Okay, please call this meeting order.

Thank you, Mayor.

This meeting is called to order at 5.06 p.m.

Council Member Kaplan.

Council Member Dickinson.

Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Council Member Maple.

Mayor Pro Tem Guerra.

Council Member Jennings.

Council Member Vang.

We expect Council Member Plucky-Bahn momentarily

and Mayor McCarty. Thank you. You have a quorum. So Vice Mayor, we're on land acknowledgement.

Please rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal

lands. To the original people of this land, the Nisanan people, the Southern Maidu, Valley and

Plains Mewak, Patwon Winton 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

active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous

people's history, contributions, and lives. Thank you. Salute. Pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the five of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

I kind of had to sink myself. I had to pause.

City Attorney, do we have a report out from closed session?

No report out, Vice Mayor.

Okay.

And moving along to special presentations, Council Member Jennings.

Thank you very much, Vice Mayor.

I'd like the members of the AAELC to come to the microphone, if they will, please.

To everyone in the audience and those who are watching us on television as well,

this month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans,

and it's a time to recognize their central role in U.S. history.

The event of National History Week was the brainchild of Carter G. Woodson, a Harvard graduate, an author, a journalist, founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life.

Originally in February of 2026, 100 years ago, it was known as Negro History Week.

But by the late 1960s, thanks in part to the Civil Rights Movement, the Black United Students and Black Educators at Kent State University,

it expanded to Negro History Week into Black History Month, which is what we all know it as today.

President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976,

calling upon the public to seize the opportunity to honor the too often neglected accomplishments of African Americans.

Since 1976, every U.S. president has designated February as Black History Month.

This month of February in the year of 2026, I'd like to have you join me in celebrating the legacy of Carter G. Woodson,

the man who started this all. This is the 50th anniversary of Black History Month and the 100th

anniversary of Negro History Week. That is incredible in itself. I'd like to present a

resolution to honor the African American Employees Leadership Council of the City of Sacramento

for their 10 years of advocacy, equity, leadership, courage, and dedication.

President Obama said, change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

We are the change that we seek.

You have made significant change in how we look at ourselves here in the city of Sacramento.

For the last 10 years, you have represented African Americans and others in every way possible to help them to have better job employment, better equity in their work, better upward mobility, to just be a great individual working for the city of Sacramento.

You have done that.

You've given everybody the opportunity to have more fairness in their career and in their life.

And so this is the day for us not only to honor African-American for Black History Month,

but also to honor the African-American Leadership Council of the city of Sacramento.

So please join me in giving them a round of applause.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A big step to your left.

Thank you.

Well, maybe the back road this way, a step or two just to center it.

Thank you.

One, two, three.

One here, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, good evening.

My name is Dr. Obed Magney.

I am the president of the AAELC.

I'll be really, really brief.

I just want to say thank you to each and every one of you guys for this recognition.

Ten years ago, this was a pipe dream.

We had a couple employees who got together.

We talked about how can we be a champion for ourselves when it comes to professional development, equity, representation, advocacy, all of the above.

And we decided, you know what, let's create an organization for us, by us, to represent us and the very best of the city of Sacramento.

And so the AAELC was born.

some of our trailblazers are no longer with us

Kim Polk and Tammy Jones

who played a remarkable role in helping this organization

be what it is

I just wanted to say that we will continue

not just for the previous 10 years

but for the next 10 years and beyond

we'll continue to be a partner with the city of Sacramento

and anybody else who wants to help us

represent the very best of us,

whether it's professional development,

advocacy, and so on and so forth.

So again, just want to say thank you

for this opportunity.

Thank you for the recognition.

And we look forward to working with you guys soon.

And have a great night.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A few council members wanted to add on as well,

so just please have a seat.

Mayor Pro Tem Guerra.

Yeah, I was going to say, don't go away yet. Come back up to the podium here.

No, no, yeah.

Look, I personally want to thank you because I mentioned 10 years, and I can't believe 10 years have gone by that quickly.

But I wanted to thank the organization, and a lot of you have been involved early on when we first did our first audit on our employee diversity and the challenges we've had.

and also the recognition that it wasn't gonna happen overnight,

but that we had to be intentional about

where we were in that point 10 years ago

and where we are today.

And we see that one from that work,

we led to an actual position, Ami Barnes' position,

that became new at the highest level

in our city management to be able to make sure

that all our departments are moving forward.

That's accredited to the work that you've done.

From that, we also tackled and made sure

that we put in the resources

to also look at our fire department,

which was the one that was having the challenges

in recruitment and looking at how we look

at our youth programs, our academies

at the high school level to encourage

early intervention of pipelines.

And that came from one of your members

that was in the fire department as well

and brought those issues up.

And even further, when the issues that came across

here at city council during the pandemic,

the work that all of you did

to make sure that we were looking at

how our employees were feeling,

how the city and the council responded,

that came from this organization.

And it wasn't just our African-American employees

that benefited from it.

It was all of our employees that benefited from it.

And that was the message that you were all saying,

was that the work that we do in diversity and equity

and inclusion for our city

isn't just for African-American employees,

is that we elevate the bar.

And I just wanted to personally thank you for that last decade of journey in that.

So let's give them another big round of applause.

Council Member Maple.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I also wanted to say, agree with everything that Council Member Guerra said.

And another thing I wanted to point out is that I believe that you throw some of the best events.

No hate on any of the other ERGs.

But truly, I remember attending the event, I believe it was the year before last,

where you had a speaker come out and talking about the history and artifacts,

and it was one of the most educational events I'd ever been to.

I walked away really inspired, and so that's just one example of something that you do.

The other was I really appreciate how proactive you are on policy,

so meeting with us in our offices, bringing issues to our attention that we may not otherwise know,

and then also being really proactive in terms of ways that we can address those issues.

I always really appreciate that, so don't stop.

We want to continue the partnership and just thank you so much for everything that you do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I also wanted to, two things.

One, recognize you, but also talk about the big picture of Black History Month.

We're recognizing today, of course, this is the shortest month of the year, as we always

note, but not one that we went to overlook.

And I want to make sure that we recognize this 365 days a year.

So I want to first thank our Council Member Rick Jennings for bringing this up on the City Council.

I think this is your 12th year on the City Council, so we appreciate your leadership.

When I think about Black History Month being 100 years old,

certainly we've come a long way in the City of Sacramento.

We're not done.

I look at your organization 100 years ago.

I don't know how many African-American representation we had on the City of Sacramento employment.

I would probably guess minimal or zero.

and we've come a long way from our police department to human resources to

historically our city of Sacramento, you know, public works department, solid waste,

a rich history of the city of Sacramento as far as blue-collar jobs for so many Sacramentans,

but we've come a long way.

We've had a dozen, I think, council members of African-American descent, two mayors now,

and I'm proud to be here as well, and we know first-time African-American city managers.

So we've checked every box in the city of Sacramento, but it's not just about checking boxes.

It's about representation.

And as Council Member Maple said, of course, we loved our February events out there with our employee organization.

Where's it going to be this year?

Last year was up in Atomas.

We don't know yet.

Okay.

Are we having it?

No.

Okay.

Source subject.

But we'll do something.

Well, Council Member and I will make it happen.

How about that?

But thank you for being the voice for employees

throughout the city of Sacramento.

So thank you and happy Black History Month.

Okay, thank you, Madam Clerk.

Next item.

Thank you, Mayor.

We move to the discussion calendar,

which is fiscal year 2025-26 budget update

and proposed adjustments.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members,

and members of the public.

I'm Pete Coletto, the city's finance director.

What I always say is in municipal finance,

we live in three years.

So the prior year, the current year, and the budget year,

and we're going to update you on all of those things today.

So first I wanna start with our fiscal year,

24, 25 year end results.

And I do have some,

I'm always going to start with the good news.

So we did finish the year positive.

And I'll go through kind of that breakdown

that you see up there.

So we finished what I would call our operating results.

So these are our, you know,

departmental revenues and expenses, our tax revenues.

We finished positive by just under $3 million.

The next line you see there is investment fair market gain.

And what this is, is our city has an investment pool.

It's a treasury pool.

It's invested in bonds.

And a few years ago, when interest rates spiked up, the value of our portfolio went down.

And so governmental accounting standards say when that happens at the end of the year,

you need to actually take that unrealized loss in your year-end results.

So a few years ago, we took some unrealized losses during year-end.

The great thing about bonds, though, is if you don't sell them and you hold them to maturity, you get your money back.

And so that's what's happened.

The treasurer has done a great job, Stacey and John and the team, of not selling those securities at a loss.

They've now matured.

We've gotten our money back.

We're investing it in market rate securities.

And we're able to essentially pay ourselves back for unrealized losses from prior years.

And that was $12 million in fiscal year 24-25.

So we had a total of $14.8 million of year-end savings.

That next line you see there, though, is we had an arbitrated settlement with the Police Officers Association.

And council, as part of that action, said, you know, hey, that $7.1 million of current year costs we're going to have,

if we do have positive year-end savings, let's use those to pay for those costs.

So that 7.1 is essentially transferring year-end savings from last year into this year's budget.

And so net we have $7.7 million of available general fund balance.

And we'll talk a little bit more about that and what staff's recommendation is for that later in the presentation.

This is just a reminder.

I know everyone on council knows this, but our current year approved budget, $1.7 billion all funds,

a little under $873 million general fund, supports about 5,000 employees.

And this past year when we were developing this year's budget,

we were able to close a $62 million funding gap without any layoffs.

Just a reminder of how did we close that funding gap?

Well, we brought a very balanced approach,

and so it's roughly half one-time balancing solutions, roughly half ongoing.

The great thing about the ongoing strategies is they fix projected future year deficits, but the one-time strategies need to be made up in the next fiscal year.

They really start our budget deficit for the following year.

We're looking at our mid-year update.

Again, some good news.

Some of our revenue sources are looking better than budget.

So property tax, utility users tax, transfer tax, and TOT are all projected above budget.

sales tax we're leaving at budget.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

Unfortunately though,

our cannabis business operations tax

is projected below budget.

And so I've also gotten a few questions

from council members.

We had a discussion about it in budget and audit.

What does this mean for the children's fund

and the allocations that council has approved?

And we're gonna talk about that

in a little more detail on March 3rd.

So this is a chart showing those updates.

So again, utility users tax, $2.6 million.

We're projecting positive versus budget.

You can see property tax, TOT and transfer tax, and the cannabis tax.

So overall, we're projecting our major tax revenues coming in this year at $2.9 million over budget.

And that Measure L transfer, because of the lower cannabis BOT projection, we're transferring less money over into the Children's Fund.

So we wanted to look at some of the longer-term trends in our revenues.

So the first is property tax, one of our biggest single revenue source.

You can see it just continues to grow very strong.

The city's growing, our property tax base is growing, and it's very steady.

So sales tax is a little bit of a different story.

What you can see there is, you know, we saw really strong growth from fiscal year 21 to fiscal year 22.

And, you know, really, I always call this a little bit of a sugar high.

And so when inflation really took off, you know, the prices went up, people continued to spend, and we saw our sales tax revenues go up.

But what usually happens in an inflationary environment is people eventually have to tighten their belts.

And so we've really seen our sales tax revenues, both our Bradley Burns, which is our point of sale sales tax,

and Measure U, which is our point of destination tax, have flatlined.

And this is not unique to Sacramento.

This is something that we're seeing up and down the state.

And it's really this inflationary dynamic.

For the utility users tax, you know, traditionally it's been kind of bouncing around and it's really been because of two offsetting things.

So we've seen our cable and our landline telephone portion of the tax start really go down over a number of years as people were cord cutting.

However, we've seen our gas and electric component of it go up.

And now we're seeing more of a growth trend, which is a good thing.

So how does this impact our forecast?

So we updated our forecast from the approved budget in June.

We're continuing economic growth.

We're not forecasting a recession.

We don't know when one might happen.

One thing that's different about this forecast than prior ones is we've incorporated the cost for city proposals

to labor groups and active negotiations.

So we're in negotiations with most of our labor groups.

The city has offers on the table,

and we've incorporated those costs into our forecast.

The other thing that we've excluded is HAP Round 7.

So the state does have an appropriation

for Round 7 of the HAP program.

This is the homelessness funding.

It's half of HAP Round 6,

but we still have a lot of questions regarding the timing.

So, you know, traditionally the city has received the TAP allocation a year after it's been appropriated in the state budget.

And that $500 million is appropriated in the fiscal year 27 state budget.

So we're not sure whether we will receive it in fiscal year 27 or 28.

We're talking to the state about that.

The other issue is the state has signaled they are going to put additional requirements on the funding.

We don't know what those are, and we don't know what those implications would be for us programmatically.

We've also excluded the $7.7 million of prior year savings I mentioned earlier.

So we wanted to show, you know, how do these updates impact the forecast we presented to you back in June when you approved the budget.

So that forecast is that top line.

The expense and revenue updates I talked about earlier, you can see that in the next line.

The cost of the city.

Again, these are the city's proposals on the table right now.

That's the third line.

And you can see how that all adds out.

So, you know, we're still projecting to finish this year balanced, a little bit positive.

But we are projecting a $66.2 million funding gap for the coming fiscal year.

And you can see that structural nature of our budget deficit where our expenses are growing faster than our revenues,

which is the reason why those deficits increase in the future years.

The one thing I will say, though, is, you know,

this forecast doesn't show the impact of ongoing balancing strategies that the

city will adopt to close this year's, this coming year's budget gap.

So every ongoing strategy you adopt to help balance fiscal year 27 benefits

fiscal year 28, 29, and 30 as well.

and again this just shows that structural nature of of the funding gap it really is an issue of

our expenses growing faster than our revenues I also had a couple of requests out so what would

it look like if we did get our HAP 7 allocation kind of based on where what we think we might get

with the 50% reduction from HAP round 6 and you can see that in the green green line there if we

were able to get a similar proportion for similar uses. If we were able to get it in fiscal year 27,

it would have a $6.4 million positive impact on the budget gap. But again, that's one-time

funding. So we would need to make it up in the next year. And I said a lot of ifs in that statement.

So there's a lot of uncertainty around it, which is why we're proposing leaving it out for now.

as we talk with the state,

we'll have better information

when council's having its budget hearings in the spring.

So how are we gonna balance the budget?

So council adopted a budget policy on October 7th.

This was instructions for all of the departments

to submit reduction plans up to 15% of general fund use

and really to hone in on what the impacts of adopting those strategies would be.

And the purpose behind this is really to give council more options than the size of our problem.

So you can see that just the departmental targets total over $85 million for a $66 million funding gap.

And we're also, as the finance team, looking at what I call citywide strategies.

And these are, you know, projects, debt service schedules, things like that to give options for savings.

So our guiding principles, really what we're looking to do is to define and preserve our core services and advance the priorities that you all have articulated as a council of economic development, addressing homelessness and public safety.

We want to minimize, you know, these are going to be really difficult decisions, but we want to minimize the impacts on the public.

We deliver our services through people.

We want to minimize the impact on those people delivering the services.

And, you know, as always, as we're going through this process, you know, if council has other considerations, please let us know.

As far as our budget development schedule, you know, we went to budget and audit last week.

we're council right now talking about our mid-year update

and the budget gap.

In March, you're going to hear a series of presentations

from the departments and they are going to look

very different than the departmental presentations

you heard over the past couple of years.

So instead of here are all the things we're doing

as a department, these are really gonna focus

on what are the impacts of some of these reduction strategies

that we're considering putting in the proposed budget.

How are we aligning with council priorities?

What does this mean for my department?

What does this mean for the city?

It will be much more budget focused.

And we will start that with kind of a budget context

for council.

In April, by charter, we'll release a proposed balanced budget

for council.

In May, you'll have your formal hearings and June adoption.

And again, we're trying to move up a lot of the discussions of what the options are so Council has more time to deliberate on them.

This is just a more detailed kind of view of the upcoming calendar, and you can see when the hearings are and when those departmental presentations are.

As far as our pending factors, these are the things that keep me up at night.

You know, along with our budget deficits, we still have significant unfunded liabilities, both for pension and for capital and deferred maintenance.

We don't know what the future of HAP funding is going to be.

You know, our homelessness funding in our forecast is roughly $48 million.

You know, when we kind of started this up, we started it up with state funding, some other funding that we had, and now more and more of it has been picked up by the general fund.

You know, we still have federal funding risks. Those have not gone away. There's always the risk of a recession. And again, our budget deficit isn't due to, you know, an economic slowdown. This is a structural deficit and we need to, you know, address that imbalance between expense growth and revenue growth.

so uh we were also asked uh during budget adoption last year to bring the budget and audit committee

options for you know a two-year budget um and budget and audit wanted to see you know how does

it look once we have the gap uh let's talk then when we have some numbers we can actually put to

it uh so we had a little bit of a discussion about that last tuesday and bringing it to council today

And really what we're looking at is does council want to adopt a policy around the maximum deficit we could forecast for budget year plus one?

And so based on our latest forecast, we put some scenarios in there.

So if council were to say, hey, the maximum budget deficit we could tolerate for fiscal year 28 is 1%, that would equate to a $9.3 million deficit in the forecast for fiscal year 28.

And that means not only do we have to have all ongoing strategies to balance fiscal year 27, we'll need 6.3 million in additional reduction strategies to bring fiscal year 28 down within the deficit tolerance.

So these are the different scenarios. A 5% deficit tolerance would be a $46 million deficit in fiscal year 28, and you would only need $35.2 million of ongoing strategies in fiscal year 27 to achieve that.

So again, these are really things for council consideration.

The policy choice here is just how many ongoing reduction strategies do you want to adopt now

versus using one-time strategies to buy some time.

So that's really the policy call here.

So as far as staff recommendations,

we're recommending approval of those revenue and expense adjustments I talked about.

I'll talk about that $7.7 million again right now.

So as I mentioned earlier, we're in active negotiations with most of our labor groups.

You can see we're forecast to finish very slightly positive in the current year.

And so staff's recommendation is that we reserve this $7.7 million for any additional costs we might incur during these labor negotiations

so that we can balance the current year.

And if there's any excess beyond that,

to use that to help balance the next year budget.

And then staff is really looking for direction

about whether or whether or not

council wants to set any budget year

plus one deficit tolerance.

And that concludes my presentation

and I'm happy to take any questions.

Okay, thank you.

Let's hear from our public comment first.

Perfect. We have two speakers on this agenda item.

The first is Lambert and John Vignocci.

I've been studying this structural deficit.

This is a peculiar phrase to me.

As a person that runs a business, my family would run me out of town if I said, hey, we're going to have a five-year projection.

No matter what, we're going to be in the red.

That's not how it should be run.

A lot of, as I listen to this, it's almost as though you don't want homelessness to end.

What if homelessness ends?

Can you still balance your budget?

That's a heck of a thing to depend on homeless money to balance your budget.

I guarantee you, everybody on that rostrum, you do not run your finances and that's your money.

You do not run it like that or you would be homeless with that kind of approach.

Now, we were in the Bay Area for the Super Bowl,

and the millennials taught me that you could go global without getting an ad.

I had no idea that could happen.

They did it.

They made it where they said, okay, we know you don't have that kind of money,

so we're going to go this way.

And it was brilliant because they guided them to our website and people have been calling me from all over the country, all over the world.

They've been reaching out to us, seeing what do we want to do?

That's called outside the box thinking.

Shout out to the millennials.

They did it last week.

They did.

But this structural deficit, that's why I'm a big fan of the city manager's report.

I want to know what does that cover?

Let us know what's going on with the finances of this city.

Thank you for your comments.

John.

Good evening,

Mayor,

members of the city council,

John Vignocchi,

CEO of region business.

Yeah,

I think the city is kind of a microcosm of the,

it's a reflection of what's happening with our state too.

I think I'm reading that we have about a $1.5 trillion unfunded pension

liability issue at the state of California.

So given that the state of California is in our front yard and back,

backyard and side yards, I think it's incumbent on us to actually lead the way here.

We can cut our way out of this.

We can restructure the way that government works.

We need to make bold policy decisions and not chase $5,000 checks from special interest

groups and sell out the city's future ideas.

So I'll start with one that personally impacts me is the $3 million that we spend on the

$0 impact fee program for affordable housing.

We should probably reduce that to zero.

And if we can create a surplus in the future, add that back, right?

I think there is a pathway to have a $25, $30 million surplus that can go to things like transportation funds and infrastructure and housing and individual investment dollars for your districts, right?

But it requires making tough decisions that we've put off for the last 10 years.

Things like increasing the cap on the CWTA.

I think the federal minimum or federal requirement, like the Biden administration said $35 million is a good target.

Ours is $1 million.

You know, that adds millions of dollars to projects in our districts like libraries and things.

Why?

I mean, there's still prevailing wage projects.

Why is it?

It's because we've given away stuff to certain interest groups.

I mean, I don't want to beat around the bush anymore.

We've got to fight for the citizens and put our own political futures.

Those are tough decisions we have to make.

And, you know, it's not easy, comfortable thing coming up here.

One thing that we can't cut is police and fire.

I mean, we can definitely look for efficiencies.

I'm sure there's new technologies and softwares that we can use and things to find efficiencies.

We can't cut people.

We should look at outsourcing more.

We should look at becoming more of a managed service, managed competition provider.

Thank you.

Mayor, I have no more public comments on this item.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Member Maple.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you, Pete, for the presentation.

You gave this presentation in budget and audit, so I've already commented on it.

I won't go into depth, but I did want to say it was really helpful.

One of the things that I appreciated was the clarification about the deficit projections.

Yes, it's projected out in years because we're being transparent about what would happen if we did nothing.

But the reality is we're not going to do nothing.

In fact, every year that we've had a deficit, we do something.

One, because it's the right thing to do.

But two, we are also required by law to balance our budget.

So we are not going to carry a deficit.

we will take what actions we need to take.

And I think that's important to say

because sometimes people see the graph on the screen

and they think, oh my gosh,

what do you mean they're going to be in the red

for five years, we're not.

But it does mean that we will have to make choices,

just like we've had to make for several years.

Actually, the entire time I've been here.

But we will do that.

And that's our responsibility.

And I think there's a lot of opportunities for us.

I also really appreciate the framing around,

you know, comparing it to what it's like

for an individual's budget.

It helps me.

It's helped me as I've had conversations

in the communities that I represent

where they're like,

well, what do you mean?

What do you mean a structural deficit?

Does that mean you guys are just spending out of control

and you're doing the wrong things?

Well, no.

It means that just like most people have a fixed income,

they make X amount of dollars per month.

There are things that are outside of their control.

I'm sure many people are experiencing this right now.

Your insurance costs go up.

Yeah, same with us at the city.

We're seeing our insurance costs increase.

We see costs increase across the board from everything from insurance to the cost of vehicles to employing folks.

And those are things that are increased.

Meanwhile, because folks are also experiencing the challenges of affordability, people are spending less.

Well, that means that we have less in tax revenue.

So you see less coming in and you have increased costs.

And so that's just one of the challenges that we're experiencing as a city.

And we're not alone.

It's happening all over the state and beyond.

And so I just think that's important to say for context,

for someone who might be like, why is this happening?

That's in part.

So some of the things that, one,

I'm really looking forward to seeing the reduction strategies.

Did you say those are coming in March?

In March, yes.

Okay.

I look forward to seeing those and having that menu of options.

That was really helpful last time around for us to be able to see what's

possible, what we can do, what the impacts will be,

because every decision we make will have an impact,

and so it's important that we know what those are.

Some other things I've been thinking about are contracts.

So, you know, as the city, we contract for a variety of things in almost every department.

I know that, I'm not sure if Brian Petro is here,

but our director of the Department of Community Response recently undertook an effort

to renegotiate some of the contracts in that department, did a wonderful job.

and as a result we were able to save money and continue on with the services that we need to do.

I wonder if we should go on an effort like that through all of our departments.

Are there contracts that we have in place that we haven't looked at in a really long time

that we decided on X price and maybe that doesn't work for us anymore?

Would we be willing to budge on certain things?

And so that's a bigger issue obviously in collaboration with Madam City Manager,

but I think that would be a worthwhile effort in addition to the things that we've already identified.

The other thing that I think that we should be taking a look at is where do we have opportunities

using technology to save money.

And so, you know, for example, I'm thinking of code enforcement.

This was brought up at another hearing that we had.

But, you know, some jurisdictions are utilizing things like drones or other technology to

be able to go out.

Like, let's say you have something that's on a corner of the street somewhere in the

city.

we have to wait until a person is physically able to get into their car,

drive, get the long list, go there, take a picture, come back, file the paperwork.

Is that something that we could do more easily? And that freeing that person up

to do a lot of other work that they need to do. So that's just one example, but I

wonder if there's other opportunities to use technology in our various

departments. Well yes, I know there's some upfront costs to some of those

things that could probably save us money in the long run. And so yes, those are

those are a couple of things I was thinking about in addition I support

setting aside the the 7.7 million as well for our contracts we know that we're in

negotiations and we want to take care of our employees and so I think that's a

worthwhile to set aside not thank you very much thank you thank you council

member Dickinson thanks mayor we did have a good I think review of this last

last week at the budget and on it and a good conversation about it.

There are just a couple things that I wanted to highlight and really what is the first

we're not quite biting the apple yet.

We're more sizing up the apple, I suppose, at this stage at least for the Council and

the public, although the staff has certainly been hard at work for quite some time on this.

So one of the things I would just take note of, and this is pretty clearly shown on the

chart that's on page three of the staff report, that identifies the sources of income and

expense and notes that without counting any HAP funding in this year, the upcoming budget

year, our shortfall would be over $36 million, almost $37 million, and that shortfall actually

is well over half of our total shortfall for the city budget.

Now, hopefully, this in part energizes us to work even more prodigiously with our state

level delegation to seek funding out of this HAP cycle and to return the HAP funding at

least to a billion dollars from the $500 million that is in the, if I recall, in the governor's

budget.

But it also demonstrates where we still need to focus, I think, attention and where there

our economies and efficiencies as well to try and reduce that gap.

And more generally, I would say that I think what the next budget year and the out years

demonstrate as clearly as ever is that we are not going to ultimately return to a balanced

budget based on cutting expenses solely, cutting expenses, reducing services, or raising fees.

We are going to have to invest in our economy. We're going to have to grow our local economy.

And to me, again, that means looking at the strategies that help us realize economic gain,

support and incentivize economic gain in the community.

So I know we'll be talking about those kinds of strategies and issues as we go along, but

I also think it's incumbent on us not to see this in a one-year context, but more in an

intermediate and long-term context.

The second thing I wanted to pause on was the request of the staff based on what the

council discussed last year for some guidance with respect to looking for one time versus

ongoing cuts as an approach to balancing the budget.

We had a good exchange of views at the committee meeting on this.

were at least two, if not more, that support the idea of shooting for that 2% reduction.

From my view, from my part, take a little bit more caution, I guess I'd characterize

it as a caution point of view, of wanting to see how this continues to play out as we

go through this process.

Because I would note, as you pointed out, Pete, we solved last year's budget gap half

on ongoing, half on one time. To move to 2 percent is a significant amount of migration

in the direction of one time, excuse me, of ongoing cuts. And before we wed ourselves

to that as a target, I would simply express the feeling that it makes sense to see a little

bit more of how things play out over the course of the spring.

That doesn't mean that we ignore the fact that ultimately, absent significant economic

growth, we're going to need to find more and more in the way of ongoing reductions.

But as I said a moment ago, I don't think we need to make that declaration of a specific

commitment at this stage and I actually think that would be counterproductive for us in

terms of weighing and considering our alternatives as the budget process continues throughout

the spring.

So with those comments, we have a resolution also that I believe we need to take action

on tonight in order to provide the authority to make some of the adjustments that the staff

report outlines and and Pete has has noted so I would move that that

resolution. Second. Councilmember Kaplan. Thank you mayor I do want to echo a lot

of what you heard from our budget chair Councilmember Dickinson and also want to

hear a little bit more because I think this also while it's budget a policy

conversation we need to have around the children's fund because if we see you know there is we can't

accurately fully predict but when we're signing on to cbo contracts for three years and there's dip

in funding what does that mean because cbos and others can't just cut and so how do we address

that from a policy perspective what does that mean um is do we put in place a shore up or

like potential money that's one time based off of reallocation at the end of the year and maybe

cap it at a certain amount what does that look like would love to have a council conversation

sure yeah we can uh because we're going to bring kind of the first the analysis like what does our

current situation mean for what we've already um you know granted or committed to uh the good year

The good news is, as you know, we had a little bit more time.

Our three-year cycle extends a little bit more,

so we have a little bit of cushion there with our revenue collections.

But we'll show that.

But as part of that discussion, we can certainly have a discussion of,

hey, do we want to only budget, only want to allocate a certain percentage, right?

Or do we want to have a policy for how to reduce things?

So we can definitely bring that in March when we come with budget.

Thank you.

I think the council would want to just because all the time and energy and you

can't,

you can't unwind three year contracts as easy as people think it might be.

And then on the HAP funding, something, you know, I brought up to you.

I think it's really important that we almost have a separated kind of budget.

What are we spending on homelessness?

and unhoused and where is the money coming from is it general fund is it

grant funding how much is going you know to our providers so that we as a city

see as we're facing a structural deficit and I think that goes to a bigger

conversation that I hope we can have on the books city manager is where do we as

a council want to go holistically on all of homelessness if we have to cut where

is our return on investment where you know if if we're getting less money it

means we may not be able to afford this shelter or this motel hotel program and

I think we need to start having those conversations but because it is such a

priority for the City of Sacramento and it's the number one thing I'm sure many

of us here that I think we need to have a separate conversation and it could be

it's a budget three four-hour conversation of what do we on a council

agree on what do we disagree on how does this because this plays into the budget every year

when we look at what we want to do we don't have the money to do what we really want to do but what

is working and what isn't working i think we need to have that and and i don't always see that in

the budget i see oh this much for this but i think it it behooves us to be a little bit more

transparent with our community of where is the money actually going.

So to the extent when you come forward with a budget,

I'd really like to see a little bit more under homelessness.

This is federal, state, local, coming from the general fund,

designated funding, all of those programs.

And yeah, we're looking at some ways to kind of illustrate that when we

do our budget framing on March 3rd.

both kind of what's in the current budget,

but also how did this develop, right?

10 years ago, we weren't putting general fund

for these services.

And now, you know, it's roughly $48 million.

And without HAP funding, that's going to be general fund.

And so we want to kind of show how that's changed,

how that state funding has declined,

how the city has picked up more of that.

And then I think some of that more

kind of detailed discussion,

you know, Brian, when he comes up

and presents for DCR, he can talk a little bit more

about that and to Council Member Maple's point,

we're also looking at some of the efficiencies

that he's, him and his department have instituted

and how they're actually going to help

with the coming fiscal year 27 budget development.

So we'll have kind of more detail on that in March

and one of the things we were hoping,

because we heard from Council,

hey, department presentations are great,

but we wanna have the budget conversation

And so we want to have these more focused presentations and give council the opportunity to have that discussion.

Because I think it's a bit of a misnomer when we look at, hey, every department has to reduce 15%.

Well, DCR, you know, homelessness is holistically all over the city.

So I think that bears almost a separate conversation in and of itself because it's embedded in our police and our fire and DCR.

and code and public works and utilities,

what does that look like and what does it impact?

Because that is what we get questions on every day

in our council offices.

What are you doing?

I don't see a change.

You cleaned it up, they're back.

Why are you spending $60,000 a bed

or $700,000 for permanent supportive housing?

What are we getting?

And the data kind of needs to be wrapped in

when we make these budget cuts.

I'm really looking for data of what is working, what is not working as we go there.

So thank you for that.

And then, you know, I've been harping ever since I got on council for looking at the budget for a, not approving a two-year budget cycle, but looking as the forecast for two years and not only balancing current year, but getting close to balancing one year out.

We all know the budget is a living document and it fluctuates, as you've seen here, with the money that flows through.

But not addressing the out-year structural deficit.

I mean, this is going into our fourth budget year of just continuing to cut.

And it's cut by, you know, we're cutting by 1,000 micro cuts, which I think is having a bigger impact and uncertainty for our staff and for the city.

And then one of the things I'm really hoping we get to see is what are our economic development opportunities?

Because that was a council adopted priority.

What are we looking at?

Because we cannot cut our way out of our structural deficit.

What are we doing to grow?

You know, how are we looking at old Sacramento?

How are we looking at redevelopment?

How are we looking at economic incentives that we know through Visit Sacramento are drivers in our economy?

And how are we investing in that?

Because you look at what they're doing in surrounding cities, and they're doing better than we are.

So how can we understand that economic development needs to be a bigger portion of how we see this city?

And I think it was a big mistake that we are not continuing and having the conversation of right-sizing the business operating tax.

That has been the same in the city of Sacramento since 1991.

We talk about corporations paying their fair share.

When Walmart's paying $5,000 a year in our cannabis industry, some of them are paying a million dollars a year.

That's not right-sized for me.

And not having that on the ballot where we look at some of our top grossing corporations and have them pay what surrounding jurisdictions are paying.

I think we've left $8 to $10 million on the table.

And here's the thing.

If we do it the right way, it's a cut to small businesses.

We can do structured tax where it's a break for our grocery stores and our restaurants, which don't have a lot of return on investment, and their profit is not as high as some of these other corporations.

We talk about these things, but I think these are the conversations we really missed that should have been on the ballot this year.

But thank you for what you're doing.

I know we have hard conversations forthcoming, but appreciate it, Pete.

Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Thank you, Mayor. We had a council retreat

at the Safe Convention Center, and we were very clear that this mayor and

council's priorities were public safety, economic development,

and housing and homelessness. So as you come forward

with the adoption of the budget and where we're doing 15% cuts

and talking to our various departments, I hope that it comes back prepared for us

with our council priorities at the very top,

letting everybody know that these are our priorities

and this is how our budget reflects our priorities.

In addition, I also wanted to make sure,

well, I said there's that budget and audit,

but we have a lot of dollars that we can't touch.

They're non-negotiables, our unfunded liabilities,

our pensions, there's various dollars

that we just cannot touch because they are locked in.

I want them separated from the budget

so that people understand the full picture

of how much money we're actually working with

as or with as a city of Sacramento.

So those are my two requests.

Yeah, and when we come on March 3rd,

you're going to see in some of the charts

on how we break down the budget,

some of those things you mentioned,

our unfunded liabilities,

our OPEB, our debt service,

risk fund, workers' comp,

all of those, you know,

even if we shut down the city,

we still have to pay those things.

So we are going to separate those out

so that the public can see them.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

I just wanted to add a little bit of flavor to this tonight.

So this is, I know this one will have a two-year budget,

but we do have a reconciliation mid-year.

So we do have a couple bites of the apples.

This is what we're doing tonight.

And so I do support this action.

I think it sounds to, on prior years,

oh, you have some savings.

Let's use these to expand the library in North Sacramento

or address our deferred maintenance at our fire stations

down in Meadowview or Tahoe Park and so forth.

But we don't have that luxury here.

And so using it for our core general fund support services

and addressing our employee compensation issues is key.

Because at the end of the day, yeah, I think a lot of people say,

yes, you should balance your budget

and focus on having a great austerity budget

and make tough decisions.

but that impacts people's lives.

We heard four hours ago about the fire department

and what's an impact when there was a big fire

in Rogers District a couple days ago

and they had six crews there at the old bank building

and having multiple brownouts would have a serious impact.

And laying off police officers like we did

and I had to do a horrible vote right over there

13 years ago we laid off I think 50 police officers.

and that impacts services, response time.

So it's easy to say, yes, we should have it all

in the out years balanced out at zero,

but the flip side of those are huge impacts to communities.

Swimming pools be shut down.

We'll come mow the lawn at Land Park every 17 days

as opposed to every eight days.

And so all these things are real world impacts

on our lives.

city tree services, code enforcement and that.

So we need to be very, very careful here

and work with a scalpel and focus on year by year

to minimize the impact of our people

that sent us here to city hall.

So I'm 100% accorded there.

But that being said, I think we do need to lay it all out

in a different way than we did last year.

I asked the city manager and our city budget team

is kind of for the council here and the public

to just focus on scenarios.

you know, where the revenues come from,

as council member Kaplan said,

federal or state and what's at stake, you know,

if we, you know, got rid of these services,

these programs, what it would mean.

If you had a budget that had, you know,

no impact to public safety, you know,

what would that look like over there?

And so I'm asking our city staff to in great detail,

lay out all these scenarios.

So we have an eyes wide open perspective

when we finalize our budget process in the spring.

And then I know we did postpone the economic development

workshop with the council.

Not only was that our top priority,

but it's something I think we need to spend more time doing,

not just the marquee projects in our districts,

like Aggie Square, the rail yards,

and we're looking at south part of Sacramento there

and 102 acres up in North of Thomas with innovation.

what's it called?

Innovation?

Innovation Park, Innovation Park.

But our tools that we have, because doing that,

not only is it exciting for our districts and our city,

but it's gonna impact these decisions in the future

and hopefully have to make less tough decisions

when we have more revenues coming into the city.

So that's a big piece of the picture.

And just wanna note,

I think all the council members know this,

but it's the top priority of the big cities

including Sacramento when we go talk to the governor

and our state leaders is to get ongoing money.

And all these candidates for governor

calling me as your mayor and saying hey, hey, hey.

And I'm saying hey, where do you stand on ongoing support?

Because our guy Pete wants to make sure that you know

this is where I draw my line in the sand.

So we want a billion dollars ongoing.

So I'm confident that we're gonna be successful

and ongoing because this isn't a problem

that has gone away.

So again, this tonight is reconciling

the mid-year adjustments and putting that 7.7 million

to appropriate use for the city of Sacramento

and this is just the beginning and we'll be back.

So with that, we have a motion and a second.

No more comment from council members or questions.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Nose or abstentions?

Hearing none.

Item passes 9-0.

Next item.

Mayor, now we move to council comments, ideas, questions, and AB123 reports.

And then I have 13 speakers for public comments.

Matters not on the agenda.

Okay.

Please begin.

Council Member Dickinson.

Thanks, Mayor.

I just wanted to mention a couple things that are going on in District 2 and Virens.

Consonant with Black History Month, there are some events that are very special occurring coming up a little later this month.

But on the 18th at 3 p.m. at an arcade community center, we have Black Inventions and Education Session on that.

on the 24th, also at 3 at the Firehouse Community Center

that some of you are familiar with,

roughly at Grand and Ria Linda Boulevard,

African Dance and Cultural Expression.

And then on the 27th at the Robertson Community Center

on Norwood, again, at 3 p.m.,

cooking from the earth.

So this, as we noted earlier this evening,

may get attention tonight,

but it gets attention all month long.

It deserves attention all year long,

but there's some very special events occurring

as part of this month for Black History Month.

There's also, for those of you who are in the mood

on Valentine's Day,

I see a smile.

I love Valentine's Day.

a Valentine's Day concert to support the Southside Park mural,

excuse me, mural project.

That's going to be Saturday from 6 to 9, 1019 Del Paso Boulevard.

Councilmember Guerra is also a sponsor of the event,

along with the Vita del Oro Foundation.

So grab your valentine or two or three and come support the mural and have a good time.

Then on the 21st at Neverboard, which is also on Del Paso Boulevard in the evening,

there will be a special arts exhibition from 5 to 7 called Toy Rooms.

So that's going to be another very special event.

And then finally, I wanted to mention for those of you who have energy left over from Valentine's Day and the 21st,

you can come out and plant some trees on the 28th on the Sacramento Northern Bike Trail at Altos and Eleanor.

We'll all be meeting at 9 a.m. to continue tree planting on the bike trail

and make it even better and better and better than it already is.

So thanks, Mayor, and I hope to see everybody joining us

for all these occasions throughout the month.

Thank you.

Councilman Kaplan.

Thank you, Mayor.

You know, Valentine's Day, I think it's a time to,

not only for a little love, but planting some trees.

So from 9 a.m. to noon at Elderberry Park in Natomas,

come out adopt a tree plant it name it after a special loved one and know that you have a place

to go and visit our parks and watch your tree grow it's a great way to give back to the community

and look forward to seeing everyone there thanks thank you council member maple all right in honor

of black history month our very own 40 acres in oak park is hosting a long series of events i'm

looking at this piece of paper and I see no less than 20 events so I'm not going to list them all

off but I do want to name just a few and want to say that if you want to find all these events you

can go online on the website you can go to the Guild Theatre website and go to 40 acres and go

to St. Hope but they do have a walking tour that's coming up this Wednesday which is tomorrow

at noon so if you've ever if you ever had the opportunity to go to Oak Park it's our it's our

oldest established neighborhood in Sacramento and it's got some wonderful wonderful resources there

so come join them for the walking tour.

They also have a film series.

The next one is this Thursday, Juneteenth, Faith and Freedom.

That's at 6 p.m. at the Guild Theater.

They have several others, so I will be sharing these on our social media and our newsletter,

so please come by at any of these events in celebration of Black History Month.

Thank you.

All right, next.

My monthly open office hours are back for the 2026 year,

And so every month, well, every month, I host open office hours at Donuts and Coffee between 9 and 10.

So I invite my community to join me.

It's a lot of fun.

We do city updates, questions, and then happy thoughts, happy announcements.

And it's a great time.

So I just want to wish everybody happy Valentine's Day.

Feliz dia de la mori amistad.

And, yeah, go plant some trees and go listen to some music at Southside Park.

Council Member Vang.

Thank you.

I just wanted to make a few comments since this is just open comments from council members.

One, I wanted to take this moment just to thank my colleagues from the Law and Ledge

Committee this morning for voting to approve the resolution to prohibit ICE activities

on city properties and just wanting to urge that we bring this item to council as soon

as possible so that the city manager and her team can move quickly on implementation.

Additionally, two weeks ago, we reaffirmed our commitment to freedom of speech around the Moss Building through the immigration platform.

And I know earlier today we heard from community members, and it was mentioned that there was a ceremonial teepee that was removed from the street in the surrounding area around the Moss Building in District 4.

And I know that some of the advocates and folks impacted had reached out to our office.

And while it's not my district, for me, it's still really important because two weeks ago, we reaffirmed our commitment to freedom of speech.

And I just want to make sure that we are upholding that commitment.

And so I just like to ask the city manager,

and I don't think she can respond here,

but to do a follow-up to council and also community members who were impacted

by the removal.

In particular,

I want to understand the circumstance surrounding the removal of materials by

SAC PD,

including how the decision was made and what city or departmental policies and

procedure inform that action.

Secondly, how was this communicated to residents and demonstrators?

I think that's important.

And when the decision was made to remove, did we provide demonstrator direction on how to actually recover their materials?

I'm asking these questions because I just think it's really important that we have clarity for residents and advocates.

And I think a big part of the work that we do

in our immigration platform and the work that we have ahead

is we have to build trust with community

and a big part of that really depends on clarity,

protection and accountability.

And so I just wanted to name that

and if the city manager can just follow up

to answer those questions so that we can relay that

to the advocates and to the demonstrators

so that I have a clear understanding of what happened.

And so I wanted to put that on record.

Okay.

Thank you.

So, Mary, I have 18 speakers.

Also, I'll read off a few.

Lambert, Graham Faloco, Silas Schauer, Aaron Reading, Fago, Karen Korbs.

I have some ideas that could make the city get into black.

As a native, I want to see this city get into black.

Recently, some people showed me that California is the fourth largest economy in the world, not the United States, in the world.

And so what does that mean to me as a native?

How can it be the fourth largest economy in the world and be in a deficit?

It's that something doesn't match.

Also, we're going to push for an audit to find out how many city employees are working remotely.

Because once we find that out, then we know all you have to do is freeze their salaries.

You don't have to lay them off, but I guarantee you, you do not spend the type of money you spend to come to work versus staying at home.

There's no way you spend that much money.

So why get a raise?

also

you spoke about

black history and African American

I mean what's the difference

what's the difference between an African

American and a black

person and a negro

it's very confusing to

the youth they ask

me that all the time and I said it's a

trick

you know it's a deception

to keep you

weak mentally

You must stay alert, I tell them at all times, because there's a word that I'm teaching them called tricknology.

That's the art of deception.

It's a lot of deception at City Hall.

Looking at this agenda, and I'm really emphasizing this to the city manager, I am a native.

I want to hear the city manager's report.

There's six city managers.

I want to hear that report.

Graham.

Thank you.

Thank you to Ms. Wang for recognizing the significance of what happened at the John Moss Building.

I'm a protester there who's been there pretty frequently.

In the last two weeks, I've been there almost every single day.

just seeing what's happening with ICE

and knowing that we were going to have a ceremony.

I wanted to help set that up

and I wanted to help my native siblings

who came over to help us,

to help see what was going on.

And I can actually answer a couple of Ms. Vang's questions.

I'm so sorry.

On the 4th, police officers came on their bikes.

I was there.

I was present.

I watched this happen.

There was two officers.

I unfortunately do not know their names.

we do have somebody with their names.

And they told us that there was a request to take our teepee down.

The person who was performing our ceremonies told them,

we are in a four-day ceremony.

This is a protected act.

That night, we printed out the American Indian Religious Freedom Act,

and we put it on the sides of the teepee.

One of our members painted it large enough that you could read it from the street.

When we called, not we, excuse me, when the owner of the teepee called after the bones of her teepee were broken, which if you don't know anything about Native American culture, the bones of the teepee represent the grandmother.

The owners were not given enough time to explain how to take their religious home down.

Now, there are three codes that have been broken.

California codes.

PRC 5097.9.

This protects the religious exercise and sacred sites on public land.

H&S code 8010.

And if I'm pronouncing these things wrong, I'm sorry, I'm not a professional.

This protects against cultural items and sacred objects being improperly taken.

42 U.S.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Silas Scheuer.

Silas.

Following Silas is Aaron Reading.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the council.

My name is Silas Schauver.

I'm a parent of a student at St. Patrick Academy,

and I'm here with a number of other families from St. Patrick's Academy.

A little about why we're here.

My son Ian has been at the school for a little over a year.

he struggled with some other schools

and he went and had a shadow day there

and after one day

he told me, you know, dad, this would be

the best gift you could ever give me

to let me come to this school

and it's been a wonderful place of growth for him

it's a school that's been serving

children in

South Sacramento for over 90 years

and we're here

because we recently got the devastating news

from the Catholic diocese

that they're going to be shutting down the three

these South Sacramento schools,

with the proposal to open one regional school

where there would be 35 to 40 students per class,

with a plan that's very opaque

where we haven't been given a lot of information.

And we're very concerned about losing

this incredible asset and community that we have.

And we understand that the city does not

tell the diocese what to do.

I think our ask is to really support us

and having a more constructive dialogue

to get a better understanding of what's going to happen,

to open up some opportunities to explore alternatives.

We really, this is a strong community here.

We really work together.

We really wanna put our efforts in

to support our community, our neighborhood, our families.

We feel like we've been facing a lot of obstacles

and we just ask for support, for awareness

as we work to really support our kids and continue this really vital mission.

So thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Aaron Reading.

Good evening. My name is Aaron Reading, and I'm a parent at St. Patrick Academy.

I'm here today to ask the city to intervene and halt the closure

and forced consolidation of St. Patrick Academy and St. Charles Borromeo School.

I intend to place facts on the public record and request transparency before irreversible harm is done to children families and the broader community.

The diocese of Sacramento has announced plans to close St. Patrick Academy and St. Charles Borromeo School displacing roughly 300 students.

Families were informed late in the process leaving parents scrambling to find new schools for their children for the upcoming school year.

At the same time, a major capital investment was made to St. Robert School for a renovation that was for their gymnasium, not for any type of expansion to the campus to accommodate the consolidation.

Last night, in response to media pressure, the diocese released enrollment decline figures to justify consolidation.

those figures use different peak years for each school, stretching back as far as 2012 for some

campuses, while St. Robert decline was measured out since 2021. The decline for St. Patrick is

drastically less, if you look at the time frame, than what the diocese is telling us. There appears

to be a reoccurring pattern in Catholic school systems where large donor-restricted foundations

gift and are paired with construction contracts awarded to affiliated donors

or construction firms, often without competitive bidding.

While presented as philanthropy,

this structure can function as a closed-loop arrangement

that concentrates decision-making, power shields,

selected schools from consolidation,

and undermines transparency, equity, and across the diocese.

What we're asking today is some transparency.

We want to see the procurement policy

that governed the recent capital renovation

documentation of competitive bids or written justification for any sole source contracting

and a clear timeline shown when consolidation decisions were made to any capital expenditure.

Thank you for your comments. Your time is complete.

Faygo, then Karen Korbs, then Danielle Wood.

Hello again, Council.

I want to thank Mai Vang for her leadership in trying to work with us about the free speech zone

and making sure to have the request for the city manager.

We had been working on that teepee.

It was an art project as well as a ceremonial religious artifact

for the indigenous Americans that were present there

performing a religious ceremony.

It was a four-day ceremony of healing,

not just for the people at the protest,

but for the people being harmed by ICE every day,

including the Lakota and Dakotas who in Minnesota

that are being taken by ICE currently.

me the see so under city policy even though this was not a camping thing this was a religious

ceremony the code being used to violate the rights of our indigenous brothers and sisters

was the camping ordinance that's usually used against the homeless however it's not even

following the city policy on that because even for a homeless person's encampment you're supposed

to put a 48 hour notice on their tent in writing prior to confiscating it that wasn't even a luxury

awarded to this religious ceremony.

The person leading the ceremony during the morning

was pulled out of the TP and arrested,

along with four other participants,

in a religious ceremony.

This is not acceptable.

It not only violates state codes,

it violates religious codes, treaties,

and so many other things.

In the process, the TP was also damaged

and is now being held as evidence.

Evidence of what?

Practicing a religious ceremony?

we make sure that yes we create a small little buffer zone because sometimes people don't drive

the safest and we have a large crowd there we make sure that there's plenty of lanes open and

available so they can't even use that excuse so please those of you who haven't looked into this

yet i know some of you actually do care and have been looking into it but to the rest of you please

understand that this isn't just about homelessness or anything it's about people's religious freedoms

Thank you for your comments.

Karen Korbs and Danielle Wood.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council, City Manager.

I'm here this evening speaking on behalf of myself and not the Sacramento Police Commission.

So I'm here once again to talk about public safety.

and thank you to Council Member Talamantes for talking about your three top priorities as a council

and that public safety was on the top of that list.

Public safety must be the city's top priority.

If people don't feel safe in Sacramento, nothing else truly matters.

As you know, a city's most fundamental responsibility is providing core services,

and public safety is the top of that list.

When I was here a month ago, I shared that since 2012, Sacramento is down 170 officers,

but our population has grown by 70,000 residents.

I don't think this comes as a surprise, but the result is obvious.

Our police department is understaffed, stretched thin, and overworked.

If we are serious about filling vacancies,

we must work in true partnership with the police chief on a strong, aggressive recruitment strategy

that requires leadership from the mayor, the city manager, and this council,

speaking with one unified voice.

We need to send a clear message to young men and women considering law enforcement careers that Sacramento values you, supports you, and is a city where you can build a future.

We also need to bring back critical specialized units like narcotics and gangs.

Restoring these units and supporting recruitment will make Sacramento competitive with our neighboring law enforcement agencies.

Our residents deserve a police department that is properly staffed, trained, and well-equipped to do its job.

And finally, if we want a healthy business climate, especially in the downtown corridor, people must feel safe walking around.

Public safety is the foundation of economic vitality.

Once safety is restored, growth and investment will follow.

I thank you for your time.

Next speaker is Danielle Wood and Brian Powers and Zari Ragasa.

Thank you very much for your time.

I appreciate it.

it's really good to see some of your faces that I voted for here face to face so I appreciate it

thank you Ms. Vang for making me so proud for voting for you and bringing you in I appreciate it

so I just wanted to make a couple of things aware to the city council I didn't know if you guys were

aware or not I'm a parent at St. Patrick's Academy you guys have already heard that there's a

consolidation happening between the three schools I just want to talk to you about how it's going to

impact the city. I think that's the important part here for you guys. So St. Patrick's, I actually

grew up off of Franklin Boulevard when I was a kid. I went to school there. There's a little

street called St. Joseph Drive. It's my neighborhood and I'm very proud of that area and I'm very happy

of all the work that's being done on it right now. So I wanted to thank you for that as well.

That school actually really helped found, was a foundational part of Franklin Boulevard. It really

helps elevate that neighborhood significantly.

For that area to go out is going to have

a dramatic impact on that area.

As we all know, we're all trying to lift up

Franklin Boulevard as you guys have

with the recent infrastructure that you've put into it.

So that's something that's going to negatively impact

that predominantly Hispanic area.

Additionally, with past patterns of the diocese,

it's likely that they're going to sell these areas.

And St. Patrick's Academy is actually a school

that is 94 years old.

It's a deep historical site.

I remember visiting it as a small child there

and I'm now 46 years old, don't tell anyone.

The other thing is that this new regional school

that they're going to do at St. Robert's,

it actually stands on four acres alone.

St. Patrick's, that school that's on Franklin Boulevard,

it has 37.6 acres.

It has area and infrastructure to be able to hold

three, 400 children.

So it is already considered a regional school by the diocese.

So there's no reason.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Brian Powers, then Zari Ragasa.

Brian Powers, District 7.

I'm here for the second time in a month to again support the Sacramento Police Department

and Public Safety in the city of Sacramento.

I'm here because I feel we are at a point where we may be about to lose control of public safety.

I was recently involved in a conversation with a Sacramento police officer who told me that morale in the department is currently extremely low, as low as it's ever been.

I'll use my own words to characterize what the officer said.

The officer said this is due to several factors.

First, police officers in Sacramento are stretched too thin due to a severe shortage of officers because of the budget problems.

Second, a generally negative characterization of their actions in the local media, which portray bad outcomes as if the officers are to blame for the circumstances and backgrounds of individuals who get hurt or killed because of their unlawful actions and the need for police intervention.

Third, a lack of support from the public and our local elected officials.

This officer said there are many other police agencies where the job is much easier because of the support of the public and elected officials.

I believe in the next round of budget discussions, the police department budget should not be cut any further at all.

Not officers, not funding.

And I know this is going to be difficult.

Other departments will definitely suffer.

it's unavoidable. And in my opinion, this is due to mistakes made by the previous council,

but you're faced with it and you're going to have to make those hard decisions.

The mayor said, uh, these cuts, uh, do, uh, impact real people. That's true. Any further

cuts to the police department will be the greatest impact of any cuts you may have to consider.

And please, from the dais, in the media, support the police department vocally and publicly.

It's not done enough.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Zari.

Calling Zari is Stacy Murphy.

Hello.

I'm calling, I mean, I'm speaking in regards of my residence, which is the Sacramento Manor,

and which is run by CCI, California Commercial Investments.

I just got fired like about a week ago, but prior to that, when they state additional verbal written abuses, residents, members, CCI staff, and tolerated sexual harassment and discrimination, I think that affected me as I got fired.

You've got to please forgive me because this is the first time I've ever spoken.

But, yeah, I moved in on the 23rd, 2023, and then I got hired to work in the resident area as a keyholder.

And then I was threatened on 2024.

My life was threatened.

Wrote up a police report, had them come out to pick up the gentleman that threatened him.

Well, the company didn't do anything about it.

They only got rid of him because he didn't pay his rent.

And I also was employed at that time.

And then 2025, verbal sexual harassment.

I also took that up with CCI, and they just threw that under the rug as well.

And they didn't get rid of him either until he was stealing from the company.

And I'm just saying that they let me go by stating that there's a person that's in the audience that lives in the residence,

was walking with me at night to lock up the premises

because we have prostitution, we have drug dealing,

and a lot of stuff that goes on there.

When I was hired there, they said there were two people

to work together at night,

but unfortunately that never happened,

so my security, as far as my security,

it was the residents that would volunteer to walk with me.

So I am no longer with a job because of that.

And so they have 100...

Thank you for your comments. Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Stacy Murphy, then Reginald Ashley.

Hi.

Senior Lives Matter.

I'm from the Sacramento Manor for seniors.

We have been abused.

We have been treated badly over there.

They have lied on us.

They have, what broke the camels back tonight was on our black history.

We're going to have black history set for February 6th.

They shut us down.

They shut us down for that.

They shut us down for Valentine's Day.

They shut us down for the Super Bowl.

This is something we have done every year.

I've done it for, what, like 11 years.

They have said all kind of terrible things against us.

They lied.

And Ms. Vang has been there.

And we're tired.

We have been abused.

Dope dealers, people coming through our windows.

All the terrible things that they do.

They set fires to our porches.

They smoke dope in our garbage areas.

They steal our carts.

They steal our bikes.

They're hurting us.

And we keep telling CCI this, CCI, but they do nothing about it.

But they claim that they're going through this thing with the police department.

We started with the police department.

We made them get up off their tails to help do something, but they're still not doing anything.

Right now, I'm under attack over there.

They said they're doing an investigation on me because I'm speaking up for the people.

they're doing an investigation on me

because they said that I did some past

that happened back on New Year's

Eve. New Year's Eve? Well this is

February 6th. Why are

you waiting so long to get

me? Why are you doing this? Why are

you threatening me? Why are you sending me

letters to my house?

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker

is Stacy Murphy then Reginald Ashley.

is Stacy here

oh I'm sorry Stacy Reginald Ashley

Stephanie Lambert

Kat Carell

my name is Reginald Ashley

and I'm in Ms. Vang's area

moved into the Sacramento Manor

I think this is probably the last move of my lifetime

So we're trying to set it up and being as happy as we possibly can be.

Um, we're having problems with this CCI.

Uh, they're saying that, uh, my team and I work every day to ensure Sacramento

manner is an open and inclusive and caring community, uh, where everyone feels

welcome, our community rules, which you signed it, move in and other policies

are designed to ensure that everyone can enjoy, uh, living and working in their

environment. Well, personally for me,

I had asked a young lady or excuse me,

this older woman to move out of our assigned parking spaces that we pay for.

She didn't like that. And so in turn,

she turned around and referred to me as a nigger on several occasions.

I took that incident to the office, made an incident report,

got photos of the woman, this caretaker, as well as, uh,

the license number and the description of her car.

Because if she's going to talk to me that way and she's a supposedly tear Kate

caretaker, she's going to some of the other clients house.

I'd hate to see how she abuses them. But nevertheless,

they're talking about how they're trying to make it a safe environment.

And this happened on 10 28 of 25 and not a single thing has been done.

been done. They've also, they've also had, we've also had a tremendous problem with

a drug dealer, a known drug dealer that moved, that came in after we moved in. It

took about eight or nine months for us to get them out, not so much the CCI but us

because they couldn't figure out. Thank you for your comments. Your time is

complete our next speaker is Stephanie Lambert I have seven more speakers hi my

name is Stephanie Lambert and I'm gonna piggyback off what my fiance was just

saying we originally moved in in April of last year immediately we started

having a bunch of drug trafficking happening in the apartment right next

store to us. We then dipped into our pockets and purchased ring so that we could get the

traffic that was going in and out. And if we saw it going on, then I was keeping it

live so that we could get recorded verbal and video of what was transpiring. At that

time um we found out later i should go back to that cci supposedly invested 150 000 on security

cameras but they proceeded to attack me or not attack me but ask me to keep sending my ring

videos on these situations nothing was ever done we contacted the police the police said that they

had to do you know trespass a letter of trespassing on the individuals still

nothing was done go back to see the police please say no they need to do

this CCI would not step further with it so the only way that situation ended up

being taken care of was the drug dealer that was running the drugs through the

apartment next to us ended up passing away and one of the companies with

housing picked up the client that lived in the apartment and transported him or

moved into another facility also in regards to the the event that we had

planned and we worked hard because we all here sit on our community to keep

events going because we are seniors and we live in a community for a reason and

we reach out to each other and we have fun in that, that they chose.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Kat Carell, then Jarrett Hills, then Carlos Ramirez.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Kat Carell, and I live at Sacramento Manor, located near 24th Street and Florin

Road.

Sacramento Manor is a senior residence of about 260 units with a predominantly black population.

For years, a group of us have put on events for the residents, including a celebration of Black History Month.

We put out a calendar at the start of the month on which we list our events,

and often also we put out specific flyers for an event, as we did for our Black History Month celebration.

This year, our Black History celebration was scheduled for last Friday, February the 6th, 5 to 8 p.m., in our clubhouse.

Sometime during that very day, Timothy Eversol, property manager at Sacramento Manor,

decided he would ban the event.

He didn't say why.

He just said, it ain't going to happen.

I'm property manager, and I'm here to stay.

Well, in the afternoon, our group posted a notice on several places on the clubhouse

protesting this ban as racism.

In retaliation, Timothy then kicked everyone out of the clubhouse, including disabled seniors,

even though it was still time when the posted hours said that the clubhouse was open.

Mind you, it is the clubhouse where we seniors come to socialize with one another

because our individual units are small.

Timothy's retribution and harassment of us for protesting this racism did not stop there.

He also banned the Super Bowl party scheduled for Sunday, February the 10th, and our Valentine's Day party scheduled for February 14th.

He never gave any reason or notification as to why he did this.

We object to Sacramento's blatant racism as well as its retaliation against and harassment of us for engaging in peaceful protest and for enjoying our First Amendment rights of protest.

We are contacting very...

Thank you for your comments. Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Jarrett Hill, then Carlos Ramirez.

Good evening, Council. I'm Jarrett Hill, partner, President, Depot 420, core dispensary opportunist.

Here again tonight in regards to our request for an extension of time to open up our dispensary.

we are faced with the April 1st deadline and we've made multiple requests to have this item

called up to to this panel for consideration of an extension of time for us to finish this project

obviously our you've got most of you already know that our project burnt down in district two

we now have a location in district one miss Kaplan we look forward to speaking with you

directly have been in contact with Austin and Jasmine about getting scheduled

Mr. Dickinson, thank you for coming out to meet with us at Sammy's there.

Great conversation.

Hopefully you got a greater insight into who we are and what our capabilities are and our current state.

Ms. Smith, as told to us through Council Member Maple,

we still look forward to hearing from you about getting scheduled or getting this on the agenda as soon as possible,

because obviously this is time sensitive ahead of this April 1st deadline.

that we ultimately feel is arbitrary.

No other modality of cannabis has a timeline put on it

to open up for business.

And we've been faced with things that are out of our control,

but we're close.

And so we need additional time to, well, yeah.

So help us figure this out.

And I'll try to find your email, or if you can give it to me,

that'd be great.

Lastly, to demonstrate our commitment, we're willing to put up a bond in the amount of $50,000 to the city that will be payable to the core program should we fail to get open as we've been committed to do.

So please.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Carlos Ramirez, then Henry Ortiz.

Good evening, members of the council.

Mayor, I'm here in support.

of my colleague Jarrett's request for an extension to his core licensing opportunity.

Before I go on to introduce myself, my name is Carlos Ramirez.

I serve as legal counsel and head of regulatory compliance for Green Capital Investments.

It's a vertically integrated cannabis company that holds eight licenses here in the city of Sacramento.

I oversee all of those licenses.

Recently, we partnered with Jarrett to help bring his plan to fruition.

However, the timeline is simply unobtainable.

We have secured a location that has an approved CUP for a retail dispensary.

I've started working on the minor modification for the BOP as well as, I mean for the CUP.

I've also started the application for the BOP as well as the state license.

We met with OCM and discussed our plan.

our plan, however, they advised us that based on timeline, we just wouldn't be able to make

it. And based on my experience, I also agree, which is why I think that a 12-month extension

to Jarrett's core licensing opportunity is warranted. Like I mentioned, we have a property

that has an approved CUP for a storefront dispensary. In fact, it's a property that

GCI owns. So in that regard, we control our own destiny. Um, I have experience already obtaining

BOP state licenses. So we're ready to get this plan moving quickly and efficiently,

despite all of the setbacks that, uh, Jared has experienced. Um, so again, um, I'd also like to

ask the council for that 12 month extension. And like he mentioned, we're willing to put up a bond

to show our good faith and assure that we get it done right this time.

Thank you for your comments.

I have three more speakers.

The next is Henry Ortiz and Jim Randallet.

Good afternoon, City Council, Mayor, well, he's Vice Mayor.

I'm here on behalf of our native community from the Lakota Nation

who came out here to support and honor the victims that have been killed,

especially starting December 31st all through January.

Every third day they were killing somebody.

ICE is really getting heavy-handed, out of control.

They were sent out here by the elders to tell the legislators at the Capitol

that they feel like fuck ICE, right, with respect, right, excuse my language.

But the real issue here is for us to be able to get that teepee.

Mr. Field, it's in your district.

If you can support us, I'll get your card from you.

If you can, if it's within your heart,

my vain, thank you for bringing it up.

It's not fair that you have to bring it up

because it's not even your district,

but that's how much confidence we have in you, right?

I remember when I first met you, when you were running,

a lot of y'all, when y'all were first running,

you know, I seen the desire and the drive.

Last time I was here, we spoke about it,

supporting immigration communities.

Let's show that by helping this native community.

That tipi has been passed down for three generations,

so it's very sacred to them.

It's a big disrespect for them to come do a ceremony of healing.

They were criminalized, and there will be litigation to the Sacramento PD and any other findings.

Also, the ICE detention center, they disrespected a little vigil that we did for these victims.

So our protesters are there to do peaceful engagements, practicing freedom of expression and religion,

First Amendment rights, the Fourth Amendment rights, seizure and destruction,

due process violations were done here, equal protection and discrimination,

federal native religious freedom of protections.

We got wrongful arrest, excessive force.

We also got civil rights statutes and tort claims.

You know, I'll leave it at that because I'm out of time,

but help us if you can, Mr. Phil.

We're relying on you, the mayor, Mr. Kevin.

You know who I am, and I know who you are.

Help us.

Next speaker is Jim Randallet.

Then John Vignocci will be our final speaker this evening.

Good evening. I'm Jim Randlett. I live in Mr. Jennings' district. Good to see him, of course, in the mayor's district as well.

I've handed out this piece of paper with a bright color and hopefully with the alarming heading on it, talking about how bad the math is on homeless.

And the council has done a nice job of getting the price down from $400,000 to $500,000 a unit to $85,000 a unit.

But as you can see by the math there, that still leaves a $260 million deficit in what you need to have a spot for every homeless person.

Now, the numbers may change because of the count that's going on or just had gone on, and the results will come in.

But even at the half in this city figure for the unsheltered homeless, even half, that's $130 million.

So the point is you've got to have different approaches.

It's not good enough at $85,000 a unit to try to have a spot for the homeless.

So I've got, in the third paragraph there,

I've got a suggested motion for the council to entertain to direct the staff

to come up with some very low-cost alternatives

as opposed to the more expensive alternatives.

And I'm very pleased to hear that in March,

apparently the department will be coming to you and talk about new ways of doing things and i'm

running out of time so i uh but in every enterprise where it's failing which the response to homeless

is going in sacramento you have to come up with a new approach and i've got one in here which is

the middle of this where you can move a homeless person to a vacant lot they have the same space

give them a porta potty and they're better off because they've got a place to go to the bathroom

and a place to get community services. So please entertain this thought. Thank you.

Your comments. John is our final speaker this evening.

Hi again. You know my name by now. Third time's a charm. Last night I was at night when I need

to unwind from my day of being an aggressive overbearing jerk.

I go on a walk around Alkali Flats, Mansion Flats,

where I have a couple of projects under construction.

And so I'm walking down 15th Street, and I see this guy.

It's like 10 p.m. on his bike going down the alley.

And I'm like, that's weird because alley's closed because we're doing construction.

And I met this gentleman.

His name is Logan.

He's 23, and he was telling me his life story.

He got kicked out of the house when he was 16 for drugs.

And he was telling me, like, yeah, you know, life is changing now.

like the two priors and I've have you know two used to just have be able to walk into target and

steal what I needed to use drugs and come out and he's starting I was like oh you're talking about

prop 36 he's like yeah yeah my parole officer this and so I was like you know getting his whole life

story and about how laws have changed now he has consequences and now he's going back to working

with his dad in the trades and he has skills as an electrician and a laborer and I was like really

impressed so he swapped numbers trying to find the guy some work or something but the point of me

telling you this is that we have the tools now to solve a lot of the issues

that we see. I think some of you were in Morelia,

with one of your travel compadres having

Mezcal in between the 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. And he was talking about how great the

fireworks were and how clean and safe everything was.

We can have that here too. We have the tools. We have the officers. If we just get their backs,

if they just feel supported. They have tough jobs, just like you. You have tough jobs. You're under a lot of public scrutiny. So were they.

they need your support they need your backing and they will enforce our laws

that we have on the books and that's what a lot of people need who are

struggling with drugs or any sort of issues or living on the

street a lot of times they just need we need to remember when to use law

enforcement law enforcement as a point of intervention in people's lives

thank you so much thank you for your comments may I have no more speakers you

have concluded the business of the council this evening

okay thank you with that we will adjourn

Thank you.

We'll be right back.