Okay.

All right.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

I'd like to call us meeting order at 5.08 p.m.

Clerk, please call the roll.

You council member Kaplan.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Councilmember Plucky Baum is expected momentarily.

Council Member Maple.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Geta.

Here.

Council Member Jennings.

Council Member Vang.

Here.

We expect Mayor McCarty momentarily and Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Here you have a quorum.

Wonderful.

Uh Councilmember Garrett will you please lead us in the land acknowledgement and pledge of allegiance?

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

To the original people of this land, the Nissanon people, the Southern Maidu, the Valley and Plains Miwok, the Putnam and Wintun people, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe.

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

Thank you.

Join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Salute pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

Indivisible.

And liberty with justice for all.

Okay.

Report out.

Thank you so much.

And uh we don't have public comment on any items.

Um, so the your public hearing items one is going to be continued to March 3rd.

Item two is withdrawn, and item three is continued to March 3rd.

So we move to um discussion calendar item four, and I do have speakers on that.

Wonderful.

Okay, so thank you so much for putting that into the record.

Says hearing we have no public hearings for today.

They've all been moved.

Um, and we're gonna head straight into the discussion calendar.

I see we have packed chambers today.

So glad to see you all here, and welcome Chief Lester to the podium for Sacramento Police Department Violent Crime Production of Strategies.

Thank you.

I didn't expect all that movement, so it's nice to get up here.

Appreciate it.

Well, good evening, everyone.

I am Kathy Lester.

You know me, I am your chief of police, and tonight I am here really to report on the focused data-driven work this department has undertaken to reduce violent crime and the measurable progress we've made over the last few years.

As you know, the work has been very deliberate.

Um, it's been strategic, and it's required alignment over enforcement, prevention, analysis, and community partnerships.

I have some friends joining me tonight.

Uh joining me this evening are members of our team, along with representatives from our community-based organizations who have stood alongside us in this effort, and I want to take a moment just to recognize them.

So if you're here and you are one of our partners, we have representatives from Voss, Impact SAC, Ant, Afray, Hawk, SAR, Brother to Brother, and Reimagine.

If you could stand up to be recognized, I would really appreciate it.

There, this partnership, as you know, has not always been easy.

I'll tell you what, but it has been absolutely essential.

And we are also joined by our partners from Sutter, Carrie Thomas, who's the vice president of external affairs, many of you know her, and Sarah Costa, community and government relations manager.

They're sitting in the back hiding.

If you could just wave right there, they've been our partners as well.

Sutter, and I'm I'll talk about this a little bit later.

At no cost to our city has provided critical data collection and reporting uh to support us as their in-kind contribution to reducing violence in our city.

This strengthens our strategy, and it certainly allowed for more resources, especially public dollars, to flow directly to our community-based organizations and services.

So, as you know, public safety is not achieved by one agency acting alone.

It's built through discipline leadership, shared accountability, and partnerships.

And so tonight I am very proud to present the results of that collective effort and the impact we've made together to reduce violent crime in Sacramento.

So I'm gonna take you back.

Um, some of you were here in 2022.

Um, you know, I know everyone was in the city, um, but before I talk about where we are today, I have to go back and show you where we were.

In 2022, our city, like much of the country, was still feeling the profound impacts of the pandemic and the sustained civil unrest that followed after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

Across the nation, we know violence was surging.

In December of 21, national reporting highlighted that 12 major U.S.

cities, they're highlighted here, experienced the deadliest years in their recorded history.

The major city chiefs association warned in a letter to President Biden that gun violence had become an epidemic, plaguing communities across America.

And according to the FBI in 2021, there were 61 active shooter incidents.

That's roughly a 53% increase from the previous year.

The upward trend continued into 2022.

We know that many of the large cities reported that in the first quarter, homicides were up.

They were up 56%, and aggravated assaults were up 30% compared to the first quarter of 21.

Sacramento was not immune.

In April of 2022, we experienced the worst mass shooting in our city's history at 10th and K Street.

It was a tragic moment that underscored the urgency of a different approach.

And so that was really the environment in which we began this work.

From 2019 through 21, and I realize that this is a snapshot of time that's a little bit prior to the time that I'm talking about, but I think it's really important to show how significant this increase was.

Sacramento experienced a significant surge in violence.

During that period, our homicide and aggravated assault trends far exceeded the national average.

Nationally, we know that gun violence increased about 30% in 2020.

And here in Sacramento, between 20 and 21, shooting reports rose 25%.

The victims that were shot and were the victims of violence in our city increased 17%.

Gun seizures increased 34%, and we record 58 homicides in 2021.

That was 70% higher than 2019.

So those numbers made it very clear we could not continue business as usual.

So in early 2022, I came before you, we talked about launching this focused data-driven violence reduction strategy.

And then later that year, and I'll talk about this, we were one of the lucky few to be accepted into the National Public Safety Partnership Program.

This is also known as PSP, which accelerate and strengthen that work.

And then this is really what I'm excited to show you.

I want to show you what has happened in a year since.

Since 2022, every major violent and property crime category is down citywide, and those reductions have been sustained for three consecutive years.

This did not happen by chance.

We focused our resources where violence was highest.

We used intelligence-led, data-driven policing to identify the people and the places that were driving crime.

And we leveraged technology to multiply our impact, despite our well-known staffing challenges.

And we partnered with our community organizations and regional agencies to align enforcement with prevention.

The result has been measurable, sustained progress, and safer neighborhoods across our city.

And because gun violence causes the greatest harm, we held ourselves accountable in that category first.

So I'm going to touch on shootings and gun data just really quickly.

So on gun enforcement, we knew that getting guns out of the hands of people that were not supposed to have them had to be a top priority.

Over the past four years, we have seized more than 4,000 firearms, including over 800 what we call ghost guns, the privately manufactured firearms.

And then early on, we really strengthen our use of NIBEN.

That is the national integrated ballistic information network to ensure that when we recovered casings and cartridges from firearms, that we quickly entered them into the national database.

That has allowed us to link guns to multiple crimes and certainly generate actionable intelligence faster.

In addition to enforcement, we also saw very strong community support.

We held several gun buybacks, and these were made possible through sponsorships with Kaiser, the city, and certainly private donors.

And so this combination of focused enforcement technology and engagement has really been central to reducing our gun violence.

Let me show you kind of what that focus produced.

Citywide shooting reports have declined consistently from 2022 to 2025.

They dropped from 725 incidents back in 2022 to 476 last year.

The number of victims who have become the victims of gun violence has also declined from 175 in 2022 to 131 in 2025.

And if you go back to the year prior in 2021, when I talked about that surge of violence, we actually had 256 people that were shot in our city and 752 shooting reports.

The impact of our efforts becomes even clearer because since that time we've seen almost a 50% reduction of shooting victims in our city and 40% fewer shootings citywide.

So how did we get here?

We didn't invent this approach.

We built it on proven best practices.

In 2018, major city chiefs in partnership with the U.S.

Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistants, also known as BJA, published something called the Violent Crime Reduction Operations Guide, the B Crog.

The guide outlines the very critical elements of effective violent crime reduction and consolidates national best practices into a single framework.

And as a profession, we know that violence is very complex.

There is no one single answer, and there's no one single tactic that solves it.

V Crog provided us a blueprint, a structured, evidence-informed approach that allowed us to make very deliberate decisions about what strategies would be most effective for Sacramento.

We use that framework to design a strategy that was tailored very specifically to our city and to the needs of our city.

It was data driven, it was partnership based, and we really focused on metrics and outcomes.

So before we could really reduce violence, we had to better understand it.

We know a lot about urban violence.

Research shows that most urban violence is concentrated in small geographic areas and it's driven by a small number of people.

And our data confirm that pattern in Sacramento.

So back in 2022, we asked our crime analysis unit to move beyond reporting and take a much deeper dive into where violence was occurring, who was involved, and who was most impacted.

So we used hot spots, geographic and temporal analysis, and we really reviewed the 2021 data, and we found that most violent crime was concentrated within about seven square miles of our 100 square mile city, primarily in Del Paso Heights, Oak Park, and the Meadowview Valley High Area.

Of the gun crime that was reported in 2021, we had 945 incidents.

45% of those incidents occurred just in those three areas.

And at the time, we also expanded tracking of non-fatal shootings, privately manufactured firearms, and domestic violence related incidents.

And I'll talk about domestic violence later on the presentation.

But truly, the analysis fundamentally reshaped our deployment strategy and became a core focus of our PSP technical assistance program.

So our goal was to understand violence with precision so we could respond with precision.

So the question is: did our strategy work?

Did it become effective?

Did it create lasting impact?

So we took the same analysis that we did in 2021.

That was when I brought the strategy before before you, and we applied it again in 2025.

We wanted to measure if years of focused data-driven efforts had produced sustained change, not just a short-term fluctuation.

And we found that the results are significant.

Citywide, gun crime has declined 53% from the 945 incidents in 2021 to 444 last year.

In the identified hotspot zones, the areas that were most heavily impacted and continue to be the most heavily impacted, gun violence declined almost 70% from 423 incidents to 135.

And most importantly, gun crimes outside of those critical areas also declined by about 40%.

That tells us two important things.

First, that focused deployment in high impact areas works.

And second, we did not simply displace the violence, we reduced it citywide.

And that's really what precision policing looks like.

It's concentrated effort, it's a measurable impact, and it's no shift in harm to other neighborhoods.

So I'll touch base, like very quickly on our model and philosophy.

The foundation of our strategy has been based on what's known as a focused deterrence model.

Focused deterrence models and focused deterrence is sometimes referred to as pulling levers.

It's an evidence-based approach that targets individuals at highest risk of involvement in violence.

It really combines clear communication that continued violence will result in accountability and with access to services and certainly support for those that are willing to change.

Research has shown that when it's effectively implemented and tailored to your local needs, this approach can reduce violence in your city.

We adapted and adopted that model to Sacramento.

We hired and aligned our community-based organizations, we built a structured referral process, and we began seeing positive preliminary reporting even early in the implementation.

Our strategy has been very simple in concept.

It's about identifying who's driving the violence, where it is occurring, and addressing why it is happening.

So we have been focusing on high-risk offenders through intelligence-driven policing.

We have engaged community partners as credible messages to mobilize support and interrupt those cycles of violence and retaliation, and we placed a heavy, heavy emphasis on prevention and intervention, particularly for high-risk youth.

And at the same time, we recognize that increased enforcement and priorities has to be balanced.

So this is a PSP, and I would be remiss if I didn't spend just a few minutes talking about it because I believe it was truly transformative in this effort.

PSP, as it was administered, is a highly competitive technical assistance program, and it's awarded to only a handful of cities every year.

It provides an intensive three-year framework that's designed to enhance support to state and local law enforcements working to reduce violent crime.

We received this grant in October of 2022.

And it wasn't simply funding, it was a three-year commitment to work with our agency to build long-term capacity for violent crime reductions, which we will continue and have continued to see the benefits of.

In addition, in addition to the technical assistance program, we were also awarded a half a million dollar capacity building grant, which was allowed us to extend and sustain these improvements into a fourth year.

So at the outset, we identified three critical areas that we knew we really needed to work with crime analysis, grants, and technology.

Through structured assessments, peer exchanges, and very much expert technical assistance.

PSP helped us identify operational gaps and then implement concrete improvements.

For example, we strengthen our data-driven approach, particularly around non-fatal shootings and prolific offender identification.

We reorganized parts of our investigative division to align resources more strategically.

Our family abuse unit, which investigates our domestic violence incidents, was realigned and aggravated assault investigations were consolidated under the robbery team.

This is a best practice that we had learned through PSP engagement with other cities.

We participated in national PSP summits in cities like Tulsa, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis, where we both learned from and certainly contributed to best practices.

And we gained insight into how other jurisdictions leveraged data-driven strategies to reduce violence.

And we refined initiatives like Stride, which I will talk about based on those exchanges.

PSP has produced measurable benefits and organizational capacity.

It has accelerated our shift towards intelligence-led enforcement, improved internal coordination, strengthened our external partnerships, and reinforced accountability.

So in many ways, I believe PSP really was the catalyst that helped transform our strategy from good ideas into a really disciplined and sustainable practice.

I'll touch on crime analysis.

One of our most important internal transformation has been in crime analysis.

Our initial assessment identified opportunities to reorganize, refocus, and professionalize the unit.

We invested in high-level training, technology, and restructured the leadership.

Today, the unit is led by a permanent professional staff expert, and we have intentionally moved towards a civilian-led model to ensure continuity and technical expertise.

With the implementation of tools like Power BI, we have built real-time crime dashboards, developed advanced data models, and completely redesigned how we conduct our crime meetings, shifting from static reporting to really forward-looking data-driven strategies.

We've also significantly expanded public access to crime data through the open data portal and public-facing dashboards, which I believe has increased our transparency and accountability.

Those improvements positioned us to adopt even more sophisticated technology, including our new initiative with the Peregrine platform, which integrates multiple databases into a single system and provides immediate intelligence access to officers in the field and to our investigative teams.

Through our technical assistance program, which included ArcGIS training, Power BI implementation, support with prolific offender identification and peer exchanges, we have elevated this unit into a true strategic engine behind our violent crime reduction efforts.

And this really matters because better analysis leads to better decisions.

The reductions we've seen in violent crime are not coincidental, they're the result of deploying resources based on this data and having a precision strategy.

Our second area was grants, and although our participation and through our participation in PSP, we received some very direct training in grant writing and management and long-term sustainability.

We have three staff members that were trained directly and they have helped us build that internal capacity.

We've also done some restructuring and dedicated a full-time grants person within our Office of Strategy and Compliance.

Their job is focused internally on external funding and sustainability.

And just this month, and I'm very happy to report this, we were notified the City of Sacramento has received a $5 million violence reduction grant through the state through the Board of State and Community Corrections.

We would bring that to council soon, and it will be instrumental in sustaining and continuing our community-based violence intervention partnerships.

So grants have not just supported our work, they have strengthened our ability to sustain and will continue to grow these efforts.

Technology, since 2022, one of the most significant contributors to our violent crime reduction has been how we have modernized and strategically deployed technology.

And the Sacramento Police Department, I think, has always been known to a certain extent for what we do with technology.

We've always been on the cutting edge, and we know that technology can really be a force multiplier.

This has not been about buying gadgets.

It's about building a coordinated technology strategy that really supports the precision policing that we're trying to do, provides for a faster response, stronger investigations, and better transparency.

So internally, this has been about strengthening our foundation.

For example, we've done things like moving digital evidence to a replicated server to protect case integrity.

We've expanded licensing for critical investigative software.

And at the same time, we've invested in operational capability.

We implemented what's known as the public safety camera network in 2024.

We built out capacity in our real-time information center, and we have expanded and upgraded camera technology throughout our entire city.

We also have built a formal technology strategy for the department, identifying our needs, modernizing these processes, and collaborating with City IT to ensure that we have good flow of information that it flows quickly and accurately.

But the scale of integration is significant.

Through the public safety camera network, we now have 757 registered cameras and 1,653 integrated cameras, including approximately 400 Caltrans freeway cameras.

We've deployed 191 fixed license plate readers citywide, and every fleet three vehicle functions as a mobile LPR.

Additionally, our real-time information center has access to the city parking LPR system.

With the Public Safety Canva Network, we focused really on community engagement.

I know there's a number of business leaders that are here with us tonight.

Worked on conducting presentations, talking about you know what this technology means and then installing technology in partnership with our business community.

And we've also integrated other critical platforms into unified access points so that officers can operate from one system, increasing speed and efficiency.

It sounds kind of simple, but when you have to go to multiple systems and you're working on a little tiny computer in your car, it makes it really difficult.

So trying to eliminate those friction points for our officers that are in the field and trying to make their job easier has been one of our really our significant goals as well.

And then I'm gonna talk about one of our key successes.

This is an example of the accumulation of these efforts.

It's been through something that we call Stride, which is strategic intelligence-driven enforcement.

This has been the model that really ties all of our efforts together.

It begins with precision.

Our command staff will identify specific places where violence is occurring.

We then analyze the behaviors that is driving the violence in that area, whether it's robbery, aggravated assault, negligent discharge of firearms, or other violent conduct, and we use detailed analysis from our crime analysis unit to do this.

From there, we collaborate across commands to build a, oops, sorry.

We collaborate with our commands and partners to work side by side in a concentrated 30 to 90 day deployment.

And this is really about aligning personnel and intelligence to disrupt violence where it's occurring.

I'm gonna give you an example, which I think is very strong of a stride project that we did in our north area where we focused on domestic violence.

We knew we had increased levels of domestic violence and we needed to address it.

So Stride brought together the North Command investigations, crime analysis, the Office of Violence Prevention, and our district attorney's office to focus on domestic violence incidents and offenders.

As part of this effort, we did things that were, I think, really innovative, like implementing a pilot domestic violence lethality assessment and aligning our investigative and support resources.

The result was from 2024 to 2025, we saw about a 20% reduction in domestic violence within that focus area.

And stride is not random enforcement, it's very specific, it's intelligence-led and behavior focused, and has been central really to sustaining our violent reduction efforts.

And on domestic violence, I just want to talk about the strong correlation between violence in the home and violence in the street.

We know that there is a clear connection between the two.

So a key success of our strategy has been to do and to have a focused effort on addressing domestic violence.

We know that between 19 and 22, domestic violence increased at least 26%.

We know a lot of that was actually underreported.

In 2021 report by Brady United found that nearly 60% of mass shootings are connected to domestic violence, and nationally, nearly one quarter of all homicides are domestic violence related, and more than half of those involve firearms.

So as a response, we expanded our family abuse unit.

We shifted from a case-led to a suspect-led model, and we focused on repeat and high-risk offenders.

We improved how we document and how we respond to strangulation cases.

We piloted the lethality assessment tool, and we certainly strengthen partnerships within the system.

We now have an embedded WEV advocate working alongside our department.

We participate monthly in the domestic violence prevention collaboration hosted by the Sacramento Family Justice Center, and we continue to partner with organizations such as Weave and my sister's house to do this work.

And then in addition, which is a complementary effort, we have stood up and participate in the human trafficking task force that works closely with many of our community organizations.

We know that domestic violence prevention is not separate from violence reduction, it's foundational to it.

And so by intervening earlier, by focusing on high-risk offenders, we are preventing violence before it escalates into broad community harm.

And then I really believe a lot of this is about leadership.

We have an amazing police department.

You have fantastic leaders at all levels.

We've got incredible men and women that are working in the streets, and we have an incredible cadre of professional staff that are making this system work.

But I don't believe that any of it works without strong leadership.

So whether we're talking about strategy, technology, partnerships, they only succeed if we have leaders at every single level who know how to think critically, how they can manage change and certainly lead through these complex environments.

And that's why we've invested very intentionally into leadership development.

For example, we have been invited and we've set a number of our commanders to the University of Chicago's policing leadership academy.

It's a five-month program that focuses on violence reduction, data-driven management, strategic leadership, and building community trust.

It's rigorous, it is multidisciplinary, and it's built around real-world problems.

We've also sent a number of our lieutenants to the Washington, D.C.

Police Leadership Academy.

This is a three-week immersive program alongside other law enforcement leaders from across the nation and across the world.

That training strengthens executive decision making management skills and certainly organizational capacity.

And then beyond formal training, we really do prioritize things like peer exchanges and national engagement.

We maintain active memberships and partnerships with organizations such as the National Association of Professional Staff and Public Safety, the Police Executive Research Forum, and other leading professional organizations because those relationships expose our team to best practices, research, and innovation happening across the country.

And leadership matters because culture matters and culture is really what drives outcomes.

So the reductions that we are seeing in violent crime are not the results of programs alone.

They are really the result of leaders who are equipped to think in the way that we need them to think, to act decisively and to hold themselves accountable.

And I believe that investing in leadership is investing in our members, but it's certainly investing in the safety of our community.

I'm going to talk about our great partner with the Office of Violence Prevention.

So in 2022, there was a very deliberate decision made to formally partner with the Office of Violence Prevention.

At the time, I know many people questioned whether law enforcement and community organizations could really effectively work together.

But we believe that if we were serious about reducing violent crime, we need alignment, not separation in this area.

And we asked that that partnership focus on very specific violence reduction.

We looked at data and the need was clear.

Gun violence in the United States far exceeds violence of other high-income countries, but the risk is not evenly distributed.

We know that this is an equity issue.

Nationally, African American and Hispanic men are disproportionately impacted.

For young Latino men, homicide is the second leading cause of death.

For young black men, it is the leading cause of death, and it exceeds the next nine causes combined.

So through our partnership with the Office of Violence Prevention, we aligned around three carriers.

First, short notice response to public gathering places.

We deployed a lot of our outreach workers quickly to prevent and to intervene in problematic behaviors before they could escalate into violence.

Secondly, we provide emergency response after critical incidents, providing immediate community stabilization and support following incidents of violence or traumatic events to reduce retaliation and certainly further harm.

And then third, a key component of this was focused on individual intervention, working directly with individuals at highest risk of being involved in violence, offering support, offering services, and offering clear accountability.

Our community-based organizations bring credibility, relationship, and certainly access that government alone does not have.

Law enforcement provides enforcement and accountability accountability, but together prevention and intervention and enforcement in this model are aligned.

So this partnership, I believe, really has strengthened our ability to focus researchers where they are most needed and to address violence not after it occurs, but really before it escalates.

And most importantly, this partnership helps us to prevent the next shooting, not just respond to the last one.

And if I could for a moment, I'd like to bring a representative from one of our community-based organizations, just talk about his experience and the experience of others.

He's speaking for the group, so I really appreciate him coming.

Yeah, sir.

Thanks so much.

Yes, my name's Prentice Denar Wilson.

I am the executive director for Academics for Athletes, but like she said, I represent all the community-based organizations that represent Del Paso Heights, Medavie, Oak Park.

Thank you for all you've done and you're doing number one.

As I was listening to all these statistics at Chief Lester, who's been a great strategic partner along with Dr.

Clavel, I thought about some conversations that I had with Council Member Jennings some years ago.

And he kept asking the question, and I'm going back probably five years.

How is this going to work?

But he continued, I have to highlight you a little bit, because he continued to call and ask.

Okay, we see these things happening.

We're getting representation, cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, these cities that we think of as so mass, and they're coming here to us in Sacramento to ask how are we doing all these reductions, and these numbers look great.

So I want to thank you for that.

But one of the questions that we had not too long ago that was when was the last time we had a gang shooting in Sacramento?

And I don't want to knock on wood, but we haven't.

Now we've had fights and we've had all those other things, but if we talk about some of these things that we attempted to stop, I just had to say from someone that works in these areas, thank you, thank you, thank you.

We look forward to continuing this partnership.

We just found out about the new grant, so we look forward to all those things, but we just wanted to say thank you on behalf of all of us community-based organizations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So really, this is about being very proactive.

We as the city have sponsored two major programs, the GPIT and the what we call the EVIDS programs.

Um, really evolved from a very broad citywide interruption model into very much a focused place-based strategy.

Um, we really tried to operationally align that with our department and OVP, and this program provides for rapid response after violent incidents.

It helps interrupt retaliation, which is significant, and it maintains a sustained presence that the police cannot maintain in neighborhoods most impacted by violence, serves high-risk youth and young adults while increasingly engaging individuals earlier in the risk continuum.

And then GPIT complements that work as a public health community-wide strategy.

Since 2022, family and community engagement has increased significantly in this program.

Our participants are reporting reduced exposure to violence, high satisfaction, and strong benefit, and they have certain service areas.

Life skills development is currently the dominant service area.

The program has also expanded its reach, engaging youth earlier and certainly across a broader cross section of our community.

And Dr.

Clavo has done a fantastic job of reporting and keeping metrics so that we could measure the success in this area.

And I have to take a moment just to express my deep appreciation to our partners at Sutter Health.

They have, there's a lot of work in collecting and analyzing data and providing metrics.

They have collected the data, they have supported the reporting for this work, is really their in-kind contribution at no cost to the city.

And that generosity has allowed us to direct more funding, more public dollars straight into the community-based organizations that are doing this amazing work with us.

And so their commitment to violence reduction in Sacramento is beyond meaningful, and I'm just really grateful for their partnership.

And I think that's really what true collaboration looks like.

It's aligning public safety, public health, and community leadership really to reduce violence and ultimately save lives.

I'll just touch on this because these are some of the metrics that have been reported out.

Ev bids has served over 900 youth and high-risk individuals.

The team has supported 139 emergency critical incidents and conducted 202 documented disruption intervention, known as DRIP and prevention activities, helping interrupt conflicts and certainly stabilize neighborhoods.

And so that's EVIDS.

GPIT really represents the upstream prevention side of our strategy.

And the since the implementation, this program in who it serves, has changed, and I think that's really reflective of the work that we're doing.

So the program has served over 6,000 youth, and it's delivered more than 146,000 hours of engagement and support.

But family and community involvement has expanded dramatically.

We have adults in supportive roles now, where we measured them in 2021.

We only had 157 adults that were participating in the program.

In 24 and 25, we have over 2,000.

That's significant.

At the same time, we've seen a shift in the impact.

Gang involved participation decreased from 24% in 21 to 6% in the 23 24 year.

But engagement of high risk youth has increased from 65% to 94%.

So that tells us really that we're reaching the right youth, but we're doing it earlier before violence becomes entrenched.

And I'll just check our touch on some complementary initiatives alongside our core violence reduction work.

We've advanced some other initiatives.

We've helped to launch the Sacramento Regional Human Trafficking Task Force.

We've deployed the central narcotics enforcement team.

This is a short-term team to target street level drug activity, which resulted in multiple arrests and the seizure of significant quantities of narcotics, firearms, and cash.

And we have enhanced our open data portal so that the public has access to a lot of this information.

And so just to recap, since 2022, we've learned that precision really outperforms volume.

We are more data-driven, we are more strategic in how we identify the people and the behaviors driving violence, and we revamped our crime strategy meetings, prioritized our gun evidence, and entering that evidence into NIBAN.

We've strengthened our non-fatal shooting response, and we've restructured a number of specialty units.

But I think most importantly, we've deepened our partnerships and invested in our people as well as the community-based organizations that support this work with us to ensure consistent results.

And we've embraced innovation through things like warrant operations, gun buybacks, addressing ghost gun proliferation, and supporting policy changes aligned with accountability.

Operationally, we have certainly made staffing changements.

We've discontinued certain units and contracts that did not directly support violent crime reduction, and we've implemented back to basics patrol strategies to ensure coverage is where it matters most.

And we found that the lesson is very simple focused strategy, strong partnerships, and good leadership produce good results.

And that leads really to directly what comes next, because this work doesn't stop.

This is a great opportunity for me to give an update and share some I think very positive information.

But we have to maintain and we have to build on this progress.

And so we're investing in three primary areas.

First, intelligence-led enforcement and technology.

Our crime analysis unit is receiving advanced technical assistance to strengthen and further strengthen analytical capabilities.

We are building a public-facing dashboard, we're expanding our social network analysis, and we're embedded more deeply with investigations and certainly developing other efficiency tools.

And then we're also continuing our stride model because we know that that is an effective intelligence-led tool.

Secondly, funding opportunities and CBO partnerships.

We like I have said, have secured a $5 million BSCC grant, and we are participating in CalVIP Cohort 5, and we're working along 11 of our community-based organizations.

We also have been hosting violent crime reduction summits.

We hosted our second one this past year, really to strengthen alignment and serve as information sharing.

And I really give a shout out to Dr.

Clavo and her staff.

That is no easy lift, as you know, to put a full-day conference with expert speakers and and guidance, and she's done an incredible job.

And then additionally, we are working with CNA, which is a uh contractor to provide a six-month assessment really to take surveys and uh to do um an assessment of you know how our youth violence efforts are aligned within the city.

They're working with SAC PD Gipsey, the city manager's office.

Uh, we hope to have the results of that soon.

And then third, our strategic initiative initiatives and technical assistance.

Um we're continuing to do the peer exchanges, strengthen our partnerships, and ensuring that our model evolves as it should with best practices because we know violent crime is not static.

It requires constant evaluation, our response requires constant evaluation and refinement, and we have to make investments, um, you know, where they are um they are they are best used.

But the progress we're seeing, you know, it belongs to our community, it um belongs to our community's partners who have stood beside us even when we know that wasn't easy, and when trust had to be built, they stayed at the table and they should be recognized for that.

That courage and that commitment really does matter.

And it especially belongs to the men and women of the Sacramento Police Department.

Our officers and our professional staff are the ones who execute this strategy every single day.

They respond to calls, they build cases, they analyze data, they engage youth, they interrupt violence, and they show up in neighborhoods when it matters most.

And strategy only works because we have people making it work.

And I believe that when law enforcement and certainly community partners choose collaboration over division, we don't just reduce crime, we really change outcomes, and I believe that the progress is shared.

So I just want to thank everyone for coming out who's been involved in this for the last few years to support it.

Thank you for your time and for giving me the opportunity to report back after a few years of doing this.

Um, and I think that we will continue to move forward together.

So I appreciate your time.

I know there's some public speakers, so I'll take a seat until there's questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll take public speakers first, then council member comments, questions.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have five speakers.

First is Barb Ram, Scott Ford, Ernesto Delgado, Karen Corbes, then Christina Rogers.

Hi, Margaram.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Lester.

That was amazing.

And it's so good to know that um violent crime is so far down, and I take from that we don't need military equipment, we don't need new officers, and we can go with technology data and grants.

Those are very non-violent.

So I would just like to say thank you to that.

I'm gonna do, I have a little presentation for items not on the agenda, which are gonna talk about which I'm gonna talk about um banning pretext stops for officers.

So maybe I'll just get in a couple of little stats that I got from the ACLU, which the data we got from the SAC PD, about 46,000, there were about 46,000 in 2023 and 2024 traffic stops.

And of those 46,000, 22,000 approximately were for registration, tinted windows, or like a broken tail light or something like that.

And so if we just stop pretext stops, like those aren't even a reason to pull a car over, then you again need fewer cops.

There's less trauma, less violence because police officers have equipment, they have guns, they have access to immediate backup, they have big cars with big lights and big sirens, and they have uh military equipment.

So, if we just stop some of those traffic stops, just stop them because not having your registration current is actually not stopping traffic or hurting traffic.

So, anyway, that was a really great presentation.

I can't wait to bring that back to the board of Supervisors, and I hope they believe me this time when I say Chief Lester says violent crime is down.

Good evening, Mayor McCarty, members of the council, City Manager Smith, Scott Ford on behalf of the downtown Sacramento Partnership.

We are California's very first property-based improvement district.

And I am proud to stand before you this evening, proud to stand alongside Chief Lester, the great uh women and men who uh serve our community, who protect uh the entire Sacramento City and of course the the downtown neighborhood that we represent.

Uh this morning we were able to highlight some of the progress that we're seeing uh in the downtown Sacramento community uh at our annual event.

Um, and uh while it is exciting to see progress, and uh we are seeing a lot of good momentum in the way of economic development, in the way of increasing pedestrian activity in downtown and in the uh way of uh activations and really positive investment in Sacramento.

I also stand before you humbly because that is all predicated on a foundational safety for all, you know, just foundation of Sacramento.

And we could not be doing any of the good work that we are doing alongside all of you and alongside our community without uh the leadership of Chief Lester of Deputy Chief Heinland and of the entire Sacramento Police Department team.

So just want to thank the work that they're doing.

This is rooted in preventative measures, this is rooted in best practices.

We talk to organizations like ours around the country, and I would truly believe that the work that the Sacramento Police Department is doing is uh at the very top of what I'm seeing in cities across the United States.

So thank you to all of you, thank you for the support, and thank you to Chief Lester and the team for your continued leadership.

Nesto.

Good evening, counsel.

Um, is Ernesto Delgado.

Um thank you for allowing me to speak.

Just wanted to say what a beautiful presentation from the Chief.

Um great work.

Um and why stop it when, you know, I I encourage that we uh and keep investing in what's working.

If it's lowering crime, then I believe that we should keep that going, keep keep crime down.

Um, I'm here today just to uh mention that we I had two more break-ins uh on Monday.

Um, you know, for a small business, it's really challenging to try to sustain and stay alive in business when you have these break-ins.

Um and I wanted to commend, wanted to um say thank you for choosing public safety, economic development, homelessness as as our our uh, you know, most important here for our city.

I love our city.

Um I'm here every day trying to help my community, um, and I just want to make sure that that it gets better and better.

Uh recently I went with a delegation to Morelia, and I had an amazing experience.

Uh, when with the mayor, I went with Vice Mayor Eriguera, Councilmember, and I saw what is possible.

The dream that I have for Cesar Chavez Plaza is possible, where it's safe, clean, and uh it's something that you know will bring our community together and back to our downtown.

Our downtown is our core, and I want to bring my family when they come into into our city, visit our city, and you know, help them feel safe.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Karen Corbes, then Christina Rogers.

Good evening.

I am so happy to hear that violent crime is down in Sacramento.

This is positive news for our city, and I want to sincerely thank Chief Lester and the entire Sacramento Police Department for their continued efforts to address violent crime.

At the same time, I want to share what I am seeing and hearing in my own neighborhood from friends and community members.

While the statistics show progress, many residents are still concerned about the amount of drugs still on our streets, the amount of homeless-related crime, and the overall unpredictability of some areas.

Business owners and families continue to express concerns about public safety in Sacramento.

It is telling that not only does the Sacramento Downtown Partnership, but also the City Council and many neighborhood associations all list public safety as a top priority for 2026.

That priority reflects what they are hearing from their constituents, local businesses, and neighbors.

That while there is progress towards a safer city, there is still important work to be done.

Because crime numbers are trending in the right direction.

Now is not the time to reduce funding for public safety.

In fact, maintaining or even strengthening support for both our police department and our fire department is essential if we want to continue this progress.

Consistency and stability matters.

Overwhelmingly, the people of Sacramento want a well-funded, well-equipped, and well-staffed police department.

At the end of the day, nothing else matters if we do not feel safe.

When residents and visitors feel safe, businesses thrive and our city grows stronger.

Public safety is the foundation, and once that foundation is solid, everything else will fall into place.

So as we head into budget season, please consider what you are hearing from your constituents and what you all decided as a council was your number one priority, and that is public safety.

Please do not make any cuts to the sacrament.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Christina Rogers.

Good evening, City Council and Mr.

Mayor.

As the president of the Land Park Community Association, I'd like to thank law enforcement for their dedication to keep keeping our city safer.

A key mission of the LPCA is to support public safety in our parks, our neighborhood, and business areas.

We appreciate their participation at our meetings and events, and we appreciate them continuing to inform our neighbors.

New police strategies are beginning to work.

Last week, I walked from the Tower to Chipotle at Broadway by Land Park Drive, and it was clean and I felt safe, and this was late at night.

Also, earlier this month, there was a crash up the street from my house.

Within 20 minutes, a police helicopter hovered over my street, noting the person who crashed the car was a felon to be on and to be on the lookout.

Well, he was hiding by the Del Rio trail behind my house.

And I know it because eventually one park ranger and three police cars arrived on the trail by my backyard and arrested him.

So I truly appreciate the quick and robust response, especially when I see families biking that trail every day.

As much as I appreciate all SAC PD's work, they are doing what they can with the resources and staff they have.

And these improvements are wonderful, but they are delicate because more budget cuts can quickly destroy this progress.

Public safety is a core service and it should be protected during budget season.

Also, I know city council members don't make state law, but if you do have connections with colleagues who do, please ask them to consider the consequences of bills and laws that promote early release of criminals.

You can support law enforcement's use of their resources by helping to ensure they don't have to keep arresting the same people over and over.

And the DA shouldn't have to prosecute the same people over and over again either.

And finally, I'd like to see the city promote the partnerships between law enforcement and groups like Brother to Brother that they mentioned tonight and other nonprofits.

Helping kids find purpose so they don't choose violence and crime.

Programs that show real results are a valuable piece of the public safety puzzle as well.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Mayor I have new more speakers on this item.

Okay, thank you.

Back to the council.

Start with Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I just want to personally thank you for agendizing this and economic development on today's city council meeting agenda because they are our top priorities that we voted on at our retreat that we all agreed on.

And so it's great to have an item that comes back to us for full deliberation and updates on where we are on our priorities.

So thank you so much for doing so.

And then just a quick story.

I was at uh Kobe Sushi eating dinner one day, and the gentleman next to me had attended the gun buyback program that morning.

And I sat there and I felt like an undercover cop because I was eavesdropping and listening very attentively.

Um, but I was just so like happy to hear that he had returned two guns.

And I just sat there and I just was really happy.

And I remember I think I think I text Chief uh Lester about it, and I just told her, like, hey, I just ate dinner.

I heard about this, and I just want to tell you how proud I am of our police department and the creative programs that you currently are putting in place to make Sacramento safer.

So just on behalf of myself and like I mean, this entire mayor and council, like to the men and women that serve our City of Sacramento Police Department, thank you.

Thank you for the work that you do day in and day out.

And to our community-based organizations that are here with us today, I've attended so many of your events, and I just see firsthand how the students and the youth look up to you and how they see you as mentors, they see you as trusted messengers, and they look up to you.

And that's one of the most important things that we can do.

Because sometimes people don't have safe places at home to be able to say, Hey, I need help, hey, I find myself in this situation.

And many times it's someone outside the family that will provide that kind of counseling, that kind of guidance.

And so to our community-based organizations, thank you so much for being there for us.

And I look forward to just seeing more success continuing this progress because public safety truly is our priority.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Vang.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just have some comments and a question for Chief and also Dr.

Clavo.

First, Chief, thank you so much for your presentation.

And Mayor, thank you for agendizing this item.

And Chief, I just want to take this moment to say thank you for utilizing data in GIS to inform your work and the work that you're doing in the city.

Can you pull up a map that you had showed earlier of where some of the concentration areas were?

That was uh probably our hot spot.

Um D, can you help me?

Ephraim Doug, can you pull up the last PowerPoint, please?

Can we see if I can go backwards here?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, as they're pulling this map up, I just wanted to take a moment just to pause and look at this, and first to say thank you, um, Chief, for again use it utilizing data in GIS to inform the work that y'all are doing with limited resources and recognizing that these are the areas, the neighborhoods that really need uh love and support.

And so just really wanted to just to name that because I think it's important for us to acknowledge that.

Um, and if you look, I mean it's no secret.

If you look at these neighborhoods, this is like North Sacramento, um, right?

Um, you see it in, I think that's Gera's district, is that in Maples district, um, and then Meadowview and Valley High Oak Park and Del Paso, right?

I think it's no secret that these neighborhoods are often lower income communities of color, they often experience higher rates of violence, uh, not because of who lives there, but because there is long-standing neighborhood conditions, right?

I think it's really important to name that that there's been decades of disinvestment in those areas, lack of economic opportunity, housing stability, limited access to mental health services, all of that that actually contributes to the cycle of violence.

Um and I think it's really great to hear from you, Chief, that um that crime has been down because of the collaborative work, right?

It's a win for our loved ones, it's a win for our neighborhoods, for our city when crime has gone down overall.

Um, and I want to say thank you for the work that you're doing, and I also want to name as you shared that when we think about public health and public safety, um, it requires a multi-tier approach, right?

Um, that there is no single solution that you can actually point to.

Yes, PD may be one part of that factor, but it is not everything.

Because if you look at the research, we know that the social conditions of neighborhoods plays an incredibly large role in preventing um violence, right?

And so I just I wanted to name that because I think when we talk about effective violence prevention and reduction, it requires collaboration between community members, between local government, yes, SAC PD and our service provider.

So I just wanted to name that because I think that's really important, especially as we talk about violence prevention in our city.

Um, but I did have a question, Chief.

One question for you in particular, is um I was curious to know, and I know you have shared like the various steps in the in your PowerPoint presentation.

Wanted to know how are we working with our local school district?

Is there a shared violence prevention strategy citywide?

And if yes, what does that look like?

Yeah, that's a great question, thank you.

Um, you know, that's actually one of the biggest reasons that the city's hired a consultant to look at all of our violence prevention efforts because you have a number of departments within the city, and certainly with the school district and then nonprofits, private organizations for the city, you know, a lot of us are doing work in this area and it's trying to align those efforts to make sure that we are using our resources most effectively, especially in in tough budget times, but also delivering service services effectively.

You know, there was a point that we had a very robust uh school research officer program at both SAC City Unified and Thomas, and you know we've had to eliminate those programs over the year, but we still have good relationships with the safety offices within those school districts.

Um we have partnerships with all of our school districts, and I'd um like to highlight some of the work that Captain Shirachi has done in the South area, for example.

Um, and he has put together a community connect program where we're bringing in members of the school districts, members of our nonprofits just to do information sharing and really um have you know conversations to make sure that we maintain and build on those relationships.

And maybe a Dr.

Clava, would you like to add to the work that any of your um the CBOs are doing in the schools?

Because I know we have a multifaceted effort.

Not only do our CBOs work on violence prevention, you know, with the police department, but certainly with youth in our community if you want to touch on that.

Most definitely.

Um person in particular that reaches out to us all the time is Ray Lazana, and many of you guys are familiar with who Ray Lazata is.

Um he's the public safety director for Sacramento Unified School District, and so oftentimes through PD, he'll reach out to the area captains with concerns about um maybe the kids are gonna meet up at light rail stations or there's issues after school that are going on.

And so we OVP will be informed and we will send out CBOs to those light rail stations to those school areas to just be there for uh preventative measures as well as to engage the youth during those time periods.

Um, we often, you know, um he calls me regularly, and so we keep in touch with Ray.

Um, and so we we pretty much engage with that with with him for those school district areas and concern.

Okay, great.

Uh good to hear I mean, I know you're really um Dr.

Clavel in uh really deep in the in the neighborhoods with our CBO partners.

So um that's really great to hear that you know the the strategy is basically what I'm hearing is that you have open communication with folks like Ray at different school districts.

So when there's a situation that happened, you all have a communication protocols in terms of how you actually address or de-escalate or prevent something from happening.

Is that what I'm hearing pretty much?

Yes, ma'am.

So the process that we have in place is um normally whomever the area captain or lieutenant is of that area will reach out.

We have a form, um, they will reach out by phone or email, and then we have actually a form, a drip form that the requesting lieutenant or captain will complete.

Um, we will receive it in OVP, we issue a calendar invite.

I reach out personally to all of the CBOs who have the expertise of those areas, and then we deploy those CBOs for the time frame and dates and times of um concern.

Great.

And then Dr.

Clavel, I just have one more question.

Um, it is also about the CalVIP dollars as well.

Uh, congratulations.

I think it's great that we got five million dollars to do this critical work and wanted to ask you about implementation and grant allocation for organizations.

Um what factors do you use in determining um the selection of organizations that we work with?

So this um CalVIP grant is focused on our um evidence-based community violence, interruption, disruption suppression.

Um, and so we did issue a competitive RFA back in October of 2025 we did have a panel process that potentially have identified CBOs that um may fit the criteria so at this time we are still reviewing those um submittals to see who will be best to do that work and that work um if if you don't recall I'll remind you is 247 deployment um th which could be two or three o'clock in the morning they're dealing with our m some of our most prolific offenders who may have guns in hand family members that may be outraged and they are out there in the middle of the night to assist our law enforcement partners um to deal with you know unruly crowds unruly families they're also the ones that we call on for the drip so if we have issues in our doco areas our netomas areas our delta shores areas those are the individuals that we send out at last minute requests um pre-plant requests and they're always available and they must have someone available 24 hours a day okay thank you so much for uh answering those questions um and again congratulations I think it's great that we're not leaving money on the table um because we know that the preventative strategy is working with our CBOs uh in partnership with PD and so uh really looking forward to to that implementation and um chief thank you again uh for your leadership and utilizing data in GIS to um uh to target with limited resources so thank you so much thank you thank you that it thank you council member dickinson thanks mayor um first I want to uh express uh my thanks to all the members of of the department sworn and non-sworn alike for the work you do each each day to help maintain uh safe environment and safety for all of us in the city of of Sacramento and I want to express my thanks as well to the not just the leadership but everybody who participates in the community-based organizations that I think are are instrumental to reducing violence which is the objection uh the which is the objective uh of of our efforts and in that respect I want to uh applaud chief the uh orientation uh that you have expressed to tonight uh with respect to looking at violence reduction and prevention uh as opposed to simply uh a traditional notion of response um I have to I have to say that um I find it quite refreshing and different than some of what I heard back um some years ago uh in these chambers uh when um we were advancing an initiative to try to invest in reducing youth and gun violence and it is a welcome change of of direction from from my point of view I have a couple things I wanted to discuss and I you may want to respond um or elaborate the the first and you mentioned uh these but I think they deserve to be uh underscored and that's um that's the uh application of technology we know we are going to be challenged in terms of maintaining and expanding the people power of the of the forest and I think it's pretty clear that the technology is going to have to be an instrumental part of of how we go about both prevention and response and so um I wanted to give you just a moment if you wanted to elaborate to a greater extent on on how you see technology uh playing a role in in what you're trying to do in the in the department yeah, well I'll take you back because I worked, you know, graveyard in Del Paso Heights 30 years ago.

And I remember we had these little tiny computers.

They were two-toned.

They had a screen that was about five inches and we had 10 screens and we'd have to scroll through.

And once you were out of screens, that's all you got.

And I remember at one point thinking, wouldn't it be great if we could actually see a picture of who we were looking for?

You think that day would never happen, and boy, we have blown past that day, and then some, you know, we have limited resources.

Every I mean, I think government across the board has limited resources.

We're all trying to do as much as we can, and you have to do it efficiently.

So if there are ways to reduce friction points, like I said, where you've got people that are have multiple databases, tie those together.

We have we have such um an abundance of information that's available to us, but it's trying to um use that data efficiently, um, making sure that if we're if we're gonna call ourselves data driven, and we're just talking about this yesterday, we have to have our employees that know where the data is, how to find it, and then how to use it.

So there's some instructional um pieces that go with that as well.

On technology, um, SACPD's always been a leader.

I mean, long before I was chief, you know, we did a lot of innovative things.

We were one of the first agencies to um pilot drones um, you know, to respond and could show how that really reduced impacts on the community and how that was an effective tool.

I think there's some incredible um opportunities with drone as a first responder.

I think building out our camera network with all of the businesses um is uh is extremely helpful.

And it doesn't re and it doesn't replace people.

We know that technology doesn't do that, but if it can make the people that you have um better able to do their jobs, um we've got m so many stories, and I know Bryce, um, you know, our deputy chief Highland kept track of a number of these um these sort of wins that we had when we were talking to businesses about the public safety camera network and talking about the effectiveness of just having a camera.

You know, one of our early really early um uh, you know, I think successes, um, and it seems minor, but when Ernesto was talking about this, it reminded me we had a burglary alarm go off in, you know, old Sacramento.

And um typically that would be a little bit of a delayed response.

R you know alarms go off all the time.

But with the camera system in place, they were able to see that no somebody was actually breaking into the business and what they look like and the bicycle that they were on.

So the one that expedited our response to knew who we were looking for.

So, you know, certainly we don't want to be reactive, but in those cases, boy, we had a whole bunch of information that even a year ago we wouldn't have had, and we're able, you know, to work on getting the person in custody and holding them accountable for the burglary and hopefully preventing other burglaries.

So th those are minor, but a lot of, you know, a lot of um like whether it's on gun violence and you're looking at the Nyben entries and you're entering um the evidence that you have into national databases, we have examples where we've been able to tie gun crimes together that we never would have known.

So I think um the challenge with technology is it's expensive.

There's licensing, you've got to be very selective um at you know what you use.

There's a lot of uh technology out there, and it's um you need to choose what is going to best work for your community, and that's actually where we've called in a lot of the experts.

I'm not a technology expert.

Our IT division, they do a great job of keeping all the systems up and running.

Um, but that's why we've looked to experts in other cities to find out what's working with them, making sure that we address, you know, privacy challenges and uh that we're using that technology effectively.

But I think it's such a great opportunity right now, um, not just in law enforcement, just in government, to utilize technology to provide better services and to serve your community in a better way.

Um, uh thank you, and you meant you mentioned um uh cameras as part of as part of this array of uh tools.

Uh uh hopefully we are all sensitive about uh about uh about civil rights and and preserving civil rights, um, but we also have evolved into a society that seems to take a picture of every move you you make in any sort of public place uh uh at all.

Uh can you talk a little bit uh more about how we can effectively connect the uh the cameras that a lot of businesses have deployed uh into uh uh a means of helping the department uh uh identify the uh those who were committing um offenses and let's let's um take uh as example we have seen a rash of uh thefts of backflow devices.

Right.

Um we are searching uh for uh uh v images from businesses cameras, at least in in uh the northern part of Sacramento, so the city of Northern Sacramento to help try to identify who's committing these these.

We know why.

We just don't necessarily know who, but can you can you talk a little bit more about how we can connect what businesses are doing uh for protection purposes themselves with what what can be useful to the department?

Absolutely, and actually I'm gonna call up my expert um Bryce, why don't you come up?

So Bryce was our downtown captain before he was promoted to deputy chief um just recently, and Bryce really took the lead not only on the real-time information center and expanding the opportunities and the possibilities with that, but doing a lot of communication with our businesses and talking to them about the public safety camera network to really build on that.

Um so it's not just cameras, we can talk about cameras.

There's other technology like date tags and other things that we can utilize as well as things on the back end when people go to sell those, because that's what you know they're looking to profit on.

So Bryce, can I give you just a few minutes to talk about?

Public safety camera network.

So uh yeah, this began really about two years ago, the public safety camera network, and we um found a vendor called FUCSIS, which basically integrates our cameras not only from the our police observation devices, but also um our public or private cameras on businesses, and that's really a voluntary program.

Um, and then we also integrate our city uh network cameras, so city facilities, uh traffic cameras, so those are all acts accessible to our real-time information center.

And so for your question, is we really search a lot of those different systems, license plate readers.

If they're in a vehicle, we can track different vehicles.

So it's really putting all these pieces together and then kind of backtracking from an incident to find out who that person was and then find the camera that really showcases it.

Um we've really done a lot of public outreach with a lot of businesses, especially when I was the captain downtown, that was one of my um core um priorities down there was to try and get as much coverage in our business district as possible because just about every business has a camera.

So we do have um they have a core, so basically it's like a small computer that we um have limited numbers to give out to businesses, maybe areas that are high no, you know, known for high crime areas that we want to have coverage there, but really we didn't want to have so many cameras that they're overlapping, so we were very strategic on where we place those.

We had um our uh staff from the real-time information center go out to this and and do really an audit of the downtown core area and midtown area to see what would be beneficial to the area.

So uh we continue to push that throughout the city um and try and get traction from different businesses.

Um thanks.

Thanks for the the response.

Uh I wanted you to talk a little bit about that because I'm hopeful that there are some folks who you know are avid viewers of Channel 14 and will tune in and say, oh boy, I'd be interested in in that.

I mean, all six of them.

And um, but more importantly, I find that uh w and talking to a lot of uh small business owners, they don't have the and they may have a camera or two, but they have no idea that they can they can plug directly in.

So promoting the business because communities seems to me to be something that could use some more emphasis.

Yeah, so we've done some outreach with our um our media outlets, um, but I appreciate you bringing that up because that has been one of the toughest challenges for us is to get the word out about the technology and how they can partner with us.

Um we have um on our website you can go right there and it gives all the information on the front page of our public safety camera network and how you could plug in to the fuses if if they desire.

Um so really, I mean it is word of mouth.

Um we have had uh our provider come out and help do some targeting um uh outreach to certain businesses within the area, giving out flyers, giving out male mailers.

Uh so um it's really uh incumbent upon everybody to really promote this product and help us um get a lot of coverage and make our safe uh city safer.

So thank you for that.

Um I wanted to I wanted to uh uh talk a little bit uh about uh reducing and preventing youth gun violence, which uh uh to me is uh uh something that ought ought to be an extremely high priority.

And certainly a lot of the CBOs are engaged in uh efforts to to address uh youth gun violence uh prevention and and reduction is as well.

Can you can you talk a little bit more about uh what from a departmental perspective you're you're doing uh in say in uh both singly and in concert with the community-based organizations on that aspect.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'll touch on the police, and maybe Merv, can I um he's like you just called me up.

But Merv's done some great work in this area, so maybe I can uh uh ask him to come up and share as well.

We um I didn't, I know my presentation was already long, so I didn't want to you know belabor the point that earlier um in this effort we worked with SAC State, the Institute for Social Research and ISR, and we actually did a number of surveys and talked um and tried to really understand um you know concerns in the community, and there are uh it's two two interesting like unexpected things around um violence and violence prevention.

In a lot of communities, blight is directly tied to people's sense of safety, and so when we talk about these um multifaceted approaches, you know, obviously, the police department we've got a prevention and an intervention and enforcement approach, but there's also things like blight.

And when you looked at um youth and the youth carrying a firearms, a lot of youth did that out of fear because fear of gun violence in their neighborhood.

And we know that if you uh, you know, we were able to talk about the reduction, still far too many people that are the victims of gun violence.

So I make sure that that's clear in our city.

There's still a lot of work to do, but the impacts in neighborhoods, when you have a shooting or you've got an incident involving guns, that ripples through the community.

It's not just the family or the people that it affects, but it, you know, it really um we've been able to show how many youth and how many families how that affects their sense of safety, their sense of security, and then um with youth especially will affect their behaviors.

But um, I bring Merv up because Merv, um, I really feel like he's an expert um in this area, so maybe I can have him talk a little bit about the work he does.

Thank you.

We need to put you on the spot.

So he's so good at it.

All right.

Thank you, Chief.

Um, thank you, council members, uh, for this opportunity.

So the question of youth gun violence.

Uh as a CBO and we have a coalition, the CBOs, we work together.

One of the things we did last year, or we we found out last year was when we're trying to work with the youth about uh gun violence and and drug uh drug use, it's hard to get them to come to us.

You know, if if they're not mandated to come to us, you know, they'll come for a few times and they're gone.

So as a collective, we decided that we're gonna go to where they're at, so and that means primarily schools.

And uh council member Vang raised a question to uh Dr.

Claub about the connection between what we're doing and the schools.

So last year we put together a coalition of CBOs from North Sacramento and South Sacramento and Oak Park, and we put together a presentation presentation called Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn't Pick Up a Gun.

And actually I provided it to many uh things should everyone should receive the little placard that we we gave out.

And we went to the youth and we shared with them inside of their schools, we spoke to every senior uh inside of Twin Rivers, the partnership we have with Twin River School District.

We spoke to every high school over uh we reached every high school in Twin Rivers and every junior high school, and we gave a presentation.

It was about over 1,000 students.

And the the presentation was about 10 reasons why you shouldn't pick up a gun, things you don't know before that you need to know before you decide to pick up a gun.

It was very well uh received by the students and the staff.

So our approach is an educational-based approach to stopping the gun violence.

When we're there, they'll listen, but what happens when we leave when when they need when they need that advice?

So we create these package form postcards, uh, whatever the topic is, and what we share is not our life experiences.

You know, there's this big thing about lived experiences and and reaching out, but that's only as good if you one move beyond that and two, you've extracted lessons from it that you can share with the youth coming up.

So we've taken the lessons that we've learned um through our lived experience, and that's what we share.

So our approach is educational-based approach as well as consequential.

Sometimes when we have enough students, we'll take them old tours to uh Mule Creek State Prison to see what you don't want.

So it's it's like, hey, you know, you can choose this road or you can choose that route, but to sum it up, the core, the CBO's approach is educational-based approach to why you shouldn't pick up a gun.

And if any of the council members don't have that packet, I'll make sure it'll be there.

So, well, th thanks, Murr, for that.

And it would be great to have some data on the number of students that you that you've touched, and uh, you know, other other metrics that we might think about, um, to measure um how the how those outreach efforts are doing and the results uh as we think about going forward.

Um, and that's really where like Sutter has been great, um, you know, in helping us do that because it's expensive to collect that data and then crunch it the right way.

You know, we also have our baggage school program, which has been a multi-year program, obviously, in five of our comprehensive high schools, that shows you know, fantastic um, you know, data as far as like positive outcomes.

And we know that for a lot of our youth, in order them for them to develop into you know successful adults.

You know, they need a really uh two things.

They need a job and they need a mentor, right?

And so knowing um that the the development or the services have been life skills and job development, I think is really telling about the effectiveness and the success of the program.

And as you know, prevention is always hard to measure, but I think the positive outcomes that we have from the number of youth that these organizations work with, um, you know, and we've we've got three years of I think solid data right now, and I think we continue that, and you know, we've continued to um sort of adjust this strategy um and continue to measure it and see where we could do better.

And I certainly think there's some opportunities in the future.

That'd be great to see that that data.

Um I wanted to uh talk for a little meta a little bit for a moment about POP officers.

Uh and the approach that you're taking with respect to whether very tough decisions on how you deploy uh the officers you've got.

Um I know from conversation we've had you you're a great believer in in the pop approach.

Uh I am from my experience of I've seen how well it's worked.

People who have businesses in an area or live in an area are always going to know more than than an officer can know because they're there all the time.

And an officer is is not it's a challenge to have uh POP officers when there's such a demand for response.

Sure.

I under I understand that, but within your prevention orientation, uh it would seem that POP ought to be something that that's emphasized.

So can you talk a little bit about how you array your forces with respect to this division of response and and prevention?

Sure.

I mean, you need a balanced approach, right?

If you remember back after the recession in 2000 and starting 2008, about 2011 and 12, that's when we reduced a lot of our specialty units, and we lost our pop officers at that time.

We just could not sustain the program.

Um we were able to put a lot of people in patrol.

We had, you know, close to 300 officers deployed in patrol because we we didn't have the specialty units.

So you need a balance of both, right?

You need the officers that are gonna be answering the 911 calls.

They're out there, they're being proactive, um, you know, they're addressing the immediate needs.

The benefit of the POP officers, and I'll have Dan come up because they um they are they work in operations, is that they can be very strategic about trying to find long-term solutions to problems, and they actually make us more effective.

So if you have a challenging, you know, business or home, um, the the POP officers really are there as problem solvers, and if you can do a long-term solution, you know, we've worked with guests for many years um through Justice for Neighbors and trying to make sure that you know we are helping neighborhoods with challenging conditions um that you can actually reduce the need for response and reduce the impact on those patrol officers so they can be more effective.

So you couldn't do it one way or the other.

We couldn't have a full team of just full-time problem solvers that are not answering, you know, the 9-1 calls, and you can't have a group of officers that that's all they're doing.

They're being reactive.

So we try and find a really nice balance, um, and it hasn't been easy.

I mean, quite honestly, we've had to make some very hard decisions.

You know, I made the decisions to pull people out of contracts for exactly that reason because we need to staff patrols sufficiently, and we also needed to make sure that we keep our violent crime reduction teams, our pop officers, our investigators, all uh working as one um, you know, cohesive and healthy ecosystem.

And I'll have Dan just touch on some of the work that they're doing.

Thank you.

Um, you know, I would just add that I agree with you.

Um I'm a former POP officer myself.

Twenty-some years ago, I worked POP down in uh Council Member Jennings area on Florence Road, and it's uh tremendous value.

Um you get to know the community, the businesses, and really become a long-term problem solver.

And so, you know, I would love to have pop or more POP officers, but obviously the staffing is what it is, and so as a department we and patrol, we really embrace that philosophy throughout the entire organization.

And I um not only have uh our our pop officers doing that work, but our patrol officers when time allows.

You know, certainly there are days when they go call the call, and that's all they can do.

But um, you know, I certainly expect that when they have that time, they're also long-term problem solvers, and so part of that is the data that the chief talked about as an organization.

We try to um push that data all the way down to our everybody in the organization.

So, you know, if you're a patrol officer, you go out tomorrow, you know what the long-term problems are in your area, and as your time allows, um, you can work on some of those solutions, and so um, you know, they are uh they're a great asset.

Um, and I wish we could have more of them, but it's certainly a philosophy that we expect of everybody in the organization.

Yeah, I just and just for my my part, the more pop officers we can have the better, because I see the benefits of what you both have just uh described, and um uh uh it seems to me strategically that that that's an that's our best investment in in many ways.

So um I was curious about that.

The last thing the last thing I wanted to uh comment on, and it really amplifies the one of the points that council member Vang was was raising was um as a county supervisor, it was not uh uncommon for for me to see data across a spectrum of indicators uh overlaid, and what you couldn't avoid noticing, couldn't avoid absorbs uh observing was that where and this is not just true in the city, it's generally true, where poverty is the greatest, where unemployment is the highest, where drug use is the highest, where the need for behavioral health is the greatest, where education attainment uh is the is the least, where domestic violence is the highest are the areas that were on your map, and so with all the good work that the department does, it's not going to make those dots go away unless we address those other issues.

And so uh the point I want to leave us with tonight for my part is I appreciate so much the work you do, but unless we are in lockstep with our county partners, with our community organizations, with our schools, with our employers, we are not going to change that map.

And the people who live in those neighborhoods deserve better.

So we can do better, we know how to do better.

It's not always easy.

In fact, sometimes it's very hard.

The work you're doing is instrumental to that, but I won't leave here tonight, and I hope no one else leaves here tonight thinking it's enough.

It will take much more and many more partners to to make that map change in a meaningful way, but that's got to be our purpose and our goal.

I agree.

Thank you.

Well recognized, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Maple.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you, thank you, Chief Lester for the presentation.

Um, I think the top line of where I want to start is um, and we don't have to go to the slide, um, but the slide that showed the numbers, the percentages that things are down.

Um that was that's I think wonderful news for the community and for all of us to see, and so I think they speak for themselves on the work that's been done uh over the last several years to make a real demonstrable difference in our community.

So I just want to say that, and hopefully that's the the high line that if any if anyone's out there watching, um, that's what people see because I think that's just an incredible amount of work on on your part um and and the whole team.

So I just want to thank you for that.

Um, so my um I will I I want to align myself completely on the comments that um Councilmember Vank made and Councilmember Dickinson.

Uh I think you know, are representing as you can see on the map here, you know, two out of three of the the highest crime areas, violent crime areas are in my district, along with district two and district eight.

And so that is something I think about all the time.

Uh and I know that we've had conversations about that, and it's not a one-size-fits-all solution, and it's a moving target.

It's something that you have to constantly update and change based on the data and the information that you're getting.

So I was I'm really proud to see that we've incorporated a lot of that those data components into the work that's happening every day.

I think that I've certainly heard it from other places that we have a depart a department that really is a part set set apart from other departments in the in the United States of America for our use of data and the technology that we're using.

And so I think that also speaks to the numbers, right?

We're doing things even when we're even when we're doing them with less, a lot less, um, in terms of the number of people that we have and and some of the resources.

So I just want to call that out too.

Um, super, I want to circle back.

We keep going back to this proposal.

So I'm assuming the grant that you uh mentioned, the 5 million, is that the Calvip grant, or is that something different?

Um Ethan Ethan was really the lead on this, and um I know we had earlier conversations last year talking about incorporating the school districts.

I'll bring Ethan up because he's really the expert.

But yes, um we were just notified.

Um, and obviously we have to accept it and go through the terms.

But what can we answer for?

I look forward to that.

Um, Calvet, right?

Is that the grant?

Four or five, yeah.

Okay, great, thank you.

Um so I know that myself, Councilmember Vang and Councilmember Jennings held um a series of meetings uh with the department along with Dr.

Quavo and others last year on this issue, with the question being um, you know, what is our our strategy um overall?

And I think a lot of that you've answered today.

Um, and then you know, are we planning on applying for this grant?

Because I believe there was at least a year or two where we did not for you know understandable reasons with resources.

Um, and so I'm really heartened to hear that.

One question I did have, because I I think I may I might reframe my question a little differently than the way Council Mr Bang did.

So as a part of those original discussions, Sac City Unified was a part of it, along with their um, I think I believe they called their proposal the Safe Schools proposal and included a lot of those elements.

So are they included in what we applied for?

They're a partner, they're not a sub-awardee, but we're working close with Ray, and so what's gonna happen most likely is we're gonna be utilizing him to give referrals to our CVOs and to our uh partner groups.

That way it's not just subject to the information that we have from the police department from the city, but also what they're seeing in the school districts in order to deter and uh interrupt those violent uh encounters, both around the schools and what Intelli's gonna have that won't even be in contact with the school.

Okay, so is that does that mean um like data sharing?

So, you know, hey, we've because I think the idea behind it is um there's usually a handful of people that are that need early intervention and help, and if we can if we can do that early on in school, we can hopefully make a big difference later on in life.

Um, but sometimes getting that information is hard when you have different agencies and departments.

So is the goal to do that or is it more of a reaction thing?

So, like, hey, something's happened, they're gonna call you and then get involved.

So we're gonna work through some of those kinks.

The data sharing part you touched on could be a concern.

So what we're trying to find is a way to utilize Ray and his intel without crossing any of those data sharing lines where we can be more proactive.

It's gonna be reactive based off the emotions and what they're seeing, but ideally not after they've entered the criminal justice system.

Okay, and then I do have any.

Oh, because I heard um, and thank you, Merv, for your for talking a little bit about what you're doing, and I uh I do have that in my office.

I think it's great.

Um, so I I hear that you have that partnership with Twin Rivers.

Do we have something like that with Sox City Unified?

For trying.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I just I asked these questions because I it's so important, obviously, we know that um youth violence is something that we're particularly interested in here and ways that we can all, and I know that that's something that you think about a lot and have incorporated a lot of programming in our work with Dr.

Clavo as well, but I'm just always trying to get it even more creative for how we can build those partnerships, especially with some with an organization like Sac City Unified, it's really big, incorporates a lot of the schools, and kids, yeah, in the city of Sacramento, which I know you uh you come from that world as well, so you have a lot of information on that.

Yeah.

No, but I if there's any way we can partner, I know the school district's going through a lot right now, obviously, um, but if there's anything we can do, we've had a great relationship even after, you know, we left the school district full time, but I was um I worked out of CERNA for a whole year and tried to revamp a lot of their programs, work with truancy and the GVS grants.

I think there's a lot of work that we can do, you know, very early on to intervene before kids become criminally justice involved.

And so I know you obviously you guys do a lot of work in that school district.

Please let us know how we can be of help.

We do have a great relationship with Ray and the team there, as well as a lot of the principals and the the superintendents.

So we're wide open for anything that we can do.

Okay, great.

Um, and then the last thing I wanted to touch on just um I, you know, I'm really interested in data.

I'm always interested in how we can constantly evaluate the effective effectiveness of programs that we're doing.

And so I know um through Dr.

Clavo's office, Office of Violence Prevention, is how a lot of the CBOs are funded to do the work that they do, which we know is really effective.

Um, and I think that also is borne out in the numbers that we see.

But I would love to see maybe at an uh a future item, Mr.

Mayor, to come back to this council to really talk a little bit more in depth about those programs, like what are they doing?

Who are they serving?

How what are the results that we're seeing now that we're several years in?

I would be so interested in that.

I think it'd also be a great way to for the organizations to showcase the great work that they are doing, and why maybe we should give them even more.

I'll just put that out there.

Um, so uh other than that, just want to say great work.

Um, I think I was very heartened to see some of the numbers, and so I think that reflects on the work that you and your team are doing every day.

Thank you.

Really appreciate that.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, oh Chief, I want to give you your steps today, you can sit down.

You don't know if you should stand up here.

It's like awkward.

So I just wait for you to call me back if you have a question.

You know, I know that I know how this works, so I'll be happy to stand here.

I don't want you to have to stare at me and then have not a question.

But yes, I'm here for you.

What do you got?

Um, so I I want to echo my colleagues and most of what they said and try not repeat a couple items, but I I personally I do want to thank you.

I want to say thank Dr.

Clavo and I want to thank all the community-based organizations who, you know, I try and bring us all together and how can we address things?

Because it goes straight up.

We're we're better when we all as a community work together.

And I want to thank you because there were those doubts when the Office of Violence Prevention came underneath you, and I think that both the work that Dr.

Clavo and you did with our community-based organizations to build trust, to build that bridge, you're seeing that work.

Because I remember when I got in office, uh, you had rolled out with a plan.

Yep.

Very unusual.

And and seeing now this data come forward, it really is about that partnership of being better together, of sharing that data, which is the start because let's celebrate the wins that crime is down in the city, but also acknowledge we have more work to do.

Um, and I want to pull on the thread a little bit that you and I have talked about of youth violence, and you know, and I've I've looked at this and I think um I'd really like to see us, you know, the city of Baltimore did a great youth violence prevention kind of plan.

And what did the data and how do you how do you do that?

And that's what I heard, you know, a little bit from council member maple was how can we pull on that string in light of the grant, in light of what we're doing, to have a comprehensive plan of what is the data say, how do we really um address our youth?

Because if we address our youth and give them the skills, that'll continue where we'll see a reduction in crime, you know, as they get older and go into adulthood.

Um it changes the nature of the culture, the conversation, and the community.

I agree.

And so we've started it.

The data is good, but I've really delved into what Baltimore has done, and I would like to amplify our data that we're getting.

I want to amplify what Dr.

Clavo is doing, which by the way, I would love to see what Dr.

Clavo has done in teaching her community-based organizations for data to use that same data analysis and audit over on Measure L for how we use children's funds.

So, you know, nothing like giving you more work, Dr.

Clavo, because you know, you're doing good.

Um, but what are your thoughts on that?

Because we talk a lot about the community-based violence, we've got Measure L, we've got our CBOs.

How are we coming together with a comprehensive plan?

Because I think we need to bring all of that together.

Sure.

Well, so we're um we're completing really the third year of the grant cycle with Evbids and GPIT.

And so, you know, we started this as a pilot, and then we um had some extra funding that we put to it so that we could expand the program.

And we've had, I mean, uh, you know, obviously, I put, you know, over three years of work into a half hour presentation.

There have been a lot of moments of growth where we're like, well, this is not exactly how we want to do it.

You know, we've had to um pivot and change, and then you know, crime and certainly the services that we provide also change.

You can just see that from the number of gang-involved youth or what the services are that people are asking for.

So it's a constant, you know, reevaluation.

I think one of the most difficult things that we face, there is not a one size fits all approach.

And you saw that with Boston Cease Fire.

You know, that was Braga's work, and certainly um, you know, uh Blake is from Boston, she's very well versed.

I fear I'll bring up my whole team at some point tonight.

Um, but uh, you know, the reason that it was it was tough.

We all thought that ceasefire, if it worked in Boston, we could bring it to our city and we could duplicate it, replicate it, and we would have the same results.

But it doesn't work that way, right?

And I think we've learned over the years, um, that being one of the most well studied areas uh around violence intervention and prevention, that you can take certain aspects of those models, but you have to tailor it and adapt it to the needs of your city.

We know what resources we have.

We have different resources that we have in Baltimore or Boston.

Um we also have different um different um types of uh drivers of violence, and so I think you have to be like, you know, we we could have told you that these were um you know tough areas and under resourced, um, you know, that crime was higher.

It wasn't until we really were able to show through data that we could prove that because it was just anecdotal before.

So I think that is really what the work is.

I think we built capacity in the organization right now, we brought technology, we know how to do analysis.

I think it's trying to figure out and identify what the problem is, just like we did three three and a half years ago, and then um cater a plan to that.

So the plan that you see today is probably not the plan that works for Sacramento in a couple years, let's be clear, right?

And you have great leaders here that have to constantly reevaluate that.

I would say on, you know, with our our youth and our youth violence, um, that is a challenge for us, and we lack capacity, the schools, um, school districts really they don't have a lot extra right now.

You know, some of them are really struggling, as you know, and so those are the first programs to go, the after school programs, the you know, the the work programs, and I think unfortunately that's one of the difficulties that you know we face.

And how you fund that, that's why, you know, the grant um that we've received is I think going to be a game changer for us because you know how we could continue to do that work, um, is going to be really challenging.

But I also think having an analysis from CNA on our youth violence prevention efforts.

Um, I'm looking forward to the results of the consultant study because they're usually really good at finding blind spots that you don't see and giving us some recommendation how to tie all of this together, and maybe how we do bless you, um, how we do um, you know, maybe change our efforts, redirect our efforts, um, complement them to uh the measure L grantees uh so that we can be most effective.

So I don't have a perfect answer for you, but I can tell you it's a constant state of evaluation, measuring the numbers, seeing if it's working, if it's not, and you're not seeing the metrics on the other end, figuring out what you're doing, um, to change that.

Um, which I fully agree with because I call it CCLI, continuous cycle of learning and improvement.

You know, you start with a base of something, gather the data, what do you learn, scrap it, improvement, try something else?

And I really think as you've you've now honed in on where you were able to get data and do specific seeing what that does with where we see youth violence.

Um, one of the gaps you pointed out, and which I've always been very specific with.

I was like, I kept trying to tie our community-based organizations closer into our school district.

The gap is a lot of people look to us at the city on some items that the school districts really need to do, and how do we increase that partnership?

That's why I was always so supportive of our school resource officers in the program because it was about relationships, and those officers had those relationships to be able to work with those kids and really catching on the front end.

We're now not having you in our schools, I think leaves a huge gap that I'm worried about.

That um, and then the one question I had is when I heard you talk about that grant, um, it always is slightly offensive when grants come in.

Anybody just talks about SAC City.

40% of the students are outside of SAC City.

We've got Twin Rivers, Roll Up, Robla, and Twin Rivers.

Um, does a grant apply to them as well?

Um Ethan, do you wanna come up and talk about the Citywide approach?

Yeah, the grant is not specific just to SAC City Unified, it's just Ray had reached out, he already had some stuff in place to kind of work with.

The intent behind the grant, I think I talked to Councilmember Maple and Councilmember Vang in the past is to find a way to scale it out across the entire city.

And so by having someone that we're already working directly with, we can see what's gonna be most effective uh through all the different districts.

Awesome.

I just wanted to make sure that there was we weren't leaving 40% of the students in the city of Sacramento.

I think we were out of that grant.

Apologies, I think we were just answering the other council member from the district that she represents.

But but it's important because these are the questions I get from Notomas Unified, and I remember how I felt as a Netomas school board member, hearing the city of Sacramento just talk about Sex City and ignore the students in Notomas.

I'd love to say our students don't have issues, but we all know differently, um, that you know, our students have just as many needs, you know, as those in other districts.

And so I wanna switch a little bit over into my last item, um, kind of quality of life where this, and we've talked about, you know, violence crime prevention strategies.

Um, what I hear about often in my community is you know the things that impact people daily that we heard from Ernesto.

It's our small businesses, it's the break-in, it's the illegal camping, uh, Caesar Chavez, you know, the open drug use harassment that we get walking down the street, um, you know, the break-ins, uh, the theft in our commercial corridors.

And so residents bring up, you know, I feel safe.

I don't want to go to the to the Ride Aid or the Walgreens, you know, because people are hanging out there and and I'm getting harassed in the parking lot, and you know, it's not safe.

And I've talked to many stores, and they're like, Well, I call the police and nobody comes.

And so I don't want them to say, okay, now I've given up.

And I know we have the budget deficit, and I know we have um, you know, less officers on the street than we did in 09, and we've grown significantly since then.

Um, small things can grow into big things.

And so I'm interested in how, you know, New York City, yes, bigger, but they have a quality of life crime unit.

Um, almost like how do we, as I fully agree with Councilmember Dickinson, our pop officers, really in certain areas so that they are known and can address more of these quality of life issues.

Um, how do you use the data and the information you're getting on crime violent crime prevention to also address these quality of life issues that I hear about daily?

Yeah, I mean, sometimes they're tied hand in hand, but I would say that that's one of our biggest challenges, and you um, you know, hit the nail on the head.

In 2008, we had 804 officers, and we were close to being fully staffed at 804.

It wasn't just 804 positions on a piece of paper.

You know, now we have about 650, and the city has grown and we're doing amazing things.

You know, you look at the difference in downtown Delta Shores, how Nethomas is built out, that didn't exist in like a lot of it in 2000 and eight.

And so these are all great things that are happening for the city.

But the reality is that when you reduce staffing to the level that we're at, and I hope we never come here where we are reactive, only answering 911 calls because that will not serve the city.

Um, but you're absolutely right.

There are a lot of low-level crimes that we are just not able to respond to.

And you know, for um somebody like me who's worked in the city for so long and takes that very, very personally and understands that you know, we talk about violent crime, we talk about these big numbers shootings and homicides and aggravated assaults to your average Sacramento resident.

They're more concerned about being broken into, um, you know, about you know, not having like not having the trash picked up, and that's absolutely understandable, and I do feel like it's a gap in the city.

You know, there are a lot of I think alternatives that we can look at.

But the bottom line is you need more officers to provide that level of service.

I understand that we're in the position where that is not probably a reasonable ask.

Um, but we have gone down year after year after year.

And with that, we have to continually cut the services that we we provide.

You know, I'm a big supporter of the school district and um and programs like that because I do believe that if you can intervene and be preventative, you know, we had our outreach and engagement unit, we've had mental health um units.

I'm a big supporter of alternative response, so that our officers can do officer level work.

Um, but those are conversations I'm sure that'll be had here, you know, throughout the budget cycle.

I can't stand here and honestly say that we can continue to do all of those things with the amount of staffing that we have.

And that's why we're trying to be very strategic.

We, you know, leverage technology.

We absolutely make the best of what we have and trying to address those higher level crimes.

Well, I do appreciate the support of like the nighttime traffic team a few years ago because I know what a challenge that was, and we continue to get compliments and thank yous for having that team out there, you know, and trying to maintain our pop officers.

I know our new city manager is a big relationship person, and that is one of our strengths here in Sacramento that we're big enough that we have all these things, but we're small enough that everybody knows each other, right?

So I would love to see us in a different place.

I really would, um, and I think there are ways to get there that in order to provide really that full service, um, we do need to expand our staffing, you know, obviously um hire the right employees to do that as well.

And and I just want to say thank you, because I think that conversation and what you just said is really important because a lot of people miss it.

I'm here, I live it every day, but talking to our residents, so you know, I know we don't have the officers, and I am so appreciative and supportive of everything that our officers do.

I'm just really interested in and we know we don't have that capacity.

But what are certain strategic things as you looked at data with the crime?

Yeah, where are certain strategic things we can do to get into neighborhoods and maybe address some of these things.

Work closer with the businesses, you know, on addressing some of that and getting into the flock network, um, and having those conversations that may inherently start addressing some of the quality of life issues.

Um I I fully support that we know we need more officers, but what can we do with what we have and what can we change on how we do it?

Um, maybe with non-sworn officers and how we partner with groups.

Yeah, we re-established the student training and the CSO program as a pipeline program, and when we did that, we saw some pretty significant reductions in our response time, especially to the lower priority calls, burglaries, um, you know, accidents.

And so I think growing, first of all, you're growing a cadre of future police officers, and so um it's also a great entry level position for members of our community to start their service in government and in public service.

So I think that's one thing.

I also think that, like, you know, like I said, I know uh every council member here has a great relationship with their area captain, and sometimes this is picking up the phone call to address problems.

We do have resources, we are able to, you know, to try and work on specific problems.

We obviously really uh work in collaboration and push for the IMT, the incident management team, because as you remember, a couple of years ago, everybody like that's the number one complaint is homelessness and what is the city doing about it.

We knew we could do we could do better.

And I think that over the years, Brian Pedro, the work of our impact team has shown that to be true.

So I think that it's just being innovative, it's thinking outside the box.

Um, and you know, maybe when one unfortunately I think people get frustrated and they don't call, right?

So we don't know, and so I always encourage people to call because otherwise we don't necessarily know unless one of you calls us or somebody we know that that's actually an issue.

So um, you know, I know it's tough for your residents, but I would say please have them call, please have them, you know, let us know what's going on in the neighborhood.

We do have a very responsive command team.

Like this is a city that you can pick up the phone, you can call your area captain, you can call your lieutenant, they're gonna answer and they're gonna try and do what they can to help, you know.

And so I think it's really um that making sure that we retain and continue to build on those relationships.

And I also think it's um managing expectations, right?

I don't want people to have a false sense that there are certain things we can do.

Um, and quite honestly, we've um implemented the spider tech technology over the years, and we found that um in many cases that there people would like alternatives to actually having a police officer show up on their front porch and take a report.

And so we're trying to do things with technology, um, you know, looking at piloting a different online reporting system, trying to give people other options so that they can get the information they need more quickly, and maybe they don't have to, you know, where that's a traditional thought, right?

Having waiting around for a police officer to show up, and there may be other ways to do it.

So I think there are a number of innovative things, you know.

You know, obviously, we can use things like technology, like with traffic cameras, um, and certainly trying to um, you know, address what what people really want, as opposed to just assuming um that the way we've always done things is the best way to do those.

So I would just ask everyone on the dais when you have issues and challenges, and I know you all do, to please contact us directly.

You know, you can call really literally, you can call the police chief anytime, and many of you do, just like the area captains, and we will work to do our very best to try and address those issues because we know the public, um, we have a great community, the public deserves service, and uh, we certainly try and give it to them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um, do you need a water bottle?

I should.

I know our ship hydrated, right?

No, I'll teach you a water bottle on that.

No, I'm fine, thank you.

No, really, I'm fine.

You've done a lot of talking.

So, okay, thank you.

Uh, and Councilmember Bang will bring us here.

Uh Councilmember Jennings, go ahead.

Thank you very much.

Uh, I think you are up for just three more of us who want to um probably say some very positive things about your presentation tonight.

And I'm the first on the list.

Um, and I'm talking to you, Dr.

Clavo.

I'm talking to your captains, your lieutenants, all of your officers that are here, the corporations that have stood beside you, your family members, the community leaders.

I'm talking to all of them when I want to share my gratitude for three successful years of crime decline.

I just want to thank you for that.

And someone said when you're doing something good, just keep doing it, right?

And that's what I know you're gonna do by the plan that you have in place.

I just want to thank you for that.

We have become a city where other cities will now emulate what we're doing, and so we've become a model city.

I want to thank you for that.

I want to thank you for all who have partnered with us in making the Sacramento Police Department something special, and and you have an uh an incredible story to tell.

Um, and I want to also just say that by using this, we have reduct the strategies, our next goal has to be to keep this going for four, five, six years in a row, and why not have a bhag, a big hairy audacious goal, and make it that we're gonna keep it going even longer than that.

So we have to keep it going.

So, my help to you is I'd like to work with you so that we can together become teammates in getting the word out that we've heard here tonight, and I'd like to figure out how we do that.

Some of us work with schools, some of us work with parents, some of us do a lot of work in the community.

All of us here work with neighborhood associations and those who are in our districts.

How do we work with you to get the word out?

And so I'd like to work with you in order for us to become a mouthpiece for the work that you're doing.

And so it's just something I want to give to you and and the entire police department.

Thank you.

Well, I receive everyone's newsletter, so if we can ever contribute, because you have our reach on your newsletters, and then obviously um more than happy.

I know you guys do many, many community meetings.

We go hand in hand.

Well, number one, we're always happy to attend with you and uh have those conversations, or two, provide you information so that you can share what's going on citywide and then certainly within your district because I know that's important.

So let us know how we can help too.

Right.

So that's my commitment to you, and we're gonna put a plan in place because we've sat here for a long time tonight, and it's time well spent.

But I feel so good about what I've heard.

I want to make sure others have the same opportunity.

Thank you.

So looking forward to working with you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you so much.

Um, next we have Councilmember Bluckybaugh.

Thank you.

I just want to say thank you for the presentation.

Thank you, Dr.

Clavo.

Thank you to Sutter for uh supporting this work.

Um, you know, there is uh a natural reaction when when things start to go well in response to a crisis to dial back the level of effort.

I want to encourage us all to not do that now.

This isn't the time to retreat.

This is the time to double down and make sure that we continue these efforts.

So I just wanted to put that out there again, say thank you for all this uh important work.

I appreciate it.

We're not gonna slow down or stop.

Thank you, Councilman.

Pucky bomb, that was a record 36 seconds.

Not even a minute.

Okay.

Mayor pro temperature.

Thank you very much, uh Vice Mayor.

Uh thank you, Chief, and also uh thank you very much to all your officers who've been working on this uh for many years, and many of our the new officers who are on now as well.

Um I I can't thank you enough because when you know in the last 11 years, you know, when we've looked at this, I remember my first year we had a young uh young kid um shot in front of their grandmother's house on 17th Avenue.

And um uh and when we looked at this map up here uh south of Lemon Hill, you know, uh it was it was a different picture uh as well.

And uh and it's changed a lot.

And so from someone who represents council district six, I appreciate that.

And I know it also hasn't uh happened or occurred without the support of all of the the community-based organizations and I think Mr.

Brookings is still here, but you know, I want to appreciate you uh and the Hawk Institute and others who who are there.

I re I remember when uh also uh the young uh the young lady was uh uh unfortunately shot outside of of Zach State over there at the was the library at that time.

Um I remember the challenges that we faced there.

Also, I know uh you know Dr.

G, you know, Dr.

Eric Gravenberg is is left, but um I hope he hears this directly.

He uh I know uh he has uh impacted so many people, uh including myself.

You know, 30 years ago, he impacted me when I was a young kid in the 90s, you know, and uh still trying to figure out how to find my way.

So I know that this work doesn't happen without that.

Um, you know, we talked a little bit about uh blind spots, and I appreciate the joint work that's being uh occurring right now.

Uh we made a big move on the issue of human trafficking.

Uh and a lot of that had to do with uh uh an officer from SAC uh uh PD, Cindy Stinson, who now who then helped create, you know, um a nonprofit community against sexual harm that has now worked and now Sacramento hosts the National Human Trafficking Hotline because of the work with the Family Justice Center, and that's been the partnerships.

But I would say that the one blind spot that we have is uh um, you know, and it's not blind because we know it did because if you if you were to look at this map up here, um, uh and uh you just took away that county, the city county line, it it probably links all the way down down Stockton Boulevard there, and so um I think there's more work to do with our county partners uh in that area.

Um I mean, this is just showing our statistics, but since I live right next to the Fruit Ridge Finger area, um I know that the this is these are city stats, but I think we need to look at them holistically because you know, impacts to families doesn't end at the city borderline.

So I I you know I'd like to see in the future how how we uh blend that because I completely concur with uh councilmember Dickinson's remarks about all the joint effort we've been doing.

A lot we've been doing over at the Fruit Ridge Collaborative with also young families, uh, with First Five and others to making sure that we're starting at a very young age with SETA on the employment training side as well, to helping, you know, uh folks be engaged.

So I just want to say thank you very much, and again, I can't thank also your officers in that.

I know one of the challenges we faced is that when our officers are going call to call to call, they don't have the time to build relationships um in uh in the community.

So I know that's a challenge that we have to address and making sure that we give uh our you know our all of our uh uh city staff the ability to have the time to build lasting and intentional relationships with our community.

But I just can't thank again uh you and your department, the relationships that's built with the organizations uh uh that have come today and spoke on this.

Uh and there's more work to do, you know, because the the the story here is the numbers are down, and that's a positive thing.

The numbers are down, but even one is is is hurtful to the community.

So uh thank you very much and appreciate the your time here uh today, and I know there's more work to do.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Yes, thank you.

Um that concludes the council members.

There is a mayor, so I did have some questions for you, but I'm going to skip my questions.

I have a free bottle of water now, so I'm already in uh statement form just so we can move forward.

So uh council, I I did agendize this a few weeks ago.

I asked the chief, how are we doing on uh crime reduction overall?

Other cities are reporting double digit uh decreases in property and violent crimes, and chief went back and did a year to year, and I said this is important news.

We should agendize it at a city council, and you of course went further, as I would if I was the police chief and talking more about strategies and kind of what's behind there, but um I just think it's important to tell the people where we're at, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.

Um, and just so the community and the council knows is this is not Sacramento.

Yes, we are amazing, like I said, uh today.

The 500 plus uh sworn officers and civilians, the men and women who work for the Sacramento Police Department do a great job every day representing the city, and and you're making our community safer.

But cities across California are seeing precipitous drops in both violent and property crime.

So kind of begs the question, you know, what happened after the pandemic and there was a spike for a couple years, and we're we're softening down.

Um I I just I think and uh it is um amazing to note that if you look that when I uh left the council, Mr.

Garrett's seat, um, you know, we have grown by roughly 100,000 people in the city of Sacramento, and the number of sworn officers I think is decreased by 65-ish.

And so that is remarkable that way more people in the city and fewer people to work on public safety, and you know, through technology and other um resources, uh, but we're gonna have some tough decisions again in our budget, which we're gonna talk about in the coming week.

So uh, but also I I want to note that this is that public safety, we're appreciative of these numbers and you know, because about making sure our communities are safer, but it's not just police, of course, that makes our community safer, as council members noted.

You know, our programs working with our youth and gun violence prevention, that's super um key.

And I did want to note that um about 10 years ago.

Uh a younger council member named Roger Dickinson, um, a younger assembly member, excuse me, a younger assembly member Roger Dickinson introduced a really um provocative bill which would uh taxed gun and ammunition sales in California, and the bill went down in flames.

But it he was ahead of his time, and 10 years later, uh assembly members Gabriel and McCarty authored a bill 80 28, which is now law and pres and provided us the five million dollars for the award.

So there's a hundred million dollars now going every year to gun violence prevention program.

So this is year one of implementation, so get in line for year two, and um it's really gonna focus.

We're gonna be uh rewarded because of the programs that are successful.

So the program that MERR is doing and others, we're gonna go back.

The the state's gonna focus on the ones that have shown to be successful.

So, you know, that's a big piece of the puzzle.

It's not just um officers and law enforcement and squad cars and you know, county jails that keep us safe.

It's it's other pieces as well.

But I just wanted to make sure we had an update on how we're making progress, progress, and as other people said, we're not done.

We're not we don't have a mission accomplished sign and saying, you know, we're done with this.

We want to uh move forward and keep working on these issues.

So thank you.

And this was an informational item, and with that, um we will proceed to the next item.

Thank you.

For your time, really appreciate you.

Thank you.

So, Mayor, we move to item number five, an ordinance deleting and adding section 15.148.965 of the Sacramento City Code relating to agreements for digital billboards.

Okay, good evening, Mayor, uh City Council.

I am Matt Seitz.

I'm a senior architect with the community development department.

Uh today I'm presenting the uh amendments to the city code section uh 15148965, which governs the agreements for digital billboards.

This update is minor in scope as it relates to the provisions for outdoor stadiums into their own subsection of the code.

Uh the proposed updates uh for the outdoor stadium digital billboard includes reducing the minimum stadium capacity from 15,000 uh seats to 12,000 seats uh to reflect the currently approved design.

Uh number two is increasing the maximum number of billboards from six to seven.

And number three is establishing a maximum of two twelve hundred square foot billboards with all remaining billboards limited to 700 square feet.

Staff respectfully request that the council approve the proposed changes to the ordinance amending 15148 965 of the Sacramento City Code related to digital billboard agreements.

And I'm available for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

First, we have seven public speakers, then we'll receive uh comments and questions from the council.

Thank you, Mary.

Kevin Boltz, Sonia Carabel, Pamela Freeman, Yolanda Villanueva, Francisco Garcia and Nancy Williams.

So Kevin's first.

I was here in 2019 when the city passed 33 million dollars to fund an MLS stadium related infrastructure around the rail yards in a deal which included both tax breaks and fee waivers, something we never get.

But as we all know that MLS franchise tag never arrived.

Yet still we spent 33 million dollars on recreation and leisure while we're in the midst of a housing crisis spanning almost two decades.

A crisis defined by an extreme lack of low-income housing in a city completely bereft of free public housing to an acceptable manner.

I heard in the previous item a lot about safety and homelessness and petty crime, and basically what's going to amount to AI cameras following people around to stop broken window policies, and all of that would not be a problem if people just lived inside instead of outside.

But you guys are all paid by developers, and so we can't have that.

We have unacceptable developments with non-affordable housing, as we turn Sacramento into apparently a leisure destination, which it will never be.

And we talk about the economy downtown while state workers are not returning to work, which means there is no economy downtown and will not be until they come back.

And now we're finding a roundabout way to build a development with not enough low-income housing through sticking gaudy electronic billboards around an already crowded interstate.

If anyone's ever been to Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, or Vermont, you will notice you didn't see something there, and that something was billboards.

They are illegal, they're outlawed.

Those are four of the most beautiful states, arguably the most four beautiful states outside the four corners, you will find in this country.

So not only should we not have this terrible plan of more electronic light pollution and things in the way of seeing when you're driving, we should get rid of the billboards we already have, and we should build public housing, not expensive housing.

Thank you.

Sonia, Pamela.

Hello, I'm Sonia with Unite Here Local 49 and Rail Yards for All.

And today's vote to increase the number of allowed billboards is just one piece of a massive hidden giveaway to the rail yards developers.

They just keep coming back for more and more benefits from the city.

When will it be enough?

Today you are voting on whether to change city law to let rail yards developers get even more free billboards on city land.

The city originally wrote this billboard agreement law for the King's Arena deal, and now Republic wants even more billboards than the Kings got.

The people of Sacramento should not be subsidizing developers who plan to build just six percent affordable housing out of 10,000 units.

Our members who are struggling to pay rent with their wages as a housekeeper or a dishwasher should not be subsidizing these developers to build 94% luxury housing.

Residents rejected the 92 million dollar EIFD in the rail yards last summer because of a shameful lack of affordable housing.

Instead of listening to your constituents and working towards a better deal, you're bringing back more of the same bad deal.

Sacramento should not give away an estimated 115 million dollars in billboard leases, but should instead dedicate this money to build more affordable housing at the rail yards.

Free rent for developers is an insult to the people of Sacramento who pay an average rent of $1900 a month.

It is time for this council to change course before approving the billboard leases and possibly another EIFD.

You can achieve 25% affordable housing if you reallocate this funding.

Please show the leadership that this city needs address the problems that you were talking about earlier tonight.

Vote no on this giveaway tonight and start working on a better rail yards deal.

Thank you.

Thank you Pamela is Pamela then Yolanda then Francisco.

Hello I first of all want to say that I owe you an apology because I didn't realize um I didn't realize that I wasn't telling you a lot of the story about the uh place where I live is at the Wong Center.

I have been homeless.

I yes have been hungry I understand what the homeless people feel and and I that's why I have become an advocate for them.

But I guess I didn't tell you my fears at living at the Wong Center there's a there's a lot of them.

One night I went to pick up my laundry I had it in the dryer and I opened the door to the laundromat and there's three men two men and a bicycle sitting in there.

So I sometimes become fearless.

I said what are you doing in here?

And they and the guy one guy said oh we're cooling down and yes it had been I told them it had been a hot Sunday in in Sacramento but I said uh do you live here and they said my uncle lives here well I already know that's the basic answer from homeless people when they get in our building so I said well you you need to go to your uncle's house apartment and you need to cool off at that moment in time I decided to pull out my camera my phone I took their picture and they they were very they were decent and they walked out with their bicycle and I followed them to the elevator then I ran to the next elevator and to so that I can make sure they got off the property now you know people said you shouldn't do that and I said I I I just did it.

And but the thing is we have three three thank you for your comments your time is complete.

Next speaker is Yolanda then Francisco thank you.

Hi my name is Yolanda and I live at the railroad that are known as the Wong Center.

Last summer me and my neighbors came together to reject a bad deal the bad deal because it gives way too much money to the railroads the developers and your pockets you guys are all getting rich.

They're getting rich and no one's paying attention to us seniors we only live on very little you know and it's just getting harder and developers with the way too little of you to return for the people of Sacramento now you're voting to give even more money to the rich we got police officers having to live on budgets we got us who don't even have a budget but we are going to continue to get rich you're gonna get rich they're gonna get rich everybody's gonna get these billboards and we're gonna give them to them to keep their interest.

Oh boy, more money, more distractions.

Now you're voting to give more money to them.

Railroad developers do the billboards when will it be enough?

When will you listen to the residents and negotiate for a better rail world deal?

Francisco, then Nancy, okay.

Um good evening, Mayor, Council members.

My name is Francisco Garcia.

I'm a member of Unite Here Local 49.

Um, I'm a resident of District 2.

I've been there for 30 years, and in those 30 years, I've seen a lot of change.

Some good, some bad.

The biggest one is housing and homelessness.

But you guys know this already, you know.

But it does it does uh upset me to know that millions of dollars are gonna go to the these developers, and they only want a uh six percent for affordable housing.

That's the whole key.

You know, we're not against uh the development, but make the number go up a little bit.

I mean, there we you know Sacramento has a need, and um there's places that that money can go to, like MERV and and uh brother-to-brother.

I live in that community.

I see the great work that they do there, but um, with this money going to to these developers, it just seems wrong to me.

But that's all I'm gonna say about that.

I want to give out a big uh shout out to Miss Bang.

Um, I want to say thank you for everything that you do and everything that you stand for, and you are a true role model for our youth.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nancy Williams following Nancy is Alex Hanson, Nancy Williams and Alex Hanson.

We have two final speakers.

Hi, y'all.

Okay.

We've been here many times.

You guys know better than the rest of us about the homeless population out here in Sacramento.

I am lucky enough to be a resident of the AJ in the rail yards.

But I'm here to express my serious concerns regarding the high cost of housing in Sacramento, which remains the most pressing issue facing our community today.

I believe it's irresponsible to allow developers to move forward with a project that is only 6% affordable housing with 94% luxury housing.

Allocating an estimated 220 million to developers for a project that remains largely unaffordable is a disservice to the people of Sacramento who are currently struggling with housing costs.

I urge you to reconsider the terms of the development to better reflect the needs of our residents.

Right now it's a blank check.

You guys are giving them a blank check.

Your buckets of money going into a mud pit at the rail yard, or the only established stuff.

There's two apartment complexes, Kaiser, and uh movie theater, paint shops.

That's it.

You guys are teaching the developers to hold off.

We'll just keep giving you stuff.

Don't get anybody else.

We'll keep giving you money.

It's wrong.

Come on, you guys, put a pause on it.

Let's talk.

You guys haven't reached out, you haven't had a conversation with us.

You're in charge.

We just live there for now.

I don't know about when May 28th comes around.

That's when I have to recertify for my affordable housing.

I'll probably be homeless then.

That's probably when I'll have to see the police.

I'm 67 years old.

I've been here since I was eight.

I should not have to leave my state.

I should not have to leave my family.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Alex Hansen is our final speaker.

Greetings, council, thanks for having me.

Uh, my name is Alex Hansen.

I am a resident at the AJ, uh state employee, and just a quiet activist of sorts, and I'm in agreement with the residents as well as other individuals in the districts that are concerned about having more development in terms of the billboards without contributing to the community and the people that are involved there, and knowing my own volunteer work and understanding how projects and plans like these can be considered, knowing the effect of things like the urban renewal plan in San Francisco, same kind of situation where there wasn't enough how how affordable housing that was present that end up being a displacement issue for communities and people that live there, and for those who have to deal with that struggle of being present in places where they may not always feel the most comfortable adding more money to people that aren't benefiting from it in terms of the individuals that need to live there that need the housing is often unfair because they don't have the opportunities, right?

And providing a means for them to be able to not deal with the rent increases that also is a quiet tool that gets used to kick people out is something to ensure that this is the decision to say no to something like this affects more than just the elderly that are there.

It also affects the young adults that don't know these things are coming up in the future.

So where there are issues that come with saying no to these kinds of things, you're protecting the future of those who are coming after as well as those who don't know how to fight other than being here and being present.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh just quick question for staff.

What is the timeline look like for the citywide study on billboards?

Um so we just we just had a signed contract on on that.

So we're hoping that within the next two to three months that that final study will be in place.

Okay, and then this uh what we're passing today is for the billboards that we already approved.

This is correct.

Okay.

Uh and then uh just direction to our city manager.

I do think it's important to meet with the residents that live out there, um, to listen to their concerns.

I know city staff hasn't met with them, so um it's important for their voices to be heard.

So direction to meet with them, please.

Thank you.

Councilmember Vang.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, I just wanted to put on record that I'm gonna be voting no on this item just for the same reason I've shared in previous meetings.

Um I just want to acknowledge I first I just want to say I, you know, I support the rail yards project overall.

I know that it's important for the future of Sacramento.

Um, and a big part of that is because we need to increase our city revenues, right?

Um, economic development is one of our top three priorities.

Um, and that's really important so that we can have the revenue to actually deliver city services and affordable housing and all the things that we want.

So I just want to say that.

Um, and I also recognize that you know the construction loans for this project are kind of contingent on finalizing the signage lease, right?

And that the billboard revenue, uh, when I spoke with the developers, um, is that they need those dollars to finance a project, and it's kind of been baked into the deal.

So I appreciate staff and the developer meeting with me to kind of explain that.

Um, and I think for me, where I'm really struggling with at this moment is that you know where we are financially as a city is that we're in the red, and just as we move forward approving like a 34 transfer revenue, not knowing its true true value at a time when a city is facing budget uh deficit, it's just concerning for me.

Um, and so like if we had if we really truly had those numbers, I think I would be more inclined to vote, but because we don't, um, you know, again, I'm still gonna be voting no on um this item, but definitely want to also echo um vice mayor Talamantes and urging um our city manager and staff to also just meet with the residents as well and to hear their concerns, um, because um there are different phases and parts to this project, and it's really important to make sure that we have residents um their voices, their insights, um, as we move forward on this development.

So those are my comments.

Okay, thank you.

Do we have a motion on this item?

Okay.

Move by Council Mayor Plucky Baum.

I'll second that um that motion.

I I I support this as count as Vice Mayor Talamantes louded to this as a continuation of actions we took in the preceding weeks, and um for those who say that this could be used to address our budget deficit, I I respect those opinions.

Um, there is no revenue for this unless there's a project.

It's not like we're putting a new build up up here at I-5 by the zoo or in along Highway 80 and by other neighborhoods.

This is an area that doesn't have anything today, so um, but for these projects, there wouldn't be an opportunity to have billboards in the first place.

So this is a fair public-private partnership, and we look backwards and forwards to make sure we're getting our ample return on our investment.

And again, this is that, and with that, we have a motion to second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any no's or abstentions?

One no.

Thank you, Mayor.

So that motion passes a no being Councilmember Vang and Councilmember Agata absent.

We move to item six, economic development workshop.

Good evening, Mayor McCarty and members of the city council.

You're going to get a group workshop tonight, I'm joined by some staff here.

Thank you for the opportunity to workshop and explore with you what economic development means to you as a priority for Sacramento, what we as a city are doing in furtherance of this priority, and how we might collectively examine strategies and tactics that further this priority.

Joining me in facilitating this exploration are Megan Van Vooris, Director of the Department of Convention and Cultural Services, Tom Pace, Director of the Community Development Department, and Denise Malvetti, deputy director of the Office of Innovation and Economic Development.

It also seems especially appropriate to have this workshop today, given the state of the downtown breakfast that many or most of you had the opportunity to attend this morning.

Among the various takeaways that are possible from that event is the clarity of the facts that decisions matter, being deliberate matters, and that actual change and improvement are possible and achievable.

As a reminder, the council held a workshop to identify the city's top priorities on September the 30th of 2025.

During this discussion, many topics were examined and explored, but by the end of the session, the council focused on three priorities.

These are not meant to supplant the core services that the city needs and should provide, but rather to give direction to staff to focus on opportunities to advance these priorities as a way of improving our city in meaningful ways.

At the September workshop, the council also identified certain foundational principles that should inform all the work of the city.

These four principles were equitable investment, making sure that as we consider policies and actions that we do so with a lens of equitable impact, fiscal sustainability, accountability, and good governance.

In September, the council further identified strategic goals to further inform staff in keeping our eyes on the big picture.

These strategic goals are the creation of a vibrant economy and a focus on ensuring community livability, delivering quality infrastructure that is forward-looking and supports our city into the future, and ensuring that we have safe and engaged communities, thus setting the environment where our residents and businesses can thrive.

So as we explore this priority of economic development, it's first helpful to examine what we specifically mean by economic development.

How is Sacramento as a city and region doing in terms of economic opportunity, and who has responsibility in pursuing economic development?

I'd like to start with a core premise that economic development is the collective outcome of how the city invests, aligns, and acts to create the conditions for people, our community, and businesses to thrive.

On this premise, we as staff, and for the purposes of the discussion, propose the following definition specific to Sacramento: to be the best place in California to do business through policies and investments that retain and create quality jobs, improve the health and vitality of our communities, and support the responsible development of all of Sacramento's neighborhoods.

We believe that this definition is further refined by the framing of certain key tenets.

First and foremost is that economic development is a shared responsibility.

Although here today you will hear from those areas of our government that fall within my leadership, we are far from the only entities at the city that are supporting and promoting positive economic development.

Two examples of work being led by the city in areas not normally viewed as economic development are the $38.7 million last mile connectivity grant being led by our IT department with public works and the $310 million New I Street Bridge over the Sacramento River.

Through our last mile connectivity grant, we are expanding high-speed broadband internet service to some 3,000 unserved and underserved addresses through the expansion of a fiber optic network.

This public-private partnership with consolidated communications will help close the digital divide and represents a very real investment in expanding opportunities for our residents as well as businesses, and by extension improves the city's overall economic competitiveness.

The new I Street Bridge will provide enhanced vehicular access to the rail yards in the river district.

Beyond this obvious transportation benefit, the project will open up six acres of prime riverfront real estate for private development, be a next step in the development of the Sack Valley Station, and create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of contract buys into our local and regional economy.

Following on this point, the pursuit of economic development in our city is not solely the work of the city of Sacramento.

As evidenced this morning by the efforts being led by the downtown Sacramento Partnership, Sacramento State, and others to transform our capital corridor.

We as a city are active partners with DSP and working to deliver on the vision of a more active, populated, and vibrant core.

And this same type of relationship is a powerful tool across the city, working with our many chambers and PBIDs, community-based organizations, philanthropic organizations, community groups, educational institutions, other governmental entities, and other corporate entities.

So, how is the Sacramento region and the city of Sacramento doing?

There are a lot of measures we can look to to get some sense of this.

Although we are not here to spend the evening having generalized a generalized conversation about our economy, there are some data points that can help inform our discussion.

The city is home to around one quarter of the businesses in the region, with the vast majority of this being made up of small businesses with fewer than 10 people.

Over 20% of the jobs in the city are government jobs, a percent which is generally higher than most comparable cities.

Job growth in the region since the pandemic has been fairly strong, with the region posting the second highest growth rate in the state over this period.

Our employment rate of 4.9% for the county of Sacramento generally tracks with the state at 5.5% and continues to trend slowly downward.

And looking at our downtown, our office vacancy rate continues to form other northern CA markets such as San Francisco and Oakland, but we also continue to lag in a return to downtown workforce from before the pandemic.

In this discussion, we will focus on an operating framework that discusses economic development from the standpoint of the policies, programs, and projects that invest in people, our residents and workers, that support our communities and neighborhoods to be vibrant, attractive, and safe, and that support our current and future businesses to grow, attract capital, be fair employers, and ultimately succeed in Sacramento.

We believe that our focus on these three pillars is essential and leads to a virtuous cycle of empowering people, enabling and growing businesses, and building safe and attractive and vibrant communities.

With these pillars in mind, I will now turn this conversation this conversation over to Megan Van Borges, who will discuss our work to empower and improve the quality of life for our residents, workers, and visitors.

Thanks, Mike.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council.

Economic growth starts with people.

Industry follows talent and talent follows quality of life.

If Sacramento wants to compete regionally, nationally, globally, we must build attract and retain talent.

That means workforce pathways, financial stability, cultural vibrancy, and access to opportunity across neighborhoods.

Investing in people is not separate from economic development.

It is the foundation of it, and growth is strongest when it's broadly shared.

In 2025, the Youth Service Corps supported 264 residents ages 16 to 30 through paid work experience in public service, climate action, and food security.

52 interns were placed within city departments, and we partnered with community-based organizations to employ another 100 young people.

I just want to call out that IT department has been a big place for some of those people to go, which we're all really grateful for.

We're also working to expand certification and apprenticeship pathways, and for my own perspective, including in the creative economy.

We expect to release some of those funding opportunities soon.

Childcare is economic infrastructure.

Without it, workforce participation declines.

We've had two cohorts who have completed our early childhood education apprenticeship with Los Rios, and when our third cohort is complete, we are on target to have served 43 apprentices.

These folks work while completing coursework supported by critical wraparound services.

We're also assisting family child care homes with licensing and business development to expand supply and sustainability.

In terms of small developers, if we want small infill development, we need small developers.

The reality is so much has changed that large scale developers need certain economics in order for this to work.

For us to get small to get this small infill development, we need to invest in those folks.

Our small developer incubator trainer trains participants in development finance, zoning, and building requirements, expanding who can participate in real estate development, and building generational wealth locally.

Creative industries are growth industries.

I didn't know if you knew that it's 12% of GDP creative industries in state of California.

Sorry.

Through fellowships, accelerator programs, and entrepreneurial training, we're building capacity among artists and creative entrepreneurs, workers who create jobs, activate space, and generate economic activity.

Established in 2019, the community engagement team modernized how we connect with residents and businesses.

Through mixers, tabling, a podcast, the city management academy and the community ambassador program, we're not just sharing resources, we're listening and responding.

Financial stability is foundational to economic mobility.

Since 2020, the Financial Empowerment Center has served more than 1,700 residents with average client income of approximately 42,000.

Clients have reduced over 4 million in debt and increased savings by more than 1.4 million.

City Start advances economic mobility, particularly for black residents and those historically excluded from wealth building opportunities.

And because 39% of Sacramento residents speak a language other than English at home, and nearly 17% have limited English proficiency, our language access work ensures opportunity is not limited by language.

Arts, culture, entertainment, and tourism are not just amenities, they are economic infrastructure.

The Safe Credit Union Convention and Performing Arts District is an anchor destination along the K Street Entertainment Corridor.

Last year alone, it hosted 269 events, welcomed over 1.15 million attendees, and generated nearly 158 million in economic impact.

Across the city, over 400 events were permitted, generating 1,195 days of event activity.

That's an average of 3.2 events per day in Sacramento, activating our neighborhoods, expressing the richness of Sacramento's diversity, and attracting visitors to our city through events like Terra Madre and Aftershock, the Midtown Farmers Market, our Street Night Market.

Our arts and cultural nonprofit funding programs yield thousands of experience annually in the city that attract visitors and ensure accessibility.

Our funding programs achieve the reach that we're looking for deep into our neighborhoods.

These investments and others that aren't called out here, fill hotel rooms, activate commercial corridors, create jobs, and strengthen Sacramento's brand.

Communities with strong cultural infrastructure perform better economically because culture both grows talent and attracts it.

Strategic investments in workforce, financial inclusion, and cultural vitality expand opportunity.

Expanded opportunity builds talent density.

Talent attracts employers.

Growth generates revenue, which we reinvest in people and place.

When growth is inclusive, it becomes sustainable.

Wanted to share something with you.

I recently attended an event at Prism Arts Space in Midtown, Art City.

The event contemplated what it means when art is a core value, central to civic identity, and invited us to pick up a token or two to share it.

On the front, it reads, Welcome to Sacramento, City of Art.

On the back, at our best, we make space for all, we revel in each other's successes, and we challenge each other to dream big.

For me, that's what happens when we invest in people.

We make space, we build confidence, we celebrate ambition.

But then energy needs physical framework, and I'm going to turn it over to Tom Pace to talk about just that.

Good evening.

One of the pillars of economic development is the kind of place that Sacramento is.

As we heard earlier, business follows talent, and talent is drawn to desirable places.

The two key ways the city leverages Sacramento as a place, welcoming to economic development are through our regulatory environment and our public investments.

The foundation of placemaking is good planning and creating an appropriate regulatory environment.

We accomplish this starting with our general plan and zoning regulations and implement it with a streamlined development review process that facilitates desired types of development.

Over the past 17 years since 2009, we've created and regularly updated a general plan that expresses our vision for a vibrant, thriving, and diverse community that grows primarily through investment and development in existing neighborhoods.

We've updated zoning regulations to be consistent with our general plan and to streamline the development review process in a way that saves time and money while providing predictability to both residents and developers, and we've created an organizational culture that supports and facilitates the kind of development that advances our general plan's vision, where staff have a can-do attitude to help our customers.

In addition to an appropriate regulatory environment that supports our economic goals, we also need infrastructure that supports development, water, sewer, drainage, transportation, broadband, and more.

And we need financial tools to help pay for these key investments.

In recognition of this, the city has prepared detailed infrastructure plans for several infill development areas to help guide public investments so that developers know in advance what is required to serve their projects.

A specific example of how we have done this over the past decade is exemplified in our designation as California's first pro-housing community.

This recognition acknowledged our progressive housing policy, plans, regulations, and development process.

But another key component is having an appropriate organizational culture that is focused on assisting customers in achieving their goals while preserving the public health and safety.

With all of these components in place, the market responds with investment.

Housing is a critical part of what makes Sacramento attractive for business to locate and expand here.

Additional ways we support housing include our reduced fees for affordable housing projects, efforts to help tenants stay housed, work to assist unhoused individuals to obtain housing, and our emergency home repair program that ensures low-income homeowners can stay in their homes.

Focusing on just one of these programs, the impact fee reduction program helps ensure 400 to 500 new affordable housing units are built each year by reducing the total development impact fees that are due for each deed-restricted affordable unit.

This valuable program helps leverage other sources of affordable housing finance, resulting in more projects getting built than would otherwise have been possible.

The program is supported by the general fund and is limited based on annual appropriations.

Another special aspect of our placemaking is the work of the neighborhood development action team.

This team works closely with community members to envision the types of investments that will protect and enhance the community's character, and then provides grants to help small businesses and community organizations start new businesses, improve commercial facades, or activate the district with art and culture.

One example is the Marysville Del Paso Forward Together Action Plan.

Using collaborative and inclusive planning processes, the city and its partners built a shared vision of the corridor as a thriving place for existing residents and businesses while also welcoming future growth.

The city has provided implementation grants to community organizations and businesses to help them implement their vision.

The Stockton Boulevard plan was also completed, and the implementation grant program is currently underway.

We are currently accepting applications through March 13th for community-led actions that support their priorities for Stockton Boulevard and adjacent neighborhoods.

The kinds of places many people think of as uniquely Sacramento include our old Sacramento waterfront, our other historic districts, cultural districts like Little Saigon, and arts districts like the Museum Mile along the river.

Activation of these places drives tourism and spending in Sacramento.

Finally, placemaking also requires investments in key districts that can drive business growth like Aggie Square and the rail yards.

And it also includes public-private partnerships that bring improvements to our commercial corridors.

To sum up the importance of placemaking to our local economy, we can see that creating an appropriate policy and regulatory environment is key to welcoming the kind of development that we want to see in our community.

It then takes supportive public investments that improve Sacramento as a place, which makes us an attractive and competitive destination, generates jobs and private investment, and attracts residents, businesses, and visitors.

All this activity increases property values and our local tax base, which helps us continue to maintain and improve Sacramento as a place for economic development.

I'll now hand it over to Dean.

Thanks, Tom, and good evening, Mayor and Council.

I will wrap the people, place, and business framing with business, which is at the core of what we do in economic development.

Our businesses are critical to Sacramento's quality of life and upward mobility of our residents.

But they are also critical to the city's financial sustainability.

When businesses grow, they generate jobs, and they also generate sales tax, property tax, and transient occupancy tax that sustained public services.

Today I'll highlight how our departments work collectively with our internal and regional partners to support businesses at every stage.

Let's begin with small businesses because they are the backbone of our economy and they are what make our neighborhoods and districts vibrant and unique.

Last year we launched the Business Solutions Center, a model built from what we learned through our CARES and ARPA small business investments.

Through this initiative, we've partnered with PBIDS to connect businesses to the city and to our technical assistance provider California Capital.

California Capital councils businesses on a variety of topics, including developing and revising business plans, enhancing marketing and web presence, and accessing capital.

In the first year, more than 250 businesses have received over 800 hours of technical assistance, that's collectively, I should note, and have reported increasing revenues by over 2 million and access accessing over 1.2 million in capital, which includes about 80,000 in city-funded microgrants and fee waivers.

This pilot was funded with ARPA and an SBA grant, so we're evaluating how to sustain and strengthen this moving forward.

To help small businesses who need assistance in remodeling their spaces, community development, and economic development have dedicated resources to guide customers through the building permit process.

Our staff serves as a one-stop shop for these small businesses.

Beyond early stage support, we also focus on helping established small businesses scale.

Our economic gardening program targets second-stage companies that are positioned for accelerated growth.

Participants receive intensive technical assistance and expert market research paired with a matching grant of up to 50,000 to implement growth strategies.

Twenty-six businesses have completed the program, and six are currently participating.

Many have reported significant increases in revenue and hiring, evidencing the importance of scaling local companies, which keeps wealth and opportunity rooted in Sacramento.

Finally, our innovation program supports the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem.

These investments help cultivate the next generation of startups by supporting incubators, accelerators, technology commercialization, and training programs.

Our 2024 grantees reported over 2,000 participants in events and trainings, over 150 people completed intensive accelerators and incubators, leading to over 1.5 million in capital raised by participants.

Together, these efforts reflect a comprehensive approach, meeting businesses where they are, supporting them at every stage, and ensuring Sacramento remains a place where small businesses can start, grow, and thrive.

Supporting local businesses is essential, but so is attracting and retaining industry.

Business retention and attraction are core to strengthening our industry base and building a more diverse, resilient economy.

To do this effectively, we need a strong understanding of what our existing businesses need to stay and grow in Sacramento, while also identifying the right opportunities to bring new employers into our city.

In close partnership with the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, we actively pursue opportunities to expand our economy.

GSAC continues to see strong interest in our region, particularly from companies in clean tech, advanced manufacturing, mobility, and life sciences.

To remain competitive and land on the short list, businesses must know that Sacramento is open for business.

Business retention and attraction will continue to be a top priority this year as we focus on expanding our economic base and securing long-term growth for the city.

It is important that our business attraction and retention work is strategic and grounded in a clear understanding of where Sacramento has the greatest opportunity to grow.

In 2019, the city launched the development of Scale Up Sacramento, an inclusive economic development action plan that identified industries with the greatest potential to drive regional growth and expand economic mobility.

Although the pandemic paused the effort briefly, the plan was adopted in 2021 and highlighted opportunities in future mobility, clean economy, life sciences, headquarters and business services, and food and beverage manufacturing, with a focus on tradable sectors that bring new dollars into our region.

Since then, both the city and the region have made meaningful progress, especially in life sciences, with projects like Aggie Square and the business locate shown here.

But because the underlying data is from 2018 and 2019, it's time to revisit the plan to ensure our strategies reflect today's economic landscape and position Sacramento for growth, which is a priority in the coming year.

Growth also depends on the regulatory climate businesses operate within.

For businesses to choose to locate and grow in Sacramento, we also need an environment where the regulatory process supports their growth.

Two key initiatives that show Sacramento's commitment to regulatory streamlining are entertainment permit modernization and streamline Sacramento.

Entertainment permit modernization is about improving the regulatory climate for entertainment activity in Sacramento.

In the 25 fiscal year, the city consolidated film, entertainment, and special event permitting into a single division after studies showed our processes were unintentionally stifling activity.

Our goal is to create informed applicants, transparent processes, and improved compliance because when expectations are clear and systems are predictable, businesses are more likely to invest in entertainment programming.

The second initiative is Streamline Sacramento, which you will hear more about later, so I'm going to keep this short.

Streamline Sacramento is a program dedicated to working with our development and construction industries to identify ways to improve our permitting and inspection processes.

This initiative identified choke points in areas where greater coordination is needed and generated process changes, technological improvements, policy changes, and training opportunities to make the process work better for our customers, saving them time and money.

But more on that on the next item.

So strengthening our regulatory environment is a critical step in making it easier for businesses to operate in Sacramento.

But even the most efficient processes can only take a business so far if they still face barriers in financing.

With limited city resources, partnerships are essential.

So I will share about two early stage partnerships.

The first is the Creative Economy Capital Access Pilot.

Through the pilot, Sacramento is partnered with the State Treasurer's Office and the Creative Economy Finance Network to address a clear market failure.

Here's a stat that Megan mentioned earlier, but I will reiterate.

Creative businesses generate 12% of California's GDP, yet they receive only six to seven percent of loans despite having lower than average default rates.

Starting here in Sacramento, we are piloting tools, lender certifications, and new financial products designed specifically for creative enterprises.

The next initiative is SAC LYFT, the Sacramento Local Impact Funders Table, which builds on the strong foundation created by the financial institution collaborative.

The collaborative was led by the Sacramento Promise Zone with support from the FDIC, and it gave financial institutions a structured way to meet their Community Reinvestment Act obligations by investing directly into local priorities.

With the Promise Zone having now sunset, the city has stepped in to carry this momentum forward.

SACLYFT will bring together funders across sectors to strengthen peer networks, align investments, and support initiatives that expand financial access and opportunity.

The goal is to maximize our collective impact, ensuring that capital flows into the communities that need it most.

Culture and visitation are also economic engines.

Through Everyday Creative and the Sound Business Summit, we've supported more than 200 creative entrepreneurs and musicians in strengthening business models, expanding revenue streams, and accessing capital.

On the attraction side, our film rebate program is positioning Sacramento more competitively in the production market.

It is an important tool that is generating increased interest and putting Sacramento on location shortlists.

At the Safe Credit Union Convention and Performing Arts District, increased outbound sales activity and promoter incentives have increased bookings at Memorial from 107 event days in 2025 to 179 in 2026.

We are also seeing more dates fill in the Performing Arts Center.

And in partnership with Visit Sacramento, we are advancing iconic events like the return of Terra Madre America's drawing visitors, filling hotel rooms, and activating commercial corridors.

The nighttime economy is a vital part of Sacramento's creative and visitor economy and integral to the city's identity and fiscal health.

Dedicated staff support policy updates, education, and business assistance to ensure nightlife is safe, vibrant, and well managed.

On the policy side, last year the city adopted two ordinances creating limited entertainment permits and establishing entertainment zones so businesses could benefit from events happening at their front doors.

Education is another key component of our work with the nighttime economy.

Much of this work happens in partnership with our colleagues in Code, Police, FIRE, and external partners like Weave and UC Davis Health to ensure we are covering topics that are important for nighttime operators.

We are also developing a tailored technical assistance training where we will provide operators with tools to strengthen their business models and build long-term resilience.

This support helps ensure that Sacramento's nighttime businesses can thrive economically while contributing to a vibrant and safe nightlife.

As you have heard this evening, a city's economic strength starts with it being a great place to live, work, and play.

High quality of life, a talented workforce, and a business-friendly regulatory environment are most important drivers of business investment.

But even with those advantages, cities still need targeted incentives and economic development tools to stay competitive.

The city uses the various tools on the slide, many of which we've already talked about this evening to stimulate stimulate investment.

One tool we have not discussed this evening is the forgivable loan program, which is used as both an attraction and expansion tool for tech companies.

An example of the program's success is in 2018, we provided a 100,000 dollar forgivable loan to a tech company relocating from the Bay Area to Sacramento with seven employees.

They now have over 200 employees and have had great success raising venture capital to support their growth.

When deployed strategically, these tools reduce risk, build confidence, and encourage investment in our city.

When we invest in supportive systems, we make it easier for businesses to operate.

We build the confidence companies need to start and grow in Sacramento.

The confidence fuels new investment.

As businesses expand, they generate more local spending and tax revenue, creating a cycle of growth that benefits the entire community.

By investing in the systems that support business success, we're building sustainable economic growth for Sacramento.

I will turn it back to Michael to wrap up the presentation and prompt the discussion.

Thank you.

Thank you, Denise.

Alignment of policies, infrastructure delivery, reasonable fees, predictability, customer service, all work to amplify real investments by the city and others.

Streamlining approvals, increasing the use of technology, and addressing communication barriers all work to amplify private investment efforts as well.

As we move forward as a city, we see many opportunities ahead.

I have but a few short examples of some of those opportunities, but they are quite extensive as we think about the future of the city.

Continued focus on truly catalytic sites such as the larger Sacramento River Waterfront, not just old Sacramento, but the entirety of our core city frontage from Miller Park to past the confluence with the American River.

Great cities around the world are defined by their relationships to waterways.

We are uniquely positioned to benefit from an urban waterway and a more natural waterway.

A second example is found in the expansion of Sacramento as a cultural, music, and sports tourism city.

We're excited to be examining with Visit Sacramento the very real potential of the creation of a flat field sports complex that will drive youth-related competitive sports visitation and prove a huge amenity for our local community as well.

We also believe that through the work of NDAT and committed community leaders and partners, we have the opportunity to expand the presence of neighborhood placemaking such as Taco Plaza on Northgate Boulevard.

We are, however, challenged to pursue these opportunities in light of a difficult fiscal horizon for the city and more limited federal and state resources.

But we also believe that we must continually approach these challenges as problems to be solved and not immediately defer to them as reasons for why we cannot.

For people, progress comes from more quality jobs and higher wages.

For improved neighborhoods, we seek to create safe and clean communities with increase in attainable housing choices and neighborhood amenities.

For our businesses, the ability to grow, access, and call the city and region home is paramount.

Finally, for our government, being predictable, transparent, transparent, and navigable will foster a reputation as a city that can get things done and allow residents and businesses to achieve their aspirations.

This now concludes our staff presentation as we open this up to council for discussions.

In this, as staff, we ask that you consider what does meaning prop meaningful progress look like to you, both in the context of your specific district as appropriate, but the city as a whole as well.

Equally important are your thoughts on the consideration of prioritization, especially in light of resources and capacities.

With that said, I turn the conversation back over to you, mayor and council.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

We'll start with.

Yes.

Public comment.

Thank you, Maryor.

I have six speakers.

The first is Scott Ford, Barry Broom, Evan Schmidt, Danielle Foster, Zion Tatis, and then Devin LeClewis.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, City Manager Smith, Scott Ford, Downtown Sacramento Partnership, once again.

And just wanted to stand in alignment with our partners here once again tonight.

Michael Jasso, the entire team, Megan, Tom, Denise, you know, that is alignment.

That is really one of the strong suits of Sacramento.

Earlier tonight, Councilmember Kaplan made an analogy about planting a seed.

And I think about that a lot in terms of economic development.

And the success of Sacramento, it's a shared responsibility.

And we are here standing with all of you.

And we have to work together to continue to create, foster, and maintain conditions where that seed can be successful.

We've got great partners here in the room.

I know you're going to hear from GSEC and Valley Vision, but uh, but you know, truly the opportunity that we have before us today and the success that we're already seeing is due to the collaboration that we have.

Uh, the vision of SAC state utilizing underutilized uh state-owned assets that haven't produced property uh tax revenue in decades for a new purpose for creating pathways of upward social mobility for young minds here in Sacramento for infusing housing in our most location-rich uh places, you know, in close proximity of transit.

Those are the type of opportunities that we've got to work collaboratively on.

They're complicated, they take a lot of tools, sometimes EIFDs, sometimes uh tools like CADA.

We've got uh Danielle Foster and our partners with the Capital Area Development Authority.

Um, but I believe that Sacramento has proven that we've done that in the past, and we're gonna continue to do it.

So you have our strong partnership here today.

Uh we're grateful to have great uh great city staff here, great vision, and a great opportunity before us.

Uh I'm gonna close real quickly.

Forty years ago, my family moved to Sacramento about the same time that somebody moved the kings here to Sacramento.

And what that did was it elevated the baseline for me.

It taught me that great things were possible here.

So let's keep sending that message to the next generation of Sacramento leaders together.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Barry Broom.

Following Barry is Evan Schmidt, then Danielle Foster.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, we're really excited about our future.

And I think you know, economic development's like a collective action model.

Um, so I think we have a lot of progress on the horizon.

I feel very good.

You know, we're dramatically outperforming California in every region in the state.

Um 2024, we were the highest rated economy by the Brookings Institute out of 54 regions, measuring equity, racial inclusion, and regional share, not just growth, right?

So hopefully we learn our lesson from the one percent stuff.

Um that we you know pay more attention to people.

That's probably my one regret in my career.

I think I paid more than others, but obviously not enough.

So I'm really excited about our city manager.

Um, kind of come from the same part of the country.

Uh she was out of Cincinnati, I was out of Columbus and Cleveland and Toledo.

So a lot of people don't know this, but I was a city economic development director.

So I was the economic development director for Toledo, Ohio for uh two and a half years, and I worked in the inner city in Cleveland for five years, and I was a I served in economic development for two mayors.

So I do have a city economic development background, and my passion is neighborhoods, so I hope that um not only we'll be able to drive top-line economic performance.

Uh, I also live in midtown, so this is my home.

I'm really interested in doing more on equity and inclusion, and would uh look forward to an opportunity to to find a better path forward on that.

I really like the set of director.

I think we've really been up in our game.

I think the leaders that are coming into town are really good.

Um, very excited about a young leader like Luke Woods Vision.

Um we're gonna get some deals done at Aggie Square.

I know it's off to a little bit of a slow start, but uh, you know, 50% of the science and technology budget was cut by the president and then shut the global markets down.

So that doesn't help, but we're doing very well.

We're 33% above last year's performance.

So even during a difficult time, our performance goes up because we work so hard.

So I appreciate the mayor's support and leadership.

And uh very thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Evan Schmidt.

Hi, good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Evan Schmidt.

I'm the CEO of Valley Vision.

And today's been a great start and finish, starting with the state of downtown, thinking about the vision of downtown, and then ending um with this really visionary presentation about the potential and the um and the performance of the city.

Um I want to really thank you for prioritizing economic development.

When I look at the three pillars that you've chosen, they're also interconnected, but I think economic development really has the power to drive good outcomes across all of the pillars, but it has to be really intentional and really strategic, and that's what I see reflected in this really thoughtful plan that includes community capacity building, it includes the supporting entrepreneurship, supporting workforce pathways, and thinking about sector development and sector strategies, which I think are all the right ingredients to a great economic development strategy.

So I just want to thank you for your leadership and um and and for this uh for this priority.

Something that I spend a lot of time thinking about is regional economic strategy.

Um Valley Vision over the last few years have been has been leading the California jobs first initiative for our region, which is called We Prosper Together, and this is all about creating an inclusive and competitive region, an A County region, and then connecting that into the competitiveness of California.

I think Barry said it really well in pointing out that our region is incredibly competitive and we have amazing assets, and we need the leadership of the of our anchor metropolitan area, and I think that's that's really coming together.

I want to thank Mike and his team for the partnership in working on this regional initiative.

Um, there's already been a lot of alignment and a lot of leadership there, and that's been really wonderful to be a part of.

So I see a lot of opportunities for really leaning into some of these key alignments and working together, and I just thank you for this plan and thank you for your leadership.

Danielle Foster and Zion Tatis.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um, I'm here to say thank you.

Uh, we really appreciate at CADA the partnership that we have with the city.

We appreciate how it is furthering housing right now.

We're in partnership on 700 housing units under construction in our city uh through programs that we've employed with at CADA and with help from all of you, so thank you.

And those are really focused on incomes at low incomes and workforce housing.

So we're making good progress.

Of course, there's more work to be done.

We also really appreciate working with economic development staff on creative economy economy initiatives and creating spaces like Culture Club and Space for Music Landria and others to thrive and really contribute to our downtown and the liveliness of our downtown.

Um we are engaged, of course, on the Capitol Mall conversations and wanting to be a good partner there and helping with that reinvention.

Um, and we continue to partake in the initiatives like Streamline Sacramento.

We appreciate the conversations that you all are hosting, recognizing that there's more of an iterative process to take place, especially as staff new staff come in and there continues to be turnover, especially on our building department side.

It's really helpful to have these ongoing conversations on process and code and how those are implemented, and we really appreciate the city's willingness to host that.

Um we also look forward to our continued work in all of these areas with small business housing and the creative economy.

Thank you for the resources you're devoting to these specific initiatives, like the impact fees, like the work with ARPA that was creatively done, like all of these pieces that come together that are so important for housing to be built.

There are so many barriers, and it makes such a big difference that the city's on board with taking some of those away.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have two more speakers.

Next is Zion Tatis.

Then Devon Lecluse.

Hi, thank you for having me.

And I actually came for the cannabis equity, but it was council.

They just told us this morning.

But I was also thank you for making me part of the community ambassador.

Uh, through that, I was able to realize there's so much opportunity that the city gives, but it doesn't really get to our community, even though there are so many, you know, opportunity like they were explaining because of the uh, you know, communication or the uh, you know, there is no the fund is not coming to us, whether for about businesses or uh for our youth, uh, you know, even though criminal is down, but still our youth, black youth uh gets harassed every day.

There's no that's no uh hiding when you are a black woman or a black youth, you get stopped by the police over small things every day, all day, and that gotta stop because they invest so much money into the police, but our youth is still being harassed and they've been going to jail and now they come out.

They have a whole lot to do now.

So if that doesn't stop, what that is the result I need to see is the same thing for businesses.

You know, I'm one of the underserved businesses, even though I've been there for a long time.

Uh but uh is there is a red line.

There is a red line when it comes to just distributing the grunts.

So we need to see some statistics.

Uh I need to see numbers.

How many of this all these funds that you guys uh give out, how many of it is coming to our community, really, who are 90% of it underserved, underrepresented community is really black community, but 90% of it doesn't come to us, maybe one percent or two percent, which is still the same thing.

I've been saying that again and again.

I need to see numbers.

I need to see some results from uh especially being a community ambassador.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Devon is our final speaker on this item.

Evening council.

Uh, thanks for having having me.

Uh I was asked to speak about the small developer incubator program.

I just finished it in January.

Um, it was a really good experience.

I was hesitant to do it uh because March last year I did the one day boot camp at the Oak Park Community Center, thinking, and that took gave a lot of information.

I learned a lot over the following six months.

Um began my project in Oak Park and went through the incubator program hesitantly.

I'm glad I did because I learned some things that say is going to save me a lot of money.

I did my pro forma, I did it wrong.

The incubator program taught me how to do it properly.

So I redesigned the day before I was supposed to get my first building permit.

I went to redesign and I got that new building permit today.

So I'm gonna be breaking ground next week.

Um it was a really great program.

Um and I've got my second project also in Oak Park that I'm working on right now to do eight uh new units, and it supports your one of your pillars, pillars, the place pillar.

Um one of the important things I'm asking is I'd like you to sign on to AB 1033 as soon as possible because AD ADUs and the conduitization of ADUs is huge.

Three out of ten new housing starts in California.

According to the uh I was at the housing conference today at UC Center.

Uh, 30% are ADUs of all new buildings in California, but only 2,000 condos have been made in the state.

So, signing on to AB 1033, we'll get more condos, which means more housing for people to buy and live in, stable housing, generational wealth.

And that's what we need.

And I'm focused on Oak Park primarily right now.

So it's a great program.

Do it again, get more small developers going, and let's get some housing built.

I have no more speakers on this item.

Thank you.

Start off with Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, so I went to my sticky note the sticky notes that we did at our retreat about our priorities and underneath economic development.

Uh we all agreed that it was about sense of community being Sacramento proud, being a government town, giving people a reason to come back after visiting our state capital that presenting us a unique opportunity, the people, culture, diversity, strong neighborhoods, small town bill, but still being a large city, um, and sports sports sports being something that can unite our Sacramento region and like really bring in the smaller cities on the outside of City Sacramento into um into our downtown core.

So I just want to read those out loud because I was thinking about how much time we spent discussing this, and you know, like how we need it and also on economic development, how we need to monitor our job growth, child care opportunities, how we market the city, prioritize investment, building vacancies, um, our hotel tax, sales tax, and new business expansions.

So those are some of the things that stuck out from the retreat that we had noted.

So I wanted to put those out there for anybody that didn't go to our retreat to understand where we landed on this item.

Um with that being said, uh Denise, thank you so much for the numbers that you presented today.

I think that what we all want to see here is more data on how our programs are working.

Um, and it's exactly what I'm looking for.

This the numbers that you presented in terms of small business support is what I'm looking for for the large scale projects that we currently are working on.

Like Aggie Square.

We celebrated it.

We, you know, I went to the ribbon cutting, went to a few events.

But if you asked me as a council member what the impact has been to date on this project, I wouldn't be able to tell you, and that's something that we need to market for the city of Sacramento.

When we have these large-scale projects, we should rebriefed and know exactly like five amazing facts about the project, even if it's not in our district, um, because of the investments that we made and the public-private partnerships that were possible.

Um, so not just like for the large ones, but for the small ones, the seed program, you know, how much money did we put in, how much money did we get back, the 916 card that we do during the holidays, how many cards were bought, what profit did the businesses make, um, concerts at DOCO.

I mean, recently there was like a Mexican band that went to uh the the Golden One arena, and I saw everybody from my hometown and what from Willows, California here in Sacramento on Facebook, and I was like, okay, are they staying in our hotels?

How many?

Because I swear I saw everybody from Northern California here in Sacramento.

I want to see what that impact looks like.

Um, our Sacramento Kings, you know, obviously, now we're not doing so great.

Um, we just let the beam last night, though.

Um, but like what does that impact look like too?

And Aftershock and Iron Man and all those events that visit Sacramento does.

What is the city's contribution look like in terms of dollars?

And that's something that I hope we can get more often on a quarterly basis here, and because as a council member for this region, I need to be able to pull those fun facts and those data like off the bat in any given situation.

It's our role here to be cheerleaders of Sacramento to incentivize businesses to come pick us, and we need to be prepared at any given moment that we see an investor or that we see Barry Broom talking to someone at a coffee shop, and we say, hi, I'm creating the council member, come to our city, please, and thank you.

So that's what the data I hope to get from in the future based on this topic, and I'd be really grateful for that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Maple.

All right, thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you for the presentation.

I've been really looking forward to this.

I know it's uh happening a little bit later in the evening than we probably anticipated.

Um, but I appreciated hearing about the different activities that are already going on in the city of Sacramento.

I think we are really creative.

We do a lot with a little, um, and uh just like just like what was heard from Mr.

Lacuz talking about that small incubator program.

I don't know many other cities that do things like that that are really proactive in that way.

So I think that's awesome.

Um one overarching question I have maybe this for you, Mr.

Jasso, is um I saw a lot of different pieces as part of the presentation, and I know these all connect together.

Do we have a citywide economic development strategy that is on paper that we can go and look at and confer with?

So the closest we uh have that when 2018 when we adopted scale up, which was more of an opportunity piece in the sense of it identified areas to make investments in a way that would equably grow our economy, particularly focus on opportunities that are unique to Sacramento, but would have reach into all our communities, particularly kind of our disinvested communities and communities of color on it.

That is still relevant.

Um, but um we don't uh on our uh in our website have a single place for a strategy.

We do leverage the strategies that have been produced for the regional uh kind of piece through GSEC and Valley Vision's work, et cetera.

We have talked about this about uh kind of putting forward and making sure that we can uh kind of articulate better than we have candidly, a single strategy.

Nothing super complex, because really it probably comes down to, you know, kind of two pages of work that say, you know, here's how we're focusing on a small business, here's how we're focusing on placemaking, et cetera.

So that's something that we do envision having come forward in the near future.

Okay, thank you.

Um I uh if I hadn't heard of scale up before, so I would love, I'll go take maybe your staff can send me that.

Um I would love to know have we have have you or your team come back and report to the council about how we've implemented scale up, whether we've met all of those things that we wanted to do, or if some of them are left undone.

So the chat the challenge with uh there's still a lot of things that are left undone.

So things that were identified, for instance, is investment in life sciences.

Uh, that was actually a lot of the driving force behind looking at Aggie Square as an opportunity on it.

Admittedly, when uh we adopted um scale up just before the pandemic, and the pandemic hit, and we pivoted you know significantly for about three, four years, at least certainly three years, um, we're still actually closing out ARPA now from our standpoint, and as a reminder, both uh the kind of um ARPA and CRF were both ridden very much from a perspective of survival of businesses and kind of investing, you know, at the time.

They were not really strategic kind of investments per se.

We tried to do that as much as possible, but it was really about keeping doors open, people employed during that period.

So now we're pivoting back to it, and and more recently I've been involved, for instance in the We Prosper Together work that is led by Valley Vision, etc.

on on much more strategic of how do we position our economy.

We continued the building portions, and that was particularly true of the business side of the conversation economic development.

We very much continued the work and built the work on the both the people investment in terms of workforce development, working closely with SETA and some others, and particularly on the place investment.

Um, you know, everything in terms of uh rail yards, I square our corridors doing the corridor work on with NDAT in terms of the strategic visioning and then the implementation of corridor work on it.

So I wouldn't say that things have been left, but with respect to industry attraction retention, that's something we are coming back to in more full force now.

Okay, so I think for um I think first and foremost, um, I think that we need to adopt a citywide economic development strategy.

I think that document um needs to exist somewhere that the public can access it and that we can inform it.

Um sounds like 2018, uh, though it seems like it wasn't that long ago, it was long enough ago that the majority of this council wasn't here.

So I think it's a great opportunity now that we we have that conversation and start that process.

I also think it will really help us moving forward, being able to have something to base decisions off of, knowing that this is the number one priority for this council in this year.

Uh, I think that that makes a lot of sense, and it also will tell it'll tell us what to say yes to and also what to say no to, because we can't do everything.

Um, and so being able to have a strategy to say, okay, if you know here are the the five things that we can do with the resources that we have, and this is how we're gonna move things forward, and this is how we're gonna get the data to Vice Mayor's point.

Um, I think that would be really helpful, and then you know, having the bigger goals, and then what are the action items within those goals is gonna be really important.

So I would absolutely advocate that we do that.

Um, and I want to say you mentioned a couple of these, GSEC and Valley Vision.

Thank you for coming in your comments.

I've read um, I've read some of these reports.

I think they're wonderful, and I think absolutely we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

A lot of this work has already been done in partnership.

So, how do we take how do we create a strategy that's city-specific but is based on the work that already has happened?

Um, and we can pluck from that and say, Yep, this works, this supplies directly, um, and work in partnership with these groups, because the other thing is we can't do everything ourselves and we'd be fools to try.

Um, but we're really lucky to have great partners and resources in our region like GSEC, like Valley Vision and others.

And so I'd love the Metro Chamber and and beyond, and so I'd love to make sure that we're bringing in those partners and having those conversations now while we begin this process.

And I think this workshop is a great, a great beginning point.

Um, and that I took some notes, so I'm gonna try to weave these together in a way that makes sense.

So hopefully we can do this.

Um, one of the things that um I'm really excited about, one one of the things that we're talking about later, right after this, the streamline Sacramento.

I think it completely is in line with with economic development, is how how are we getting out of our own way, how are we streamlining the process and making it easier to to open businesses to build to build housing, all the things get through the permit process.

So I'm excited to hear about that.

But I'm sure there'll be more work that comes after that.

We'll hear what what happens with streamline, and then hopefully we'll be informed on what do we need to do next because I think it's gonna be a continuous process, and that's all going to tie back to how it's going to be easier for business because I I certainly know that there's things that we can improve on on that front.

The other thing that obviously came to mind district five is home to I think the most business corridors of anywhere in the city so we have Broadway and Stockton and Franklin and Freeport Macroad Florent Road and so I think a lot about how we incorporate aging business corridors into the conversation about economic development because the downtown is so important it's the economic engine of the city I think we need to invest a lot of energy and time in there but also we can't leave behind the other places in the city and there's a lot of other notable corridors I can think of Del Paso and Northgate and beyond.

And so I I would absolutely love those corridors to be a part of the conversation as we move forward and making sure that we're not leaving any communities behind.

I also think there's a lot of great opportunity in these places because if you look along some of these corridors you see great opportunities to open up businesses you've got some empty storefronts are there are there ways that we can activate spaces like that empty lots are those opportunities for in how infill housing and beyond so that's a key component for me making sure it's equitable across the city and as well as investing in the downtown is important.

I mentioned this a little bit but activating spaces and so we my office along with some of the city staff were organizing a trip to San Francisco to go look at their vacant to vibrant program you know take a look at what they're doing there how they've been able to how they've been successful whether or not it's something that we could replicate here but their mayor uh has had a lot of success with activating their empty storefronts there through this creative partnership with the private sector and government and I think that's something we should absolutely look at here because we do have a lot of those assets in our communities just drive down Broadway you'll see empty storefront after empty storefront look here in downtown on K Street just a couple blocks away that's prime area for there to be maybe some micro businesses that can get their shot and open up but um it just takes some creativity and the right partnerships.

So that's another thing that I think would could be a great opportunity for us as a part of this strategy and plan.

That this was mentioned a little bit but housing and transportation is an economic development strategy.

We hear this a lot in SACOG and other places but it is true.

I would like to say that I'm so proud of my city because we are we are leaders in this space we have done so much to make it easier to build housing in our in our city and I think we got to continue down that road I wanted to share an anecdote the mayor and I were at Aggie Square not too long ago with uh Mr.

Broome and others and we were talking with a company there that was uh interested in looking at the space and I brought up not just Aggie Square as a great resource but the fact that Stockton Boulevard has a thousand units planned and under development the fact that we are looking at doing a bus rapid transit line down the boulevard and and the colonial theater and all these really exciting things and they were really blown away by that because we have to realize that if we're trying to entice companies Fortune 100 companies and beyond they're not just thinking about you know office spaces for their workers they're thinking about what does livability look like for our workers how can we keep them here how can they get around the city do they have to own a car can they afford the housing that's right next to them all of those things are things that they're thinking about so we need to be thinking about it too about how they all connect and so you know I know we are all the time but just really take constant opportunities to do more infill housing projects I look at things like State Cog's green green means go program and ways that we can support that to make it to make sure that we have more housing and opportunity in our city and then the last thing I'll add on there is also pedestrian safety so sometimes we talk about these things separately but for those who attended the state of downtown breakfast this morning heard from a keynote speaker who talked about streets and how the way that they're designed and how people feel safe moving around them and the speed at which people move absolutely impacts business and and so I think we are already thinking about that.

We have a great team, but we know that resources are tight.

So I think we incorporating how do people move around our city and feel safe in that process should be a part of our plan as well.

And so that is, those are most of my like broad comments.

I did have one specific comment to my district that I brought up with a few of the members here, and I think even you as well, Mr.

Jess over the years, is we have a resource that in the city of Sacramento, and that's the county executive airport.

Right now it has uses on it that are great.

You know, we have training schools for flights and and all kinds of other uses.

We have restaurants and whatnot, but I would say also we have a lot of very underutilized space there.

And I think it is time that we also, in partnership with the county, knowing that we have that partnership with the county um airports to think about what else we could do there.

Um and one thing that specifically has come up in conversations uh with some of uh some of our business community members is there are other cities in California that have been working with um with drone companies and they're testing there that it's really hard for them to find spaces around California and beyond where they can test, and these are unmanned drones, these are imagine this.

You go to one day, a couple of years from now, you can go to the county executive airport, you've got a you've got an appointment in San Francisco, you can get on an unmanned drone that carries four people at a time, and you can get to your appointment in 30 minutes.

Um, and it's completely electric with no emissions.

Things like that are possible if we can create opportunities for these businesses to come in and do research and development.

Uh, and based on my conversations with them, they think that could be a prime location.

And so those are the types of creative things I would love to be thinking about about the resources we already have that could be relatively small investments for us, but it's big for them.

Um, and so with that, I know I've been speaking for a long time, uh, so I will end it there.

And just thank you.

Appreciate it.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Thank you, Mayor.

You mentioned executive airport brings back many memories.

I thank you for uh what I think was a very um comprehensive presentation, uh, and uh covered I think all the all the elements that constitute the the whole of economic development.

There's a lot of ways you can you can slice this issue.

Um tonight I I actually want to uh build a little bit on what council member maple said and talk about this from uh a geographic point of point of view in two respects.

And the first point the first aspect is connecting some dots here from what we heard earlier in the evening when we saw the map of where our uh most challenging areas are related to to crime prevention and reduction.

And those are the areas that need economic investment.

Those are the areas that it matters most, where the opportunity to help people gain the skills they need to be employed, where economic investment can bring new businesses, where reimagining those corridors can bring real change in not just uh appearance, but in vitality, activity, and economic output, and so the tools we have we're already employing to some extent in uh in these areas, and I wouldn't say we're unintentional about it, I'd say we are intentional uh about it, but I don't think we're uh placing the emphasis on it that we need to in order to realize real uh success.

So uh, for me, and uh looking at if if uh the next step is to develop a city uh economic development strategy, uh that would be a particular, that would be a particular element of of concentration from my point of view.

This the second uh aspect of this is the downtown.

What we heard uh uh this morning, in part from from um Jeff Speck was that everybody shares downtown as a neighborhood.

And I and I think that's true.

Uh I think that's absolutely right.

You know, sometimes uh over the years I've heard members of of the council in the past I don't want to chafe over what they felt was uh an ondue uh focus and concentration on on downtown uh in their view at the expense of neighborhoods.

I don't think this is a zero-sum game.

I don't think this is a limited pie.

I think this is a pie that needs to grow.

And uh uh we need the downtown to flourish.

Uh as I've looked at it in the past, and you and I discussed this, uh, from us from sitting on a different dais.

There are two things that people who are travelers look at typically to make a judgment about about a place.

They look at the airport and they look at the downtown.

And if those two things work, if they're attractive, if uh they are vital and vibrant, if there's activity, uh, then they go home and say that's a pretty great place.

I'd go back there.

And if they don't work, they go home and say, gee, I think that place is struggling, and I don't know that I want to go back.

So we all have, we're get the airport for the moment.

That's another hat.

We we have a critical interest in making sure that our core is successful.

We all have that.

We all share that.

And so uh this morning, in many respects, I thought was inspirational in terms of the ideas and thoughts and vision that it created in terms of uh potential for the core.

But for the purpose of this evening, all I would say is for me, an economic development strategy that doesn't recognize the critical character and role that the core plays will not be a successful economic development strategy for the city.

So um uh I the only other thing that that I would say is I appreciate those who came tonight and spoke because they uh embody that larger vision of what economic development means for not just the city, frankly, but for the but for the region.

And I can't help but think back to a trip that the airport director and I and a couple other people took to uh Calgary to visit with uh WestJet to try to convince them to begin service between Sacramento and Vancouver, can I Canada.

When the 25-year-old route planners for WestJet walked into the room and said, where is Sacramento?

We've come a long way since then.

That was that was a decade and a half ago or so.

And we I don't think have to take our map with us to show people where Sacramento is.

But I do think that those who are engaged in this work of trying to to recruit and bring new businesses and enterprises to to Sacramento deserve uh some recognition because we're an important place, but we're in a big state.

And we uh face uh other locales that have a higher profile uh than we do.

And so I think I think it's it's important to recognize how successful we've been through the work that those who spoke tonight and others others have done.

There's there's much to do.

The competition is intense, but the future is here, because we have so many assets that other places can't match, that once people know who we are, then they are absolutely I think attracted to uh come to the city and and to the to the region.

So it means in that growth in that global sense of economic development, recognizing that we still need to put real resources into that kind of recruitment and and outreach, but it also means that we can build on on those assets that we have and which are emerging over time as even more valuable and and important.

Thanks.

Couldn't agree more, Councilmember, and really echo the sentiment that it is it cannot be an either-or proposition.

Our downtown versus our neighborhoods.

But downtowns, to your point, are the identifier.

If they're not just the identifier nationally in terms of kind of how other places look at the city and kind of identify a city, any city uh for that matter, but they're also our defining characteristics in the larger region.

And what is the role of Sacramento as the core city kind of for the larger region, which is clearly as you know, the sports center, the cultural center, you know, the amenity center, the things that all make cities great, and and Sacramento really needs to extol those and build on those those virtues.

So we totally agree with that perspective.

Sacramento has tremendous advantages, I think, and particularly in the context of California.

Um so for business that are looking at big California, trying to, you know, we really have a competitive landscape that we just need to make sure that story gets out there if they're looking at California because it it is so strong.

It's interesting.

When I moved here, I really had um not a lot of impression about uh Sacramento.

I knew uh basic facts about it, etc.

But that's generally a good place to be in the sense of at least initially, in the sense of it's not a negative reputation, etc.

I I think we're past that point now, but we really need to amp that up considerably.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Plecky Bob.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, my ask is that as we come back with a um updated uh strategic plan and vision document for for this work, we look at a few key areas um all of which you've thought of before, uh, you know, attract and retain businesses, uh, figure out how to um you know sustain that work and make uh community investments that will uh create continue to create and support uh a vibrant economy such that um we can have the kind of tax base that we'll need to do the kind of work that our residents rightly expect.

Uh as we're looking at business growth, um a few of the um, you know uh sort of fork-in-the-road strategies will be to uh see look outside the region uh at industries that we can um acquire and or um uh convince to to set up shop here, um, but simultaneously also looking in our own backyard at opportunities to grow uh local talent.

Um and I'm really looking um uh Denise at workforce development as a as a real um opportunity area for us.

Uh uh some of us went to uh Boston last year.

Uh if you'd asked me before that trip, uh did we have enough universities, I would have said yes.

Boston has 44 universities, so I figure we could probably maybe have a fourth.

And in that space, uh also in addition to higher educational opportunities, I think uh career technical uh opportunities, uh workforce training um in the trades and and um uh and in particular um aeronautics, uh I take uh council member maple's comments uh about um opportunities for uh autonomous flight and um and also um uh more.

Uh so um you know, including the you know, Los Rio, C C Davis, sex state, and also uh other opportunities for um growth and expansion in that space, I think will be a tremendous opportunity for us.

Again, uh echoing uh council member's uh comments about transportation and housing, not only is housing an economic development strategy insofar as producing housing creates a lot of good high-paying jobs, but also we need the housing uh for our workforce.

Uh it's a very virtuous cycle.

And simultaneously, if there are opportunities to reduce transportation costs in the balance, uh that's yet another opportunity to uh, you know, uh for our families to do better uh with the the money that they earn um and potentially yield better outcomes for the region.

I know none of this is um you know new news to any of you, but uh it has to be said, um, uh, opportunities for us to focus on economic vibrancy and resiliency.

I'm really looking at um our partners at Valley Vision and others on this score.

If there's a way for us to meaningfully quantify what it means for our families to have economic resiliency and and for them to be in a position of security and safety such that they're not uh so economically fragile and vulnerable.

I think that is a very important goal for not just for our city but for our region for us to be thinking about what are the things that we can do to uh support them in their lives and their families and that work.

Uh and then again, uh Councilmember Maple brought up our uh commercial corridors.

I think there's a real opportunity for us to think about the community investments that we make uh in downtown for sure.

Like Councilmember Dickinson said, but also uh throughout the the city and the region and and our commercial corridors tend to be those opportunity spaces.

So uh thank you for this work.

I look forward to you know uh this iterative approach of coming back and um looking for opportunities to continue to build on all the good work that you're doing.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I kind of want to go to the questions you guys specifically asked, and I'm gonna put it back on you guys and frame it a different way.

I think we need an economic development plan because I can give you my opinions, but you know what we as a city need is me to base my opinions off of the data you provide to us of what is meaningful progress look like, how what criteria should we use to prioritize investments and activities?

I want to see data that we need to look at in order to make those decisions of what are we prioritizing and what investments and activities, because what gives us the best return, and I I want you guys as the experts to be telling me that.

I can say, sure, we need more Ferris wheels, but I don't know what data that is based off of, except I really like Ferris wheels.

So I think it highlights we really need the data of what should we focus on to strengthen coordination?

Well, where are the gaps in coordination?

What where are the gaps that we're missing that working with the industry, we know we have those gaps, and maybe it's a flipping it of what are our strengths, and do we get the biggest bang for our buck if we coordinate the strengths in and know as our region being you know, health care and agriculture and government, how do we strengthen that?

And is that the best return on economic development?

I want to echo what Councilmember Maple Dickinson and Plucky Baum said.

We really have to look at when we when we strengthen our downtown, we're strengthening our city.

But what we heard this morning um is something that I lived every day when I lived in Europe and traveled across the cities.

Walkability of our commercial corridors.

So it's not just downtown, but we have amazing historical commercial corridors that we need to concentrate on that walkability.

Like Del Paso, I love like to be able to walk.

Stockton Boulevard, some of those areas that it has shown slow traffic down, increase that walkability, creates that economic vibrancy that we know we need in some of those areas that are harder hit um economically, and I would look to you.

What are the best best ways for enticing small businesses and others to come?

Because you know, the data you showed is that a majority of our businesses in Sacramento have 10 or less employees.

So the vibrancy of our city are our individual family-owned, and yes, we talk about big business, but what are we doing to encourage that entrepreneurial spirit that we hear and you guys have programs?

But how are we tying them to maybe some of our commercial corridors that could use that investment and how are we helping them?

Because that'll help the community all the way all the way around.

One of the things uh I'm going to continue to harp on, uh, we need to bring back for discussion about right sizing our business operate operations tax.

It has been on the books since 1991.

When Walmart and our very big multinational corporations are paying five thousand dollars a year and surrounding jurisdictions, the business operating tax is 125 or more.

That's missed opportunity because economic development is about growth, and we have left millions of dollars on the table.

But at the same time, when we look at our business operating tax, why don't we provide a tax break for our smallest businesses, for our grocery stores that have thin razor-thin profit, for our small restaurants and businesses that have razor-thin margins of profit that are our moms and our pops who live here today who get at the heart of how do we have family economic resiliency when we at the city can still be bringing in millions of more dollars, but be doing a tiered tax structure that has been done in other Bay Area cities all over that not only helps our employees but our families and our businesses.

So I really think that needs to stay on the table for discussion.

Failure to do that means minimum of five million dollars a year, if not more, that can be coming in and really helping businesses that need it going into uh further discussion that we talked about this morning and what we heard is is who doesn't love going to Boston and the old town or in the old areas in New York or Pittsburgh and the old cities, and we all talk about oh my god, this is so great, these big buildings and the trees and the walkability.

Yet it's almost virtually illegal to build.

I know we've made changes in our in our zoning and how we do things, but we all want that walkability, we all want those condos, we all want those walk-ups, we all want those brownstones.

And those brownstones don't just need to be in our downtown corridor.

What about in the greater suburban cores?

How do we incentivize them next to transit because economic development is affordability in housing and increasing the affordability for many?

It's increasing transit, getting people out of their cars.

It's really expensive, and and that provides that stability, but it also creates that walkability and economic incentive, because if that's walkable, people are going to be investing in their neighborhoods when they have that.

So creating these these areas where housing's here, commercials here, you know, retails here, that doesn't work.

That isn't economic uh development.

We're missing those opportunities by continuing to build our neighborhoods in that style and not not demanding um a change.

And I'd really like to look at you know, incentive programs, and when we talk about needing housing for economic development, you look at Seattle has some incentive housing for affordability and others while I'm not necessarily about our mixed income housing ordinance.

Let's look what other cities have done for incentives that could come into our vacant spaces and our vacant lots that we may be able to go to these developers that are on the smaller scale to build the housing that we need, especially if we incentivize among our transit corridors.

So I think you're on the right track, but overall, I need to actually see an economic development plan based off of data of looking at what is Sacramento best at, how do we capitalize on that, and how do we move it the next step forward?

Because we already know we need to invest in old Sacramento.

What does the data say?

Bring that back to me.

We know the rail yards is gonna bring us something, bring that back to me.

Uh, the development of Innovation Park in Natomas that's gonna bring economic development, bring that bring that back.

What is all of that say?

And what are we doing to expeditiously push things forward when you talk about what the mayor and pluckyball have done with streamlined Sacramento?

Like, is it all tying together?

Because when we talk about economic development, government can't stand in the way.

We need to look at what are the barriers and are we doing all that we can do to remove those barriers.

So thank you.

Okay, thank you.

So I know we have a lot of opinions on what to do here.

I have a few, but I I will I'm gonna turn it over to our city manager because this is our 48th day on the job.

And you came up here, I think before you got the job, and you came to our our our retreat summit and we voted this as our top priority.

And and all joking aside, I I I think what's that saying?

If you're if you're everything to everyone, you're nothing to everyone as well.

And that's kind of we do a lot of stuff, we all have a lot of opinions, but it's just kind of shooting in it, shooting out with a shotgun approach.

And so I I just want to be laser focused on where we can be most effective.

And zero in on great opportunity zones.

Um, you know, we have this once in a generation opportunity at Aggie Square to bring life sciences to Sacramento.

That's an example, but just want to ask you if you can uh first outline where we go from here, and I'll forward some more comments.

So, Mayor, I think that's uh a very good question.

So the way I see it is I do think we have to have a roadmap and a plan on how we get there.

Um so we need to develop a plan.

That plan needs to have uh one year, five year, and a long-term plan, ten years, because I think we at some point have to envision what we want Sacramento to be.

Uh so when we're developing that plan, what needs to be in the plan is actionable items.

So, for instance, we have we outline our goals.

So, let's just say we have our goal.

What our first goal is postal downtown, housing, our commercial corridors.

Well, how do we get there?

So, an example, action item, we activate surplus properties or vacant properties.

So, then you have something that says, Well, how do you measure that?

So, then we look at our housing construction on surplus or vacant properties.

So, that's just an example.

So, what we need to do is if we're going to develop a plan, we actually have to take that plan and create an action plan, and that action plan comes in increments of one year, five years, and a 10-year plan.

Um, that plan is not just um, it has to have alignment.

So, you talk about visit SAC, you talk about GSAC, you talk about all of our partners and stakeholders who need to be involved in the plan.

Because we have great, I mean we have a lot of great items in front of us, but how are we prioritizing those items?

So, you know, we create uh a subset of our population of our business owners and some of our council members in order for us to move forward in that direction.

Um, because if not, we're gonna continue to climb all over each other, we're gonna continue to do things, but are we gonna do them well?

So we need to just prioritize and outline them so we can do them well, and actually just where is Sacramento going to be in 10 years.

What do we want Sacramento to be?

Uh, I think this morning highlighted it well.

You know, it has to be mentorship, it has to be uh supportive, and it has to be sustainable.

So I think if we could get some alignment with this council uh for the team to go back and create um, I would say we bring in a consultant uh to create a strategic plan along with our partners, our business community, so we can determine how we move forward from here.

Yeah, and I guess that I'm amen to that and um uh not just the plan but having people prioritize.

And you know, if you go to our website and look at our amazing staff, it's all over the map, honestly, and they do, but I'm not sure if it's all focused on that plan, and maybe our great people we could reassign them to be more focused on what we think is gonna produce the biggest step dividends.

Um, we are all voted for this topic number one because we want to live in a vibrant city that's you know a fun city, a cool city, a thriving economy, but lift up people who live here to give them ladders for economic success and also grow our economy.

So we're not here on the third of March talking about a sixty-six billion dollar hole and making cuts to our city department.

So um, you know, I'll I'll I'll leave it at you, and I'll we'll move on to our to our next item to come back with that plan, but also redirect our people to make sure we're specific, and maybe some of the things that we do that may not be popular, we don't do that anymore.

I'm not saying these people are gonna not have jobs anymore, we can just do something different with those same qualified, talented people, so we can just be more laser focused.

Um, so with that, this is an informational item.

We all wanted to agendize.

I think we got um where we need to go for our next steps.

So thank you.

Next item, thank you.

Next item is item seven, streamline Sacramento, an overview of the city's 2025 development process improvements program.

All right, good evening, Mayor and Council members.

I'm Matt Hurdle, Assistant Director of Community Development.

So spearheaded by Mayor McCarty and Council Member Plucky Baum, Streamline Sacramento is the city's development process improvements program.

The aim is to increase construction of housing and other development projects that strengthen our local economy.

Set the stage, here's a quick snapshot of the number of housing units built each year.

We continue to see a healthy level of housing production, but not enough to meet the demand or the state target.

Thanks to your collective efforts, the city has been a leader in getting more housing built for all income levels.

In 2020, we implemented significant planning streamlining, pushing many approvals to staff level and allowing checklist approvals for infill housing.

In 2021, the council approved the city's eight-year housing strategy with many ambitious programs that we continue to implement.

A full update on progress will come before you in May.

And in 2022, the City of Sacramento was the first jurisdiction in the state to be awarded the Pro Housing Designation, which opens up additional funding for housing and sends a market signal.

And in 2025, with the direction of Mayor McCarty and Councilmember Pluckybaum, we kicked off Streamlined Sacramento, focused on streamlining the building permit process.

And these efforts are paying off.

Of the six top housing producing cities in the state, Sacramento produces the most units per capita.

Streamlined Sacramento has taken a close examination of each step of the building permit process, but the two main components are plan review, ensuring construction drawings meet the minimum requirements of the California Building Code, and inspections, ensuring that what is built meets the approved plans.

The City of Sacramento processes a high volume of both plan review and building inspections.

Twenty-three thousand plan reviews are conducted each year, and we meet the published timelines 98% of the time.

And 72,000 inspections are completed annually, with 97% completed on time.

So here's a quick look back.

We received a lot of input from builders, developers, and the small business community, provided updates to council, and focused on implementing as many of the ideas as possible.

For Streamline Sacramento to be effective, it was vital to work closely with each of the five departments that play a role in the review and approval of development projects.

And grateful to all those who provided input and contributed to Streamline Sacramento.

This included 13 meetings with the development community, five informational interviews, and about 20 demos with AI and software companies.

The potential actions table has been our tool for capturing new ideas and tracking progress.

The latest version is attached to the staff report and can be found on the Streamline Sacramento webpage.

To date, the team has instituted 72% of the potential actions.

So attachment three of the staff report includes details and status of all 49 actions, but I wanted to take just a quick few minutes here to highlight four key impacts in 12 significant actions.

First key impact of Streamlined Sacramento is shortened approval timelines.

Three actions that have helped us accomplish this include meet or exceed plan review timelines and avoidance of comments after cycle one.

The city of Sacramento is one of the few jurisdictions that publicly posts and holds ourselves accountable to plan review timelines for each project type.

We have a strong track record to meeting or exceeding our timelines.

In fact, we do this more than 98% of the time, well above our 90% target.

In the coming months, we'll be exploring reducing our published timelines even further.

Significant time has been shaved off by more than doubling the speed of assigning addresses to new buildings and automating the various sign-offs needed to demolish an existing structure.

We are also in the final stages of the instituting parcel map waivers for small residential subdivisions, saving up to three months.

The second key impact of Streamlined Sacramento is increased ease of opening and expanding businesses.

Three actions that have helped us achieve this include launching and expanding the small business liaison program, helping small businesses navigate the permitting process with dedicated staff, online resources, and how-to guides, and also offering quarterly permitting one-on-one classes with the initial class on March 19th, focusing on small businesses undergoing tenant improvements.

Two actions focused on getting build buildings occupied as soon as possible to move in equipment and train staff.

Self-certification for restaurants and instant building permit issuance for minor permits, accelerates approvals through bypassing the plan review step.

The third key impact of Streamlined Sacramento is to reduce the cost of development.

Recognizing that the alternate water systems ordinance was impeding economic development, such as new hotels, with little to no environmental benefit.

City Council rescinded this requirement in December.

Accessory dwelling units continue to be an increased part of our housing solution with nearly 400 permits issued in 2025.

To continue to incentivize the production, we will be waiving the fee for optional zoning review and have updated the free shelf ready ADU plans for further flexibility and reduced construction cost.

In April, Council authorized participation in the Bold program, which finances public infrastructure and impact fees for new development.

The fourth and final key impact of Streamlined Sacramento is simplified processes and enhanced customer service.

In October, a six-month pilot was launched to expand in-person public counter services to five days a week, harnessing AI to streamline the plan review inspection processes and virtual inspection technology for minor permits.

In December, the team instituted an inspection tracker, an internal web-based dashboard for supervisors to track inspections and make schedule or inspector adjustments in real time, thereby preventing overloaded inspectors and the need for inspections to roll over to the next business day.

Inspection results are also entered in real time from the field.

Although 2025 has concluded, the important work of Streamline Sacramento continues.

The five department team will continue to implement actions and we will facilitate quarterly meetings with the development community to track progress and to solicit additional streamlining ideas.

Some of the key actions to be on the lookout for in 2026 include reduction of the published plan review timelines for some projects, kickoff of the small project rapid review program, completing project reviews within 72 hours, and the launch of the permitting one-on-one course, with the first one occurring in March.

With that, I conclude my presentation.

The representatives from each of the five departments here, as well as Joe Yee, who has been a critical and assisting with this effort.

So thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

We have uh 11 public comments.

First is Charles Krafka.

Following Charles is Parker Evans.

Michael Turgeon, Rosario Caldwell.

Good evening.

I'm Charles Krafka.

I'm an engineer at Cunningham Engineering.

Um, our office does extensive work in the city of Sacramento.

I'd guess that at any time, we typically have at least half a dozen projects active at some stage of design or construction.

Um, so I think it's pretty safe to say we know the city system pretty well.

Um, I would like to start by saying that I think City of Sacramento is definitely a top tier when it comes to uh the permitting and processing of uh documents for approval.

Um as somebody who's on the um outside looking in, I think there's probably a couple reasons for that.

One, there are a lot of processes in place.

Some of the ones that we're just um discussed.

I'm look forward to seeing some of those being implemented.

Um, but I think the biggest reason is the staff that y'all have working for y'all.

Um, I truly believe I'll work with a lot of agencies in the region, and I truly believe that y'all have some of the strongest staff in these departments.

In the audience, I'm sitting with Chad Coltman, who is the uh I think his title is supervising engineer, interim supervisor engineer Hilman, his department and public works are some of the best around.

And I'm also sitting with uh Neil Joyce, who's with the Department of Utilities.

I've worked with Neil for years, and I truly believe that Hill and his team make up the best Department of Utilities that I worked with.

They're awesome, they're great.

And I also think that the approach that the city takes to the stormwater quality design and management is the most reasonable in the region.

Work with Fernando quite often.

He's another great staff person that y'all have.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Parker.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, Council members.

My name is Parker Evans, and I'm the acquisitions manager for Mutual Housing California, your hometown homegrown, nonprofit affordable housing developer.

And it's thanks in parts to efforts like this that Mutual Housing California currently has 500 affordable housing units under construction right now in the city of Sacramento.

Next month is the Housing California Conference, which is the conference in the affordable housing world.

And I've been invited to speak on a panel this year with Matt and with city planner Greta Seuss to talk about how jurisdictions across the state can remove barriers to affordable housing development.

I'm gonna give you guys a little stink preview of my comments, which are essentially copy everything that the city of Sacramento is doing because this is the easiest place in the state to build affordable housing.

We have the most progressive planning staff in the state, enabled by a city council who not just talks the talk but walks the walk, and their support for affordable housing here through support for integral programs like the Zero Dollar Impact Fee Program.

I love this conference because it gives me a chance to catch up with my colleagues who are developing housing, affordable housing in the Bay Area in LA, those poor, poor suckers.

Well, they're developing while they're complaining about shadow studies and review timelines and neighbor lawsuits.

They love it when I tell them that in my seven years developing affordable housing in the city of Sacramento, we have not attended one single planning and design commission meeting, much less a city council meeting for our approvals.

Everything we've built in recent years has been ministerial and non-controversial.

That is insane, and I think it's worth celebrating.

And I wish every local jurisdiction could be as enlightened.

A little while back we were working through some thorny entitlements in a different jurisdiction.

Our housing development team was strategizing, and we asked ourselves, oh my god, do we need a land use attorney?

Does anybody know a good land use attorney?

We we've never had to use land use attorneys here in the city of Sacramento.

The process is that easy.

So let's keep that energy going.

It's really worth highlighting how much better the affordable housing development experience is here compared to the median locality in California.

So huge thanks to Matt and the planning staff for leading the charge and all of you for setting the vision for the city.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Michael Turgeon and Rosario Colvo.

Hey everybody, uh Michael Turgeon here on behalf of uh House Sacramento.

Uh, your local scrappy pro housing, yes, in my uh backyard, a volunteer organization.

Um, first huge shout out to the uh city staff for all the amazing work that they do and uh for this initiative from Mayor McCarty and Councilmember Plucky Baum for giving this housing crisis the focus it deserves and really getting into fine-tuning the gears of the approval process to find these levers where the city can still make a difference.

Um, when building housing, time really is money.

Uh months or years of unexpected delays can be the nail in the coffin for great projects that otherwise check all the boxes that we've established in our objective zoning and design standards.

And this is especially true uh for our small first-time developers, maybe people with a single parcel, really trying to take a swing of the bat and make housing uh that we need, uh, despite all the risks uh that it entails.

Um we know all that risk and time cost is compounded by interest costs on construction loans, and all these costs are passed on ultimately to buyers and renters and all of us through the downsides of an exacerbated housing crisis.

Uh Streamline SAC gives back some of that precious time, reduces the risk and friction, um, helps reduce all these unknown unknowns that are unleashed when you try to actually build housing and makes the certainty offered by our ministerial approvals and design standards a little bit more real.

Um one year in, the results are striking.

Um, as Matt noted, we've achieved an insane 98.5 uh percent on time rate, and for context, uh that's achieved on quicker review times and a higher rate than Daniel Lurry's San Francisco achieves even on their second cycle of planned rechecks, which is pretty insane.

Um, so just want to say that our uh general uh our 2024 general plan, missing middle ordinance.

Um, it showed the vision, it showed our dedication to ending the housing crisis, and it showed our values and efforts like Streamline Sacramento show that uh we really meant it.

So, thank you again.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Rosario, then Eric Soto and Chris Valencia.

Good evening.

My name is Rosario Calvo, and I'm a senior designer with Mogavero Architects.

Our firm has designed thousands of affordable housing units throughout California, and I'd like to share our recent experience with entitlement approvals for an eight-story 84 unit affordable housing project at 1515 I Street, commissioned by Community Housing Works just behind the Memorial Auditorium.

Throughout this project, regular coordination and meetings with the planning department was very helpful.

Carl Felix was especially supportive.

By engaging early and often, our teams were able to clarify requirements and ensure the design aligned with the city's expectations.

Once we submitted plans that fully complied with the objective development standards, the approval process was quick and smooth.

We believe this collaborative approach and particularly the opportunity for pre-application meetings could be equally beneficial if applied to building department approvals, helping projects move efficiently while maintaining quality and compliance.

Lastly, timely alignment with planning and building departments isn't just convenient.

As many as you know, affordable housing relies on competitive funding and tax credit deadlines.

Meaning those timelines can make a difference between a project moving forward or being delayed another year.

Thank you.

I have six more speakers.

The next is Eric, then Chris Valencia, then Crank Housman.

My phone survived.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Eric Soto.

I'm with IBEX Ventures.

We're a local multifamily developer building housing right here in Sacramento.

Our company is named after the IBEX, the mountain goat known for scaling the steepest mountains with remarkable tenacity and composure.

Building housing in Sacramento sometimes feels like climbing a mountain.

The terrain is steep, the process is complex, and sometimes the goal seems out of reach.

But we show up every single day and we climb.

We work with we work directly with staff across multiple departments of the city, planning, preservation, building, and because we're also the general contractor for a few of our projects, we work directly with field inspectors.

We see the full picture, and we know firsthand that when the process flows well, projects move faster, costs stay down, and more units get built.

And that's exactly what Streamlined Sacramento can unlock.

A cross-departmental effort focused on every stage from application submittal to certificate of occupancy is exactly the kind of structural systematic change that allows builders like us to take on more projects, move faster, and deliver more units.

Faster plan review, more predictable timelines, RFI procedures, and in field revisions, these aren't just conveniences.

They're tools that will make a real difference for housing in this city.

The IBIC succeeds not because the mountain gets easier, but because it has the sure footing to handle what's in front of it.

Streamline Sacramento is how the city builds that footing.

Thank you to this council and the city of Sacramento staff for leading the way and laying in the groundwork that will allow us to all build more housing for more people in the city we're proud to call home.

Next speaker is Chris, then Craig.

Hello, Madam Vice Mayor and members of the City Council.

My name is Chris Valencia, and I'm here on behalf of the North State Building Industry Association, and it's over 500 builder and developer members.

We appreciate the initiation of the Streamlined Sacramento program and the improvements that have been instituted.

I particularly want to thank staff that took the time to meet with us and our members to hear their feedback.

Though the program is ramping down, there's still much work to do.

Changes from streamlined Sacramento largely benefit infill and multifamily housing.

Just one element of housing needs.

Sacramento needs housing at all levels.

That includes single-family detached units.

This program has been a good start, but I urge this council to commit to continue working to improve the process.

The design review process continues to be time consuming that only adds cost to communities, as do onerous requirements imposed by the city.

We must look deeper into the city's planning and approval process to meet our shared housing goals.

Our members want to build housing in Sacramento that families can afford.

And in the spirit of housing for all, we need to broaden our focus and continue the work that has been started and not take our foot off the gas.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Craig Housman.

Then John Vignci.

Evening, Council.

My name is Craig Houseman.

My firm is here locally in Sacramento or on J Street, Midtown.

Permitting.

For those that aren't aware, architects and plan checkers in the building department have an antagonistic relationship.

However, it's a critical relationship.

It's a partnership.

They're my safety net.

I'm here to support the ongoing process, not criticize it.

In talking with other uh practicing architects, I didn't get the impression that the process itself was concerning.

In fact, when working directly with staff in the process, it can be beneficial.

Direct conversations, actually talking to them, often reduces cycles of emails and voicemails, and misunderstandings.

There are policies in place and when followed, they do improve the speed and input of the process itself.

Let me say that again.

The communication is what's going to speed this up.

Streamline's got a lot of great ideas, and all of those can get followed through.

Without the human communication factor, it's not going to really happen so much.

Um, I believe it is improving.

That being said, um, uh the AIA and the um civic engagement team have been working for years.

This open communication uh should benefit both sides of the table, and it will speed up the process.

Once again, thank you very much.

Um I want to encourage the continued outreach and communication.

Thank you.

John, then Vince Bonacci.

Good evening, council.

Thank you, Jaminoki region business.

Um, really want to uh echo everything, all the good uh things that have been said about our amazing planning staff, Matt Hurdle and Tom Pace and uh the team around and Bruce Monagan.

Um, yeah, what they're doing.

I think this is not just this is more than just a campaign slogan, and it's more than just a six-month initiative, thanks to our mayor and Phil Pluckybaum, our council member.

Um, it's more than just a 12-month initiative, it's really a mindset shift, and uh that's really important and critical that not just in the planning, we're planning state department or building department or public works department, more focused on housing.

It needs to be about all types of development.

Okay, so I I surveyed a couple of our members, and there's definitely like the reason why this needs to be an evergreen mindset shift is that there's still a lot of little things that can be approved, and this is amazing progress that we've made.

There's we're doing amazing things, but we got to keep uh the pedal to the metal, kind of like the crime presentation earlier.

Um, when you're doing something good, keep doing it.

Um, so an example of uh retail broker who re uh leases space in Midtown, looking at a retail space in Midtown, this this spot operated as a salon under the prior building owner for many decades until she passed five years ago.

It has a strange residential zoning, despite being a commercial space.

Obviously, it's on the ground floor, apartments above.

Therefore, because it's not been an operation the past 12 months for a commercial use, particularly a salon, it has to get a CUP, which means it's 90 days minimum and $8,000, right?

And so that right there, that means that the landlord is three months away from getting a check, and that's another process that the broker has to keep this tenant on the line to go open a business in midtown that's surrounded by another salon and another shop.

Right?

These are things that we can, if we empower these folks, things that we can continue empowering them.

These are things that we can easily streamline.

Things like tentative uh parcel maps, getting those done in 90 days, um, with 30-day review timelines.

There's so many little areas that we can do and take these efficiencies, but we need to empower great people like we have in our staff.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Vince Bernacci, then Charles Luzo will be our final speaker.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor and Council members.

My name is Vince Bernacke.

I'm the uh president of Shutter Electric, a local construction firm based here in Sacramento for over 50 years.

And uh initially had intentions of uh relating a troublesome experience we had with a simple permit to put a fence up around a warehouse that we purchased on Richards Boulevard.

But uh rather than dwell on that, we now have our permit after seven months uh for a simple installation like a fence.

And uh I just want to say that I'm fully in support of anything the city council can do to expedite the um permit application and uh submittal process.

Thank you.

Charles will be our final speaker on this agenda item.

Thank you.

Good to be the final speaker on a long night.

Um good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Charles Uzo.

I work for Eden Housing, a nonprofit affordable housing developer active in the city of Sacramento.

I'm here tonight giving comments to express my support and appreciation for the city's streamlined Sacramento effort and work.

While so much attention is paid to big things like zoning reforms, general plan updates, housing bills passed through the state legislature, and housing initiatives with billion dollar price tags.

We know that the real work happens on the ground and involves the hundreds or probably thousands of interactions between a development and a city.

These processes are much smaller in scale and don't get the bold print headlines that the big things get, but they are no less important.

They just as equally have the ability to make it take longer to build and to make it more expensive, all of which hurt housing production and ultimately hurt housing affordability.

The city of Sacramento's commitment to getting these details correct is what sets it apart from every other city in the state and makes it truly the most pro-housing city in California.

While other cities still can't get their housing elements correct, now the city of Sacramento is even trying to get its permit counter correct.

The results have and will continue to make it easier to build housing, but more than the results, I want to applaud and support the spirit of this effort.

The focus on continuous improvement, openness to feedback, and problem solving, make this a model for how government should work.

These process improvements really do matter, and so I urge the city to keep up the spirit and apply it to more and more departments throughout the city so we can keep building a more affordable Sacramento.

Thank you again for the great work on the streamlined Sacramento Initiative, and thank you for the time tonight.

Mayor, have no more speakers.

Thank you.

Uh first of all, I just want to know that this is late in the evening.

We had a busy night, and uh there was talks about moving this item, but I was like, no, this is locked in.

No, this is locked in with economic development.

These these two things go hand in hand.

So I just want to say out of the gate.

I know that the last year it's been mentioned that this was the mayor and and uh Mr.

Plucky Bombs.

No, this is the entire council.

Everybody in the council goes to their communities and talks about how we can make it easier to do business in the city of Sacramento.

The the department that comes first is of course our the building department and our community development part, but all departments we want to make sure it's easier for consumers to do business.

But this is one that you know gets the uh attention rightfully so.

So I'll I'll just I'll I want to make it brief.

My my comments on this, and just say one thank you for for listening to not just the council member and I, but the entire council and making this a top priority and uh focusing on some introspective perspectives, look your introspective kind of look in because sometimes you think, well, people are criticizing my work.

It's like, no, we're we're seeing how we can make it better and not you know throwing out everything away.

So uh thank you for doing that.

And then um, number two is is just you know, multiple people said this in different ways, but we need to keep at it.

We're not done.

We're not putting up again, like earlier in public safety, a mission accomplished banner.

We're done.

This is a uh a living, breathing, evergreen project.

We're gonna keep focusing on what we can do.

Um I've asked everybody who who who has complained, said give us tangible um ideas and give us a case study what happened so we can evaluate and see if we can do things differently.

So we want to continue to do that so we can strive to make it better, which gets to the last point is um I love the first three speakers, but we don't always hear that when we're in our communities, and I just think like a lot of things we do, we don't always do a good job articulating it to the community and the city of Sacramento.

So just ask um the city staff to to give us a simple one-page handout that we can go to all of our town halls and talk about this is what we're doing in the city.

We're we're making it easier for you to open a salon, open a restaurant, do affordable housing projects, you know, open hotel, whether it's a massive project up in, you know, the Thomas, Stockton Boulevard, or the rail yards or a small one.

We need to make sure that we're showing that we're making life easier for people who want to do business because the negatives always outweigh the buzz, the positives, and sometimes people are making decisions.

I want to think about doing something here or West Sack or wherever.

We need to continue the good news tour.

So, you know, we're doing uh a fine job in this, but let's keep at it and um you know work with our our city team how we can articulate uh these improvements to the greater Sacramento community.

So with that, we'll let's keep it going.

Um Councilmember Plucky Mon.

Thank you, Mayor.

Before I start, I think we need to take a brief motion to extend the meeting.

I'll move to extend the meeting by the duration that the mayor and the clerk recommends motion is out of order.

No, just I agree.

Yes, yes, motion is second.

Um, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Okay, motions extended.

Meetings extended.

Uh so let me if I can uh invite up uh council member Yee, my co-chair in this effort uh to um say anything he would like at this late hour.

And um, while he's coming up, uh acknowledge a few things.

Um, one, thank you, Mayor, for making this a priority.

Uh and um two, I want to acknowledge uh Joe and this work um uh not only the city's long longest-serving planning commissioner, but also an architect and um take it away, Joe.

Retired architect.

Thank you.

Uh in light of the extension, uh, just a couple of comments uh very brief.

The streamline process does not lose sight of two important factors.

That is to assure the technical code compliance of projects.

You know, it is a complicated process, and there are a lot of uh requirements of any project, you know, large or small.

I think equally important, uh, is that it maintains the design integrity, the design standards established by the council by the city.

You know, I am always reminded of the fact that what is built will influence our community for years.

We will live with what is being built.

Um, you know, so it is up to us, the community and your staff to maintain those standards so that we do have a vibrant uh community, you know, a community that we're all proud of.

Second, uh the streamlined process maintains the transparent process, and I think that's important to have staff support each applicant to navigate through the process.

This is important for design teams and owners that are perhaps out of the area, and it's first time dealing with the city.

Uh, it is also equally important to the first time builder, to the first-time owner.

You know, we heard about ADUs, and for that homeowner who embarks on the uh challenge of developing an ADU, it could be a very very difficult process if you've not dealt with it before.

And a staff commitment, and uh as outlined in the uh uh streamlining report, uh, to help that process to encourage that process so that we can get alternative housing types uh built in the city.

Lastly, you know, the the the comment I think is made before time is money, and to try to maintain the essentials of the building permit process, uh, but to do it in an efficient timely manner will reduce costs and encourage development uh within the city that is something we all want.

So those are my thoughts and uh thank you for the opportunity to participate in this process, and as I think the mayor just said, this is a living document that needs to be constantly evaluated and updated, and I'm sure that will be what staff will endeavor to do.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for helping.

Thanks, Joe.

And again, thanks to everyone who's involved in this effort.

I know continuous process improvement efforts um, well, they they don't have an end.

Uh and uh the only end that I'm interested in trying to achieve would be to exceed our arena goals, and until we've built enough housing such that uh this region complains of having too much housing available, uh, we have more work to do.

I recognize that uh achieving that is not entirely in our control.

A lot of what we're trying to do is to create conditions that are favorable to to the outcomes that we're trying to achieve, and that's a difficult measure to be um held accountable for.

Uh, and I really appreciate uh the willingness of all of you to try and to expose when uh when and where you think we can do better and and have failed in the past, and that is a uh a vulnerable thing to do.

And I know that that uh uh it makes me uneasy to do it, so I'm sure it makes you all uncomfortable too.

Um so thank you for being willing to do that work together.

Uh, if anyone ever doubts just how complicated um development can be, take a look at the the flow chart.

Even the streamlined flow chart just on the city side of the equation is an incredibly complex uh set of steps, and there are a lot of people involved in making sure that the region's uh housing is of high quality and safe, and that we are um doing everything that we can to uh meet the expectations of the public.

So, again, thank you all for uh taking taking part of this work, and thank you, Mayor, for leading this effort.

Okay, thank you.

Did you punch up?

You have punched okay.

No, okay, thank you.

That was uh informational item.

So, in the interest of all council members, stay the course.

Um, thank you.

Next, Madam City Clerk, so mayor, we move to council comments ideas, questions, and AB 123 reports.

Okay.

I don't see any council members queued up to speak.

Um I have 11 10 speakers, Michael Bevins, Rick Locke, Kevin Boltz, Joe Barr.

I think we've lost a few people, so if you want to come up, um do a Michael, following Michael is Rick.

Hello, Michael Bevins, uh, citizen uh resident of district too, and I forgot why I came here, it's been so long.

But I think I got some notes here, so I might ramble, but I apologize.

Um, I uh you just had Jeff Speck here talking about walkability.

I would like to tie to that.

We need to talk about between cars and walking is bikeability.

We need uh the city of Sacramento to have the address that's listed in the city of Sacramento, should be able to access it safely by bicycle, whether it's an e-bike or uh acoustic bike as they call it now.

And I I've been through and I've seen a lot of the plans of what the redesign, I'm also a member of the Vision Zero task force.

Um, uh, seeing the plans that are being spit out, and it's uh rogue diets, which are not bad.

I th I'd give out a B.

I think you're gonna end up with uh uh an issue with uh less efficient use of the roadway space as it is currently.

You're gonna have a through lane, you're gonna have a strode instead of having two lanes, you're gonna have a strode with one lane, and you're still gonna want to turn right to get into some business, and now you gotta look out for bicycles on a new path.

So you gotta cross that and the sidewalk.

And the same time when you're coming into the road, you gotta look for the pedestrians and the bicyclist.

They're not there now, but they will be, and then you gotta jump into the road.

Uh I just humbly suggest I have a plan of my own.

Uh I would like to present to you.

I think I talked about it last time I was here.

Our l- the labotomy guy.

That's me.

Split the road.

You have the roadway on the left lane, the street lane on the right lane.

That street lane is slow and so slow that you share the road with bicycles, just like a motorcycle shares the road on a faster lane.

A bicycle can share the road, the street on the right lane.

Boy, time goes by fast.

Anyway, um, I have more to talk about it.

I'd love to talk to you sometime.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Rick Locke, and then Kevin Boltz.

The amazing Rick.

Back before you again.

Thank you, Council members, for the opportunity to speak to you or speak with you this evening.

Uh there's been many great phrases this evening.

Planting seeds, planting trees.

I live in district one, by the way, and we had some tree planting opportunities in the recent past.

Mindset shift is one of the key phrases that popped into my mind earlier.

And I spoke to this last time I came and presented.

Uh inviting you to change the language with which you address most of the situations.

Looking at housing for all, as long as you continue to forward this conversation about homelessness, you're going to continue to forward the conversation about homelessness.

Forward the conversation about housing for all.

And along those lines, I would like to speak to resolution 2023-0995, which is the one that gave the city manager Carte Blanche.

Carte Blanche, that's not quite accurate, that's an exaggeration.

The ability to write a five-million dollar check without council oversight.

I think that needs to be revisited.

And I would like to specifically thank council members Vang, Talamontis, and Kaplan for voting against that initiative.

And I would we're doing really good on time.

So I really appreciate the council taking the opportunity to relook at that.

I initially thought it was a violation of fiduciary standards.

May or may not cross that line, but it definitely violates what an ordinary and prudent person would think the city council should do with the constituents' money.

Thank you.

I don't see Kevin.

Joe Barr.

Following Joe is Daniel Silva, then Anne Marie Flores.

Hi, uh good evening, good morning, whatever it is, we've lost track of time.

Uh, my name is Joe Barr.

Um, I am stepping into the role of executive director at Access Sacramento, the community media outlet serving the city and the county.

And I may McCarty isn't here, but I did want to just thank him because he gave the welcoming remarks at the Alliance for Community Media Conference earlier this month, and we were very proud to bring that conference to Sacramento this year.

On March 5th, the Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission may vote to eliminate funding for peg organizations.

And if that happens, it effectively puts Access Sacramento out of business and ends nearly 40 years of public access media in this region.

There is no operational necessity requiring a vote to defund on March 5th.

We know cable franchise revenue is declining, and we are actively repositioning Access Sacramento to become more strategic, more professional, and importantly sustaining, self-sustaining for the future.

What we have not had is transparent collaborative processes with the commission to build a realistic transition plan.

And there are significant differences between the commission's financial projections and those that we have developed along with SECC.

This deserves a review for irreversible action is taken.

The presentation earlier on economic development was quite timely because Access Sacramento provides workforce training that feeds the region's creative economy.

We train youth seniors and underserved residents in film television podcast production, and our training has resulted in local residents crewing one battle after another, along with other films shot in Sacramento.

So I'm here this evening specifically, Councilmember Dickinson, Councilmember Plucky Baum, Councilmember Maple.

Please use your oversight authority to work with the commission to prevent defunding of Access Sacramento before we've had a time to have property.

Thank you for your comments.

And next speaker's Daniel Silva.

I don't see Daniel.

Anne Marie Flores.

John Bignocci, Mervyn Brookins.

Hey, I'm sorry for extending the night, but this issue was too important to me not to come back and share this with you.

Earlier, you asked about the strategy for youth gun violence, and it's near and dear to my heart, but I was caught off guard.

Um last summer, some youth from Oak Park decided to give a swimming party out in North Sacramento.

15, 16 years old.

It was over by Cal Expo.

Well, some youth from Del Paso Heights found out about it and decided that they were gonna come rob the swimming party.

Which they came out and with guns, drew down on the kids and was gonna rob them.

What happened was one of the kids from Del Paso Heights that put out a gun, recognized one of the kids from Oak Park.

When he recognized me, like, hey, you're king.

Yeah, you won't.

And nothing happened.

They stopped and they enjoyed the party.

The reason why I'm sharing this with you is because that is the heart and soul of my intervention and prevention and what I'm pushing with everybody else.

It's relationships.

Creating spaces and places where these kids can get to know each other.

So later on, when they see themselves in other situations, it's I know you.

We're not enemies, right?

It's about building bridges that lead to relationships.

Every last Sunday of the month, I bring together kids from Oak Park, Meadowview, Mesa Verde, Sack High, and we have breakfast and we sit around and chop it up.

I bring in attorneys, sometimes judges come and we just talk.

And then afterwards, for those that want to go, we go to church.

And the sole purpose is just relationship building.

We expand the neighborhoods when we get them to know each other.

And these kids knew each other because they played against each other in youth sports.

So that is the core, building relationships, and later on in life.

Thank you for your comments.

I just had a second.

And thank you for the vision.

You still saved the mind.

And I think we got all the speakers correct.

I think John Vignot.

John Vignocci, I knew I knew we had one more.

All right.

Make that go two times faster, something like when I listen to podcasts about the public safety issues.

Uh, just don't want to resign ourselves to a staffing crisis that we feel like, oh, it's just something that we can't solve.

Like the business community will come together to fund a recruitment video for officers to tell them that we have their backs, that this is the premier law enforcement destination in the region.

We need to actively roll up our sleeves and fix that staffing crisis, not just resign ourselves to like, oh, it's something that we can't address.

Um, certainly like another thing that we should all get on the same page about.

If we want to prevent youth violence, one of the things that is um it's like economics, it's like not the obvious point, right?

Like you change one thing and then something else happens down the line.

The minimum wage cuts off a lot of economic opportunities for low-skilled young folk.

Like when I was growing up as a single parent household, uh, kind of an abusive family relationship.

Like when I was 13 years old, I got my first job.

I was making $6.25 an hour.

And I got in a big um Twitter fight with Lorena Gonzalez about the minimum wage.

She was like, who doesn't deserve to make $20 an hour?

I was like me when I was 13 when I was working it for $6.25 and adjusted for inflation.

That's like $10.

Well, it's now illegal to hire 14-year-olds for $10 an hour.

But it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

It got me out of poverty.

I got to learn how to talk to adults, responsibility, um, showing up on time, making mistakes, had a great boss who like taught me a lot and gave me a, you know, a lot of, you know, yeah.

I, you know, anyways, gave me a second chance or third chance.

Um, so those types of opportunities like that's really important that we're on the same page.

Like we can say that maybe the minimum wage is an effective policy for people who are older, but like for young folks, like we cannot cut off the first rung of their ladder.

Okay, I see these kids in DOCA like carrying guns.

I'm like, that could have been me if I didn't have that opportunity, but I had that opportunity, and I ended up becoming something different, and so um, cutting off those opportunities uh doesn't help.

Anyways, thank you.

Thank you.

Um we do have an adjourned memory.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Uh I want to ask this evening that we uh adjourned the council meeting in memory of of Phyllis Johnson.

Um Phyllis was uh born uh in 1947 in the in the Bronx and uh acquired uh through her growing up there all the characteristics of someone who uh lives a life in the in the Bronx in a working class family, and that shaped um her lifelong commitment to standing up for working people.

Um she uh uh made her way over time to California where she went to work for the California Department of Public Health and was an active member uh of uh the California State Employees Association, which subsequently became SCIU Local 1000.

She actually rose to become the president of District Labor Council 762.

In 2011, Phyllis Phyllis uh retired, but uh she um maintained her activities with the California state uh retiree serving as vice president and president of of Chapter 2 here in Sacramento.

Uh and she also was an active supporter of the a very active supporter of this the Sacramento Central Labor Council and served on the City of Gaul Commission on aging.

Now that's the that's the bio.

That's the history of Phyllis, but that's not who Phyllis was.

And if you knew Phyllis, she was unforgettable.

Because Phyllis was a person who, when you walked into the room, would greet you, would hug you, would give you a kiss, would uh encourage you.

She was a 10,000 watt light bulb.

She was so inspiring, she was so dedicated to uh the labor movement, and uh was so persistent, caring, passionate, committed, and dedicated to advancing the the interests and rights of of workers that she made an impression that you couldn't forget.

Uh I will miss those embraces from from Phyllis that I grew to like so much when I would come into a room where she was.

Um, who uh have lost an ardent advocate uh in Phyllis, but she did so much while um she was alive to advance the history and the causes uh uh to improve the lives of those uh who were working that that legacy will certainly live on.

So I appreciate the opportunity to ask that we adjourn in her memory.

They're beautiful words, Roger.

Thank you so much.

And with that being said, we will adjourn at 9.47, um, and the company.