Thank you.

Good afternoon everyone.

The Sacramento City Council please come to order with the clerk call the roll to establish

a quorum.

Thank you, Councilmember Kaplan, Councilmember Tao, Mayor Pro Tem Telemontis, Councilmember

Valenzuela, Vice Mayor Maple, Councilmember Gera, Councilmember Jennings, Councilmember

Feng, and Mayor Steinberg.

Here, Vice Mayor Maple, would you please lead us in the landing dollar event in the

plitch.

Thank you.

And you are evil.

Please rise for the opening knowledgements and honor of Sacramento's indigenous people

and tribal lands to the original people of this land, the Nisanan people, the southern

mind you, Gallium planes mewap, put one in two 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.

We're choosing to gather today in the active practice of an acknowledgement and appreciation

for Sacramento's indigenous peoples history, contributions, and lives.

For me, standing, salute and pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for

which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you so much, Vice Mayor.

A very good evening to everyone.

My colleagues and city staff and everyone here in the audience and those that are watching

from Elstrow, we have a big night tonight.

And that big night starts with my honor to recognize the thousand strong program students

many were here today.

And let me just give a very brief introduction here.

Digress just a little.

When I was in the legislature way back in the day, I tried to champion the idea that we

need to change our public education system.

That it's too much of you either go to college or there's not much else for you in society

these days.

And while going to the university is a good and great thing and everyone deserves the

opportunity to do so, that beginning in middle school and high school, we ought to begin

establishing career pathways for young people.

And connecting curriculum to the real jobs that are out there, both that require a university

degree and those that do not.

And that every high school student ought to have a year round paid work experience.

And in the legislature, I authored the career pathways trust legislation, $500 million

for career pathways throughout California.

I could name someone's academic and then I got here.

I said, well, what can I do now?

I can't write the law anymore.

So we launched thousands strong and the idea was, and like many of my things, a little audacious

sometimes, high expectations, you know.

I said if we could get 1,000 young people a year in year round paid work experiences,

we could help transform Sacramento education.

So after eight years, I am proud to say that we had 950 Sacre-Mentons participate in

exactly what it is we proposed.

Year round paid work experiences, hundreds of hours of payment and 40 hours of training

and a lot.

And one of the great challenges, of course, with this concept in American culture, especially

around education, is that the employer community is not always connected with public education.

In fact, there's a big distance.

In Europe, it's very different, by the way.

But here, there's this disconnect.

So to get 950 young people connected with business and public agencies and nonprofits to have

this experience, I hope, is a model that is going to continue and that is elevated so