About this in the last minute, last minute.

The two issues that I have here today are going to be a we need to address a serious problem with grants in compliance because for the fact that it's been five months and they still haven't gotten funded, 26,000 each.

Um, that's a little bit of a slow approach.

But the second part is how do we make sure that we protect our city, the administration, city council as well when it comes to um to uh um funding any organization.

So um I reached out to Senator Clay Yarborough, which is the author of the bill.

He wrote 1134, and it was uh signed by the governor on April 22nd of this year.

All right, in this letter, which you have here is a three-page letter, you all could have it now and I'll forward it to anybody who needs it.

He clearly identifies that this bill is primarily to make sure that we mirror exactly what they're doing in the federal level, so the state level is trying to come uh come to the same uh standards as the federal level.

Uh we still could fund Hispanic organizations, Asian organizations, black organizations.

We can still recognize any kind of cultural month, uh, whether it's Italian Heritage Month, whatever the case is.

Uh no chambers or any entity have to change their name from call it the agent chamber of commerce to whatever.

You guys have the right to stay by your roots, your culture, and continue to represent it proudly, right?

The biggest thing is that we and you all cannot have start um uh taking in initiatives that practice DEI initiatives.

An example, the agent chamber.

I'm just gonna use that as an example.

If you guys are recruiting members, business owners, you can't say we're only gonna recruit Asian business owners, or if you're gonna have an event to showcase uh uh business excellence and all that, it can cannot only be for Asians.

Now you're being specifically inclusive to just that cultural group.

You have to be completely open to everybody.

Um that's one of the things that that the senator talked about.

Uh thank you, uh, Mr.

Romero for joining us today.

Another practice that you guys can't do, any chamber or any entity that we're gonna fund as a city or the state is any organization that says hey, we're gonna do a workshop on DEI inclusivity and things like that, that automatically is a red flag as well, too.

You have to always keep in mind that everything has to be for everybody and not specifically for one target group, whether it's a cultural group or any kind of group, right?

Um, so he goes into great details on this three-page letter um talking about the uh the essence of House Bill 1134, and I and I encourage you all to pick one of these up and read it.

Um, I want to thank uh Senator Tay Yarborough for not only stepping up to a plate and make sure that we address this, but uh for doing this in such a quick manner because like I said, I found out about this last Friday via the chambers and uh uh the news media reaching out to me.

So he did this over the course of the weekend.

Um so now let's go on to agenda item number two, which is funding that is already approved.

One of the things that the senator told me was to say, hey, um, this bill will take effect January 1st, 2027.

From now to then, if you guys have funded any initiatives, you have to continue.

You don't have to be you you should continue on and funding them.

This bill in this case was actually appropriate, was funded prior to the governor signing it, number one.

Number two, it's funded last year, and like I said, it's been five months since then, and they still haven't gotten funded.

So we as the city council are urging, at least myself, I speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure my colleagues are on the same page.

We urge the administration to please, all right, and I say this please very nicely, to go ahead and fund them immediately, because as you said, I already got cover from the author of the bill saying that yes, we can fund these, right?

And there are no excuses for the lack of um funding initiatives for these organizations or any organizations for that matter.

Um, yes, sir.

Oh, thank you.

Um, so that's that's one.

The second thing is um, coming the next budget cycle, which will start in the summer, we as a as a city council have to be mindful that that budget cycle is gonna be representing January 1st of 2027 as well.

So when we're looking at funding initiatives in our upcoming budget, we have to take this House bill in consideration, even though for the calendar year we're still in the 2026, it will affect 2027 calendar year.

So when you're looking at that, the senator was very clear on this.

Make sure that the city council um looks at this bill uh when funding um uh fiscal year 2026-27 for the upcoming budget.

Those are the two things.

So um, right now I'm gonna open up the floor to my colleagues to see if you have any questions or concerns that you want to talk about.

Mr.

Michaelucci, go ahead.

Uh thank you, Councilman.

Uh curious, uh, is did you invite the administration?

Absolutely.

They're right there?

Are they oh, I see.

Okay.

Um, so I was uh, uh sorry, so did you say that they were withdrawing funding this year right now?

Did I hear you say that?

Correct.

They were they were um pausing the funding for the organizations.

Yeah, can't can we get that?

Uh Ms.

Norris to maybe verify that.

Sure.