination. We have 10 days just to determine if we have those records. So we're searching our records, seeing if anything is responsive to that request, and need to respond to that individual within 10 days to let them know either yes, we found something, no, we didn't, or if we need an extension of time based for a variety of reasons. So now the one challenge that I have been struggled with as the Vice Mayor of Stockton, which is crazy to even say that, is that when I've asked for information, I've been told that I'm subject to the 10 days. And even sitting here today, it's been 30 days since I've gotten all the information related to a subject matter that I'm addressing both here and in my committee. How do we explain that? to this council, I mean, and to the public if that's the rule of 10 days. So I think I understand your question, but if I answer wrong, interrupt me. So if you're a council member and you're asking for information and it's coming to me through the CPRA process, I process it exactly in that route. So oftentimes as a council member you may be asking for information that's not under my purview. so I can't necessarily go and ask another department head for that information. I have to handle it through the CPA process. So if you are asking for that information from me, it's not within my purview and easily ready to give to you, you would enter that process. Otherwise, if it's something you need for a department, of course you can always go through the ICM to request that information. So does the rule apply to council members the same law or the same process apply to council members? Correct. It applies to anybody across the board. Okay. So we also know that rules need to be handed out handled even-handedly, or else people will start to create questions of disparity. Is the process, as you understand it, that council members all, including the mayor, have to go through the CPRA process for information? If they were to ask of me, that is correct. Just specifically because that's my role in this, if they're asking of it from somebody else, then it depends on their purview and availability. Okay. my my second question is yesterday i was sent a text message of a video online and i know that i'm going to be requesting this information later on in my committee meetings and through the manager but there's a new department called optic that has not had a presentation before this council in the public yet where there's now a video of city staff online saying i will answer any question at any time from anybody immediately how does that correlate with the CPRA process that we're reviewing here today? That's actually an excellent question. So there's been a division of duties, and I don't know that the public is aware of this. Previously, PRAs and... public information was handled through one office. It was the community relations officer. Those duties have been split. So public information is now through a public information officer, and that's where the optic, and I'm sure ICM could speak more to this, that's where optic comes from. We are handling just the CPRA process into that. So we're not doing, if you're asking general questions, for example, if it's a media inquiry or a public inquiry to find and discover facts, You're going to go through the public information office. And if I receive a request like that, we divide those duties and, you know, here's the documents I have and here's the responses to your questions from the other office. But I guess my question is then because the information, the CPRA process was moved from the manager's department to your department and the person that handled that before was the PIO. So now there's, in my opinion, by looking at online conversation about ask me any question, I'll release any information specific to how we govern at the city. So can the media then go and ask online questions and ask for CPRA? And how are you all, here's the big question, how are you all communicating for continuity? Tony, the PIO, Tony Manor and I, we constantly communicate on that vein. So if we receive requests that fills for both of us, we communicate with each other on that. So even if someone does ask for a document from him, and it's already happened, I am very well aware of the video that you're referencing, he's already reached out to me for assistance to answer some of those questions in terms of documentation. So we're working in concert with each other. I don't know if it's appropriate to ask for the presentation here now or during comments for future counsel. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to get a presentation on the optic department for us to understand that and for the public to understand it. And just understanding why I wanted to ask this question was because if you give one answer and then another answer comes out on social media, how do we then handle that? And I guess we can get that through the presentation. Yeah. And ultimately, my job is just to present the information as it stands. His job is to answer the questions. Got it. Motion. Yeah, motion to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second. Council members, please vote. Motion passes seven to zero. Just for clarification, was the request, did I have to get a second to get the presentation? I got it? Yeah. Okay. Moving on to item 12.8, resolution to allocate grant funding from the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program. And that is pulled by Councilwoman Padilla. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Ms. McCarty. This is more of a comment, not really a question. This is a... St. Mary's pathway I know is something that our city definitely needs however I have significant concerns allocating 1.2 million for the pathways one since it's not been completed and we've been waiting for a really long time I think that we should have clear reporting on outcomes and expenditures before further funding and So I would like to propose a request for full audit of the project funds, deliverables, expenditures, and measurable outcomes prior to allocating this money. And I don't know how I would word that. Okay. So I would say the question is, is there a deadline, a timeline on these funds? These are HAP 3 and 4 funds. Excuse me. Tina McCarty, Economic Development Director. There is a timeline on HAP 3 and 4 funds. HAP 3 needs to be spent by the end of March 26, and HAP 4 is 27. Okay, so we have on our agenda for the 29th of this month to have a presentation about the status of the pathways and the navigation center. That's correct. So is it, I don't know if you're asking this, if it's possible to delay just that one item until that night? Yes. Until after the presentation? It certainly could be, and the attorney can probably guide you specifically, but I believe if you would like to consider making a motion to take the St. Mary's money out of this current resolution, that might suffice what you're after. Yes, yes. So I request this item to be deferred until July 29th. following completion and presentation of the... Okay, so Vice Mayor has a question. Okay. Sorry, thank you. So the St. Mary's, and this is just for staff who's tracking, I asked for an audit, I don't know how long ago, we asked for an audit of St. Mary's or a presentation. When was that supposed to happen? Does anybody know? The 29th. The 29th, so it is on the agenda where it's going? Yeah. Okay, all right, yeah, no, I support that. And just a point of clarification, you said item. I think you need to be more specific that you want that portion taken out, but the rest is okay. Yes. I'm comfortable with the other just. So to approve the item removing St. Mary's. Exactly, yes. Thank you. And that could be on the 29th? Yes. Okay. I second that. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to item 12.17 pulled by the Vice Mayor, Maddie Harrell Park Playground Replacement Project. I mean, everybody online when we talked about McKinley was saying, what about Maddie Harrell? What about Maddie Harrell? And I knew it was coming and I share your excitement. Ms. Boyd. All right, Cynthia, it's my turn. Ms. Boyd. No, when we opened the McKinley Park pool, I mean, people were just all over social media saying, what about Matahiro? What about Matahiro? And I knew that that was coming. I know that one of my commissioners lives right there. And this is a park that everybody's excited to see. So I wanted to pool this just to get the presentation and have a conversation about it. For sure. So actually it's consent. So I don't have a presentation, but I can kind of tell you about it. This is a replacement of the existing park structure that's there or play structure that's there. It's really cool. You can see in the attachment, it's got some pictures of it. So it's got a lot of sensory and play features for, you know, ages, I don't know, three, four on up to about 12. It is expected to go in this winter and be completed by this winter. That was one of my questions, the timeline for completion. Do we know? Yep, winter of 2025. Okay, and then I know it's the playground. Are there other identified upgrades that are going to be done later, or is that all that's been identified at this point? At this point right now, just this play structure with this project here. Okay. A question, but you did say that, I mean, we did that Sandman Park. and there were sensory activities or features there. Will something similar then be at Mattie Harrell? Because you said sensory. Yes, and so I'm using sensory and a generic term, whereas Sandman was all-inclusive. This is not an all-inclusive playground. So that was designed for people that may have or kids that may have handicaps. This is not that kind of a playground. There is a playground like that at Van Buskirk, but Matty Harrell is just going to be a normal playground, what we would consider a normal playground. Okay, thank you. If I could just add one more thing. I know that we're doing a lot of work assessing all the trees, and there were fireworks that went off in the park, and I don't know if there were damage to the trees, but I would just ask if staff can just do an assessment of the trees in the park. Just give me an update. Sure, at Matty Harrell Park. Matty Harrell. Yeah, we can do that. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. I'll make a motion to approve. Sorry, look how fast I forgot. Cynthia Gail Boyd. Thank you. I don't know why we couldn't have a little diagram of what they plan on doing over there at Matty Harrell Park. Matty Harrell's youngest son Tony Anthony Harrell passed away. And two Saturdays ago, we had a repast in his memory. And it's a shame that we couldn't have used Maddie Harrell Park to recognize the death of her son, Anthony Tony Harrell. How come we can't have something interactive over there? was a city councilwoman over there in District 5. We did get some lights over the handball cart and a flushing toilet, but Stribble Park hasn't been upgraded either. How come we can't get some of that? I see in the minutes where there's dollars that are designated for other parks in other areas, but I don't see the dollar amount for Mattie Harrell Park. How much are they investing over there at Mattie Harrell Park? How come we couldn't have some kind of diagram about what the upgrades would look like at the playground? Is it because it sits on 8th Street? It's a sin and a shame that we could not have had the memorial for Maddie Harrell's son, Anthony Tony Harrell. Oh, just for me? It was in y'all report. So I'm supposed to be approving that or what? Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Thank you. I think the point is still taken that it was a sin and it was a shame. First of all, it was an honor that she was acknowledged during her lifetime, but in her death that her son couldn't be moralized at her park because of the horrible conditions, it's a sin and a shame. Motion to approve. Second. A motion and a second. Council members, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to item 12.19 by Council Member Enriquez. Authorize a South Tuxedo Avenue sewer trunk rehabilitation project. THANK YOU, MAYOR. YES, THANK YOU, CHAD. AND I JUST HAD A QUICK QUESTION. I READ THROUGH THE LEG TEXT, AND I WAS HAPPY TO SEE THAT JUST FOR FOLKS THAT KNOW, THIS IS IN MY DISTRICT, DISTRICT FOUR. THE CITY OF STOCKTON'S PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT WILL BE REHABILITATING APPROXIMATELY 1,900 LINEAR FEET OF AN EXISTING 16-FOOT DIAMETER VITRIFIED CLAY PIPE. vcpi sewer trunk line along south tuxedo avenue between kensington way and orange street using cured in pipe rehabilitation method work also includes temporary bypassing cctv reconnection of service laterals traffic control and removal and replacement of new maintenance holes completed by december 2025 THE ONLY QUESTION I CANNOT FIND IN THE LANGUAGE WAS WHEN WILL IT ACTUALLY START? I KNOW IT DEPENDS ON CONSTRUCTION, BUT ROUGH ESTIMATE OF WHEN IT WILL START AND ALSO FOLKS IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD OR THAT STRETCH WOULD IMPACT IN TERMS OF THE NEIGHBORS, TRAFFIC, ET CETERA, JUST SO AGAIN MY CONSTITUENTS CAN KNOW AND THE PUBLIC CAN KNOW. Yeah, for sure. Good question. And also, I want to just clarify, it's a 16 inch, not 16 foot, because that would be like stupid big. So just want to make sure we're talking about the same size. Construction's not my forte. No, no, no, no. That's good stuff. Just want to make sure we're nice and transparent. So with your approval tonight, we'll move forward to execute the contract. It takes about, let's say, 45 to 60 days to execute the contract. During that time, the contractor will submit their submittals. Part of that will be a traffic plan and an outreach to neighbors. So within the coming months, they'll be notified that, hey, this construction project is going to come through your neighborhood. This is how you're going to be impacted. Here's the number to call. Here's the contractor and so forth. And nothing will be closed off streets, roads. I know it's mainly through the underpass of the canal, but. I can't promise that, but the traffic plan will be put together. The contractor will work with our traffic engineering department to make sure that the neighborhood is serviced. You know, emergency services can be provided. The neighbors will be able to get in and out. There may be some kind of temporary closure. I'm not 100% sure, but that'll all be communicated to them. thing and then how often do you all assess i know obviously throughout the entire city but i know i'm glad to know that this is obviously uh it needs the repairs but how often do you all assess throughout the city of when you need to go in and do this type of work so the municipal utilities department they have a closed circuit tv system that they use and they'll go through and assess um they're out there daily assessing different pipelines um they have a master plan that they work off of and i we have a couple agenda items in here that talk about that but What it does is it looks for the integrity of our lines and the sizing of our lines to make sure that they're right size for the flow and distribution that we need. And then we update those plans, you know, every few years. Thank you. You're welcome. If there's no questions, a motion to approve? Second. Council members, please vote. Motion carries 6-0 with... vice mayor lee absent okay that concludes our consent agenda uh... i'm going to leap over to uh... public hearings uh... we're going to start with items sixteen point one free zoning of six five zero five south mckinley avenue to industrial limited zoning for the purpose of future industrial development i declare the public hearing open Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Vice Mayor, stepped away I guess, and Council. Mike McDowell, Assistant Director with the Community Development Department. Let me find the remote here. Where are we at? Is there any way you can skip me? Should I keep going? Keep going? Keep going. Okay. All right. Here we go. Okay. So as shown in attachment A of the staff report here on this slide, the project site is located at 6505 South McKinley Avenue, which is generally south of Arch Airport Road, which is to the north. and east of Interstate 5, not west of. It says west, but it's east of Interstate 5 within the unincorporated San Joaquin County area. This slide here identifies the general plan designation for the site and the vicinity of the project area. So on the left, you'll see identified is the general plan calling for land uses designations in that vicinity. So the site itself is designated for industrial. and you can see the to the north and east and west of this vicinity of the site are also industrial in the general plan and then to the south in yellow is low density residential on the right side of the slide is the zoning and you'll see that the property the project site itself is blank it doesn't show any color it's not zoned today it's in the unincorporated san joaquin county area and the blue area surrounding it to the north and to the EAST OF THIS SITE IS INDUSTRIAL LIMITED. AND THAT'S WHAT'S BEING PROPOSED THIS EVENING FOR THE PROJECT SITE. AND THEN AREAS AGAIN THAT ARE NOT COLORED, WHICH ARE TO THE WEST OF THIS SITE AND SOUTH, THOSE ARE IN THE UNINCORPORATED COUNTY, SO THEY DON'T HAVE CITY ZONING AT THIS POINT IN TIME. SO THE PROJECT ENTITLEMENTS. AS INDICATED IN YOUR STAFF REPORT ON APRIL 10TH, THE PLANNING COMMISSION APPROVED THE SITE PLAN AND DESIGN REVIEW FOR THE PROJECT THAT PROPOSES A 184,166 SQUARE FOOT NEW WAREHOUSE BUILDING AND APPROVED A RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL FOR THE CERTIFICATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENT AND PRE-ZONING OF THE PROJECT SITE TO INDUSTRIAL LIMITED LAND USE FOR ANNEXATION. THIS EVENING STAFF'S RECOMMENDING CITY COUNCIL'S APPROVAL OF THE MITIGATED NEGATIVE DECLARATION, THE ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENT IN COMPLIANCE WITH CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT, CEQA, REFERRED TO. PRE-ZONING FOR THE SITE TO INDUSTRIAL LIMITED AND AUTHORIZING THE FILING OF A CITY SERVICES PLAN AND ANNEXATION APPLICATION TO THE SAN JOAQUIN LOCAL AGENCY FOR MISSION COMMISSION FOR INCORPORATING THE PROJECT SITE INTO CITY OF STOCKTON. SO THAT JUST GIVES A SUMMARY. YOU CAN SEE ON THE RIGHT THE LAST PROCESS WOULD BE LAFCO MAKING THAT DETERMINATION ON THE PRE-ZONING. SO PRE-ZONING IN SPECIFIC, AS MENTIONED EARLIER, THE PROJECT SITE DOES NOT HAVE ZONING, AS I INDICATED EARLIER. IT WILL BE ASSIGNED ONCE IT'S ANNEXED INTO THE CITY OF STOCKTON. STAFF AND PLANNING COMMISSION RECOMMEND THE CITY COUNCIL APPROVE THE PRE-ZONING FOR THE SITE TO INDUSTRIAL LIMITED. THAT'S CONSISTENT WITH THE GENERAL PLAN AND AUTHORIZE THE FILING OF THE APPLICATION. SO THAT'S THE STEP WE'RE AT TONIGHT. ENVIRONMENTAL CLEARANCE. SO AN INITIAL STUDY MITIGATED NEGATIVE DECLARATION HAS BEEN PREPARED FOR THE PROJECT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT AND IS ATTACHED AS EXHIBIT ONE TO THE PROPOSED RESOLUTION. A NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY WAS PUBLISHED FOR AGENCY AND PUBLIC REVIEW DURING A 30-DAY PERIOD STARTING ON AUGUST 30, 2024, AND CONCLUDING ON SEPTEMBER 29, 2024. THERE WERE FOUR COMMENTS RECEIVED, ONE OF WHICH WAS RESCINDED SINCE IT WAS SENT IN. Prior to approving a project, City Council shall consider the proposed mitigated negative declaration together with any comments received during the public review process. All public comments were considered and responded to in the final environmental document. The mitigated negative declaration identifies potentially significant impacts related to biological, cultural resources, geological, greenhouse gases and vehicle miles traveled, VMT for short, that are determined to be less than significant with implementation of proposed mitigation measures. Staff recommends that council find on the basis of the whole record before it that there is no substantial evidence that the project will have significant effect on the environment with implementation of identified mitigation measures that the mitigated NEGATIVE DECLARATION REFLECTS THE LEAD AGENCY'S INDEPENDENT JUDGMENT AND ANALYSIS. AND JUST FOR YOUR KNOWLEDGE, IT'S IDENTIFIED IN THE STAFF REPORT, BUT WE RECEIVED COMMENT LETTERS FROM THE CENTRAL VALLEY WATER BOARD. THAT'S A STANDARD REQUIREMENT FOR THEM. THEY USUALLY PROVIDE COMMENTS JUST SAYING, BE SURE YOU GO THROUGH OUR PERMITTING PROCESS. THEY'VE GOT ALL KINDS OF PERMITTING PROCESS THAT ARE REQUIRED WITH DEVELOPMENT. We also received several attorney letters representing, for the most part, labor representation. So that's the gist of the comments on the environmental document that we received. So the following is a site plan proposed for the project. As shown in attachment D of your staff report for the development of the 9.84-acre site, the project consists of construction of 184,000, again, 166-square-foot industrial warehouse building. The site will also have 151 off-street parking spaces for employees and guests, and then 42 truck trailer parking stalls and on-site landscaping and site improvements. The project is well below the minimum size thresholds of Stockton's warehouse development standards contained in the development code that apply to logistics warehouses that are at minimum 400,000 square feet. So that's just to give you some perspective on what the development code calls for with regards to warehouse ordinance. This one's much smaller. It's not your typical warehouse being built in most areas, most cities, including Stockton. that are for true logistics where they've got, you know, the racks within the buildings and they're tall and really the Amazons and such. I would say this type of warehouse building is not in that classification. The applicant is here and the applicant can speak on what they're intending for that warehouse. And the following is the building elevations. I indicated in the staff report that the Planning Commission actually approved design review for the building I provided it just for for your courtesy to show you what's being proposed that they did put some effort into the design of a warehouse building as far as public comments as discussed earlier in the mitigated negative declaration was prepared it was circulated on March 27 the Planning Commission held a public hearing to consider their project Two public comments were provided, one from a representative of the Carpenters Union and one comment from Pandora Crowder, concerned with air quality and asthma rate of children in the South Stockton area. The public hearing was continued to April 10th to allow the applicant who was unable to attend the initial hearing to address additional conditions that were being proposed for this project, particularly a couple of them related to uh... additional trees to be planted along the portion of the project that is adjacent to uh... residential uses to the south in the unincorporated county uh... we also received one written comment from mary elizabeth uh... at that april tenth hearing with the sierra club and then RECEIVED A COMMENT FROM A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PLUMBERS AND PIPEFITTERS UNION WHO SPOKE IN REGARDS TO SUPPORT FOR THE PROJECT. THE PLANNING COMMISSION REQUESTED TWO NEW CONDITIONS. I MENTIONED ABOUT THE BUFFERING ALONG THE SOUTH END OF THE PROPERTY. THEY ALSO REQUESTED THE SIGNAGE BE POSTED AT THE SITE FOR RESTRICTION OF IDLING TO THREE MINUTES OR LESS AS FAR AS to put a maximum and make sure it can be regulated by posting the signage all throughout the site. So how many vehicles do they intend on, do you know? Do you have an idea on that site? The 42 truck parking stalls are what's identified. But their bays, how many bays do they have? I couldn't tell you. I'll have the applicant come up and speak to the bays. Okay, because if they're parked there and they're off, I'm not worried. It's if they're sitting in the bays waiting for whatever. So that was my question. Yeah, most often they're trying not to hold up the bays and they'll end up putting them in a parking stall, you know, at least beforehand or after. But I want the applicant to come up and speak to that. Okay, and Go Industrial does what exactly? I'll have them speak to that. Okay, I'm burning. Right now it's speculation, that's as far as I understand. That's why I want the applicant to, this building's being based on spec as far as what I know. Okay, thank you. So speculation, just no client as far as I understand, but they might be able to fill you in. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, that was what I was going to say. My understanding is there's no current tenant identified that they're going through the zoning process for us to approve this to move on to Lavco, correct? well it doesn't need to be approved in order to go on to lafco as far or i'm sorry repeat your question please the request is that we approve this item today so it can move on to the next set which would be lavco there isn't yes there isn't you're correct and the second part is there's not an identified tenant now correct right okay um i do want to go back to one of the points i want to thank staff for meeting with me today to go over this one of the things that I remember was a very sensitive item while I was running for office was the warehouse ordinance. A lot of people were upset about that. My family who's here lives, of course we all live in District 6, and we know that the environment has challenges in that area. And I've been very clear about wanting to see that whatever type of development we do in my district, we're thinking of the environment. So I want to thank staff for meeting with me earlier to kind of go through what the state requires, and the work that we're moving towards becoming more greener in this district. I want to talk a little bit about what you said, or what you all represented to me today about the planning commission and the two items that they had asked for. You talked about it briefly here, specifically the perimeter trees and truck idling. What was their thought on how that would contribute to a cleaner environment? Well, as far as I understand it, so it was... Commissioner Boparai at the time on our planning commission. He'd done a lot of research in regards to trees as far as absorbing pollution. And that was kind of his intent and basis for the trees. The trees, from what I understand in the ordinance itself, that's really more of a buffering as far as from sensitive receptors in the vicinity where they're not staring at you know, big warehouse buildings. They're actually looking at greenery versus warehouse building. But I guess there's other benefits, and I've heard them before, that trees do absorb pollution. So that was the additional intent, I believe, for the trees. He was also behind the idling as well. He actually, his family runs trucks, big trucks, as part of their business. And so he was familiar with the fact that, He didn't think it was appropriate for them to be idling on properties as far as it does generate a lot of unnecessary pollution. So that's where he was saying that they should be limited to the three minutes as indicated in the warehouse ordinance. And looking at attachment C, and attachment C is the general plan use map. This was just for the record created by the last council or this was created prior to this council, correct? What's that? General plan? Yeah, the general plan. Yeah, 2018 is when it was adopted. One of the things I know that we've been doing a lot of work on with respect to District 6 with staff is looking at what the future development looks like over the next 10 years. So like what do we want to accomplish and staff have heard that. Understanding that all the boxes have been checked for this project tonight, the conversation we had earlier was about the general plan specifically as we could reevaluate that as a council, correct? For future. That is correct as far as the general plan. Technically, there are four amendments allowed by California regulation a year. So we usually try to, with development applications, we try to cobble those together to make sure they end up on the same agendas because we're only limited to four. But, yes, city council could initiate changes to the general plan. And the environmental, as I understand, the environmental preparers here? What's that? Is the environmental preparer for this project? For this project, yes. As far as I know, they're here. They were at the Planning Commission meeting. Where is that individual? I do know they were stuck in the lobby just because the fire was keeping folks, but I'm hoping they made their way up. Go ahead and finish the presentation, then we can have them come up. Okay. Well, I think I was at the end as far as recommendations. You have the recommendation before you, but again, staff and the Planning Commission are recommending for approval of the pre-zone and then the filing of the application to LAFCO for annexation. Wonderful. Okay, so if we can have the applicant come up. Hello. Hi, my name is Josh Schiffer with Go Industrial. Good evening. Jason Lee, District 6. So what are your thoughts? I know you currently don't have a tenant there or a tenant in mind. What are your thoughts in terms of what you plan to do with that area? It's being, the way it's designed is you can subdivide that down to three or four. And so our thought is that it would support the small businesses in the community, whether it's manufacturing or whatever really the market is is needing at the time, but we have designed it so that it can support small businesses. And in terms of environment, I mean, understanding that in this district, unlike all the other districts, there's a heightened concern around, well, I'll say with District 5 too, heightened concern around the environment. Are you thinking about that as you look at who you plan to bring to the city in that specific area? Yeah, we've made sure to follow all the ordinances and everything that you guys have, you know, has been adopted here, and so that includes, like, electric vehicle charging. So right now our plans show that we're pre-plumbing, if you will, for conduits to support electric vehicle charging. There's also solar on the building. So we've thought of that, and as we've noted before in the testimony, we're adding additional trees, and it is required by the ordinance. That was going to be my last question. Thank you. Councilmember Villalpudo. Thank you, Mayor. Michael, thank you for the presentation as well. A few questions. How long is now the, has the land been vacant? It's had agricultural uses as far as I know into the past. I don't think it's ever been developed. Okay. Yeah, that's what I thought. So nothing has ever been there, correct? Right. And then is this something that you guys are bringing maybe union jobs? Is that correct? That's correct. All right. So how many jobs are we thinking of providing if it did come in? I don't staff the jobs. We depend on other partners, but I would, just from my own perspective, it's probably north of 100. That's good. I mean, it's another year that we could bring some union jobs in our community, you know, in an area that's been, you know, it's kind of empty, you know. So I like the idea, and we'll be supporting this. Thank you. Yep. I do have a question. As you develop this project and you build this project, if you don't have somebody that comes out right away and jumps on it, please know that you're still responsible for that building and that parking lot. So if people try to come on there and create residents, you have an obligation to make sure that your property is secure. And I think about Buzz Oats. when he was alive. I actually met him once when he was alive. But he would just build buildings and he would take them as tax deductions. They would sit vacant for a while sometimes because out on Arch Road there were a number of his buildings that he built that sat for a long time. But we didn't have to worry so much. Nowadays we look at the vacant Kmart, you know, where it becomes a magnet for illegal dumping and things of that nature. So you build it out. Hopefully you get somebody who wants to go in there right away. But make sure you secure your property this entire time, from when you start to when it's finished and you have a tenant in there. Understood. That's my recommendation. Thank you. Okay. Do you have any public comment on this item? We do. May I have Jorge Tomas to the podium, please? Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and council members. My name is Jorge Polo Tomas. I'm a field representative for the NorCal Carboners Union 152. I am here speaking to you not just as a San Joaquin County resident, but also for the 35,000 members who live out here in the San Joaquin County and in the city of Stockton. We are here speaking in favor of coal industrial and their project tonight. This project will bring apprenticeship programs. These programs help tens of thousands of Californians each year to be ready for good jobs. And the best part is they don't cost taxpayers anything. For apprenticeship programs to work, apprentices need to be able to get real job opportunities. Without work, they might leave the industry and look for lower-paying jobs instead. This project will provide workers and their families with solid health care benefits, something that's often missing for those who aren't in union jobs. Workers without union representation are more likely to struggle with limited healthcare and may end up relying on government safety nets that do not always meet their needs. So I strongly urge you to approve this project tonight. It's a win for the community and the workers. I also want to commend the developer for choosing to partner with a contractor who offers his employees a livable wage, healthcare, and real apprenticeship opportunities. Thank you. Liz Sutton. Good evening, Council. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me. My name is Liz Sutton. I'm a business representative for Sheet Metal Worker Local 104. And I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of over 700 households that are part of my union, the electricians, plumbers, sprinkler fillers, and iron workers. who want to keep the city moving forward. We're strongly here in support of this project because it's going to bring high quality construction jobs that bring livable wages and like I want to make it clear this is not a job it is a career. We bring in apprentices to give them the opportunity and this developer has come to us and given us the opportunity to bring in more apprentices because of projects like this. And I have here tonight that I'd like to give you is letters of support from the IEBW and sheet metal workers. So like I said, thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak tonight. Juan Perez. Good evening Mayor Fugazi and city council members. My name is Juan Perez and I'm a representative of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. I'm here representing over 700 Stockton households who make their living building projects like what you are voting on tonight. My union, IBEW, and the other unions I'm representing tonight who are the plumbers and pipe fitters, sheet metal workers, sprinkler fitters, and iron workers came to a number of meetings as this community discussed the benefits and challenges of industrial projects. We're confident this project is in line with the ordinance. This is the right kind of project in the right place. It also will provide additional community benefits related to the construction workforce. Critical to our ability to draw more of Stockton's youth and at-risk workers in our apprenticeship programs is the willingness of the developer to apply a high-road construction model to their project. GO Industrial is that kind of developer. They have signed an agreement with the trades that means the local construction workforce will be on the project and that apprentices from our training programs will help build this project. I URGE YOU TO SUPPORT STAFF RECOMMENDATION AND APPROVE THIS PROJECT. THANK YOU. PAT BARRETT. DO NOT GET ME WRONG. I LOVE THE UNIONS. LOVE THEM. EVERY TIME WE GET A WAREHOUSE THIEF, WAREHOUSE PEOPLE BRING THE SAME UNION PEOPLE DOWN. NO OFFENSE. But they bring them down here, and guess what? We all get suckered into 700 houses, 700 houses, 700 houses. There's 50,000 people in District 6 that are going to die 10 years younger than the people on the north side because of dirty freaking air. AB 617 is proof. Why are we even considering another warehouse in my district? Why? Please tell me why. If it's going to go... Let it go on the north side. Let it go on the east side of 99. Figure out another place for it. We need housing. We need low-income housing. We need to have something positive for the people of South Stockton. I am sorry, but you guys have got to sit there and think about this. Let it go somewhere else. I am sorry, but I don't know how any of you can say, yeah, let's build another warehouse. No. No to warehouses. Get it through your heads, people, please. This can't be happening every time you turn around. It's got to stop. It's got to stop. It's got to stop. I'm over here suffocating. I need my inhaler. I need to speak on another item. I can't go downstairs. You guys have got to sit down and think about the people. Stop it. Stop even entertaining these thoughts. I love the union. God is my judge. We have all the SEIUs. We do our Democrat meeting at the union. Love them to death, but hire them immediately. Put it somewhere else. That concludes public comment for this item. Vice Mayor. I love public comments and I'm listening to all of them and I will say in my meeting with staff today one of the things that I did say as part of our development of the district is reevaluation of the current general plan and the reason why I said that is because I you know we've talked about at length now and we've just had a presentation of my district where a lot of folks here were there we talked about the needs grocery stores and I can go on and on we all know what we need in the district so that is Absolutely on the radar. I do want to point out the general plan was something approved prior to tonight. And in the general plan for this specific area, it is zoned for industrial. So that is that. I did have a lot of conversation with staff today specifically about what are we doing to get more greener? What are we doing to address the air quality? What are we doing to address solar? And we went over the warehouse ordinance. We went over the changes in the state law coming. So those conversations did happen. So I want to be very clear that I do take uh... the matters that come before me and not just for the city but specifically to my district uh... and i look at them through a very very uh... big lens magnifying glass at times the other thing is uh... when when we talk about bringing the amenities that we want district six to this to that area you have to have more houses so when we talk about more residential uh... needs in the community we're going to hear another item next where you're going to hear word concerns on that side so that this balancing act of providing staff with direction and support to those who come before the council, both the public and people who want to build here, is a balancing act of making sure we dot all our I's, cross all our T's, but also think about the concerns that was just expressed. I do want to say, though, as somebody who has been a union member for years and been a union director for years and a union leader for years, I do value unions and I do value seeing union not only participation but inclusion in the process of development because thinking about the people that are going to build residential and commercial properties in this community is important in top of creating prevailing wage jobs. That said, again, I want to just highlight and remind us this general plan was approved prior to tonight. This was zoned for industrial. All the boxes have been checked. The Planning Commission did a great job of making sure that there were additional considerations. I appreciate you taking those considerations into your plan. I do want to say to staff, though, in the future, when people do come before the council, understanding until the general plan changes, we should be making sure that the environment is a priority as we talk about getting cleaner, greener, and healthier so that way District 6 people have better air quality. So that's it. Another public comment for Alyssa Leyva. Alyssa Leyva, community organizer, Stockton Stands, lifelong resident of South Stockton. So we, for the public who doesn't know, we do have climate equity initiatives in Stockton with our climate partners at Little Manila Rising and other stakeholders. I just want to reiterate that we do have an opportunity. I know several of you are endorsed by unions. Specifically, the public can follow along with North Valley Labor Federation. And we do have the San Joaquin County... union council where we can all speak about a brief grievances workers of stockton should not have to choose between getting an apprentice apprenticeship which is absolutely valid and needed for our economic vitality but also for the fact that our public health is at risk and so i really just ask for you to meet the grain where it's at i don't think it's fair that this specific topic was used to attack former vice mayor kimberly wormsley when she tried to bridge that okay All of you are endorsed by the unions. You guys need to, like, get it together for our public health. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Okay. I did have a question, one more question for Mr. Go Industrial. I'm sorry, I forgot your name. So you had mentioned charging, charging stations, so and as well as the three-minute idle. I guess I'm curious to know, you know, are those for electric semis? I mean, are they for the people that work there? They're planned for the people that are working there at this time. But there's also, we also have the ability to put in electric charging for trucks, semi trucks. And we can agree to things on paper. BUT THEN PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE IS ANOTHER THING. SO A THREE-MINUTE IDLE, I THINK THAT'S GREAT, BUT IS SOMEBODY GOING TO BE ENFORCING THAT THREE-MINUTE IDLE? I BELIEVE THE CITY ENFORCES THAT. THE CITY ENFORCES THAT. WOW, THAT'S NEW TO ME. SO OKAY, VICE MAYOR? NO, THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME BECAUSE THAT WAS A NOTE THAT I MADE ON ANOTHER PAD THAT I DIDN'T BRING OUT HERE WITH ME. I DO WANT STAFF TO PUT THOSE CONSIDERATIONS THAT THE PLANNING COMMISSION MADE AS A CONDITION for this item when it goes before LabCon. And again, just to reiterate, yes, know Liz and Juan very well. One of the things that we've talked about repeatedly is having opportunities for apprenticeships here in Stockton so people aren't having to travel their way over here, over there. They can be home. But we want to put people to work here and knowing that there's a local hire is is very high on our list I know they're temporary jobs but that conditional three-minute idle I think is also valid and important because yes you you look at public health and we have an obligation to secure that as well so off of my soapbox if there aren't any other comments I'm going to close the public hearing or do you want to speak with okay Quick question. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to just add on to what my colleagues have shared so far in terms of, I remember about a year ago before the election, I spoke as a citizen advocating for the environment and clean air. And I know, you know, some of the unions that I talked to afterwards, you know, weren't too happy. But I remember that conversation, I think about a couple of days after I had i gave my public comment you know my dad is a cement mason he's a union member in the bay area and you know one of the things where i did say even about a year ago is yes i want jobs here ultimately if things have been already reviewed through planning commission and our staff have checked all the boxes i get that but at one point as folks have shared in the public is that we are going to have to get to a point where we do have to be in the middle to say if we're going to have warehouses or more jobs anywhere it has to be throughout the city and really mean it not just to say it's always going to default to a certain part of the city of Stockton do I see the benefits absolutely more jobs jobs are right here right we don't have to have our parents our families have to go over to outside of the Central Valley so I see that benefit as I saw growing up that impact but at the same time now that we have a new council and good energy in terms of what we want to do moving forward I do want to be able to HAVE THAT CONVERSATION. WHATEVER THAT MEANS FOR US AS A COUNCIL, ONCE WE DO COME TOGETHER TO UNDERSTAND THE INTRICACIES OF, YOU KNOW, CEQA AND LAND AND ALL THAT, RIGHT? I'M NOT SAYING I'M AN EXPERT, BUT I MEAN, COLLECTIVELY, WE DO HAVE TO HAVE THAT CONVERSATION. SO I MEANT WHAT I SAID A YEAR AGO ABOUT ENVIRONMENT AND THE CLEAN AIR, BUT I'M ALSO ABOUT HAVING JOBS HERE. AND IF ALL THINGS HAVE BEEN CHECKED OFF, I GET IT, BUT WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO COME TO THAT POINT WHERE I NEED THE UNIONS TO REALLY APPROACH CITY LEADERSHIP and the folks that live in different parts of the city to say what can we do to build jobs here that are throughout the city of Stockton, no more defaulting to one part and then they have to pay the negative aspects of the environment. So I think we do have to get to a point where we have that conversation and mean it. That's all I have to say. Okay, be careful what you ask for because now I'm going to broach a topic that gets uncomfortable. because there are people in the city that do not want warehouses in their community. And so when you open the door to that, I will sit, I will lock arms with you and put them right out there on the north side. I'll put them in your district. I'll put them everywhere but my district because District 6 is tired of warehouses. Let me just put that out there. And that's no disrespect to you, and I'm not even doing political theater. You know, when you look at the reports that show and demonstrate that the life expectancy of people are at risk of losing their lives 10 years before those on another side of town. There is an inequity and we can go back to the years of social inequity. We could go back to, I don't even want to, it's a topic, it's a slippery slope. I will say I champion my colleague's point, but that is going to be a conversation for the seven of us up here to be able to really truly have and understand the disparity that has happened over the years with putting warehouses in District 6. I love that there's going to be more jobs. We want more jobs. We want better paying jobs, but we also want higher quality of life for I'm going to just say the words, black and brown people, because those are the people that are the most impacted, specifically by warehouses and the environmental issues in my district. So when we have that conversation, wherever we want to have that conversation, whenever we want to have it, I do agree with my colleague on the right that warehouses do need to, we do need to consider other areas within the city that they are existing. But thank you for that comment. I now declare the public hearing closed, and we'll bring it back to council for a vote. A motion. Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second. Council, please vote. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on now to item 16.2, request for annexation and pre-zoning for a proposed 217 lot single family residential development called Murray Ranch at 2560 Hall Avenue in District 6. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Stephanie Ocasio, Director of Community Development. Let's get to the right slide. The proposal before you today does include the annexation, pre-zone, and CEQA certification for a 217-lot single-family subdivision at 2560 Hall Avenue. The site is designated residential by the general plan. Through the pre-zoning process, upon annexation, the site would be zoned RL, residential low density. This project involves three layers of approvals, the first being with the Planning Commission where they approved the Vesting Tentative Map, the Plan Development Permit, a waiver, and a tree removal. Council tonight would be, if approved, would be certifying the CEQA, approving the pre-zoning, approving a city services plan, and authorizing the filing of an annexation application to LAFCO. As it's currently not in the city limits, the subject site is not currently zoned by the city. However, it is consistent with our 2040 general plan land use designation of low density residential. And upon approval of the council and annexation, it would be zoned RL. The proposed project is consistent with the 2040 general plan EIR and is therefore exempt from CEQA under CEQA section 15183. meaning that no additional environmental analysis is required. The 37.4 acre site plan will consist of 217 single family units, landscaping and park spaces. Site access will be from Danielle Street, Madrid Avenue, Susan Way, Brigham Street and Hall Avenue. The proposal was brought before the Planning Commission on April 10th of this year and received a unanimous recommendation of approval by the Planning Commission to the Council. A neighborhood meeting was hosted by the developer on May 7th, where concerns regarding traffic, particularly on Hall Avenue, were received. The notice for today's meeting exceeded the minimum as required by code, and we included the entirety of Hall Avenue to include those residents, and that was posted on June 25th, 20 days ago, also exceeding the minimum 10-day. Actually, it's a 20-day requirement now. Forgive me. In conclusion, the project is consistent with the general plan. No additional sequel review is necessary, and therefore staff recommends that the City Council adopted ordinance pre-zoning the site to RL. adopt a resolution authorizing the filing of an annexation application to LAFCO and authorizing the city manager to take the necessary actions to carry out said ordinance and resolution. The developer and their team are here tonight and available for questions, as am I. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ocasio. So you brought up something regarding CEQA. Yes. And I know I handed you a little packet the other day because I know that the rules for CEQA... They are changing. They're changing. Yeah. And it's going to allow for, you know, like our food banks, more development, not necessarily... That's good for our community. They would be exempt, a lot of those uses, yes. Yes. And so... This project, I was thinking it was 20 acres. Now, what allows this project to be exempt? So there is a CEQA section 15183 in the code statute for the state that states that if it's consistent with the general plan EIR, which this is, all the environmental analysis has been contained in that EIR, so no additional is needed. So they qualify for that exemption. Great. So it has to be within our sphere of influence, or does it have to be an infill? Yeah, so it's within, it's designated low density residential, so I can go back. Okay, so as long as it's consistent with the general plan. Yes. And zoning designation, we're good to go. This area was analyzed in that EIR because it was shown as an area for future growth. Wonderful. Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Acasio? Any public comment? We do have public comment. Can I have Tim Mora to the podium, please? Yeah, I'm a resident of 2506 Hall Avenue. We feel that this project, we're not against the project and the housing and stuff. We know we need more housing. But the situation is, they've done reports saying that uh... sixty two cars a day would be coming down our street if you look at that map if you put that map back up there and examine that map most of those cars are going to be coming down hall avenue that's two hundred and seventeen homes if they're going to put in a subdivision make them put in more ways into the subdivision perhaps off a charter way before the canal no bridge has to be built or anything but you put that much houses out there put it on Hall Avenue before they build the second phase of 180. That's almost 400 homes. They'll be coming down Lerner and Hall Avenue. They say they can go through the other subdivisions, but the quickest way out of those subdivisions, by looking at the map, is coming right down Hall Avenue. People over on Juliet are already saying where they live now. They've got eight, nine, 10 cars waiting to get onto Mariposa Road now. Let's talk about a subdivision of 400 homes. What's that going to do to the neighborhood? And they said 62 cars a day. How could that be when the direct route from Mariposa into that subdivision is Hall Avenue, and the first phase is 217 homes? I mean... how can you figure that there's only going to be sixty two cars a day i don't believe their survey or whatever went on was correct and i think other surveys should be done by the city before they approve this and put all that traffic on one street or just a few streets thank you yeah that that's oh is there another public comment yeah okay lynetta colbert Good evening, everyone. My name is Lenita Colbert. I reside in Stockton, California, on Hall Avenue. It's a very, very narrow street in San Joaquin County, about two blocks long. Residents who live on Hall Avenue are citizens of Stockton, although sometimes, you know, it feels that you're not. Well, I won't go into that. Okay. And we also pay taxes. We pay taxes there. The proposed Hall Avenue Murray Ranch project is surrounded by other streets besides Hall Avenue. But I've heard so much about Hall Avenue. I don't know why. Some of the other streets are in the city and they are much wider than Hall Avenue and would be much safer for entering and exiting in case of evacuation for first responders and residents of Hall Avenue. If for some reason this Murray Ranch project is approved, hopefully not, Hall Avenue should not be the only means of entering and exiting the Murray Ranch area. Lately, Hall Avenue, and lastly, Hall Avenue should not be the street designated for the purpose of entering and exiting of construction, trucks, equipment during the building, if this goes about, building process of Murray Ranch. Hopefully, before you vote, you will consider the requests of those of us who are citizens of Stockton who live on Hall Avenue. Thank you. Sinella Barajas. Good evening all. I'm a resident of the Hall Avenue too and I'm really worried because of those cars coming through that street. There is no light stop because it's on the corner of Mariposa and Hall. And as it is right now, it's really dangerous to join the road when you get to Mariposa. Now that we're going to have all those cars in and out, I'm very worried about accidents and all the noise of the cars in and out. So I know we need a lot of homes here in Stockton, but I don't think that's going to benefit the residents on Hall Avenue. ALSO, I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET A HOLD OF THE CITY COAT SO THEY CAN COME AND CLEAN THE DITCHES ON THE SIDE OF THE MARIPOSA. AND I CALL AND CALL, AND THEY SAY THEY'RE GOING TO COME. THEY NEVER CLEAN THEM. WHEN THERE'S A LOT OF RAIN, THEN THOSE GET OVERFLOW. VERY BAD SITUATION BECAUSE I'M LIKE DRIVING THE VERY CORNER. AND NOW WITH ALL THIS PROJECT, I'm very concerned about the, we have septic tanks and we are unwell. Are we going to have now city water? Are we going to have city sewer? So we need more information, the people that live there, to see what are they going to do with all those ditches on the side. Are they going to do sidewalks? If they can give us more information and for you guys' boarding and this, You guys need to come and look on the situation for all the residents in there. Thank you. Nury Muhammad. Andrea Blanson. Good evening Mayor Fugazi and Vice Mayor Lee and City Council. I am a lifelong resident of Hall Avenue. The house was built in 1976. Our area is called Mariposa Heights. It is a dead end road. It's only 450 feet. And the people that live there, we have a quiet street. If we want to exercise, we walk up and down the street. It's a country road, a county road, very small and narrow. If you have a car parked on this side and you have a car parked across the street, there is enough room to squeeze a third car down the middle. If you're going to be using that to connect your city road of Mariposa through our county road into your city subdivision, you're not going to have very good access, and you're going to impinge on our lifestyle. We are not going to be able to do what we normally do because we have to give up our lifestyle so that you can impinge and continue on to the new subdivision. We are not against growing. That's not what we're saying. That is not, but that is what's being pushed when they come to us. We are not saying that. We are saying grow, but you have a nice, big, huge city street, Madrid. that has a signal light to control traffic more appropriately, to enter and exit the subdivision, and to allow the big contractor trucks to come and go as you please. We just want to be left alone because it's going to destroy our little 27 home community. Okay? We're the county. You're going to come through and all these city cars are going to come through our road. Who's going to pay for that? Their city taxes? or our county taxes. You have to take that into account. They're going to abuse our road, but we're going to have to pay for it. Thank you. Dan Richardson. I don't live in that area, as you all know, but I am a victim of bad road design. Living on Pershing is a nightmare. It was built as an arterial through a residential neighborhood. Builders want to maximize how many pieces or parcels they can put on a piece of land. It is not their objective to protect neighborhoods, protect people from traffic jams, protect people from bad traffic design. Their objective is to sell homes and make a profit. I would encourage the city council and the city engineers to consult and work with developers to do the right thing in our neighborhoods. Car traffic does nothing but pollute, destroy neighborhood atmosphere. You know, we're talking about a small group of homes that are going to suffer from increased traffic because the developer doesn't want to make an ingress or egress from a neighborhood that might be a better plan for Stockton and for its residents. If we don't take control of how we design our roads and streets in the city of Stockton, We're going to continue to suffer the same things we suffer today for the bad designs of the 50s and 60s in this city. So on behalf of that neighborhood, I'm in support of going back to the drawing board and maybe looking at different design of how to get in and out of that neighborhood. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Thank you. Do you mind? No, it's your district. Go ahead. Yeah, thank you. So first of all, thank you for all the public comments. I had the opportunity to meet both with staff, talk to Supervisor Mario Gardea, and all of the folks who are here tonight. And I really appreciated the time spent to understand what some of the concerns were where we had enough time to talk about it. I did have questions with respect to some of the concerns. The one thing I want to highlight again in public is that the same thing I heard from the residents in the neighborhood is the same thing I heard from staff and the same thing I heard from Mario Gardea. So at least we're all on the same page with what the concerns are. I do have questions for the developer if he can come up here to the mic. You know, before I ask you these questions, one of the commitments again that I just said a second ago is that we have started the process of looking at how we develop the district. One of the things that we've recognized is that in order to attract the commercial businesses that the people in my district want, we have to build more housing. So the housing development is inevitable. I think one of the concerns that I heard was just breakdown of communication, lack of proper noticing, people not really BEING INFORMED AND THERE BEING MISINFORMATION. WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO MAKE SURE THAT EVERYBODY IN THIS AREA, SPECIFICALLY HALL STREET AND AROUND THE AREA, ARE NOTICED OF WHAT'S BEING DONE AND DEVELOPED IN THAT AREA? THANK YOU FOR THAT QUESTION. I'M MIKE O'HARA, DIRECTOR OF FORWARD PLANNING FOR TIM LEWIS COMMUNITIES. WE HOSTED A NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING KIND OF IN RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS ABOUT HALL AVENUE SPECIFICALLY. other questions that were raised. We hosted that in May. We listened to input feedback from the neighborhood. We answered some questions and we said, you know, we're not here to solve anything tonight. We're here to hear your concerns and find if there's ways to address them, we will do that. Subsequent to that meeting, I met with Supervisor Gardea because the issue came up that Hall Avenue is a county road. CITY CAN'T MANDATE ANYTHING ON THE COUNTY ROAD WITHOUT THE COUNTY NEEDS TO BE INVOLVED IN THAT DISCUSSION AND MAKE THAT DECISION. SO WE APPROACHED SUPERVISOR GARDEA, MET WITH HIM A COUPLE OF TIMES AND DISCUSSED THE CONCERNS, DISCUSSED THE THINGS THAT WE HEARD MOSTLY WERE CONCERNS FOR SPEED OF TRAFFIC GOING DOWN THAT STREET. changing the nature of that street. The other one that we heard was a concern for construction traffic and what things that might bring to their neighborhood. The third thing that came out of that conversation was asking about our commitment to complete the open space parcels, the little park areas within our subdivision. Those were kind of the three things that we heard mostly. WITH REGARD TO THE PARKS, WE COMMITTED IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING TO SAY THAT THE NEIGHBORHOOD PARKS WILL BE BUILT WITH THE SUBDIVISION. THEY'LL BE BUILT WITH THE HOMES. THERE'S NOT GOING TO BE SOME DEFERRED THING THAT GOES WITH THAT. WE WON'T, AND I EXPLAINED HOW SUBDIVISION IMPROVEMENT AGREEMENTS WORK AND ET CETERA. SO THAT I THINK WAS A SATISFACTORY RESPONSE. WITH REGARD TO HALL AVENUE AND THOSE TWO CONCERNS, WE FELT THAT THE THINGS THAT WOULD BE MOST EFFECTIVE AFTER CONSULTING OUR TRAFFIC traffic consultant and our civil engineer and consulting with San Joaquin County Public Works and with Supervisor Gardea, we proposed adding a couple of things to our project to try to address those concerns. And those were the implementation or installation of up to three speed humps on Hall Avenue. WITH THE IDEA BEING THAT THAT'S A TRAFFIC CALMING MEASURE, AND THAT THAT WOULD BE, WE FOLLOWED COUNTY PROTOCOL, AND WHICH SYNCS UP VERY WELL WITH CITY, YOU KNOW, HOW THE CITY IMPLEMENTATION OF SPEED HUMPS AS WELL, WHICH WE'RE INCORPORATING INTO OUR DEVELOPMENT. THERE'S SEVERAL LOCATIONS FOR THAT. SO THAT WAS HOW WE ADDRESSED THAT CONCERN. THE SECOND ONE WAS FOR CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC. AND WE AGREED TO NOT ALLOW CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC DOWN HALL AVENUE AND THAT ALL OF THE, ANY CONSTRUCTION ACCESS WOULD HAVE TO BE THROUGH THE CITY STREETS TO THE SOUTH. SO WE MADE THAT COMMITMENT. I DID CIRCULATE TO ALL OF THE NEIGHBORS THAT ATTENDED OUR NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING FOR WHICH I HAD EMAIL ADDRESSES. I DID SEND THEM EXHIBITS. and I sent them an email that explained both of those things. And I think some of the, a couple of the comments that were just made were actually the inverse to what my email said. What the email said was that closing down Hall Avenue would impact the ability to, it would lessen by 20% the number of streets by which access is gained to this project, both for first responders, for, you know, for ingress and egress. It meets city standards and all of that. And so we're not saying, we're saying quite the opposite, that Hall Avenue is not the only means of ingress and egress. It is not the only one. It is not the one that we're inviting people to or telling them to. People will use Madrid Avenue. They will use Brigham Avenue. They will use Danielle Street in addition to Hall Avenue. And so our only point was that The more points of access you have, the better distributed your traffic is, the less impact on, the less focus and consolidation into one part of the neighborhood, and again, providing better emergency access. All right, thank you. That's helpful. So let me ask you, and just if we can, I'm going to just ask you a few questions, or you can just give them some really just tight answers. With the traffic on Hall Street and there being a concern about that, I understand that traffic calming is something that you've talked to the residents about and Gardea about. To your point, I think you've committed three speed bumps as part of the traffic calming plan. Is that in partnership with the community and the people there, or is that something that you were going to decide unilaterally on your own? We sought the supervisor's counsel on that. We sought his support, which we received. He doesn't live there. So I'm not asking about him. I'm asking about the people who are here. He's not here. They're asking specifically for their street. I understand that, but you're here to ask for our vote, to our support, to move this forward. And before we do that, I want to be respectful of the people who, although they live in the county pocket, are going to be impacted by a decision that the city is going to make. When I met with them, what I told them was, I don't have to meet with you, but I'm meeting with you because I actually care about what people's lived experiences, regardless if they live in the county or the city. So I'm just asking for my own information. Is this something that you're working in partnership with that community because they will be impacted by the decision we make today? What I'll say to that is that we heard their concern for traffic speed and traffic safety. A speed hump is a recognized traffic calming measure. The city of Stockton mandates it when blocks are more than 600 feet long. This one's about 1,800 feet long, which is why we couldn't quite match up two speed humps, and it made more sense with three so that we could get under that 600-foot distance between them. So my response is that we heard their concern, and we addressed it with a well-recognized uh... tropical measure so the question yet and that that that's not the issue because they brought that up to in fact i appreciate information about the parks they didn't even bring that up but that's great their concern to me is that uh... elderly folks kids may walk out they don't want somebody to get hit by a car god forbid that happened and you know You know, we were part of that. But what I will say is I also understand that change is inevitable and change is coming, and we know that we have to develop. So we're all there. I guess what my question was is with respect to the traffic calming placement of the speed bumps, is that something you're working in partnership with that community to address that need? What I told them in my email, and I'm happy to distribute that to you, is that. Excuse me. We have to respect the speaker, please. What I said was that I would work with them on the final placement of that and how that all got implemented. That was the part I was looking for. Yes. Okay. The second part is with respect to not using Hall Street, I think you just said for construction. What are your plans? What other streets? Is it the Madrid Street or is it another point of entry? It would primarily, it would be either Madrid, depending on where the contractor's coming from. They could use Madrid. They could also use Juliette. and come in up Brigham Street. So either way, they're coming from, they'd be coming from the south. Okay, now switching over to the area where you're going to develop that is in the city's purview in terms of its development, what other points of entry from Ameriposa Road or another major street are you considering, or is there current consideration for access points outside of the current plan? I think what you're asking me is what other points of entry off of Mariposa? Correct. Okay. Juliette Street is the, it's parallel to Hall. It's kind of two roads south of it as you're driving up Mariposa. So that comes in. Do we have, can we adjust this? There we go. Is there a... Got it. Okay, so Juliet. The very bottom of that map right there, the road on the left is Brigham Street. About a little ways south of that, there's a road that is parallel to all the other streets there that is Juliet Street. Juliet goes directly out to Mariposa. And so that's currently one of the entry points? Yes. Okay. Yeah, via, so you would come in off of Mariposa onto Juliet and you could, thank you. Do you have like a, there you go. That's the one, that's the one I was looking for. Perfect, thank you. So you can see where Mariposa Road is on the bottom left there and you see a couple of larger buildings there and you see kind of where it says project site where it's yellow. Juliette Street runs right along the bottom of that and so cars could enter our subdivision either via Brigham Street which is closest to the yellow line right there or down to Madrid Drive which is NOTED ON THE FAR RIGHT THERE. THERE'S ALSO A THIRD ENTRY POINT, WHICH IS DANIELLE. DANIELLE IS KIND OF A NEIGHBORHOOD STREET, BUT MADRID GOES DOWN TO FARMINGTON. THERE IS A TRAFFIC SIGNAL THERE, AND SO THERE ARE OTHER MEANS TO GET IN AND OUT OF THE SUBDIVISION BESIDES HALL. THE MAYOR HAD QUESTIONS, AND THEN I'LL ASK SOMETHING AFTER THAT. ACTUALLY, I HAVE A, WELL, ONE OF MY FORMER STUDENTS' FAMILIES LIVES ON HALL. And they don't have sidewalks. That's why I know they mentioned the ditch, because it is a county, it is a county pocket. And where it dead ends, there is then lots of heritage oak trees that are beautiful. And there is a home there, which I'm assuming that's on the plot. So you're also purchasing that. I'm not happy about the trees getting a permit to be taken down. But the suggestion then is, you know, why does it have to go through hall? uh... uh... hall is not annexed those streets are not annexed into the city it is a narrow street there are no sidewalks there are a did there are ditches on either side uh... and i think that we do have some alternatives i do understand though councilman padilla and i were in the car together as we were going over the northeast library community center and we had this conversation about uh... eight-mile road being too narrow for the number of cars that travel it every day and how long it takes to get through the light i mean you're sitting there through three four light changes and and i get that this already went through planning commission and it's been approved but i think we need to be smarter and not think harder it just is there there are some i think uh... solutions that we can flush out we do have a housing plan though we know we need we need houses these are low density which means that they are larger lots so they aren't all on top of one another uh... i will say off of juliet there was a uh... park uh... promised in that area for that very small uh... development there i think it might have been on silva or juliet because i spoke it used to be in district five that's why i'm so familiar with this area uh... and and i had a number of students there But if we can look, you know, at another road as opposed to these because all three of them are not a good choice in terms of learned section and hall. I would say we need to, I know you've got the freeway, I mean the BNSF so you can't hop over and go over to Stagecoach. charter or dr. Martin Luther King that's north of it and then Madrid south of it and then to Juliet I just think that that either you're gonna go south or you're gonna go north but I just don't think going west is a good option And I think that you're a smart man, and I know we have excellent people in our community development department. I think that we can find a way that it's a win-win for everyone. So I'll just leave it at that. Oh. Could I respond to that? Go ahead. Yes. Is that possible? Thank you. I guess a couple things. One, you mentioned Learned. You mentioned Section. Section does not go through. Learned is not attached to our project. Similarly, Charterway. If there was a solution that took traffic to the north out to Charter Way, we would support that. But we don't control that. That land is owned by another family. Another developer is doing that process. They have their own process to go through. We should not be held up because of that. But like I said, that would be one of the win-win situations that you're talking about, I think. AND SO I JUST WANTED TO CLARIFY THAT. SECONDLY, YOU MENTIONED HOUSING. I MEAN, I THINK YOU MENTIONED IN THE LAST HEARING THAT WHERE'S THE HOUSING FOR DISTRICT SIX? THIS IS HOUSING FOR DISTRICT SIX. IT'S AFFORDABLE BY DESIGN. You mentioned larger lots, but we also have smaller lots, which allows for greater affordability. And we think this is an important aspect to this area. It is a planned growth area, and I think there are many city guidelines and policies that dictate maximum access for these communities. Right. And again, I am all for more housing, especially if it's affordable housing. I am curious to know if there's a CFD or stock naming. economic stimulus plan. I mean, I've got all those, my regular questions that Ms. Acasio and Mr. McDowell already know about me, because I did serve eight years on the planning commission, so I am familiar with that. But the vehicle miles traveled and the number of cars traveling are of a concern. And, you know, again, wanting to be very cognizant of you know quality of life and and I said I am all for for housing I'm just saying we need to maybe think about this slightly differently than what we are and we're we're gonna have to figure out a way to make this work for for people because hall is very narrow no sidewalks again just ditches so Vice Mayor Thank you Mayor See, I wanted to hear what she had to say before I said what I was going to say so that way we weren't in conflict and we're on the same page. You know, see how teamwork happens? No, I mean, and I'm thankful to the mayor's experience on the planning commission because I don't have that experience. But what I do know is I did drive the neighborhood because Denise Wyatt is somebody I used to work with as DAG. And, you know, if I didn't do the right thing, she would. not be off my facebook she'd be saying things but more importantly i mean i think that um i agree with what the mayor said our commitment to housing is not changing our commitment to this type of housing is not changing but we are fans of getting things right the first time and i think the the concerns that i had from a very active neighborhood was less about not wanting change although some of them don't want change what i heard was we don't want to get hit we don't want our kids to get hit uh... we want to save community and i don't think that's an unreasonable request i would say uh... to the mayor's point echoing that we do have uh... the best staff to help us figure this out work with you it sounds like your commitment to the project is not depending on whether or not hall street is the only way it's your your i hear your commitment to wanting to work to make this work but i want to echo with the mayor said in that uh... we do want to get it right the first time and so i'd want staff to work with you and work with the community because they are important part of this process since it is going to impact their lives. So I agree with the mayor. Councilwoman Padilla. Thank you, Mayor. And I do support my colleagues' comments as well. I do have a lot of development in my district. And the largest frustration that I have is that we always go ahead with development and think about the infrastructure last. And that's where we get the traffic problems or the the speeding, pedestrian issues, and things like that. So I'm a huge proponent of looking at the infrastructure first and then moving forward. So that's my two cents on that. Council Member Blauer. Thank you, Mayor. I'm the one person up here as a real estate broker, I have that real estate background, and I can say that there is just a critical, critical need for housing. Not just in Stockton, but in the whole state. But that is something we very much need. The Vice Mayor has a good point that if you want industry in that area, you want jobs in there, you're gonna need a place for people to live. I'm a big fan of infill projects as opposed to sprawl. Looking at this, I don't doubt that Hall will get an increase in traffic. I'm sure you'll have a little bit more traffic. I'm looking at, you know, looking at the maps, to me it seems like Brigham Street and Madrid are going to be, probably get the majority of that traffic. And I think, what is this, how many houses, 200 and? 217. 217. I live in Lincoln Village West. with hundreds and hundreds of houses, and there are only three ways to get out of Lincoln Village West. You have Ben Holt, you have Swain, and you have Morgan Place. So, you know, and granted, Ben Holt's a big street, but it's, I mean, lots and lots of houses, and we only have three ways to get in and out of the area. So I think here I see, you know, again, Hall Avenue, I'm sure you will get more traffic, but to me it just looks like Brigham and Madrid are going to be probably where the majority of the traffic travels. So anyway, that's just my two cents. I just, again, there's a critical, critical shortage of housing, and that is a critical need. Thank you. Council Member Villalpudo. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Mike, you mentioned back in May, you said you had a tailhile meeting, right? I have a friend that lives in the area. NEVER GOT ANY TYPE OF INFORMATION. HOW WERE YOU GETTING THAT WORD OUT TO THESE PEOPLE THAT, YOU KNOW, AND IF THEY DID, HOW MANY CAME OUT IN MAY AND GAVE THEIR FEEDBACK? I WORKED WITH THE CITY TO GET THE, YOU KNOW, FOR THEM TO GIVE ME THE MAILING LIST, RIGHT? AND MADE SURE THAT THEY MADE SURE THAT IT INCLUDED ALL OF THOSE AREAS KIND OF IN THAT, I DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE DISTANCE WAS, BUT THEY MADE SURE TO INCLUDE EVERYBODY ON HALL AND EVERYBODY IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD. POST CARDS WERE MAILED A COUPLE WEEKS IN ADVANCE OF THE MEETING. I WANT TO SAY MY GUESS IS WE HAD ABOUT PROBABLY 30 TO 40 PEOPLE THAT ATTENDED THAT NIGHT. I THOUGHT A FAIRLY GOOD TURNOUT FOR WEDNESDAY NIGHT, I THINK IT WAS. WAS THE SUPERVISOR? SUPERVISOR GARDEA WAS THERE, YES. WELL, I KIND OF AGREE WITH MY COLLEAGUES, VICE MAYOR AND THE MAYOR AND SOME OF THE THINGS THAT BRING IT UP. ARE THESE GOING TO BE AFFORDABLE HOUSING? SMALL A AFFORDABLE. THEY'RE NOT DESIGNATED AS AFFORDABLE HOMES, BUT THEY ARE ESSENTIALLY AFFORDABLE BY DESIGN. BECAUSE OF THEIR LOCATION AND THE VARIETY OF LOT SIZES, WE'RE ABLE TO OFFER HOMES IN A lower price range than you would find pretty much anywhere in Stockton right now, especially in North Stockton and in the master plans in the north. So the idea is to bring housing to an underserved area. Oh, I understand. And as a result of that, we believe it brings a greater level of affordability to those homes. Okay, no further questions. Thank you, Mayor. Any more? comments or questions by council of staff or the okay the one thing i would add um i remember when i was campaigning and they were doing the warehouse or there was a warehouse thing warehouse ordinance and i remember somebody saying don't you guys just want new jobs just accept it and and and yes we want more housing but we want to accept it the right way and i would just say again like i pointed out i know miss wyatt My sister, one of her teachers, that's one of her former teachers, council member, has a friend. I mean, this is a small community where we all kind of know each other. And I will say to the community, I mean, they came out, and I think we're reasonable, and the supervisor's fully committed, and I think we're fully committed to working with you. And I just appreciate you bringing a project like this to my district because, as you pointed out, we need it, right? So, yeah, I would just say... I mean, I'd like to make a motion to still open. Well, I ain't got nothing else to say right now. I'll wait. I declare the public hearing closed. I'm bringing it back to council for further discussion. Thank you, Mary. Yeah, I would just like staff to, well, first of all, again, to the folks from the area who came out and who continue to come out advocating for the concerns you have, thank you for doing so, and thank you for educating us. And thank you to my colleagues for all the comments, reaffirming our commitment to developing in the district, but doing it the right way. I would say that I would want staff to go back and work with the developer and work with the community to reevaluate the plan to see if there's another a way of executing on this uh... and so that would be my motion question on that can we move forward with annexation take the item So the tentative map was approved by the Planning Commission, which outlines this layout. So then they would need to amend the tentative map if there were any changes. So if you're going to approve it, it's this package deal that would move forward to LAFCO. Now, if you wanted changes to that, then I think your motion would have to stipulate something to that effect. But we wouldn't be able to apply to LAFCO unless we have a final mapping product because they're going to consider that project as well. That's my question. So, close the public hearing. Oh, did you want to open the public hearing? Yeah, I have a question, yeah. Yeah, a workout up there. Thank you for that. I, the one thing I wanted to ask about is, you talked about getting it right, we are, We are attempting to move this forward and I fear that direction like working with staff to figure it out is a great delay to the project. One thing that I, since I think the getting it right part has to do solely with ingress and egress and the impact on Hall Avenue. One thing that we had talked about is that if that project to our north, which is the Woody parcel. If that, I know they're working on their application. I don't know exactly where it stands. We are not involved in that project. It is not our second phase. Our project is 217 homes. What I wanted to say, though, is that if there is a proposal to take their traffic out to Charter Way, to the north, as you mentioned, we would be very supportive of that. And if that were able to happen, I think we would agree to some sort of a conditional thing where we could design our improvement plans in such a manner that would allow us to retain HALT only for emergency vehicle access, something along those lines. And that's something we've been talking about. It's not something I can I CAN GUARANTEE OR OFFER BECAUSE I DON'T CONTROL THAT PROPERTY. I DON'T CONTROL THAT PROJECT. BUT IF THAT WERE TO COME ABOUT, WE WOULD BE SUPPORTIVE OF IT AND COULD AND WOULD AGREE TO AMEND OUR PLANS TO ACCOMMODATE IT. STILL WITH THE COMMITMENTS WE MADE WITH REGARD TO CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC AND THE SPEED HUMPS. If there is a way for the council to move us forward with adding a condition to our project that we would in the event that we work with staff to create a process by which we could accommodate such a modification if that other project gets approved and goes through. So that's something I would ask the council to consider rather than pushing us back to start over. You know, we would like to get the LAFCO process completed. We would like to move this along. We do need the housing. And so that's what I would ask of the council. you i appreciate that and i would say that we have something similar that has happened up in councilwoman padilla's district where we have cannery park and we have bear creek east or it was bear creek east estates we have little parcels up in the northeast corner of our city where we were adding access roads because we were looking at travel time for emergency vehicles things like that so this isn't unique And I appreciate the fact that you are willing to work with us, with the residents, with our staff in order to find an amiable agreement to accommodate what we're asking for. So I appreciate that. Did you want to? Thank you, Mayor. I'm very mindful when I sit here to really pay attention to how I speak to people and what I say. And I'm also very, very present in how people speak to me. And I have to tell you, the way that you responded to me when I said it, the way you responded to her when you go back and watch the tape, it was a completely different response. This is my district. I'm going to say what I think is important on behalf of the people that are in my district, whether they're county or city or whatever. So the admonishment of whether or not I send it to a committee or send it to staff, we have the right to send it wherever we want to send it. Understood. We're not asking you for approval. You're asking us. So I just want to say that for the record. To the mayor's point, I think I said exactly what she said. I think we're on the same page. So I just want to say that. Whether it go all the way back to the beginning of getting a pencil and paper and drawing the picture of what you want to do or going back to the planning commission or going to staff, it's going to be whatever we decide up here. But I could not sit here and not stand in how I felt to your response. I will say as a condition, part of that, and I will be very clear, is that it needs to include the people that live on this street, in this community, and I do not want to get a phone call. from them that they did not get the proper outreach to be a part of this process, or else I will have an issue with that. So I am saying to staff that I do want that as a condition of whatever our plan is today. But I did want to just point that out. Can we close this part and then get to the... No more questions? Okay. Thank you. Well, I think what I hear the Vice Mayor saying and what I hear from others up here is that, yes, we want housing. Yes, we want the project to move forward. We just don't want Hall being the main in and out for the development we would like. So if we can somehow put that condition on there. Oh, boy. I opened the public hearing. So just for clarity for staff direction, when you say not have hall as the primary, are you saying that you don't want it connected at all? Are you saying only emergency vehicle access? Because any change to the tentative map, we're going to have to take it back to Planning Commission, right, for a new tentative map. Well, if it's only emergency vehicles, does that mean that there's a gate there of some kind, like an alley, when there's alleys that are used, that the fire department has a key to the gate? Because it will. They don't even have lights out there on Hall, really. I've been out there. It's like pitch black on that street. And to have cars, because it is a county pocket. It's the county's responsibility. It's not ours. And, you know, they need lights out there. I've been asked by a number of people, can we, well... My student's family, so. Okay, so we can add, okay, so we can add additional conditions to the map, so we still have some flexibility there. My apologies, I thought we had to take the map back. I was just trying to be thorough. Perfect, perfect, so I'm going to bring it back, I'm going to close it for the last time, I'm hoping. And, and we'll move forward, okay? So, closing the public hearing. Vice Mayor, did you want to? Just add the other condition of engaging the community again once that part is done. No, but we have to have a condition on hall. Could you? Wait a second, make the motion. I'm going to just take it and you make it. A little meet and confer. Okay, one more time. Seriously, last time. I know. Given this discussion, To make sure that it is a solution that works for everybody or as much as possible, staff recommends that this be continued as opposed to an action being taken tonight to allow us some time to work with the applicant, look at possible solutions, get some of that in order so we can bring you something that's a little more tidy. Okay, so, but two weeks isn't going to be enough? We could reproduce the existing staff report and then do a verb, like an oral report with some updates and give you some new exhibits. I think that's totally doable. By our July 29th? As long as the applicant has the, yeah. Yeah, because he wants to move forward on it. He said that he wants to get it to LAFCO. We want to get it to LAFCO. We all want to get it to LAFCO. August 12th, please. August 12th. August 12th. August 12th. Is that going to, you can't do it? He wants July 29th. It'll give us more time than we have tonight to try to figure this out, so we'll take it. Okay, okay. So I will make a motion that, close the public hearing. I will make a motion that we continue this date certain of July 29th with what this council has recommended happen in order to proceed with this project. Second. And I got a second. Council, please vote. Teamwork makes the dream work. Seven, zero, passing. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna take a come back at 9.55, 9.55. Recess. OK, everyone, welcome back. We had an amazing break. And we will get started. We're going on to new business. Item 15.1, which is going to be a fantastic, I'm looking forward to it, presentation from CMC, from Care Solace, also regarding our mental health ban that goes out. So, yeah, let's go. Thank you for whoever put the slides up here. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, council members, and members of the public. I'm Alex Bailey. I'm a program manager with the City Manager's Office. And so tonight we're going to provide a brief update. So this is going to cover six months of the city's community well-being projects, December 2024 through May of 2025. And here you can see, you can't really see the website address, but it's StocktonCA.gov. And then it's a forward slash, get help. And so this one covers two out of three of our mental health assistance programs here that we'll be talking about tonight. So that's on the city's website. The city is leveraging three initiatives to address community well-being. So we've got the Mobile Community Response Team, MCRT, which is coordinated by community medical centers. That one is in blue. We'll start with that one. We also have the Substance Use Disorder Services, SUD, which is coordinated through CMC's Respite Center. And third is the Mental and Behavioral Health Care Service Coordination through Care Solace. So beginning with MCRT, in July 2022, Council approved an agreement with CMC to establish outreach, crisis intervention, and support for community well-being. through the launch of mobile response teams. And this pilot project utilizes $5.76 million of American Rescue Plan funding, ARPA funding. And as of July 1st, 2025, the expenditures under MCRT total $4 million, or 70% of the budget. So we have CMC staff Alfonso Apu here tonight, and he's going to provide a brief update of MCRT. We should have an office for you here. I was mentioning, I was just like a plane. I was going to lay down right there and fall asleep for a little bit. But thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council Members, and City Manager for the opportunity to provide you with a brief synopsis of a bit of the last two years, but also primarily the last... six months with our MCRT or mobile community response program in collaboration with the City of Stockton and of course our Stockton Police Department. As we move through this quickly as you can see this is actually from the start of the program so we wanted to have you see that since May of 2023, we have fielded 15,000 calls, a little bit more than 15,000 calls. And what I would love for you to pay attention to is certainly the initial calls are initial residents of Stockton that are calling and are enduring or are going through a mental health crisis. and are in need. The yellow is the follow-up, and the follow-up is a 40-hour continuance to make sure that their crisis has been managed. But most importantly, and what we're really proud of, is the aftermath, the seven-day follow-up and the 30-day follow-up, because this is when we truly look at the needs of the resident. once the crisis is averted and connect them with everything from doctor's appointments, behavior health appointments, anything that's under the social determinants of health, whether it's housing, clothing, food, because what we want to do is not only avert the crisis and link them with mental health services, substance use disorder services, but also really look at them holistically so they can be stable in the community and reduce THE USE OF, FOR EXAMPLE, THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT AND OTHER ENTITIES. AS YOU CAN SEE, FOR THE LAST SIX MONTHS, SINCE DECEMBER OF LAST YEAR TO MAY, WE'VE HAD A LITTLE BIT MORE THAN 3,000 CALLS, ALSO INITIAL CALLS, 1,000 IN THE FOLLOW-UP CALLS. ABOUT 70% OF THOSE WERE FOR WELFARE OR WELLNESS CHECKS. ESSENTIALLY, ANYONE THAT'S CALLING MCRT IN NEED of a mental health check-in. About 10% were emotional disturbance, meaning families calling us because one of their family members was enduring some kind of crisis. Community concerns, what we call the mild to moderate population, which is essentially anyone that says to us, look, I'm not feeling too good right now and I need to talk to someone. I have no one to talk to. 2% suicidal calls, which we address. And the 1% is unknowns with what we feel are folks that maybe we get calls that are unsheltered, we might show up and they're not there anymore. So once again, this is the breakdown for six, the last six months within the 15,000 of the last two years. Just a brief synopsis on what we feel It's a huge achievement for the program and in collaboration with the city. And as you pay attention to our race and ethnicity and age breakdown, as you can see, about 46% of the calls of the last six months are from our Latino population. White, 33%. We have American Indian and Alaska Native, also Asian. But also, I want to make sure that we... look at these services that we have provided for our black and African American population, we feel this is significant as comparatively to the population of Stockton and in connection to the initial concepts of the program, which were to increase access for behavioral health, increase the sense of trust in the community as an alternative to calling 911 for mental health calls. So that's a huge indicator that we have some populations that are feeling more comfortable to call MCRT as opposed to 911. As you can see, the age ranges, a majority of our calls are for citizens that are 30 and below. which is a great indicator for us, too, in terms of the population that we're addressing. 22%, we're 21 to 30 years old. 17%, 31 to 40. We're also kind of seeing some evening with 15% and 16% for the 42 to 50 and the 52 to 60%, also a good percentage in our older adult population. And finally, in terms of gender and the difference in the population that we see, as you can see, a little bit more than 50% of our calls are for our female residents, with an average of about 40% for male residents. There is about 1% of residents with gender nonconforming. Also two other genders listed, six trans females and three trans males. So we are also feeling really good about being as inclusive as we promised. Part of what we've also done is in collaboration with our police department as we feel that as an alternative to mental health citizens calling us is our collaboration in terms of training. So for example, today we collaborated with a number of officers for their CIT training, primarily for substance use disorder, working with our own shelter, and working with folks with mental health issues. So aside from that, we've also done some roll calls. So there's some really good collaboration and bi-directional training. I think that's it for MCRT. Once again, 15,000 calls in the last couple years with approximately 3,300 in the last six months with all the services that we provide. Nice and brief for me. Thank you. Okay, so also in alignment with fostering community well-being are two City of Stockton initiatives that leverage national opioid settlement funding. So in 2021, California joined multiple national lawsuits against manufacturers and distributors responsible for aiding the opioid epidemic. Each state's share of the funding was determined by agreement among the states using a formula that considers the impact of the opioid crisis on the state. As a result, Stockton receives settlement funds through payments based on an allocated percentage directed to the state. So the city has received funds for the past three years and anticipates receiving future opioid judgments. This slide represents an overview of the National Opioid Settlements distribution process. as it originates at the national level of $43.3 billion with a drill down to Stockton's weighted percentage allocation of .325. So that equals a potential $10.7 million over the long-term distribution. And as of July 1, 2025, the city's revenue through these allocations is approximately $3.17 million, and the city's expenditures on the two projects is just over $1 million. This table shows the current status of opioid settlement agreements. Distribution terms range from five years under Allegan to 16 years under the distributors group settlement, and most settlements expect to bring annual distributions beyond year 2030. Under pending settlements with Kroger, HICMA, Amnial, and Purdue, the terms are still unknown. So how does the city utilize funds from the national opioid settlement? through two distinct projects. The first project, activated in October 23, is coordinated through the city's partnership with CMC, and it expands substance use disorder treatment services through CMC's existing respite center. The second project, launched in October 24, provides a central hub of mental health care coordination services through Care Solace. So we'll present this SUD services project first. One more slide here. Opioid settlement allocations must be utilized for substance use prevention, intervention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery services. And the California Department of Healthcare Services has issued guidelines known as high impact abatement activities that qualify these allowable uses of funding. So for CMC Respite Center, this centers on the core strategy to address the needs of communities of color and vulnerable populations including sheltered and unsheltered. who are impacted by SUD. And integrated through the core strategy are these key topics, providing treatment and recovery support services, the warm handoff services, and to leverage the comprehensive wraparound services and ensure that that critical component of aftercare service is provided. So CMC's Director of SUD Services is here to present a six-month snapshot, and that's Lay McMiller. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor and Vice Mayor and Council members for allowing us to come back and present this program to you. The Respite Center was built to help fill the gap and the need in the community for individuals that were seeking substance use services while they were still actively using. So this is a transitional facility that is able to house individuals. The facility is located not too far from here on 201 North Stanislaus Street, right across the street from our channel facility and also has a co-existing outpatient facility connected with the respite residential in the same location. The program provides outpatient and inpatient services. The outpatient services are provided for individuals that are in need of counseling, uh... medical support and also any case management support so any individual that is on the street or maybe referred from our partnerships from uh... the community partners that we work with in the community whether they're from the hospitals the police department from the court systems can be referred over to our program and they will be directly connected with case management case management will connect and assess them for any of the vital needs that they may need at that time which would be housing food and clothing and in that housing aspect if they are in need of residential care then that's when they will refer them over to our residential program. There they'll be assessed by our behavioral health individual for a psych evaluation to see what needs need to be met by that individual. Also providing them if need be medically assisted treatment for individuals that may be dealing with opioid or alcohol abuse at that time. We do do monitor detox at the facility in the sense of not anyone that's active, but if they are at a baseline level and are safe to be detoxed there, we will monitor them for drug use at that time. Real quickly, sorry to interrupt. I think you might have said it. And how many, I mean, I was there for the ribbon cutting way back when, but how many can you accommodate? Thirteen. Thirteen. Eight. Eight. male and five female beds and then waterloo does waterloo take them anymore waterloo is outpatient services so we have at our facility we also have the outpatient services that are connected on the other side so we have the respite residential the respite outpatient and then we have waterloo that's located on waterloo for outpatient services there also because they used to have they used to be able to like have one or two people there for a time. Yeah, we also provide at the Waterloo site the sobering services for anyone that is found intoxicated in the community so that the police officers can bring them there. We will assess them. Yeah, we'll assess them for those needs. And then once we're able to get them sobered up enough, we'll transition them home, but we'll set up an appointment for them to come back to get outpatient services. Do you have room to do a second story so more people? Well, we're actually looking at the respite outpatient. portion of looking at making that also the sobering services because it only makes sense in the sense that the hours that we have allocated over to our residential is 24 hours and usually the sobering piece, even though we have it during the day, it would make more sense for them to have an extended hour. So we're looking at that extension, that piece of it. This just gives you a little bit of data regarding the individuals that we've had placed there. We were able to utilize 1,070 bed days during the timeframe of December to May. These individuals that were placed with us, as you can see, 54% of these individuals were referred for placement. 38 of them actually were admitted to the facility. didn't show up for the appointment so even though we were able to set them up a lot of times we don't they don't show up to their appointment so we have to go back and follow up with them and then 1% declined services once they came for the appointment when they do come for the appointment what we do try to do is educate them regarding what the residential stay is going to look like because we want to make sure that they're open to the services once they get there Here's just the demographic information showing you the population that we service there and what types of backgrounds that they come with. As you can see, 21% were Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic, and then also 21% declined to stipulate what their ethnicity is. We had also housed Asian, and then more than one ethnicity was chosen for some of these individuals. 63% were male, 36% were female, and then 1% was part of the LGBTQ. uh... population we provided twenty two percent to receive m a t services and that's to say that these are individuals that went from the outpatient receiving medically assisted treatment onto the residential side so uh... they continue to receive services when they do leave we also continue to make sure that they're connected with that uh... thirty five percent uh... received some type of detox monitoring whether it was with alcohol or drugs and then everyone uh... receives one-to-one therapy there and also group counseling while they're at the facility. And that's what we have. We're excited, though, to share, like Alphonso said, that we have expanded and we are working with the police department. We also have police case management at St. Mary's. shelter so that we can continue to facilitate individuals that may need housing there. So we work closely with their case management there. We also work closely with our team with MCRT. So if any individuals are found in the community that are homeless, that are in need of housing, they're able to connect with us and we're able to provide them residential stay. Is there any questions? Okay. Thank you. And then we're just going to wrap it up with the Cure Solace project, which the focus of this one is connecting people who need help to the help that they need through the automated call centers and the SBIRT technology. So we have Anita Ward here who's going to talk about Cure Solace. Thank you, Alex. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members. It's so good to see all of you again. I can't tell you. I know we sat here for four hours. I know it's been a long night. But every time I come to Stockton, and I'm supposedly ostensibly here to talk about mental health, I can't help but think back. I had this incredible opportunity to work with Quincy Jones at one point in my life. And one day Q said to me, you know, Anita, it's not a coincidence. Coincidence is just God's way of remaining anonymous. And I carry that in my heart because tonight what I heard was mental health everywhere. Like Stockton, you worry about belonging. You worry about the health. You worry about the physical health, the environmental health. The young man who, oh, he's gone now. The young man who was homeless like me, you heard my story last time, but has figured out how I'm going to do this. I'm going to go create a business and I'm here boldly, you know, asking the vice mayor to partner with me. And you hear all of these folks looking for it. So in many ways, tonight was all about mental health and about lifestyle. One, I'm super grateful to be here, and you know how I am. I get very excited about it, but they made me swear to brevity tonight. Oops, wrong way. So I'm going to do this really quickly. Just by way of reminder, while Alfonso's team, they are on the ground, boots on the ground, bringing the beds, we're here for everybody else. So all over the city and all over social media, you see these cards with phone numbers and QR codes. And what people do is call because they're frustrated. They've made 600 phone calls and can't get a provider. So what we do is we connect all of those resources. When individuals call us, we basically find their insurance, the cultural relevance, the languages they need to speak, everything that's important to getting them connected to care. And because I cannot see either glasses on or off, I'm going to tell you, I'm so excited because in six months, we've helped 5,602 people. The demand is there. And on average, it's taking us a day to match and 10 days to get them booked into an appointment. And I think you probably have this on your screens in front of you. And maybe where city council can help is, you can see there are about five zip codes in there where we're predominant. but I'd like to make sure that we get out there more broadly. So if there are other zip codes, I hear you talk about each of your districts. Let me know, I'm happy to work with you. I've started this month doing some paid social media campaigns, and if I can target them into areas where we know we need help, then please let me know, and I'm happy to work with all of you to do that. So those are the zip codes. I've tried to match them up so you could see the targets of where we are helping, sorry. where we are helping people. And then this is basically the age. And Alfonso, in many ways, we align with you. Although in the summertime, because we're also in the school district, we see a pretty big uptick. And you're going to see it in those lines that are coming out. where we're helping families because they're not at the school anymore. So we provide those wraparound services, getting them into mental health care, as well as the social services. And then if they are on Medi-Cal, then we're referring them over and working closely with the CMC to make sure everybody gets into care. And then if you look at the ethnicity again, Alfonso, we're so aligned on a lot of this. But where we can use some help is how do I get deeper into the African-American population? The same with CMC, so we're going to work closely on some strategies there. And then I track also the languages that we're delivering services. We have a fairly large Asian group, interestingly, primarily Vietnamese languages that have reached out to us, and we're placing them into care. And then, as you know, or may not know, we have so much data. So if you ever want to dive deep, please call me. But at the highest level, we're tracking mental health categories and treatment types across ethnicities. And you'll see, as long as I'm speaking about the African American population, it also has the highest suicidal rates. So 10% suicidal rates, highest trauma, highest depression. We really need to find strategies to help. And then on the last slide, we're talking more about what's it look like across ethnicities. But I have it by age, by ethnicity, by age, by treatment types. But again, I promised to be brief. And so I am super grateful, but also just excited to have been here tonight where I get this chance to see Stockton much more holistically. Please keep your cards. Hand them out when people stop you in the grocery stores, wherever they are. Make sure we get them into mental health care. I'm very excited about where we are so far with already, you know, 5,600 people getting care. So thank you, thank you, thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, I don't know if you saw my mayor's review, but I had my little care solace bear, you know, that I squished. And I've had kids, because when I was at STAG, I'd give out the cards to kids and just say, hey, you know, when you're not here at school, because we had mental health clinicians at our school, if you're not here and you need help, call scan whatever thank you for that 95207 was the highest area whatever that's that's where stag is that area there but I was just going to say that you know people knowing that somebody is there 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year I think it's it's it's much needed and even though are people in our community like people even in my own household that say you know we don't talk about this stuff with people but uh and i tell them it doesn't mean you're weak it's just i mean i go i think it makes you strong because you're asking for help that's the cultural relevance piece right yeah um and and i'm one of those people that i'll just yeah keep it inside but It is an asset for our community and members of our community, and I thank you for your work. Just grateful for the opportunity to be here in Stockton. And thank you to all of you. And if you need cards, let me know. And if you want a bear, hit me up. Thank you so much. Thank you. The bears are great. Vice Mayor. Yeah, no, thank you for the presentation. No, I had a call today with Genevieve Valentine from the county, and we talked about – I'm needing to have a meeting to evaluate all the mental health services, all the services in general related to health and health care for my district with the 95206. So I'd like to invite CMC to that meeting so we can explore what's currently being provided and how we can increase those efforts. I mean, I'm really interested, as you pointed out, the young man that was here today, that was very moving to have somebody get up and tell their story. It takes a lot of confidence. It takes a lot of courage. And I know people that look like me aren't always able to find that courage. So if we can find ways of unlocking that. their potential through these services. I'd like to support that. Maybe we partner on an event that we let him produce for mental health in the city. I mean, you know, happy to talk about it. Be careful what you say because you get that phone call. But yeah, I mean, you never know. He can become a champion for mental health. Absolutely. Thank you. Public comment. Pat Barrett. Look let me open up a can of worms. So I love them. You know they are the best care solace. They do do mild to moderate. We need them. The bottom line is this. I don't know her name so I'm going to say Anita said we have to find your strategy a strategy right. So the bottom line is it's not what we want them to have the unhoused mental health challenge because they all have mental health trauma because they keep getting traumatized but. They have pets. And Mayor Fugazi, my little pet lover, we have to find a way on how we can get a program for boarding. How can we board the pets to where they know they're not going to be surrendered in our keel shelter, right? So that they can be secured because a lot of these pets are not registered, but they are therapy, service, emotional dog and cats and a chicken and a rooster. But the bottom line is, yes, up in Trinity Park where she has a chicken roaster. God bless her. But what I'm saying is we need to see more than just the person, okay, and how we can get them into programming with no barriers because how are we going to get – and we can't just, well, tear you apart from your dog and take you to the shelter, right? We really need to find another avenue to look at how we can save the pets to provide care for the owners. Does that make sense? Am I making sense? Other than that, you know I love y'all. That concludes public comment for this item. And to that point, I know our next meeting we're going to be having an update on the navigation center and pathways. I have the original. proposal, plans, everything that we voted on, and pets were included at the navigation center. So I'm just gonna put that out there. I don't know where it went left or right or up or down, but originally they were in there, 322 beds, even possessions could be brought. There were all kinds of things that we agreed to way back when I was on, which actually it was 2021, was gonna be done in nine months. Let me look at the date. Anyway, we're still moving forward. Thank you so much for your presentation. I don't have any lights on right now, but thank you for sticking it out with us tonight, and keep up the good work. Okay, moving on. Oh, I know Dr. Lytle is back there waiting. Item 15.2, authorize approval of findings and ratify final expenses, cha-ching, cha-ching, for the salvage and disposal of the derelict... Motor Vessel Aurora. What an introduction, huh? At this time of night, that was beautiful. Thank you very much. I'm Dr. Mel Lytle, and thank you for your patience in allowing us to provide this information to you tonight. I'm with Municipal Utilities. I also have Deputy Director Travis Small with Water Resources and Clara Esho, who is a PM in our department as well. So why don't we jump into this and we can go from there, answer any questions as we go. All right. Let's see, let's make this work. The reason why we're here is that when there are emergencies in the city, we can move ahead with emergency procurement through a policy that is through the city manager. And in this case, when you purchase items, spend money under an emergency procurement, When you have completed that effort, you have to go back to council to have all those expenditures ratified by council. And that essentially closes the loop on that emergency procurement. And that's why we're here tonight. The issue that we had was the sinking of the motor vessel Aurora. Why is that important? Back May of 2024, the Aurora was moored over at the end of 8 Mile Road, if you travel out there. And along Empire Track Road, there was a number of derelict vessels that were brought in by various people and essentially illegally parked in that location for some years. And we learned a lot about this early on when the tugboat Mazapita sank a couple of years ago. And we participated with the Coast Guard in removing that vessel. On May 22nd, 2024, the motor vessel Aurora, also known as the... the Wappen von Homburg because it was actually built in 1955 in the city of Hamburg, Germany. And for some illustrious reason, it ended up in Little Potato Slough just upstream of the city's water intake for our water treatment plant that also services about 200,000 people every day. On the next day, what they call a unified command was organized. That included the U.S. Coast Guard, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office, and the city of Stockton and Mudd. And why was that? Because there... When a vessel sinks in the Delta or anywhere in California, the Coast Guard has a responsibility to try to remove all the oil products on board that vessel. And there's a couple of ways they can do that. They can either raise, refloat the vessel, or they can actually try to do it from sort of underwater. They can send in divers with... devices that they can puncture holes into tanks and suck the oil out. In this case, it was decided by the Coast Guard that they would refloat the vessel. This vessel is almost 300 feet long, 2,500 tons, has about five decks, and it was used as sort of a pocket cruise ship when it was first built. And it has some claim to fame because it was in three seconds of a James Bond movie that was called, I think it was from Russia with Love. And then also back some years ago, it was a private yacht of a very wealthy person that someone that worked on that yacht wrote in her diary of some of the goings-on on board. And that later became the beginning of some of the scripts from The Love Boat, if you remember The Love Boat some years ago. And so this was the vessel that originated that very popular TV show. No one has to get up and start singing the actual theme to that TV show. Anyways, so the Coast Guard took the responsibility to refloat the vessel and remove all the contaminants that they could find on board. And so we'll go on from there. Why was this important for us? Because this vessel leaking oil and lots of contaminants into the waterway was just upstream of our water intake for the city. We pump water out of the Delta, we treat it at a water treatment plant, and it's served to people in the city. So it was a huge concern to us. As soon as it sank, we shut down our pump works. so that they wouldn't be contaminated with oil. We have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of membranes that clean the water at the water treatment plant. We would hate to have those fouled and so it was a huge problem. And so the response was the US Coast Guard went in using their own contractor to raise the vessel back up and to inspect and remove those contaminants. The infrastructure risk was huge, not just to the plant, but the future water quality of the city and our supply. Because if we aren't able to pump water from the Delta, it's a very important source for the city. And if we're not able to do that, it would be millions of dollars for us to look for additional sources of water. That's why we got very, very involved. If you know about the Delta Water Treatment Plant, that's the one that was most vulnerable. That was dedicated in 2012, cost the city $223 million to build that facility. So we're trying to protect our infrastructure and our investments. Public health concerns, many. Aurora itself, when the Coast Guard went forward to remove the oil, they found about almost 22,000 gallons of oil and oily water on board. Can you imagine 22,000 gallons of oil being dumped into our waterway as far as the potential for contamination? They also found 3,100 or almost 3,200 gallons household hazardous waste. What do I mean by that? Paints, lacquers, thinners, all these types of things that contaminate the waterway. On board also was an incredible amount of asbestos and asbestos is a contaminant that can really cause damage to human health and the environment. pcbs hexavalent chromium other things that were on board it was essentially at one time a member of the coast guard told me it was a floating superfund site as far as they were concerned and why are we most concerned about this because it would be an additive thing to the city of stockton The city of Stockton is already, as we've talked about already tonight, we are very sensitive about environmental impacts on our community. We're very concerned about air pollution, but we also, just because where we live, we're in a very sensitive place for water quality and contamination of the waterway. So we have to be very... sensitive to that and that's why we jumped on this as soon as we could. Because not only is there the physical importance of keeping our waterways clean but the perception of how the water quality is that we service every day to the community is very very important because if the community loses confidence And the water quality, their drinking water quality, that's a very big issue. And it's very, very hard to earn back. And so that's one of the other reasons that we were very much engaged in this overall effort. So what did we do? The Coast Guard raised the boat. It was refloated. And... We went forward and got an emergency procurement order through the city manager to remove the vessel, remove it from where it is, take it to a location where it can be, all the contaminants could be abated and it could be demolished and salvaged. They could recycle the vessel. And so that's the plan that we did. On June 27th, we got the, City manager approved the emergency procurement. Then later on it took us a few months to be able to figure out the actual plan to to get contractors in place all that type of thing. But on November 19th of 2024 we moved and noticed the city's jurisdiction to remove this vessel. This was based on an agreement with San Joaquin County and the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office that allowed us to use specific law in California to declare the Aurora as what they call marine debris. And because it was labeled marine debris and that the owner or owners did not come and claim the vessel, gave us the legal authority to remove it and have it demolished. And so that's what essentially happened. Dr. Lytle why didn't the county act on this? It's a very good question because the there's a very long history of these vessels in this location and I know that over the over time there was actually legal action that went back and forth between the county and various owners of the Herman and Helen's Marina there and also There was some I Guess you could say vagueness as to the law as it pertains to these vessels because they were on private property And how that was actually looked at based on the county we approached the county early on when this vessel sank and and we had various conversations with the county and it was agreed upon and that we were gonna move because we had a clear and present danger to the city's water quality. We had to move now. And so the county was lackluster in wanting to move or do something about it specifically. To say that that story's over, it's not. And the direction I was given by the city manager at the time was to get those boats out of there And then we're going to worry about the funding after that. But the critical thing was to remove the vessels so that we weren't continuing to contaminate the waterway. Yeah, because we're carrying the bag on this pretty much. And it's coming out of the utility fund, which, you know, here we've been talking about where can we find some more money. And I know we can't touch the utility fund, but, you know, can you be out 7.3 million? I don't know. I'm just saying that's... You know, somebody needs to be honing up the lion's share of this. The communications that we've had, and I can provide those to you if you'd like, was to, once we got the vessel out and the money spent, that we could come back to them to negotiate on the split. And so that would be the... uh... the effort that we have going forward and so we can talk about that more if you like would leave this giant mess for us to clean up i've heard that the people that owned it are like out of the country or something i mean I'd really like to see, and maybe this is a question for Lori, can we find the owner even if they're in Europe or wherever and go after them? I feel like they're the ones responsible. It just makes me, still makes me mad that somebody would just park this derelict boat and just let it create this big $8 million issue for us. It makes me mad. So I think Dr. Lytle can provide you most of the detail about what we're currently engaged in, but we are looking into that. We are trying to look. It's not just us. It's in coordination, but I'll let him speak to that. Good. We should get a bounty hunter or something to track them down. Or if they have any assets, seize any assets that they may have to add up to the $7.3 million out of our pocket. Right. Do you want me to respond to Councilmember Lauer? Yeah, I'd be happy to. That story isn't over either because our first goal was to remove the vessel and then have it salvaged in accordance with state and federal law. But the parties involved, that same law in California, Harbors and Navigation Code 550 and 551, allows the city now to go back after the owners or anyone associated or party associated with that vessel in the past and so we'll work very closely with the city attorney's office and deal in dealing with that issue all together and we'll probably come back to council more likely in a closed session that would outline sort of our effort that we want to go after because it's too serious an issue. And it's a big issue for us, but also for the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard's been there multiple times. They've spent millions of dollars in federal funds just to deal with this whole problem. But what we're after right now is to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Do we know if that ship got there like under its own power or did somebody like tow it there? The ship has not operated under its own power since the 1980s. That's what I figured. So whoever towed it should be liable as well. Correctly. It was towed there. Thank you. You bet. Let's go on. So the actual vessel was noticed in the legal way and that allowed us to execute execute what they call a dead ship tow. A dead ship is considered a tow that is considered a vessel that doesn't have power to operate on its own. And so in this case, our contractor, who is Lynn Marine, they are in Vallejo. Their facility is right at the old Mare Island facility. It was a naval base facility. that has dry docks and all that sort of stuff. They came and they prepped the vessel for the dead ship tow. They brought their tugboats and on December 21, they effected a dead ship tow from Little Potato Slough all the way to Vallejo. That was about just over 60 mile dead ship tow. Took about 10 hours for them to reached their dry dock, which you see on the right-hand corner there. Nothing occurred during the depth chuteau. There was a lot of concern that the vessel was going to sink on the way, but it didn't, and we were very successful there. You know, that picture you just showed, I mean, our delta is so beautiful and so amazing, and it's unfortunate that we have travesties like this occur. And I mean, how do we stop something like this from happening in the future? We have to be vigilant. The state, through the State Lands Commission, has a derelict vessel program. How often do they come out? They helped us in this case. Yes, but we don't want to get to this point. That's correct. And so there are other legal... And more on the political side, there is some draft legislation that talks about how do these vessels be decommissioned? You see what I'm saying? Like RVs. Something like that, yeah. You can think of them as floating RVs in the sense that, say, the Navy, the Coast Guard will decommission a vessel. And what does that mean? They say it's no good for regular service, and so they can be auctioned off. But auctioned off to who? And under what protection that this vessel doesn't do this again? And there is some interest in trying to develop legislation that would probably hinder that so that it would require maybe bonding or some type of insurance that they have to carry while they carry the boat. And so... And that would help at least deal with the overall, you know, if it sank or something, there would be some monies to clean it up. But still, it's a big problem, particularly in the Delta. The Delta is just a dumping ground for this type of issue. And not only large vessels, but small ones. This is some pictures from dry dock on the left-hand side. You can see the vessel has lots of containment around it. That was a law that the state and federal government have when you're abating a vessel. What they mean by abating is removing debris and cleaning the vessel so it doesn't have contamination in it anymore. And that's what you see on the left hand side. And what you see there's a big looks like a covered rectangular room there. That's where all the debris from the vessel are being dumped down into dumpsters. Then you see on the left side, bottom, that is, those are big tanks that they can offload contaminated water, other materials. Then the middle picture, that's actually a worker there spraying some encapsulating material that can help with, it's either water or it's a chemical that's used to treat for asbestos abatement. Up on the upper right-hand side, that's the proper way that you deal with disposal of contaminated debris that came off the vessel as it was being demolished. The bottom one is called the shearing operation. It's where they have an excavator with a big shear. It looks like a giant crab claw. that can reach up and cut steel just like butter. And it took that vessel apart and it was about, I think it was about a month and a half. Is that correct? Just about two months for us to completely shear through that vessel and all that material is lifted up and they would put it on trucks and take it down to a metal recycler. That was only about a mile away from the location. Did we get any money from that? No, that was part of the, unfortunately that was part of the contract for the contractor. They get to profit off that. So we have some questions. Council Member Villalpudo. Yeah, Dr. Lyle, can you go back and talk about the debris section? How often do you guys clean that up? You know, every month, every year? I mean, every... Debris? Yeah, all those items that you guys are cleaning up. This was the one event when the ship was towed to this dry dock facility, and when it was being torn apart, there was some additional debris. And that's the one time they cleaned up all that debris and put it where it could be securely, like a secure landfill. Where does that go? That probably went to, I'm not sure exactly which one, but usually there's secure facilities in Nevada and different places. It depends on the type of contamination that's in the debris itself. Now, has this happened before? I mean, any time in the past? As far as this ship, no, this is a one-time issue. But it's a problem with those derelict vessels for sure. Councilwoman Padilla. So I know this whole situation is harmful to our waters and our intake, but is the actual cleanup process harming habitats, wildlife or water just in this process? That's a good question. During the actual when we refloated the vessel, even before that, there were these, they call them booms. They're the plastic floating booms that go around. And the vessel itself was contained in booms the entire time. So once we got started on it, we were able to contain any contamination that was occurring due to the vessel floating there. Once we took it to dry dock, that's what we were doing is isolating the contaminants away from the environment so that they followed all the regulations necessary in order to make sure that those contaminants did not impact the environment or our water supply or anyone else's. And that's solving the problem. Sure. Thank you. I appreciate that. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just looking at the time. It's 10.52 in the spirit of moving this along. Can we speed up the rest of this presentation and get to the ask? Because I see from the staff report there's no impact to the general fund with respect to what we're acting on tonight. I'd be happy to. Thank you. We're almost done. This is a summary of all the expenditures that were spent on this effort. The total was $8.29 million. The costs were, as you see there, we also did a lot of effort in trying to find additional funding, and these are some of the agencies that we approached. but we're not successful. And how is it, though, that they're not? I mean, in terms of, you know, I mean, this is an environmental issue. Correct. We approached them. We're also, we partnered up with the State Lands Commission, who runs the derelict vessel program. They helped us contact all these other agencies. And like I say here, they either said they didn't have the budget or the wildfires were taking on way too much of their costs or lots of different other reasons. But they ultimately didn't fund us. And so that's the U.S. Boat Foundation. That was through a federal government. And we were denied funding on that one as well. So we had state. Cal EPA. We've got Cal EPA here. And then when I see foundation, boat U.S. foundation, foundations usually are, you know, entities of money. Yeah, that's funding through the federal government to NOAA, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. But I thought we put in a good application, but we were denied. And so... Just to go on the good news. State Lands Commission did provide funding just under a million dollars to help with the overall costs of the demolition and removal. Now it's kind of one time thing. Where are we now. Next steps. We are. The Aurora has been completely demolished and removed from the waterway. There's still one vessel remaining. It's called a shallower. Currently, as I speak, the Coast Guard is working to remove the shallower, which will be the last of the four vessels at that location. They're working through their own funds. They have internal funds through the Coast Guard that they can... essentially take that vessel apart and remove it and it was there's some special reasons why they can use those funds i won't go into those unless you really want me to in the interest of time but what this will do for the city for the department and our water supply it clears the waterway of those vessels and we'll do our level best to make sure this never happens again to make sure that somebody some other person want to dump a vessel tries it in a little potato sloop and that really won't happen what will we do now we've already sort of talked about it we're going to look at other means to potentially get reimbursement we're going to look into the legal legality of the situation and how we can potentially go after people that are responsible things of that nature and but We're not done yet. We're done with the physical removal of the ship. We are asking that you ratify the expenses that we've spent so far, and we'll go on from there. And on the last one, are we responsible for that one, too? For the HCMS Shalour? Shalour, no. Like I said, the U.S. Coast Guard is paying 100% of the bill on that. Okay. No question. Oh. How long does that take to remove? I mean is that going to like is it a special team or do we have is there a local team that does that from here? Yeah it's a it's a specialized engineering power engineering does work in the water and they're also working with the dive team where they'll actually be divers and they'll spend some time actually cutting the vessel into pieces and then they'll raise those pieces and put them on a barge Like the longshoremen, they don't get involved in any of that, right? No. And this, hopefully they'll be done by just about the first of August. So next two and a half weeks or so. That's a good job. So we're asking that city council move ahead with the staff recommendations and be happy to answer any more questions. Also have... uh... travis and clara here as well uh... vice-mayor lee motion to approve second council members please vote council member via padua YOU CAN DO AN AUDITORY, THOUGH. THERE YOU GO. OH, OKAY. MOTION CARRIES 7-0. SO GET IT CLEANED UP, DR. LIDAL. OKAY, MOVING ON THEN TO ITEM 15.3, COUNCIL DISCUSSION REGARDING THE CREATION AND DISSOLUTION OF THE AD HOC COMMITTEE FOR CITY MANAGER SELECTION. NOW, I KNOW THAT Council Member Enriquez requested that this be put on the agenda and that I think it was Vice Mayor Lee who seconded that request. I know that we have some public comments, correct? So I would like to go ahead then and allow public, they've been waiting all night, chomping at the bit to speak on this topic. So I'd allow them to speak first. Yolanda Amen. Okay, made it to this one. I spoke about this last meeting, but I am a little confused. I thought that how this all worked was you put them on the ad hoc committee, the two, our two members here, so that they could select a firm to come in. We'll check applicants, they vet them, and then after that, then it would basically go back to our, they would dwindle down. Let's say we had 10 applicants. Maybe they would pick top five applicants or the best applicants. Then it would come back to all of you to vote on it. That's how I thought this was supposed to work. And it seems like there's been something that's changed. So maybe I'm not understanding the process, but that's how I understood it. I went back and watched it. I went back and read everything. even the staff report as well to make sure that I was on the same page. It just seems like somewhere along the line that it's been changed and I don't understand why. As I told you last time, we voted for this, you voted for this in front of us in the public and then all of a sudden it got kind of twisted and people were kicked off and now I'm not even sure where we are with this now. So I guess I'm here for answers as to how we're going to proceed with this to find qualified applicants to fill this seat And like I said before, to make sure that it is fair and that everyone is represented within that pool of people that you will be looking to hire for this very important position, something that is qualified and hopefully from Stockton that understands the people of Stockton and what we're all about and what we need here. So I would really like an asking for clarification as to what this process really is because it was told one thing and now it seems to have changed. And my trust level is just really low right now. As I said earlier, it's just really low because I just don't know what's going on and I'm just not trusting this process anymore. Julie Dunning. If you know what I've been through with a doctor in the last couple of weeks. Anyway, I want to start off by saying that i fully recognize that there are a lot of emotions at play here but everyone i speak with in district four truly likes and values and appreciates our council member uh... mario enriquez he's kind cheerful highly involved in our district and very responsive and effective he gets things done for us and after years of not having representation it's a breath of fresh air so imagine our shock and sadness when we began hearing public accusations of improper conduct to make matters worse the accusations were being made without the disclosure of any supporting facts behind them for many of us who interact regularly with Mario on various district issues it was very difficult to believe I personally have firsthand knowledge of his high level of integrity, which demonstrated during his campaign. But if there's merit to these allegations, then we, especially those people in District 4, have a right to know if our council member is actually engaging in misconduct. I fully believe the only way to resolve this untenable situation is to initiate the appropriate investigation into the allegations because the way it is now, he's guilty in the court of public opinion without any way to clear either his good name or apologize and learn from any misstep he may have made. I'm sure if this were any of you, you would want the respect of your colleagues in the handling of the matter and to be offered the same opportunity to restore your reputation to good standing. Left unaddressed, matters such as this erode public confidence in the entire council. So please do the right thing for the sake of our city, open the wound, air it out, and provide it an opportunity to heal, then move on. Thank you. Gabby Gonzalez? MY NAME IS GABBY GONZALEZ AND I SERVE AS THE CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSIONER FOR DISTRICT SIX. I'M HERE TONIGHT TO RESPECTFULLY ASK FOR YOUR SUPPORT IN HELPING THE CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION MOVE FORWARD. RIGHT NOW WE HAVE NO MEETING CALENDAR OR WORK PLAN. I'VE BEEN TOLD THAT THE CITY MANAGER'S RESPONSIBILITY BUT EVEN AFTER REQUEST WE'RE STILL WAITING. IT'S NOW JULY AND THE INTERN CITY MANAGER HAS YET TO ACT. AS A NEW COMMISSIONER I'M READY TO SERVE BUT WITHOUT DIRECTION WE'RE STUCK. I'M RESPECTFULLY ASKING THAT THE INTERN CITY MANAGER'S OFFICE PROVIDE THE WORK PLAN AND CALENDAR IMMEDIATELY SO THE COMMISSION CAN DO ITS JOB FOR STOCKTON. NOW SPEAKING AS A RESIDENT, I WAS SHOCKED AND DISAPPOINTED TO LEARN THAT VICE MAYOR JASON LEE AND COUNCIL MEMBER MARIO ENRIQUEZ WERE REMOVED FROM THE CITY MANAGER AD HOC COMMITTEE, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE IT WAS DONE BY THE MAYOR ALONE WITH NO COUNCIL VOTE OR PUBLIC DISCUSSION. THESE COUNCIL MEMBERS WERE DOING EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE ELECTED TO DO, ASKING HARD QUESTIONS AND PUSHING FOR TRANSPARENCY. Removing them feels less like leadership and more like retaliation. Mayor Fugazi, I was out there walking neighborhoods to get you elected. People believed in your promise of change, but seeing you remove those who speak up makes the community question that trust. Let's be honest, Stockton needs a city manager who acts like a yes person. We need someone with backbone, someone independent, someone who works for the people, not just for the mayor. To Vice Mayor Lee and Council Member Enriquez, I support your leadership and commitment to transparency. And to you, Mayor Fugazi, your students, your voters, and your city are watching. Please do the right thing. Restore trust, reinstate the council members, and lead with integrity. You promise. Thank you. Pat Barrett. Boy, it gets old. It gets hard when you sit around for hours and you're old already. To the ad hoc. You know, with going on with the homeless and the displacement and dogs getting shot and getting arrested and homeless attempting to take their lives out of, you know, anxiety, it's been really hard for me to really focus on this one. But I just wanted to come back and bring it back. WHEN THE SITUATION HAPPENED, I REALLY DIDN'T THINK MUCH ABOUT IT BECAUSE I JUST COULDN'T UNDERSTAND WHY MARIO AND RICHIE WOULD BE ACCUSED OF VIOLATING THE BROWN ACT, OF ALL PEOPLE. AND WHEN COUNCILMEMBER VILLA-PEDUA SAID WHAT HE SAID ABOUT HOW HE, IT WAS HIM THAT GOT THIS AD HOC BUSTED UP, I WAS LIKE, YOU KNOW, ME, I'M ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE I HAVE TO REFLECT LATER ON IN LIFE ON STUFF THAT I HEAR. I SAID, WAIT A MINUTE. I know this knucklehead didn't go over there and talk about Mayor Mario Enrique was breaking the Brown Act and whoop, whoop, whoop to make people wonder if this is what had happened. So my point is, is that when you stain somebody's reputation, and some of us in this room know about that stain because we fight it 10 years later, you know, when we're doing what we do. We know about those people. We've experienced it. We've fought for them, people. It's a hard thing to come back on. And if this stain isn't brought to light, if this truth is not apologized for, you know what I mean, I just really think that our council needs to step back and either investigate or bring forward the accusation because it just can't be, oh, he did it and walk away. That doesn't work. It just doesn't work. And I'm really sorry that this happened to you because I've always trusted you. I'm scared of you and your brand acknowledge. You know what I mean? You know a lot. You've been there. So please look at this. David Sainte. Hi, everyone. My name is David Sainte. I am a resident of District 4 and a lifelong Stocktonian. I did want to express some concern about the dissolution of the committee without a council vote. I think that council policy, according to my knowledge, requires that ad hoc committees are created and extended by resolution. And so if we are able to dissolve this committee based on accusation, I think that before that dissolution process should even begin, formal findings and a formal investigation into any alleged misconduct should have taken place beforehand, right? I think it's okay to say, hey, I believe something awry has happened, but I'll try to I know the timer just started, so I'll stop myself for one minute then. I think that when things like this happen, things can go awry, but a formal investigation has to take place first before we hash out any formal dissolution of a committee. With that in mind, I just want to reemphasize that the process for selecting a city manager to oversee a nearly $1 billion budget, 1,800 city employees, and services for over 320,000 residents is quite important. While this process is not going the best it can, let us not allow this little moment to distract us from the bigger picture. We obviously need a city manager who's competent, qualified, and ready to lead. And I mean someone with experience, executive experience, public sector knowledge, and the educational background to manage Stockton and its complexity, right? We have a narrow window to get this right, so I encourage us to do so from here on out. Let's do it wisely, and if any... allegations are brought forward, let's have a formal investigation before we take action to dissolve any committee. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Okay, thank you. Each council member, we got, whoever wants to speak, we'll do five minutes for each council member and we'll go from there and we'll start with Council Member Enriquez and anybody else that chooses to speak after that on council. THANK YOU, MAYOR. I HAVE A POWERPOINT JUST FOR THE SAKE THAT FOLKS ARE HERE SO YOU ALL CAN SEE A TIMELINE. I'M A VERY VISUAL PERSON SO I WANT TO JUST PROVIDE THAT FOR THE PUBLIC. IT'S ALL BEEN FACT CHECKED IN TERMS OF DOCUMENTATION OF WHEN CERTAIN THINGS HAPPENED. THAT WAY WE CAN GUIDE YOU FROM WHEN THE AD HOC WAS CREATED TO TODAY'S MEETING. I WANT TO JUST HIGHLIGHT THAT THIS IS A REALLY IMPORTANT DECISION. YOU'VE ALL HEARD ME SAY THAT THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS THIS COUNCIL DOES IS TO APPROVE THE BUDGET AND TO SELECT THE CITY MANAGER. SO I KNOW MYSELF AND I KNOW VICE MAYOR LEE, WE'RE HONORED TO BE SELECTED BY THE MAYOR, HANDPICKED BY HER TO LEAD THIS COMMITTEE, TO BE THE THREE FOLKS THAT COULD BE SELECTED AND ALSO FINALIZE CANDIDATES SO THEN WE CAN THEN MOVE FORWARD TO PRESENT TO THE COUNCIL. We take that responsibility seriously. I know I do. And in terms of why I wanted to agendize this is because we have to be transparent about what we're doing. We can't pick and choose when we're transparent and when we're not. And if we're saying certain things, then provide factual evidence and information. That way we can provide clarity to the public. Folks have already shared that the trust is a big part of us leading. So when we act, we have to back it up with what we're saying and mean it. The community was already uneasy from the February meeting, and I wanted to just emphasize that after that 4-3 vote, I'm not going to get into personnel matters. That happened, and it already left the public unsure. So then to get to a point where now we have an ad hoc dissolution, it raises questions. I know I had my own questions, which is what I'll get to. I don't know if during the PowerPoint, if I'm still being timed, but... SO ON TUESDAY, YOU ALL WILL SEE THAT THIS AD HOC WAS CREATED BASED ON THE VOTES. THIS IS FROM THE BEATING AGENDA MINUTES. FROM FEBRUARY TO MAY, OTHER FOLKS CAN SHARE, BUT THERE WAS THREE MONTHS OF THE MAYOR'S OFFICE REACHING OUT AND COLLECTING PROPOSALS FROM INTERESTED HIRING FIRMS, AND THERE WAS SOME INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE AD HOC COMMITTEE MEMBERS. TUESDAY, JUNE 3rd, I ANNOUNCED THAT TO THE PUBLIC AT A CITY COUNCIL MEETING THAT PETKA MCKENNY WAS SELECTED. THAT HIRING FIRM MET WITH THE AD HOC EARLIER THAT DAY. SO AGAIN, THAT'S WHEN WE WERE ABLE TO PUBLICLY ANNOUNCE THAT WE SELECTED THE FIRM SINCE THE AD HOC WAS CREATED ON FEBRUARY 4TH. FRIDAY, JUNE 6TH IS THREE DAYS LATER WHEN THE MAYOR DISSOLVED THE AD HOC COMMITTEE VIA AN EMAIL TO THE CITY ATTORNEY AND COPIES THE VICE MAYOR AND MYSELF ON THE MESSAGE. THE FOLLOWING 10 DAYS LATER, GIVE OR TAKE, VICE MAYOR LEAF IS THE FIRST ONE TO PUBLICLY SHARE THAT THE MAYOR DISSOLVE THE AD HOC AT OUR LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE MEETING. TUESDAY, JUNE 24TH, WE HAD A PRESS CONFERENCE OUTSIDE THE CITY HALL, MAINLY FOCUSED ON DEI, AND THEN THAT'S WHEN THE PRESS ASKED US QUESTIONS OF THE DISSOLVEMENT OF THE AD HOC COMMITTEE FOR THE CITY MANAGER. AND HERE WE ARE TODAY, CITY COUNCIL MEETING, PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF THE AD HOC COMMITTEE DISSOLVEMENT. I WANT TO JUST SHARE AN EMAIL, AND I THINK THIS IS THE WHY FOR ME. WE CAN TALK ABOUT COUNCIL POLICY CHARTER POLICY, CHARTER REVISIONS, AND I WILL HAVE SOME RECOMMENDATIONS AT THE END FOLLOWING FURTHER DISCUSSION, BECAUSE THERE ARE TWO THINGS THAT I STILL WANT TO SAY BEYOND THESE FIVE MINUTES, BECAUSE THERE ARE RECOMMENDATIONS OF HOW WE WANT TO MOVE FORWARD. THIS IS THE WHY, AND THE QUESTION THAT I HAD IN TERMS OF WHY IT HAPPENED, AND NOT HAVING SUFFICIENT INFORMATION. ON JUNE 6, AS I SAID, WHEN SHE DISSOLVED, THE MAYOR DISSOLVED THE COMMITTEE, THERE WAS AN EMAIL SENT TO THE MAYOR, AND I'LL SAY CERTAIN THINGS REALLY QUICK. IT SAID, AN EMAIL THAT I CAN SHARE. It has come to my attention, this is the mayor to the city attorney, based on firsthand knowledge that discussion regarding the current interim city manager and the future appointment have occurred between at least one member of this ad hoc committee and other council members who are not part of the committee. These types of conversations, particularly outside a properly noticed public meeting, raises serious legal concerns. As you are aware, the city council consists of seven members, one mayor, six council members, and then lists the Brown Act description. TO FURTHER UNDERSCORE MY CONCERN ABOUT A LACK OF TRANSPARENCY AND COLLEGIAL RESPECT, I WAS MADE AWARE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME OF A SCHEDULED CLOSED SESSION MEETING ON JUNE 11TH DURING THE AD HOC MEETING. THIS DISCLOSURE WAS MADE BY COUNCIL MEMBER ENRIQUEZ, A CITY MEMBER OF THE AD HOC, INSTRUCTED FLORENCE LOW TO PULL COUNCIL'S AVAILABILITY. I FIND THIS TO BE ENTIRELY INAPPROPRIATE, PARTICULARLY AS IT PERTAINS TO A PROCESS IN WHICH THE MAYOR IS THE SOLE NOMINATING AUTHORITY. And then she mentioned that she has a longstanding prior engagement that prevented her from attending the date. The pattern of behavior displayed reflects a disregard for both process and professional conduct. Whether intentional or not, these actions undermine the principles of accountability and transparency. We owe it to the public. The consultant assisting with the city manager recruitment has already been informed that he will be working directly with me. Therefore, I am dissolving the ad hoc. And the reason why I bring this up because so many of these things still don't make sense. It's been 39 days since this was sent out and still no answers. The vice mayor and I have made intentional efforts to connect with the mayor to understand why it was dissolved. I was more than happy to step down if need be, but there have not been conversations and it's been 39 days, but I'm happy to again talk about, I know my time is up. I have some two recommendations and I can say it later on, but I just wanted to say that that was the why. And I don't go against the charter revision, the authority that the mayor has, that I'm not questioning. But I'm questioning the why, which we still don't have answers to, to this important decision. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mary. You know, I'm often reminded when I visit churches or go out in the public or even walk into Starbucks, like, you don't have to be here because I don't. I chose to return home. I chose to run for office. I paid for my own campaign. I didn't take special interest money. I did a grassroots campaign, and I won on a commitment to people. And so, for me, I just want to be very clear that this is a matter of policy, not politics, okay? And I wrote what I wanted to say because I want to make sure that I'm very clear. For me, it's always been a privilege when the mayor uses her authority and position to encourage inclusion, whether it's with people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, life experiences, because it's the connective tissue to the other matters that I've been addressing, like DEI, making sure that when people are at the table, they reflect the communities that they serve. And adding Council Member Enriquez and I to the ad hoc committee, which, to be very clear, by the charter, she did not have to do. She didn't have to create an ad hoc, but she did. You know, it was an honor because what she did was she allowed a member of the Latino community, a member of the African American community to sit at a table with her, and she represents the community that she represents, not saying that she's elected by everybody, but, you know, at that table that she created a diverse platform, female, male, gay, black, Latino, and it really reflected the commitment that we made to the community. And when we were allowed to be there, it was a privilege because there are a lot of people that have not ran for office, that don't have the courage or resources or the strength or courage to face the adversity of having the privilege that we have. And so we represent those voices who elected us to make sure that their interests were heard at a policy level. And the city manager position, whoever it is, will be responsible to oversee our police department. We know we've had lots of conversations about... public safety and we have a chief that's done a phenomenal job of turning the department around. But making sure that we have representation is always important. We had a spirited debate at the last council that led to a gavel gate that me and the mayor up here are joking about. We've had a lot of conversations privately because we're not bloods and crips. We're just disagreeing on how we do a few things and that's what happens when you are passionate. uh... but you know we had a big debate over diversity equity inclusion which i'm going to talk about later my council comments and this ad hoc represented the very spirit of what the mayor said that she stands for and so by creating the committee that she didn't have to including that diversity was a reflection of that commitment that somehow became a part of now broken process now disbanding it came as a surprise to me because it was received via email and if there were concerns with council member riquez And there was an action to be taken, in my opinion. He could have been removed and replaced, and then we could have continued. But by removing him and removing me, it took the process in a different direction, and it was a surprise. And we agreed as a council to no surprises. And so when you see me react in a very animated way, it's because I am surprised by something that I wasn't expecting, and I take my commitment to my district and my community seriously. Now, with respect to the allegation that a law can be broken, let me just be very clear on the Brown Act. Me, Council Member Mariquez, and Council Member Blower had a conversation about the direction of the city, and we did not agree on some policy implementation. That's three people. That means there could not be another conversation around other matters related to that topic. If information went to the mayor related to that meeting, that then added another chain in the serial meeting. Because if a council member has a concern over a violation of the Brown Act, they are to take it to the district attorney or they are to take it to the grand jury. Those are investigatory agencies, not to another person up here because it then continues the serial meeting and violates the Brown Act. So now, this has now morphed into... something bigger because that means two more people may have potentially violated the Brown Act. So I will be requesting that the grand jury do an investigation. And the reason why the grand jury is because I don't think taxpayers have to pay or should have to pay for this mess, but he deserves closure and she deserves accountability if for whatever reason there was or was not a violation. The policy did say two actions, finding a, helping the mayor find a firm, which we did, i went to that process which he just outlined into put forward uh... qualified candidates that second part for me was not done and therefore i think there's a violation of the policy and i've asked the city attorney we've gone back and forth on whether or not there was a violation so again it's reduced it for me a matter of policy and so we will be taking the matter to the legislative uh... committee to to talk about but you know that the challenge now is that in the world of social media the news and all that His integrity is at question, and I have an immense amount of respect for him, and I have an immense amount of respect for the mayor, and I have tried, and I will say this for the record before we move to discussion, is I have gone to the mayor twice with Mario Enriquez, unannounced, to sit down and powwow, because leadership is about, and Mayor Antonio Viragosa told me this, he said... It's mathematics. It's addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division. And we are obligated, and I believe committed, to figuring this out. But we wanted to have this conversation in public for this period of transparency. I don't know if any other council members would like to speak before I start mine. Council Member Blauer. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a question for Lori. Could you kind of tell us your opinion on, I think, what, What confused me about this whole thing was the fact that we as a council did vote on establishing this ad hoc. And the fact that the resolution was pretty clear that there were two things to be done. The city council desires to establish an ad hoc committee to interview and recommend candidates to the full council for potential appointment. So I feel like I know an ad hoc usually has a purpose and once that purpose is done, it's then dissolved. And I agree that it seems like only half of the purpose was fulfilled in picking the search committee but not then ultimately doing the interviews and presenting. So that being said, I mean, to dissolve this thing that was established by a council vote, would it need to be just taken apart by another council vote? What is your opinion on that? So I can understand, first of all, just to acknowledge, I understand the confusion because most ad hocs operate differently. So I myself had to take a really hard look at this to understand sort of what happened once I received that communication. So where I came down was this. The charter gives the mayor the nomination authority for the city manager candidates. It does not mandate that council play a role in that nomination process, though it has historically been done that way. The mayor chose to use an ad hoc to assist her in carrying out her charter obligations. So the purpose of the ad hoc was not the tasks that were assigned to it, which is what you were referring to, it was to assist her. The assistance that she was requesting was the purpose of the ad hoc. So what happens is generally, like you mentioned a minute ago, ad hocs end when either their purpose is fulfilled or when the passage of time occurs. We have about a paragraph in our council policy that says how council ad hoc committees are created, and it talks about, you know, it says who appoints. It doesn't say anything else other than they last for one year only unless extended by a resolution of council. So given those, you know, very, you know, the brevity of rules in that council policy, here, as I understood the mayor's email, she no longer wanted help, no longer wanted that assistance in carrying out her charter obligations. Therefore, no more purpose for the ad hoc. The resolution doesn't say, neither does the council policy, which I just talked about. But at the end of the day, we're balancing two sets of laws. We're talking about the charter and or policy and reso. And the charter is going to trump every single time. The charter is the constitution for the city. You've heard us say that many, many times in other contexts. And so if there's no obligation by the charter, then the council can adopt policies to address it. Here, if you want to change that process, if you don't like the process for coming up with your nomination and candidacy for city managers, you have to change the charter, and that has to go to the voters. You're welcome. Council Member Villalpudo. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I want to take a moment... address this matter before us regarding a city manager at hawk committee and the really concerns that has been raised publicly and privately over the last few weeks i'm speaking today because of the narrative that no discussion took place or that there were no violations is simply not true on may 27 I received a phone call from Council Member Mario Enriquez that lasted approximately 10 minutes. During that call, he entailed a conversation especially about terminating Interim City Manager Steve Colangelo. He expressed his desire to see the change happen and asked for my support in moving that discussion forward. Prior to that call on May 5th, 2025, Vice Mayor Jason Lee scheduled a meeting with me through our council assistant, and we met the city hall from 10.30 to 11.30. During that meeting, Vice Mayor made it clear that we wanted to remove the interim city manager. He told me he had a candidate in mind who would be good for all of us. What came next was deeply troubling. He told me if I support his effort, he would not run a candidate against me and would stay out of my election, and would even consider offering manpower and financial support to support me getting re-elected. In that same conversation, he issued a threat, stating if I didn't go along with it, he would use his platform and his resource to destroy me and the Villaputua name. This included promoting people to speak out against me, circulating unfounding allegations. This wasn't a policy conversation. This was a political extortion, plain and simple. Both Councilman Rodriguez and Vice Mayor Lee mentioned there in their respective conversation that they plan to reach out to Councilman Blower to bring him on board. I can't confirm whether those conversations ever occurred. but the attempt to build consensus behind closed doors was clearly stated to me. This conduct directly reflects what a Brown Act is intended to prohibit a majority of a legislative body coordinating actions on public matters outside of a noticed public meeting. For the record, following these events, I notify the mayor that I have been contacted. And I shared the general scope of these discussions while omitting the specific details at that time. The public deserves transparency. These are conversations that did happen. And the tactics used behind these scenes should concern anyone who values ethical governance. So I ask that we take this to their district attorney, Ron Freitas. Thank you. Okay, so I'm timing myself. I know that there's a lot of confusion, clarification that was asked for. The city attorney gave her answer. Her answer was that it was within my authority to dissolve without going back to council, and that's what I did. I had hoped that it would have been squashed at that point, but it wasn't. And so it kind of put me between a rock and a hard spot. And I do appreciate the fact that people agree that there should be an investigation and that it shouldn't cost taxpayer dollars. I agree with that. I actually printed out the papers, had a conversation with the city attorney just saying, you know, what could we do in this instance? And referring it to the civil grand jury and the district attorney's office, I think, is the proper channel for us moving forward because that's where these matters belong. And then we don't have to worry about anything here poisoning the water, so to speak. When it was, like I said, when it was brought to my attention, I just went and I just said, okay. in terms of dissolving it. And I had actually gone again to the city attorney when it was brought to my attention that my concerns and what my options were. Hence, that's where we are today. With that being said, we also had a meeting with the recruiter just last week. And the timeline and process was made very clear. to all of the council members and they can address that uh... and i don't think it was a private document it did not say confidential on it which all the other documents pretty much dead are more than happy to put that out there actually all council members uh... saw that document had access to that document so i i'm hoping that this is now SOMETHING THAT WE CAN REMOVE FROM HERE AND MOVE FORWARD AS AS DISCUSSED AND LET THE GRAND JURY AND THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY HANDLE IT BUT YOU KNOW FOR FOR THE RECORD THIS REALLY IS ABOUT MY OBLIGATION TO THE PEOPLE JUST AS MUCH IT IS AS EVERYBODY ELSE IS UP HERE AND AT NO POINT IN TIME DID I THINK THAT IT WOULD GO IN THIS DIRECTION But it did, and I feel like I have that obligation too, to uphold the process itself. And the process itself is outlined in the city charter, which is our constitution, which is our law. And in order to not have this blow up to the place where it is today, because the email was sent, there was no conversation outside of that, that is correct. And then there was conversation publicly about it, which then has brought us here today, unfortunately. So the public deserves transparency and accountability. So I am fully in support, again, of having this go to the district attorney and the civil grand jury. Okay. Do we need a motion for that? It's a conversation. It's a conversation, but we can do by show of nods. I know. I'm going to give an opportunity. But everybody gets the opportunity to speak if they want to. Did you want to? Make a motion. No. Okay. So we'll do, I guess we call it a rebuttal. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Mayor. So she just put two minutes up here. As you watch, and we talk about transparency, we just did like 30 minutes on water and a boat. But we're going to do seven minutes on this topic. The political theater, you thought it was over today. It's just getting started now because now you've made an attack on my credibility, my character. Everybody knows I don't got – there ain't – to dirty the Villa Pudua name is like pouring dirt water down a drain. It's already dirty. So to come here, I'm talking to the public. I'm not talking to anybody up here, and I have the right to speak to the public. To make an allegation that I would somehow out of, if you've been following my run for office and me getting here, would go in a room and trust that person with a conversation of that nature is absurd. The second thing is, this is what happens whenever you feel like you're going to try to just count your little votes to four. That's why I had a conversation yesterday about talking to Ron Bonta. That's why I have a conversation about going outside of this city and having a conversation with people who can actually look at what I believe is corruption. This is not about a process that's playing out in the public. This is about political theater and this is about posturing and trying to create a story and narrative that somehow me and Mario went in a back room and came up with this conspiracy to remove the city manager when I was one that voted for him to be here. This is about accountability. This is about the direction and commitment to the city. I'm not going to discuss the manager's employee status in public because that's not proper. I'm going to follow those rules. What I will say is if I have a conversation with any of the council members about what I am concerned about, but it does not connect directly to what I am making a motion for in a closed session meeting, Those are two different things, and those of us that stay awake during our trainings know the difference. But I will be addressing this tomorrow and every other day until we get real clarity. If you only give me seven minutes in public, I have 24-7 in public on my social media, in the news, press conferences, and everything else. That's why we should allow for... real honest, spirited conversations. The public waited until 11.30 at night to have this conversation. And as I get to my council comments, you're going to see exactly why this is happening. And let me be clear on just one more thing before we move on and whether we continue to talk on this or not. I came in here, if you listen, go back and read the transcripts of what I said. It was very much about how we come together, not pointing fingers, not attacking. And then the next direct comment is you came and offered to pay to invest in my campaign if I voted with you. Now y'all know he won't get no money. Council Member Enriquez. Thank you, Mayor. I know I read the email out loud. And again, I said that because again, the reason is, we still don't know the reason why it was dissolved, right? Some of these things that I said in the email, which was Siebert requests, so the media will be able to give more context to it. And I'd be happy to answer that. But I'm not afraid of an investigation. I welcome the chance to clear my name. IF YOU WISH TO PROCEED, GO SEEK THE PROPER AUTHORITIES. I SAID ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL AND I'LL SAY IT NOW, THERE'S TWO THINGS YOU DON'T GO AFTER. YOU DON'T GO AFTER MY MOM AND YOU DON'T GO AFTER MY INTEGRITY. AND I TAKE THAT SERIOUSLY BECAUSE I SHOW UP FOR MY DISTRICT AND I SPEAK UP AND I WILL CALL OUT THE CORRUPTION WHEN I SEE IT. IF I HAVE QUESTIONS, I WILL SEEK ANSWERS. IF THINGS HAPPEN AND I DON'T HAVE A REAL REASON AS TO WHY CERTAIN THINGS ARE HAPPENING, I'M GOING TO QUESTION IT. IF SOMEONE'S GETTING MAD BECAUSE I'M QUESTIONING AUTHORITY OR NOT SAYING YES TO WHAT MAYBE SOMEONE IS USED TO, YES PEOPLE, I'M NOT A YES PERSON. I'm fighting for my district, and I'm fighting for my city, and that's why I ran. I'm proud to be that I'm from the region. I didn't grow up in Stockton, but I grew up in this region. I'm bringing a fresh perspective and a fresh pair of eyes to this city and how we govern. We get tired of Stockton politics. People always talk about that. Yeah, there's a reason why, because we have people that are doing the same old tactics, the bullying, the political theater. We're tired of it. So when you have new people come in, mentor them, welcome them in, listen to them, see them as an asset. And all I've been seeing so far has been disrespected, little boy, stay in your corner and be a good little council member. As I've been told in email communications. I'm tired of being disrespected and I feel like I'm on an island when I speak to my colleagues to give real thoughtful feedback and advice. My constituency, the people that see me in action see that. And I am mature in terms of how I reach out. June 24th, we had a meeting about the rumors and the recall and all these things. The next day, I request a meeting to say, you know what, let's hash it out as adults. The next day, she sends out a press release, the mayor, saying I'm creating political theater, saying the baseless accusations, saying the rumors that we even deny to her face, and still says it in a press release using her mayor logo. And then the meeting was then scheduled for the following Monday. And I told her, had we had that meeting, I'm pretty sure you didn't have to send out that press release to the media attacking my character on, yet again, baseless accusations with no evidence. If you're going to back something up, say it. But it's been 39 days and there's still nothing. Again, I welcome, I want to clear my name. I know I've done nothing wrong, and I want to continue this process. But I truly mean it when I told the mayor last week, I want to work with the mayor, I want to support the mayor, I want to support this council, and I mean it. Okay, so it looks like it's going to an investigation. uh... with the grand jury and the district attorney's office which then moves us onto uh... city managers update one of the thank our city council tonight thank you because you choose uh... you chose to continue the amazing work that we started together today your decision reflects the confidence in results of rhetoric progress over disruption and stockton's potential over political convenience uh... but make no mistake uh... it's just the beginning and the opportunity to prove stockton can cover with unity purpose and uh... kind of consistency that transforms communities in the five months in the past five months i've delivered financial accountability cut fifteen point two million dollars from the budget without affecting public safety without layoffs without car cutting services we presented stockton's first truly uh... we've presented stockton's truly balanced budget in years uh... public safety results homicides are down thirty seven percent by supporting our police chief providing him with the resources he needs to protect our communities and adding 70 badly needed officers. Federal partnerships, I secured high level meetings, highest level meetings in Stockton's history with the Department of Justice, Housing and Urban Development, and most critically, the Office of Shipbuilding and the fourth largest shipbuilder in the world. I led the largest intergovernment agency homeless encampment cleanup in Stockton's history that will happen on July 22nd, and also restored freeway access points that have been neglected for years. Government reform, I launched forensic audits, established our first grants department, and created transparency measures this city has never seen. These aren't talking points. These are measurable results that have achieved in the last few months. together, results that improve lives in Stockton. We are on the verge of bringing shipbuilding back to Stockton, billions of dollars injected into our economy, thousands of high-paying jobs, and a complete transformation of our economic future. The opportunity to create generational wealth for Stockton families is at our doorstep. Federal officials are watching. They're evaluating whether Stockton is stable enough, professional enough, and responsible enough to be trusted with this level of investment. I have to ask, who benefits when Stockton fails? When we can't complete major projects? When federal partners lose confidence in our city? because it's certainly not the families struggling with housing costs who need the economic opportunities shipbuilding would bring it's not the young people who want to build careers here it's not the businesses trying to grow in a stable environment here's what i can promise you whether i serve one more day or one more year i will continue fighting for stockton's potential i didn't take this job for political advancement or personal gain. I took it because I believe in this city's future. And I believe in this council getting us together. I brought in a proven business expertise because Stockton deserves better than trial and error approaches to critical challenges. I challenged, I'm sorry, I launched critical reforms because transparency matters more than comfort i pursued federal partnerships because our residents deserve economic opportunities when we do not pull together in one direction we risk watching federal officials take their billions elsewhere we watch stockton remain trapped in cycles of dysfunction while other cities seize the opportunity we are throwing away we must choose results Choose stability. We must choose leadership that attracts investment instead of driving it away. Leadership that makes Stockton a destination for success, not a cautionary tale of dysfunction. I will continue to give this city every single thing I have, professional expertise, fiscal responsibility, transparent government, measurable results. Stockton is capable of greatness. The people of Stockton are watching, the federal government is watching, and most importantly, history is watching. Today is the first day of a rebirth of our city. We are looking at opportunities that our city hasn't seen since the gold rush. I'm excited for what lies ahead. I'm excited to join with you and each member of this beautifully diverse city in fostering this new era of success, growth, safety, and prosperity for all of Stockton. Thank you. Moving on to council comments. Councilwoman Padilla. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I thought I wasn't going to talk about this because I generally like to talk about positive things in our city. I've heard about the disrespect, the dysfunction on this council, and I want to be really clear. This is not about one person. We are supposed to be a team. This is about all of us up here. Every single one of us up here on this dais shares responsibility for how we conduct ourselves in this city hall and out in the public. We need to be the example that we set for our city, for our public, for our constituents, for the people of Stockton. I know that this behavior that has been going on for the last couple of weeks is not the reflection of the standards of that this leadership set January 2025. And our community deserves better. I'm really having like PTSD from 2024. And I did not want this to happen. I've expressed myself to every one of these individuals that I was super excited that I was going to see positiveness going on our city i was looking forward to the things that were going to happen and now my passion is lost my passion is lost the only thing that is keeping me are my constituents because i'm doing the work for my constituents and i cannot fail them because if i quit on them i am failing so again i want to express this is not one person it is every single one of us working together so i i know we have challenges uh... there's a lot happening in the city uh... and and too much uh... is getting over shadowed uh... we need to be focusing on our solutions the work things that need to be done for our community uh... Again, I continue to hear the disrespect, the dysfunction. From this day forward, we need to keep our feelings off this dais, out of the public, and do what's right for the city of Stockton. I can't say it enough. I know we want transparency. That's important. Our motto, truth, transparency, trust. We just got to move on. I'm emotional. I'm getting heated. I didn't want to speak on this because I wanted to keep this light, but I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. So for whatever it is, we just need to... get past our personal grievance, get past the drama, and our public deserves so much better. Sorry. I wasn't going to speak on this either, but it was brought up today in council comments. So at my community event this weekend, I had the opportunity to meet some individuals from my encampment. They came up to me, asked me if they could meet with me and I said, sure. I'd be open to scheduling a meeting. We met today. We had the most collaborative working meeting that was so successful and it was so productive We focused on building partnerships, working together with the resources that the city has, that the resources that this individual has. And by the way, his name is Mike. He's out there at the community, at the Trinity Park encampment. And Mike himself said this. there are individuals that want to accept services they're willing to take the services and there's some that just don't and he said those that don't need to face whatever legal whatever law is out there whatever they're you know not following they need to be responsible for whatever that is but the individuals that want help uh... We have services for him. We talked about the needs of one another. I said, you know what? I know this person. I know we can help this person. One lady had a dog that she wouldn't go into respite because she didn't want to give her dog up. And I said, you know what? Animal Protection Center fosters dogs. Let me call and let me see if they'd be willing to look out for your dog while she goes into respite. Back to what I'm, you know, working together with the individuals was a success today. And I'm super proud of that. And that's what I'm going to take away today is the accomplishments that I made working together with the individuals out at my encampment. And going forward, I said, with your connections and what you're doing, hey, who knows? You might even get a job somewhere in the city or working. But working together makes success. And that's what we need to get back to doing. And back to my community event, it was super successful. I'm so grateful that fire and police were able to come out. Families, neighbors enjoying themselves, having a great time, making friends. There were kids running around everywhere. It was just an overall great community-building effort. And I know I'm just feeling really passionate and heated, but I just want to get back on the track and get over whatever this issue is. So sorry, I'm just talking rampant. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Wow. First, let me say I think I've demonstrated a lot of restraint tonight. Even though I'm frustrated, and trust me, when I leave, I'm going to call my real friends and have a real conversation. For people of the public and the media, this is a document that the mayor and I created that actually outlines what we committed we were going to do and how we were going to work together as leaders. I have a copy here for you so you can take a look at it. Give this to Cassie, please. Okay. I don't do political theater. I am an entertainer in my day job. I do not come here to entertain. I come here to move my city forward. But I have to talk about something first. I want to say thank you to all of the people in my district and around the city that came out tonight that tuned in to listen to what was happening. I think we demonstrated working together on different topics tonight and how we can get along because it's not personal. I'm going to always show up and work collaboratively with my colleagues because The city trusted seven people to get it right, and we don't have the option of when to choose to get it right or not get it right. We have to show up every time and do our best, and I'm going to always stay committed to that. I, too, echo my colleague to the right's sentiment that we welcome an investigation. And I want to say for the record what I heard, which was the most absurd allegation I've ever heard about me, and I take my credibility to it. You all don't even understand what he's been doing is different than what I'm going to do. what i heard publicly was that there was another chain in this alleged serial meeting that occurred so as part of that investigation i think what i heard publicly was there were reports of a conversation which added another chain in that alleged serial meeting. So, therefore, that same investigation applies and the same consequences do, too. Now, there's a bigger issue at hand here that I want to speak to. In Stockton right now, you know, everybody looked at the mayor hitting the gavel last meeting. It was gavelgate. And I didn't even comment online about gavelgate because... the mayor was grieving her father and i lost a brother and i know what it's like when you're going through something personal so i gave her a lot of grace and i didn't go to my eight million followers and talk about how i felt but i did feel embarrassed i did feel demeaned i felt disrespected and we had a meeting where i told her when she made a joke to me that she was going to beat her gavel one day and i said if you ever do this is going to be my reaction because you teach people how to treat you when you say to somebody here are my triggers here's what i cannot I don't react well to. They have to respect those boundaries, and when they choose to overstep, then an experience happens, and then somehow you end up being the bad guy. When I started thinking about this, I went to church this weekend, and one of the pastors said, be very careful not to argue with people who are doing things wrong to you, because then they will mistake you as being somebody doing something wrong too, right? So stay focused. And so when I think about that, I think about what's really happening. And in Stockton politics, there's a political and spiritual warfare, in my opinion, of what's happening. And I'll make sense of that. Because there's a focus of just counting to four versus making sure that every vote counts. And let me be very clear. The votes change up here. So when the votes don't work for you, one day they'll work for you another day. So you can't focus just on the vote. You have to focus on making sure that every vote counts. And when people came to me about, giving them campaign money and knocking on doors and making promises and swaying votes. There was no argument, but the minute people got elected, I became the bad guy that now has to go meet with the district attorney because I somehow made a campaign commitment to pay for somebody's campaign. Yeah, I'll just do the math on how crazy that one is. But when I sit here and I reflect on what's happening right now, I remember a couple weeks ago when I stood on stage with Ben Crump and Jasmine Crockett in front of my people and been crump said that regardless if they call you a race beta regardless if they attack you regardless if you get choked up and councilman padilla was there uh... you have to stay and speak truth to power because black culture black literature DEI black history the attacks on snap everything that's happening around us from the federal government that the managers just said he's building a relationship with cuts to medicaid all of the funding for the important work of our nonprofit communities All of those have significant implications on an already fragile city. This is not Los Angeles, Miami, New York, where ice can drop in the middle of our city or Black Hawk helicopters can drop down or the military can be deployed. And we have a city that's prepared to tackle that. We aren't. So to cozy up to policies that fly in the face of a richly diverse community and puts us at risk is a reckless move. slippery slope that this council is idly sitting by and watching. I asked President Rodriguez from El Concilio to come here today because I met with him and wanted to understand more about what work is happening for our brown community and our black community and I've been meeting with lots of other community leaders and what I wanted to do was work alongside him and other community leaders to pull together a real critical conversation around race in our community and the implications of not ensuring that policies reflect the rich diversity and staying true to our promises through policy making investment and ensuring that everybody has a significant and equal seat at the table and that to me is a more responsible way of handling the frustration i find because it's interesting these dog whistles that have been happening since i got here i have to tell you what i've been enduring behind the scenes first they say to me And I got elected, and you know, I just kind of like, I'm Jason, so I just kind of like move through City Hall as just Jason. But first they'll say, you got to start dressing local. All that Dior and that Balenciaga and all that Gucci, you got to start dressing local. I said, okay, well, maybe I'll start going to Dillard's. So I go to Dillard's. Bought this at Dillard's. Then they say, stop asking so many questions about what's going on in City Hall. Just go out there and focus on your district. Why are you asking about so many questions? Well, hundreds of thousands of dollars are hemorrhaging our ASD departments when there's People that are complaining about being terminated for whistleblower protections, just stop paying attention. Not that protecting us from lawsuits is not a part of my responsibility. Then the dog whistles start getting louder, saying that staff are scared of you, they feel threatened by you, because that's the same stuff they said to Emmett Till, right? They said just be careful, stop scaring people. Then a meeting happened with people on the dais And the Stockton Police Department and somebody else about investigating me, potentially a politically motivated investigation to infringe on my civil liberties. I still didn't say anything publicly. But this is all while there's an investigation happening because there's people in jail talking about putting a hit on me. Still don't even bring that to the public. Why? Because I don't want to be messy because we don't want to be messy. Well, the reality is everybody up here has been involved in some mess. And then the dismantling of DEI starts. And I ask about it and then we're making DEI and we're investing in it. We're making it stronger. That's why we moved the DEI officer to HR. Well, she's resigned and no longer here. And then we find out $40,000 of the budget went to a potluck. So now the finger pointing is happening and the cover-up is happening. And now you mean to tell me that a press release went out from the mayor saying that this guy went to that guy about a recall, I mean a termination, and forgot to put in the press release that I offered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get him re-elected in a district that don't even want him now? Craziness. And you know what? I still sit here and give grace. I still sit here and give grace. But then, it goes a little further. Because tonight, There was an attack on my ability to go to the Dominican Republic. Those little whistles of inequity that people want to find in me because somehow I'm supposed to measure up or shrink to what they believe that I should be. And that's what every single person that looks like me in this community has been told for decades. And that stops today. Because... I'm fine with any investigation. I'm fine with any process or any dog and pony show. But what people have to realize up here is this isn't Hollywood Unlocked. This isn't trucking school or real estate or any other day job you have. This is government. That is controlled by processes and agencies that look into and uncover corruption and deal with it. And there are severe... penalties and I've said it from the very beginning why I paid for my own election why I make sure that I don't take bribes or I don't do favors I don't even let people buy me a cup of coffee you try to buy me a nice little cup and I've said I can't take anything because I never want to be in a situation what I just witnessed today and that's a dog whistle of we got to call in the DA and the grand jury so I just want people in the public to pay attention Now, this is a slippery slope that all of my colleagues are now on, and they're aware of, and it's playing right out in front of the public. Because remember, I said politics is like math. Just a minute ago, I said it's multiplication and addition, not subtraction and division. baseless allegations were thrown out again tonight to further divide us, but I'm still going to remain committed to partnering with the mayor. I'm still going to commit to setting up meetings with the city manager to meet with him about moving the city forward. I'm still going to have press conferences with the press and let them ask questions and meet with the community and answer questions because that's what leaders do. We just do that and not be afraid of telling the truth. Now, you know, I'm going to be inviting the mayor to this this forum that we're working with President Rodriguez and the faith-based community and other community leaders who are interested to have a conversation because the investment in DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, is making sure that the policies we create at City Hall, the education our kids are getting in our schools in the city and county, all represent the interest that they need in order to become qualified, eligible people in our community for opportunities that they may have a dreams of. Now, again, you know, I want to get to some of the business and move on because I know we've all been here, and I won't lie, I'm still thrown off by the comment that was made earlier. I have new information that I've gotten through various avenues that there are in direct conflict with what's been communicated to the public so far and to me as the chair of the audit committee, and I believe it warrants an investigation of its own. And because we talked about truth, trust, and transparency, which, by the way, was a tagline that I created that now has been co-opted and turned into a talking point when it's convenient, I'm going to be asking my colleagues to support an investigation under Section 406 of the Charter to get to the heart of what's happening with respect to DEI. I know that in the press, the mayor and I both have had two different comments, but it's not that we're just talking about two different things. I think she doesn't have all the information. And so I want to be fair to her that when people have tried to pit us against each other on this matter, it isn't that she's saying one thing and I'm saying a different thing because we know the same thing. There's just more information. And there is funding, as I've mentioned, that has been improperly, at least reported to me, improperly utilized. And there's not been information provided to me from the city. So I'd ask my colleagues to support an investigation under Section 406. on the DEI matter. Can I get that support? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So just for the record, I have four of us support that. Thank you. Now, see, my mother was a beautiful white woman. I always have to say this. It's important. And my father was a strong black man, so I've been privileged to see race and culture from both lenses. And although I've had good and bad experiences with racial disparities, I've spent my entire life finding ways to bring all people together, whether working at STAG, working in probation, the unions now owning a global media platform. I always use platforms to create conversations about how you can only win if all people win. This is not about, to my counsel and Padilla's point, it's not about one person, it's not about two, it's about everybody, and we all win when all people win, regardless of their ethnicity, their gender, sexual orientation, political views, et cetera. we have to as a community face where we stand in that conversation because i'm going to use this platform as a policy maker to continue that work now given the new direction city hall with respect to the alignment with our national government and the need to protect our immigrant community we should be discussing policies of sanctuary cities in protecting uh... adding extra protections instance that's what we're saying we're committed to and that were all policymakers appear in fact is one african-american in four People from the Latino community, I offered to my colleagues to make that consideration since we're sitting here in public saying that we're supporting the protection of all of our people. Now, an email has gone out to staff from the city manager's office restricting staff from having contact with the mayor or council members, which is in direct violation of Section 406 of the city charter. And because I'm unclear what this new direction means, and the potential impacts to the work that we do on behalf of our constituents, I would like to agendize this discussion at our next council meeting so we can understand this new direction we're going in where now we can't have conversations. And I will say, again, publicly, we've had a relationship where we can't go to the manager. We've had good conversations today. But with this email out there, again, just wanting to understand if we're going in a new direction, if I can get the support of one of my colleagues to put that on the agenda. Thank you. I don't know if I can guarantee next agenda. Okay. Well, I think in the spirit of handling issues in our districts, we need to understand the email says no texting, no calls, no phone, nothing, no emails, no nothing to any council member. That restricts all seven of us to talking to one person, including you. And that, to me, flies in the face of true trust and transparency and open dialogue. So if we can't do it at the next meeting, I don't know what we do between now and two weeks from now. Okay. Or a special meeting. I'll make myself available. The other thing is, you know, I'm not going to go back and forth on this Brown Act because I came in tonight having had really good conversations with the mayor. And I just want to be very clear. Me and the mayor are not beefing. We're both Italian blood in us. He's Italian, too. And we have spirited debates. you know gavel gate i'm cracking a joke i know some people were really uh offended for me but just know i'm a big boy and um you know we've talked about it and uh and again i supported the mayor put my money where my mouth is before she got here i'm still supporting the mayor we're going to figure this out because we're both committed to doing so and the uh the other thing is um i saw the post online circulating uh about um the new optic department uh we've asked for a presentation did we say we were taking that to Council? Did we say Council? We're going to have another meeting, smaller meeting, then bring it to Council so we can talk about OPTIC, which is the Office of Public Transparency, Information, and Communication. I will say that, anyway, I'd just like to understand the department with the presentation, the staffing model, review any policies at the next, at the Council. um republic services the trash i know that people are watching and wondering what's going on with the trash i've said it today on the news and i said on social media i found out about the trash a couple days ago when the mayor called me i was at a late dinner and she had found out through the media i've asked staff to provide me with a detailed report thank you city manager for doing that it's available for public record request this information first contacted the city on the 7th And then over the course of a week, we found out. So we're figuring out internally where the breakdown happened, how we were notified. And to me, to find out that the trash is just not being picked up and not communicate with people and not have answers was a bad look for all of us. I was going to say, as a council, we look fractured. But we're going to get back to work. I'm going to skip that. Now, I've seen the mayor did a video where she talked about how great of a job our police chief is doing. I'm not going to call him out here because I just don't want to put him on blast. But, you know, I remember the days when Chief Jones was here and everybody in the community wanted a new change and wanted to see diversity in our department accountability. I believe our chief has done that. I think we have one of the most diverse police departments. one of the most responsive, one of the most responsible. I attended an event the other day at the county office of Ed where he had a parenting with purpose. I believe that's the program he has, and he brought together every system leader. Police officers don't do that, where they go out and bring every system leader together to talk about resources and how we invest in our community. So I heard the comments earlier about how we can't lose him. We lost our fire chief and have a new one now. A couple people said he needs a contract. The mayor, I mean... The police chief sent an email to me back in April of 2000, April 24th. He sent an email to me in the mirror asking for a contract. I immediately responded and said, I believe he deserves a contract. There were conversations with him about him getting a contract. And I don't know where those conversations are. We're now in July. I believe the chief deserves a contract. We need to keep talent here, especially somebody who is so invested in our community. And we can't praise him in public, but then deny him of the protections in private. The other thing is I want to acknowledge Devin Roberson of Stockton Firefighters Union because I've been bringing up the lack of equity and diversity in our fire department. We have 200 firefighters and I think two or three African-Americans. He called me the other day to say that he's heard my concerns. He's working hard. He actually had somebody African-American apply, but because of the salaries and competitive markets, that person ended up. uh... not staying there taking the job and so that's concerning and that brings another point i brought up the issue of fire services at the port and then the lack of reimbursement from the port the mayor's words during our campaign we can't leave money on the table i've said it really the money on the table and i'd like staff to uh... pursue fire service reimbursement the port because uh... we need to be able to have more resources to invest in uh... finding talent and making sure that we have enough money when we need to pay the talent what they're worth. So do I need to say something in terms of asking staff to do that publicly? Lori? Do I need to ask staff to prioritize pursuing fire services at the port? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, if you want that to be, if you want to give that direction then you need the support of your, at least, majority of consensus of your council to give that direction to the city manager and staff. So I'd like to give direction. That's the direction we want to go. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to give direction to the city manager to pursue fire services at the port. Can I get support of my colleagues? Yes, I just said. Oh, I did. Okay. I know everybody's tired. We're trying to get here. Okay. There was a dispute over substations and whether or not that's going to happen. And everybody keeps saying the mayor, the vice mayor, they made these problems not doing so. I want to clarify that. Thank the ICM and Chad Reed for a phone call we had with the police chief and Captain Morris. We had a conversation about police substations after the last meeting. And my understanding is on August 12th, there will be a presentation of police substations with the funding sources for us to vote on. And I want to thank the mayor for her commitment, all the council for hopefully your support coming up. And I'm going to move on. August 5th, National Night Out. We'll have a big block party, Paul East Western Park. starting at 5 o'clock. Everyone in District 6 is invited. Bring your friends, family members, et cetera. Speaking of August 5th, it's the first day back to school, and I'll be working with County Officer Ed's. Well, you know, I don't know all the schools, but County Officer Ed, that's when they're going to be preparing. Okay, so we're going to be doing, I'm going to be one of their keynote, or their keynote speaker for their back to school with all their kids in the county. And... I also met with United Way and will be a keynote speaker at one of their events. And I'm bringing Tiffany Haddish here to be their special guest. And it will be a fundraiser to help partner with the city so that way staff can donate and support our nonprofit communities. And then once we get through the presentation of the nonprofit collaborative, I want to invite them here to present to council. And I'll be looking to President Rodriguez for that. And then the last thing is August is going to be the first meeting of the I Am Ready Community Council, and this will be a vehicle in which I'll approach the work deep in my district, and I'll be reaching out to all community leaders, my commissioners, and partners to help me. That's it. Thanks. Council Member Enriquez. thank you mayor I'll start off with ledge committee just since I know we just had a discussion on the dissolving of the ad hoc which I want to say earlier but I'm glad we get to say it now in legend in city attorney correct me too if I have to get something support of but two things I want to be able to take on council policy 3.0 6 under section 4 C to take a an opportunity to really see what we can do if any amendments I'm not saying there will be but just to revisit THE CREATION, REMOVAL, DISSOLVEMENT POLICY OF AD HOCS. AGAIN, I THINK THIS IS A REALLY TIME FOR US TO EDUCATE ONE ANOTHER IN TERMS OF WHAT NEEDS TO BE UPDATED. JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING'S THERE DOESN'T MEAN WE HAVE TO LEAVE IT AS IS. WE NEED THIS COUNCIL TO REALLY LOOK IN TO SEE WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE. SO I WANT TO BE ABLE TO TAKE THAT TO LEG. CITY ATTORNEY, DO I NEED TO? As you are the chair of the Ledge Committee, you don't need anyone's permission. You just need to agendize it. Perfect. I will agendize it at Ledge Committee. Thank you, City Attorney. Do you know when you're going to? If possible, if there's enough time for the August meeting, that would be great. But if not, I'm happy to adjust to your schedule as well. Thank you. And then the second thing is, you know, I know there was a big discussion on the charter and, you know, as I said earlier, I'm not one to question the mayor's authority based on the charter as is. I completely, you know, 100% understand that. I don't have any questions to that. One thing I do want to explore, I know a city clerk, or maybe also city attorney, but if you can also provide just some context for the public, I want to be able to get some clarity on, I believe the last council you had shared city clerk that, The council gave direction to the Charter Review Commission to do an overall review of the entire charter, but I wanted to see where we're at with that, and I have some specifics that I would like them to hone in on, especially since we did have a member say that they haven't been able to meet yet due to, again, I don't want to make an assumption, but they had mentioned the city manager's office. So real briefly, the audit committee last year did direct the Charter Review Committee to review EVALUATE SECTIONS OF THE CHARTER SPECIFICALLY HAVING TO DO WITH CIVIL SERVICE RULES AND REGULATIONS. THAT IS AN INCREDIBLY COMPLICATED TASK AND REQUIRES A WORK PLAN. IT HAS TO GO THROUGH CIVIL SERVICE, IT HAS TO GO THROUGH OUR UNIONS, AND THAT HAS BEEN PLACED IN THE CITY MANAGER'S OFFICE WHEELHOUSE WORKING IN CONJUNCTION WITH HR BECAUSE IT IS SUCH A COMPLICATED PROCESS. OTHER THAN THAT, THEY DON'T HAVE ANY CURRENT ASSIGNMENTS TO WORK ON. Oh yeah, of course. The council can give direction at any time and the city manager's office would work that into a work plan and schedule meetings. Yeah, if they're able to meet, thank you for that. If they're able to meet, we can get some communication from the city manager's office on when they are able to meet because one of the things I do want to flag or highlight to this Charter Review Commission is a couple things. It was really interesting when I was researching, which I was going to share earlier. City Attorney Article 13, Department of Law, Section 1302, CITY CLERK ARTICLE 14 INTRODUCTION PART SECTION 1400 AND CITY AUDITOR ARTICLE 15 SECTION 1500 THOSE THREE INDIVIDUAL SPECIFIC ROLES NEED CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL BUT YET CITY MANAGER ARTICLE 12 SECTION 1200 NEEDS ONLY THE MAYOR SELECTS AND NOMINATES SO I WANTED I JUST FOUND THAT INTERESTING PIECE AGAIN THESE FOUR INDIVIDUALS WORK FOR THE CITY COUNCIL YET ONLY ONE OF THE FOUR THE MAYOR SELECTS AND NOMINATES AND I WOULD THINK IF ALL FOUR ARE WORK FOR THE CITY COUNCIL, WE SHOULD ALL HAVE A FULL COUNCIL OPPORTUNITY TO SELECT AND NOMINATE. SO I WANTED TO JUST, AGAIN, IT STOOD OUT TO ME AND I JUST WANT TO BE ABLE TO GET MORE updates from this charter review commission since they are tasked to look into it but i just found it interesting as to why that is the way it is and again it connects to the discussion we had earlier so if i can explore that and then city attorney can you let me know if anything was out of order in terms of the four sections and what i listed out in the charter sections no that's accurate Great, thank you. So I look forward, City Manager, Interim, if you can also just give us an update on when this Charter Review Commission can meet, and then if you can give me specifics on when this can be looked at, and then that way give a general update to the Council, since I'm not sure how many of us knew that, or the public, but I wanted to make that a priority. The other thing is our alleged committee in general will be this upcoming Monday, so I would ask if you all are looking to come, please join us at 3 p.m. with the Vice Mayor and Councilwoman Padilla. JUST SOME QUICK OVERALL UPDATES. JUNE 30TH, I WANT TO THANK SOME OF MY COLLEAGUES WHO TOLD ME ABOUT THE QUAD MEETING. I KNOW ONE OF THE DISCUSSIONS THAT CAME UP WAS THE WOODEN PALLETS THROUGH LEDGE. I KNOW THIS IS SOMETHING THAT COUNCILMAN PADILLA IS HIGHLIGHTING AS A PRIORITY, AS I KNOW THERE WAS A RECENT FIRE OVER THE WEEKEND. SO I WANT TO BE ABLE TO SUPPORT THAT AND CONTINUE THAT CONVERSATION, AS I KNOW WE HAD TALKED ABOUT THAT AT OUR LAST LEDGE COMMITTEE MEETING. July 12th was a busy day. I want to thank our city staff for leading one of the park cleanups throughout the city. In my district, we were at American Legion Park. I then had my mornings with Mario. This is probably my 12th, 13th monthly coffee meeting with my constituents, so that way they can share concerns, ideas, etc. The next day, I want to thank Johnny and Rocio, the owners of the Black Rabbit. They had their soft opening of the Rose and Tail Club. So if you like the 1960s Manhattan speakeasy vibe, please go out to the Rose and Tail Club. That same day, we had community organizers that led the first annual Balloons Over Bullets event. It was an all-day event from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Oak Park in my district. And similar to Councilman Padilla, they had a... JUMP HOUSES, FREE BACKPACKS, HAIRCUTS, MUSIC, FOOD. IT WAS JUST A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO BE WITH COMMUNITY. JULY 8TH, I WAS WITH CALTRANS. THEY HAD THEIR PUBLIC MEETING FOR THE I-5 STOCKTON CHANNEL VARIETY PROJECT AT THE HAGEN MUSEUM. THAT WAS A GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO REALLY START BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP MOVING FORWARD AS THE LAST COUPLE OF MONTHS. I HAVEN'T BEEN IN CONVERSATIONS WITH THEM, BUT I DID ASK THEM THAT THEY NEED TO KEEP ME IN THOSE CONVERSATIONS AS I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT MY CONSTITUENTS KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WHEN IT COMES TO THAT. AS WE KNOW, PERSIAN AVENUE IS PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS SPEEDING, AND WE WANT TO FIND A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT THEM. WE ALSO KNOW THAT THE VICTORY POOL GRAND OPENING IS HAPPENING NEXT MONTH. WE'RE WORKING WITH OUR STAFF TO GET A SPECIFIC DATE, BUT WE HAD A LOT OF COMMUNITY MEMBERS WHO ORGANIZED AND WANT TO BE ABLE TO COMBINE THE HAWK LIGHT SYSTEM AND THE OPENING OF THE VICTORY POOL PARK JUST TO HAVE IT A BIG, MAKE IT A BIG COMMUNITY EVENT. For generally, the Water Committee, my colleagues we had met last week, but in ties to that, we wanna ensure that we're informing our communities, we're engaging our communities, and I announced that I'm proud to share that I got into a water policy program, the Latino Leaders for Water Education. I'll be in Richmond this whole weekend with my cohort to learn about water policy, and it's the first of five months. SO I SAID, YOU KNOW, I WANT TO THANK THE MAYOR FOR APPOINTING ME TO THE COMMITTEE AS I HOPE TO BE A BETTER, EVEN STRONGER ASSET ON THAT COMMITTEE. I WANT TO THANK LISA WERLO. WE WILL HAVE A MEET AND GREET THIS WEDNESDAY, AT THE END OF THE MONTH, WEDNESDAY, JULY 30TH FROM 5 TO 7. AGAIN, JUST ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY ALONG WITH MY MORNINGS WITH MARTA TO BE WITH MY CONSTITUENTS AND THEY CAN SHARE THEIR IDEAS AND CONCERNS. SO WE MADE IT AN EVENING EVENT FROM 5 TO 7. THAT WAY WE CAN GIVE FOLKS DIFFERENT OPPORTUNITIES TO ENGAGE, AS I KNOW EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT SCHEDULES Moving on to infrastructure, we have eight. Fixed a pothole on Picardy next to Victory Park. Pothole was fixed on Pacific Avenue next to the KFC by UOP. Pothole on Figueroa, which was a huge chunk, if you haven't seen my social media, off the Monte Diablo northbound freeway exit. Stop sign was fixed back on the North El Dorado and East Ingram Street. AND NEXT TO THAT CORNER IS THE BRIDGE, WHICH I KNOW LAST COUNCIL WE VOTED TO REPAIR THE BRIDGE, BUT ON THAT BRIDGE WE WERE ABLE TO GET GRAFFITI OFF. EAST CLEVELAND STREET, I WANT TO THANK FORMER COUNCILMAN DIANA LOWERY FROM DISTRICT FOUR. WE WORKED TOGETHER TO ENSURE THAT THERE WAS PROPER FOLLOW-UP AND WE REPAIRED. IF YOU KNOW THAT CHURN, IT'S A BIG CURVED ROAD THAT LEADS INTO CENTER STREET TO HEAD TOWARDS DOWNTOWN. FOR YEARS THAT WASN'T REPAIRED. WE GOT THAT DONE IN TWO MONTHS. So we repaired the metal barriers and put up missing traffic signs again after years of not being resolved. Center and East Maple Street were able to cut down tall grass to avoid accidents as cars cannot see incoming traffic. And again, that is also another road where people speed down Center Street to head towards downtown Stockton. I want to thank our police department and our enforcement team within. They were able to get six abandoned vehicles removed on Bianchi Road and Kentfield Road, along with seven citations issued and two vehicles tagged with 72-hour notices. And I know since then, in the last two weeks, they've been able to enforce more. So I want to just thank them and, again, thank my constituents for letting me know what's going on. That way I can tackle it the very next day and just get it resolved. Recently I went also to what the vice mayor said about the trash I went to the Republic outside I met with the union organizers from the local teamsters to just hear how I can be of support and understand their issues but also being able to communicate to my constituents about what's going on so I want to thank the city of Stockton staff for the graphics for the timely updates and now that we do have it again I first found out about it on on social media. but I think getting the clarity and the updates we can do to update our people is top priority and getting the trash picked up and that the workers feel that they have a proper wage to do their work. There's a couple more things. I know on June 29th, the mayor and I also participated and supported the T-bone Karate Championship. We want to thank the sensei for his FOR HIS INVITE, AND WE WERE THERE TO PROVIDE NOT JUST SUPPORT, BUT A CITY CERTIFICATE OF RECOGNITION. OVERALL, YOU KNOW, AGAIN, WITH LEDGE, I'LL BE SURE TO PROVIDE UPDATES, BUT JUST GOING BACK TO, YOU KNOW, BEING A NEW COUNCIL MEMBER, BEING LATINO IN A 45% LATINO CITY, BEING OPENLY GAY, BEING A SON OF IMMIGRANTS, YOU KNOW, I'VE BEEN WORKING REALLY HARD THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS TO AVOID THE NOISE, THE CHATTER ONLINE. these baseless attacks and allegations. But people have to realize the damage it causes and it creates. When you're a new council member, you're fresh, you're hungry, you want to learn, you're open to feedback. And I'm always open to feedback. I tell all my colleagues, if you ever want to have lunch, if you ever want to connect, if there's anything I'm doing wrong, let me know. Let's come together. Let's build. But if we're not communicating and we're not really giving the feedback that we need, then mistakes are bound to happen. or we're not really seeing the best interest of one another to grow. We're not giving that mentorship, whether it's not just about age, but it's about experiences, different lived experiences, and all that really does come into play. So I know moving forward, we are going to get to a place where we can work together, but we're going to have to do some changes. We're going to have to be more willing to put our egos aside and have a conversation. I know we've had, the mayor and I, we've had mutual friends that have reached out and say, fix it. I agree. I'm sure the mayor agrees. We want to move forward. I know I do. And I just really want to just share that. You know, when I get comments like deport him, homophobic slurs of who I am, all that didn't have to happen. You know, people see what I do and how I function and how I work and how I navigate. And I'm always willing to bring people together. And that's what I love. And I'm so thankful that you all see that. All the things that you all have shared, says a lot because you see my character, you see what I'm fighting for, and you're really seeing me, and I think others up here that really want to change the way Stockton politics is because we have people behind the scenes that want to play the shadow government, that want to infiltrate, or maybe are infiltrating and want to influence. I need my colleagues up here to be able to say, if it's not the best interest of the city, no, I'm not going to do X, Y, Z. We need to really collectively and individually shut things out because people see it. People aren't dumb. The public sees exactly what's happening, which is why besides some of those comments about me, the majority of the comments haven't even been about me because they know who I am, but they see all the other things, the same old tactics that happen over and over and over again, and people are tired of it. So when you have someone come in that's new and fresh, listen. Be open-minded. When I say let's have lunch, let's have lunch. And I mean that. Let's have a meeting. Let's get coffee. If it's three of us, or we're not Violet and Brown acting, we just want to talk about XYZ and just fun stuff, great. Happy to do it. But I'm going to continue to push and ask questions. And if I ever make a mistake, please give me the feedback. If I see any of my colleagues make mistakes, I hope they're open to any feedback that I give. Because at the end of the day, it's always going to come from a good place. I'm not ill intentioned. I'm not aggressive. I've had good behavior. When people say that, oh, people are watching, yeah, they've been watching since January. So it's not just Mario all of a sudden did something and now everyone's watching. I'm very cordial, I'm very diplomatic, and I behave myself really well on this dais and out in the community. So people have been watching for a long time now. And I think this conversation that I agendized is to be able to be transparent to the public as to how a publicly formed ad hoc was dissolved. And we already had that discussion, and I'm not fighting or arguing it, But I'm saying that this is what we have to do to really be transparent about what happened. But again, I want to thank all of you for the opportunity to share my comments. And I probably spoke for maybe probably more than 13 minutes. I probably spoke for maybe 15, 20, but I have a lot of constituents and I'm sure all of us up here do. When we talk about accessibility, not everybody can come to city council and listen to these comments. Not everybody can go to the mornings with Mario and the evening at Lisa Wurlow's restaurant to meet your council member. But I've had constituents say, Mario, I'm glad that you spoke for 15, 20 minutes last time because I actually see and stream it online from home because I can't get out of my house to see the updates. But I'm proud that you're doing all these specific things for the district. Or they say, I see it the next day. So this is really important. When we give council comments, our constituents are listening to the work that we're doing. And people might say, Mario, you always talk about the potholes. Hey, potholes are important because if it's not left undone, no one's going to do it. I had someone say, Mario, why did you fix the stop sign? Doesn't staff do their job and fix it? We can't make assumptions. You can't make an assumption that just because you see something broken, someone's going to fix it. Use the Ask Stockton, submit it, and just get it done. It's that easy. When people ask me how I get stuff done, I use the Ask Stockton app. I take a photo just like anybody else, and all I do is I follow up with our city staff and our interim that week to say these are the following things that I ask. Can I get a follow-up on this Ask Stockton report? But that's how specific and engaged I want to be. And again, just thank you everybody for all these updates. And again, please just continue to reach out. I give my phone out 209-645-2711. You can always email me at dist4 at StocktonCA.gov. And as always, I post all the events that I do to be with my community. So thank you and y'all have a good night. Council Member Villapuja. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you everyone for coming out and staying out late and the ones that are still hearing. I just want to talk about I am real thrilled to announce the complete renovation of the Columbus Park. I want to thank Mayor Fregazzi as well when she was on council for pushing that and voting on that thing. It's a very generous $3.35 million on Proposition 68 grant that's coming on. It's a 2.3 acre park that It's going to go under improvements, expecting like it's going to bring spring of 2026, a basketball court. That's okay. A new playground for kids, so look out for it. Beautiful landscape. It's going to be a great thing coming to District 6. I'm District 5. This Saturday, I will be at Chop Shop on 167 North Hunter Street. from 12 to 3, giving out 150 backpacks to the kids and haircuts. So hope to see some of you all there. I will speak to the community activists that spoke about me earlier and said that, you know, this happened more than three times. Like you mentioned before, not too long ago, I just had a meeting with you and me and a city manager to go over some of their things. And it's weird as well because, you know, You know, she just made these allegations on me. Stop. Tell the truth. You know, because we've been, I've been very nice to you, helped you in a lot of things. And really weird that all those petitions were signed by District 6. You know, everyone in that committee that's on there from District 6 signed it. So, something to think about. You know, so... Attacks happen, and I've been holding this out because we have a meeting. And as you see, there's been attacks. So I am going to tell the truth. I'm not going to hold back. These phones are here. They tell the truth. There's a lot of things here. So I am ready for this to go to our DA. And on top of that, I just want to wish all my colleagues a good week. Thank you for all the wins. uh... city manager thank you for always helping and making the city better i want to think uh... as well uh... his use help helping the streets with all the potholes uh... as well i think pd and fire for everything they do take special individuals for what you guys do every day every hour every week every month so you guys are always the true leaders in our community so uh... uh... i'm looking forward to You know, a lot of these events coming this week, this weekend. I want to wish everyone a great week, and thank you for coming. Council Member Blauer. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to thank the public for showing up, and particularly you diehards that are here past 1230. So thank you for being here. I'm not going to go into too much on what's going on with this council. I'll just say that it's my fervent prayer that things will... calm down and that we can get past all this stuff and work as a team. Getting on to a couple of things. Fourth of July parade, I want to thank the United Veterans Council for putting that on. I thought it was a very, very nice event. That parade seems to be getting better every year. My hope on that is I think there was a good crowd there, but, boy, that place should be packed. I mean, it really is a very, very good event. AND I JUST HOPE TO SEE MORE AND MORE PEOPLE GET OUT THERE TO SUPPORT THAT. I DO WANT TO THANK MY FRIEND, JUDY GRAY, WHO I GOT TO RIDE IN THE BACK OF HER JEEP AND DO MY PARADE WAVE. SO I SAW THE MAYOR THERE AND COUNCILMEMBER VILLAPUTUA, AND IT WAS, YEAH, A VERY GOOD EVENT. THIS PAST WEEKEND WAS STOCKTON CON. SO FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT KNOW ME, I'M A COMIC BOOK GEEK FROM WAY BACK, SO I ALWAYS ENJOY DOING STOCKTON CON. Yeah, got to love it. So congratulations to Mike Millerick on that. One thing I, a little factoid I got from him, he said there were vendors from over 72 cities that came. That's pretty impressive. That's a pretty good group of people. Let's see. Moving ahead, yesterday a beautiful mural was unveiled at the Ed Coy Garage. So thank you to the Stockton Arts Commission. And Cone, gosh, I'm having trouble reading my own handwriting, Lithurania. So did a wonderful job. Love public art. I'm just glad to see more of that in our city. I just really think it adds a lot and really beautifies things. Yeah, the artist was born and raised here. So great to keep that talent local. Looking ahead, tomorrow from 445 to 545 will be my community office hour at Mountain Mike's on Robin Hood. And then next week on Tuesday, July 22nd, there is a community forum regarding the USS Lucid and the Stockton Maritime Museum. If you haven't had a chance to tour the Lucid, it's really cool. It was a minesweeper. It wasn't built here in Stockton, very similar, actually the same type of boat was made in Stockton. So there is that historical connection. And they have taken this thing and just done remarkable work. I first saw it and I think, gosh, like 10 years ago and what they've done in those 10 years is amazing. So there'll be a tour at 10 a.m. and then the forum at 10.30. They actually were able to get the land right there on the waterfront where the castaways used to be. And so the plan is to bring the ship there and build, have buildings there. It's pretty exciting. So I recommend people go and do that. And then I'm going to end my comments with talking about a very different experience I had on Sunday afternoon. So I spent the day working in my backyard, doing yard work, hot day working on that late afternoon i'm sitting in my garage getting ready to mow the the lawn my wife comes out and brings me a nice glass of water and we look over and across the street and a couple of houses down we see smoke coming out of the top or out of the back of this house and you know sometimes you think you see like maybe barbecue or something but we're both like that doesn't look right my wife said you should probably go check that out So I went running across the street. And as I'm running, I see more and more of this thick black smoke. So I pull out my phone. I call 911. And I just want to say the call center did great. They asked if it was police, fire. They said, you know, send me to fire. Got me to fire right away. I gave the address. Pounded on the door. So I'm pounding on the door. I go pound on a window, and I can see the house full of smoke. Then I see a guy come running up. That's a neighbor from a couple of doors down. He came from his backyard. He was getting ready to jump in the pool, I think. He's, you know, he had a shirt on, but shorts, no shoes. And he comes running up and says, don't worry, I'm a firefighter. And I did recognize him. It was Captain John Heligy. He's my neighbor. He goes up to this door like a superhero, just bursts it open, jumps down on all four. He is crawling around as fast as I've ever seen anybody crawl to check the rooms. He yells to me, can you give me a hose? So I got the... The garden hose, my wife turned it on. I go in there and get it to him. I'll be darned, he took the hose into the kitchen, extinguishes the fire, comes out and about that time engines from 10 and 14 showed up. The truck from 7 showed up. And, you know, those guys went in and made sure there wasn't a fire in the attic. It was an incredible experience, and watching the professionalism of our fire department, how they handled it, it was really something to see, and it made me very, very proud. Good news, I mean, it's a terrible bummer for my neighbors. They happened to have left, and I think they were at a soccer game. So horrible call from them to get, but the real blessing is that none of them were there. And their dog, Peaches, survived. So it was a good end to that story. And, you know, I just, again, want to thank Captain Helge for, you know, here this guy is, you know, enjoying his Sunday. He sees smoke, and he just came running. And so, you know, and my thanks again to the Stockton Fire Department. Those guys are truly, truly heroes. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Okay, my turn, and I would say, you know, you went through the fire ops. You could have went in there and probably handled it, right? I mean, we did go in the container. But I had no breathing apparatus. Oh, well, neither did your neighbor. No, he didn't. I was pretty impressed. Okay, so I'm going to start serious, and I'm going to end. hopefully light and positive and all that good kind of stuff. So, you know, there's been a lot of talk. A lot of people have come into this meeting. And, you know, there's enough accusations to go all around. So, you know, character assassinations, ulterior motives, back and forth on the Internet, display with the gavel, dysfunction, public opinion, accusation. uh... uh... you know always disagreements yeah there's going to be disagreements we're not always going to be on the same page and guess what we have to represent uh... our constituents uh... and sometimes vote counter to what we'd like but uh... i would like to say if you go on any of my social media my goal and my promise was to keep things positive and that is what i have done uh... on uh... a public level uh... it's important that things are not played out in my opinion uh... on social media because then it's like it's there forever and and people do jump in and you know i've been threatened and bullied myself uh... the attack on social media has uh... gone back and forth and but i didn't participate in a single post I DIDN'T LIKE A SINGLE POST, AND I JUST WANT TO PUT THAT OUT THERE. AND ACTUALLY, THE VICE MAYOR SAID, DON'T LOOK. AND COUNCILMEMBER ENRIQUEZ WAS THERE, BECAUSE I SAID, NO, I DIDN'T KNOW. AND HE SAYS, WELL, DON'T LOOK. YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S BEING SAID. BUT PEOPLE KEPT SENDING IT TO ME. I SAID, NO, I DON'T, NO, NOT GOING THERE. IF ANYBODY KNOWS ME, I'M VERY PROCESS-ORIENTED. I do learn the rules and want to play by the rules and follow the rules and I read all the details and I have been, I believe I have been, I am and I will remain positive in everything I do regarding this city and I'm about the work. It's always for me to be about the work and I can work with anyone, anyone on anything uh... and like i said and city manager search everybody will be participating uh... in that and it was confirmed uh... in a meeting that we had about the trash uh... last week tuesday so it's been a week today is when uh... uh... i think city was informed uh... at least here at city hall i don't know uh... it public works new sooner or not But I will say that was when I learned of it. I did speak to the vice mayor on Thursday evening about it. I want to say it was Thursday evening. And public, you know, it is not a city. These aren't city employees. It's not city staff. It's not a city business. Well, it's a business in the city. But it's a private company. So, I mean, I support people in their... not ability, but their choice to make a choice, decisions for themselves. I am not one to be able to do that for them. And then I think that's it on that part. And then moving on, Confucius Church, I want to thank Deputy City Manager Reed and Deputy Director Jordan Peterson. We had a meeting at Confucius Church, and it was the first time either one of them have been there, and they were just kind of in awe. There's a museum there. I mean, just wonderful. It's a wonderful location that was saved. the crosstown freeway came in one of the few places that was preserved and they were they said a mayor has never come there and and spoken to them which i was shocked but as a council member and i remember inviting council member blauer before he was council member blauer he was right and i i think And I said, oh, come with me. And you were in shirts. I don't think I'm dressed appropriately. But came in and they were doing a play or they were doing something. But anyway, just, you know, people who love this city and want the best for this city. Loved the Olympics from T-Bone. They had all red, white, and blue and flags. And it was just like a junior Olympics. Fourth of July, the parade. I think there were more people in the parade than watching the parade, which we need to turn that around. Because you go to Cinco de Mayo, Cinco de Mayo is packed, wall-to-wall with people. But I'd like to see that also for Fourth of July. And I understand that there are people that feel a certain way, but next year it's going to be a large parade. large, large anniversary. People think, oh, it's 1775, but it's actually 1776. So next year, we got to do it big, and I want to bring the Stockton Symphony back downtown to be playing before the fireworks. Sister City, we have a Sister City in Mexico, in Palme, and they came and they visited, and I thought that was pretty fantastic because You know, I'm trying to think outside of Diana Lowry. I don't know of council members going to any of our sister cities, but she is a strong advocate for that. You know, came from President Eisenhower. I think it's something we do need to foster and continue to build because everybody always comes here, and I'm up to going there. I think I... I have some frequent flyer miles I can use, but I'm up to going and doing a multi-city tour. I'll try to hit as many as I can. And then the Mayfair, the Mayfair, the Mayfair up the road is in escrow. I'm super excited about it being an escrow. It has been decommissioned since like 2018 when there was a fire there. But there's an opportunity to bring it back to life and be home to a number of people. I think it's 45 or 47 units. So hopefully that happens. And then, yes, the summer youth program. Wow, I'm so impressed with all those kids. I've visited, I brought 17 dozen donuts over three days to go visit kids at their job site. And each one of them was so appreciative for the opportunity that they had. And some of them said, this is what I want to do. I know now for a fact what I want to do, what job I want to pursue. As well as the ones who said, yeah, I don't want to do that. I'm not interested in doing that. But I had two interns and they worked their tails off. They created their own program that they are going to implement. So it's not just ending because the pay ended. They are going to see it through because they want to be part of the solution for the city of Stockton and they know that youth have a voice and they want to foster them using it. And then the last thing I have on here is Yes, I will be leaving tomorrow morning for San Diego with our police department to look at their mental health court, what they're doing down there in order to help those in our community that need assistance. I have spoken to Mayor Gloria who said, how did you get Caltrans to clean up the side of their freeways because they can't get theirs cleaned up. And then lastly, next week will be Washington, D.C., where we have about a dozen meetings, and I hope that it's very fruitful and that it brings resources, much-needed resources to the city because, again, as I always say, a closed mouth does not get fed. And if you don't ask, you'll never know because right now it's a donut hole. which I love donut holes, but I want to turn it into dollar signs if at all possible. And with that, we will see you in a couple weeks on the 29th of July, and two days later it will be the start of Stockton Unified School District on a Thursday. Crazy to start on a Thursday. Anyway, with that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Okay. 843. Oh, no, sorry. 1248. 12.48 p.m. That is a record for me.