Good afternoon everyone. The Sacramento City Council please come to order with the clerk call the roll to establish a quorum. Thank you. Councilmember Kaplan. Councilmember Tao. Mayor Per Tem Telemontes. Councilmember Valenzuela. Here. Vice Mayor Maple. Here. Councilmember Gettas. Here. Councilmember Jennings. Here. Councilmember Vang. Here. And Mayor Steinberg. I am here. Good afternoon everyone. I'm going to ask Councilmember Tao and Valenzuela, please together to please lead us in the land acknowledgement and the pledge of allegiance may one or the other. How ever you choose to do it. Okay, thank you, Mayor. Please rise for the opening acknowledgement and honor of Sacramento's Indigenous people and tribal lands. To the original people of this land, the Nisan people, the southern Maidu Valley, and Plains Mewok, the Putwin-Win-To people, and the people of the Wilton Retaria, Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe. May we acknowledge and honor the native people who come before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing together together today in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation of Sacramento's indigenous peoples' history, contributions and lives. Thank you. Hey, please remain standing in salute, pledge. I pledge allegiance to the five of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and a visible liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next time we'll switch. Yes. How about at five o'clock? Yeah. And that's exactly the way we should do it here. Thank you to both the Good and Great Public Servants Council members, town, balance, wavelength. Members we have one item of business this afternoon. It's a very important item. It is a consideration of a community benefits agreement ordinance. And Leslie Fritch, are you going to present? I want to thank you and the entire city staff for working so hard on all this. Let me make an opening comment if I may. I mean, you know, don't get to make opening comments too much longer. So make a brief. This of course arises out of the Aggie Square settlement agreement, which was a model community benefit agreement that was organized essentially by the community with some creative tension, ultimately in collaboration with the city, the developer Wexford and the University of California at Davis. And we created something that I think was really impactful and important to that project. As part of the settlement agreement, there was a provision that was requested by the consider a city-wide community benefits ordinance that could or would apply to other projects throughout the city. And so it's taken a while as it often does in government a lot of discussions with the community, with the city staff, some with the elected officials, etc. We actually heard this, I think, in some form at the beginning of 2024. And we are here now today to consider a staff proposal and the community's perspective both the SIDWD and the business community's perspective on all of this. And that's what brings us here today. So I just wanted to make that opening remark to kind of set the context. Leslie? Well, it's my pleasure, Mayor Steinberg. I can say that I think perhaps the last time this afternoon to be here with you and Council members. Thank you for allowing us to present today. This afternoon we're bringing forward for your consideration a draft community benefit agreement ordinance as required by the Aggie Square settlement agreement with the Sacramento Investment Without Displacement. The ordinance before you would require community benefit agreement for projects receiving over $10 million in city assistance. Putting this draft ordinance together, as the mayor has mentioned, has taken some time for we've tried to strike a balance between the input received from SITWD and community members and the business community. And what we've created is a defined CBA requirement, which includes benefits to the residents and neighborhoods adjacent to a proposed project, while not negatively impacting development activity in our city. Our approach is to allow the tailoring of a CB8, the needs and parameters of the proposed project rather than being too prescriptive and since one size doesn't fit all. We have outlined a framework and not a specific outcome. The draft ordinance contains the elements as required in the settlement agreement. Additionally, the draft ordinance respects the role of the council as the city's elected representatives to make the ultimate decision on the inclusion of elements within a CBA if one is triggered. It's important to note that it's the opinion of staff that a community benefits agreement is not necessarily needed to achieve community benefits on any particular project. We bring forward projects all the time and we consider the benefits to the community as we're bringing those elements forward. Staff considers and incorporates community benefits in every project we bring forward for financial assistance regardless of project size. So I wanted to highlight a couple examples where we enfold in community benefits agreement. The mayor mentioned Daiki Square and that project was a collaborative process. We had started some community benefit discussions and inclusion and then with community input that agreement was strengthened. Some of those elements included a 20% set aside for affordable housing, local construction hiring, housing stabilization and workforce pilots. And just I'm kind of going to brag a little bit and brag to you, Daryl and Mayor Steinberg and Councilmember Gettaah because that has really netted a lot of different benefits. $51 million committed for affordable housing along Stockton Boulevard. Approximately $5 million for housing stabilization efforts. Yealding about 800 people already assisted in some way or another through those stabilization efforts and approximately $600 million in local contractors spending and almost 90 apprentices hired from the local Aggie Square zip codes. So that's a broad example of a very large project but then we have smaller projects such as the San Miguel Market which was a $1.1 million loan for grocery store at the corner of Broadway in Stockton, which filled a vacant storefront with an employee owned grocery store. So it eliminated light and it created about 60 opportunities for the residents around the area. And also added and made sure that Oak Park wasn't a significant food desert by allowing that grocery store to continue. From a policy perspective, we've also ensured the consideration of community benefits in reviewing projects as they are a foundational element in our Council's approved inclusive economic development policies and are included in the 2040 general plan. CBAs are commonly used across the country to ensure community benefits are provided, but it's where the jurisdictions have approved and ordinance requiring them as they are often viewed as detrimental to development and difficult to codify requirements as each project has its own unique parameters and context. We've had many meetings with SITWD members over the past three years, I believe, they might correct me on that, over the course of the past number of years and acknowledge that there are differences in approach. We are sensitive to those differences and thus wanted to make sure we had a transparent process where all views could be heard by Council. Therefore, the format for today is staff will give a short presentation outlining the elements in the proposed ordinance we're bringing forward for your consideration, followed by a presentation by SWD. We also want to highlight other stakeholders and other stakeholder views such as that downtown Sacramento Partnership, the BIA, the Greater Sacramento Economic Council and some of those comments that you've received. We've included all the comment letters we've received prior to the posting in your report and then there are additional ones that are posted through the e-comment process. With that I'd like to turn over the conversation and the presentation to my colleague Ellen Sullivan who will provide you an overview of the proposed ordinance. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Ellen Sullivan, Senior Project Manager with the City Manager's Office of Innovation and Economic Development. After staff's presentation, Sacramento Investment Without Dispacement has prepared a presentation for Council. We wanted to go over some of the key points of the draft CBAO. The ordinance currently has a threshold of $10 million of city investment or subsidy that would require a community benefits agreement. The ordinance defines subsidy consistent with government code 503083 as referenced in the Aggie square settlement agreement as an expenditure of public funds or loss of revenue to the city such as grants, loans, or fee waivers. All CBAs require compliance with prevailing wage laws, local higher provisions, and designated third-party beneficiaries. These are requirements that cannot be waived. The benefits in the ordinance are required by the Aggie Square Settlement Agreement, transportation was an added benefit, and the ordinance allows Council to add project specific benefits. The ordinance also includes language to allow Council to approve a CBA with some, none, or all of the listed benefits plus any additional benefits. This allows Council the flexibility to tailor benefits that are most beneficial to the community while balancing the realities of delivering a project. The ordinance also provides exemptions for all housing projects including certain mixed use projects and pipeline projects that received site plan and design review approval by effective date of the ordinance. The ordinance requires the city manager engaged the community at two key points when developing the CBA and when evaluating the performance of the CBA. It also includes a provision to allow the city manager to adopt policies and procedures to implement and enforce the ordinance. This concludes our presentation and now I'd like to turn it over to Sacramento investment without displacement for their presentation and staff is available after for questions. It's great. We will listen to SIDWD's presentation. We'll then hear from the public and then we will debate and deliberate here. So who is presenting for Sacramento investment without displacement. And thank you for being here and for all the time and effort you have all collectively spent on this. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I am Kim Williams. I am the Director for Sacramento Investment Without Displacement, as well as Sacramento Building Healthy Communities. Temeca LaCluse, I am the executive director of the Sacramento Community Land Trust, as well as the vice president of Sacramento Investment Without Displacement. QR read executive director of Civic Thread and I'm the transportation chair for Sacramento Investment without displacement. Thank you all. We will be presenting today. It'll be a brief presentation. As Leslie talked about earlier, this has been a long, long process. And there's still so much, so much, so much work that still has to be done. When we came together, Sacramento Investment Withoutis placement actually back in 2018 is when we started the work. And then up into this point, it was for the sole purpose of making sure that our communities don't get left in the dust when it comes to development. We want to see things happen in our city, we want our city to grow and prosper and be the wonderful Sacramento that we all want it to be and know it can be. But we also don't want that to happen and leave the people behind who have left-left-what in tears in the city and have worked hard for generations but get pushed out because of that development. And there's a way to do it responsibly and do it together with the development, with the city and with community. And so that's why we came together and that is why we still stand here and why we will continue despite what happens today, continue fighting for our communities. And that's all communities in Sacramento. We want to, which one is it? I always do that. Yes, our Sacramento investment that was this placement members in case folks don't know. Of course, it's building healthy communities, the Sacramento Housing Alliance, organized Sacramento, Civic Thread, Sacramento Act, Ecos, Ace, Washington Neighborhood Center, love lift, sorry, love lift ups. love lift, sorry, love lift up, I might not have glasses on lift up, love always. And then the Sacramento community land trust. We also have other members, individual members that are a part of this group, residents from different parts of the community that are also a part of SIDWG. And our work really became, is really looking at what a community benefits agreement is and what it should be. And it requiring strong partnerships between local government, developers and community groups and working together to determine what is needed in a community. Every community, it's not a one size fits all. We recognize that each community may need something different, and that's why we wanted to build that into what a community of Greenervant's Greenment ordinance would look like. We know it was a part of the lawsuit, how it ended up becoming an ordinance, or maybe discussion as to who brought it to the settlement piece, but it got put in, and that was something that we were very proud of, because we did want to see this happen so that we don't have to come and fight every single project that comes that there's a commitment from this group, this body to the residents in Sacramento that says if something comes, it's coming into your community, we want to make sure you are well taken care of. And this out, this ordinance would also outline the CBAs wouldBAs what would be required, what would go into them, and who would be involved in the process of creating and enforcing the CBAs going into the future. And so my counterparts are gonna talk about what makes it strong. So this isn't a surprise, because last time we were here, we talked about the same elements of what makes a strong CBAO. It's having minimum benefits, it's having strong community engagement and community-led decision-making power and having an ordinance that is enforceable. Unfortunately, the ordinance that you have in front of you doesn't have those things. And for that reason, SIDWD does not support the ordinance as it stands. This shouldn't be news. Again, we have been advocating for these to be included since 2021 and we haven't seen those things change. We've been fighting really to develop an ordinance that protects longstanding residents and that ensures that the benefits of any economic or infrastructure investments are shared and experienced by those impacted communities. But this ain't it. The draft that is before you is insufficient, and unfortunately, it will not address long-term anti-displacement protections for residents and small businesses that would be impacted. Research has shown us that community benefits or weak community benefits agreements will actually do more harm than not having one at all. If we can't put forward a strong ordinance that has those minimum benefits that has community decision making power and that is enforceable, then SIDWD can't stand behind it. And so we're not standing behind this one that's that's in front of you today. We believe that our residents and our small businesses deserve more than what's being offered to them. At its core a CBA is about equitable access to decision-making power. It's about giving community members who may be harmed by displacement or by large developments, the agency to come to the table and to ask for what they need, to really be able to communicate what their needs are and to be able to have that decision-making power for the things that are going to impact their own livelihoods. It's really about respecting the needs of the community and it's also about people over profit. Unfortunately, the current proposal lacks meaningful community participation and let's be real. Scyling engagement and limiting community participation and decision making processes only exacerbates what the CBA is intended to do. So why are we doing that? If you can't have a CBA without community, it's literally in the name. So let's call it what it is. What you have before you is a Benefits Agreement Ordnance. It's not a community Benefits Agreement Ordnance, and it's not intended to benefit the community, and so we won't stand behind it. Thank you. And I'm sure that's not what you probably were expecting to hear from us today. They hear it, laid it out, really perfectly clear. A wheat community benefits agreement is like worse than having no community benefits agreement at all. So we want to speak to this process because while I appreciate the reflection of the Aggie Square project and the San Miguel market over there on Stockton Boulevard, which would not have triggered our Community Benefits Agreement. The benefits of Aggie Square would not have come out if we hadn't settled a lawsuit. These are the same things we asked then that we're asking you all now. And the fact that the city of Sacramento put themselves in a position to be a defendant of that lawsuit, that's not how we want to continue working. That is not how we want to continue doing development and doing community benefits. I think that we think as a collective, that it's really unfortunate that the direction that your council gave on February 28th of this year was to conduct a workshop to wear the Sacramento investment without displacement and the business community and the Peabeds and small business owners and construction workers and the unions could all come together and really talk about how we can make this a win-win for all of Sacramento. And that did not happen. When we talk about meaningful engagement, it means that both parties, both sides come with their whole hearts and whole cells to the table. And that did not happen from the city side. We were really hopeful with the small business protections ordinance work that this could be something where we could come together and and work out the details to make this strong enough to benefit all of Sacramento and that did not happen and so that leaves us with this This whole of what where's the trust that was supposed to be built in this process? And that's a question I think really for your leadership, for you guys here at the Dias. Because that trust really has been broken. We have come in good faith over these past three years to do the work, to bring forward minimum benefits, to bring a tiered ordinance, to bring all these different tools and resources to make this the best ordinance it could be, and that did not happen. That is not what's in front of you today. So, as Sacramento investment without displacement, rejects the city's draft of the Community Benefit Agreements ordinance, I suppose this means that we will continue to look at every single development and if there isn't a community benefits agreement that really puts community first, that brings that investment, that's the city is putting into that development, those investments need to go directly to the people who are impacted by them. And it's unfortunate that we're put in a position to fight for benefits for every single project. That is not a good use of our time. That is not a good use of our resources, the community's resources, non-profit, we're non-profits. But also staff resources. This is unacceptable. So I'll just close with saying that this is unfortunately a lost opportunity for the City of Sacramento. My hope is that maybe a future council will bring something back that is stronger, that has community at the forefront, that has minimum benefits that the community decides where that investment goes to. I also want to say that we're not going away. Like Kira said, we started this work in 2018 together and we're all still here and we'll continue to be here and we'll continue to hold the city accountable. We'll continue to hold big developers accountable and we're all still here and we'll continue to be here and we'll continue to hold the city accountable. We'll continue to hold big developers accountable and we hope that you do the same. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all three presenters. Let us now hear from the public and then we will turn it over to the council and I will say a few things to begin and then turn it over to my colleagues. Thank you, Mayor. I have 11 speakers. The first is Robert Copeland, Alberto MacCardo, Scott Ford, Rashid Sedeek. As an ace member and a dog fight member, which is this bill, your rights group here in Sacramento, this ain't working for Sacramento. A committed benefits agreement, a benefit everybody in Sacramento, is it going to do that? I don't think so. Can you please get your act together? I mean, a long way come how they should be accessible for people in a wheelchair, walkers, and 20% affordable housing. Is that all income levels? What income level at this rate? Does it help people on SSI, wage? Get it to do better. We can vote you out. Thank you. Next speaker is Alberto and Scott Ford. Good afternoon, Council members and mayor. My name is Alberto Mercado. I'm a resident of Good afternoon, Council members and Mayor. My name is Alberto Mercado. I'm a resident of O'Parre, and I've been a resident of Sacramento for the last 30 years. As a resident of District 5, I urge my City Council representative and City of Sacramento to reject the current version of the cities, propose community benefits agreement ordinance. Currently, the draft community benefits agreement ordinance does Currently the draft community benefits agreement ordinance does not sufficiently address the long term anti-dirt placement protections for the residents and the businesses as he was intended. On a personal level I am advocating for a community benefits or agreement ordinance to include minimum benefits to make sure residents like myself can stay and leave in our neighborhoods where we grew up. Affordable housing, transportation, work first development, as well as local business protection and community having a direct role in CBA negotiation is critical to the development of community benefits agreement. Residents represent the people most threatened by the impact of large developments and in their communities and must also enjoy the benefits they bring. Thank you. Next speaker is Scott Ford, the Rashid Sidiq. Good afternoon, Mayor Steinberg, members of the council, city manager Chan and city staff. My name is Scottberg, members of the Council, City Manager Chan and City staff. My name is Scott Ford on behalf of the downtown Sacramento Partnership, representing the 66 block neighborhood in the heart of California's capital city. On personal note, I also represent the entire Sacramento community. I grew up here. Yes, we represent the business community, but we represent the entire Sacramento community and we hear deeply about our city. We recognize that the Council must consider community benefits agreement ordinances part of the Aggie Square settlement. However we have strong concerns with the proposal as written and we adamantly urge the rejection of this ordinance as we are concerned it has the potential to undermine the growing momentum in our community. We agree absolutely that community benefits should be delivered as part of catalytic projects, especially projects that receive public subsidy. But those negotiations need to play out on a case-by-case basis, given the unique and the very delicate nature of each project. Simply put, there are no community benefits if there is no project. Recently we've seen great opportunities, legacy projects, stadiums in the rail yards, adaptive reuse, slide music venues, and a much needed convention center hotel come forward. Those are great projects with major potential, but they're also very delicate and we're concerned that this is well intended, but counterproductive policy that may jeopardize those very projects. Now is not the time to bring forth a one-size-fits-all ordinance which will limit future opportunities for the residents while also not addressing their needs. We thank you for your consideration, for your leadership, and we're committed to continue to be here to work with all of you and to work with our community. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Rashid. And then, Liz Lim and Jameson Parker. Rashid Sadeeg would lift up love always. I'm here with a heavy heart because I've seen a lot of good work. Go down the drain for three years. Mayor, we've been waiting for, I don't know, 18 months to get to our workshop. I don't know. So, a PLA just how to discussion. PLA at the school district is at $1 million. To benefit the whole community. Here we are talking about $10 million. I don't know how many times you've contributed $10 million to a project, but I bet you it's near to now. So what you put in front of us has to be rejected because it's a joke. It's not intended to help anybody. It's intended to check a box and let's move on. Everybody's mayor and then you put us on your last day. On your last day, that was intentional. Yes, this is intentional racism right here. This is intentional and I see it as that. And I, hey, listen, your days should last day. Thank you for all your contributions. But this right here is disrespectful. We've been working on this with three, four, some have been working on it since the 2018, with your leadership and here we are on your last day and you feed us, come on. We have to do better in city manager. We have to do better in this. Next week is going to be your week. We're going to see. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Luz Lim, then James and Parker, then Devon Strucker, Matt Mcdonald. Good afternoon. My name is Lou Slim, and I am here to speak on behalf of the Environmental Council of Sacramento. I'll keep it brief because I really can't put it any better than the SIDW D folks who are here today. It's clear how passionately they have worked over the past years to make sure that community has a place at the table and a voice in deciding what community benefits should be. The proposed agreement ordinance is not account for SIDWD's very thoughtful recommendations to create an effective citywide ordinance and it excludes community at benefit negotiations. ECO stands with SIDWD in opposition to the proposed community benefits agreement ordinance. And we have submitted a letter of E-commerce. Thank you very much. Jameson Parker. Good afternoon, Mayor and council member. I just want to say that I'm very grateful to the committee for the support of the committee. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and council members. I just want to start by making staff for their hard work on this project. I'm James and Parker with the Midtown Association. We're a property based improvement district here in the central city. We represent about 1,200 property owners in our urban core. Our mission is to make Midtown the center of culture creativity and vibrancy. I'm here to data voice our opposition to the agreement in front of you today. I think actually Leslie did a really great job. We're not opposed to developing community benefits, but we believe that it needs to be done on a project by project basis. We believe that in doing so that the City Council retains its flexibility to be able to make sure that we're able to achieve our outcomes based on individual's projects impacts and that they are most supportive and responsive to the community that they are impacting. At the same time, this flexibility ensures that economic development agreements are created that don't slow or halt positive momentum that we have in our city and what we really experienced in the last month seeing the preliminary term sheet come for the Sacramento rail yards and the development of our stadium. And working to achieve this common goal of delivering sustainable economic growth, we employ the city council to consider a thoughtful economic growth without creating a burden through this ordinance which could create unintended limitations on our future and the city council's ability to manage it. I appreciate your time. Thank you. If you're comments, Devon Strucker, Matt McDonald, Chris Valencia, Barry Brum. Good afternoon. I'm Devon Strucker, executive director of the River District and a resident of District 4. River District would like to express our opposition to this ordinance. As you know, we are a redeveloping area of downtown Sacramento. We are different from much of the rest of the region. And so our needs are different and so for that reason we would ask that you would consider these type of community benefits which we do see as valuable but on a case by case basis. We are trying to redevelop a formerly industrial warehouse distribution center. We did not have any very many residents until just recently and our residents are looking for these catalytic projects to come in such as the proposed Sacramento FCE Stadium in the rail yards and we We are hopeful that there will be no additional layers of bureaucracy to prevent these types of projects from moving forward. Thank you Thank you for your comments Matt McDonald. Good afternoon Matt McDonald from the California Department Association speaking in opposition to community benefits agreement ordinance. In short we oppose the creation of a one size fits all policy with respect to large economy building projects that have the power to act as engines for future growth in the city. The instinct to expect community benefits to play a role in future major projects is not wrong, but Sacramento needs to respect the reality that within this region there are multiple other jurisdictions that lack Sacramento's red tape and who are frankly far easier for major developers to do business with. Raising your barriers to entry through an untalered ordinance doesn't just discourage investment, it creates a reputational problem for the city. It says, if you have a major project, we don't want to be at the top of your destination list. Once you've built a reputation for being hostile to this new investment, that impacts your ability to do everything else vital in the city, like increase housing supply or reducing homelessness. Being aspirational in economic development becomes impossible at that point. We would urge you to reject this proposed ordinance today and send a signal to the region that you're committed to being competitive for major projects region wide. Thank you. Chris Valencia and Barry Brum. Hello, Mr. Mayor and City Council. My name is Chris Valencia. I am here speaking on behalf of the North State Building Industry Association. We want to thank Council and staff for working with us to insert language on housing into this. We just want to urge caution when considering the community benefits ordinance that this could create a cooling effect on development, giving developers pause, and we definitely do not want to see home building in the Sacramento region slow to a trickle. It is important that we continue to, continue to attract investment into Sacramento into building housing as well as other projects. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Barry Brum, then Sarah Robilato. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we're gonna contest. First off, we wanna work with the neighborhoods and we're always available. I reach out to Gabby so we can start tomorrow working together. We don't need to be guided by the city and we're committed to helping everyone. The reality on the Aggie Square Agreement is UC Davis and the cities to pay her on this, not to developer. Developer doesn't have a discretionary penny in this settlement. So if you start moving this around other parts of the city where UC Davis isn't backing it up, you're going to run into the private conditions which is this developer would have walked away if you decided you got to pick up the city's contribution towards Aggie Square. The second thing, if you look at the union agreements from AFSME, they pretty much keep local businesses from participating in this project. So maintenance construction workers have to come from UC Davis Union workers, a real missed opportunity for minority ownership and participation from the neighborhood. There's food union agreements we already know from one local vendor that was trying to get a big opportunity to Aggie Square that was minority owned was turned down by the legal department of UC Davis because they're not unionized. So if you look at Aggie Square, it's, you know, the city's paying, the university's taking the risk, labor's getting all the benefits, and not everybody in this community is in labor, right? Very small percentage of people in the private sector in California and in the union, it's about 6%, 12%. So 88% of the people aren't at a union. And when you start looking at minority enterprises and minority participation, they're typically not unionized. So we do think the construction agreement was very good. We're all four local options on requiring local hiring. We're Sacramento guys. I live in Midtown. We want to see people pulled from the neighborhoods. But I think we're overstating the value of Aggie Square when it comes to community impact when you really start to pull it apart and take a look at it. So obviously we oppose a blanket ordinance. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Sarah Ropelato and thank you for the spelling. And then Josh Leachman. Good afternoon y'all. I'm Sarah Ropelato. I'm the Managing Attorney with Legal Services of Northern California. We were at the table when the community of the idea for the community benefits agreement ordinance was conceived and agreed upon and developed. And that idea actually came from the city to bring the parties together and to create something innovative for Sacramento. And the idea is a good one. A good CBO has the potential to create a collaborative structure for future projects, and your meaningful benefits and protections for the communities that host these future projects and bear the impacts, and to prevent the mess that comes from ad hoc basis negotiating these agreements. The work that SAWD has engaged in over the last three plus years is truly remarkable. They commissioned professional research about CBAs and CBAOs across the nation. They met continuously as a coalition to pool their collective wisdom and experience. They did several workshops and community surveys that reached over 300 residents and over more than 20 zip codes and they drafted memos in ordinance language and they met with the city on a weekly basis for months at a time. And when the city ultimately brought forward a framework and an ordinance that lacked any resemblance to the CIVD's proposals, they cuffed up their sleeves and they got to work and good faith with the city to provide detailed comments and recommendations. They spent countless hours in meetings with the city, with you all, with stakeholders, all to try to reach a compromise and bring the vision that the city promised to life. But the CBO before you doesn't live up to that promise. The community is absent from this CBO. There's no role for the community to be at the table negotiating future CBAs. It's relegated to an, to enroll of providing input. There's no guardrails or requirements for community oversight and it lasts, lacks the specifics that is required by research. And for the reason stated in our letter, neither the process nor the draft complies with the settlement agreement. This is a missed opportunity. Thank you for your comments. Josh Leachman, then Dion Dwyer. Good afternoon, Dion Dwyer representing the Archery Partnership. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, I want to thank staff and everyone here. This is obviously a topic that's important to the entire community. And as a residents of Tahoe Park, I understand how we try to balance community and we try to balance development. The ordinance that you have before you today, we are opposed, the one size fits all model. We realize that we need to negotiate on a one by one basis for what fits the developer and what fits the community. So I would like to say again on record our street partnership opposes and thank you for your time. Thank you for your comments. I have three more speakers. Josh Leachman, James Allison and Liz Williams. I don't see Josh. James. Good afternoon mayor,members and staff. My name is James Allison with the power and alliance, Property Business Improvement District, representing Sacramento's Manufacturing and Industrial Core, as well as the 1300 businesses within it. I am here today to offer a few of our concerns with the community benefits agreement ordinance, and rather than simply reiterate many of the same concerns that you've already heard I'd like to speak to our chief concern and how it relates to our district Firstly, we believe that community benefits are an integral part to any transformative project We simply believe that this ordinance is not the strategy by which to achieve them The power alliance is home to the Sacramento Center for Innovation, a 24-acre special planning district with the hopes of becoming Sacramento's hub for pioneering and innovative businesses. We believe that the success of such a district would bring significant investment to the city of Sacramento, but not without a centralized tent post-catalytic project that can truly attract investment in the same way that we have seen in other parts of our city. We however believe that the ordinance in front of you today would create a hindrance in securing such a project. As we have seen with some of the projects here in Sacramento, the ability to create these benefits is not impossible without such an ordinance in place. We simply ask that the SCI be given the same opportunity to create a truly tailor-made and customized approach to our own community benefits to maximize the benefit within Southeast Sacramento. Thank you very much and we appreciate your time. Liz Williams, will we you've done on this. I'm here today on behalf of the Metro Chamber and the member businesses we represent, their employees, their families, who all grow up in this city. We would like to take a moment to appreciate the tenacity of the mayor and this council and the city manager and staff for working diligently to bring together a space for public private partnerships that drive inclusive economic prosperity for this city and region. We have seen over the last few weeks and years what this type of collaboration can do to bring to life catalytic projects to the city of Sacramento. But as we all know, projects with such magnitude like the ones coming to the rail yards, like the Golden One Center, and like Aggie Square are delicate, complex, and require flexibility to bring to fruition. For these reasons, we urge you to reject a one-size-fits-all policy to address community benefits for large-scale public-private investments. Community benefits should not be prescribed by policies that could have unintended consequences and deter the viability of the types of investments we want to see in the city and region for the future generations to enjoy. We should strive to create a climate that attracts and retains major projects in every part of Sacramento. As they come forward, investments into the community should be proactive and tailored to the uniqueness of the project and the surrounding neighborhood for the betterment of all. Flexibility will be pivotal to ensure project acquisition and economic investments land here, and tailored to the uniqueness of the project and the surrounding neighborhood for the betterment of all. Flexibility will be pivotal to ensure project acquisition and economic investments land here. And without projects, our ability to nurture our communities and grow collectively is limited. We urge you to reject this proposal before you today. And instead, working collaboration with the community and development partners to proactively create active strategic initiatives throughout Sacramento by navigating each development opportunity with imagination and individuality. Thank you for your consideration and opportunity to comment today. Please. Thank you. It's all Madam Clerk. Thank you very much. Okay, let's start off here and then turn it over to my colleagues. First of all, thank you for all the public participation. Thank you, Dessie W.D. for all of the time you spent on this. Thank you to the city staff. I hear your disappointment. But I don't think we should pass anything that has virtually no support from either side. And that's the case here. So I guess that's the bottom line. But I want to use a moment here just to say something which may sound a little bit corny, but I mean it. We all are friends. We are not enemies. We are not enemies here. We may see things a little bit differently about how to achieve community benefits. But my whole life, as well as the lives and the contributions of everyone sitting on this day as has been for and about community. Trust goes both ways. I understand, and I see, Rashid, I understand you're distrust of the systems and of people like me. And I could say, till I'm blue in the face, we've produced more affordable housing these last years than ever before. We have a comprehensive CWTA community worker agreement, a PLA for anything over a million dollars. I could say to you that we've invested on precedent at amounts of money and workforce development or in forgotten commercial corridors or we've gotten to 1500 beds now in terms of our homeless response from a low of less than 100 when we start I could say all of that And I know this and I'm not offended by it I just recognize that we all have a long way to go including me and all of us when it comes to building trust that none of that has an impact on you But telling us That Aggie Square the committee Community Benefits Agreement, would not have occurred in any form, but for what SIDWD did, I disagree. You were a key partner, and yes, you were the catalyst, and you pushed us farther. There's no question about it. But frankly, when I got involved with Aggie Square, you better believe front and center in my mind was community benefit. That's the whole reason for it. I negotiated the mandatory, not advisory, local hiring requirement, the only one in the country. That didn't come from SIDWD. That came from me, this office. We put the number of $50 million into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. And so trust goes both ways. And I look at Aggie Square. And I ask, why was it so important and impactful? It was important and impactful because it was, in fact, organic. And you deserve a lot of credit for that. It was organic. It was the product of a dynamic and sometimes uncomfortable tension between the stakeholders, careholders in the community, from whatever side and their elected representatives. Who you do have the opportunity, Mr. Copeland said, to elect or to throw out of office if you don't like the job that they are doing. It addressed the unique circumstances of Aggie Square, including the real threat of gentrification. That was the impetus behind this. And it was right. The ideal of a city-wide ordinance is lawtatory. And whether you believe me or not, I believe in community benefit agreements. But a citywide ordinance with mandatory minimums, in my view, is a flawed concept. It's a flawed concept because every project is different and needs different community benefits. As I mentioned, we have minimum benefits in the city, PLAs, for example, for public works projects. But minimum benefits are premised on the idea that every major project causes displacement. That isn't true. I mean, look at the rail yards. What is the displacement that is being caused in developing the railer? It's the waterfront, the hospital in Atomas, by the way, as well as the rail yards have mandatory affordable housing requirements. Significant mandatory affordable housing requirements built into the development agreements. So I just think that sometimes trust or lack of trust is conflated with disagreement, because I applaud and in many ways trust you because you're out there fighting for the community. But I think the best community benefits agreements are ones that are derived when we repeat what we did with Aggie Square. We organize, you organize, you have effective representation that meets you more than halfway and that fights for what's best for the community. The defeat of this today does nothing to inhibit or limit that kind of ethic, that kind of pattern, that kind of activism going forward. It should continue. I just think this concept of a citywide ordinance for the minimum is flawed. Thank you. Councilmember Valenzuela. Thank you, Mayor. I agree. I mean, sometimes when nobody agrees, it means we've reached a good compromise and sometimes it means we've just missed the mark. And I think that latter case is the case today. You know, there's a lot of details in this ordinance and discuss that I'm not going to get into because I raised very detailed comments every time it was at long-ledged, every time it came to this body and gave detailed suggestions, a lot of which I don't see and I do want to applaud the community work because as was mentioned, these are nonprofits, many of whom are not paid to do this, who engaged with us diligently for a very long time to try to find a solution that made sense. I want to thank you for your time and energy on that. I want to reiterate your comment because I do agree. And at one point I disagree with the mayor that this ordinance was an effect when Aggie Square came about that we wouldn't have gotten near the level of benefits that were achieved in Aggie Square. It sets way too high a bar. In fact, EIFE's aren't even covered in the CBA ordinance. You know, it's really unfortunate and to push back a little on a comment about they're not really being benefits just because I have to. Most service workers in this region are people of color at Barry and they deserve living wages and benefits. I don't think we ever win. We don't win when we pit business owners against workers. And I think we can all benefit and can and should be working together to ensure that we rise the boat for everybody. And it's not about pity minority business owners against workers because we all have the same goal. I've heard throughout this time with staff that obviously if an elected city council member for an area wanted a change to any agreement that they would have a seat at the table. This is deferring to council members but I have to say that just a couple weeks ago when we considered the rail yards EIFD which is directly adjacent to my district and will eventually be in my district in just a week's time. And to the mayor's comment about what displacement is happening for the rail yards, there's a lot of displacement happening because of the rail yards development. I made a request for an enhanced community benefits process. I didn't even ask for specific benefits. I made a request for a stronger process and that was denied. So my time on this council has not shown that council members of that district or near that district have the autonomy to advocate for what their community needs in a way that will guarantee benefits in the way that this ordinance is currently designed. And so my opposition to this comes from a very different place. That I just fundamentally don't believe that the mechanism that's designed here will work in good faith in the way that staff says that it will. I unfortunately do agree that we're in a strong position to fight project by project and I don't think that's good for anybody. I just want to say that right now. Not just from capacity perspective. What I have continued to insist with the business community is that we acknowledge that consistency and predictability is good for everybody. If we know going in, there is a 10% affordable housing requirement. If we know going in, there is certain benchmark expectations. That's good for everybody. Rather than one project getting subject to $50 million of requirements and other getting subject to none. That is not a level of consistency that anyone can take to the bank and it's not a level of consistency that the community wants either. I think we had an opportunity here to find something that would have worked for everybody that we missed. And so now I do believe we're in a stronger position without this ordinance in place to advocate project by project. And I'm looking forward to joining you all in that work in just a couple of short weeks. So with that, I would actually like to make the motion to reject the ordinance with a lot of heartache and regret. But I do think it's important to recognize when we just have in reconcilable differences. I don't think we're going to get there as a majority on this body and with the staff team. And so I think it's just important for us to put this to bed and make it that motion. Mayor, thank you. Thank you. Moved in second, it comes from every get up. Thank you very much. You know, Mayor, I appreciate this and I to also, one, I think if anything, first, give a lot of thanks to our city staff that took a lot of time trying to bring the two parties together. The two very disparate points of view. And I can imagine it's difficult to come to the data to here and present on a proposal and hearing every single different person come at it for a different reason why they're opposed to it. But I want to tell you just personally, because I've been in those conversations since 2019 and to say that I greatly appreciate how much time that has been put into this, the legal work, the policy work, the looking at the trade-offs to try to find something. And so for me, I want to personally first think the staff because they were put in a very difficult position to try to find something that everyone could come over here and say, you know, this is where we should be going. And they came at it with understanding the true needs that one, our economy is fragile, you know, that all of the places that the mayor just mentioned, including the need that we still have a challenge because of interest rates and other things out of our control, the development of housing that are at risk. And also, the clear focus, and I want to thank Leslie because she was at all of those community meetings, whether they're in Tahoe Park, Fruit Ridge Manor, Oak Park Community Center, to understand the needs and also the fragility of the community. And to be able to develop so many benefits out of what happened in those negotiations. And it's always interesting how people remember things because the framework that came out of the CBA actually was agreed upon before the lawsuits were filed. You know, we are already moving down that path. And so I think to the mayor's point, this, the issue of trust is one that, you know, post this action needs, we need to work on because it was that lack of trust that hey, we're gonna miss this deadline. So let's file the lawsuit. And what happened because of that is it actually ended the conversations that we had. It stalled the conversations and the work that we were already doing. We're already working on the housing issues, the transportation issues, the small business protection issues. And in fact, the work that that SWID presented when we passed the small business plan two weeks ago is an example of that work. And those were conversations we had right in the middle of when we were all trying to learn how to use Zoom. And to think that those are things about the benefits are that came about. And I mean, I have to give a lot of credit to the mayor here because even in the golden one center project, local hire was a goal. It was an aspiration. It wasn't a requirement. I mean, the fact that that came out from the mayor's office to negotiate between the two parties because the wasn't the city It was it was the developers also with the UC that wouldn't all agree upon the issue but to get a mandatory local requirement and then on top of that 20% is hard enough to meet To go say in 10 years we got to get to 25 and to get everybody able to reach that, that is a huge amount. And so I think the other point here, and there's one issue where I do disagree with the comments about the other lawsuit with AFSCME. A lot of the local 3299 folks they live in my district. And even before Aggies whereware got started or the conversation, those workers had already faced a potential displacement from the psychiatric hospital that was going to get privatized. And what this solidified was, and again, I want to thank the mayor on this because he was the one that was able to get into that negotiation to find out how to be able to make sure that those local residents who didn't have a place to go to. And they moved to these neighborhoods because they could walk or bike to work closely or use public transit. Those were benefits out of that point. But all of those pieces, even before then, you know, they were already happening because of that community work. So to all the to say is that again the CB the community benefits agreement itself and the lawsuits I think would have ended up almost in the same place where we were at today. So the question really comes down to in the future, how do we continue to build trust to get to these negotiations? Because if it's always going to end up in lawsuits, we're going to find out that we were stuck in a stalemate and it wasn't until, and I got to thank Gabby Treho for this, because she was the broker that brought people together from both sides to say, hey, can we, can we, you know, everybody put their, you know, what do you call it, their figuratively legal guns decide and get back to the table with the city, the UC and the developers. So, you know, the, so I want to make sure that we don't conflate what the real history was and actually getting to. What I think is a great success and because of that, because of that we tried to replicate I think is a great success. And because of that, because of that, we tried to replicate it here in a different way. And we shouldn't be upset that we tried. I mean, we shouldn't be upset that we tried. If you don't try, sometimes you're going to fail. But we shouldn't be upset that we actually tried to make something positive. But the reality is, is this proposal doesn't meet what we want to meet in either way. And the reality that I think we all can agree on, it is detrimental to both people's perspective. And in my opinion here, I appreciate the motion to reject. So, glad to support that motion. I also think the motion just to lay on the table is the appropriate motion as well, indefinitely. So, but either way, glad to do, glad to either support the motion to reject. But also, if it proves that the maker of the motion, motion to lay on the table would be, I guess the preferred parliamentary procedure in this one. So with that, I'll leave it there. Mr. Mayor and you know I just again I just want to thank our team you know because we did put you in an impossible situation and the only thing I think that should be recognized is the effort that was made to try to get the council, the community, and all of the interested parties to get to the table. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to add that too. For those who are disappointed, and a lot of people just do not blame this staff here, this is the direction of the, you know, it's represented the direction of the public officials. Like I said, in my view, it is a lot of Tory concept. It just doesn't work to prescribe minimums for projects that are by definition fundamentally different from one another. But this is the staff did a good job here. As did SIDWD with Tatar. Okay, do we have anybody else? We do not. There is a motion on the table to oppose, reject. Thank you. Okay, it's called the roll, please. Thank you. Councillor Merva-Cappellan. Councillor Merva-Tau. Mayor Pro Temtelementes. Councillor Merva-Valanceuela. Yes. Vice Mayor Maple. Councillor Merva-Getta. Councillor Merva-Gennings. Yes. Vice-member Maple. Aye. Councilmember Getta. Aye. Councilmember Jennings. Yes. Councilmember Vang. Yes. And Mayor Steinberg. Yes. The work continues. I hope the work continues into the next administration. Maybe there is a formula that no one has, no one has yet come up with despite great efforts. Okay, that concludes the afternoon meeting. Do we have council ideas and questions? Or do we have any? Tonight at five, we're going to begin with some special presentations. And then we actually have a substantive agenda tonight. So we will look forward to all of that if there's nothing else to come before the City Thank you.