He was getting in this place if they didn't want him to.

Or let's go to that other room on the side.

I'd like to call the meeting of the City Council public financing authority to order.

City Clerk, can you have a roll call, please?

Councilman Twine?

Present.

Mayor Pro Tem McKeon?

Here.

Mayor Burns.

Here.

Councilwoman Vandermark.

Here.

Councilman Gruell.

Here.

Pursuant to resolution number two zero zero one-fifty-four.

Councilman Kennedy and Williams have requested permission to be absent.

And if there are no objections, it will be reflected in the minutes.

No objection.

City Clerk, do we have any supplemental communications?

We have no supplemental communication for this portion of the meeting.

Do we have anybody to uh sign up to speak for this?

We have no one signed up to speak.

Yes.

For this portion of the meeting.

Nice.

Um Mayor, before you proceed, we are going to remove item number three conference with real property negotiators from the closed session.

All right.

Um session announcement.

Well, it's gonna change that.

Um with real property negotiators, that's not we're not doing that right, Vig.

Yep.

At twenty one nine zero nine one Pacific Coast Highway.

Correct.

So none of that's happening.

So uh we're gonna go back close session.

Talk to council.

Motion.

Second.

Um, first and a second.

I'd like to reconvene the regular meeting of the city council public financing authority.

City clerk may have a roll call, please.

Councilman Twine here.

Mayor Pro Tem McKeon?

Here.

Mayor Burns.

Here.

Councilwoman Vandermark?

Here.

Councilman Gruell?

Here.

Pursuant to resolution number zero zero two zero zero one dash five for Councilman Kennedy and Williams have requested permission to be absent, and if there are no objections, it will be reflected in the minutes.

Okay, tonight's invocation will be given by uh police chaplain Bob Ewing.

May they be guided and strengthened and kept safe in all that they do.

We are grateful as well for the citizens who take part in civic life, who care deeply about our city, and who give their voices and their hearts to making Huntington Beach a better place.

Father, as discussions take place tonight, may all who speak and listen do so with kindness, with respect and courtesy.

May a spirit of cooperation prevail and may the outcome of this meeting bring unity and cur benefit to all.

In your most holy name I pray.

Amen.

Please join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Ready?

Begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Thank you to the Republic for which it stands.

City Attorney, do you have anything to report from closed session?

Nothing that I may have.

Alright.

Council members, I'll start off with just saying October 13th, 250th anniversary uh birthday for the Navy, our U.S.

Navy, and uh, yes.

And they will be doing a presentation in the next council meeting.

Uh successful air show.

Thank you to Code 4, Kevin Elliott, and everything to all participants and attendees.

I thought it was an awesome deal.

Uh to all the public safety, fire, police, marine safety, everybody did great, and everybody else who helped.

It was a great show.

Uh, anybody else?

Case.

Yeah, I just want to congratulate the uh Pacific Air Show team for putting on another just amazing, successful event.

It's uh incredible how they're faced with adversity, and they can you know call an audible and still pull off an amazing show.

Um, like Pat touched on just everyone from public safety to you know city workers to everyone to put on an event like that is truly impressive.

It's our premier event of the year.

Um I went down every day to different parts of the city um during after and before the air show, and every place was packed.

I mean, Main Street, there's lines to get in the restaurants over to Pacific City, same thing before and during after lines to get into the restaurants and businesses.

Uh, even went Sunday night over to uh the Hyatt after the show with friends and family for dinner, you know, 25-minute wait to get in one of those restaurants.

So I really just destroys the absurd false narrative that the air show does not bring economic prosperity to the city.

It's just it's more than just obviously a financial benefit to the community, just the sense of patriotism it brings.

I mean the smiles on people's faces.

Um, you know, drove down to uh rode down to the general admission area.

You know, that area is packed.

There's like a family fund zone with slides that's full, there's food trucks everywhere.

You know, I'm getting text messages throughout the day from people outside of our state that are here for the air show, friends from outside the city, down in you know San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Anaheim, all here for the air show.

Just so many people hit me up.

So it's just an amazing event.

Really puts us on the map to show that we can pull something like that off.

And I just really am impressed and thankful for what uh the entire team did uh to bring it to success.

So thank you.

Gracie.

So to piggyback off of what um Casey and Pat said, it was a great air show.

Um, even if a lot of the planes couldn't fly, they did a fantastic job spreading out the other areas, other entertainment parts of the show.

We had so many families out there.

We had families with strollers there, they brought their beach chairs.

So, even though the air show wasn't the way it has been in the past, the family still came together and they had a great time.

Um, everybody enjoyed it.

I did look at social media.

Everyone enjoyed it, and some were happy that the big jets didn't come by, others were not, but all in all, it was a great opportunity for families to come together, um, which is what we look forward here in Huntington Beach, and the businesses had an opportunity to do more business in a time where it's usually quiet out there.

So, like to thank Quote Fork, Kevin Elliott.

Our once again, our public safety was amazing.

We pulled off another large event without really any major issues.

So it was great.

Andrew.

Yeah, uh, just gonna jump on that too.

So, what I saw looking at it from the hospitality perspective downtown was that public works was doing an amazing job keeping absolutely everything clean, uh, public safety, obviously police fire.

So the mechanics of the way in which the event was being run by the city, incredibly impressive, and the amount of outsiders that came into the city in order to experience what a well-run city this is.

They were obviously impressed.

You can look across social and see that.

So amazing job to the city team, amazing job to code for, and I think success, and then obviously looking forward to next year.

Yeah, I just want to mention it was incredible to see them work and put that thing together when the because they found out like Thursday, late Thursday, the military wasn't gonna be able to participate.

That night, they had people coming in, I think from Phoenix, but two guys uh from the air community come down from Washington.

They were some were coming in on Friday.

They they started picking in out other acts from around, and they responded, they did great job, and that's kind of uh it was man.

I was stoked.

I was pretty impressed by the way they all came together.

I'm very uh proud of them.

Okay, yeah.

All right.

Right now we're gonna have a presentation and an update from our uh supervisor, Janet Nguyen.

Come on up.

Uh what's it feel like?

What feels like this was too high?

Well, to you it is.

Now you're repeating what my voice would say about me.

Um I just want to thank you, Mayor and Council for allowing me to give a county update to you and the residents of Huntington Beach today.

Um, again, I'm County Supervisor Janet Wynne representing Orange County First District, which covers the city of Garden, 90% of Garden Grove, and 100% of Cyprus, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Los Al, La Palma, Seal Beach, Westminster, and also the unincorporated communities of Midway and Rossmore as well.

Um I just want to, you know, um first thank you for the last several months.

I've watched your agendas and what you have accomplished here in coordination and working with the county.

Um you've put on the you put on your agenda to ban Kratom in Huntington Beach.

You have also looked at sand replenishment issues here in Sun uh in Huntington Beach, and you know, the community garden that you're looking at as well.

Um, I see that you have nitrous oxide on your agenda tonight.

We appreciate you because those are things that we have already banned from the county unincorporated areas, but we can't do it throughout the entire city county, and so you stepping up and helping us banning it, and I'll explain more of that as an issue later on.

Um, you know, as you know, I'm a resident here in the city of Huntington Beach, and both of my boys go to our public school here.

Um, you know, I know most of you might already know and have an idea what a county supervisor does, but I get the question all the time.

Even when I was previously at a county supervisor from 2007, 2014.

People go, so what do you supervise?

Um, you know.

So sometimes when I say I'm a county supervisor, they say, Well, which department?

I, you know, what we do in short is um orange county supervisor provide oversight for the county's government budget, which is a 10.7 billion dollars, and we pass our budget this year um without I mean balanced budget, and um we oversee about 20 overall about 24 departments, and roughly about 700,000 residents.

Um the departments include sheriff, district attorney, probation, public defender, county libraries, John Wayne Airport, Public Works, the Orange County Animal Shelter, which we appreciate the um collaboration and partnership with the city of Huntington Beach, uh, our landfill operation, waste recycling.

So all your waste and that you collect here from the city goes to the county's landfill.

We, you know, patrol, we have county beaches.

We also patrol the harbors like your Huntington Beach, Hunton Harbor as well.

So, you know, in the last nine months, we've been working very hard, and you know, my goal was to one restore integrity, transparency, and good governance at the Board of Supervisor.

Not in the last nine months, just a nine months review.

We I've attended 81 board and commission and committee meetings.

I've author or co-author and has had um nine directive ordinance and resolution passed by the board.

We've completed 315 constituent small business cases that were open and closed.

We've also attended between myself and my staff over on the district, over 1300 events, community events and meetings.

We've also recognized and have given now almost 2,000 recognition of certificates, proclamations, or resolutions.

As your county supervisor, I do get appointed on two different boards, and some of those boards and commissions that I represent you and Orange County collectively.

One is I am a board member to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, AQMD.

With that, I'm also on the Technology Committee and Climate Change Committee.

I'm on the Orange County Fire Authority.

We work in collaboration with your fire department.

On the Fire Authority, I am on three committees.

I'm vice chair of legislative public affairs committee.

I'm on budget and finance committee.

I'm also in capital improvement committees.

I am on Orange County Transportation Authority on that.

I represent you also on the Legislative and Communication Committee and Transit Committee.

I appreciate Mayor Burns, Mayor Protein McKean, and also Councilwoman Vandermark for the last several months working in collaboration with myself to make sure that we from Huntington Beach one is able to continue continue to have the funding from OCTA and also to be able to continue to bid and apply for grants because we are looking at applying together for a grant to collect trashes, the trash receptor over in Hunton Harbor.

And so we appreciate that communication and partnership that we've had with you and collectively the council and the city.

And then on top of that, I'm an alternate to many commission committee, Calatuma, Orange County Sanitation District, Orange County Emergency Management Council, South Orange County Watershed Management Area Executive Committee as well.

In the next few years, the county will have a lot of investment in the district.

Our Orange County Public Works in the next seven years, we will be spending 273 million dollars on storm channels just in the first district.

We have recently completed the 18 million dollars in bridge replacement at Warner, Springdale, and Edwards.

The Board of Supervisors have recently approved a design agreement with the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers for the Westminster East Garden Grove Wintersburg flood risk management project.

This project is a huge upgrade.

It is a lot of funding.

This is the first the first phase will begin in Hunton Beach and it will extend through Westminster into Garden Grove.

And surprisingly, 10 years ago, as a county supervisor, I actually traveled to Washington DC to advocate for funding and on this project.

The good news is that the this project is share cost.

Over the next seven years, with the Orange County Public Library, which I believe most of our library in or in their district is Orange County, except for Huntington Beach.

But with the Orange County Library, we are investing about 10.8 million dollars in the first district for renovations and also maintenance at our public libraries that belongs to the county.

And those of you who travel out in and out of John Wayne Airport, that airport does also belong to the County of Orange.

We have authorized 102 million dollars to rehab the taxiways, and we have also passed a 589 million dollars in capital approvement program over the next three years.

Some of the issues we've dealt with, you might have already heard of in the last several months, but I just want to touch a little bit on those because you've heard of them and I want to give you our perspective.

One is I don't know if you heard, but dogs have voted in Orange County.

Um I know it sounds silly, but it is true that there is there was a dog in 2021 was registered, a woman registered her dog to vote in the election.

And she tried, she so the dog voted twice.

The first election the dog voted on was the recall for the governor, which was counted, and the second vote that the dog voted for in 2022 for the primary voted, but was not counted because the county flagged it.

And how do we flag it?

The law states this is that if you register to vote online, you have to include a voter, I mean your ID or your social security number.

If you don't, it gets flagged to the county as we don't have that information.

So when you vote, if it is a California election, it would be county because we're not required to ask you to come in and verify your identity.

However, if you vote in a federal election that includes a federal camp, a federal election, like congressional candidates, it triggers that the county needs to call you to come in and verify your identity.

So when the dog voted in the governor's recall, which is a state election, did not trigger us.

We do not have to ask for the individual at the time we thought it was an individual to come in.

But when the dog was dog voted in the primary, the following election cycle, it triggered us to call, and we then send the information over to the DA.

Would that have been uh flagged or caught if the dog didn't vote that time?

It wouldn't, yes, it would not have been caught.

Yeah, but if the dog would be still voting today, yes.

That's awesome.

Yep, it's true.

It's it's really unfortunate.

Um, and you know, this is where look, we need to make sure that people have confidence in our election.

And we at the county um did with this information, we did pass a few things at the county.

One, we directed county council and the board uh and our register voters to verify all dogs license licenses with the vote of roll, just to make sure there's no duplicate of a dog name in that household or something that might trigger.

So we did verify over 7,000.

There was nothing there.

However, that was only being able to verify the unincorporated area of the county because we have that data.

Every city has your own data of your dog license or animal license.

So we have directed our county council to send a letter to all cities asking for your permission to let us see your um animal license file so that we can verify that with our vote of roll.

Second, there's approximately about 24, 2600 individuals on file that triggers the you have not given us your ID information.

Because this coming election is a state election.

We don't want the mistake that happened in the governor's recall.

We have directed county registered voters to send every one of those individuals a letter notifying them that hey, we don't have your information, you should come in and let us know what your social security number or verify who you are so that we can allow you to vote in the next in this Prop 50 um special election.

The mail in ballots already went out though, didn't they?

Yes.

Did they not go to those people?

We no, it went all ballots have gone out, but we are asking those individuals to come in and verify who they are to us, and so we are doing we are trying to find every mechanism that we need to to ensure that these kind of things doesn't happen again.

And so that's you know I would tell you you know most of you know I have a dog a German Shepper if he could vote he'll want on the ballot how many times he can have treats and what kind of treats is his choice.

That would be more important to him than the governor's recall.

There's enough dogs in the city and county that they'd probably get that on the ballot.

A supervisor has anybody taken you up on the offer to come in and and cure their their voter registration yet out of the 2400 letters you might have sent out you know I don't know yet this was just we directed this about a week and a half ago and so we're we haven't um I we haven't had an update since thank you.

Next um I wanted to touch on um as you remember the former supervisor who embezzled more than 10 million dollars from the county COVID money for his personal gain has now um is in prison federal prison in Arizona we've worked very hard to make sure and we appreciate a lot of you not only um you as council members and mayor also constituents who send in notices and letters to the county and also to the judge the federal judge to make sure that he received the maximum sentencing on top of that DOJ has seized 2.4 million dollars in asset from two bank accounts and has directed that those monies will be heading back to the county and they've also seized two properties that are has been up for sale as well once those prop those are paid um or sold the all those fundings will come back to the county we are continuously looking at ways to make sure that we put policy procedures in place so that no county supervisor executive of the county andor county employees can do something like this again for example we have now put in all of our procurement and purchasing into one house prior to this it was every department had their own purchasing procurement system and no one had a check and balance and there's no filtering on whether uh or vetting on whether these organizations or these contractors are valid that they have a license if they don't have a license if they pay their you know if they're nonprofit or if they're a valid nonprofit or not those weren't being vetted now they are they are so you can't come into the county and get funding from the county whether it's a nonprofit or a contractor without having been vetted through because now we have it all into one under one roof in one house.

We have authorized a freeze and hold on all emails and communication from that office or to that office for all his employees including himself and to keep all records at the county because we don't keep all records depending on I think it's five or ten years.

And so we want to freeze all those and we have passed that on top of that the crime yes all right yes.

I expect more and more indictments to come eventually because it's not just within his office but now you have Caloptima another public agency they just did their audit but they have refused to release the audit I've called for them to release the audit because it implicates a lot of things that he's done at Caloptima which is a uh five point something billion dollar budget of medical and medicay system healthcare system at the county and so I'm hoping uh they just had the meeting last week and have indicated they might be looking at releasing the full audit so we're waiting for that um even though I am an alternate member of Caloptima they would not let me read the the report.

So we'll continue to fight for transparency and accountability at the county, given what happened last year.

And the next issue is um dear to me is the animal care agency um prior to me coming back as a state senator, I authored lots of legislation dealing with the animal and have been very successful.

One is when a dog, an animal enters a shelter statewide, they get a if they're seen by a veterinarian, there will now be a medical record for those animals.

Because back then there wasn't any.

It's no different than us.

If we go to ER, if you go to the ER in the morning, if it if the ER doctor gives you medication or you know, gives you some tests or whatever, you want the evening doctor to know that.

We didn't have that record for any of the animals that enters the shelters.

And so when they come in, there's been a husky that died, bleed to death.

There's been cats, you name it.

So we had legislations, one of their passed last year and signed by the governor was that every shelter will now have to have a medical record of all these animals.

Coming back to the county of Orange, prior to COVID, the county animal shelter opened full time, seven days a week.

After during COVID, it's shut down.

You can only get an appointment for half an hour, but you have to look at the animal's picture online.

After COVID, three years later, we're still doing the same thing.

Last year, I did an op-ed in the OC register, called on the county to reopen the shelter.

They finally opened, but it was part-time, only for a few hours a day.

So as a county superior coming back, I got them to, I got the Board of Supervisors to one force the Orange County Animal Shelter to open full time, seven days a week.

Second, we would now post all data on our website monthly.

That includes how many animals have entered the shelter, how many has been adopted, how many has been euthanized, you name it.

We will be transparent and allow the public to know where these animals are because during COVID, we were about 200% euthanization rate at the county shelter.

And we want to be accountable to you as one of our partner contractors that we are holding and helping these animals get adopted.

We also will have a full-time staff that will work with the public, and we have also put in other measures such as training the animal before the animal leaves the shelter and also helping families know what animal would probably best for them.

If you live in an apartment, you probably might not want a German shepherd.

If you're a runner and you're running marathons, you probably want a German shepherd.

So we want to make sure that the animal fit with the family so that they don't get returned and the rate of return is will be lower at the county level.

Next, as I mentioned earlier, we appreciate you for putting on the agenda on the kratom and also nitrous oxide tonight.

These are issues that have come up at the county, and we want to make sure that they are banned.

As you know, Kratum is a substance that is in the form of a pain relief, boost energies, and manages or withdrawal.

It's sold as loose powder, pills, gummies, and liquid extract.

And it's sold at gas station for anybody, regardless of age.

Similar to the county, has now banned nobody can buy it under 18 in Huntington Beach and all and a corporate area of the county of Orange, plus a few other cities.

Our goal is to get all cities in Orange County to do the same thing.

So one, it bans under 18 to be able to buy it.

Two, it will ban 70H derivatives.

Those were actually deadly and kills, and that's completely banned, even for over 18.

We have been fighting on against fentanyl.

We will continue to, and the county will provide.

If anybody would like, we have Narcan at our office.

Please let us know.

We will the County of Orange, the health care agency will provide those for free.

And so we will continue and we appreciate a lot of you who have joined me in previous years on our town hall town halls that we've held across not just our district, across Orange County as well.

And so and you know, and that goes with nitrous oxide.

It's now becoming a use that is very dangerous for our children, and so we thank you.

We will continue to work with um Perla Mendoza and Project Eli, a nonprofit from Seal Beach, to educate residents, students, you name it, parents on Kratum, Fentano, and nitrous oxide going forward.

We um and so just um to wrap up, we've got a few events that's coming up.

One is our pet adoption expo coming up this um October 11th.

We're teaming up with the Orange County Animal Care and Two Rescue Organization to offer free adoptions of dogs and cats.

We'll also offer huge discount um to microchips, vaccines, and various um, you know, procedures like dewarming.

We're also giving you know rabi shots are very inexpensive for 15.

So everything's gonna all be on site.

It will be October 11th from 10 to 1, 10 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

at our Freedom Hall in at MyScore Park, because that area of MyScourt Park belongs to the county.

Um a lot of our events there because it's actually there's a facility that's large enough so that we can actually host a lot of the um the exhibits.

We're also gonna do a health um free health expo coming up on October 26th in partnership with um Lesson Not Free Clinic and the Vietnamese American Physician Association of Southern California.

It's services first come first serve.

Uh we're gonna provide medical care, which is primary care, special care, speciality care, um, you name it, dental exams, cleaning, fillings and extraction, vision, eye exam, prescription glasses, reading glasses, all provided free of charge for the residents.

This is my 13 year of doing so, and we have helped over uh 12,000 individuals throughout the years in this, and we get about 400 to 500 volunteers from all ages helping, whether they're medical professional or not, and so we appreciate them.

And this will all be at Mosquare Park and both both events will also be free of um parking for free as well.

And I just want to again thank you for allowing me to speak here today, and um I want to echo what you have just echoed.

Um, we had a great air show.

We appreciate the city for your continued support of the air show because I know a lot of residents, thousands of residents, not just from Humanity Beach, from all over my district and Orange County, came into Hunting Beach and they felt safe.

We appreciate your public safety, the coordination of all your staff, whether it's public safety, um, you know, your public works, you name it, and all the volunteers, um, we appreciate the continuation of that support, and we thank Code Four and his staff.

Um you're right, Mayor.

We had a lot of phone calls into our office going, hey, do you know if the air show is still going on?

Um, and so it's so amazing that they were able to pull together and still deliver a spectacular um event for the public.

We appreciate all of your staff for the events that you've held throughout the years, whether it's the Halloween coming up, your fourth of July parade.

Um, but I want to um make mention um your e-bike education.

We as a parent of a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old, that is so appreciated by all of us parents here in Huntington Beach, and you know, teaming up, you teaming up, Mayor.

I saw the video, you and the police, our police chief, um, educating our community and making sure that they are aware of how the danger of e-bikes and what the safety needs to be.

And so um again, thank you for the great partnership we share continuously in many areas to of importance to our residents, and um, I can answer any questions, uh, but I want to leave the residents with.

Please call our office if you need us.

One four phone number is 714 834 3110.

That's eight three four three one one zero or you can email me, Janet.Nguin, N-G-U-I-EN at OCGov.com.

Um, again, thank you, Mayor and Council for allowing me to say a few words or speak tonight.

Give me an update.

Um, Andrew, uh, just a couple of quick questions.

So you mentioned during COVID, the animal shelters had a euthanization rate of 200%.

What what are the numbers now?

Um it's a lot less um we haven't received the latest yet um and so we've been working on that and that's why allowing the shelter to open full time would help because people want to just spontaneously go to the shelter and they they fall in love with the animal with the dog or the cat, the rabbit or the lizard.

Um I remind my boys we don't want lizard at the house because mommy doesn't like lizard um but you know for those who wants all these they can adopt them and so it's definitely has gone way below um but we're not where I would like us to be and then as a city what can we do to help assist in that process and the procedures such that people are more aware of the opportunities to get to the shelter find an animal save an animal essentially is what it comes down to I think awareness is reminding folks that we do have an animal shelter it is in Tustan and that's why we're doing our pet expo is bringing some of those animals to the community closer um so if as awareness remind folks that there's an animal shelter come by look at these animals they are also um on our website but it's not up to date you know um by the minutes so it's best to come by our shelter and look at it and if they have any questions feel free to call our office and like I said um our pet expo is coming around the corner on October 11th please come out if you're looking for an animal or even just come out you might I know I know someone will fall in love with these animals and then uh just second question sorry on the on the Andrew Doe piece so I mean massive fraud obviously you're still in the process of uncovering the way in which this went down so is there any advice you give obviously to us as a city but maybe other cities that are watching or looking in so to what types of controls to put into place so to make sure that something like that never happens again.

I think for us at the counties we fell one first is our purchasing area because we had you know with 24 departments you have 24 plus purchasing procurement is one is making sure that your process in purchasing includes vetting your vendors and nonprofits make sure that they do have their license make sure that they're actually officially qualified nonprofits some folks can say I'm a nonprofit but they might not officially have their um EIN number as a nonprofit that's those things are important and so most people don't think about that.

You know if you're gonna be receiving for us county money government money taxpayers' money I want to make sure that you are licensed that's one and the other part is um making sure there's a check in terms of vendors that it's a council and the mayor's directive helping to hold vendors accountable if a vendor comes back and says I can't do it you know we have problems right now still at the county we have contracts that come back this is the 13th amendments what by now we've spent millions of dollars in the same contractor if that's the case we should have actually gone out with a new bid and so we're vetting through that right now and so I think looking at your contracting procurement process is also important as well.

Thank you.

Supervisor do you think that um our elections here in Orange County would be more secure if we adopted the federal uh standards that you spoke of you know um I will tell you if seeing what I saw with this dog was able to vote and knowing that it's because of the federal mandate, and that was because during the um it was the Florida recount of president George W.

Bush election, that's why that law was put in place federally.

I believe that if we were able to have ID verify, it would be much more secure, and that a dog cannot vote.

I know a lot of folks have said this is that oh, it's one dog.

No, one dog makes it that's the one that we caught.

There might be others that we haven't, and so I believe, given what I've know today and what I've seen already from the county side.

Should we?

I believe we should.

And that's where making sure that we verify voters of who they are, but also making sure that's easy for them in the sense that that it's accessible, that they can go to vote and they're comfortable.

That's also important because we want to encourage participation.

And one one final question.

It's actually not a question, it's maybe a request.

Of the 2400 letters that you sent out, uh, where you had incomplete information.

Can you let us know, say, you know, after November 5th, how many of those 2400 individuals actually responded to their letter?

We will, thank you.

Grace.

Just a quick comment and a question.

First, I want to thank you for having the shelter reopened.

Um, we adopted our dog Ziggy from that very shelter, and the reason we adopted the dog is we didn't have anywhere to go, so I took my kids there just to look at the animals.

It wasn't scheduled, we just walked in, it was open.

Had that shelter been closed, we probably wouldn't have been able to adopt her.

We wouldn't have met her.

She could have been euthanized.

So it's really sad to think of how many pets were euthanized that had the community had an opportunity to just walk around, look at them and fall in love with them.

Um, they were put down.

So thank you for doing that.

I'm sure that's literally saving a bunch of our um animals' lives in there.

Um, the question you stated that you asked the cities, was it the cities for permission to see the animal registrations?

Have the cities been cooperative?

Um, so we directed about a week ago or week and a half ago.

So we're waiting.

Um I have not heard any um hesitation, so um county council is supposed to give us an update in the next few days.

Okay, and thank you for pursuing this because like you said, this is the one that was caught.

Um could you I could just imagine the other people, and this is a dog.

I'm sure there are the people who have actually voted who shouldn't be.

So thank you for bringing this to our to our attention.

Our elections are the most important thing for us.

It decides who we vote for, who represents us, and what policies are pushed forward from how much water we can use, what schools our kids go to, what's being taught in schools, everything that these um elected representatives decide affects our families.

So we have to secure our elections.

We cannot just say it's just one dog.

And some people thought it was funny and they didn't think it was a big deal, but I was pretty concerned that a dog was able to vote twice.

It's it thank you, council.

It's important actually for those who don't know.

I ran and won in 2007 to the county supervisor by three votes.

One, two, three.

I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for that election.

And so every vote matters, every vote counts, and it's important that every vote um, you know, is verified and valid.

And so this is not just that one incident, it could have been others, but it's also important had it been a close election, that could have made a difference.

Yeah, and and one vote like that dog just and validated somebody else's vote.

So I do did tell that story of how you went one by three votes.

People say my vote doesn't matter.

I said where our senator won by three votes, so it does.

So thank you for doing all this.

Thank you.

That's it, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, next up is gonna be um Orange County Vector Um control Mosquito Awareness Campaign Award, uh Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District to the city of Huntington Beach.

All right.

So I think you can go and put it in Malcolm vegan at the end.

Okay, thank you, Mayor Burns, City Council.

Each year at the beginning of mosquito season, usually falls around beginning of summer, April 15th this year, Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District works with cities throughout the county to help get the word out of what people can do to stop mosquitoes, to fight mosquitoes, and to stop them from spreading disease.

I want to thank you.

I want to thank your PIOs.

And especially our board of trustees member uh Gracie Vandermark for helping to get the word out.

I'm here to present you with our most supportive city, large city, for the second year in a row.

And it really has worked.

The title of our campaign this year is Together We Fight.

Okay, because mosquitoes don't care who you voted for if you're a long border or a short border, or you know, God's sake's a boogie border.

No, just kidding.

Just kidding.

But they will fly over your fence and bite you.

So we all have to work together.

Together we fight is the motto of this campaign.

And it worked this year really well.

Last year we had to spray over 3,000 houses in South Huntington due to the presence of uh West Now virus and the mosquitoes there.

This year we have not had to, and uh hopefully we'll continue.

So thank you very much.

Uh thank you.

I love getting those reports so much.

Thank you.

So we'll come up.

Okay.

We'll take a photo.

Is it the long way?

Somebody else take it.

Oh.

Can you take a picture?

Julie's very integral part of this award.

Thank you.

Okay.

Presentation by United for freedom will be going right after public comments.

No more outbursts, please.

Pain.

They will be going right after public comment.

And hopefully we won't have any kind of outbursts.

So back to public comments.

Clerk, do we have anybody to speak?

Signed up to speak.

We do.

But before that, I'll announce the supplemental communications.

Oh, yeah.

We have received for item number seven.

Three emails received regarding the unite for freedom.

For council member items number 17.

One email received regarding the proposed prohibition on the sale and distribution of nitrous oxide.

Number 18, 17 emails received regarding the proposed adoption of resolution number 2025-64.

We have 17 speakers signed up.

To speak.

Okay, thank you.

Um I'm gonna read a statement.

Proper decorum at City Council meetings is imperative in order for the public to remain informed about issues pertaining to the city's business.

The public comments portion of the meeting is an opportunity for the public to be heard and address those issues in a public forum.

Disruptive behavior, impeding or delaying our ability to conduct the council's business will not be tolerated.

Council, I mean, California Penal Code Section 403 prohibits disrupting this meeting and enforcement action will be taken for violations of this law.

At this time, the city council will receive comment from comments from members of the public regarding any topic, including items on the open session agenda.

Individuals wishing to provide a comment on items may do so in person by filling out a request to speak form delivered to the city clerk.

All speakers are encouraged but not required to identify themselves by name.

Please note that the Brown Act is not allowed discussion or action on topics that are not on the agenda.

Members of the public who would like to speak directly with the council member on an item not on the agenda may consider scheduling an appointment by contacting city council's administrative assistant at 714536 5553 or emailing the entire city council at city.council at surf city-hb.org.

What do you want to do?

15 at a time or 15.

Then we have 20 speakers now.

Sure.

We can do 15 at a time.

You only have 20 speakers?

Oh, we have no.

We have 20 speakers now.

All right.

Whatever you want.

Oh, time.

Oh, let's give them uh 75 seconds.

Okay, I will call the first speakers.

Once your name is called, please come down the podium and line up at both podiums.

Mr.

Amory Hansen, Rick Tictomo, Diane Bentley, Rebecca Groot, Ken Inouway, Donald Eugene, Russ Neal, Chris Clue, Rosalinda Price, Tim Geddes.

When this city council took the podium, you declared that you were going to run our city like a business.

Well, if by that you meant that you were going to spend our taxpayer funds on stupid losing lawsuits, give millions of dollars of our money away to your friends and campaign donors, and fail to do the simple act of collecting rents on city properties.

Well, then you've succeeded.

We had the dubious pleasure of hosting the Pacific Air Show this past weekend after you gave seven million dollars to Code 4 plus a 25-year no-bid contract.

And the city also gets to pay the 250,000 dollar in minor environmental impact report and fund police fire and cleanup costs.

You've lost yet another lawsuit with the state, and we're days away from having to pay huge fines because you stomped your feet and shouted that the state couldn't tell HB to city to build housing that we badly need.

And now it is revealed that you haven't even been collecting rent and late fees for the Metal Art Golf Club for the past several years.

Well done.

After all, it's only HB residents' hard earned dollars that you're sacrificing.

Next speaker, please.

Good evening, amazing city council.

My name is Rebecca Groot.

First, I'd like to eat give each of you a little plastic Jesus because I just want you to know there are people in this community that um appreciate what you do, and we are praying for you.

So thank you very much.

Um again, my name is Rebecca.

I'm a HB resident, and I am here to promote the walk to end Alzheimer's, which is occurring on November 8th, right here in Huntington Beach.

A personal thank you to Councilwoman Vandermark who reached out to me personally and is going to participate.

I would love to see all of you guys register for this walk and anyone here in the community.

It is completely free to walk in this event.

It is completely free to register.

It is great PR for you and your business and anything that you would like to promote to the community.

Um and also, if you sign up, you get free beach parking for the whole day.

So it's just a win-win for everyone.

It's a way to bring our community get together when we're so divided.

Alzheimer's is a terrible disease, and I would really appreciate your help.

Um, another ask I have is if the council would consider donating the two hundred and sixty-six dollar fee that it costs to put a sign across Lake Street.

We do have a sponsor that will pay for the production of the sign, but we were hoping that you can.

Okay, thank you so much.

And then I'm only a hundred and fifty dollars away from my goal, so if you want to make my boss happy, scan that QR code on the paper I gave you.

All thank you so much and God bless.

Yeah, bless.

Next speaker.

Well, you tried to school us at the last regular meeting that you're not fascists or Nazis.

Trump signed an executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorism organization.

Do you know that Antifa is short for anti-fascist?

So if you agree with Trump, that makes both him and you fascist.

The most well-known fascist is Hitler and the German Nazi Party.

The American equivalent is MAGA.

Trump is an authoritarian, compulsive liar, draft dodger, con man, rapist, probable pedophile, and he is convicted convicted criminal and has six bankruptcies.

At this point, if you still support Trump, you are either very rich, very racist, or just plain stupid.

Well, your so-called rapture happened several weeks ago, and unfortunately, you're all still here.

So it's obvious to the very good Christians either.

Feel free to fill out a blue card, sir.

I'd like to talk to you one-on-one on that.

Go ahead.

Next speaker, please.

Yes, um, good evening.

My name is Rick Tuck at Homo, and I live in Parkside Estates, a new community of 111 homes surrounding Villa Park.

And we last closed Estro about two years ago.

We would like to thank the city and particular Bob Malani of uh Public Works Engineering for their cooperation over the last two years to begin building a privacy screen for the sewage uplift station and the entry to our community.

However, the city and the developer Shea Holmes have fallen short.

We need the city council to work with uh Shea Holmes to set priorities to remove a slope hazard to finish our community and avoid viability concerns.

Right now we have children running down that slope, which has hazards all over the place, exposed piping, sewage uh covers and such at risk of life and limb.

But the city is and the coastal commission are asking us to take over maintenance of that.

That's inappropriate.

We uh don't want to take on that kind of liability without that being corrected before we take it over.

So the uh handout is provided to you next week.

Thank you.

Uh good evening uh mayor, uh council members and fellow residents.

My name is Rosalind Price.

Most people know me as Roz.

I'm a proud resident of Huntington Beach, California.

I'm gonna speak really fast because I had this for like three minutes and now I gotta get it down.

My heart um lies deeply with the community and the people, it's safety and its beauty.

I want to be by expressing my heart for gratitude to Chief Eric Para and the entire uh police department at Huntington Beach, including our dedicated police captain and officers for their tireless commit to keeping our streets clean, safe, and welcoming.

With that said, I also want to thank the city with their leadership for establishing the navigation center that provided 174 beds and wraparound services and case management for mental health so that people are not left on the streets.

As a co-founder of Bug Angels nonprofit dedicated to serving the homeless, the hopeless, and anyone seeking guidance for our support.

I see the challenges up close and don't speak in theory.

I speak from personal experience through family members who have struggled through years of outreach and community work.

I've seen the lives changed.

We approach people with both accountability and compassion.

With that said, um, we are losing too many lives to methamphetamines, fentanyl pills laced with car fentanology.

We cannot allow another dangerous substance they cruits in our street.

I respectfully ask the council members to consider an ordinance prohibiting the sale of nitrous oxide for recreational use alongside with strong education preventions and treatment efforts.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

First of all, 75 seconds is the most arbitrary yet.

That's disgraceful.

Take 60.

Good evening, uh Tim Geddes in the House.

I am speaking on opposition to agenda item number seven.

The presentation by Unite for F for Freedom, a bogus right-wing organization, more slanted than the roofs at Wienersnitzel with no credibility in the world of election rights and protection.

This presentation is a cruel hoax being perpetrated on our electorate.

It certainly does not pertain to Orange County, let alone Huntington Beach.

I have served as an OOC, ROV, customer service representative, aka poll worker for the for the last several elections.

I know it is safe, and the training is rigorous.

If this is a pretext for voter ID and city-run elections, it is a preposterous ploy designed to degrade democracy in our city.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Don't look so excited.

Hi, Chris Clewee Heading to Beach Resident.

I'm here to speak out against the presentation that's going to go on because this is being presented by election deniers.

Um they were born from a group that was New York Citizens' audit, started in 2022, who was actually banned from New York City due to violating both the voting rights act as well as the Ku Klux Klan Act.

So this is the group that you are putting in front of our city telling our citizens that ooh there might be a problem with our voting systems.

And it's completely false.

The Orange County Registrar of Voters does exemplary work, making sure that our elections are fair and that they are safe.

And the only reason you guys are pushing for this voter ID law is to try to suppress the vote because you know you're unpopular, you know people don't like what you stand for, and you refuse to do your financial duty to the city and talk about things that matter, like our budget, like the money we're wasting on lawsuits against the state, things that affect all of us, not just the people who voted for you.

So once again, I would ask us to pursue a Huntington Beach agenda and not a MAGA agenda.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

My name is Mr.

Amory Hanson.

I'm speaking tonight in support of 18.

The mayor's item to declare support for a legally valid and transparent 2026 election.

It is important to every vote's counted.

President Grant once said, quote, suffrage once given can never be taken away.

And all that remains for us now is to make good that gift by protecting those who have received it, end quote.

I urge the council to continue protecting this right by having more in-person polling places and ensuring everyone's ability to have a short walk to the poll.

Perhaps the cast their vote for Mr.

Amory Hansen, a historic choice.

Once again, I think yes vote on I am 18.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good evening.

My name is Russell Neal, and I live in Huntington Beach.

I support item 18.

An election process must not only be honest, it must also be believable.

In court, breaking the chain of custody for evidence makes it inadmissible.

The ballot is the evidence of a voter's will.

Mail in ballots have no chain of custody, making them inadmissible and the results unbelievable.

No one can say what happened to these ballots between their mailing out and coming back.

Bloated voter rolls, lack of voter ID, and ballot harvesters just make it worse.

I support all efforts to restore our election integrity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

At a recent city council meeting, I thank council members Twining and Williams for the fact that they wanted to know what Huntington Beach would have to pay before Huntington Beach entered into the long-term contract with the air show.

At the same time, I believe that every resident of Huntington Beach should remember that the other five members of the City Council ignored the responsibility to protect the assets of the city as they eagerly agreed to the long-term contract without knowing or caring about the cost of the city, even though the five of them know very well that we're in a financial crisis.

Another city council member inferred that their show settlement was not a big deal since we recovered our five million dollar payment from the oil company.

Now let me emphasize why this statement is both reckless and irresponsible.

First of all, the city council should have never approved to pay five million dollars when the plaintiff did not provide any evidence of his loss.

Second of all, when we sued oil company, why didn't the city council try to recover some of the money that they led to next speaker?

Hello, my name is Ellen Riley.

I'm a citizen, long-term citizen of Huntington Beach, and I'm here with my concern about bringing down the debt and the deficit that this city has.

And one way not to do that is to spend money on frivolous things like flowers in Central Park Library or Memorial Plaques or plaques and placards.

That is not a way to bring down the debt.

Now I have a way to bring down the debt and make money for the city, but you probably won't like it.

And it's to sell the helicopters and replace the helicopters with drones, which are much more efficient and better for the environment.

And I would hope that you would stick to the basic of city government and maybe put more money into the police department too for their hiring and put money into housing, consider housing and street maintenance, the basics of city government, not a bunch of frills and memorials and plaques.

That's my opinion.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Clerk call the rest of the names, please.

Pat Keegan, Sean, Chris Reaney, David Reinerson, Pat Goodman, Guest P.

Jordan Schleifer, Rick Brown, Roger Noor.

Jesus Christ, we're going to roll on this round.

Yo, what's good, Council?

My name's Pat Keegan.

Just want to start off by saying major shout out to you guys for keeping the city legendary.

So now I am here to talk about a different type of pollution, not in the ocean, but in our foods and drinks.

I'm talking about artificial food dyes.

Red 40, yellow five, blue one.

All the colors you should only see at a rave.

Not to mention the high fructose corn syrup and large list of additives you'll find in cereal, chips, fruit snacks, and even energy drinks.

Recently, I've heard about this place called Europe, and they've already banned most of these dyes.

But back here in the States, all these dyes are very prevalent in our foods and drinks.

Council, this is not chill.

There has to be another option to enjoy caffeine.

And there is.

I actually picked this up down by the store down the street.

It was founded by these local guys from Huntington Beach.

It's called instant energy gum.

It's a natural caffeine product with electrolytes.

There's no sugar, and of course, no food dyes.

And guess what?

It's still gas.

It proves companies can create something that doesn't have the dyes in them and still be good.

So here's my pitch for you, council.

Let Huntington Beach be the first city in America to ban artificial food dyes and set the tone for the future.

Thank you.

Uh, what's up, counsel?

So I had a really important social issue to bring to your attention tonight, but that last guy fired me up for Huntington Beach Local Business, instant energy gum.

And honestly, who else is superior head, that wave of energy, the 11-time world champ, HP legend, and clean living icon, Kelly Slater.

He spent his life protecting the ocean.

Now it's time that we protect what we're consuming.

Let's make clean living the next world title, Kelly.

We need you, dog.

This one's on you.

Thank you, Council, for everything that you do.

Let's keep Huntington buzzing without the dies.

Thank you.

Chris Rainey Native.

I'm here to speak about item 18.

There are American myths we tell ourselves and they show what we value or what we fear, but they're not true.

The myth of widespread election fraud allows people to stay face when they lose an election.

Janet Nguyen's anecdote about a dog who voted twice shows that we've got an election fraud issue of 0.0008%.

The Orange County Grand Jury conducted a study in 2024-2025 on OCROV in response to concerns about voter integrity.

They found the whole election process adheres to the highest standards of integrity.

Their 25-page report identifies the issue, states their methodology, shows their findings, and includes five pages of references.

United for Freedom by comparison relies on unnamed volunteer data analysts and doesn't have a forward-facing report.

What they have on their website is a list of lawsuits in nine states.

Eight have been dismissed, one for bad methodology.

That's an 88% failure rating.

If the OC grand jury is Google Scholar, Unite for Freedom is like next door.

For as much as we've talked about running the city like a business, we seem to be picking some kind of sketchy businesses that don't stand up under scrutiny.

We don't have an election problem.

We don't need to spend the money.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good evening, everyone, members of the council, and thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I believe that our right to vote is the cornerstone of our great American experiment.

That is why I'm here to urge you to vote no on endorsing United for Freedom's resolution.

This organization is a rebranding of United Sovereign Americans, a group whose election fraud lawsuits were so lawless that even Texas Judge Matthew Kaxmerick dismissed them out of hand.

Their claims of election insecurity have been examined countless times by real experts, and they have failed for one critical reason: a lack of evidence whatsoever.

Unite for Freedom does not respect the laws or traditions of this great country.

And an endorsement of their resolution would undermine confidence in our hardworking city and county election officials.

Let us stand with truth, justice, and the spirit of America.

I urge you to vote no on this device of resolution.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

This city council has been running their mouths about election integrity since they started running for office.

You've been asked repeatedly to provide solid evidence in support of the claim and never provided any.

Yet you happily accepted the results of your own election.

Now you bring in an outside organization making claims that our elections are not secure.

An organization that's been widely discredited for inaccuracy of their analysis, that has claimed two people with the same first and last name and date of birth must be the same person.

A claim that has been proven wrong repeatedly.

You say they're expert data scientists, but they don't have access to social security numbers or driver's licenses, data that real data scientists use to differentiate between people with the same name and birth date.

You propose to act on their information without even offering the ROV a chance to rebut the allegations, something that the Orange County grand jury already did.

And they found that our voter registrations and elections are conducted with the highest degree of security and integrity, that the elections are free, fair, and secure.

So who you gonna believe?

An organization that won't share its methods or data, or the Orange County Grand Jury, which will publish its entire analysis.

And oh, by the way, they the uh registrar of voters caught about 400 people trying to vote twice and referred them to the DA for prosecution, and nothing happened.

Next speaker.

Oh good evening, Mayor Burns and Council.

Uh I'm addressing item 18 and urge a no vote by the council.

I'm deeply concerned about this resolution proposed by Mayor Burns.

It makes false and misleading claims of millions of errors and voting records based on the work of the group that's going to be presented tonight.

Um I in my former profession, uh, I was an auditor for many many years, and it does not appear that their work is legitimate.

Um, an audit is transparent, objective, and verifiable.

The findings and recommend recommendations are supposed to be presented to the auditee to respond to, and I believe this group failed to do that.

This group's methods appear designed to reach a predetermined conclusion of election fraud in an effort to discredit results that elected even our current counsel.

Protect democracy found their data unreliable using only names and birth years, mislabeling valid addresses and flagging Sunday registrations is problematic.

Our Orange County grand jury, registrar of voters, and district attorney have already confirmed.

Thanks, Speaker.

Good evening, uh City Council members.

I want to talk about the Pacific Air Show this last weekend.

First, I want to thank Kevin Elliott and his team for another spectacular air show.

Despite the government shut down code for push forward and delivered an amazing air show that delivered on multiple fronts.

Anyone watching the Pacific Air Show was absolutely blown away by the precision and the skill delivered by the performers.

The Canadian snowbirds, the civil airmen and air women, the Red Bull helicopters and the RFA RF RAF parachute display teams exceeded expectations in their mind-blowing maneuvers.

The entire presentation of the air show was first class.

The amenities, the seating, the porta parties, the walking past, the volunteers, and the Pacific Air Show employees did a phenomenal job.

The attention to details, the kids' sections, the speakers throughout, and providing compelling information and discussions really enhanced the overall experience, the merchandise, the food, the beverages, and it complemented the entire experience for the whole weekend.

So again, I want to thank Kevin Elliott and Code 4 for another remarkable year of entertainment and driving significance a significant amount of incremental revenue to the city of Huntington Beach.

Thank you and God bless.

Hello, esteemed council members and uh and the rest of you.

The main reason of calling it, I mean I'm here today is because of the military equipment that we keep on getting procurement that we're supposed to have.

We're supposed to have a public uh announcement what we're gonna uh what we want, what we're gonna what we're requesting to be procured, and then we're supposed to have a talk about it to see if we really need it or not.

But none of this, and it's supposed to be early, and none of this happens.

And there's a really there's a there's a LA SD LA uh sheriff's department trick where they keep on moving people, so that way when you're in a position and you don't do anything, you don't do anything like uh like annually you're supposed to do like you're supposed to announce the military equipment that we're gonna get.

Uh they're supposed to they're supposed to be taught that, and then every single time that they move people around, then they say, Oh, I didn't learn that.

Nobody taught me that, nobody taught me that, and then nobody and then the public doesn't know what you guys have.

I mean, there's some crazy stuff that we keep on getting procured.

Last about three years ago, I think that we uh we approved 20,000 dollars worth of batteries for drones per year.

I mean, that's a lot of drones.

Thank you.

Are there any more speakers?

Okay, no more speakers.

We shall move on.

Yeah, and it's at this time that we will have a presentation by uh United for Freedom regarding the legality, legally valid 2026 election.

Thank you so much.

It's an honor to be here and to present some of the valuable information that we'll be talking about tonight.

First of all, Unite for Freedom is basically a total non-denominational, non-verse, totally non-political at all.

All we are doing is looking at data that is taken from the actual certified state and county voter rolls and analyzing it based on what's happening.

As you see here, we are we have studied 2024 federal elections in 30 states.

The election impacted over 376 electoral college votes.

We do a forensic audit to expose the legal violations that are occurring.

And in this particular case in 2024 in these 30 states, we found 39.5 million defective registrations, 14.5 million votes counted from ineligible voters, and 2.5 million more ballots counted than voters.

These are the types of things that don't work well.

As a nonpartisan group, we want everyone's vote to count, but we do want to make sure that they are from legitimate voters, and that's where our focus is on.

So who is Unite for Freedom?

Again, we are nonpartisan.

We are volunteers from thousands of citizens across the states of these United States that devote their time and their talent to take a look at these things that are so critical to our survival here.

We have data professionals.

We have 94 credentialed analysts, engineers, and architects.

They combine a total of four 740 years of combined expertise.

And he was also part of the team that authored the Help America vote laws for elections.

Looking for election security.

And one thing that I think has already been brought up is the civil rights of our elections, and our voice is all we have to keep our republic safe.

So our data systems, we do forensic analysis and the criteria that we look at.

First of all, real voters.

None of these create a valid registration.

We have birth years from 1800, 1850, and 1900.

Again, they are not legally valid due to the fact they can't possibly still be alive.

So are these material errors that are done from computer errors, or but they need to be adjudicated prior to ballots being mailed out.

One thing that we want to talk about specifically on this is more ballots are counted than voters who voted.

In 2024, and the 30 states that I previously mentioned, we had 2.5 million ballots counted more than voters who voted.

Specifically in 2024, our Orange County Grand Jury report, which was submitted on New Year's Day, showed that there were 40,447 more ballots counted than voters that voted.

That is a source from the data from the ROV, and our public records requests that actually wanted to look into this as well, showed that there were 39,583 ballots that were that were they certified more votes than people that voted.

These are the kind of anomalies that we ask for recommendations as to what happened and how to be judged.

When the ROV was questioned on this, he had no explanations of any of the discrepancies and provided nothing.

We were asked to provide data to the ROV, what, but the point of that data was to only be sent over to some university professors.

They are not data analysts, they are not at all qualified to look at any of this, they're not auditors, and therefore it was not something that was going to bear any fruit whatsoever.

So we did not use that.

So with the um one of the things we're going to talk about tonight is our voter, our phantom voter report that we did based on Orange County 2024.

What they do is we the team takes a random sampling and then they extrapolate the data based on their random sampling.

So the non-compliant registrations that were found, identities and existence, they're all peer reviewed.

Private investigators are hired and they do skip tracing.

Basically, they look to see if there's any credit rating on any people, like a phone bill, a credit report, whether or not they have an address.

All of these things are carefully carefully checked and then peer-reviewed.

So these are the kinds of things that Unite for Freedom takes into account to come up with their understanding and their reports, and all they're asking for is that these be looked into and adjudicated because this is what is so critical.

Now, when it comes to real votes, the vote tampering report that you will be seeing was we did on the 2024 state report.

This is what happens when you add and subtract votes throughout the entire process.

And this even happens after certification, and we saw this in Orange County because after in-person voting, the numbers continue to change daily up until certification.

And once you're there in-person voting, the polls have closed, and yet how is it that people are being added, subtracted, added, and subtracted?

So these are the kind of the anomalies that really don't give any trust to the system.

With that report, we found 21.1% of voters that were totally unverifiable.

5.3% of the voters did not exist at all.

6.1% voters were in the address was totally invalid.

4.3%, the social security number either does not exist or it was duplicated or held by more than three or four people, and then 5.4% of the vote to voter discrepancy, where more votes were counted than voters who voted.

So those are the kind of things that we saw specifically for Orange County based on our data teams and cyber security experts in the field.

These are not random, they are not arbitrary, these are well taken care of in terms of being certified.

Then in the vote tampering of California, the November report, we are still working on the 2020 report for the whole state, but we have had 2020 and 2022 reports, and this is where votes are added and deleted through the entire process, and especially even after certification.

To do this is a felony because you cannot tamper with counts once they are historic and once they are set.

So these are the total number of changes that you see over time in 2022 and in 2020.

And those are the kind of things that draw a lot of attention and put a lot of mistrust in the whole process.

The system has tendencies to be broken.

As much as people have been observing, you can't observe some of these things happening.

So you will have a false sense that things are being taken care of when in fact they're not.

Now we do have a special vote coming up at the redistricting, and what's going to be happening is Huntington Beach is extremely at risk because they're going to be put into place with Long Beach and parts of Los Angeles.

And the dissimilar cultures are now going to be represented by competing forces.

A beach culture versus an urban culture is going to have a different approach.

One second, please.

Yes.

Get us in clue.

That's your warning.

I've heard you guys each three times speak out.

I hear you over here.

So don't interrupt again or wait until you go outside and speak to yourself, but don't do it again in here.

So the law enforcement and crime support is very different than what you were going to need at the beach, considering what you might need in Long Beach or some of these other locations that are more urban based.

And the infrastructure is also going to be extremely adverse.

So one of the things that we are looking at doing at Unite for Freedom is to specifically take a look at what the California redistricting election is going to have happen to us.

And we want people to vote and to make their voice heard because basically your Huntington Beach is definitely at risk of having their whole city being inundated by people that don't have similar beliefs.

And what Unite for Freedom is planning on doing is to do a phantom voter report that's on the special election for Prop 50.

We will be looking at the entire state rolls as to what's happening with uh how many of those votes are being held to the proper standards in terms of being able to have received a ballot and to have that vote counted because these are the kinds of things that create a lot of problems and skew the votes of real people.

So there's currently litigation at the state and federal level.

We do have courts that are creating a lot of havoc at times because they think that the we the people don't have standing, but it is our elections.

We the people, these are our elections, and we are the ones that have standing, because without our ability to vote for our people that represent us, we do no longer have a country.

So these are the kinds of things that are critical.

So what we want to do is make a stand, and one of the things I really appreciate this city doing is they continue to make a stand to support this resolution, and all it is asking for is for the people, our elected officials to finally just observe and uphold existing law.

Every legal voter should not be okay to allow phantom voters to nullify real votes, they should not be okay to count more ballots than voters who voted, and they should not be okay with dogs, even though now we can go to the dog registry.

But your cats, your hamsters, your snakes, your lizards, they still could be registered.

And unless we have the ability to really check that these people are in fact truly who they say they are, it will not change.

So I ask what cost is freedom, and basically, I feel that as much as I want everybody's vote to count, I only want the real votes to be counted.

So I thank you so much for your courage and your ability to listen to all sides, and uh for me to be allowed to set the record straight.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna move on to council committee appointment announcements.

Does any council members do you have any appointment uh announcements?

Nope.

AB 123 reporting.

Butch.

I attended on September 25th.

Uh OCOG meeting in Irvine.

Anybody else?

No.

Openness and negotiation disclosures.

Hearing no one.

City manager's report.

Thank you, Mayor.

Excuse me.

Um, our treasurer and our um uh city attorney have uh um update on some communications and community meetings.

They'll be holding thank you, city manager.

When I was sworn in six weeks ago as treasurer, I promised meaningful community engagement from the treasurer's office to improve the lives of Huntington Beach's residents.

Today I'm starting to action that promise to get out in as many parts of our city as possible and talk directly with residents about what we do in this treasurer's office while soliciting community feedback on how we can better serve the community.

Our city attorney uh Mike Vigliades graciously agreed to join me for our brewing connection series so you can learn more about his office at the same time, and we may even have a few special guests, including some furry ones with four legs who have not voted.

The locations for these events have intentionally been spread all across our city and at various times throughout the day to better accommodate everyone's schedule in the community to be able to attend at least one of them.

We're sharing the first five, actually, the first six dates tonight, and we'll post uh future dates on our city's social media platforms.

A special thank you to both our public affairs team and to our local small business owners who have put a ton of work into arranging these events and helping make sure we keep the fun front and center in high functioning city government.

So we all hope everyone will come out to learn more about your local government in action.

Thank you.

Thank you guys.

So much to say, Vig.

All right, uh now move on to consent calendar.

Nine through 15.

Would anybody like to pull anything?

I'll move the calendar then.

Second.

Alright, we got a person second.

Can you please call the rolling clerk when you get a chance?

Councilman Twine.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem McKean?

Yes.

Mayor Burns.

Councilwoman Vandermark?

Yes.

Councilman Gruel?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Five.

Zero.

Five zero two.

No, five zero two.

All right.

All right, we'll move on to item 16, the public hearing to adopt resolution number 2025-52 for annual assessment approval in the Huntington Beach Downtown Business Improvement District for fiscal year 2025 to 2026.

City Clerk, please report on the notice of this public hearing.

Notice of the public meeting has been completed in the manner and form as required by the parking and business improvement area law of 1989, codified at streets and highways codes 3650.

Okay.

City clerk, do we have any supplemental communications for this item?

We do not.

Alright.

Staff introduce the report, please.

Thank you, Mayor.

Let me introduce Chris Kennedy, our economic development project manager who will provide you the staff report.

In a suit.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, City Council.

My name is Chris Kennedy.

I'm the economic development project manager as the city manager said.

This item before you this evening is a public hearing to consider the annual renewal of the Huntington Beach Downtown Business Improvement District.

The Huntington Beach Downtown, sorry, the Huntington Beach Downtown Business Improvement District was established in 2004 in response to requests from downtown merchants.

Its purpose is to fund activities improvements above the city's baselines to benefit and support businesses within the defined boundary.

For California parking and business improvement area law of 1989, the district's advisory board must prepare an annual budget for council approval.

Council must also approve the levy of the assessment for the upcoming fiscal year.

Comprised of roughly 255 businesses with assessments ranging from $80 to $1404.

The rate is based on the size of the space, location, and the type of business.

Total assessments collected for the upcoming year are estimated to be 115,000 based on business license data.

Recommendations for how to allocate the assessment funds are made by a council appointed advisory board and considered annually.

In 2008, City Council appointed downtown HB as the district's advisory board.

Downtown HB was formed by the businesses within the district and is comprised of a paid staff and a volunteer board of directors.

Downtown HB administers and manages district activities and funding outlined in the ordinance and resolutions establishing the district.

For the sake of this discussion, the district is defined as a city approved program versus downtown HB, which is a nonprofit organization that functions as a merchants association and serves as council's advisory board to the district.

2024 highlights include weekend ambassador coverage expansion to provide more consistent support and visibility throughout downtown.

Steam cleaning and porter services increase to maintain a cleaner and more welcoming environment, issuing RFPs for maintenance, security, and social media, services to improve efficiency and ensure quality performance.

Collaborating with the city on major community events, including the Independence Day celebration and bike ballet.

Returning signature events like Chile at the Beach and Surf City Day, help draw residents and visitors back to the downtown.

Creating a separate assessment account to promote financial transparency and strengthen fiscal accountability.

The assessment funds are distinct and separate from the funds of the nonprofit organization.

Assessments this year are 115,000, which is only 12% of downtown HB's total income.

The organization's additional income comes from other sources as you see here.

Here are the proposed activities that the advisory board recommends allocating assessment funds for the ambassador security program, which improves visitor experience and safety, enhanced maintenance, which ensures cleanliness, holiday beautification transformed the district with festive decorations.

Marketing promotes the area and strengthens brand identity.

Community events like Magic on Main Street foster engagement and attract visitors, a customer relationship management system improves operational efficiencies, and a third-party CPA ensures transparent and streamlined fiscal management.

In September, council initiated the renewal process and adopted a resolution of intention to levy the annual assessment and schedule this evening's public hearing.

Notices were sent to all affected businesses within the district area.

The purpose of this evening's public hearing is to receive and consider any protests against the assessment for the upcoming year.

If written protests are received from the owners totaling 50% or more of the assessment value, no further proceedings to continue the district can be considered for a period of one year.

We've received protests from zero of the 255 businesses in the district.

In order to ensure compliance, staff recommends conduct the public hearing.

Do not reach or exceed 50% of the total assessment value.

Proceed with adopting resolution 2025-52, which approves the annual assessment for the district.

If approved, business assessments will be collected by the city and then passed to downtown HB to allocate accordingly.

Thank you.

That include concludes my report.

We're available for any questions, and we also have our the uh executive director of the downtown bid, Kelly Fritzel available as well.

All right, we'll get to you in a minute, maybe for right now.

Do we have any um supplemental communications for this item?

We have no supplemental communication.

We have one person signed up to speak.

Okay.

Uh public hearing is open.

Uh please call them forward.

Can anyway?

Pardon me.

Oh, uh it's not a public hearing.

Uh so you you're not speaking then.

Okay.

Um, all right, we don't have any speakers.

So uh I'll close the public hearing.

And uh does any staff do any of the council have any questions for the staff member?

Uh, quick question.

So, how uh how many of the businesses in the downtown are vacant right now?

That reside within the bid.

I think there was probably about eight or nine that were actually listed.

I mean, that varies from day to day, week to week, and some of them are actually vacant, but there's a tenant paying still.

So it's hold it hard to determine whether or not that tenant is actually exercising their ability to do so because even though it's vacant, it doesn't mean that they still don't have the same rights and there's not a business license attached to that.

Okay, so and that and that's is that above average?

I mean what we've seen over the past five to ten years.

Well, a fairly low uh vacancy rate in downtown, they get filled up pretty fast.

Right now, it's just there's very specific needs in the market that we just don't hit right now for what people are looking for.

Plus, obviously, we don't do drive-throughs downtown, so gotcha.

Yeah, uh, clerk.

Do we have any uh protests?

Did we receive any protests?

We have no protests.

Okay, good.

All right, anybody else have any questions?

Yeah, just how does uh how does Serve City Nights work?

Does that the bid runs that do we run that?

The bid runs that they have someone that they use as a consultant that runs it on their behalf.

Um the estimated income I think for this coming year for them on their behalf is like three hundred thousand dollars.

Then they they take that money, and then we don't they're that's up to their discretion on how they spend it.

Correct.

Within their we have discretion over the hundred and fifteen thousand, the rest of it, they have discretion over how they use it in order to run their organization and their nonprofit.

Okay, thank you.

But you got anything?

No.

Okay.

All right, I'll make a motion.

But can we comment or just yeah, comment?

Go.

No, just for me on the bit on the downtown bid.

Um, I will uh vote to support this tonight for one more year, but I I feel it should be retooled.

Um I think there's it's very fractured at times.

It's tough to get things accomplished, which is what the genesis of this business improvement district was created for is to really, you know, enhance Main Street.

Um, so I think over the next year we should look at retooling it.

I think there's a lot of um things that should be maybe brought in in under the purview of the city.

Uh serve city nights could be one of them as well.

I also don't understand why it's a business improvement district.

Um I feel it should be a property owner improvement district.

Businesses come and go.

I've had a lot of businesses reach out to me recently saying that they don't feel that the bid um is doing what it was designed to do or constituted to do.

We've had business owners or sorry, property owners, prominent ones on Main Street that have in the last few months when we've gone down there as we're doing our main street um enhancements, express that they've always wanted to do a property owner uh improvement district.

Um they have that makes sense to me because they are the landowners, the tenants come and go, businesses come and go, but the landlords typically stay.

They have more financial um offerings to provide the city in terms of decorations on downtown.

So, although I will vote to pass this tonight, I think over the next year we should look at retooling the bid uh with some of the items I mentioned, and hopefully, there's a better way to make it more efficient and more productive to finish if uh fulfill its mission of enhancing main street and really promoting our our downtown businesses.

Alright, I made a motion.

Second.

All right.

Any other discussion?

No.

Please call.

Councilman Twine?

Yes.

Mayor Pratem McCann.

Yes.

Mayor Burns.

Hi.

Councilwoman Vandermark.

Yes.

Councilman Gruell.

Item passes 502.

Okay, move on to item 1725-789.

Item submitted by councilwoman Gracie Vandermark, Councilman Butch Twining and Don Kennedy.

Prohibition on sale and distribution of nitrous oxide in Huntington Beach.

Gracie.

So what we're trying to do here is something similar to what we did with Kratum, put some safeguards in place to protect our kids from some of these um drugs that they're getting their hands on.

So nitrous oxide, it's commonly known as the laughing gas or whippets.

It's become a growing public health and safety concern in Huntington Beach and throughout Orange County.

Although nitrous oxide has legitimate medical and commercial applications, it is increasingly being misused as a recreational inhalant, creating challenges that require regulatory action beyond the current state law.

It's sold widely under the guise of whipped cream chargers or culinary use.

Nitrous oxide is inexpensive, packaged in colorful and youth-oriented designs, and readily available available to smoke shops, convenience stores, and online.

Unlike alcohol or cannabis, there are virtually no point of sales restrictions normalizing nitrous oxide as a cheap, easily accessible drug among young people.

The recreational use of nitrous oxide is not harmless.

Short-term effects include disorientation, nausea, blackouts, and impaired motor control, creating immediate risks to users and the public, particularly when combined with driving or disruptive behavior.

Chronic misuse poses even more serious consequences, including vitamin B depletion, irreversible nerve damage, paralysis, cognitive impairment, and even death.

The Huntington Beach Police Department has reported a sharp increase in nitrous oxide related arrests rising from 28 in 2023 to 89 in 2024, with 113 arrests already recorded in 2025.

This represents more than a 400% increase since 2023.

This upward trend underscores the urgent need for proactive intervention.

While California Penal Code prohibits possession of use of nitrous oxide for intoxication, it does not effectively address sales through culinary use loophole.

As a result, retailers continue to profit from recreational distribution while law enforcement is left to prove individual intent, limiting the effectiveness of the enforcement.

Neighboring jurisdictions include Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, and the County of Orange have already acted to close this loophole by adopting ordinances to prohibit the sale distribution and recreational use of nitrous oxide.

Adopting a similar ordinance in Huntington Beach would safeguard public health, provide law enforcement and clear with clear and enforceable tools to reduce community impacts.

So once again, we are um just trying to put these safeguards in place.

Our kids already have a lot of challenges that they're overcoming, um, and we figure we believe that if we follow what the orange, the county of orange did, we can better help our law enforcement, especially since there's been an increase in the use of nitrous oxide.

So I would like to make a motion to move forward with this ordinance um council member twinning I just second that I do have a couple comments though I wouldn't proceed without your comments of course okay well council member uh Vandermark did a very good job there uh going through um or going over some of the uh uh you know the downsides of the um of nitrous oxide I'm gonna go over some of them again uh and add a few um but I first want to say that one of the one of the the impetus maybe behind um bringing this forward tonight is we're all privy up here every morning we get uh a report from our PD and more and more and more just it seems like just about every day there's more arrests of individuals abusing nitrous oxide and most of the time they're in their cars and here's what nitrous oxide can do to you oxygen deprivation dizziness disorientation loss of coordination you don't want people huffing nitrous oxide while they're driving cars if that's what's gonna happen because this gas is pressurized in the tank it's extremely cold and can cause burns or freeze your mouth lips throat or lungs fainting and cardiac arrest in high doses has been has been uh observed side effects long term side effects include nerve damage cognitive decline uh mood issues confusion depression anxiety and memory issues and while there is no uh uh data out there that that uh nitrous oxide causes physical um uh uh dependence it does cause psychic psychological dependence so for all those reasons uh that councilman uh vandermark and and uh uh and I have stated here I'm in full support of banning uh recreational use of nitrous oxide andrew yes I just want to clarify the only reason to sell this for retail purposes is to make fresh whipped cream that is it that's the only thing it's used for so when you see it in stores that are unrelated to anything from a culinary perspective it's strictly to get our kids hooked on this it's a recreational drug restaurants and food service retail operations can buy this from their purveyors or their distributors no problem at all they never would go and buy it retail so this is not going to affect the restaurant industry in any way so it's a no-brainer well it's a kind of brain destroyer brain destroyer exactly nitrous oxide isn't anything no new I remember when I worked dope in Long Beach narcotics investigations it was around at all the raves it was a pop very very and that was in the 90s and I think it was around in the 80s nitrous oxide is nothing new but it is long overdue to become a law I'd like to actually see it banned for anybody over 21 and over I hope it doesn't restrict it to eighteen but uh follow what you guys do but it's long overdue and I support this full on case anything all right okay I like it all right uh we got a first and a second call them both Councilman twining yes mayor pro tem McKean yes mayor Burns Councilwoman Vandermark yes councilman gruel yes item passes five zero two all right move on number eighteen uh resolution two zero two five-six four in support of immediate action to ensure a legally valid and transparent twenty twenty six general election.

Um I'll start it with just saying to me, there's been so much question to so the last several elections that it bothers me because the importance of our republic and everything is that we have solid, trustworthy confidence in our elections.

It just when it you don't have confidence, it discourages participation.

I dread the thought of people not voting because they don't have the confidence in it because our elections aren't tight.

Our systems aren't tight and they're called into question, and there's a lot of debate on the validity of them.

But I mean, I I don't trust some of the things that I've seen, and I have seen, I think it was uh when these guys were running the HP 3, somebody presented us a uh a ballot in the name of their dog, and then another guy had one for his dad who wasn't a citizen.

Um, and if they can do that, our state elections at least at minimum are at great risk because they aren't getting flagged, and that to me that's just scary corruption or just really poor management of our uh election system.

So I'll read the statement.

Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of representative democracy, ensuring that government remains accountable to the people it serves.

California election law provides the framework that protects voter access ballot integrity and transparent administration, but ongoing scrutiny is necessary to maintain public trust.

People got a question.

If they see something wrong, we've got to and we've got to respect those questions.

When voters believe their voices are heard and their ballots are secure, confidence in the legitimacy, legitimacy of outcomes grows.

Conversely, any perception of unfairness, whether in how votes are cast counted or districts are drawn, determines uh undermines faith in the process.

A critical component of election integrity is the assurance that voting systems remain transparent, secure, and resistant to manipulation.

California has acted enacted laws aimed at balancing access with accountability, such as recall requiring voter verification and mandating audits of election results.

These safeguards are vital to reassure citizens that elections are conducted with accuracy and fairness.

At the same time, the state must guard against measures that unintentionally weaken oversight or create opportunities for errors, and as even minor lapses can erode trust in the outcomes.

Equally important is the role of California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which was created to draw legislative and congressional district maps independently of lawmakers.

This body was designed to prevent gerrymandering and promote fair representation.

And that's something that's just calling question on the integrity of this next one.

It kills me to think that why are they out?

Why are they ignoring our uh commission that was formed to do exactly what now is I think pure corruption on these lawmakers that are doing it without and ignoring the commission that's being done?

It just calls into question the integrity of this whole upcoming election.

We need the to strengthen public confidence and safeguard the principle of free and fair elections by upholding transparent election laws and maintain vigilance over redistricting.

Uh so my recommended action is to adapt resolution resolution number 2025-64, a resolution of the city council of the Huntington Beach of City of Huntington Beach in support of immediate action to ensure a legally valid and transparent 2026 general election.

I just want I just want us to be secure as possible to and have as much faith as possible in our elections, and that's what really this whole thing is about.

Just the message that we want the best for our people and put confidence as much as confidence as possible in our elections, which I still say is like the backbone of our republic.

So with that, I'll move the item.

anybody want to comment?

Um, I'll second, and I'd like to make a comment.

So we know for a fact the dog voted.

That's not even a question.

We also know for a fact that there are people who are not American citizens who have voted.

They're like, well, it's just a few people, it's not a big deal.

Well, I bet you if it was somebody, your specific vote that was nullified, you'd probably think it's a big deal.

And when we see an issue, we need to take care of it.

We can't say, oh, our elections are not corrupt enough for us to take action.

We know there's an issue.

We should look into it, and we should take proactive measures to fix the issue.

I'm not going to wait until our all this our intellectual integrity is completely out of our hands and out of control corrupt.

So I am fully in support of this.

Why anybody would oppose asking for clean and safe elections is beyond me.

And once again, by saying, Oh, it's just one or two or three or four, maybe a few dozen votes.

It's not a big deal.

Well, if it's my vote that's being nullified, I'm going to be angry about it.

So thank you for bringing this forward.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen up there for coming all the way out here several times to make people aware.

And I'm in full support of this.

Andrew.

I mean, I'm gonna look at this from kind of both sides of the spectrum and and some of the public comments that we got, many of which suggested and you know brought up the report that there was a thorough investigation by the Orange County grand jury finding that there was no fraud or election interference in the 2024 election, which I think hey, that's a great thing if that's ultimately the outcome.

And then the obviously the organization today that made their report.

So I look at this from an open perspective and saying, look, more safeguards the better, because I think that, and I've heard it on both sides of the aisle.

Some some election denying.

So it's good for everybody.

Why not?

That dog voted in a way that I would have voted, but I don't think it was fair for the person who would have voted in the opposite for their vote to be nullified.

Whether you vote one way or another, your vote should count.

And we need to care if somebody's vote is completely dismissed.

I mean, so the dog was a Republican.

Yes, he was.

No, and all I'll say is all the resolution says that what uh we're asking for is infrastructure compliance, voter verification, ballot security, accurate counts, and proven outcomes.

Sounds pretty reasonable and common sense to me.

Butch.

I agree with Casey.

I don't think this is a political question.

It doesn't matter what side you're on.

I think everybody on either side would want their uh vote to be counted and not canceled by somebody that is not voting legally, and so I will be supporting this.

And just to clarify, it turns out the dog was actually, I was told NPP, so he wasn't any party.

No party, okay.

We got a first and second, no other discussion.

Please call the roll.

Councilman Twine, yes, Mayor Protein McCann.

Yes, Mayor Burns.

Aye.

Councilwoman Vandermark, yes, Councilman Gruel, yes, item passes 502.

All right.

Um would any council member like to add any new business to the next agenda?

I said I advise that the Navy will be coming in to kind of sell their or let us know about their 250th birthday.

So that'll be on the next agenda.

Uh I'll make the motion to adjourn.

Second.

All right, we got a first to second.

The next regular schedule meeting of the Huntington Beach City Council public financing authority is Tuesday, October 21st, 2025, in the Civic Central Council Chambers.

2000 Main Street, Hunt Beach, California.