Good afternoon everyone. The Sacramento City Council please come to order with the clerk

call the roll to establish a quorum. Thank you. Council member Kaplan. Council member

Tao. Mayor Pro Tem Telemontes. Council member Valenzuela.

Here. Vice Mayor Maple. Council member Getta. Council member Jennings. Council member Vang.

Here. And Mayor Steinberg. I am here. I have Council member Valenzuela. If you would please lead us in the land acknowledgement and the pledge allegiance.

Thank you Mayor. Please rise if you are able for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands to the original people of this land. The Nisanong people, the southern Maidu, Valiam planes, Miwak, Putwin, Winhtoon peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe.

May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in the act of practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous people's history, contributions and lives.

Thank you. Now please salute and pledge.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon everyone. We do have a consent calendar and then several items including looking at the operating budget for the Sacramento employment.

And why don't we begin now with the consent calendar? Are there items that members would like to be taken up separately or voted on separately?

We've got a tie for second.

And let's hear from the public, please.

I have one speaker, Marjorie Dickinson and I have two.

Good afternoon. Thank you, council members and mayor. I'm Marjorie Dickinson. I am Chair of the Measured Youth Community Advisory Committee.

And I want to thank the members of the PEP and E committee and the city clerk and her staff for their comprehensive thoughtful and responsive efforts to refine boards and commissions policies and the PEP committee memberships for their leadership and moving forward.

Many important changes most notably to allow ad hoc committees and to clarify policies and practices with respect to commissioner vacancies and term extensions.

We have one remaining concern with respect to quarants. The staff and committees, quote, concern that having a quorum be less than a simple majority of authorized seats could cause confusion and is not in keeping with the city's transparency mission.

And close quote does not take into account the challenges in meeting the quorum requirements that commissions with unfilled seats face.

Instead establishing a quorum as a majority of filled seats would allow commissions such as the Measured Youth Community Advisory Committee, which has had persistent vacancies of 25% or more of our authorized membership for most of this year, including a period where we had six vacancies.

It allows to continue to provide support and service to the council and community in order to solve the confusion and transparency issues.

The agenda for each meeting could include language that states this commission has x authorized seats of which why are currently filled.

Therefore the quorum for this meeting is a majority of why and at the beginning of each meeting the clerk could announce the same information.

I appreciate your consideration of this suggestion.

Hopefully questions. Madam clerk, do you have a response to that?

Absolutely. So we did take this item to the PNPE committee and the unanimously voted that a quorum be a majority of the members of the commission of the legislative body.

So just to clarify our commission disagrees with that because it has been difficult at points in this year to achieve a quorum because we've had so many vacancies.

Well, shouldn't it be a differentiation if there has been a full sort of appointment then makes sense to have the quorum be a full commission.

If it's if it's our responsibility slash fault for not having appointed a full commission, why should we hold up the commission's work? Please help me.

If I may just communicate on behalf of my colleagues at PNPE with the adults about the discussion we had.

Definitely was very much in support of the recommendation that Marjorie is making. However, with the reinstating of the ad hoc committees it raised important brown act questions of whether or not we would incidentally end up violating brown act when we had the ad hoc's established if we lowered the quorum.

It just it felt like there's changes being made also in this ordinance to how the appointments are being made to almost every commission.

I think definitely appreciate the chair's concerns, but we're trying to thread a balanced needle here with reinstating the ad hoc.

I guess the ad hoc is the work around here. So yet the the old ad hoc.

And I will concur that was basically the discussion where we looked at it, but there would be conflicts between the two. So you can't have it one way. So we figured it was easier consistent with exactly how council operates and our subcommittees operate.

Since we expanded to ad hoc's we needed to have a clear delineation between the two.

Do you want to respond to that? I don't understand the connection between ad hoc's it sounds like it would mean that if we don't have a quorum we could reconstitute ourselves on the fly as an ad hoc.

I just don't understand the relationship between ad hoc's and and quorum for this.

Maybe we maybe we maybe we should talk about it a little bit more offline, but appreciate it. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Very good. The consent calendar has moved and seconded. All in favor. Please say aye.

Aye. Opposed abstain. consent calendar passes. Let's get to the main item, which is item 16, which is the set up operating budget for fiscal year 2425.

Council members, my name is Anita Maldonado and I serve as set as executive director. And I'm here to present to you a little bit about the work that Santa does, including the budget today.

I'd like to begin by first thanking the mayor and councilmember get for visiting us at the National League of Cities last week.

It said we really appreciate your support. So I have my set a team here and available to answer any questions after today's presentation.

So I'd like to begin by just an overview of what I'll be speaking about today, including a set us overview and board governance, our strategic planning efforts fiscal overview.

A little bit about our departments, including our Head Start program, workforce development efforts, and then a little bit about our future goals at set up.

So in terms of our agency overview overview and board governance, set up is, well, first of all, let me begin by saying this is our mission.

We build self-sufficiency by addressing a totality of needs from education and training to childcare more.

And we start with our mission because it really identifies who we are and what we do.

We are in the process of strategic planning and so we're in the process of also revamping our mission and vision statements to better clarify the work that we do because we do so much and we're such a uniquely structured agency that we want to make sure that our vision and our mission statements really demonstrate that.

So set us a joint exercise of power agreement or JPA established in 1978 and administered by the set of governing board.

The set of governing board is comprised of locally elected officials to buy Sacramento County Board of supervisors from which supervisors Rich Desmond and Patrick Kennedy serve to buy Sacramento City Council members, which our governing chair is Councilmember Maivang and

Councilmember Eric Guerra and then one public representative by the name of Sophia Sherman.

There are actually three other boards that help guide set us mission.

First, our Sacramento works board, which is a volunteer board acting in advisory capacity to the governing board on matters pertaining to employment, social service programs and finance.

Secondly, the Head Start Policy Council or PC is comprised of Head Start parents and community members and act as decision, a decision and policy making capacity.

The PC acts as a link to parent committees, grantee and delegate agency bodies, public and private organizations for the communities that they serve.

And then thirdly, the Community Action Board representing public private and low income interest in the community.

Set a designated community action agency for Sacramento County and it has the goals of helping low income individuals and families secure the opportunities that they need to become self sufficient.

Next slide please.

From its inception, SETA has been an effective force in connecting people to jobs, business owners to quality employees, education and nutrition to children, assistance to refugees and hope to many Sacramento area residents.

SETA's the Head Start early Head Start grantees with a total of 112 Head Start Centers Countywide and partnership with five delegates and two partners.

SETA also operates 38 Head Start Operated Centers.

Additionally, SETA is the local American Job Center of California, AJCC Operator and administers the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act in 15 Centers Countywide with a variety of discretionary programs and in partnership with 110 subcontractors.

SETA has a total of 577 employees, a budget just shy of 142 million, where the county is our treasure of fact and SETA is considered a special district.

As you can see here by the map, there is a district and county presence.

The Red Dot Signifier Head Start, Early Head Start Centers and the Blue Dot Signified are American Job Center locations.

As I indicated in my welcoming remarks, SETA is embarking in its first ever agency strategic plan.

We have been engaged with our consultant, Dolbyrk Partners, to engage in a comprehensive 12 week process for SETA.

And this is just an infographic of the phases that we have engaged in so far, which was a kick off situation assessment and diagnostic.

Right now we're in phase 3, which is the strategy development piece of the work that we're doing.

And then we hope to move on here very quickly to phase 4.

The methodology that our strategic plan encompasses includes a multi-prong approach, including interviews with different stakeholders, benchmarking with similar or like organizations,

and then also surveying of stakeholders, including staff and partners.

And we're also doing a much desk research, document and review.

And we took all of that information and compiled that information and came up with three main areas, priority areas for our strategic plan.

Those strategic initiatives include and includes three areas, awareness, cohesion and partnerships.

What we learned from the surveys is that we keep hearing that SETA is the best kept secret.

And we don't want to be a secret anymore after almost 48 years of service.

We want people to know about us.

Therefore we want to increase our footprint.

We hired a public information officer to help to increase that with social media.

And we want to make sure that we engage through our website design, our new local design, increase a set of presence throughout the community.

The second area is cohesion.

We realize that in order for us to move forward, we want to make sure that the culture of the teams are working well, that we identify synergies, interdepartmentally, to break down some of the silos and really kind of operate as one organization.

And then finally we want to make sure that we intentionally work with our partners and our subrecipients.

We'll go straight into the fiscal overview.

As I said, where just shy of 142 million set us 100% grant funded.

And we have two main departments.

We have the Children and Family Services Department, which takes up 70% of our budget and then workforce development, which encompasses 30%.

And the expenditures by category are listed here where most of the funding going to subrecipients and client obligations followed by salaries and fringes operating cost and then fixed assets.

Now this is the Children and Family Services Department, which is comprised of just shy of 100 million dollars.

And you'll see here a breakdown of all of our funding here to the left.

And then how that funding looks like in terms of salaries and fringes or delegates and partners or fixed assets and operating cost.

This is the breakdown for workforce development, all of our funding sources here, and then the budget expenditures by category.

Now just a little bit about Head Start as said it is the Head Start grantee for Sacramento County.

And this is a view of our five delegates and our operated programs and it's broken down by our enrollment with early Head Start and Head Start.

And in partnership we serve more than 4,000 infant toddlers and preschools, countywide, and collectively we employ more than 1,400 early learning employees.

We have three main, we do lots in Head Start and Early Head Start, but really under three main pillars.

We have specific curriculums, intervention services, and learning environments that really promote early learning.

We have a family engagement, a portion of the work that we do to connect to the full family and to provide them the supports that they need for the whole family.

And then we also provide health and nutrition services for the children that we serve.

We are guided by the federal government administration for children and families where they just released our final rule in the federal register.

We get them in the form of performance standards. I understand performance standards really.

The changes come probably about once a decade, but these just came down here recently.

And the changes to the policy including integrating more mental health supports across program services, strengthening processes to support child health and safety, enhancing family engagement services, modernizing the process programs used to identify and meet community needs, and also increase wages for benefits and benefits for educators.

And these performance standards they've given us from six months to up to seven years to integrate these changes to our policy.

Now in terms of workforce development, as I said, we have over 13 centers, I believe I said 15 centers, job centers, Sacramento works programs, numerous partnerships.

But I think what's important in this slide is that we really work with the hardest to serve. We work with those who have 90% or higher significant barriers, including special populations, people with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness and foster youth.

This is the most recent annual program information that we have and it's expressed here in this infographic, which talks about the number of individuals helped our return on investment, those employed, our average earnings, and barriers to employment.

And we really make sure that we try to keep these metrics so that we can improve upon them from year to year.

Additionally, we operate additional special populations over here to the right, which include all of these folks at risk youth, justice involved, refugees, a siley special immigrants.

And these are just some of the programs that we operate additionally in our workforce development umbrella.

So looking ahead, I've just started my position in April of this year, so it's a little under six months.

And it's an iterative process as I continue to learn and more about the organization, obviously what these look like may change.

But for me and for us, we're looking to have that firm strategic plan so that we can begin that roadmap of really focusing on what those strategic initiatives are.

So while we're embarking more deeply into our diversity, equity, and belonging efforts, we know that there's longevity at set up.

We have lots of great people who've been doing great work for 20, 30, even 40 years.

But we also know that recruitment and retention has to be a high priority in order for us to welcome new folks coming into the workforce pipeline and engaging in that work.

We want to make sure that we're relevant for future, right? And where we stay innovative, obviously within our regulatory constraints, but still thinking outside of the box.

And then we look forward towards our 50th, which it's probably not too far off 2028, but we're starting to think about what that might look like for set up.

So I'm happy to announce we have socials. And please follow us. We're on TikTok, Facebook, X, formerly known as Twitter and Instagram at set up underscore, sack underscore set up.

So I have my team here happy to answer any questions for you all. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Muldona. Welcome. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. First, I just wanted to thank Anita and her team for one of the great work that CETA continues to do.

And then also the steps forward and leading the way here. And I really want to have to say I appreciate your outlook and your creative thinking and how we can look at maximizing what is an agency that has a lot of constraints because of both the federal nature, some of the state funding in this moving forward.

I obviously want to highlight primarily the 70% allocation of what our funds are used for and that's for Head Start.

And for those on the council who weren't here at that time, the city took on the initiative to be to create a task force on early childhood education.

And then CETA took an active action to make and create the city county child care task force, which now meets monthly and regularly to address our child overall child care needs because CETA is the largest child care provider in the region, but not everyone can qualify for that.

I think it's important that one, it's a tool that I think we can continue to better maximize and utilize when we're overlaying workforce development.

It's if we don't address the child care needs of folks, then they don't have the bandwidth to actually do the workforce training or to elevate themselves in a career or to advance themselves.

And even with that, the child care sector has taken on some pretty significant challenges here.

One area particularly has been on even child care workers themselves staying into the workforce.

And so one request that I ask for this council is maybe part of our motion here is a direction on our state and federal advocacy on wages for child care providers.

And then many times our employees correct me from wrong and need are also because of the caps on wages at the state and federal level, they fall within that income level where they're actually benefiting from the services, whether it be cow works or tannin, and we want them to elevate and move on from that.

I know it's one that we don't have direct control over. I think if I had some positive negotiations in the collective bargaining process, always can always do better and as we collectively bargain, but I think they've been very positive.

But I think that's the one area where I worry about being the largest provider of child care, we need to be on the advocacy side of that effort.

So, you know, Mr. Mayor, I'll go ahead and move the recommendation to accept the budget here, but I would say with the direction that our city and its contract and lobbying efforts, even though it's already in our policy platform, take a stronger and move more vocal role in that.

Set up obviously cannot do that. It's restricted in their policy and their funding, but us as a city, we can definitely engage in that because if our child care workers who in our educators who are taking care of our most important aspect of our life, our kids aren't doing well, then our kids aren't going to do well.

So, that's one thing that I heard loud and clear from the convening. It was great to be at the convening and with that, Mr. Mayor, I'm glad to move the item here.

Thank you very much, Council Member Gary. Good comments. Mayor Pro Temt, telemanteus.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll second the item. So, I'm a product of Head Start. I grew up in the country and having my teacher come out to our mobile home in the middle of nowhere in African California was my favorite time of the month.

I think she came out two times a month and we went over, we brushed our teeth, we did measurements, we talked about nutrition, and my Head Start teacher is actually the person that connected my parents with housing.

We were able to apply for the CHIP housing program, which is where people build their own homes with a low interest rate from the federal government, kind of a habitat community, because similar.

So, I'm going to call it CHIP housing. And so, thanks to that teacher, my life entirely changed. And I am here where I'm at today and Head Start, I think plays such a large role in it.

So, I wanted to share some photos of me as a Head Start kiddo.

I'm trying to see if it pops in.

Okay.

Oh, wait.

Yeah, Sutter was fun. Her Head Start was fun.

Thank you for that. While you're putting the photos up, I would just like to mention that our home-based program, we just actually ran the numbers and there's 2,538 center-based services in the city.

And it sounds like you had center home-based services, which, you know, it's for parents who are for whatever reason, they have transportation issues or barriers to take their children to the centers, we go to them, and we provide those same services.

And it's really endearing work, and it's important work. And it really means a lot for those parents as well. So, thank you for sharing that.

Yeah. And maybe we can move on to being honest. Okay, so we've counseled on the main, who we should.

Okay, well, we'll come back to the picture. I think that's powerful. Councilmember Van.

Thanks, Mayor. And thank you, Mayor, for just sharing your lived experience of how programs like Head Start has been so transformative for so many people just here locally and across California.

I feel incredibly honored to be this year, the chair of SETA, and we've gone through a lot, right?

There's definitely some shake-up that has happened in SETA, and I'm just so proud of where we're at now. We're undergoing a strategic plan.

We have new logo branding. We have finally hired a public information officer. And I also know on this city, on our end, from the city, because we have a joint JPA, is that this council also wants to make some governance changes as well.

I know that's in conversation, but I do feel like SETA is four more years from now, or be our 50th year, and really looking back on the work that we've done, the legacy that we left behind, but how do we also ensure that we're still continuing to be relevant, right?

And to be innovative. That's something that I think I've shared with staff, something I want to make sure the fact that we now just have a social media is great, but it's like, yeah, we should have had a social media handle.

We should have been out there for a long time, but it's because of your leadership, right? Coming in and to really help make some positive improvements to the organization is really key.

And so I just want to give Kudos to you and the entire staff, just for the great work that you've done, and really looking forward to ensuring that SETA continues to move that path and be even better for our community.

So thank you, Anita, so much for your hard work.

Thank you, Council Member.

Thank you all, and especially to the members who also serve so able and passionately, I know it was a regional member.

SETA board, no, we have a picture. There it is, hold on here.

On the right?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Oh, wow.

And they serve, they serve as not just me, but my younger sister and my brother there, and I think we went on a field trip or something.

There's a plant in my hand.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you for sharing that.

Now that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

I just want to make a quick comment more of an observation.

The work here is so important and impactful.

Sometimes I have felt with SETA, and maybe it's true of all of our joint powers agencies, that there's a little bit of a distance between the agencies themselves and the city.

Like tonight, for example, we're going to debate, and the chambers are going to be full of people who are going to be very passionate about how we divide up about $8 million in youth funding for Measure L.

And then I see $141 million budget here, with a lot of the same sort of categories that we may talk about tonight.

Certainly there are others as well.

I just wonder, and yet in some ways, the SETA, $141 million of direct investment, is not necessarily seen as a city or a county investment.

While we struggle, for example, to fund a lot of youth initiatives, violence prevention, all the things that we're going to talk about today, and I'm just wondering how we bring the agency closer to the city.

Aside from the fact that the members serve and serve so well and ably, because, and maybe part of it is, your $141 million budget is, in many ways, governed by federal requirements.

How you spend that money is like really as a fiduciary is really, really important to make sure that it is spent well and consistent with the law.

And yet, I would wonder, and it's an open question, how much flexibility is there in this budget, where SETA could actually be partnering directly with the city on some of the initiatives around youth, around workforce, around leadership that we can't necessarily fund out of our general fund?

Have you thought about all that because it's a problem not just with SETA, it's, it's, home with the other agencies as well.

But we do partner, we have multiple partnerships with the city, such as the Aggie Square, and I know that Roy can probably speak more to some of the partnerships that we have, but I think that certainly we can, we can always do more.

And that's typically on the workforce side, but certainly within the parameters of the head start side as well.

And I'm, we're definitely open to seeing where we fit into.

I appreciate it, but I mean, measure L tonight that debate is going to be our debate about this, but I just wonder even after the vote tonight and how it comes out, whether it might be a good idea for SETA to be sitting on specifically with, with Yipsey, with Sacramento kids.

Kids first to be thinking about how we take that city's measure L contribution and we leverage it with some of the money that you have going here because I just feel like we're, we're siloed in many ways.

And I'd like to see that reduced if possible.

And I think that we're certainly open to having those conversations and I think Roy has something to contribute.

Thank you.

Thank you for that, Mr. Mayor, and good afternoon members of the council. So yeah, I'm Roy Kim, a set is Deputy Director for the workforce development department, and you may or may not be aware, but set us, our set of team works very closely with the city's economic development department and their team.

And what we're doing is we meet regularly on a weekly basis. I think sometimes your membership may not be aware of all the partnerships that exist, but we're always happy to be a resource to the city happy to have additional conversations.

Certainly we welcomed them.

Got a thought on that, Mr. Jesu?

Only that I certainly would echo, you know, what the executive director and Roy have both pointed out in terms of on the workforce and economic development.

We do have a robust partnership in part because the city has a robust economic development team. So it's a natural place to go to.

I would probably say historically we've had less kind of direct interaction in early childhood because that historically has fallen under the domain of the city as much, although now we have kind of a kind of early childhood manager, et cetera.

So I think the time is opportune, and especially with the work that's going out, measure L, I don't know what form that would take, but I definitely think it's a great time.

I think it's kind of a joint workshop between SETA and the city. And some ways to be talking about this because just pure politics or communication here.

This $141 million is helping so many people in the community and yet it's not seen or at least that part of it is part of what the city does.

The city is a full partner here and then we debate and are frustrated and the community is frustrated about all the shortages we have or the inability to be able to fund XYZ.

In some ways we are, at least indirectly, but it doesn't all come together.

I'm Karen Griffith, I'm the Deputy Director of SETA's Children and Family Services Department. And as Council Member Gariah had mentioned, I am part of the Sacramento City Task Force.

And I am part of the National League of Cities team that met last week, which in Vancouver with Parks and Rec, with our resource and referral and private providers.

We have put together a city action plan that we are moving forward looking at how we can hub information. We don't feel like there's one central place where parents and families can go to to get information about childcare and all the information about what is available.

We are working on that action plan for the city. In addition, we are the funder of Sacramento City Unified's Head Start Program and we work with them in their grant planning to leverage all their funds of California funding, Title V, Title I funding, their ELOF extended learning outcomes funding so that we can do an overall picture of childcare in Sacramento.

So I feel like thank you for putting in the position that Jenny Cooper now leads because it has been a missing piece and I'm really excited about the work that we are now having conversations about and available for any questions.

Eric?

Yeah, I was going to say, Mayor, I feel like on the early Child Education side we're actually doing a lot more than we've ever done.

Okay, good.

And by far because we have Child Action, first five, County Office of FIT, our City EAPC Department, our Economic Development Department,

you know, when we, one of the first things we did through our Strategic Action Plan when we had the Child Care Convening in 2018, 2017 is we hired that position in Economic Development to look at how we grow our businesses in early Childhood Education as well.

And so I think, you know, one, it's led to a couple of things, one, even a big grant where Los Rios Community College and the California Community College Foundation executed a significantly large study identifying what our major challenges are, which created the roadmap for us to be able to put in 1.2 million of the city's ARPA funding for workforce training, apprenticeship, and also Child Care Centers.

So I, I guess I would disagree with that point, but I would agree that, you know, for example, in measure L conversation, Head Start can fund teachers, can fund, you know, program managers that leave and pay lease space maintenance workers to add more capacity for Child Care.

But the challenge we have are we can't use federal money for capital construction. We can't use money to retrofit spaces.

Yet there's a conversation that we shouldn't use measure L dollars on infrastructure or equipment or space in our city facilities.

And that would go contrary to our ability to actually grow more Head Start facilities. So in one sense, to that point, yes. And in fact, our team, and I think you may hear about facility challenges, because if you're going to, you know, create a more Head Start capacity, isn't just finding any space.

You got to find little toilets, little toilets that are much more expensive than even any big fancy toilet at a hotel to be able to make more Child Care available.

So I would just say that I think we're moving in a very positive direction, and it was very inspiring to see leaders from across the country saying, hey, here's where we are doing great things because we're all pulling together.

We've got the tiny toilet hookup. I know the work is good and great. I just want to see as much of it integrated with the city as possible. That's all I say. Thanks.

We know that there's always more work to be done and we're happy to support. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right. We got a motion in a second. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed? Upstain? It passes. Okay. That's it.

Do we have public testimony on items not on the agenda? Yes, Mary, have one speaker. Maya, Tomay, seconded.

We got Mr. Bliss here. Did you sign up, Ian? Okay.

Hi, my name is Maya, Tomay, government name, Sakonari. You can Google me. I'm the only one in the United States.

One time I try to canvas for Mr. Steinberg. And I just wanted to say thank you. It's been a rough year. It's an election year. There's a lot of things going on.

I'm a sociology major. I'm transferring after don't make me cry, Mr. Steinberg. Sorry. I give very emotional. My mom really loves you. And she's in heaven now.

But looking at the beautiful city council members, when I took Paul Frank of Sacramento City College, he taught me what leadership truly is.

I chose a managerial path at a restaurant. And I just don't think I volunteered my time. I was a little bit of a party girl.

Nikki Minaj was in San Francisco yesterday. You know, I really like her. I just wanted to say thank you, particularly to Miss Vang of South Sacramento.

I think I pretty much grew up off of Ortega Way. Mr. Jennings as well. Mr. Professor Frank taught me. Know your district members. I still have his notebook from 2015. I am quite a fan of Miss Lisa. Thank you.

I would like to know a little bit more about Mrs. Talimatus or Miss Talimatus. I like her history as the first historic or not the what is it the Hispanic. She's the first generation.

I know what a city clerk is. A city manager is just really nice to be up here. If I forgot Mr. Tal, I'm sorry. Everyone else. Miss Maple, I think you're so pretty. And yeah, I really agree with your work as well.

I'm getting more active. And I wanted to say really thank you to my best friend Katie Valensuela. I met her. Mr. Steinberg at our Boulevard Parks Bigetty dinner. And I, free admission. It was great.

I've been calling 311 occasionally and the police and yeah, that's all I have to say. Thank you for coming. Absolutely.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker is Keon Bliss and Mr. Bliss will be our final speaker.

Greetings, Mayor and City Council. On October 3rd, 2023, you mayor council member Valensuela and council member Jennings submitted a letter requesting a joint workshop between the full City Council and the Sacramento Community Police Review Commission.

Our commission formally agreed to that joint workshop on October 9th, 2023.

Since last year, the commission has incorporated the joint workshop into our approved 2024 work plan. We met with all with you all to discuss your ideas for how to address the deficiencies and recommendations and identify by the City auditor on March 19th, 2024.

I request your timely response to this matter as soon as possible. Our commissioners have been waiting and unfortunately we just lost one of our commissioners who had to resign for personal reasons.

And this has been a pressing issue that we have been struggling with and been frustrated with for a number of years. So I would love to get this on the books so that we can clear this out. Thank you.

All right. Council ideas and questions. Councilmember Valenzuela.

Thank you. Yeah, since this is a council meeting and not a housing authority meeting, Mr. Assistant City Manager, sorry, not the one I thought would be in the chair today. So you're going to have to relay the message.

And I think we need to hear from our police department and our office of our nation about what they're doing. The changes that have been made over the last couple of years because this clearly isn't unacceptable trend that we're seeing on our streets. And I think I'm sure most of my colleagues agree that we'd like to really evaluate how we're doing in that space and consider some potential ideas for moving forward in a more safe manner.

I will convey to the city manager. Thank you. And I hope Mr. Mario may be at this to your list with the city manager. Yes, thank you.

Councilmember Kaplan. Thank you, Mayor. If there's nobody I'd like to close out this meeting. Yes, of course.

Not to take away, I think all of us express the sentiments of five innocent lives were lost this weekend. And I think it behooves us to end our two o'clock meeting in their memory.

I know specifically Colby James Tevis, who was the first individual who was murdered this weekend out on J Street was a 2020 grad of intercom high school.

He was a football star. He was at San Jose State in his senior year in communications. I attended his vigil with his family friends and community members last night. They are well known in Natomas and so much so that several of his teachers from intercom high school showed up because he made such a huge impact on them.

He was a good kid. He was a good young man celebrating his older sister's birthday of where his life was tragically ended. And unfortunately his death is connected to other family members.

I know who have lost their son to violence as well. And this is a trend from the 12 year old, the young lady and the men who have lost their lives this weekend. I think we should adjourn in their memories.

I agree. It's very timely. And in the memory of five lives lost and may just expand that to say all innocent victims, all victims of gun violence in our community and beyond the meeting.

Oh, we've got to go ahead. I'll adjourn in a moment.

Unfortunately, I need to adjourn to a closed session. We can take that back up. So I apologize. We do have a special meeting closed session agenda at 4 p.m. One item is pursuant to government code section 54957.6 for a matter pertaining to negotiations with recognized employee organizations Sacramento City exempt employees association Sacramento Police Office Association International Union of operating engineers stationary engineers local 39 Sacramento area firefighters local 522 Sacramento Sierra building.

And construction trades council plumbers and pipe fitters local 447 auto marine and specialty painters local 1176 Western Council of Engineers International Association of Machines and aerospace workers.

The purpose is to confer with the city's chief negotiators Shelley Bakes Robinson and Aaron Denado.

Okay. Thank you again councilmember Kaplan. We are adjourned.