Music I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to go to the next one. I'm going to say 20,000,000. I'm going to say 20,000,000. I'm going to say 20,000,000. I'm going to take one for you. I'm going to do it. the meeting. Please come to order. This is the City Council adjourned a regular meeting of April 22, 2025. The time is 515. Mr. City clerk, would you just take a moment to tell people both here and if they're watching at home how they can participate in tonight's meeting? Thank you, Mayor. Members of our audience who wish to speak may submit their name into one of the speaker the key asks next to the city clerk or in the main lobby. We also offer the ability to provide live comments via zoom and submit written comments through our e-comment system. For those who wish to participate virtually visit zoom.us using any web browser or the zoom app on smartphones or tablets and intermeeting ID 84848531263. The passcode is 272-906. You may also dial in by calling 669-900-6833 or 346-248-7799 and entering the same meeting I.D. and passcode. Those who wish to provide comments via Zoom are asked to enter the speaker queue by raising their hand electronically. The City Clerk will call your name and allow you to unmute your microphone at the appropriate time. Those dialing in by telephone will be identified by the last three digits of their telephone number. We ask that you please state your name for the record. The time limits per speaker are noted in the posted agenda and are established based on the number of requests submitted. All requests submitted after the first speaker is called shall receive 90 seconds. Those who wish to provide written comments may do so by clicking e-comment on the City Council meeting agenda webpage at cityvervine.org slash ICTV. All comments will be provided to the City Council as part of the meeting record and will be uploaded to the city's website. technical assistance was zoom Zoom before or during the meeting, please call 949-724-6078. For any other questions or assistance, please contact the city clerk's office at 949-724-6205 or via email at clerk at cityvervine.org. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, city clerk Carl Peterson. If you would, Carl, at this time, please call the roll. Council Member Carroll. Council Member Goh. Here. Council Member Liu. Here. Council Member Traceeater. Here. Vice Mayor Mai. Here. And Mayor Egrim. Here. At this time, I'd like to turn to Vice Mayor and Council Member James Mai to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. I would ask those who are able, please stand for the pledge. Remain standing after the pledge if you would. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the Father, the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, my nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. At this time, I'd like to call forward for the invocation this evening. Welcome. Thank you for making the time to honor the Honourable, who we recognize tonight as people who not only survived the horrors of history, but thrived and made their own history. And deeply humbled to offer the invocation in front of these heroes, people who made an impact, even though their very existence was begrudge them. We do write as a community, and I applaud our council here in Irvine when we take time to acknowledge the righteousness of those who touch lives, those who stand up against evil and speak peace to pain and transform misery into meaning. That spirit we pray, eternal one, bless us this night as we devote time to acts of remembrance and heroism. The amazing models of humanity that we honor tonight teach us all important lessons. We pray this night that those lessons will resonate with everyone. The lesson of remembering the past is critical to ensuring the future. Understanding how the Holocaust came to be will inform us to safeguard that it will never happen again. Teaching accurate history in our schools, having strong protections for minorities, and being determined to never let hate speech cloaked in free speech ideas turn into violence. Our survivors know too well how quickly hate speech can become aggression, intimidation, and then physical. These lessons are clear and and we must remember to secure our future. The lesson of heroism reverberates in our very souls this night. Courage means standing up, even though you are afraid. Our survivors are the definition of courageous. To stand up for what is right and good is never wrong, even if there are negative consequences. Our survivors here learned this lesson time and time again. The eternal one ammonishes us to learn it too. History has a keen way of judging who was right and who was wrong. I pray that we in this generation continue to stand up for right and peace, for justice and fairness for all. A final prayer for our hearts this night. I pray that we, human beings, will remember that we are all responsible, one for the other. The 20th century great rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught some our guilty, all our responsible. Some our guilty, all our responsible. We must help each other to be our best selves as individuals and as a community. Civic leaders, grassroots leaders, the electorate every single human being is reminded tonight by our heroes that we must hold each other tightly, not to tear each other down, but to lift each other up. Tonight we honor people whose very story will demonstrate a sense of pride in being Jewish, but that we don't rest on that pride. We use it to help all of humanity to celebrate freedom and peace and love. A special blessing for our law enforcement officers who we also honor tonight. You too are examples of helping humanity be its best self. May we all be blessed this night as we remember the sadness and elevate the heroism and let us say amen. Amen. Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you, Rabbi Steinberg. Tonight we have two presentations, items 1.1 and 1.2 on our council agenda. Item point one is regarding Yamashouah Holocaust Remembrance Day. And that will be our first presentation. For this item, first I'd like to say those who wish to participate via Zoom may now raise their hand electronically to enter the speaker queue. And at this time, by prior agreement and arrangement, I'm pleased to turn to Councilmember Melinda Lew, who requested that this item be agendized this evening. Councilmember Liu. Good evening. It is my honor to introduce this proclamation and the presentation. I see my role as an elected official to be one to connect this matter. understanding and education. Thank you to the Jewish community for educating me and trusting our office who is assisting this matter and I also want to take this opportunity to thank all of my council colleagues for their cooperation and support. And without further I would like to introduce Mr. Jerry Shapiro from the Jewish Federation of Orange County. Thank you, Councilmember. My name is Jerry Isaac Shapiro. I'm privileged to be the senior director of the Rose Project part of the Jewish Federation of Orange County. To you, Council Member Liu and to your fellow Council Member, Mike Carroll and really to everyone on Council. Thank you for both championing the idea of this commemoration from the very beginning. I'll note that this day is recognized formally in Israel and throughout the Jewish world, not merely as Yom Ha-Shawah, the day of remembrance of the Holocaust, but rather as Yom Ha-Shawah, Vihad Giv-A-Wah, the day of remembrance of the Holocaust and heroism. We explicitly add the term heroism to remember that there were Jews who courageously stood up against the Nazis and their collaborators against insurmountable odds. They did not walk me to their deaths. And we also include heroism to bless the memory of those righteous Gentiles who stood by and stood with our sisters and brothers at grave risk to themselves and their families. Now in Israel on the evening before Yomashua, Vyagivua, on the evening before the day, a siren is sounded throughout the entire country with an office buildings on the street in schools, no matter where you are, you hear two minutes of a piercing siren and everything, and everyone stops. Cars pull over to the side of the road, conversations pause, everyone stands just where they are. It's a unique national moment of individual and collective reflection. We won't be sounding that siren here, but I'm asking everyone to maintain a moment of silence. To reflect on the meaning and the lessons, we can all derive from this particular moment in history. Eight decades after the Holocaust, after the Shoah, there were approximately 221,000 survivors worldwide in the U.S. We estimate that there are approximately 80,000 and here in Orange County, they number in the hundreds. Today, we will hear some of their stories. Everyone's story is connected, and everyone's story is obviously unique. Please welcome Zorika to tell a part of his story. Thank you. Hi everybody. Thank you. I'm not a speaker. I'm not a professor. I'm a child who survived the Holocaust. This is my wonderful granddaughter and this is my wonderful daughter. And we are here because people cared. I'm going to give you a bit of my history and my story. Oh, I stand before you today to remember and speak for those whose voices were snuffed with fire. I'm here to share my life as a child survivor of the Holocaust who lost 60 members of her family, eight survived. I can cry and mourn, I daily feel the lack of family. I do not, I do feel the pain of growing up without a father, grandparents, without brothers or sisters, cousins and nephews, relations. By the time I was five, I lived in three orphanages. All the children there were survivors of a massacre, some from Europe, some from Iraq, some from Iran, some from Morocco, Yemen, Syria, and many from Yugoslavia, all of us trying to find family. Today's Yama Shodat, a day of remembrance. Today has a special urgency for me. I am 80 years old. Blessed to live in America, in a land that I love, whose values I deeply share, yet again, I hear the voices of hate and prejudice. I hear the calls for the destruction of my people. I hear anti-Semitic trope. I hear propaganda. I experience the blame, directed the Jews everywhere. I cry with pain for all the mothers, the daughters who lost all the people that they loved. They too are scared. Where is this leading? Who is leading this hate? I can tell you about the Nazis. The Nazis and their allies in the collaborated murdered millions of people. Six million of them were Jews. They murdered babies, women, children, pregnant women, old people, young men, old, all of them were Jewish and they could not escape. Before the war, there were 9 million Jews in Europe. After the Holocaust, there were three. Two-thirds of the Jewish bodies, Amisrael were cut off, murdered, destroyed. Could you survive with just a third of your body? Yes, they were my family, my grandparents, my grandmother Rachel Cohen, and my grandfather, Theodore Fisher. They were my uncle Fritz and his wife who who was pregared nine months with the baby in her womb, and had a beautiful girl by her side. There were my uncle Leo and his wife and three boys. It was my biological father, Svetosar, and his family. He fought with the partisans, as did my his best friend friend Uncle Fritz. In Yugoslavia alone, I'm from Yugoslavia, I'm from Bosnia, Sarajevo. The Axis partners and their collaborators murdered 53,000 Jews. In 1941, there were 67,000 Jews who lived in Yugoslavia. They were part of a very old Sephardic community, like my grandmother Rachel. She still spoke Ladino in the house with an accent from Barcelona. Many people don't know about that community. My grandpa was a Nashcanazi from Vienna. Oh, I'm sorry. Like my grandfather, theodore, and his family who came from Vienna, they prayed regularly at the Nashcanazi synagogue, and that were my grandparents who were married. That synagogue was desecrated by the Nazis and used as a brothel. So why am I telling you about this synagogue? That synagogue was rescued after the war. It was refurbished by a few surviving Jews. Again, it became a home for Jews and others who survived the Holocaust. Later, it sheltered Muslims when there was a war between the Serbs and the Muslim. We all know about the terrible war in Sarajevo. That synagogue became the only place that all of them could go and get medications and food, nobody asked what religion you were. So Serbs and doctors and Muslims all treated the whole community without asking anybody. In 1945, 14,000 broken remnants of the Jewish Yugoslav committee community were still alive. They survived by hiding. Friends hidden them. My mother was hidden in a pig's thigh, a served family, dug a hole during the farm, in the mountains, in Sarajevo, they dug a hole, and she spent three years underground in a pig's thigh. Now imagine that, she was 20 years old. Others fought with the partisans. There were 5,000 Jews who fought with the partisans. 1,300 of them were killed. So in my memories, there are so many tears and so much gratitude. Now gratitude to whom? A gratitude to those angels. My mother called them angels. Who are those angels? They were the average person, the Christian. So in her case, my aunt, my cousin actually, was captured and taken to Italy. She had a little four-year-old girl, and they were supposed to be transported to Buchenwald to Auschwitz, and they were waiting, and they were starving. And there was an Italian, fascist soldier who felt sorry for the little girl, and every day he would throw something over the fence, sometimes it's like a bread, sometimes a cookie, sometimes an apple, and he called it for the bambina. And that's how they survived. They were rescued by the partisans and then by the Americans. And then who was the other angel? The other angel was this family, Serb family in the mountains of Yugoslavia, who happened to have been gone to school. He was a lawyer like my uncle. They had gone to law school together. And he decided that he was going to save my mom. She was the youngest of the family. And they reached their own lives. And with her came a best friend. Rickidza was Muslim. So the two, the Jew and the Muslim went to the serve to be hidden in a pickstife and that's how they survived. And after the war, Rickidza and my mother were up to them and said, did you know that we were Jews? Did you know I was Muslim? Of course I did. And so this is a why did you do it? You endangered your family. And he said, because I am a good Christian, Christians don't massacre people. So that was another angel. There was another third angel. And that's the last one I'll tell you about, because I know other people have something to say also. He was a Muslim guard. My mother was captured in 1941 right when the Germans came and she was thrown in prison. And when she was in prison there was a fire. That was the prison that was sending them to Auschwitz. She wasn't wearing a yellow star. That's where she was in prison. So there was a fire and in the rush of the fire and the explosions and all that, this guard, Muslim guard, says to my mother and her friend, he says, get out of here. I don't know if I see your face again, I'll shoot you, but get out of here. and that's's how this survived. So you can cry, you can laugh, you can do what my parents did. Every Friday night I came home I was a little girl, my stepdad has lost his wife and seven children. I came home every Friday they were candles, Memorial Candles. We call them Zika-ron candles. They said they used to score, which is the prayer for the dead, because there were 60 people that were dead, and it takes a long time to remember all 60 of them. They lit the candles, my grandfather, my stepfather, would look at me with his beautiful eyes, tears in his eyes, and he would say to me, come here, my Shayna, May the day, come here, my pretty girl. And he would put his arms around me. And he would bless me. He would bless me. He would say the prayers for the dead, and then he would bless me. And after the blessings, they would light a shabbat candle. I love you. They would light a shabbat candles. And then they would start to sing and they would join the family and there was a blessed, thank you so much. Thank you. And there was gratitude to the angels. They blessed these people for a maybe years old but they've dead now. For 50 years they blessed them by name. They remember them. they carry them in their hearts. So what do I ask of you? Why am I here? I'm here to ask of you, to ask of me, to ask of all of us to have courage, to have courage, to stand up to hate, to speak up, to be counted on the side of the angels, to save all of us from evil, from prejudice, from hate, and to just let America be this wonderful country that has always been. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you. Thank you. for decades nearly every member of the American Armed Forces who participated in the liberation of the camps, they remained silent. They could barely put into words the horror they witnessed and they didn't do what they did for appreciation or for glory. Yet hearing their stories is also essential because they too will soon not be able to tell us what they experienced. Today we have Shelley Meyer who is representing her grandfather and those of his generation who participated in the liberation of the camps. Hi, thank you for allowing me to speak. Grand grandfather, Stephen Fages, was a part of the American, Artharmy's 104th Infantry Division. I can never say that correctly. The Army 104th Infantry Division, also known as the Temporary Wolf's Division, that was activated in 1942. My grandfather was 37 when he landed in France in 1944. After capturing several cities along the way, they advanced into Nordhausen and Metalbound, Dora, concentration camps in 1945 of April. They saw things in the concentration camps they never expected to see, even after the horrors of their own battles through against Germany. My grandfather never spoke of any of this to any of the family members about what he saw, like so many of the greatest generation, he kept it to himself. I only learned about what my grandfather's experiences were when I acquired his bookcase in all of his contents. He passed away in 1990. My grandfather never thought of himself as a hero. He would have never said that about himself. He was doing what he was trained to do. I want people to know what my grandfather and fellow soldiers saw. Other generations need to know exactly what they saw. He would have been devastated to hear that there are so many people that deny the very horrors that he witnessed firsthand. For those like my grandfather, for the victims, for the survivors, the survivors here today, we cannot allow this memory to be of this truth to be ever erased. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Shelley. I'd like to introduce Rabbi Ruvan Minz of the Hubbard Center for Jewish Life and the Orange County Holocaust Education Center. I want to begin by thanking the entire City Council for as well as Wendy Bacodon, all those who helped organize this deeply meaningful Yomashowa commemoration. Your leadership and commitment to remembrance, tolerance, education is both appreciated and essential. Yomashyoah Holocaust Remembrance Day is not just a date on the calendar, it is a moral obligation. We gather today to remember the six million Jews and millions of others who were murdered and to honor the survivors who rebuilt their lives with unimaginable strength and grace. We're especially privileged to have several survivors with us here today who we've heard from including Dr. Jacob Eisenbach who survived the Auschwitz and who will be turning 102 this week on April 27th. But remember in Salon is not enough. We must educate, we must act. Today I'm honored to share the extraordinary story of a survivor who dedicated his life to that mission. Mel Mermelstein, a pioneer of Holocaust education in Orange County, who passed away just two years ago. Mel survived Auschwitz and later was liberated from Buchanwoll at the age of 17. At that time, he weighed just 67 pounds and was suffering from Typhus. Despite the horrors he endured, Melchow's not silence, but truth. He preserved every document, every artifact he could. Beginning in 1967, he made over 50 trips to the concentration camps, bringing back with him evidence and turning the remnants of atrocity into powerful pieces of art and education. And then he did something truly extraordinary. He single-handedly took on local Holocaust deniers, the Institute for Historical Review, based here in Huntington Beach. He dragged them into the courts in 1979 and he prevailed in 1981 with a incredible ruling for the first time established that the Holocaust by a court in the United States was a historical fact simply not subject to dispute dispute. Today, males' memory lives on through the Orange County Holocaust Education Center and Museum, which was built around his personal collection. It is more than a museum. It is a sanctuary of truth, a voice against hate, and a living classroom for the next generation. Each month, thousands of visitors, especially students, walk through our doors. They come face to face with history, not through textbooks, but through real artifacts, survivor testimonies, and immersive exhibits. And what we're witnessing is truly remarkable. A decline in hate speech and bullying in schools and a visible rise in empathy, inclusion, and moral courage. Students leave not just informed but transformed. This is how we defeat hatred, not only by remembering the past, but by shaping a better and brighter future. To everyone here today and for all the efforts here, thank you for standing up for truth. Thank you for standing up here today. Thank you for recognizing that this work matters now more than ever. Together we are ensuring that the memory leads to action and that never again is not just a slogan, but a promise. Thank you. As has been noted, there are many other survivors here. Not everyone is going to be able to speak, but I did want to note them. Please forgive me if a name is mispronounce or if you're not on the list, that mistake is mine alone. Dr. Eisenbach, as was noted, Jean Amoros from the Ukraine, Yetzal Katerita, Shakmurova from Uzbekistan, Judith Simon from Budapest, Hungary, Judith was a hidden child. Michael Simber from Odessa in the Ukraine, hid in Uzbekistan until after the war. Erica Susan from Austria, Mark Bourbon from Odessa, Larisa Baum, also from Odessa, evacuated with her family to Kiriskan, Moise Schmurak from the Ukraine, Larisa and Moise had married, and Ludmilla Zanina from Moscow. I mentioned those names because too often we characterize the Holocaust as solely in Europe, solely in Central or Eastern Europe. It was nearly a worldwide phenomenon. And it has been noted, two thirds of European jewelry were decimated, and millions of others, in addition to Jews, were killed as well. I'd like to introduce Julie Marzook for closing remarks. Julie is an attorney associate law professor and a trustee on our board of Jewish Federation of Orange County. My name is Julie Marzooke and I am honored to be here today as an Irvine resident and, as Jerry said, a board member of the Jewish Federation of Orange County. I want to thank Rabbi Steinberg and Rabbi Mints and Rabbi Siener, the survivors and liberators who all spoke so beautifully today. The Jewish community of Irvine spans the political and religious spectrum. That diversity is represented here today, not just with our speakers, but with the many community members that are here in attendance. Thank you to everyone who is here today. It is amazing to see everyone. The Jews of Irvine are not a monolith, but we are firmly aligned in our shared commitment to teach the Holocaust, and its lessons of intolerance so that the atrocities of the Shoah are never repeated. The Jews just finished observing Passover, where we are commanded to remember our own personal liberation from bondage. We honor the victims of the Holocaust because the Shoah is not just something that happened to others in history. The persecution of the Jews is a living and ongoing threat. This past week, during Passover, the governor of Pennsylvania's home was firebombed as he and his family slept. He was attacked specifically and solely because he is a Jew. Also this week, at Northwestern University, the campus was graffitied with the words globalize the intifada spray painted across it. Chance to globalize the intifada spray painted across it. Chance to globalize the intifada are calls to inflict worldwide violence against Jews. The Jewish community of Irvine stands here today, united to say unequivocally, that we will not ignore the face modern day anti-Semitism. In Irvine, we celebrate our religious freedom and diversity. I am grateful to the City Council for the opportunity given here today to educate our larger Orange County community. Thank you to the Council members, all of you, who embraced the sacred duty of remembrance. To our civic leaders, I ask that you continue to speak clearly against Jew hatred. Act firmly and lead boldly. Silence is not neutrality. It is complicity. Never again is now. Thank you everyone for joining us this evening and sharing your thoughts in and half out And Mayor Aigren, if I may with your indulgence I'd like to turn to the City Clerk for any public comment. Yes, of course. And City Clerk, are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item? Thank you, Councilmember Liu. We have six requests to speak. Three in person and three on zoom. If I could call forward Sandy L Jason Garfield and a mere cajana and we'll start with Sandy. And each speaker will get three minutes. Thank you, good evening. First of all, I want to give the council a sincere thank you for honoring and remembering our cherished Holocaust survivors tonight. Never forget is an important call to action, requiring us to find strength in reminding the world of the atrocities of history and to do anything in our power to prevent them from happening again. We must keep teaching the stories and experiences to generations to come. You have done amidst the tonight a good deed and we thank you. As you know, there are those that deny the Holocaust happened. Further, there is also an insidious attempt to minimize the horrors of the Holocaust by casually using comparisons to modern-day issues. Comparisons like these dilute the most industrialized genocide in human history while minimizing their suffering. They also weaponize Jewish history while ignoring our reality. It strips the Holocaust of its unique horror and turns it into a talking point. The Holocaust wasn't just bad policy. It was a systematic state-sponsored plan to annihilate and entire people. So while events in current history have their own insidiousness, there are plenty of words in the English history and language to just, in the English language, to describe these events. There's no need to appropriate the word Holocaust. This is called Holocaust Inversion and it's a form of anti-Semitism. So I urge everyone to stop using Jewish trauma to make a point. Thank you. Thank you. Applause. Jason Garchefield. Jason Garchefield. Thank you. And I'd like to thank Council Member Lue for bringing this forward. I'd like to thank all of you for voting on it and I'm deeply grateful to all of the speakers before me. It was it was my honor to hear from all of you. So I do think the 80th anniversary is particularly important perhaps more so in certain ways even than the century because 80 years is approximately the length of human lifespan. And so at the 80 year point, that's when living memory starts to recede into history. And there's a whole book about this, which I've always loved, which is the fourth turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe. And they history into an 80 year secular that's Latin for century. So once the generation that lived through the last crisis dies off we're forced to relearn their lessons and one can look at the world right now and make up one's own mind as to whether that is happening. So however well while I fully support this proclamation while I'm grateful for it, I would like to note the irony in the proclamation reading quote, here in Irvine, we are committed to fostering a culture of unity, respect, and understanding when that has not been the case in many parts of Irvine last of late, including in these council chambers. And when I see posters of kidnapped and murdered hostages ripped down across this city. So here's one that I took a couple of weeks ago. This was at Culver and Michelson. That's a big spot for posting things. And this is of two-year-old Kaffir Beebos, excuse me, nine-month-old Kaffir who was kidnapped and strangled to death and whose corpse was paraded around as a trophy of war by a group which has been praised in these chambers. Some of these posters, as I've noted before, are next to posters of missing dogs and cats, which have been left up. So this proclamation will not change the fact that eight years after the Holocaust, to some people in Irvine, a Jew is still worthless than a dog. And I would like to respectfully ask the city attorney or the police if they could maybe look into some in the tearing down of posters because those are private property. And if they were the campaign signs of anyone on the council, I have no doubt that that council member in particular would be quite angry about that. So I would say that a murdered baby deserves the same protection. Again, thank you all for bringing this forward. It's been incredible listening to the speakers before me. And yeah, thank you. Here, Mahana. My name is Amir Kahana and I am the board chair of the Jewish Federation of Orange County. I mostly want to express my sincere gratitude to the council, to the police, to the Jewish community that is here today for everyone that made today possible. I want to tell a little bit about my background. My mom was born in a displaced persons camp after the war near Munich. Her mom, my grandmother, had a family before the war, a husband, children, after the war, it was just her and her little brother. You know, the Holocaust is something that has affected me my whole life and something that in many ways, you know, you say never again, but you really think it's behind us, which brings me to what I saw last year here and these council chambers, which was scarring for someone who's lived in this city for 24 years and plan to spend the rest of his life in this city. I love Irvine. And scary. And it's still scary, thankfully not here, but it's scary in the world around us when we see anti-Semitism just really everywhere in ways that we haven't seen before, at least I haven't. So that is why I'm so grateful for today because this is a dream for me compared to what I saw a year ago and I just want to thank everyone in these chambers that made it possible. Thank you. Our next speaker is Eric Nishanian Mr. Nishanian you may unmute your mic. Yes good afternoon from Japan. I went to Doc Val in 1985 with my two-year stuff father who was buried here in Orange County. I've seen the wars of the Holocaust, they are true. But it's ashamed that the Holocaust is being used here for political purposes. April is also heir of heritage month. There are heir residents here in Irvine. It is not been recognized formally. It's also Armenian genocide and remembrance day tomorrow, which is not being recognized formally, although there's a little presentation done in Chambers in front of nobody. That's tomorrow. What used to happen here is that the city would recognize Turkish Children's Day on April 23rd, formally, and then recognize Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day on the 24th, formally. Don Wagner, Mayor Don Wagner, with through the Children's Day recognition of population and said that the community need that discussion, that did not, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh Israel, collaborated with Turkey and Azerbaijan to cleanse ethnic Armenians and also have them kidnapped and put under false trials. There are Armenians and Azerbaijan that are in kidnapped and are being put to trial. They were cleansed from artsok. They're ethnic home for the last 1500 years. And I just want to mention that everything that was robbed by Steinberg is an operative of the anti-definition week. The anti-definition week has the history of spying on U.S. citizens, defending U.S. citizens, and participating in the denial of the Armenian genocide for Israel and Turkey. Never again should apply to everybody, not just Jews, but to Palestinians and Armenians. And you guys are putting yourself before everybody else. The Jewish community here is no more important than the Arab community, the Armenian community, or any other community in Irvine, California, the United States, or the world. You all should be ashamed of yourself for getting that. Thank you. Mayor, I'd like to respond please. Do we have further speakers? We do, we have three more speakers. Let me, let's hear from them and then you'll have an opportunity. I think by law, I'm allowed to respond now. Well, you may be allowed to respond, but we want to hear the rest of the speakers first. Then you and others at the DAIS. Excuse me. Point of order. What is your point of order? I move that I be allowed to respond right now. Very well. The ruling of the chair has been subject now to motion to hear from Councilmember, Council Member Traceter right now. Would the clerk please call the roll? Mr. Mayor, I'm not sure I heard a second. Is there a second? There be no second. No, okay. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Let me just say as chair, one of the things I've tried to bring to this Council Chamber is stability, order, respect. We don't when we sit up here and listen to people say things that we don't like, that we may have horror. We don't respond to it typically. Council members do have the opportunity to offer some comments. I just think as a matter of order that we should hear from the rest of the public. Three speakers as I understand it who wish still to be heard. And then council members of course will have an opportunity to make brief comments after that. So I would urge a no vote on the motion appealing the ruling of the chair. Please call the rule. Council member Carroll. Yeah, I'm not voting anything right now. I'm going to make a point of order. The Brown Act, the city attorney needs to tell us what the Brown XS. So the mayor doesn't have to go through this motion and vote stuff. So city attorney, tell us what the Brown brown access. We had a public comment, so step up and tell the city council what the brown access. So, I'm not voting anything. I'm not voting yes, I'm not voting no, I'm voting no present, I'm making a spectacle of this. Tell us what the brown access. Council Member Carroll, the brown access that council members are allowed to offer brief responses to comments made during public comments. It does not specify when those brief responses are to be offered. The mayor ruled that the brief response would be provided at the end of public comments. Councilmember Traceeter appealed that ruling to the whole council and got a second on the vote. The item that Parliamentary question about when to hear the brief response to the public comment is properly before the council. So Jeff, your point is that when the Brown Act response happens is now open for debate and you permit this thing to happen. That's exactly the issue. Even though city attorney, every single meeting we've had, if council member Trishita wants to respond or if I want to respond, they respond and let you let the mayor just run this whole motion thing. I'm not voting for the mayor. I'm not voting against the mayor. I'm not voting. So call whatever you want, but it's up to you. It's up to you to respectfully interrupt and say, you know what, she gets a chance to respond. And now you have to put us in a position where I got to vote. This makes no sense whatsoever. This is a travesty. I know it's unsolicited, but we have prepared for this presentation. And invite. the tribal state. If I may offer my opinion I know it's unsolicited but we have prepared for this presentation and invited the community to come and offer their testimony for the purpose of education and understanding and also to offer healing. So a lot of them are of older age and I would rather that they have the opportunity to finish the presentation before we have an opportunity to speak. I believe all of us on council will have the opportunity to speak and I would love to respond to that last comment as much as councilmember Trisita but for the sake of our guess here would you be willing to wait? I'm happy to wait until the speakers are done, but I don't know how that would change the other speakers or the timing or anything like that. Whether I speak now or after the speakers, it's going to add to the time. I would rather have to stand so the guess here will be able to maybe ask councilmember Lou are you withdrawing your second are you withdrawing your second councilmember Lou is withdrawn her second the motion then will not be voted upon will continue'll continue to hear from the, how many speakers do we have left? Three. We will continue to hear from those three. If any others call in, they're not to be added to the list. We'll hear from those three and then council members will have an opportunity to speak and then we'll take a vote on the proclamation as well. With that would you call on the next speaker please. Thank you our next speaker is Susan M. Susan you may unmute your mic you have 90 seconds. Hello Susan, can you hear us? There's no response. Our next speaker is Cheryl Katz. Cheryl, you may unmute your mic. Yes, thank you so very much. I am sitting here with my mom, a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor. Her name is Piri Katz. And my mom asked me to speak on her behalf. But I will say that before I do and and key up the video that is there, it's a short one minute video, in light of what was just stated, I just have to quickly say that today, 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz throughout the world in the UN, in funded NGOs, antisemitism is rampant. There are also Holocaust re-versionists who denigrate the memories of those who were murdered by the Nazis, defame the memories of those who fought in World War II against that evil ideology and demean Holocaust survivors like like my mom and other survivors, by false comparisons, mislabeling, the most pro-Israel friend of the Jewish people and those support them as Nazis because the Nazis today are the Iranian regime, it's proxies and all of those anti-Semites who spread their hate and propaganda on our internet, on our campuses, in our communities, and who on October 7th murdered, raped, burned, and kidnapped innocent in Israelis, including Americans, and whose charter states that their sole purpose is to kill Jews and destroy Israel along with Western civilization. It is because 80 years later in an every generation there are those ruled by evil ideologies who seek another Holocaust that tonight is so important. So I'd like to read what Mom said. There are no words in the English language to express my profound gratitude to the City Council and to all those in the audience whose fathers and grandfathers, along with the Allied forces, fought to save my lives. It's hard to believe that it's been 75, 80 years since I was liberated by the Americans on a train just leaving the death camp of Dachau. Hitler knew that he was losing the war and we knew that he was trying to kill as many of us as possible. We were being taken to an unknown location where we would all be unloaded and shot by the Nazis with machine guns. Suddenly we heard shooting and the train came to an abrupt stop. When the cattle car doors opened in the faint light, I could see the brave faces of the American soldiers. I heard some of the older people yelling, Americans, Americans, as we came off the train half alive, we all fell to our knees and began kissing the feet of the American soldiers. They were also brave and I learned my first American phrase. Let's go. Let's go. I thought we were being ushered into an area where we were given chocolates and powdered milk packets. Sadly, many of the survivors stomachs blew up from eating too much too fast and they died right there. For the rest of us, the soldiers took us back to Dochow where that death camp became a displaced persons camp. I waited five years in displaced persons camps while my aunt and uncle, sister and brother continued to send papers and affidavits of support stating that I would not take a job from any American, that I would have a place to stay upon my arrival in the U.S. and that the U.S. government would not have to support me. I came to Ellis Island in 1950, where I legally immigrated to the U.S.A. It was the happiest day of my life. I came to this country not to fly Czechoslovakia in flags nor hang pictures of former Czech President Mausiric, but rather to become a part of the American fabric. I was in Am, a proud Jewish American. I learned English, worked as a seamstress, married my husband a physician who had enlisted in the Army in World War II and fought and was wounded in the third Army. in the battle of the bulge had four beautiful daughters, one of whom a law professor is here with me speaking on my behalf and lived to see eight beautiful grandchildren and two great grandchildren. I was taken to the ghetto on the eve of Passover in 1944, the holiday of freedom. In a matter of moments at age 14, I had my freedom ripped out from under me as I went onto the death camps of Auschwitz, Geistlingen, and Dachau, and watched as my parents, older married sisters and their children, younger sisters and brothers and countless relatives and friends were all gasped and burned in the crematoria at Auschwitz. Thanks to all of those who liberated the camps, I recently celebrated 80 years of Passover Saiders in freedom in this wonderful country of America. For those who have never lost their freedom, they cannot appreciate what real freedom is. There's nothing more precious to a human being in this life than to have freedom. It breaks my heart when I see young people on college campuses, desecrating the American flag athletes, refusing to stand for the national anthem, and the BDS movement, and the anti-Semitism that has risen throughout the world. It hurts me when people propagandize against the United States and Israel and disrespect our military under whose blanket of freedom we are all protected each and every day. I am forever grateful that we have a president who stands with and is a friend to the state of Israel. When I was in Dauhao, I never would have dreamed that I would live to see the 77th anniversary of the state of Israel. So I would like to thank all of our U.S. military and all of their families who continue to serve our country with honor. You and so many brave veterans gave your all and so many lost their lives so that we can live as free people. To those who seek socialism, communism, or ideologies that seek to destroy our US constitution and the values that our country stands for, to them I say you should kiss the ground that you walk on in the United States of America, as I feel so blessed to be here, to thrive, to live in freedom, and to pursue happiness. At 97 years old, I cannot bend and kiss all of your feet on the City Council, as I once did when the liberators freed us from Dachau. But as a bot co-hain, a descendant from four lines of the high priests dating back to Aaron Moses' brother, I would like to express my undying gratitude to the city council of Irvine, excuse me, for all of the liberators and their families and to the United States of America for giving me my life and my freedom by bestowing this blessing on all of you who are present in the chamber there today. I apologize that I cannot be there because I just am recovering from a stroke on February the 9th. Yverechachadonoivyeeshmyrachame, God God bless you and keep you. Yo, Eirahadonoipanavelachaviyachunachah, may God make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. Yusadonoipanavelachaviyosamlakhashalom, may God grant that all of our hostages come home safe and sound that are being held in captivity. May God grant each and every one of you a long life full of health, happiness, love, prosperity, and peace. And may God bless and protect our U.S. military and the freedoms that they and our veterans fought so hard to preserve the state of Israel and forever blessed and protect the United States of America. If you could please key up my mom's video, it's just a short minute of her. Thank you so much. At this time, at this time, we typically do not show videos until the end. Is this the last speaker? Yes Mayor, this will be the last speaker. All right. And is the video queued up? We have it ready to go. All right. All right. Let's hear the video then and then I turn it back to you council Council Member Liu, to conclude the presentation of the Proclamation, and then of course, we'll take comments from Council Members. Go right ahead. And it was period of cat, and I survived the nostrils. It was wonderful to hear everything. We had council forces,, geese, everything. Everybody respected them. They had the highest respect for my parents. But they were so good to everybody. My mother, it was a good cook. And she gave it to the neighbors. We were wonderful loving family. We shovelba's physical after life. The Shabba's candles are prayers. They just keep in the pool the table because they every see found floor. Our shower scandals and just everything was on the floor. I see what's on that wonderful wall. I'm a very large family. I come from 11 children. We should all live to be 120, but we didn't. So my name is Peter Kie, member of this. Thank you. And that is all the speakers. That concludes the public comments. I turn it back to you, Council Member Wang. So at this time, it is my pleasure to invite forward our special guests this evening and present the proclamation. Would you please come forward for the presentation. And at the same time, I would like my staff member, Sophie Nadel, to read the proclamation. was Yamashela a day dedicated to remembering the six million lives lost in the Holocaust, a state-sponsored systemic and deliberate plan to annihilate the Jewish people by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Aligns annually with this 27th day of Nissan on the Hebrew calendar. This day serves to honor the memory of those who are lost. It is a day of solemn remembrance and reflection and reforms our community's commitment to ensure that such atrocities are never repeated. Mayor, may I invite the council members to come down for a picture? Nick, may invite the council members to come down for a picture. Sure. If there's going to be a photograph, I would suggest everyone come around here and we'll be in front there. I'm going to eat this ham, that's something, yes sir? He's a hundred four. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go to the next floor. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go on. I'm going to go All right, everybody, see there. You're more close. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. One, two, three. One, two, three. Thank you. Thank you. One more, please. One more, please. Bravo, Bravo, bravo! Bravo, boys! APPLAUSE We are. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The presentation was wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Very many. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm sorry, I didn't get it. I'm so sweaty and proud. That's good. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you so much. I think you have to adopt the proclamation. Would people please take their seats? We would you want to turn that up? So if I may turn to my council colleagues for comment and if it's okay. Well thank you council member Liu and well we have yet to adopt the proclamation. I'm going to suggest that at this time, that we consolidate our parliamentary proceedings here by taking a motion to adopt the proclamation. And then council members can speak to the motion and at the same time incorporate in their remarks Anything they would wish to say about those who called in or otherwise all right Councilmember Some are blue would you like to move adoption of the proclamation? Yes, if I may move to a council to adopt a motion. And I'll second that motion. And that allows us then to turn to our colleagues who can comment on the motion or anything else relative to the motion. So with that, I'll call on Councilmember Traceeater. Thank you. I'm delighted to be able to speak now. I have been thinking a lot about what the Holocaust survivors have been saying in these chambers today. And I find a lot of strength from it. I also have received loud and clear the message that we must have courage to stand up to hate. That is something that nearly everybody here has said. I understand the import of this. I think often about the events that led up to the Holocaust, that led up to six million Jews being killed. And of course there were the people who were doing the killing, but there were even more who just looked the other way and didn't wanna make waves and who didn't want to be involved because it was too scary. And if they had stood up, maybe the Holocaust wouldn't have happened. I have been in this chambers since October 6th. I have seen a lot, I have seen a lot of anti-Sism in these chambers during my stomach. I understand now I think better the events that led to the Holocaust. It is just a matter of looking the other way for most people. And again, I just want to return to the importance of standing up to hate. It is not simply a, it's not simply just a nice thing to do. It has import. It could potentially head off future Holocaust. And I would like to think it wouldn't happen here, but the Holocaust did happen. And there are people here who experienced it, and people here who had families who died from it. So I fully believe that can happen. And I take it very seriously, standing up to hate. Now, we had an example here during this meeting. We had someone call in, Mr. Derek Nishanian, who knew that these chambers would be full of members of the Jewish community and chose to say horrible things, anti-Semitic things, knowing that you would have to listen to that. And I again took very seriously the call to have the courage to stand up to hate. Now, state law actually does not allow us to cut off speakers, public speakers, because we don't like what they say, they get to say it. But state law does allow me to respond and say, no, I reject that. This is not appropriate. And I did try to do that. And I was stopped from doing it in violation of state law. And you can see how these things happen. Okay. I'm not going to shut up. I think the implication was that by me trying to respond that I was making waves that it was disrespectful, disruptive. And I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to do that. Just stand up to hate. Now I want to say... I also want to say I was personally offended by what Mr. Derek Nishani said about Rabbi Steinberg, a very good friend of mine. I know him well. I don't think that Mr. Derek Nishani knows him well, but I do. He's one of the kindest people I know, one of the strongest people I know, and I have seen him say to his congregation that I will stand between you and whoever comes for you. That takes a lot of courage and I fully believe that. And I will add that I will stand in front of him and whoever might come for him. Thank you. the next meeting after October 6, during the announcements, I expressed my dismay and my sympathy for the Jewish community. And I pledged at that time that I would do everything that I could to protect the Jewish community and urban, that I thought of you, I value you. And I hope that I have, I hope that I have fulfilled that pledge. I hope that you have seen that over the last year and a half. It's not something that you do just once. It's a consistent thing. I have paid for it. It is an honor. It is a price I am willing to pay, and I am willing to pay a lot more. I hope that you know as long as I am in this seat, I will continue to protect you and value you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Triseter. Are there other requests to be heard on the motion? Councilmember Liu? First, I would like to thank Councilmember Tracita for taking the time and wait for this. And thank you. I appreciate your patience. And I also want to thank everybody for coming out and sharing your stories, sharing your testimonies and showing the city what it's like to be courageous, resilient, and give hope. And I would like to respond, actually, to the caller, that the city council did have a presentation in recognition of Armenian genocide in Arab American. And we did have a presentation. Maybe we should have done a better job with announcing that. So the community would know, but it was recognized and I don't like how this was falsely accused and that we favor anybody over anybody else. The point of this is to make sure that we uplift everybody. And like I said in my big comment at the beginning, that I see my role as a public servant to give the platform to recognize people, to connect residents and promote understanding and education. And this is my opportunity. And again, thank you so much for giving us that opportunity to help you in this matter. And I wanna thank my council colleagues again. This presentation was a product of everybody's effort in the last three, four months. so thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lou, Council Member Carol. Great, thank you, Mayor. I just want to say, just to reiterate what my colleague said, I want to thank my colleague for bringing this forward and really seeing what was such an important and moving opportunity presentation to bring into this council chamber stories and that are truly, they're really beyond words. I'm gonna have a lot less to say and that's very unusual for an elected official because there's really no words that can describe what we've all experienced in the room tonight and what we will experience in our hearts as a result of this. We talked about a little bit before. We had a sort of a brief thing in another room here, but I would just ask if he would, our vice mayor, to talk about his personal family story with regard to the Holocaust and just kind of refocus it back on this day. If you would, Vice-Mail, thank you. But thank you all for being here and taking the time. Thank you, Council Member Carroll. We'll now turn to Council Member Mai. Vice-Mailer and Council Member Mai. Yes, thank you, Mayor. And thank you to my fellow colleagues here for bringing this forward. I want to let the community know that we empathize with you. I empathize with your longstanding loss, sharing with your sorrow as well and we'll always stand to fight with you. People have asked me a little bit about my history, some of you know, some of my history. And I, and to the Holocaust and I, you know, I carry a part of the Holocaust with me. And people say, what do you mean? Well, I wasn't going to do this, but I literally carry a piece of the Holocaust with me. So this is from the Holocaust. This is from World War II. And it is the last piece. It's the only thing that was given to me by my adopted father who raised me. I'm named after James. His name is James Bristol. And he signed up for the war when he saw their atrocities going on in the world. He landed on D-Day. He fought through the European theater into Nazi Germany, lost his hearing, became handicapped during the war, was fully deaf and still fought in the war. He fought in the war and he eventually, he was under our napat and they were considered Nazi hunters, they're a liberating force. And they, he told me this story before he passed and he gave me this. And he told me this story. He never told me this story when I was growing up. I would just hear stories that he was an officer and he had a lot of memorabilia from the war. I said, how did you get that? I just picked it up somewhere. But we knew he was his wife, my adopted mother, who told me he was considered a war hero, but he never spoke about it. But before he died, he told me the story. When he marched into Germany and they came across a forest and it was lined with bodies. They followed it into a concentration camp. And they knocked on the walls of the concentration camp. There's thousands of bodies there. The SS had abandoned the camp because they knew their Americans were coming. And the prisoners and their survivors came out hugging them, hugging him, saying thank you. But they didn't have anything to give him. They didn't have a single thing to give him. But they were skilled. There were carpenters, woodworkers. So they were able to carve this frame for him to carry on, carry hit the picture of his wife throughout the rest of his war, through the war. And that was the only thing that he gave to me before he passed away. And these stories, I always tell this story because we need to stand against hate. These stories need to be told so the future generations will never forget it. Some of these stories and the stories we heard today won't be seen in books, but they're going to be passed down by our words. And eventually people said James, you've got to write something about this. And I will. But I'm happy to share. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I paths and recover dog tags of fallen soldiers climbing into the tanks. And he was so traumatized by this, he never talked about it, but he would also get the IDs from the concentration camp as well. And I just wanted to share this story with you guys, and I hope that you can share it as well. And, you know, I just wanted to share this story with you guys, and I hope that you can share it as well. I stand with you guys as well, so thank you for listening to me on this day, and I'm glad to share this with you. Thank you, Councilmember Mai. Councilmember Goh, did you have anything? If not, we can move on to a vote if you have something to say. Happy to recognize you know. No. All right. Let me just say thank you to Councilmember Liu and the role that Council Member Carroll has well played in helping shape this proclamation in this evening's presentation. I want to thank our city staff, my own staff, and the representatives from the larger Jewish community for the role that they played in pulling together this proclamation and presentation. And of course, I especially want to thank the wonderful people who gave remarkable testimonials as to direct and indirect experience from the horrors of the whole of cost. We will call for a vote, but the words of course never forget and never again are very meaningful in guiding many, many of our lives. And we adopt this motion and proclamation in that spirit that we'll do our part for a better future. With that, with the Court, please call the roll. Councilmember Carroll. Yes. Remember go. Yes. Council member Lou. Yes. Council member Chesheter. Yes. Vice Mayor May. Yes. Mayor Eagren. Yes. Carries 6-0. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all those who wish to stay, you're certainly welcome. Our next presentation involves National Police Week. This is a proclamation recognizing May 11th to 17th, 2025 as National Police Week. At this time, I'd like to remind those who wish to comment on this presentation. Those who wish to make public comment electronically. That was the time to raise your hand electronically, enter the queue, and you'll be called upon at the appropriate time. But at this time, it's my pleasure to invite forward police chief Michael Kant and members of the Irvine Police Honor Guard. And I'll step down to the podium so we might continue. Welcome. Welcome to you all. Each year during the month of May memorials for police officers killed in the line of duty are held in state capitals across our nation and in Washington, D.C. Over the past several years, the Irvine Police Department has sent representatives to the California Police Officer Memorial in Sacramento and the National Peace Officer Memorial in Washington, D.C. The City of Irvine recognizes those officers throughout the nation who've sacrificed their lives in service to their communities. On behalf of the Irvine City Council and the Irvine community, we thank all our public safety officers, each and every one of them, for the vital service that you provide by protecting our residents, businesses, and visitors to our city as well. And you manage your after-year to keep Irvine among the safest cities in America. So it's now my pleasure, my honor, really, to read and present the proclamation. So Chief, do you want to come over here as well? Because I want you out on my side here when we present this. I'll go ahead and read it. Or would you like to? Go ahead. All right. This is a proclamation recognizing National Police Week. Whereas the President and Congress of the United States have designated May 11th to 17th, 2025 as National Police Police Week, which coincides with Peace Officers Memorial Day on May 15th, and whereas the members of the Irvine Police Department play an essential role in safeguarding the rights and freedoms of those living and working in the city of Irvine, and whereas it is important that all citizens know and understand the duties, hazards, and sacrifices of their law enforcement agency, and that the members of our law enforcement agency recognize their duty to serve and protect the people. And whereas the men and women of the Irvine Police Department in partnership with the community work tirelessly to maintain the city of Irvine as the safest city in the nation with a population over 300,000 people. Now, therefore, the City Council of the City of Irvine does hereby proclaim May 11th to 17th, 2025, has National Police Week and urges all citizens to commemorate law enforcement officers past past and present, who have dedicated their professional lives to uphold the law and ensure public safety. The City Council of the City of Irvine further calls upon residents and employees of Irvine to observe May 15, 2025 as peace officers memorial day in honor of those law enforcement officers who, through their courageous actions, have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their community. Chief, thank you. Thank you all. Let's give them a big round of applause. I'm going to give you one more chance, Chief. One more chance that you'd like to say something. I had a thought myself as I was reading through Irvine, of course, is more than 50 years old. We've had our police department, our own independent police department, for more than 50 years. And fortunately, in that entire time, we haven't lost one police officer in the line of duty. Up till now I've hesitated to say that publicly we obviously don't want to bring some kind of bad karma to bear here. But our police, we're so proud of our police department and the wonderful standards that you employ here in the city, not only keeping it safe, but as one of those where as cause is stated, seem to it that we're in a community that's not only safe, but where we feel and are free and able to move about and enjoy the benefits of community life. So I've said much more. Do you want to say one or two things? Go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. Appreciate the kind of words and obviously to proclamation. On behalf of men and women in the urban police department, we appreciate your continued support and obviously members of City Council. Thank you for your continued support as well. Today Irvine community, our residents, our businesses and everybody else in the community debt really makes up this fine city. Thank you for your continued support of the Irvine Police Department for the last 50 years. This is our 50th anniversary. We turned 50 years old, so we're really excited about that milestone. At the men and women in the Deer Ryan Police Department, it's an absolute honor and privilege to be your chief. You're truly the engine that drives this organization, so thank you, appreciate the support, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think what I'd like to do, what I'd like to do is invite our our colleagues down and let's see if we can take a photograph. We have not yet actually adopted the proclamation but I have reason to believe it's going to pass unanimously. All right. Thank you. Yeah, everybody here is served. Hey, it here is. Hey, what's work? Can you see that? You guys are all tall. I know. I'm the over here. I've got five minutes. I'm going to go over here. I've got five minutes. I'm going over here. I've got five minutes. I've got five minutes. I've got five minutes. I've got five minutes. I've got five minutes. I've got five minutes. I've got five minutes. I've got five minutes. I've got five minutes. I've got five minutes. All right, everybody. Ready? One, two, three. three I go one more one two three Thank you. What's on? That's of the proclamation. Second. Seconded by Council Member Liu. We have some citizens out there. Do we, to be heard? Not for this item. For general public comments, do. General. Okay. So good. There's a motion properly before us and of course I call my colleagues if they wish to have anything to say on the motion to adopt the proclamation. Hearing none. Would the clerk please call the roll. Council member Carroll. Yes. Council member Goll. Yes. Councilzeater yes vice mayor My yes mayor eagrin yes carry six zero. Thank you All right We move now to public comments for non-agentized items, which was to have started at 5.30. We allow a half hour for members of the public to offer comments on non-agentized items. Any member of the public may address the City Council on items within the City Council's subject manager restriction, but which are not listed on the agenda. If depending on how many requests to be heard will adjust the time limits accordingly, with that I'll turn to the City Clerk and ask are there public going to go back to the public. I'm going to go back to the public. I'm going to go back to the public. I'm going to go back to the public. I'm going to go back to the public. I'm going to go back to the two minutes. If we were to set it at three minutes, it would be not accepting anymore. So why don't we set it at two? And if somebody wants to enter the queue, we've got a little space that way. All right, commenters will have two minutes. With that, I'll turn to our clerk. Please call the first speaker. Thank you Marrify could call forward Darren Parker, Christina Shea and Kristen, Susan Sayer and do you Viet Li and Jason Garjfield. And we'll start with Darren Parker. What a what meeting this has been. I want to just talk about the dog park briefly. Before I do, I want to express our gratitude to your city manager all over chief for the time he's given, crit myself as representatives of the Irvine Dog Park Association this week. One of the things that was so difficult about the decision that seemed to be made at the last meeting to take the dog park away from the Oak Creek Improvement Project was all the work that had been put in. And all the progress that had been made, all the funds that had been appropriated, and we don't want to start from scratch with that project all over again. So I'm going to ask, I'm going to challenge you to do one of two things. Either reinstate the dog park to the Oak Creek Improvement Project plan and take a vote and show us where you all stand on that. or find some way to to repropriate those funds over to the existing Irvine dog park for improvements at an accelerated rate so that we don't have to start from scratch again. I don't know if that's logistically possible. I would like maybe a response to. If possible, is that something that we can do? Can we do one of those two things and continue this project one way or the other? We don't typically try to kind of negotiate when this next comes up to the City Council or how, but I would encourage you to be in touch with our City Manager and the idea that you offered might be worthy of consideration, even placement on a Council agenda. But I don't think we can respond immediately tonight to that, but feel free to be in touch with the city manager if you would. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Christine Shea and Kristen. Welcome. Good evening. That was really glad that we got to be here this evening for the Holocaust presentation. So Mayor and Council members and city staff, I'm very pleased to be here this evening. You all know me, I'm Christina Shea. And I'm here with Kristin Manah, who is our development director for arts and learning conservatory, which is a nonprofit dedicated, providing high quality music and performing arts education to elementary students. And right now we're passing out our little bags of information. We recently celebrated our 20th anniversary. We have been running our program in 50 schools in Orange County and you may not be aware of it but 16 schools in the city of Irvine. Deborah wonder check is the founder and CEO of the Arts and Learning Conservatory and a passionate advocate for the arts education. With near- Deborah Wendell-Jack is the founder and CEO of the Arts and Learning Conservatory and a passionate advocate for the arts education. With nearly 30 years of experience she has brought high quality art programs to thousands of students across Southern California. The Arts and Learning Conservatory was established to address the gap in art programs being cut from our schools. Music and theater education have demonstrated significant benefits for elementary school students. The enhanced academic performance, a support mental wellbeing, and foster central life skills, such as communication, collaboration, and self-confidence. So we recently emailed you all an invite for tomorrow night. We have another one in May, but tomorrow night we're doing a tour of the theater and it'd just be hour and hour and a half. We'd love you to come. And all the information is in the bags there. And so with that, I want to thank you for your consideration for this program. It's wonderful here in the city and we would like you to just come along and try to get to know it. Thank you so much. Well, thank you and thank you for the gift and we'll be reading what's inside. I promise. Thank you. Susan Sayer. Yes, good evening. I know my name is Susan Sayer and I know we're going to be discussing later the issue of Irvine Connect expansion. Right now, I understand that there's gonna be, there is concerns about increasing ridership and the funding for Irvine Connect, and I have some questions related to these issues issues I'd like to ask. First of all, is public transportation considered to be part of Irvine's infrastructure and thus to be funded in part by development infrastructure fees? Second question, can businesses that benefit from public transportation traffic such as Ir Irvine's tourism industry, consisting of hotel sports and entertainment venues, such as amphitheaters, museums, water parks, the businesses and shopping centers, we require to contribute to the cost of public transportation, via licensing and other routine fees, because I've been told by businesses and shopping center management that businesses are leaving Irvine because there is insufficient customer traffic to sustain the businesses. Public transportation can serve to increase customer traffic and benefit business employees. Third question. and development fees and developers traffic remedial fees be used to contribute to the cost of development and maintaining the Irvine Connect public transportation programs? And lastly, shopping centers and community parking availability may be adversely impacted by increased housing development. and Irvine-Pri-Free Park and Ride parking lots that are located on Irvine Connect routes that would benefit business tourism and entertainment customers and their employees. Thank you. Do I vote be? Members of the City Council and Mr. Mai specifically. Mr. Mai in eight days time, it will be 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War. It is estimated that there are close to 9,000 Vietnamese Americans who are eligible for deportation, but as you may observe, the country many of these people would be deported to no longer exists. Mr. Mai, Vietnamese and Vietnam do not think of us. They do ask about those returned. They wonder why the remnants of the Republic would return their own children back to the enemy that tortured them. What could possibly merit such cruelty? They wonder why the remnants of the Republic would return their own children back to the enemy that tortured them What what could possibly merit such cruelty and I find myself at a loss for the loss for words with which to reply As it is your party that prosecutes our people thusly I would ask it asked that you have an answer to their inquiry Why is it that so many of us have seemingly forgotten their obligation to their don't bow, those at the same blood? I have seen with my own eyes the bodies, the missing eyes, the teeth of those who survive prison camps, the restless nights, the shallow graves of people lost at sea. They are our countrymen and our community members. How cruel can we be to even imagine, let alone prosecute, sending them back to a country that broke them so. Those who would cheer, sending them back to their jailers have forgotten their obligation to protect all of us. Vietnamese cannot be free unless all of us are free. Why are we doing the work of the enemies that sent us here? The conditions of a host nation do not supersede our obligation to one another, Mr. Mai. We have no place to return to. To wit, Vietnam has not even accepted the return of our countrymen to Vietnam, and accordingly our own people sit incarcerated in perpetuity on account of having no home to return to. This cannot stand. Our obligation, as ever, remains the same. Today, as it was 50 years ago, to care for them now, as we should. 50 years has not been long enough for us to learn that lesson. Thank you, your time is up. But I continue to hope that the day we learn comes soon. Thank you for your comments. Jason Garjfield, and if I could also call forward crit, Carol Allen Meierson, Leila Yu, and Anna Zhang. Welcome. Thank you. So I want to respond to nutball and the shionian. And I know that I'm taking a bit of a risk doing this because last time I called him out in public comment, he left a rather rude message on my private voicemail, which was very surprising, but I guess divorce lawyers have good private investigators who can help them find that sort of thing. And I wanted to say I fully support recognizing and remembering the Armenian genocide. And I disagree actually with Israel's policy towards Azerbaijan. I also, by the way, disagree with the fact that Armenia has been conducting weapons deals and joint military exercises with the Iranian terror regime, so obviously no country is perfect. But there's really no reason for Jews and Armenians to fight, so stop trying to drive a wedge with these increasingly insane comments. So this is also as good of a time as any, by the way, to say that get rid of zoom comments They're not good for the city most other cities don't do this I've been to a few other city councils surprisingly and this is a bit of a quirk of Irvine anybody who wants to come in here and Spue their their Artichael at eloquent speech should do so in person the face--to-face communication is an integral part of human nature. That's why I always opposed mask mandates. And I think that we should get rid of that wastage of the pandemic. So with regards to the Irvine company, I think I'm going to make a bikini calendar. And I think I'd look great in a bikini. Of every single bullshit repair that they excuse my language, every single unnecessary industrial machinery repair that they do in my apartment complex because there's one every month. This month it was industrial tree trimming. I got two days warning and you know I understand repairs have to be done. I respect that. But they need to have better communication. And if they're going to keep doing this, taking away my right to quiet enjoyment of the property, that's a right I have. And they should have a room to take. Here time is up. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your views with us. Great. Hello again. I'm here for the Dog Parks Association. Over the past year, we've had multiple meetings with the city staff and the leadership. And we've seen the conversation and destination shift. The amount of flurry of activity including today's meetings is proof that awareness is rising and that the momentum is building. What Irvine needs now is a dog park master plan, a comprehensive city-wide strategy that maps out where, how, and when we add the dog parks are residents deserve. Irvine has always been a leader in parks and planning. We're confident that the city's council shares this position and vision. Dog parks aren't just about dogs, they build community, they can bridge social divisions and they contribute to mental and emotional wellness for people of all ages and walks of life. A strong dog park network will make Irvine's park system even more welcoming and family friendly. As we improve and expand I hope no I have no doubt Irvine will land on the top ten list for the most dog friendly cities in America. We commend the city council and staff for their commitment to excellence and we're here to help turn that excellence into action. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Carol? Welcome. Thank you. First of all, I wanted to thank everybody for what was really an emotional and special evening and to Melinda and Mike for having the idea and sharing in the idea and Kathleen and James for your comments. I really appreciate it. I wanted to talk about the Brown Act and watching the council now for since November of 2023 I've been regularly watching. And this is really a comment to you Mr. Melching. It shouldn't be that I don't understand still how these rules work and it is your job representing the city to know the answer when Kathleen or Mike ask you a question. I can simply look it up on my phone that there's no separate difference for the mayor versus the rest of the council in terms of how the Brown Act works. And if Mr. Larry Agrin the mayor has addressed me multiple times at this podium, so can Kathleen address somebody, so can Melinda or Mike William or James, the council members. It is inappropriate for you not to be able to answer council member Carol properly. It is inappropriate for you not to give Kathleen her due time when she asks it. And according to the laws as I understand it, and I'm not a lawyer, but this is something you can look up. The brown up applies to everybody equally. The mayor does not hold a special stance with the Brown Act. And so I would like to see more often that the respect, he said, there's stability, order and respect. I've not seen any of that. And I'd like to see that more often. I would like there to be stability in the rules. I would like to be ordered where the rules are enforced properly. And I'd like to see respect, particularly to our female council members who oftentimes are given a lot of disrespect on the dius. And it's really hard to watch as a woman to see that. There is an organization called the League of Women Voters who do an excellent job of tracking brown act violations and if you look up the city of Irvine, unfortunately, you have a lot of brown act violations and they're getting more and more. I really just think it's time for us to have a sense where the rules are enforced equally and nobody's given a greater sense of entitlement than anybody else. Thank you. Your time is up. I'm going to take the liberty. Of course you're going to address me. Yes. I'm going to take the liberty right now of turning to our city attorney to explain what transpired. My council colleague said that, and I let it pass, that I had violated the Brown Act. I did not commit a violation of the Brown Act tonight, but I'll let the city attorney explain, and you suggested that he violated the Brown Act. If you really want to get an answer to your question, let's turn to the city attorney right now because he explained it very well in my judgment, but please explain it again. Thank you Mayor,. Briefly, the Brown Act allows for Council responses to public commenters. The Brown Act does not specify where in the consideration of an item those Council responses come. The Mayor is the chair of the meeting, the primary parliamentarian. So in the absence of a rule, and there is no rule in the Brown Act for this specific question about when a member of the council can respond to a member of the public. In the absence of the rule, the chair makes the initial determination. Councilmember Traceeter asked you for an opportunity to speak. She would be right to say that in prior occasions and in this occasion we have facilitated people responding right after a public comment or spoke. That wouldn't, that would be accurate, but it isn't required and you made a ruling councilmember truce eater as is her right under our municipal code appealed your ruling you recognized it as an appeal and you asked for a second that's not a brown act issue this and it isn't that you have superior rights under the brown act it is that you you are the parliamentarian, and you are making a parliamentary ruling. That parliamentary ruling, again, was appealable. You recognized the appeal. You asked for a second. Initially, there was a second, and the second was withdrawn. That's, apologize for the more lengthy than I wanted explanation, but that's the start in the middle of the end of it. And let me just, in my own defense of my judgment, the reason we don't like, the reason I prefer, let me say this, the reason I prefer that if any of us have responses to people who are coming forward, the reason I prefer to wait to the end then council members can after five or 10 or 20 or 30 people have made their comments. Council members can be recognized and have the time to respond briefly to one or more of the speakers. I've made the judgment, if we didn't do it that way, if we let each council member have the right to respond briefly to each person who comes up here, we would have nothing but back and forth all night and we would never get to our regular council business. So, but I wanna be clear, Mr. City Attorney, I did not violate the Brown Act, is that correct? No, thank you. I'm sorry, yes, that's correct. No, we didn't violate the Brown Act. Thank you. By the way, Mr. Melchim has prepared over the years. The Brown Act is a far reaching act, doesn just govern council meetings, it governs a whole bunch of things. And City Attorney, the Brown Act has over the years prepared many memos about various aspects of the Brown Act, as well as one that introduces people as council members to what it is they're supposed to do. I would suggest you make those available publicly and avail yourself the opportunity to speak with our city attorney. I mean I think you proved my point. You just spoke to me for over a minute and it's not a brief comment and you don't allow anybody else to speak. So you do dominate how there does seem to be an inequality here where certain people are not allowed to speak and then you over speak and get into debates with people in public comments, which I'm fairly certain is not something that's supposed to happen. That's my reading of the Brown Act is that it's not a back and forth. I'm supposed to be able to come here and speak and it's not a debate with the mayor and this has happened more than once So I just I just don't feel that the stability order and respect is coming across properly And I would like to see that the council members get the proper respect. Thank you for your comments tonight Alan Myerson Good evening again, Council Member Dallin, myerson. Mr. Mayor, I would suggest you don't waste your time trying to explain to people giving them an answer that they're asking for because apparently people don't know how to listen. I understood exactly what Mr. Melting was saying earlier and I thought he explained it perfectly clear to me. Regarding the OCPA, I wanted to say that I hope the city gets out of the OCPA. I've noticed that they're spending a lot of our money on marketing, a lot of it on marketing. And I've also noticed that when people show up here to speak in favor of the OCP, they're almost 99.9% of them are being paid by somebody. They're being played by climate action campaign. They might even be being paid by OCPA. I'm not sure about that, but I know they're being paid by somebody, so it's their jobs. It's not necessarily because they're really for clean air, but it's their jobs and when you have a job to do and you're being paid to do it, you do it. Whether you believe it or you don't believe it, you're getting paid to do it so you do it. The other thing I wanted to say, I was glad I was here tonight for the all-the-cost remembrance ceremony. I found it a pleasure. I found it that the mayor managed it very well. The only sad part was at the very end. One of the council members decided to hijack the ceremony and make it all about themselves. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Leyva, you? Welcome. Good evening, Honorable members of the City Council. Thank you for the opportunity for me to speak with you today. My name is Leyla, and I am a member and leader advocate for kids for Koso. I am here on behalf of the core appointed special advocates of Orange County, but are known are known as CASA OC. CASA provides a powerful voice and meaningful connection for children in the foster care system, who have experienced abuse, neglect, and abandonment. Our trained volunteers advocate for these in youth, court, school, and the community, ensuring their needs are met and their voices are heard. CASA is is celebrating 40 years of support for youth in foster care. Nationally there are over 950 CAUSA programs, but here in Orange County we currently have more than 3,000 children in the foster care system. And CAUSA OC serves over 1,300 of them each year throughout advocacy. These youth live in foster homes, group homes and it was extended families, and a range in age from infants to young adults. Since California passed the AB 12, Kasa has proudly extended of support to youth in foster care up to age 21. Our volunteers are committed and compassionate. They serve for at least two years meeting regularly with their youth and attending court hearings every six months advocate directly to the judge. Today I'm here to invite you to be a part of our ninth annual Kids for Cost of Pinwheel Project. Taking place on May 31st at Fashion Island. In honor of foster care awareness month, we will plant 2,915 pinwheels, each one representing a child in Orange County's foster care system. The pinwheel has become a national symbol of child abuse prevention. It represents the joyful, safe, and carefree childhood that every child deserves. You can sponsor a pinwheel for just $10. And every sponsorship help raise awareness, supports causes advocacy, efforts, and shines a light on the knees of most vulnerable children. Thank you, your time is up. Thank you for your comments tonight and for the work you do. Thank you. Anna Zang and Anna, you have 90 seconds. Hi, my name is Anna Zang, I'm lived in Quail Hill for most of my life and I just want to reiterate my support for the dog park I know that everyone's like no one's really against it But I'd really like some more clear answers about what's happening because all we have is a lot of gossip on next door and a very Very astute Volunteer who's heading up the Irvine dog parks association, but other than that We would like more clear communication about what's happening because I don't know about the rest of you guys, but it's really hard to make friends as an adult and not have to spend a ton of money doing it. And the dog park has been a really great place for me to meet a great group of friends and my dog gets to play and he's happy and socialized and it's the main reason I stay in Irvine because our dog parks is so good. And I just want reiteration or assurance that's gonna stay that way and that we're gonna always have a dog park because we've had a lot of heavy topics tonight but at the end of the day don't we- I just want reiteration that or just assurance that that's going to stay that way and that we're going to always have a dog park because We've had a lot of heavy topics tonight, but at the end of the day don't we all just want to cut a little cute dog? Have some good time with your friends and your family and that's the perfect place to do the dog park so I hope that we can get more clear answers. I know no one's really against it, but I just want to read our support and not let it die down. that were still asking for it. Well, thank you, and I understand. Hi. I just want to read our support and not let it die down. That we're still asking for it. Well, thank you. And I understand. Thank you for your comments. And my guess is, because I know he and others are working on it, you'll be seeing the dog part matter on the agenda at some point soon. OK? I think we're getting there. Our next speaker is telephone number 347. 347 you may unmute your mic. Yes, this is Deepboss. Tonight I'm going to talk about DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion. Our country has been diverse since the beginning of time. Most of us have parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, or from other countries. This isn't new to any of us. We also have differing opinions on how we see things. This gives us the opportunity to explore our differences and look at someone else in a different light, whether we agree or not. We can respect each other without fear of retribution. At the same time, we have commonality where we can come together because of our shared experience or values. The word equity was introduced ever so subtly to replace the word equality. As an example, in terms of employment, equity seeks to give minorities preferential treatment and hiring, regardless of experience or education, whereas equality provides the same level of opportunity and assistance to all segments of society, regardless of race or gender. To give preferential treatment because if someone's race is demeaning to that race, it implies that they are not valued as being in equal in our society, and this way of thinking sets its back generation. Inclusion is the practice of helping everyone to feel as if they belong. Equity takes away from that when it concentrates on race. It is the exclusion of all that are not in the minority. This DEA program not only contradicts its meetings, but it is race-based which means the value of minorities that want to be recognized as equals. Inclusivity is supported by our diverse community but when the equity is introduced into this equation it takes away from the inclusiveness that we all strive for. It's wrong in its racist and we should know better. Thank you. Thank you for your comments next. Our next speaker is Eric Nishanian. Mr. Nishanian, you have 90 seconds. Thank you, council members. I'm here. I just want to state that I'm not a coward or a nut job. Larry and Mike, you guys know that. I've come down to City Council and spoken many times in person and have caused somewhat of an uproar over Ferracont's involvement with Islet, Arjan and Turkey even you know to the point where there's other Armenians that came into City Council chambers and spoke in person with me. I did not say anything offensive to him. He said that I was a coward. So I found him on the internet by myself, because the information is out there, and I offered him an opportunity to come to my law firm, and speak to me in person if he'd so like. Or anywhere else for that matter. And anybody else is invited to do that. I've been here for a long time. My family's been here longer than Larry's. I'm working at a floor. I used to summer camp where Villaciana stands where the only thing there was Bob Flores to me is him. So not a coward, not a nut job. As far as zoom offers, AGA, a participation. Like I said before, state legislatures considering making all council meetings across the state zoom accessible. So the city was innovative in adopting Zoom and can't do it now would be contrary to its own innovation and to the way our state legislature is going to go are seems to be going with making it statewide mandates. Thank you. You're talking about that. Thank you. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you Mr. Nishanian for your comments and that is all Mr. Mayor. All right that does it. I assume my colleagues don't have any any responses short or long to any of the commenters. That being the case we move along now to the city manager's report. Thank you Mr. Mayor, members of the council. I don't have an extensive report. I just wanted to share with the council that our very own Maria Ferris, who is standing over by the doorway recently earned her certified municipal clerk designation. It's a very challenging designation to earn. It's a mark of excellence in the city clerk's profession. I wanted to take a moment just to embarrass her a little bit. And let her know how much we all appreciate her. Congratulations, Mayor. And we appreciate how much she helps us. That's it. OK. With the conclusion of the City Manager's report, we now move on to announcements, committee reports, council reports. My colleagues have an opportunity to briefly describe any of those things that they've been involved in. Councilmember Liu. Thank you. This past week, Councilmember Liu and I had the pleasure of visiting the Irvine Ranch Water District. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the vital role they play. Not just in Orange County but throughout Southern California. And the second one is the Kitsar Contest. It's still open for. In partnership with South Coast Chinese Cultures Association in Pretend City, we're inviting young artists to showcase their creativity. The deadline to submit artwork is end of this month, April 30th. And so I get winner will have their artwork display on the walls in my office. Next, I recently visited the Orange County Housing Finance, represented the Orange County Housing Finance Trust and visited the new 65-unit affordable senior housing community in Lake Forest. It's a great example of how we can provide accessible housing for aging residents and now affordable apartment homes will be available at the cart ride. Cart ride family apartment located at 17861 cart ride road in the heart of the Irvine Business Complex. This community will offer 60 units with anticipated availability starting in June 2025. To join the interest list, please visit accoc.org. Next, my team and I also had an incredible tour of Families Forward where we learn about the powerful impact of affordable housing and how it has dishon individuals experiencing homelessness. Organizations like Families Forward, along with Irvine Care, South, South County outreach and other existing community partners play a critical role. It's essential that we collaborate with them to strengthen our effort and avoid duplications of services. In March, OCFA responded to a total of 1615615 incidents. These included 1,010 rescue and EMS calls, 2,108 good and 10 calls, 1,108 service calls, 1,104 false alarms in 91 traffic incidents among others. Thank you to OCFA for their ongoing efforts in protecting the residents in Irvine. And as your OC Sanitation Board representative, I've been participating in our strategic planning policy workshops where I gain understanding of OC Sanitation's policy objectives and goals as well as the implementation strategies. Next, mark your calendars. Our office is hosting a wildfire prevention plan event with the Orange County Fire Authority on May 19th from 6 to 8 p.m. at OCFA Headquarters. You will hear from OCFA, the Irvine Police Department, the Irvine Ranch Conservancy and SoCal Edison about wildfire preparedness and safety. Last please join the Irvine Junior Games on Sunday May 4th, which is Star Wars A. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. this annual track and fuel event is open to Irvine Unified Schools District students in grades 4 through 8 and serves as a key fund raiser for the Irvine Children's Fund. Proceeds help provide scholarship for before and after school children child care to mid and low income working families in the district for event and ticket information. Please visit IrvineJuniorGames.org. this concludes my announcement. Thank you councilmember Liu councilmember Goh. Thank you mayor. We have a slide as well. Good evening everyone. Last week at OCPA's board meeting agenda item 8.2 solar solar rebate, and EV charger rebate programs passed unanimously. Since my appointment on the OCPA board, I have been working with OCPA to get solar battery, EV charger rebate program up and running, and I'm thrilled it's finally happening. The solar and battery rebate program will provide a thousand dollar rebate for solar panels and battery storage or just battery storage systems along. The EV charger rebate program will provide a not-to- exceed $1,000 rebate for residential level 2 EV chargers on the OC marketplace, making them no costs after rebate. This is a big win as we advocate for more community benefits from OCPA. Next slide. Please also join us May 6th at the Great Park Live for the State of the Great Park. As Vice Chair of the Great Park Board, the Representative for District 2 and a resident of the Great Park neighborhood, it's been amazing to see and be part of the progress that's been done so far. We will be exploring the past, celebrating the present and envisioning the future of the Great Park. I hope to see you there. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Go. Any other requests? There be none. I think we can move on to the next item on our Council agenda. You're looking at me, Mr. Peterson, as though I omitted something. Have I? No, I just thought you had announcement mayor I had one did you leave one for me? Here it is okay Well then I will make this reef announcement and this isiclo Irvine. In less than two weeks, we will celebrate community, connection, and clean air at our second annual Carferee Open Streets event, Ciclo Irvine. Join us on Saturday, May 3rd from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to stroll, bike, and roll along a 1.4 mile car-free stretch of campus drive between University Drive and Culver Drive. Ciclo Irvine highlights the city's commitment to community engagement, sustainability and environmentally conscious means of travel. And we encourage participants to experience Irvine's public spaces and local businesses in a new and re-imagined way with live music, art, and engaging activities for all. I wanna extend my gratitude to our presenting sponsors, UC Irvine and UCI Health. I also wanna thank our Open Street Advocate sponsor, Orange County Power Authority, and our Open Street fan sponsors. Great Park Neighborhoods, Irvine Company, Orange County Cycling Business Coalition, PSQ Productions, Reyes Coca-Cola Bautling, and Waste Management. Their support is crucial to ensuring we can come together as a community for this event. To learn more about Ciclo Irvine and our sponsors, please visit cityofurvine.org slash Ciclo Irvine. That's it. We want to have as many participating as possible. that prompted Vice and council member Mai definitely trying in here. Here we go. All right. Go ahead. Thank you mayor. I wanted to add on to director or council member goes comments on OCPA. We are working with OCPA. We well I believe that from that from our position, they should be doing more. We will be pushing for more. These solar rebate programs are a great start. It's just the beginning. It's very minor. What it's a great gesture, but we're going to be demanding a lot more. Just wanted to make that clear. Thank you. Also, also I wanted to do something a little bit differently here. If you could play the video, I have a video queued up here as well. It's just April from the last meeting, just a couple of the things that I have over the past. Tom, are you there? There we go. So it's just a little promise to the community. I'm grateful to be here and also to have this platform to help the many people here. I just want to remind the community that our door is wide open. I may represent district number three, but also just representing the whole city. So feel free, our team's ready to support you. Our doors are wide open. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Mayan. Thanks to all the wonderful nonprofit organizations with which we interact day in and day out. All right. With that, we've had our announcements, committee reports, council reports, now we go to additions and deletions to the agenda. I'll turn to our city manager to ask if there are any additions or deletions. Mr. Mary, there's one late adjustment to the city council agenda. We wanted to request that item 3.6 which is the agenda item title confirmation of unpaid costs incurred by the city to abate public nuisance conditions at 1851 Kettering Street that that item be continued for one meeting we received word late yesterday that the property owner at that particular location has retained new legal council. They reached out to the city attorney's office. We had a quick discussion today and are requesting short continuance to allow us to have an additional discussion to see if we might be able to resolve the matter differently. Well, thank you. We hope that's a favorable turn of events. So item 3.6 will now be taken off the agenda. Correct. That's how to that. There are no other changes to the agenda this evening. Thank you. That allows us to move on to the consent calendar, which tonight consists of items 2.1 to 2.8. All matters listed under the consent calendar considered by the city manager to be routine and will be enacted by one roll call vote. There will be no discussion of these items unless members of the city council request specific items be removed from the consent calendar for separate discussion. Are there any such requests at this time? All right. I'll again remind those who wish to participate via Zoom as long as it lasts to enter the speakers queue now by raising your hand electronically. And with that, are there any requests to be heard from the public on consent calendar items? No, Mr. Mayor. City clerk tells us there are no requests to be heard on the consent calendar tonight. A motion would be in order. I'll move adoption of items 2.1 to 2.8. Second. Seconded by Council Member Carol. All those in favor? Well, let's see. We have to take a roll call vote on this. Please, Carl, call the roll. Thank you you Mayor. Council member Carol. Yes. Council member Go. Yes. Council member Lou. Yes. Council member Traceeater. Yes. Vice Mayor Mai. Yes. And Mayor Eagren. Yes. Carries 6-0. All right. And we move on finally to council business under item 3. item 3.1. Would the clerk please call this item by subject and title? Annexation of Open Space Area R. Excellent. Annexation of Open Space area. Are we have a staff representative here? Please introduce yourself and then we'll proceed with here in your presentation and maybe have a few questions for you. All right. Thank you very much. Good evening mayor vice mayor and city council members. I'm I'm gonna ask a favor before you give us your name. Could you tilt your screen down a little bit so we can see your face? Just pull it from the bottom. No you're doing fine just there There you go. That's better. Okay. Great. Good evening, Mayor. Vice Mayor and City Council Members. My name is Andrew Femme, principal, civil engineer in the public works and sustainability department. We are here to please to present the annexation of open space area R and surrounding areas. The city is approximately 66 square miles. The current boundaries is shown in purple. The approximate location of the proposed annexation is located in the northeast corner of the city and is shown in the red triangle, rectangle. The proposed annexation would increase the city boundary to approximately 68 square miles. Open space area R is currently in unincorporate area of the county of Orange. It is approximately 584 acres or 0.9 square miles. This area is owned by the Irving Company has been offered to the city as open space as part of the urban company's development of Portolis Springs. The city has not yet accepted the offer from the urban company. Since this area is currently outside the city's boundary, staff has is currently outside the city's boundary, staff is recommending the annexation of area are into city limits. Staff recommends the annexation for the following reasons. First, the development of planning area 6 is near completion as construction of resident development is either complete or underway at all developer parcels. Second, the city would be subject to property tax or city owned property outside the city boundary. Third, the city's planned joint training public safety facility project that is being coordinated between the city's police department and OCAFA is planned to be located in Erie R. And permany would be made more efficient if the property were located in the city limits Lastly, the Gateway Development and Preserve Open Space is located adjacent to Ariarchs the Northwest and to facilitate enhanced trail connectivity. It makes sense to have Ariarchs located within city limits. The annexation process is a multi-step process involving other agencies and NC such as the County of Orange, Lafko, and Brahma agencies and property owners. The regulatory authority for City of Boundary Adjustment is Lafko, also known as local agency formation commission of Orange County. This entity provides oversight of geographic boundaries of public service providers. The entire process would be completed once the city receives the certificate of completion from LAFCO. The total estimated cost of the annexation is $310,000. The major component of the cost will be comparing the environmental documents. Staff proposes to use 135,000 from an existing public work and sustainability budget and line item for the remainder of this fiscal year. The remaining water and 75,000 will be included in next fiscal year's budget appropriation. Along with open space area are there's currently a small notch area in the gateway development that is not within the city's current boundary. This area consists of approximately 1.2 acres of land. The proposed annexation will include the small notch area that is currently outside the city's boundary. In the preliminary discussions with Lafko, Lafko indicated the city cannot only annex open space area or into the small gateway development not and the small gateway development not area. They mentioned that the annex property must be contiguous with the existing city boundary and cannot create an island or pronounce the property that is not part of the city boundary. As a result, the blue area shows the proposed annexation area. This would also include property owned by cow trans, which is state route to 61 and 241. The Siphon Reservoir County of Orange, which is the Siphon Reservoir. County of Orange, which is the B Canyon Access Road. Lutheran High, which is the private sports complex of Crain Lutheran High School. The total proposed annexation area is approximately 1,218 acres or 1.9 square miles. As mentioned, the approximate cost of the annexation is $310,000. The total estimated time of completion for the anesthetician process is approximately 14 months. Approval of tonight's action item will authorize staff to begin the process of annexation which includes preparing the semiddle package to Lathgo. A majority of the semiddle items can be submitted to Lathgo in the next several months except for the tax agreement and environmental documents. A majority of the seminal items can be submitted to Lafayette on the next several months, except for the tax agreement and environmental documents. Both the tax agreement with the county and environmental documents will be presented to City Council for consideration and approval prior to submitting them to Lafayette for approval. As anticipate the entire annexed process would be completed by June of next year. Staff recommends authorizing staff to pursue the annexation of open space, Harry Arne presentation. Thank you for your time and we're here to answer any questions. Thank you for the presentation. I'll turn to my colleagues but I'm going to ask the staff to be seated. I'm going to ask the staff to be seated. I'm going to ask the staff to be seated. I'm going to ask the staff to be seated. I'm going to ask the staff to be seated. I'm going to ask the staff to be seated. for the presentation. Turned to my colleagues, but maybe I'll just start with one question. Just how large an area is this? It seems really quite small. Am I right? The area in blue right here is approximately 1,218 acres or 1.9 square miles. Oh, it's much bigger than I thought. Okay. It looks a lot smaller than that on a map. 1.9. Yes, 1.9 square miles. Square miles. And the city now is what about, literally 70 square miles? It's right around 66 square miles. So this would increase it to right around 68 square miles. All right. How much more in the way of annexations are we expecting going forward? There still is a sphere of influence that is north of this area. However, it's owned by the county and the Irvine company. There's no anticipated annexation of that area at this time. All right. I remember reading some time ago that the city was projected to go to I thought it was 72 square miles Am I just imagining that or was that that area could include the sphere of influence? So the sphere of influence was north of this area R and that could very well be around 72 square miles. All right. Well thank you again for the presentation. Any questions? I'll recognize Councilmember Go. It's got a question for you. Well any of this annexed area be open to the public in terms of trails, open space, or possibly any future projects? Yes. to be open to the public in terms of trails, open space, or possibly any future projects? Yes, that is the idea. Once we annex the property, we would accept the irreparable offer of dedication from the Irrevent Company. And once we do that, then we can look into having trails. And that would be something that we would look into at that time. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else? Oh, Council Member Liu. It's more common and I'm glad that we're finally getting a site to get the joint training facility going. It's been a long time coming since 2019, so I'm happy to see that happening that will enhance the public safety. So thank you for doing this. Thank you, Council Member Liu. Anything else? All right. I think this time we should ask if there are any members of the public who wish to be heard, comment publicly. There are no requests to speak. There be no requests. A motion would be in order. I'll be happy to move staff. Second. Recommendations one and two. That motion by me is seconded by Council Member Goh. I ask all in any comments? They're being none with the clerk, please call the roll. Council Member Carroll. Yes. Council member Go. Yes. Council member Lou. Yes. Council member Triseter. Yes. Vice Mayor May. Yes. And Mayor Eagren. Yes. Carrie 6-0. Thank you. Concludes item 3.1. We now move to item 3.2. Would the clerk please identify this item by subject and title. Project development agreement and lease with all the quiz development and investment for the Canopy retail project. Thank you and I see staff came forward at this time unlike staff to introduce themselves and proceed with their presentation. Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council. Pete Carmichael, Assistant City Manager and with me this evening is Steve Turelli, Deputy Director of the Great Park. We're going to provide just a little bit of background on the project before you tonight, the Canopy Retail Project. Talk a little bit about the site and what's to come and then the project development agreement and the lease, some of the terms of the deal itself. To start with just a little bit of background, we, as you know, we conducted pretty extensive outreach into the community at the front end of the framework plan. That included a number of town halls, extensive meetings with the Great Park residents task force. And we heard again and again at the top of really most people's list that we talked to was the unmet need for retail in that part of the city. Both from visitors to the park, which are nearly six million annually, and residents of the growing neighborhood who are having to travel to a crowded Woodbury shopping center, even at a town to Lake Forest to get groceries and neighborhood essentials. Recognizing that need in 2023, the council directed a competitive selection process, an RFQ to identify a partner to look at ways to expand retail in the great park. Later that year, in early 2024, the council selected Almequist development, directed council to move forward with an ENA and a consulting agreement to identify opportunities for retail. In large part because of the portfolio that HomePost has already built, both financially successful and really priding themselves on creating places with a soul with a unique offering of food and beverage and small format retail. And that council direction back in 2023, 24 really launched the collaborative process that led to the canopy. The canopy is, the site plan is shown here. It's a part grocery anchored retail center offering staple services for the great park neighborhoods as well as creative food and beverage offering, small format retail really built around some great open space or hangout space area grass areas for picnics for kids to play while parents and families are shopping and dining and perhaps most importantly really creates a seamless park like experience that blends with the great park next door it's proposed to be built in two phases. The first phase is shown on the right side of the exhibit here. That's to be built on property owned by Almequist, and really a grocery anchored center focused on serving the neighborhood. Phase two would be delivered through a leasehold on city property, which is the subject of the rest of tonight's discussion, and would be focused on food and beverage and more of a lifestyle center that really operates seamlessly with the adjacent great park. Phase two, which is focused here on the exhibit, is approximately 10 acres. It includes construction of three new buildings, as well as the reuse of two existing buildings. That's Hangar 10, which is a mirror image of Hangar 244 and right down the canopy, or excuse me, right down the taxiway from Hangar 10 is Hangar 244. It's cousin building right on the other side. Also includes incorporation of the pop upsups as they've come to be called, or the repurposed shipping containers on the bottom corner of the site that overlooks the park and the soccer stadium. Also includes a parking lot at the top part of the exhibit here that would serve the second phase of the canopy, as well as extensive landscape areas, fountains entertaining space, outdoor seating and play areas. The project is structured similar to other projects that have come before the Council on the Great Park Board. It comes in two parts. It's a project, or excuse me, a pre-development agreement and a lease. Similar to Pretend City, OC Music and Dance, the museums museums at the cultural terrace west as well as Great Park Eye, Swild Rivers, the PDA serves as a list of conditions both city as less ore and the less sea have to meet prior to execution of the lease. And then the lease is the document that governs the relationship between the two parties throughout the term. City responsibilities include preparing the site, grading utilities and delivering pads, building the park with landscape common areas as well as the parking lot and some of the structural work on Hanger 10. Homequist would then be responsible for building the three buildings, the vertical construction on those pads, any necessary tenant improvements, furniture, fixtures, and equipment inside. During the life of the lease, Omquist would be responsible for programming, managing, leasing, operating, and maintaining the site and the adjacent parking lot. of the lease are 30 years with three options for 10-year extensions. The city would bond for the construction at a cost of approximately $14 million and then Almequist would pay for the principal and interest payments on that bond by way of an annual ground lease payment. Assuming a $14 million project costs, that's an annual rent payment of about $1.3 million based on current interest rates. And then rent would continue to the city after the bond is paid off. In addition to that base rent, there's also an opportunity for participation rent. Should the project be very successful to the tune of 1750 in revenue per lease square foot? That's $1,750 in gross revenue per square foot. The city would then participate with on-pues. So to that extent, we sit on the same side of the table, both really motivated to see the projects succeed to the extent possible. One quest takes takes on leasing operations maintenance, annual maintenance of the entire site. Should that be park space based on our per acre maintenance costs, that's about a $500,000 value annually to the city. Further, Omquist would be required to start construction 90 days after lease execution. So once the PDA conditions are met, lease is executed. Construction would need to start 90 days thereafter and be finished within 36 months. Estimated over the term of the lease, the city would earn just under $50 million after payment of debt service-related costs. We've counseled directs that we move forward tonight, a couple of steps that would follow. First is fall. We would be back with the financing terms. That's a bond issuance that the city would prepare in conjunction with a bond underwriter and our administrative services department. Full review of that would come back for our City Council consideration. And then winter 25, 26, we anticipate the PDA conditions being met for both the city and onquest. The lease would be executed, and then the construction would commence on phase two with the target opening for late 2026 or early 2027. With that, the recommendation before you is to approve and authorize the city manager to finalize the PDA and the form of lease with all-puest development for the Canopy retail project. And with that, happy to take any questions you have. thank you for the presentation. This has been anxiously awaited by so many people in the great park area and those of us from afar who also want to see retail close to the great park and available to people in the Northeast part of our city. Let me turn to my colleagues and ask if there are any questions or comments of staff regarding Staff's presentation. Oh there we are Councilmember Goh. Thank you Mayor. Are you guys going to come back to us at a future date when you guys actually go through the financing process to bond it and you know we would have proved it at that point as well. We will yeah we anticipate being back in the fall with all the details around the financing. Okay. So when that time comes, I'm assuming we're going to have a 30 year amortization on the renewal period, are we then going to take the debt service since the debt's gone? We're going to take that in lieu of the rent at that time. Is that correct? That's correct. And that will be spelled out, when we come to the financing part of it. Council member Go, I believe it's in the project development agreement. It is in the project development agreement and it'll be spelled out again in the financing documents. Okay. And I'm assuming all the default provisions will remain as well with the loan extinguish at that point. They will. Yeah. Okay. Others. Let me just say before we turn to the public, I'm going to just say before we turn to the public, I've seen as have my colleagues, of course, drawings, plans, renderings, I'm fond of saying, which is almost completely true. I've never met a rendering. I didn't like. They're always so beautiful. I think this one is going to be a truly beautiful project, wonderful project, fitting as it does. Between the Great Park and serving the surrounding residential community as well. I think it's going to be amazingly successful, enjoyable, and have a poll of our earlier discussion as part of the Great Park Board meeting. We were talking about aerial tram, gondola system, the Hush system. This will be landing there. Am I correct? That's correct. That leads me to believe that, wow, it really be possible for someone to come to the great park. My car, park once, spend the whole day by what you need, even do some shopping, and then head home. Park once, enjoy the park, all the amenities, including all the supportive supplies that you need to have a great day at the park. We can't wait, okay. Anything further? All right. Do we have any public commenters who have requested to be heard? No, Mr. Mayor. All right. Everything's calm out there. With that is there a motion? We'll move it. Mayor, move the item. Councilmember Carroll moves staff recommendation which is to approve and authorize the city manager to finalize and execute a project development agreement with Homquest Development and investment for the canopy retail project. Is there a second? A second. Seconded by Council Member Goh. Last chance for people to respond? I'd like to see a couple of us. Yes, Council Member Goh. So I've had the pleasure to visit the River Street Project that Omquist have done with other Council members as well here and If you guys have not seen it I encourage you guys to visit as well so you can give us Quite a bit of feedback on how I like to look and feel in design and I see I see Dan up here I'm sure he'll welcome any one of us visiting the project So I worked with Dan in the last few, kind of gave him my perspective as a great park resident, what we'd like to see there. And he's been receptive of all of our feedback so far. And he understands the challenges that we face as a community. And he's excited about the opportunity as well. So together, we're gonna be able to put forth an amazing retail center moving forward and we're really excited and looking forward to that and looking forward to see when you guys come back with the full proposal as well. Anything further? Let me ask when we were out there, I don't recall and I don't recall seen it in the plans, is there an area for performing artists, small bands and and so forth that could perform there and really ensure the liveliness of the entire area for shoppers and others. Yes, there is. The corner of the site down closest to the soccer stadium includes a small, informal life performance space. You know, grass at a slight grade and a small stage to really provide some additional energy to the site. Excellent. I think that will be well used once we get it up in operational. Terrific. Last call for any comments on the motion. See no requests with the clerk, please call the roll. Council member Carroll. Yes. Council member Goll. Yes. Council member Lou. Yes. Council member Traceeder. Yes. Nice mayor May. Yes. Mayor Eagren. Yes. Carey 6-0. Thank you both. Steve next time don't talk so much. Just kidding. He's got the next item. All right. With that, we move on to 3.3. Would the clerk please identify this business item by subject and title? Lic agreement with the county of orange for due diligence of county 100 acres site some due diligence on something we affectionately refer to as the county hundred site So just a brief overview way back in 2004 when when the base closed and when things were getting transferred to create the great park the city annexed that former property and as part of the investigation, proceeding, the county was to receive 100 acres of the site, the South of Marine Way, adjacent to the railroad tracks, and then also two sites north of a rumbull of our that we have actually referred to as the dog ears parcel. In 2014 the county pursued a rather ambitious development plan on that site that obviously garnered quite a lot of attention from the city and after quite a bit I'll link the dispute that project was scrapped. And then coming into last few years, we've reengaged with the county on a real master planning opportunity where we can integrate what's happening on that county hinder acres into something that would be consistent with our great park vision. And it would be a wonderful development in that area. And so the first piece of that is to do dododobsins on the site. We know a lot about the site because it was all contingent with the military base. But we need to get out there, poke around, dig some holes, do some analysis, and then come back to the city council with the results of that and perhaps a recommendation to take some further action with the county. goal of course is if everything checks that would be back to you proposing some type of a lease arrangement or we could do a joint development on the site. So the site involves approximately 60 acres depending on how you cut it up that the license agreement is for one year and 45 days. Don't ask me about the term that was in the county's document and we accepted it. It does not commit us to any further actions but does allow us to get out there and do that initial analysis, geotechnical reviews, civil engineering analysis, environmental analysis, conceptual site planning, all those things that the team did to bring the Gateway Project to fruition. We'd be doing on this site. And with this one because the county has also done some significant work on the site as far as intelligence gathering we'll be getting all of that within 45 days of execution of the agreement should the council direct us to move forward. With that the recommended action is before you and that is to authorize the city manager to execute the license agreement as attached to the staff report between the city and county of orange for that due diligence and pre-development agreement activities on the approximately 70 acre remaining site adjacent to the great park and we're here for any questions the F. Excellent before turning to my colleagues let me ask uh where are we on the the B-Welfth facility. The current B-W facility is actually the first phase of it. It's almost constructed. The B-Well entity that operates the nonprofit is actually called Mindocie. They're currently embroiled in some litigation with the county of orange. And so the operational profile of the facility will likely transition as that litigation works its way through. That being said, the first phase of the project is almost complete at this point. So I know this is a little bit tangential, but do you actually expect public services, beneficial services to be delivered out of that building soon? Short answer is yes. There's been a lot of time, energy effort to get the facility really constructed and up and running. In terms of how the operations would work, they're still I think a little bit of lack of clarity, given the dispute that's emerged between Mindoc and the county. We're hopeful the dispute will get resolved in short order and we'll have a clear operating plan and what happens on the site moving forward. All right, thank you. I'll turn to my colleagues now. Any questions of staff at this point? There being none. So, City Clerk, Petersen, tell us are there any requests from citizens to be heard? We have one request to speak via zoom Excellent, please call on that person. Thank you mayor. Our speaker is Jeremy. Jeremy you may unmute your mic Yeah, hi Just a quick question. Is this location, the same location as the proposed Metro Railyard? I know there was a Metro Railyard that was built on the county property, or potentially, and I know there is issues and litigation. Is that what is, is that where this site is? I'm not sure. That's just a question. Thank you. Well, let's see if we can get that question answered right now on the spot. It is adjacent to that site, but it does not include that site. It's adjacent to that site. Excellent. And that is all mayor. All right. There be no further public comments. A motion would be in order. I'll make a motion to move the item. Staff recommendation, mayor. Council Member Carroll, move staff recommendation. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Vice Mayor and Council Member Mai. I ask all for any comments on the motion. There being. Oh, there we are. Council Member Goh. As far as the license agreement, are we going down the path of kind of a partnership with the county or more of a fixed fee once we identify the uses of it. We would come back to the council for review. One potential opportunity is a long-term ground lease with the county. So not so much partnership is more or less or less a relationship that would allow us to do some planning and implementation, but that's part of what we're trying to figure out during this due diligence period. We'd bring that framework back for your review. Do we have confidence as far as the county and working in good faith with us? I know there's, I've been asked, there's challenges. If the rail yard does get built there. Housing kind of becomes of a challenge. How far? How far we can put the housing from the rail yard, et cetera, if it were to happen. In some respects, some of the initial planning we've done with the county is all listed and I, some optimism from staff's perspective. We've talked to them about several types of land uses, including buffering adjacent to the rail yard to make sure that the remaining property can be maximized for a type of use that would be appropriate in the location. I do think at this point It appears the county's interests and the cities are aligned in that the county is hoping to be able to redevelop the site for something more productive. The pathway to get there really does require the city's cooperation and partnership and all the conversations we've had that the staff level to this point indicate that the arrangement that Pete and Steve described some type of a ground lease arrangement where the city would serve as the master developer we plan out the site come up with the development options review it with our city council first also review it with the county to make sure there's concurrence with the type of projects we move forward. If we can reach that goal, it's certainly I think we'll have to do a lot of work to get there. But if we can reach that goal, then I think it could be mutually beneficial for everybody involved. Can you confirm if this area would fall in the Great Park or the general city? It's technically not part of the great park. It's technically in the city, but it's great park adjacent. So all items would go through the planning commission initially. Correct. Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing no requests at this time, the motion Properly before us. I'll call on the clerk to please call the roll council member Carol Yes, council member go. Yes, council member Lou. Yes, council member Traceeider. Yes, vice mayor Mai. Yes mayor Agren. Yes, Carrie 6.0 Thank you all That allows us now to move on to item 3.4. Would the clerk please identify this item by subject and title? Consider expanding the Irvine Connect Neighborhood Shuttle program. with this item now before us. We'll turn to City staff. I'm going to ask both of you, gentlemen. Please tilt your screen down so we can see your faces. Excellent. Thank you. And proceed with your presentation. Please identify yourselves and proceed with it. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council. We sestive as Acting Director of Public Works. With me this evening is Mike Davis our transit administrator and we're here to provide you with a presentation on the proposed expansion of the Irvine Connect Shuttle. So by way of background the city council approved the Irvine Connect pilot program back on September of 2023. And really the purpose of this shuttle was to create a neighborhood service, or a neighborhood transit service that really would connect residents to various service centers, retail centers, schools, and parks. We've had over 141,000 boardings in the pilot's first year. And daily boardings have doubled since the pilot's inception. As a matter of fact, just on April 10th of this year, we had our busiest day with 740 boardings on the existing route. Irvine Connect is now the third busiest transit route operating in the city today, which includes 15 other OCTCT bus routes. And then finally on February 11th of this year, Council directed staff to explore the possible expansion of this service. So the current system is what we call the Yale Baranko Route. It includes five buses in this service and it presently serves the Irvine train station, the Spectrum Center, both the Hogue and the it presently serves the Irvine Train Station, the Spectrum Center, both the Hogue and the Kaiser hospitals, IVC, our Senior Center at Lakeview, several schools and community centers, of course Irvine High School as well, Northwood Town Center. So as we've additionally sat down to develop an expansion of the system, we really wanted to think this through, have a thoughtful approach to how we develop an expanded network. And what is the best ways to reach as many residents and neighborhoods and points of interest throughout the community in an efficient way, working within the confines of the resources that we have available to us. And so these resources are primarily made up of Proposition 116 funds. These are transit funds going back to the 1990s as part of the old center line project proposal, the now defunct light rail system. the funding for that system was still active and made available to local cities to fund transit programs. These funds are controlled by OCTA who budgets money every year for this program to reimburse the city for transit-related uses. Essentially, the main conditions of using these funds is that they're only spent on transit-related purposes and that they have to have some kind of a nexus to a mass transit system or a train station. Currently, we are using some of those funds on our iShuttle program, which is a smaller circulator system that really is focused on providing that last mile connection between our train stations. So as part of this proposal, well, part of that issue is that since COVID, since the pandemic, the ridership numbers on eye shuttle have decreased significantly. And so our proposal would be to cancel the eye shuttle service as of this June 30th, transfer those buses and funding to the Iconnect or Irvine Connect system, which is proven to be quite popular. So the initial system that we proposed and that we considered was a three route system, which would expand the existing Yale-Boranca route north and then it would include what we're calling the Jamboree UCI route which generally runs along Jamboree and connects to the UCI area and as well as a Baranca link route which essentially connects Yale-Boranca and Jamboree with that middle piece along Baranca. So the expanded Yale Baranca route, the current route includes five buses, but working on 20-minute headways, the expanded route would add one additional bus. You'd have six buses total in service operating on 20-minute service. This expanded route would include adding five additional stops and providing access to Northwood High School, the future gateway preserve, the eastwood Stonegate and the groves neighborhoods. So in addition to that, we looked at creating, as I mentioned, the new Jamboree UCI route. This would add two additional buses operating on a 60 minute headway, and this would connect points of interest such as the marketplace, the Tustin Station, various IBC employment centers, the Diamond Jamboree Shopping Center, several hotels, of course, John Wayne Airport, UCI Health, Irvine Hospital, as well as UCI itself, and the University Town Center. The New Baranca link route, basically linking Yale Baranca to Jammery would require one additional bus operating, also in a 60 minute headway. That would connect to a number of apartments and churches, a number of schools, a number of parks, of course, the Irvine Civic Center, and several key shopping centers as well. The cost for this expanded option, that is the Yale Baranka route operating on a 20-minute service, the Jambri UCI and Baranka link operating on 60-minute headways, over the course of 16 years would cost an average each year of $8.8 million. The city has access to maximum of $5.5 million on average per year in those 116 funds. And that would leave an annual cost that the city would have to cover of $3.3 million. Now in addition to those routes, we also considered a fourth route, which we've called the potential great park route. This would provide access to a number of schools to the broth community, including several community centers, Irvine High School, some shopping centers, and also the Tuston Station and the Irvine station. So taken in totality, if we had unlimited resources to work with, the entire network based on 20 minute headways, no, versus no 60 minute, but just all 20 minute headways on all four routes, you would have a total 19 buses in service. We would have to add 75 additional stops. The cost of that over the course of 16 years is about $256 million. We have about $88 or just north of $88 million in Prop 116 funds that we would be able to use towards that cost, which essentially would break down to a cost to the city of about $10.5 million over the course of 16 years. This table here provides a breakdown of those different route options and kind of provides a menu of options. The least expensive option of course is just expanding the current route, the current Yale Barranca route leaving that at 20 minute headways. It's an annual cost to run that at $7.9 million and when you apply the maximum allowable funds under that scenario of 116 funds, it's about $497,000 commitment to the city. Adding the additional routes, you see the costs jump up significantly more than doubling. adding the Jamboree UCI and the Branca link routes. That would boost the cost of the system to over $11 million a year, and would result at about a $5.8 million commitment to the city. There's a couple other options as well with these scenarios that you could add the additional routes, put them in at 60 minute headways, and the annual cost to the city increases slightly to about $5.9 million a year. And then of course, the full package, all four routes, all operating on 20 minute headways, that cost increases to 10.5, so almost doubles to 10.5 million dollars per year. The team did look at a 10 year program alternative rather than limiting the props 116 money over an annual basis spread out over 16 years. We looked at a potential option that would allow us to bond for those funds now providing an initial tranche of money in the amount of $32.2 million that we could use towards the entire system. The costs that we've identified are laid out here, and this particular program, this particular option does leave a funding allocation need of about $8.8 million a year from the city. And of course we are evaluating options of how to secure funding for that gap as well as the other gaps as well. This table here provides a quick snapshot of that 10-year program. So depending on what options are selected, what routes are selected, and services, or service times, that generally will make the cost very fairly widely. It should be noted that on the 60-minute headways that I noted previously, those are for 14 total trips a day. So it would be operating on an hourly basis with 14 trips through every 24-hour period. We have one option here noted as it's called, it's noted as a seven trip. It would be seven hours daily, so we would cut the number of hourly trips by half and make those routes available seven hours out of the day. That would be the least expensive option in costing the city about $3.5 million a year. This program, expansion program was presented to the Transportation Commission on April 15. They had a robust discussion and debate over the various options presented to them. And they unanimously voted to recommend to the City Council that it adopt the recommended actions which would be to move forward with expanding the existing Irvine Connect route. And then adding additional routes in the future so long as the city could afford to provide 20 minute headways. They did say that the 60 minute headways would most likely not work in the long term because it's obviously less convenient for the for the community's benefit. For this evening, the recommended actions before the council this evening, we are recommending to continue obviously the Irvine Connect program or the Irvine Connect route which was initially set up as a pilot and that would allow us to continue this route through the end of this current fiscal year and then expand it north to run along Portola as we showed starting in July of this year. As well as direct staff to assess and develop a budgetary plan to facilitate the addition of two new Irvine Connect routes that would include the Janbury UCI route and the Brank a Link route for implementation sometime in fiscal year 2526. It would also direct staff to establish a capital improvement project for construction of additional 25 Irvine Connect bus stops and of course extend or execute an amended contract with our current bus operator for those expanded bus routes. Of course this this continue. The three eye shuttle routes by June of this year and transfer those buses and 116 funding to the Irvine Connect program. And then direct staff that over the course of the next year assess the viability of instituting a fourth Irvine Connect route to link the great park area with the proposed expanded Irvine Connect system. And of course, including the viability of bonding against those funds to provide that funding up front and allow us to expand the system sooner. And that concludes my presentation and Mike and I are available to answer any questions you may have. Well, thank you for a very important and comprehensive presentation. Before turning to my colleagues I'll be happy to open it up by asking a couple of things maybe commenting a little bit as well. First of all just underscore a point that was made by our city manager when we were talking about the Great Park Swift City's Wush system. What we're talking about here is a citywide system. What we're talking about in connection with the Great Park was I I don't want to diminish it, but it was a customized boutique system to really serve the park in the park area, serve the park internally. I don't want people getting confused. It's not one or the other. The city manager indicated a question of both. So let me ask you, this urban connect system that would be jamboree and a UCI route. Would that be interconnecting with the anti-dirt system or is this presuming we're on our own? That's an excellent question Mayor. Thank you for that. We have had conversations with UCI about the potential for their riders on the anti-dirt and our riders on Irvine Connect to be able to use both services interchangeably. They have, and there's a few issues that they need to work through because technically speaking, the ant eater is paid for by students and typically used for the reserve for the use by students and faculty and staff. But they do see a really good opportunity there to allow that interconnection, the interoperability. In fact, we identified a great spot near the campus that's sort of a mini mobility hub where you have Ant-Eater Irvine Connect and OCTA bus stops, all kind of converging in the same location. So there is a benefit to that, they recognize that as well. I know what I was to bring the cost to us down if we were in a cooperative arrangement with them obviously. All right. Let me just say flat out what seems to be working now is the fact that the Irvine Connect system up and operational now is free and it has 20-minute headways that seems to be the sweet spot on all of this. I'd be very hesitant to see us depart from the 20-minute headways just about anybody can wait up to 20 minutes for a bus but an hour, no, that requires a whole different kind of person. Okay. Let me say whatever we decide upon, we are of course going forward with the Irving Connect this summer and beyond. I think it's imperative that we have a really robust marketing program for the existing program and anything we add on. What we're really doing is I think cashing in on the opportunity to have an entirely different culture of individuals, younger people who get used to in their younger years using the Irvine Connect system, obviously senior citizens as well. They got to know it about it. Once they try it. I think a big percentage of them are going to be hooked and properly so. They can also explain and I think as part of the marketing, you should say, you know, really appropriate use of the Irvine Connect system can allow an entire household to eliminate one automobile and add an automobile. They can save themselves five to $10,000 a year by downsizing to one less automobile. This has so many beneficial implications, of course, on our climate action and everything else. I hope that's a part of the calculation here, by the way. We reduced vehicle miles traveled and changed the culture and everything else. All right. Let me just say, coming back to the anteater matter, Chancellor Gilman, who hosted a lovely breakfast for the entire City Council just a few days ago, I had the opportunity to be sitting next to him and ask of him privately and then with the group as well. What are the chances of our cooperating linking up with the free and eater system so that we can have a city-wide system, a better serve, obviously, of the university part of our community as well. And his response was not specific, but it was very positive to the effect of, I think I can get our people on that right away. So I would pursue that early on. All of this is to say, I've overrun my time here. All of this is to say that I think we're on our way with a terrific vision for a transit system overcoming the one principal shortcoming from the very beginning in the city, which is we didn't put transit first. I'm spoken enough, other council members have questions of staff or should we turn to public comment? I think we'll turn to public comment. Thank you Mayor. We have ten requests, excuse me, eleven requests to speak. Three are in person in the restaurant zoom. We have eleven speakers. Correct. How many are here? Three. Three here. All right. Let's allow two to two to three minutes. Let's say two minutes and if those individuals who are using two minutes need just a little more time we'll happily grant it to them. Okay. Thank you, Mariff. I could call forward Susan Sayer, Doug Elliott, and Yusuf Kadesh. And we'll start with Susan Sayer. Welcome, Susan. Hi. Well, my name is Susan Sayer, and I'm an Irvine resident. I live at Regent's Point, Senior Community, and as you know, our administrators and administrators and my fellow residents and I have worked hard to meet and communicate with city staff to present our need for expansion of the Irvine Connect. Your proposed route plan includes multiple interconnecting routes, which appears to make it difficult and pine-consuming to access the destinations we want and need. I had a conference call with Mike Davis and Luis Isviz from the Transportation Department who explained that there is not enough funding to provide a cover route to take us down to Lakeview Senior Center and allow us to transfer to the existing Irvine Connect route. The proposed multiple routes were discussed and transportation plan for our residents could necessitate multiple route transfers in order to access our desired destinations. However, none of the roots will give us access to Rancho Senior Center or the University Park Library. The plan is to require, hopefully, the plan will be to require most roots to have 20 in bus frequencies, rather than an hour, and how the Saturday and Sunday transportation hours extended to about 11 p.m., which would allow us a region point of residence to attend Barclay Theater and Swan Theater performances on weekends. The purpose for Irvine Connects should be more than taking cars off the road and supporting students. The goal should also include meeting the needs of seniors, members of the disabled community, those who do not drive and business customers and employees by giving them access to local businesses, grocery stores, pharmacies, post offices, shopping centers to the Irvine Valley College and which will play an increasingly significant role in Irvine's health and wellness programs. I therefore suggest that the proposed routes be amended to include covert and jeffery to allow residents and employees to access Irvine Shopping Centers along those streets and to access Irvine Valley College, which the proposed routes do not provide access to the stores, by the way, and post offices. Thank you for your comments tonight and for your continuing advocacy. It's making a difference. Thank you. Doug Elliott? Welcome Mr. Elliott. Thank you Mayor and good evening. Again I'm Doug Elliott, a member of the Community Services Commission soon to have a name change and still speaking for myself. I am a fan of Irvine connect. I was on board, I think, on its first day of operation. And I was very impressed with it. Unfortunately, I have kind of a last mile problem where I live. It's not far from here, actually, but a little too far to walk up around the Paseo West Park and Warner. So that also is a pretty good hike to the closest I can next stop, or if I can next stop personally. Now this proposed Baronka extension would be a real game change or me. I could not only get to the existing route with a transfer. But I'd be able to take the bus to City Hall, which would be wonderful. And a lot of other places I go, you know. And with the jamboree route, I'd basically be able to leave my car at home for most of the places I go. But that depends on the frequency of service, 60 minutes, I agree mayor is not going to cut it. So it needs to be every 20 minutes. That said, I'm very sympathetic to the concerns that Susan raised tonight and in the past and hope that those can be accommodated with some minor adjustments. I look forward to hearing from Commissioner Kadesh. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. You said Kadesh. Welcome, you said. Okay. Good just wanted to say thank you for your continued support for it. And I also just wanted to highlight the 20-minute frequency is what makes Irvine Connect successful on top of it being free just like you said. So, and I also just wanted to say very quickly that, you know, I would advocate to be more willing to spend outside of the 116 funding. I mean, I don't know why we have to limit ourselves just to that. It's very, very normal for cities to spend a certain percentage of its budget on transit. And, you know, it's a question of how much. I mean, that's something you guys can decide, but I just hope that, you know, why are we only limiting ourselves to one-sixteen funding when we could get more coverage in other parts of the city? And really, I mean, this is not frivolous city amenities. This is something that really does. Change people's lives, takes cars off the road, and reduces congestion, and all the things we're trying to achieve. So anyway, I don't want to take too much time, but I want to thank you for your support, and have a good night. Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is James. you, you may unmute your mic. Good evening, members of the City Council. I'm James from Woodbridge. Irvine Connect's first route has been a major success. It's become a regular part of how I get around and an indispensable service to many in the community. The biggest ask from others has been to extend it to their community. And the routes presented here today are fantastic. West Park, IBC, John Wayne, UCI, Heritage Plaza, Irvine High, Woodbury, Great Park, and more can all be part of a great connected network. These are big trip generators. This is a vision for Irvine to have a clean transportation network that also reduces traffic. And the key to the success of the initial Yale Baroque route has been that 20 minute frequency. It means a bus is never too far away and can fit many different schedules. Any longer and the wait time makes using the bus unrealistic for many trips. Hourly frequency fails to deliver on Irvine Connect's core strength. Irvine has the city budget to support 20-minute frequencies and other comparable cities such as Culver City spend up to 10% of their budget on transit. As it is an essential city service, this is not unusual at all. Irvine can do the same and does not have to rely solely on 116 funds. I strongly urge the City Council to fund as many routes as possible at 20-minute frequencies to help Irvine connect become a success for the whole city. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is John Brock. John, you may unmute your mic. Hi, my name is John Brock. I'm a resident of Irvine. I just want to say how excited I am to see these new proposed routes. I don't want to give a really big thank you to everyone in the city staff who put so much work into this. This is really great. However, I will echo the mayor's comments and the comments from other speakers that frequency of only one bus per hour is really way too low. You know, if I'm trying to decide whether I want to take the bus or drive a bus just isn't going to compete if it's only running once per hour. So I want to really encourage the City Council will spend money to really set these new routes up for success. Even if we have to spend money beyond what OSTA is providing, we're spending tens of millions dollars a year on projects like Whiting of Roads, which doesn't make a dent in traffic, it doesn't improve quality of life. The least we can do is start spending our money on more transit. Thanks. Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Jeremy. Jeremy, you may unmute your mic. Hi there. Jeremy Ficarola. I'm a Cypress Village resident in District 2. And I first I want to thank the staff and City Council for continuing support of ICONNEC Shuttle. I think it's a great, great service. It is game-changing. So my biggest qualm is that here in District 2, you know, great park, Woodbury, Stonegate, Portoal Springs, Altair, we seem to be kind of on the short end of the stick and I'm really really hoping My council member will advocate for district two. This is actually Exactly the moment when district to let moving to district elections when a council member of a district can really advocate for their constituents and I see route four which is the group 3 or 4, which seems to be like the last choice, sort of like the one that you would cut out first because of expenses is the one that goes through Great Park and different areas and district 2. And I know I would greatly, I mean I would personally use it all the time. Great Park is expanding. There's many, I mean it's a a big portion of Irvine and it looks like it's kind of left out and I'm just really, I'd be very, very disappointed if, you know, City Council did not include the Great Park route, which I forget, which route that is, but any iteration of Great Park and, you know, District 2 being I would out, I would be greatly disappointed. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Nishika. Nishika, you may unmute your mic. Hi. Sorry about that. Good evening, my name is Nishika and I'm sorry about that. Good evening. My name is Nishika and I recently moved to Woodbridge. I want to first say I'm extremely proud to live in a suburban city that has its own bus route that is free and that means to connect the city. And I would love nothing more than to see it expand as much as possible. The plan's outlined today are extremely exciting. I'd like to echo the previous comments made and really urge the council to stick to 20 minute frequency for all routes, including the proposed new ones. I'm a transplant from New York City and very deeply understand the value and necessity of high frequency public transit. As a taxpayer, I'd be very happy to see more funds allocated to increasing the bus frequency across new routes and providing more adequate options for residents to get around or find without a car. Thank you. Our next speaker is Harvey this. Harvey, you may unmute your mic. And Harvey, let's, uh, resident of Irvine since 1976. I'm curious what the criteria are for selecting each section overroute. There seem to be long straight sections rather than taking small detours to pick up things like a nearby shopping center. However, I heard mentioned that we'd be going to Heritage Plaza and of course the Woodbridge Center Plaza across Culver, but I joined in too late to see the map. It would also be nice to go to the district, but that's in Tussin. So would that permanently kill that possibility? And lastly, Doug Elliott's comment about missing the last mile or maybe the last any distance would encourage walking and even carrying bags that would help giving life to lots of people. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. How many more do we have? We have three more. Three more. Go right ahead. Our next speaker is Dane Kirstens. Dane, you may unmute your mic. Hi, can you hear me? We can hear you. Hi, yeah, I'm a wood bed rest student. And I just want to say that I connect absolutely needs to be supported. The city has turned out and supported it. Writership has been up continuously over the last year month over month. The City Council supported it. Guys just voted 50 to renew it. Transportation Commission supports it. Specifically, they support it with the caveat of 20 minute frequencies. The thing that will turn this service from, well, I guess it exists to something actually great. This is a chance to be building something for this thing, something that you can put your name on, something that will exist for hopefully decades to come. Now, do you want that thing to, let's be honest, kind of suck, which is what hourly frequencies would be, that waiting an entire episode of friends with commercials and knowing you have an entire episode waiting for you before your bus gets here. That's not acceptable. Please build a network that works and make it 20 minute headways. Thank you. Our next speaker is Spencer answer the question. You may unmute your mic. Hello. Members of the Irvine City Council. My name is Spencer Lynch. I'm an urban planning student at UC Irvine. I would strongly urge you all to, especially on weekends, especially given the city size being one of the largest cities in Orange County, both population and land-wise. The 20-minute frequencies that Irvine can currently have are really what make the system great and extremely popular and extremely beneficial to myself. Other UCI students and seniors, people with disabilities, and anyone else that wants to use it because it's a wonderful system. It's also great to connect to testing and Irvine, Metrolinque and Amtrak stations, and the new proposed proposed route to John Wayne Airport, which I guess along with Tustin, would be amazing, especially for those of us that live in the University Park area. The service would be great. It would help reduce cars on the road, and of course, help the city meet their sustainability goals, and really just make a revining better place. I really hope you would support this expansion with 20 minute frequencies. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sylvia Walker. Ms. Walker, you may unmute your mic. Hi, this is Sylvia Walker, Irvine resident. I just want to give my support to expanding Irvine connect. I connect in any way possible and keep it to no more than 20 minute wait. Otherwise, it won't be that at appealing to people to use. I the current route would really accommodate me because I'm off of Irvine bullet bar just a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a hope the great park and the general area will be considered at some point, but for right now I support any kind of expansion. Thank you. Thank you. And that is all Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Mr. City Clerk. Thank you to the commenters. At this time, a motion would probably be in order. Unless, oh, there we go. Council member, and vice mayor, my. Yes, thank you, mayor. So this has been a great exercise here. You know, I was one of the votes here to continue, connect and explore the options of expanding here. I'm glad we got the numbers. I read a lot of this and thank you for considering the seniors and children at the structures and the benches. Hopefully that can get ridership up. That's been a big complaint from a lot of the residents along the existing routes where they can't have a place to sit or with the summer coming up. Where are they going to stand in the sun for 20 minutes? One of the things that is really alarming to me is the cost here. And if we had unlimited funds, we could do great things. But we don't have unlimited funds. I think we need to get ridership up before anything else. I think we're kind of just jumping ahead here and talking about the expansion that costs, I mean, millions and millions. I mean, this is huge here. Even when we filter down the shuttle here, I mean, we currently have five buses, but what is the current ridership again? Can you talk to that? I don't have that number on my mind. Yeah, we've been averaging in the last few months. Nearly eight boardings an hour. We have gone beyond that. And a number of days is in the biggest ridership we've had to date was just on April 10th with 740 boardings that day, which is almost 11 boardings per hour. Okay. In this report here, I don't see any sort of marketing campaign or any sort of ways do get ridership up. Is that in something to consider or is that something you guys have been considering as well? Can you address that? Certainly. We've been, our comms and engagement team has been working on developing enhanced marketing. I think that's been helpful in seeing ridership levels increase. At the outset of Irvine Connect, we were averaging about three boardings per hour. At this point, we're up to seven to eight boardings an hour. Typically a transit route that's functioning well needs to hit about ten boardings per hour. And so we have seen growth over the last year in ridership on the existing route. The marketing certainly could be improved and we have a plan that we've been deploying the last couple of months as Irvine can have got more mature. We've done some marketing and partnership with the spectrum and we're certainly going to continue to look for ways to encourage folks to ride the existing bus system. Great as usual thank you. So the current cost is about 8 million and we're looking at full build out at 168 million total city cost. I mean, there's a lot of money, an expansion like that. I wanna also say, I understand the public comments here and the effort we have to, with public transit, but has any, I've heard from a lot of people, but I haven't heard from a majority of the people out there I haven't heard from families that have Three four kids I haven't heard from anyone else I've just heard from a small number of people and and for us to spend this much money I think we need to consider other people as well. I don't think there's any bit outreach to to the general public to get their feedback on this. Has there, Unless I'm wrong, I mean, I could be wrong. Has there been any surveying or talking to families out there? We haven't done any survey work on the system. We've really been tracking ridership ultimately. To the point raised regarding budget, if the council would indulge the staff, we may provide a little context and maybe address some of the comments that we heard. We heard some comments as it relates to why did staff select these routes and why were you're using these routes why were it prioritized the way that we prioritized with certain routes at 60 minute headways. First, if we go back to the beginning, all of the routes were assessed, studied, developed through a comprehensive transit study, the transit vision plan. That laid out the framework of the routes that we should contemplate as funding became available. It's important. That's great city manager. I just wanted to know if the public was informed or gave feedback or if there was a survey where we went from, and if they're comfortable with us going from $8 million to $160 million more without the government, without citizens' feedback, just of a few or what studies about the routes. I mean, that's not an issue to me about the routes. What is an issue to me is that people in general, community, families have not been contacted, but we're going to increase and we're talking about spending $160 million more without fully surveying. Urvine. Which is- But you answered my question, which we didn't yet. We haven't and the initial proposed route structure with that headways really was identified as an additional cost factor that would cost the city somewhere around $3.3 and a half million a year more in costs above what we've currently budgeted. That's why you've seen the staff recommendation being tonight, I think we're trying to get some feedback from the city council on preferences related to headwaves, routes, and the real recommendation is direction for us then to take that feedback put together a budgetary plan for consideration I heard some comments from the public tonight why can't we allocate more money towards the program? We certainly can budgeting is about priorities where do we want to allocate our resources towards? The there's some cities that have their own transit authorities culver City City, for example, has their own transit authority with a draw additional funding. I heard that mentioned early or tonight. One of the things that I think folks need to understand is the scale of how much things cost to operate as is. On an annual basis, Carl's department, the City Clerk's office, one of the smallest departments in the city that costs us roughly $3.5 million a year to run right now. That's the cost to run the clerk's office annually. The community development department costs about $16 million a year to run that entire department. When we're talking about the dollars and cents of why can't we allocate more? The question is, and the answers in that we can't, the answer is we've never had a transit program in Irvine that the city funded. And so we're taking steps to look at restricted dollars initially to fund an initial launch. And we're looking to grow the program in a way that we can afford and do so in a responsible manner. The parameters of what that system should look like, the transit system, we love to get some feedback from the council tonight on headways, route preferences, we can take all that back and then assess how do we match that up with our available resources moving ahead, but the scale of what's suggested 20-minute headways across all four of the different routes that we've looked at would cost the city $16 million a year. About 5 million of that a year could be covered by 116 funds that leaves a gap of $10 million a year. And we don't have a funding plan that can sustain that type of support at this moment unless their operational cuts to the existing operation or new revenues found, which is why we've looked at a scaled approach, is there a way to step into an expansion and direction to staff to look for additional resources so that we can expand the system over time. But hopefully that provides a little context. Certainly I think the service is terrific. How we match up resources to fund the service, I think, is the next step in our efforts to expand public transit in Irvine. Thank you. My preference is no operational cuts to fund this for one. And my preference also is to get feedback from the public at large. And I'm glad that you brought up Culver City because I actually did research Culver City, their public transit rates just for comparison. I was wondering also if we're able to do something similar to that versus a free model. I mean, for versus the standard rate in Culver City is the $1. Students, $0.75. Seniors are $0.35. Blind passengers are free. Also, there's discounts and free ride share programs for schools within the district there as well. So maybe that's something we should consider as well. But thank you for clarifying some of my questions here. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Vice Mayor Mai, Council Member Carol. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I just thought I'm going to be voting no on this. I kind of tend to agree with some of the other comments. I think the staff did a wonderful job on this. I think that You know, I would just say to my colleagues who I need to try to bring over to my side This isn't my saying that the that the current program is this isn't my expression that the current program isn't doing what it's doing. It's just, in my opinion, I feel like we need to see how everything's going, run the program through, let it play out, and maybe come back and maybe perhaps this fall, see how the summer goes. It's actually encouraging you here from staff that we've had some, it sounds like we had one very robust ridership day and maybe it was just one and the other one seemed pretty anemic. We did hear from, you know what city manager Chi referred to as quote unquote the public tonight. We have 318,000 residents in the city. We heard from people that spoke as part of public comment. And I think virtually all of them were mass transit advocates. And that's great. And I listen very closely what they say. I have a good relationship with them. We may not agree on everything. But they were mass transit organizations. We're not necessarily organizations, but certainly strong, strong advocates. Less roads, kind of advocates, road diet advocates, the same people that gave us C.C.L. Irvine, the same people that, you know, they would prefer less cars. And that's fine, that's a position. I don't hold that position. I try to think about what the position is of everyone on my street. I happen to live in a single family home. I used to rent at some point. I have a lot of friends that rent in Irvine. And thinking about what those families are doing. And right now, they're probably doing what's happening at my house. Working on algebra one, working on maybe pre algebra in eighth grade or something like that. They're not here. not calling into the city, they're not availing themselves of the zoom, which again as we heard tonight is completely optional and most cities in the county of Orange. algebra and eighth grade or something like that. They're not here, they're not calling into the city. They're not availing themselves of the Zoom, which again, as we heard tonight, is completely optional. And most cities in the county of Orange doesn't even have that. You physically come here and speak. I like the accessibility of the Zoom, but what we have is people that were able to call and be transit advocates that were organized for a transit advocate agenda item. So I'm not against the Irvine Connect. I am against the massive expansion of it. I think massive is probably close to the right word because it's expanding by at least exponentially as the staff report reflects. And we do have, I appreciate City Manager's point on transit agencies. We have this thing called the Orange County Transit Agency. We're all paying many, many dollars, certainly of Irvine into tax. I sit on that board proudly of the Orange County Transportation Agency. And those monies come back to Irvine. So I'm pretty comfortable with what we do now. I would ask my colleagues just urge them to perhaps revisit this in a few months before we engage in a parabolic expansion of a program. And again, just think about the entire master plan and the entire fabric and the framework of all our residents and whether this is a system we need when we currently have Orange County Transit Authority buses and we currently have, I wouldn't even call it embryonic, we have a pretty good base system in place right now. So again, this is not against the staff, this is just my view, trying to give my opinion and I'm fortunate enough to have been elected to give a vote. So my vote is right now, no, but it's a no means against what we're doing right now, I just want to make that clear. And I hope that we can get to a point where we could maybe pause it. We'll see what the rest of this council wants to do and maybe come back in the fall. But thank you. And thank you, staff, and appreciate your guys. and I hope that we can get to a point where we can maybe pause it. We'll see what the rest of this council wants to do and maybe come back in the fall. But thank you. And thank you, staff, and appreciate your guys' efforts on this stuff. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for your comments. Before calling upon Council Member Traciter next and then Council Member Liu, I think What I'd like to do is put the motion in front of us. And then... I think what I'd like to do is put the motion in front of us and then have people try to speak to the motion because there's nothing in this motion that says we're committing committing to a far-fong transit system with this vote. It looks to be like it's budget for things, study this, look into this particular thing and so forth. Of course. this vote. It looks to be like it's budget for things, study this, look into this particular thing and so forth. Accordingly, what I'd like to do is just this moment, move adoption of staff recommended actions one through five. Second. Seconded by Council Member Traceter and rather than calling upon myself to talk a greater length in support of the motion, I'll turn now to Council Member Traceter and then Council Member Liu. Council Member Traceter. Thank you. Yeah, I'm very enthusiastic about this proposal. It's such a great way to help our residents, our residents expect us to invest their tax money wisely. A lot of them that we've heard from have really enjoyed this route. It includes mothers of small children who have written emails, I think, to all of us saying that they really enjoy it. They like bringing their kids on the shuttle. They really like taking them to the spectrum. Of course, students and folks, I mean, just lots of folks who would just prefer to ride rather than drive. $3 million a year from the city is really not that much in terms of our general fund. There is Mr. Chi pointed out there are many other expenses that we have that are much bigger that are well established and that the public likewise enjoys. I do want to point out that the eight boardings an hour is per shuttle? Yes? Not for the whole wrap. That would be, I have to think through all of that, it comes to that total per hour. And there, yeah, there are, there's a total of after thinking about this total of I believe 70 hours a day so that's why yes 740 boardings comes to 11 so yeah you could you could kind of say it's by the shuttle I suppose but it's yeah I think it's well used and it's continuing to increase. It's already our third most used route in the city. The public would like us to expand it. I really appreciate Miss Saer's advocacy, relentless to make sure that the folks in her area have access to transit. Many of them are not able to drive or do not wish to drive. I just think this is a wonderful opportunity for us to improve our traffic, take cars off the road, help our public, and for very little money. I mean, you could say, well, I don't know why we're talking about funding it for 16 years right now. I don't think we would do that. We have to pay like the whole thing up front for 16 years or The 16 year limit is tied to the amount of time we receive one 16 dollars which runs through 2041 the repayment schedule ramps over time So we've tried to simplify it and average cost per year The 16 year time limit really is geared towards the base funding amount, the main funding source that we've identified for our Vine Connect. Yeah, so we're not committing that much money per year. It's 3.35 million per year. I think that's very reasonable. So very happy to support this. I really hope it goes through. I'm excited to see our public use it and I'm excited to hear from them about how much they're going to enjoy it. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Traceter, Council Member Liu. Thank you. Well, thank you for doing all the work and I also think this is a great idea to expend it. And we're not asking for massive expansion for routes that are not as frequently used as what the study had shown. So I think a progressive expansion sounds like a great idea in consideration of how we're just building this out right now. And like what Mayor had mentioned that we are changing the culture essentially. The young kids are more likely to take to public transportation. And I would also echo the comment that happened before that. this really has been something that is able to help people change lives and help seniors who are not able to get to where they are I agreed that three three million dollars is really not a big investment in a city our size and considering our budget and like what city manager had already mentioned how we budget is really how we show priority on what we're trying to do so I think this wouldn't be a bad idea to have the expansion to serve students who have been advocating and also thank you to Miss Sayer for coming to advocate for residents of Regent's Point because your neighbors are probably not likely to be able to come to City Hall to advocate for themselves. So I am happy to see that we're able to provide more services. And if we are able to find more funding sources, I would like to see a bigger expansion in the future. But right now, I think this is not a terrible idea to expand what we have and bring more services to the residents. Don't thank you. Thank you, Council Member Liu. Council Member Gao, I don't think I've called on you yet, have I? Why don't I call on you first and then we'll come back to Council Member Mai. Thank you Mayor. I just want to address the caller on District 2. I'm looking at this more of a functional standpoint. I'm more inclined and I'm sure most other people too. Inclined to take public transportation to destinations where there is no parking and one of those destinations in Irvine is the spectrum. So rather than seeing one straight line that goes from one entity to the other, I'd like to see a route that's more in line with the patterns of the commuters. I think a lot of the residents in my district would be happy to take a public transportation option to go to the spectrum as well as the train stations. So that's kind of like my feedback. I mean, the rising cost is a concern. You know, unfortunately Irvine is not a dense city, like a lot of other places in other parts of the world, L.A. So it's fairly difficult to make public transportation work without the density. So more of a face-to-proach in terms of expanding it probably makes more sense. I'm not opposed to the expansion. I just want to make sure that we use the dollars wisely and really fighting for our district to have options as well in terms of getting to the places that we'd like to get to for our residents there. All right, before calling on you, Vice Mayor and Council Member Mai, can I make a couple of comments now with the actually questions. I want people to be really clear about the motion and I want to be clear about it. Action item number one is to continue the Irvine Connect Yale Baronka route through fiscal year 2425 and expanded north to run along Portola starting in July 2025. Now, if there's a no vote on this, that's kind of a compound action item. If there's a no vote, does that mean we're discontinuing the Irvine Connect system that exists now? Excuse me. The current Irvine Connect program was identified as a pilot program, so we have authorization to run it for the current year. July targets the next year, and so if the council chooses not to move forward with the existing program, that's a long way to get to, yes, if we don't approve of action item one, we wouldn't be continuing the pilot program. It will die. We don't want it to die. So that's action item one. Action item two is directing that staff assess and develop a budgetary plan to facilitate the addition of two new Irvine Connect routes to include a Janbury UCI route and a barrenca link route that would connect the expanded Yale barrenca route with the Janbury UCI route for implementation in fiscal year 2526. The essential part of this is to develop a budgetary plan. Well of course we ought to develop a plan that doesn't mean we necessarily have to implement it correct. Because if somebody votes yes on this is to develop a plan it's not to actually to re-emplement the plan. It's not too actually implement the plan. And you would come back to us and we'd talk about the plan if this were to pass. Now the third one is directly establishment of a capital improvement project for construction of additional 25 Irvine Connect bus stops and execute a contract with a bus operator for the expanded new routes and so forth. All right. That involves some serious costs that are dependent upon whether or not we're going ahead with one and two. So voting yes on this doesn't mean we get out there and start cutting up concrete immediately. Am I correct? You'd be correct. We would identify sort of the overall capital plan, which would be dependent on the routes that we add. Okay. And the discontinuance of the three-I shuttle routes, by the way, those were at one time quite successful. It got killed off largely by COVID and has never really recovered. But we recover money by discontinuing those routes. And what happens if we don't vote yes on this motion, those routes stay in place. Is that correct? Correct. For the moment, I shuttle routes would continue to operate. Yeah. We don't want that. Okay. And then finally, the direct that you assess the viability of instituting a fourth Irvine Connect route, blah, blah, blah, that would go to the great park area. We're just asking you to look into the viability of it. So it seems to me this is a thoughtful course of action that we should vote yes on. I have a lot more to say, somehow people think that it's a smart, economical move, not to institute transit, not to expand transit instead have people rely even more on their private automobiles. Subjecting the community to more congestion, more pollution, the roads that we move all these cars on are so expensive beyond belief in that we aren't using those roads more effectively with transit, rubber-tired vehicles that can reduce vehicle miles traveled in the city. In my view, it's a bargain. And as far as future funding, I'll tell you, OCTA, going to coming up with another M program. I guess this will be M3. Won't it Mr. Representative? All right. They're going to be asking Irvine to get behind this great big M3 program and my response to that is you bet provided you put a hefty amount of money in there so that we can continue to fund a comprehensive transit system in the city of Irvine that really makes a difference in our quality of life. So there's going to be plenty of money coming along in the future. to I won't go on. I'll get off the soap box. I'll call on Mr. Mai at this point. Council member Mai. Thank you, Mayor. Great points. I want to offer up a compromise here. And well, I'd like to propose an amendment to send out a survey to uh, or by residents to determine if they would ride the bus as if available. I don't think that's too much to ask. Um, that's a suggestion I'd like to propose that amendment. It's been moved that there be a survey conducted. Um, to determine whether people would use the system, ride the system. Is there a second? I'll second that. Point of clarification. Is it we have a motion on board? So I'm happy, I think I was the seconder. I'm happy to accept the amendment. As part of the original motion, is that the idea? Yeah. In other words, that be an action item in connection with all of this. Is that what you intended? Yeah. All right. The motion. Can we have it restated more artfully than I did? Mayor, I believe where you are right now is you made the motion for the five items that are on the screen right now. Seconded by a council member tresider. Vice Mayor Mai requested a friendly amendment from the maker and the second that the motion include a survey of community members to determine their interest in the routes that are being proposed. Vice Mayor, I hope I accurately characterized your motion. I think I got the gist of it. Good enough. Okay. And for whatever it's worth, I think that could be well integrated into action item number two, which is the assessment of those additional routes. All right. That's a friendly amendment offered, accepted by me and the seconder of the motion. All right, that's incorporated into the main motion. Anything further? Let's see, Council Member Carroll, then Council Member Liu, and I think we'll hopefully move toward a vote. Council Member Carroll. Oh, yeah, thank you, Mayor. I just want to point out clarification. So the friendly amendment was a survey to see if residents would ride buses or the survey was a friendly amendment to see if residents would ride the routes. I just want to understand what I could be voting on here. I understood it to be a survey to determine community interest in the routes that are being proposed, but it is to be fair, it is by its mayor, my's friendly amendment. So I hopefully got that right. One of order. So that's me. What is your point of order? So can you read that back again one more time, Jeff? Yeah. I understood your friendly amendment to be that the actions would include a survey of community members to determine their interest in utilizing the routes that aren't to be proposed. OK, I'm going to change that. Okay, it's the buses themselves. Routs, I have no problems with. I mean, that's just a minor issue. I wanna know about the buses themselves. So that's the change I want on there. I hope that clarifies it for you, Councilman Carroll. Oh, it definitely does. Because I wanna, and I apologize, I'm gonna be a real stickler. I want to know exactly what I'm voting on and what passes because I guess I voted on something I didn't realize I voted on some district one specific thing that I didn't realize that I voted on when I thought I was voting on something that was a citywide I sort of have libraries and communities, so I want to know exactly what I'm voting on. So can you repeat that back, City Attorney? Certainly. And before I do, I want to make clear that neither the maker nor the second have agreed to the revised amendment. But the revised amendment is that the motion will include a survey of community members to determine their interest in writing the buses. Yes. Thanks for the clarification. It was a make-or-othermotion. Let me try to, let me tell you, I'm not interested in what you had described it to be. I think it should be if there's a survey conducted. I'll tell you my problem here. You do a survey, you know? Council's thinking about extending the Irvine Connect Transit System. Would you like to see that happen? And would you ride it? People say yes. They just say, they'll overwhelmingly say yes. If this were conducted, if as suggested by the city attorney if action item two were changed to read directed staff assess hold on here directed staff conduct Hold on here. Directed staff conduct and develop a ridership demand survey and a budgetary plan relative to those two new routes. That's information I'd be interested in. If you want just a general survey, I mean, I'm not going to vote against the motion because there's a general survey in it, but I'll just tell you, he's always come back, yeah, people want it, they want it, they want it, but that doesn't mean they'll actually write it. I'm standing by my amendment. Okay, well let's just hold it there for right now. I accepted it as friendly, I won't disavow it right now. Let's hear from others. Council member Liu. Thank you. So Council member Carol, thank you for asking that question to clarify. That was also trying to understand what we're voting for. I believe we've gone past the point of trying to figure out whether residents want a bus system or not. So I agree with Mayor that maybe a survey to, I mean truth be told, I think a survey cost extra money than, you know, the city staff had already done the study to see where residents are writing the buses or public transit system. So I think it's a duplication of efforts in this case. And I would rather not have to spend more money on conducting a survey on something that's already been studied. So may I suggest that we just don't even entertain the idea of a survey? Well, thank you for your comment. Let me make a suggestion here or ask a question. What kind of survey work did you do in preparing the initial route that we have now? As part of the transit vision plan, there weren't methodologically significant survey work that was conducted. We assessed the different traffic patterns. We assessed options in areas to connect in order to come up with the route system that's articulated in the transit plan. And so we haven't done any real survey work whatsoever again to this point. We've been monitoring riderships to determine interest. So that's the first route came about mainly because of staff intuition or was there in fact some data that you use? there was absolutely data we looked at our ITAM traffic data working with a console. or was there in fact some data that you used? No, there was absolutely data. We looked at our ITAM traffic data working with a consultant to identify highest use traffic routes and traffic locations in town. We modeled then visitor locations where residents and travelers would go to throughout the city looking at traffic data and traffic patterns to come up with what routes might make the most sense. And is that what you did for the action item number two? Yes. The way that the route structure was suggested number one, the 60 minute head we looked at is Consistent with what the costs are a little bit more affordable, but it's consistent with what OCTA runs They currently run on 60 minute headways. We also started with the jamboree UCI route in advance of the great park route primarily because of the connection to the airport which was identified as a big driver in the preliminary initial Transhibition Plan that set the groundwork for the overarching Irvine Connect Program. So do you feel you need to do more survey work? The data never hurts. I think ultimately we look to the council if it's important to have an additional piece of input because we haven't done any survey work to this point. That's an important piece of information for the council to have. We can certainly go and coordinate that without without any problems. So let me make a suggestion here because we do try to get out of here by 10 o'clock. Okay. If under that action item two it says direct that staff assess. Well if staff were if that were deemed to include conducting some research survey, that's part of your assessment. As far as I'm concerned, if you think that would be valuable, do it. Does that satisfy your concern? Council member, why Well, as long as they do it, because they haven't done it, I mean, as long as they're able to do it, yeah, I mean, if it's part of the, I mean, is that going to be part of the package here or what it's talking about? Well, if we can just stipulate that the word assessment includes conducting whatever surveys, path deems appropriate. Like I said they haven't yet so that's why I wanted it in writing here as well. If we're going to spend millions of dollars I think we should and we want to get people out of the cars let's make sure that they want to get out of their cars for one. That's not too much to ask, I don't think. Well, again, that's why if the word assess is deemed to include conducting whatever surveys they deem appropriate, ridership surveys, expected ridership surveys, I think we just need to frankly give this back to staff in a form that allows us to take next steps. So I take it that my amendment is acceptable then. Yes, as long as your amendment is not deemed to just be a general survey of how people feel, I want staff to conduct whatever surveys, whatever research they need to. If that's what your motion, if that's what your amendment is, I'm happy to accept it. Great. And I want to add one more thing. It's not going to change anything. But I want to also do an analysis on why I connect failed. We knew it was a failure. So I'd like to understand a little bit why that was a failure as well in here. Very well. I just have to object to the characterization. We ran that system and it was actually quite effective. It was serving principally the business community. With commuters, I do not call it a failure. I call it a shuttle system that was actually somewhat successful and was really tremendously damaged by COVID. Let me just add one other thing. And then I think it was Mayor Khan who really pushed the idea of let's get something in place where residents can use it as opposed to commuters and it worked. It worked. Point of order I retract my statement there it was a system that didn't work properly due to unforeseen circumstances. My feelings are not heard. Okay, thank you. All right, there's a motion before us. Council member Carol. Council member Traceter. Council member Carol. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I just, you know, having kind of gone through this and I'm wondering if maybe if this is a potential solve Because I think that of these five actions I do agree with you, Mayor. I think that taken together a novo is probably draconian So I would simply make a substitute motion that we decouple all five and that we vote on each one separately. I think if we do this, we have the opportunity to instead of give the transit advocates everything they want to maybe express our wishes as council members with respect to the fact that we like the connect system and its current, for example, one, and example three, I don't have to vote for expanding 25 new stations and 100 something million dollars worth of funding on a system. I'm not sure I want when we seem to be having a lot of trouble over a very simple survey that would, which I still need clarification on with all due respect to my colleagues that should say the following. If you drive cars, will you get out of cars and get on buses? Because that's what we need to know, because like it or not, to the few people that spoke that are very strong transit advocates, and I don't, I can't wait to partner with them on the transit-oriented development that I am more than, more than pumped and excited about doing around our train station. I can't wait to join forces with them on that and to connect that train station with our park and everything else. This thing I think is a bridge too far. Again, just for me, so I'd make a substitute motion, let's decouple all five and vote on them separately. If I could get a second on that, I'd appreciate it. I'll second. If there were two action items it would be by for Katie in it. I don't know what it is when it's five for Katie in it. Okay. I was thinking I'll make them one at a time. Let's do couple one. I'm not sure. No, very well. It doesn't have to be a substitute motion. I'll turn to our city attorney. How all right let's let's go ahead with your motion to it's not a substitute motion really it's just a a substitute, it's a different procedure really. Mayor, at this point, the substitute motion was to take separate votes on all five. So if it passes, it won't be a vote on any one of the five, then you'd have to go forward and take a vote on each of the five. And that substitute motion would kill the main motion, so you'd be in that position. Why don't I just suggest right now that we vote on each of these action items separately and forget it being a substitute motion and all that business? Yeah, given that your prerogative is the maker of motion. Yes. I think you may. I think that's the easiest way of doing it. Are we going to couple the survey into one of the five just so we can kind of talk a little bit about the survey one when we get to it? As far as I'm concerned, I don't have a problem with anybody doing a survey. Okay, well we can talk about it as we go. Thank you, Mary. Appreciate that. I would put it into the second one if you're doing that. All right, Councilmember Traciter, go right ahead. Thank you. I guess I'm fine with how we want to go through the votes. I just want to make sure that I, these are for 20 minute intervals, correct? We're going to be talking about. The current plan related to the expansion that cost about $3.5 million a year more included 20 minute headways for the expanded Yale Baronka route and 60 minute headways for the Baronka link and the J the and the and the and the and the and the and the and the and the and, but to shift everything to 20-minute headways would increase the costs from three up to six or seven million dollars a year on an annual basis moving ahead. We would assess all of that based on the council's vote on the items coming forward, bring those options back to the council for you to consider how you would want to move forward after it's fully assessed. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say that, well, go ahead. I think I'll probably probably will say the same thing. But what if we just have the 20 minute headways for the Jambri UCI root map and not have it for the link? The Brank a link route map. That would be definitely part of our assessment. When we've looked at the 20 minute headways for just the jambri UCI link, the base cost for that route at 20 minutes would be about $4.7 million a year on average. Okay. All right, yes. If you would be willing to include that sort of analysis. And we would analyze all of it for council consideration based on the council's upcoming vote. And that would be part of action to. Mm-hmm. Correct. Okay. All right. that sounds good. Thank you. I think Council Member Traceter is going in the same direction. I was going to with you. When we give you direction to develop a budgetary plan to facilitate the two, as far as I'm concerned, you can give us budget alternatives. If you do it on a 20-minute headway, it's going to cost this one. If you do it 60-minute headway, it's going to be this. You bring that back to us. Correct. That's what we're going to do. I don't think we can design and execute the system precisely tonight. We want to give you ample authority to bring back to us. All right. So I guess we'll take these now without any further requests to be heard. We'll take these one at a time. Just to keep things moving, I move adoption of action item one. Second. Been moved and seconded action item one. Move by me, seconded by Council Member Traceter. We do have to allow for comment on each of these, of course. Carol Thank you mayor assuming that we're rolling the survey into this one can we just can we read back the the survey Language so we just Sorry, I just really have to have it all down exactly so I'm because I want to support this I believe the process we're engaging now. We're voting on each of the action items separately. The survey request was the sixth action. I'll okay, I thought that'll be a. There'll be a. I understand Jeff is that correct. There'll be a separate vote. Actually, I've heard two ideas. It's either a new sixth action item or it is integrated into the second action item. but either way it's not part of the motion that's before you which is just the first action item. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. This is just to continue the current system. All right. And then expand it north also. Okay. No further requests to be heard. I'm going to ask the clerk to call the roll. Council member Carroll. Yes. Council member go. Yes. Council member Lou. Yes. Council member Trezeater. Yes. Vice Mayor Mai. Yes. Mayor Aigren. Yes. Carried 6-0. All right. All move action item two and weave into it. Expansive authority for the conducting of surveys. Second. Councilmember Carroll. Thank you mayor. Yeah I put on my rise to I don't rise here but I sit here to oppose this item not because I would be against it after we have a further seasoning of the Irvine Connect program and I want to thank the council and particularly the mayor to decouple these things so we didn't have to give a global know. You've accommodated me and I'm appreciative and we can all agree to disagree on things. So I do agree that too is premature and that we could or I could get to too. I'm only one of six here. This fall or maybe at a time, you know, perhaps uncertain when we really have a more seasoned Irvine connect system now that we voted along with my vote affirmatively to expand it north to run a long Portola Parkway. This is what we call the expanded Yale Baronka route. I just wanted to do very clear I'm not against this system. I've been on this system. I wonder if the rest of my colleagues up here have actually been on the thing I have. I took it. No one else was on it, OK? Fact. Does it mean that we didn't have that great ridership day? I think that's awesome. I think we have a real potential here. I think that we are going perhaps a little bit too fast too soon and that's just my view. I'm not sure if anyone else has that view. I hope that others would. But I would say that I would just want to give my reasoning why I am reluctant at this point to move forward on the expanded connect when we don't have the existing connect really within good grasp of what we need the system as it currently exists as we'll be expanded to do. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Carroll, Council Member Liu. I just wanted to clarify that Well two and three to me well not two and three. I'm sorry two and four to me are somewhat related that the new expanded routes unless I'm misunderstanding it Will essentially cover Pretty much the same route that eyeshadow shuttle is currently covering so I mean Would this vote on item number two affect how we will decide on three I mean four You know I offer that Certainly they're interrelatedrelated but they're separate in that item number two directs an assessment of what might be possible. Certainly one of the options to make all of it possible includes shutting down the eye shuttle. And so if there's an affirmative vote on two and an affirmative vote on four it gives us a little bit more clarity and fewer options to assess. Yes. Nobody else has a comment here. if we just insert it into number two, or maybe we go back to that idea of authorizing staff to do whatever ridership surveys our team appropriate before the council moving ahead with implementation of anything. Why don't we just do that? So if we left to the way it is now, that'll just be a clean vote up or down on that. Is that correct? With the addition of the survey component? Well I was thinking of moving that out and just making it at the end. You could just say, direct the staff assess and conduct appropriate surveys. Just put the language in there. I know you're going to do these things. So if we can just find the few words to put in there, would you suggest we do that? I would. And if I could make a suggestion after the word assess, just put in parentheses, including without limitation the conduct of appropriate surveys. Okay. And then close the parentheses. You get that, Carl? Excellent. All right. So let's vote on action item 2, but I'd like Carl to read it to us please. It was action item two was direct the staff assess and develop a budgetary plan to facilitate the addition of two new Irvine Connect routes to include it. Oh, I'm sorry. Actually, we're going to include including but not limited to, now I can't read my own I'm rating apologies include including but not limited to now I can't remind writing apologize including but not limited to the conducting of appropriate surveys. Mayor, I want you to work with it just a little more. Certainly Mr. Melchey. Action item two would read direct staff to assess open parentheses including without limitation through the conduct of appropriate surveys, close parentheses, and develop a budgetary plan to facilitate the addition of two new Irvine-connect routes to include a Jambore UCI route and a Baronka link route that would connect to the Yale Baronka route for implementation in fiscal year 2526. I'm going to venture up before calling on Council Member Carroll that I think that language satisfies all interests. Does it Council Member Carroll? Yeah, respect. I don't think it gets there just because it's a you know we're delegating. I know staff will do it's very best but I'm sure they'll find a language that won't sit well with me and if the goal is if the goal is to gauge actual resident interest in using a bus service expansion then the survey should be asking the questions of whether the residents are interested in using a bus service expanded as proposed. So if we can get more clarity around that, you know, I potentially get there. Well let me just see if I can help here. When you do a survey, surveys ask all kinds of questions. They start with general questions and they ask more specific questions. They ask them kinds of questions. They start with general questions, then they ask more specific questions. They ask them for different angles. I assume we're doing this survey, not just as a cosmetic exercise, but to in fact elicit information that will be helpful to us. I would not suggest that conducting a survey is just zero in and on these two routes and so forth. General and specific. Is that help you? It's a yeah I mean it's I'd like to hear what the other members say but it's a it's a start mayor. How are I councilmember Mai then councilmember Liu. This is how sausage is made. Thank you, Mayor. So, I want to clarify what my intent here is. It's transparency and it's fiscal responsibility. I want the survey to let us know will people of Irvine be comfortable with these numbers in front of them? Will they want this? It's simple as that. The wording that you're proposing is very ambiguous. It's very generic and it's telling the staff you're going to do all this stuff. You're going to do all this stuff. I just want to know that those items there. Will the people support getting any of these buses out of their cars at this cost? I don't want ambiguous language where it can be determined, but it's fully delegated to staff. What I might propose then is We have direction to develop the survey that council would like before the survey is finalized and Executed we would reconvene with the council to get your concurrence that we've developed the survey in a manner that's consistent with the council's expectation Basically will develop the survey bring it back to council make sure you're comfortable everyone is comfortable with what's been put together the service. We will deviate the survey, bring it back to council, make sure you're comfortable, everyone is comfortable with what's been put together, and then that will be the survey that we launch. Thanks. All right. Councilmember Liu, and councilmember Traceeider. Thank you. I want to reiterate that to be fiscally responsible, I think, a survey that on something that's already known is always the money. And again, if these proposed routes are covering what I shuttle routes are covering, then we should have information on ridership already, right? The routes don't replicate I shuttle. We do have I shuttle related route ridership data. All three of our existing I shuttle rights combined, currently have less ridership than our one Irvine Connect route. We have that information. Yeah, so I appreciate the fact that these routes are being studied right now not in immediate expansion implementation. Just to move things forward, I agree with what Council Member Carroll had proposed that we should just, if we're going to have to do a survey, maybe just do a survey on the routes rather than whether people will take a bus. Point of order. There was never a survey done. Is that correct? Correct. We have not done a survey related the survey or without. I feel confident that the residents will be supportive of this project. And if they're not, then that's important information to know. So, no problem there, just hoping that we can get to voting. Thanks. All right. Without any further requests to be heard, the motion to adopt action item two with the inclusion of the parenthetical definition of what assesses. Would the clerk please call the roll? Councillor Member Carroll. No. Councillor Member Goh. Yes. Councillor Member Liu. Yes. Councillor Member Che I have a question of staff. Second. Seconded by Council Member Traceter. I'll move on to three. I'll move the adoption of action item three. If somebody would second down, I have a question of staff go ahead. Seconded by Council Member Traceter. Obviously, when you construct bus stops and everything, those can be done on a deferred basis, on an immediate basis and so forth. This is all with the understanding that this would be with the answer. That'll be in accordance with a schedule that matches the various routes. Correct. And in accordance with any of the final approved route expansions, the council ultimately. I don't want to write that understanding in. We'll be here another 45 minutes on that alone. So there's a motion before us. Councilmember Carroll. All right ahead. Thank you Mayor. Just very briefly. So a vote yes on this is a vote for a very large, go underway with a very large urban bus system. And that is a vote that is a bridge too far that potentially could change the character of the city. And I would just remind my council members that they are doing it without a survey, without an actual, we had an actual taking of the pulse of the 320,000 people to live here, which I think is troubling to say the least. So I will be voting no on a massive expansion of a bus system in our city when we have existing O CTA buses and we have the and the and the and the and the and the and the and the and the and the and the and the word. Thank you Council Member Carroll. Let me just see if we can straighten this out by adding a few words. If we were to direct the establishment of a draft capital improvement project plan that is subject to what routes develop and so forth. You could begin work on the plan without us necessarily going through with it at all. You would come back with the plan, right? That's accurate, yes. Is just adding the word plan after capital improvement project plan enough to satisfy you, Councilmember Carroll. It's a plan. It would have to come back to us. And you say, well, this route looks questionable. We certainly don't want to be cutting up concrete and establishing bus stops if we don't know we're going to go ahead with it. And perhaps in addition to adding the word plan, we add one more clause at the end of that sentence, subject to city council selection of the final expanded Irvine Connect routes. I think that's perfect. So then the motion agreed direct the establishment of a capital-improved project plan for the construction of additional Irvine Connect bus stops and execute a contract with the bus operator for expanded in new routes subject to future city council approval of the final expanded Irvine Connect route. I think that motion works. I noticed in your reading of it, you appropriately deleted the word Anne. I think you deleted the word additional. You just left the word additional. And you deleted the number 25. Correct? Correct. Good. I think that means nothing's going to happen. That's objectionable to you without your seeing. No, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. This is not a disagreement, certainly, personally. I think it's more, you know, it feels like the OCPA agreed agreement to withdraw without withdrawing, and then we withdraw, but we didn't withdraw. I just want to be clear, I'm not for this, and I appreciate your respect that we're on the different sides of this. I'm just not for it at this time, which doesn't mean I'm not for it at a later time. I do appreciate, though, I do believe this is a vote for a large urban bus system. And I would rather not be in a position of voting yes, just to vote no later. Absent the, absent the information that I'd like to have. But Mayor, I do appreciate it. Thank you, Mayor the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction city council approval of the final Irvine Connect expanded route systems. That's the motion before us. Was there a second council member Triseter? Are you good with that? Yeah, I, I'll accept that just to keep things going. Thank you. All right. The motion is properly before us. No further requests to be heard. Will the clerk please call the roll? Council member Carroll. I know. Council member Goll. Yes. Council member Liu. Yes. Council member Triseter. Yes. Vice Mayor Mai. No. Mayor Aigren. Yes. Carries 42 with Council member Carroll and vice mayor my voting now. All right, number four is discontinuance of the three eye shuttle routes. I'll move adoption of that. Second. It's removed and seconded. Let me just suggest implicit in the motion. Those people who are using the system now, who are commuters coming in and so forth, and commuters going out for that matter. Let's please try to provide ample notice to these folks that the routes are being discontinued. Certainly, and what's important to note note to the Irvine Connect routes in large part replicate the I-Shuttle routes in terms of where the connection goes in the spectrum area and as we assess expansion we'll look at how connection in the IBC would work. And you'll educate the riders accordingly. Very well. I see no requests by my colleagues to be heard on the motion. What the clerk please call the roll. Council member Carroll. Yes. Council member go. Yes. Council member Lou. Yes. Council member Triseter. Yes. Vice Mayor Mai. Yes. Marry Grin. Yes Yes. Yes. Yes. Very well. Action item five. I'll move action item five, which is direct. Staff assess the viability of instituting a fourth Irvine Connect route to link the great park area with the proposed expanded Irvine Connect system, including the viability of bonding against the city's existing 116 transit funding source. Second. Remove the second of let me just say that again this is staff assessment because I mean we're doing it means they're assessing it. Assessing the viability and you'll be coming back to us obviously Obviously with more information, correct? Exactly. All right, council member go. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to see if we can accelerate, this route and district two, maybe in a shorter format. Like I said, the feedback is if you can just take some of the high density neighborhoods, like it would marry some parts of the great park to route into the train station and perhaps transfer to the current route or even have one you know or a few go directly to the spectrum so that we don't have the issue with the headways. Even if we have to do is 60 minute headway I think that would be a good star. That would be a good use case scenario. And if you do, I'm not suggesting we do a survey, but just speaking on behalf of me, my neighbors, that's a really welcome route. I'd love to be able to take public transportation to the spectrum as you guys know, parking there is horrendous. And as far as people are going to perhaps drinking, avoid DU duis that would help a lot as well. So if we can consider that request that would be greatly appreciated. Let me let me suggest that the motion if it were changed to say, direct that over the course of the next year, staff assessed, why don't we say over the course of the next six months? That would accelerate the whole process. And we certainly can, and I interpret that motion is looking at how the route design might work that perhaps this larger route could be modified as part of our review to link certain neighbourhoods and get something executed a little bit more quickly. We'd certainly assess and analyze that. I think Councilmember Goh that would kind of accelerate things a bit and push forward this project. Is that are you comfortable with that change? Yeah, I think economically that's a big advantage. I'm seeing this yellow route right now that you guys have. If we didn't have to traverse through the north part of the city, which you can get to by transferring, obviously nobody wants to transfer and ride the bus for two or three hours. But again, the use case scenario, like I said, would be to the Irvine station and to the spectrum So thank you mayor that helps a lot all right Are we clear? The motion is properly before us no request For further council comment with the clerk. Please call the roll council member Carol no council member go yes Yes. Councilmember Liu. Yes. Councilmember Traceeider. Yes. Vice Mayor Mai. Nope. With the correct police call the role council member Carol no council member go yes council member Lou yes council member procedure Yes vice mayor my no mayor eagrin yes carries 4 to 2 with council member Carol and vice mayor my voting though All right, we've concluded our business 3.4 that was easy Item 3. 3.5. Would the clerk please identify this item by subject and title? Consideration of an ordinance amending the names of the community services department, director and commission in the provide municipal code and authorization for the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of All right. Those people who are out there who wish to participate electronically in this matter can do so now by raising their hand and entering the queue by way of Zoom. Do we have any requests, Mr. City Clerk? No, Mr. Mayor. No requests, all right. then why don't I just put the matter before us? Well I'll tell you what we'll have staff make a presentation first then we'll see if it's encounter any resistance. If it is, I think we'll want to continue this matter. All right, but you go right ahead. Please introduce yourselves, our new librarian, and of course, our community services director. Thank you, Mayor Agrin, Good evening, city council members. Chris Lama, director of community services. And here with me is Julie Zioley, deputy director and City Librarian. Really excited. We are the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of public library system, specifically consideration of department name change, friends of library MOUs and a library foundation. So just a bit of background on what's been going on as of late before we get into the actual action item. So at the July 23rd, 2024 meeting, City Council approved an agreement with the county to transition library services from county to city operated. The agreement was then approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors in August of 2024. Per the agreements with the county, the Heritage and University Park libraries are set to be temporary closed beginning May 16th and then the Katie Wheeler Library Branch will be scheduled to be temporary closed beginning July 1 of this year. So City Staff have been working to establish the infrastructure to reopen the libraries as the new Irvine Public Library system. This includes working towards improving collection holdings, recruiting staff, developing technology infrastructure, scheduling facility updates. Staff have conducted a series of informational meetings over the last several months to inform the community of the transition as well as listen to the community feedback on the vision of the future for their library system. So additionally in the interim during the closures staff has developed a series of programs and services to offer the community during the transition. This will include a summer reading program to run from June 9th to July 30th, stories for children and families, study hall sessions for teens during final exams and developing a digital library collection of e-books and e-audio books which is expected to launch during the month of June. The anticipated reopening of Heritage and University Park libraries is scheduled from Monday, August the 4th of this year. And per the lease agreement with the county, we would get into the building at Katie Wheeler, beginning January 1 of 2026 and hopefully open up shortly after that. So with the establishment of the system, the city's taking the steps to integrate the library services into our municipal structure to formalize that transition, staff's recommending that city council adopt an ordinance to update the Irvine municipal code to reflect the following name changes. The community services department to change to the community and library services department. The director of community services to the director of community and library services. And the community services commission to the community and library services commission. The community and library services commission will act an advisory role to the council regarding library programs, services, and future facility planning in a similar manner that they currently do for the community services department. Additionally, staffs recommending the Council adopt the resolution, making the corresponding re-naming updates to the amended and restated bylaws of the community services commission to reflect that name change. And I'm going to turn it to Julie now to talk a little bit about future partnerships. Thank you, Director Salma. So staff is also recommending the City Council direct and authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute memorandums of understanding with the friends of the library, nonprofit organizations, for the University Park Library, the Heritage Park Library, and the Katie Wheeler Library, with a long-term goal of merging these three organizations into one unified entity. Although the form of the MOUs have not been finalized, they plan to include partnership provisions similar to current agreements in place. We have been communicating with the current groups regarding the transition of services, including impacts, as well as dialogue on the MOU process. We know the vital role our friends play in supporting daily operations, including helping to fund programs and collections, as well as working as advocates in the community. Our goal is to maintain a strong level of communication as to continue to build upon positive working relationships. Finally, staff recommends that the City Council direct the City Manager for future City Council consideration a proposed framework to establish a nonprofit library foundation dedicating to securing private donations, grants, and corporate sponsorships for the Irvine Public Library system. Unlike the Friends of the Library organizations which primarily focus on daily operational funding such as programs and collection support, the foundation would provide long-term capital investments including facility expansions, renovations, and technology enhancements. The foundation would work in partnership with city leadership and community stakeholders to ensure that Irvine's libraries remain financially sustainable and continue to serve as dynamic hubs for education, culture, and community engagement. Staff anticipates returning to City Council with a recommended Library Foundation framework in December of 2025 and, if approved, would facilitate the establishment of such a foundation in early 2026. Together, these components reflect the city's commitment to establishing a well-rounded governance and support structure that strengthens public engagement, enhances transparency, and ensures a robust community-focused library system that will serve the evolving needs of Irvine residents for years to come. So again, just to recap, the recommended actions are in front of you tonight and are as reflected in the staff report. We are happy to answer any questions at this time. All right. Well, thank you for that staff presentation. Thanks by the way for all the hard work and the great work you've been doing as we prepare for this momentous transition. I think the community is very excited about it. Do my council colleagues have any questions or comments to direct the staff at this point? The energy level goes down as the hour extends. All right. Let me then just, I guess I'm looking at the action items here. We've got a resolution, but we've got an ordinance as well. Why don't I just put all these employee right now? Would that be advisable? Mr. Melchian? We typically take the ordinance by a separate motion but the other four can go by one motion. All right. Let me do you prefer, do you have any particular order you prefer? Would you? No, it's not the day they'll all come out the same. I'll move action item one, which is the introduction by virtue of this first reading of an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Irvine, California, amending the City of Irvine Municipal Code to reflect necessary name changes to the Community Services Commission, Department and Director in connection with the establishment of the City of Irvine Public Library System. Second. Motion and a second. I'm happy to open it up for comments here, including public comment, but let me just clarify something. So what will the new commissioners be called? I remember reading it in the report. It's really long now. They're going to be called one community and library services commissioners. Community and library services commissioners. CalSec. Okay. All right. That's the only part of this. It gave me a little indigestion. Any comments on the motion? There being none, any, no public comments? No request to speak. All right, we'll move to vote then. Council member Carroll. Yes. Council member Goll. Yes. Council member Liu. Yes. Council member Traceeter. Yes. Vice Mayor Maye. Yes. Mayor Aigren. Yes. Carry 6-0. And I'll move the adoption of items 2, 3, and 4, 2 being a resolution, and 3 and 4. Do you want to describe 3 and 4? Sure. Dresd directs the city manager to negotiate with staff to execute memorandum of understandings with the friends of the library groups at each of the three locations? Essentially that we are pretty similar to what they have now with the county but we would put it into an MOU format rather than a license agreement. And two, three and four taken together really set up the undergirdings of all of this. And implicitly I want to be clear about this, but I know you're going to be doing it anyway. Our wonderful friends of the library volunteers, these are people who have such not only dedication but insight regarding library services and insights regarding the transition from the county which has been difficult to our own system. I hope you will perhaps with the adoption of action item two, the resolution, be appointing some kind of advisory committee call upon these people. I hope the commissions will be doing that. Is that makes sense to you? Sure, we can certainly have that conversation with the commissions when the time comes. Absolutely. All right, I think it would be a terrible mistake to lose the value of what all those volunteers have offered just in terms of insights and the whole transition process. Certainly, we're meeting with them on a very regular basis and as Julie mentioned, just appreciate their efforts in sight. Okay, well with that understanding then, are there any comments on action items two, three and four? No council, council member Liu. Thank you. So just a quick comment in support of this. I had the pleasure of meeting the folks who are in the three different friends of libraries. And I agree with what Mayor had said. These are invaluable volunteers. And hopefully we'll be able to use their knowledge in a more systematic way. So I guess it was also a question. So are we, since we're going to bring them all under one umbrella organization, is there like a possibility for them to have and more, more official way, for like a better way to describe it to get their input to community services. We can absolutely have those conversations and thank you for that question to Council Member Liu because I did want to clarify that the intention is within the next 12 months to do and exactly that is to merge those into one overarching friends of the library and we've talked to all of them about that and we've gotten support. But absolutely we can have those conversations. That will be lovely. Thank you. Excellent. Anything further? Nothing further would the clerk please call the roll. Before I do, Mayor, and I apologize if I missed it. I know you made the motion, but I don't recall getting a second. Oh, second. Oh, I'm sorry. That's right. Thank you, Council Member Carroll seconded the motion. It's now properly before us with the clerk, please call the roll. Council Member Carroll. Yes. Council Member Goll. Yes. Council Member Liu. Yes. Council Member Trecedor. Yes. A. Grant. Yes. Cherry 6-0. Item 3.6 has been removed from the agenda. Councillor just put this over to May 13th. There's no, there's no immediacy on this. Is there, is there Mr. Chi? No, there's not. We've got our agreement with our employees in place. This, when I obviously put it into an ordinance form and provide for the future and include, it would also include the contract employees for major contractors here. But I don't think we want to get into the particulars tonight. So I'll tell you what I'll just move to continue the item to May 13th. But I'd like it to be early on the agenda. Certainly for council business. Is there a second motion to to the second. Second. Second. Second. I thought I heard councilmember Carroll first. With the clerk please call the roll. Mr. Mayor before I do I just want to mention we do have one person who here tonight on's here tonight. On that item. Correct. Oh my goodness. It was Mr. Myersson, he said he'd wait that. All right, Mr. Myersson will agree to hold off his comments till next time. There's also one member who just popped into Zoom. So all is for here. There's one request that just popped into zoom. So I'll defer to you on that one. Same thing. We'll just have to have that person wait till it's on the agenda the next time. Thank you. I think we get off the line between now and then. Okay. Motion to continue is before us with the clerk, please call the roll. Council member Carroll. Yes. Council member Go. Yes. Council member Lou. Yes. Council member Triseter. Yes. Vice Mayor Mai. Yes. Mayor Aigren. Yes. Carries 6-0. All right. That concludes our business for tonight. Having completed our business. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Moved by Council member, Viceear my second. Seconded by council member trecitor all in favor say aye aye Opposed unanimously adjourned