We like to call this meeting order at 2 or 3 p.m.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Council Member Kaplan.

Councilmember Maple.

I'm here.

Councilmember Jennings.

Councilmember Vang.

I expect Councilmember Garra, Councilmember Dickinson, Councilmember Lucky Bomb and Mayor McCarty shortly.

Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Let's do it.

Okay, we have a quorum.

Please rise.

If you're able, please rise for the opium acknowledgements in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands to the original people of this land, the Nissan people, the Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains Mewak, Patwin Wentham peoples, and the people of the Volto and Rancheria, Sacramento's only fairly recognized tribe.

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

Thank you.

Salute, pledge.

All right.

One nation under God and Elizabeth, liberty and justice for all.

Nothing.

And now members sign up to speak on the consent calendar.

Councilmember Bang.

I'd like to comment on item uh number eight.

I'll be voting no on item eight, but would like to comment on it.

Thank you.

Item eight.

Comment and then a no vote.

Uh councilmember maple.

Questions on item eight, please.

Item eight.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

The uh consent calendar is heavy, so please forgive me.

I have uh question on item seven, comment on item eight, eleven, thirty-one, thirty-six, and thirty-seven.

37.

Okay, one, two, three, six.

Okay.

Uh Councilmember Dickinson.

Thank you.

Uh I have a comment on 13 and 30.

Uh, a question um, one question or two on 36.

Question on 36.

Okay.

And then I have comments on item 12 and item 37.

First, we'll do public comment.

Thank you, Vice Mayer.

I have eight speakers for the consent calendar.

Um, I do have one read to the record.

Item number 13 will be withdrawn, and we'll come back after the council recess.

The first speaker is Lambert on item one, Rhonda Rios Krabbit, Jerry Brinsfield, Marcelina, Ed Garrick, and Francis Lou Foe on item eight.

Uh, first of all, I want to send a shout out to uh the millennials who are tremendous supporters of ours.

Uh, I was getting in from Father's Day and they told me I must come down here.

Uh, number one, this is an example of why uh Minty Cuppy should be the highest paid at City Hall.

First of all, it says recognizing the need for and granting a council member an extended absence.

It was me who said that we were concerned, the millennials were concerned about Mr.

Pucky Bomb being late.

He's late today, no matter what the reason is.

He's in and out, but the good thing about this from Minti Cuppy, and I have the report right here.

I'm not going by my memory, I have a copy of it.

It states that you have to have permission to have all these absences.

He should be reprimanded for that.

Now, to uh city councilwoman maple, congratulations on your pregnancy.

I'm glad this is for you.

You've already won your seat, so you should have the whole summer to concentrate on being healthy.

And I was the one who said you were the only one who should be allowed to go in and out of the rostrum because of your pregnancy.

Otherwise, you should be on this rostrum.

You're being paid, so you should be here.

And I bet you as a millennium millennial, she can operate from home.

Unlike a lot of people who were on the rostrum who were baby boomers in the last round that could not.

So congratulations, and what a wonderful job by Minty Cuppy.

This is outstanding to let us get clarity.

Rhonda Rios Kravitz.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

I urge you to vote no on item number eight, which would provide funding for the Sacramento Police Department's participation in the Central California Intelligence Center or CCIC.

I am deeply concerned that local policing resources and data may be accessed or utilized by ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies in ways that undermine both California's sanctuary law and the city's own commitment to immigrate communities.

California's sanctuary law SB 54 prohibits local law enforcement resources from being used for immigration enforcement.

Earlier this year, Sacramento's immigration platform reaffirmed the city data should not be used or shared to determine trace or investigate a person's citizenship or immigration status.

These concerns are not hypothetical.

In March 2026, the California State Auditor opened an audit of California fusion centers after lawmakers raised concerns that these centers may be facilitating violations of SB 54 and threatening the privacy and civil liberties of California residents.

Independent investigators have documented fusion centers access to highly sensitive information, including DMV records, automated license plates reader data, social media monitoring, cell phone location information, and other surveillance technologies.

Once information enters these systems, community members have little ability to know how it is being used.

Who has access to it or whether it's being shared with federal agencies?

The Sacramento Police Department's participation in a fusion center raises serious questions about transparency, accountability, immigrant protections, and constitutional rights.

Given the ongoing state audit, there is no reason for this council to approve additional funding before the answer the public has answers.

I respectfully ask that you postpone or reject this item until the state auditors' findings are released.

I also urge the city to conduct a comprehensive review.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Jerry Brinsfield.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jerry Brinsfield.

I oppose item number eight and ask that you all also oppose eight.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Marcelina.

Following Marcelina's Ed Garrick.

Hi everyone.

My name is Marcelina.

I'm a volunteer organizer with the Sacramento Immigration Committee.

And I'm pretty new to the City Council stuff.

This is the first time I'm here without a speech written, but I'm here on kind of like last minute notice, 2 p.m., middle of the day.

And as I'm getting to know these city council rules, I'm realizing that they serve you a lot more than they serve the everyday people like me.

And I am involved with advocacy around getting ICE collaboration out of city resources and SAC PD.

And I'm I be I'm told, you know, by Karina Talamantes that that's the law already and it doesn't happen.

And here we are on a consent calendar about a vote on a contract that's involved with ICE.

And I'm just like, dang, like, do you think we're stupid?

Um, and so I'm offended.

Um, and so I hope you vote no on it.

Thanks.

Ed Jarek, then Francis Lou Foe.

Hi, my name is Edgardo.

I'm a student of SAC State and a member of Sacramento DSA.

My answer to what I urge you to vote on item number eight is absolute no.

We cannot.

Cannot accept collaboration with ICE, and we cannot accept that these fusion centers, which are a means of enabling surveillance, and it is not a reasonable, it's not a responsible vision for our city to be condoning, collaborating, and funding these data centers.

I urge you to vote no.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Francis Liu, then LR Roberts.

Hi, Francis Liu, PhD manager at California Department of Social Services, volunteer organizer to Carcerate Sacramento.

There is little I can say about fusion centers that hasn't already been said by dozen of community members who have submitted online comments or that isn't already discussed in Senator State Senator Sabrina Cervantes' letter that led to the current state audit of California Fusion Centers.

Giving SAC PD $800,000 to staff positions in this fusion center is egregious, regardless of where the money comes from, federal or local.

We do not support expanding the federal government's ability to survey surveillance residents and support ISIS human trafficking of our immigrant neighbors.

We need to dismantle our local surveillance infrastructure.

The only way for us to protect our data is to not generate it or share it in the first place.

I want to talk about why and how this item was placed on today's consent calendar.

Ignorance is not an excuse.

We've been here since last November expressing our concerns about SAC PD, its history of direct data sharing with ICE, its use of surveillance technology and how its data is being shared and its participation in joint federal task forces.

The blanket response we've received is SAC PD is in compliance with SB 54 and is not sharing data for immigration enforcement.

There's no evidence or elaboration, and our concerns have never been addressed or responded to directly.

My question is where do the lies start?

Either you are willingly lying to us or you continue to blindly accept the lies that SAC PD tells you.

And this is not just about SAC PD handing data directly to ICE, which they've been doing and they were doing until 2024.

This is about their continued expansion of surveillance and partnerships with this fascist federal government, which you are enabling by um when you're enabling them by quietly putting this on the consent calendar outside of the public eye.

So our SAC mayor and city manager who set the agenda are complicit.

Many of you have struck a deal with police, you don't call them out and they'll protect your positions of power and you take donations from them to keep you elected.

But the general public sees this, and we don't trust SAC PD, or we don't trust you to keep you safe.

And if you you can continue to blindly amplify their lies, increase their funding, and enable harms they are committing in our community, you are complicit as well.

We will be here to call you out and make sure the public doesn't trust you either.

Do better.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speakers are LR Roberts on item eight, then Dr.

Sheila O'Halloran on item nine.

Uh I'm LR Roberts, I live in District 5.

Um, my husband and I helped get the sanctuary ordinance passed to begin with in the 80s, so you can imagine how I feel about this.

Um, I'm also the one who does most of the legal observing at the ICE building and have been working with the people there who've been the victims of uh violence, where somebody ended up in the hospital not long ago and surveillance by the police, watch the police escort the ICE agents out.

We're not supposed to be spending any money on this, we're not supposed to be cooperating them on them.

We certainly shouldn't be sharing inform sharing information with them.

I do a lot of work in the disability community.

I am in a lot of groups that work on disability rights.

I'm trying to get people with mental problems to to get help.

They're worried that this is gonna be shared with the feds, and we've already got a uh president who's sort of implying that he's going to get a list of autistic people.

This is concerning.

Um, so definitely no on this one.

Uh we are trying to keep track of how much money you've spent on this.

Um the other thing is I I don't want to live in a world where I don't feel people are safe.

Uh, you know, my generation listened to our parents talk about the Nazis picking people up.

I now, every time I see somebody and I think, oh, there are more recent immigrants than my family was.

I think, are they gonna be safe?

Why are we living like this?

We shouldn't be living like this.

We should have listened to our parents and our grandparents who killed Nazis.

We shouldn't be acting like the Nazi regime.

Next speakers, Dr.

Sheila O'Haleran on item 9.

Then Annette Emery on item 12, and Annabelle Gonzalez on item 37.

Good afternoon, and thank you for allowing me to present today.

I'm asking you to consider on item no, either a no or at the very least, postpone this very important decision, which could be very expensive with recurring costs for many years.

Here's my reasoning.

We have a tremendous record of success in hundreds, hundreds of different references.

So our mostly, I'm the widow of a firefighter.

My husband passed away a year and a half ago due to uh injuries sustained as a firefighter.

So there's no one more passionate about me for this topic.

It's why I'm here today.

What we know in our business after 30 years of helping companies not only reduce but go year after year without having injuries, it's all about prevention.

99% of injuries are preventable.

I've served as a chiropractor for 15 years, but mostly the last 20 years I was honored to be the president of the ASSP, a national safety organization, certified ergonomist.

Our service model is completely different than the PT concept you're actually thinking about now, and a very expensive expenditure in that our system is sustainable in-house.

What we know is firefighters are very knowledgeable and very capable of doing this themselves with the right system in place.

This program could be and should be sustainable in house by your own firefighters, which could be sustainable for years to come.

You don't need to pay an outside agency or organization or anyone else for that matter.

The information, firefighters are taught how to look out for themselves, how to look out for each other.

They can bring this information home to their own.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Annette Emory on item 12.

Hello, I'm Annette Emory, and I live on Fairweather Drive, which backs up to Neon York Parkway.

So I'm here to talk about item 12.

And first I do want to say thank you for finally cleaning up city property that backed up to our uh backyards make it for some people.

They could not leave their back gates to go to Nino's Parkway.

Uh there was such so many berry bushes, one person's fence fell down when they were removed because they were there that long.

And as a homeowner, I can tell you we could not remove the cement chunks and the big things.

So I appreciate that.

However, I do have some questions here on item 12, which is uh Nino's Parkway.

There are encroachments of people who have actually built solid fences onto city property, but there's other ones that are maintaining it, and basically, I think really helping with stopping wildfires.

A couple things I notice here, the June 5th, 2025 memo talks about a permit fee of $25 annually, which I thought had been dropped.

So I think that needs to be clarified for the neighbors.

And the other one is where it says here landowners who basically refuse to do not sign on to this agreement, will be um at to make improvements or will be contact by the city regarding removal of all the work they've done.

I was told this was optional.

That does not sound optional.

So I guess we'd really like to have some more talking to the neighbors about exactly because we do want to be good stewards of the parkway.

That's 100%.

I've not talked to a neighbor yet that doesn't believe in that.

But we just really want a little clear is it a $25 annual fee?

What about that?

Mini park put in by neighbors and paid for by neighbors.

That is really used by the community?

Are you gonna tell them remove it if you don't sign this?

So just a couple of questions there.

Thank you so much, and I do appreciate the cleanup that's been going on.

Our final speaker on the consent calendar is Annabelle Gonzalez.

Good afternoon, mayor and council members.

In March, I drove up to Roseville Road, a few hundred feet from the tiny homes.

An older man, white hair, white beard, was bent into a trash can digging for 30 minutes.

His pants slipped down, exposed to the entire street.

Steps from a shelter we spent millions on.

So I came here to ask one simple question.

Where is the money going?

My name is Annabonzalez.

I am a 12-year homeowner and a 10-year child care business owner.

I'm here on item 37.

This is the management problem, and DCR is at the center of it.

The Department of Community Response was created under Meyer Steinberg in 2022.

Its director is paid six figures, more than the elected council members who oversee him.

And what do we pay this apartment to do?

Cleanup, storage of people's belongings, a phone line, and now Uber rides.

Everything except the one thing that matters, telling us if any of it gets a person off the street.

The city auditor just found 63 million spent on shelters in two years with no strong link between the money and anybody getting housed.

Now you're asked for another 600,000.

558,000 of it is a phone line.

42,000 is overhead, no public breakdown, no description in the staff notes, and 200,000 of it is measure you, our local money.

And at last week's budget meeting, the director told this body as the state's money shrinks, our need for measure you grows.

So more comes out of our pockets, and nobody shows the public the full number.

Count people when they come in, count them when they leave, until then, not one more dollar.

Thank you.

So, Mayor, that concludes our public comments on the consent calendar.

I do have quite a few council comments and questions.

Okay.

Let's go to Kaplan on item seven.

Thank you, Mayor.

Briefly, I just want to bring up Captain Hansen to ask a quick question on the gang violence suppression grant.

So as I was doing my homework and I see that the grant is going to be used for only one SAC PD officer.

God bless our system of research because I found reports from 1990 of uh getting this grant and and how we used it for a community service officer, a clerk, a student trainee, as well as SAC PD, and it required a match.

Is the match still required for the grant today?

There's no match required anymore, ma'am.

And then okay, um, go ahead.

Sorry.

I didn't say sorry.

And then I I noticed uh with our former chief who was a captain at that time in 07.

Um, you know, there was a partnership between SAC PD, SEC County DA, SEC County probation, which when we look at gang violence suppression, that really like looks like the model, truly honestly, we should be following.

And then, of course, I see the grant money that we're getting today is basically the same amount we got in 07.

Um, how are we using this?

I see you just put one SAC PD officer, but for me, what's kind of missing is how is this actually addressing gang violence?

Like what is this in the implementation?

Yeah, as the funding is just covering that one FTE.

We've done a lot of other stuff over the last 15 to 20 years to try to be more holistic.

So, including talking about probation, we try to work with them regularly.

We continue the ongoing communication, we bring them into our fold more often.

Back then, we didn't have the CBOs lined up the way we do now with our BSEC with our VIDs and with our GPIT funding, and then with Sax City Unified.

In fact, right now, we have one of our staff with uh Ray Losada going through that, but we're also building the bonds with Natomas Unified and Twin Rivers to utilize the school stuff.

But in addition to that, um, one of the aspects of it under the penal code is to work on identifying the most uh prolific offenders that are dangerous to our community, finding ways to engage the community and prosecution to try and take them um out of the mix or to address it and deter the violence.

We actually have a bi-weekly meeting with many stakeholders, including the district attorney's office and a bunch of our detectives and our street level officers to try and identify those patterns, trends and individuals to proactively try to work to keep them from furthering the criminal activity.

And then to your first part?

Yes, the funding level hasn't changed.

Unfortunately, as you know, labor costs have gone up over that time period.

And I just wanted to bring you up and give that extra context.

So I think maybe in the future, adding some of that in to the report, because I think when we just say we're funding one officer, but not a showing how we're using that money to actually address in the partnerships that already exist within SAC PD, I think it gets mixed missed on the transparency that I think is really important that we show, hey, we're still partnering with probation and the DA's office and how we're going about this, because really having a violence prevention plan, especially gang violence, and showing it so that the public can just pick up this report and read it, would be helpful.

So but thank you for the added extra context.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Any further questions?

Thank you.

So council member Kaplan, do you want to proceed with item eight?

Sure.

Um probably we should call up our lieutenant Mr.

Putman who drafted this, because I know I'm not the only one that's gonna have questions.

Have you got council member maple and council member bang with questions?

All right, good afternoon.

I'm Brian Kanayuki.

I have our Metro Division, and I'm up here with uh Dave Putman, who is our urban area security initiative director.

So he'll be able to answer more questions on the uh sub award that we give to the fusion center.

Hello.

Hello.

Um, so I'm sure I'm not the the only one, but as was brought up, um we know SB 54 does uh state law does not allow sharing of information.

Um, how can we assure the public?

Because the public says, okay, state law says this, but you're still doing that.

What protections do we have in place or anything that we can assure the public?

So this this item um doesn't uh address the state uh laws, SB 54 does not address the city policies the way that Sacramento uh interacts with uh the fusion center um in here in Sacramento or across the state.

Um this is merely a um pass-through funding uh item, which uh the city of Sacramento and the UASI um has accepted the funds, and we're then um required by the contracts to pass through certain amounts of those funds to uh other agencies in our statistical operating area.

So there's there's no possibility of sharing, is that what I'm hearing uh personal identifiable information with the federal government?

So the Sacramento Police Department um would only provide the fusion center with information within state law and city policy.

We would not um be providing any kind of um information with uh civil immigration.

Uh and the sheriff's department has similar um laws and policies as well.

Okay, um, I don't know if anybody can answer this, but when I looked at the contract and UASI, uh it requires compliance with federal statute eight USC 1373 and 1644, which uh requires that we certify compliance with it, which that section specifically says it prohibits state and local governments from restricting communication with the Department of Homeland Security regarding an individual's citizenship or immigration status.

How do we balance that uh that incongruency between state law and then we're actually signing that we're complying with with uh this section?

So, the uh the funding itself, the way that we um the city of Sacramento obtains the funds um is through Cali Cal OES.

So there's an application, a pre-application and an application process during that process.

We have um uh project justifications to which we describe um in totality, the projects themselves, what the money will be used on uh and uh and how that will support um uh preparedness training um for terrorism and hazard response.

Um, so each one of those things is approved by um Cal OES is vetted um to comply with um SP 54 as well as every all other state laws.

So walk me through a scenario.

Let's say DHS or federal government says Sacramento, I need this information.

Um and because you sign this, you you can't tell us no.

Do you then go to Office of Emergency Services or the Attorney General because state law prevents you?

Walk me through that, I think this is a long long answer, but I think it's important to state that the Sacramento Regional Homeland Security Umit, the UASC, uh Urban Area Security Initiative team is a um grant management team.

It's myself and two uh uh professional staff members.

Uh we manage the grant, we manage the money and oftentimes uh uh manage the projects that are um conducted in our statistical uh area.

That is Yolo County, Sacramento County, Placer County, and um Placer Yolo, Sacramento, and um Coldorado, sorry.

So uh the our unit um does not dictate to any of those municipalities how they interact with the federal government.

Um so the only thing that we that the UASC group follows is the policies of the Sacramento Police Department and the state laws.

Thank you.

Those are my questions at this time, can we go now to Councilmember Vang?

Thank you.

Um questions to PD.

I uh just wanted to state why I'm gonna be voting no, and maybe hopefully I can also answer uh councilman caplan's question.

So um I've been having ongoing conversations with community members uh regarding SAC PD's participation in federal task force, which I know that we do uh participate in federal task force.

Um, and you know, I I do think it's important for us to pause and reevaluate these partnerships, whether that's joint task force, whether that's being an agency that is a pass-through for other enforcement agency, because in some ways we could be enabling that data sharing.

Um, and so for me, I know that this item in particular, and so I understood what the officer was saying because this is in particular just uh us saying yes that we are authorizing as an acting agency to pass these federal dollars through to the sheriff's department, and this is where I have an issue.

Um, you know, the item is seeking authorization of federal grant funds to pass through the city of Sacramento to the county sheriff's office that's gonna be staffing the Central California Intelligence Center and Fusion Center, and their job is to carry out the provision of law enforcement services.

And if you read our staff report, the funds actually support projects of the fusion center that includes intelligence and information sharing, and I'm just reading the staff's report, combating domestic violent extremists, which I know that a few of my colleagues care deeply about that, um, and also enhancing election security.

I think my concern is that yes, these are dollars passing through the city of Sacramento, but once that data is in that fusion center, just like you said, Councilman Kaplan, we don't really have control over that as a city, but the federal government does have access to it.

If we're collaborating, I believe that they do have access to that.

Um, and another component of the project is actually of these dollars is enhancing this is what it says, enhancing election security.

And for me, at a time when our election faced multiple threats, I'm concerned about how this data could be actually used under the guise of federal national security priorities.

And so I just wanted to share that.

Um earlier this year, State Senator Sabrina Cervantes also requested um an audit uh earlier this year because she noted that the fusion centers, and I believe there's 80 of them throughout the state of California have actually undermined state law that prohibits cooperation with a federal law enforcement.

And she requested for an audit earlier this year, and just knowing that information, um, you know, as an elected official in the city of Sacramento, this this item is us approving the dollars to go through us, and just knowing the information that I do have, I can't support this item at the time.

And so I wanted to share that on record.

Councilmember Maple.

Thank you.

Um, so I want to appreciate you for answering some of my questions over email.

Um, but I'm gonna actually ask them here because I think it's important for the public to know some of this information too.

Um, and so the the first question that I had uh was what information is shared with the CCIC and the fusion center by PD?

So what types of information are we sharing with them?

We share uh we share um information.

Cyber police department uh shares information with uh the CSIC on uh about violent crime, gangs, uh critical infrastructure, public safety threats, terrorism, and cybersecurity.

Okay, those are the broad categories, and then which agencies or departments, and those are federal agencies, state agencies, and others are is it shared with?

So there's a whole host of federal agencies that they're they're shared with.

Um, some of the information that you can that is is uh publicly available from CSIC states that they um I can give you, would you like me to go through the list?

Okay, so uh a number of the intelligence uh community that they regularly communicate with the CIA, the NSA, uh NRO, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Space Force, uh the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, the Officer of Intelligence and Analysis and DHS under the DHS umbrella, the U.S.

Coast Guard Intelligence, FBI, Office of National Security, through the DEA, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Office of Intelligence and Analysis, also the FBI.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and then uh, you know, I heard you say DHS, so that would also include ICE and border patrol or no?

Yes.

Yes, it would.

Yes, okay.

Um, and then the last thing I had on there was um it's mentioned in the staff report that there are also private sector partners, or I believe it's called.

Uh, do we know which companies are private sector entities that this information is also shared with?

So the the um California Central Information Center, the C SIC, the Fusion Center, covers 34 um counties throughout the state of California.

It's one of eight fusion centers in the state.

Um, I do not have a total total list for you as to which companies or or agencies, but um, generally speaking, um those uh those um public sector is public people in the public sector, cyber security, um, event um coordinators, um, faith-based communities, um, any uh any uh convention centers, um things like that.

Um that's that's the that's pretty broad, yes.

Very broad, okay.

And and private uh private business owners as well.

Okay, okay.

So those thank you, those are my main questions.

Um, and you know, I share some of Councilmember Bang's concerns, but also I've asked, I think now three times from this dais over the last several months for information regarding data sharing with the joint terrorism task force, and I've never received any information back yet on that.

So that's something I also have questions about and want to understand the city's role generally speaking in these types of partnerships that we have.

And I understand that this is a grant and this is passed through.

Um, so my request will be just that this is a separate vote on the consent calendar.

Thank you.

Okay.

Hi, Sparta Talamantes.

So I think well, Councilmember Kaplan, Bang, and Maple just asked about the data shedding sharing and protections that we have, like how we communicate with the county, how we communicate with the state, federal agencies.

Do you have a plan on how to create these guardrails?

Can we work with city manager and create an expedite timeline um to be able to get make this happen?

Can you repeat your question?

Yeah, well, we're talking about like being a pass through for federal dollars, and you know, on here, it lists some of the things that we're gonna fund is critical infrastructure protection and domestic violent extremism and election security.

I mean, these are all really important matters, so but data sharing and making sure that we're not handing over information and creating guardrails around that, like Councilmember Maple has requested is so important.

So, what is our plan to create these guardrails?

Is that a question for me?

Yeah, you guys or city manager?

Um, so the um I guess there's I guess the best way for me to answer the question is I think there's two parts to it.

Um, Cal OES, uh DHS, Cal OES, uh, both individually conduct audits of UASC and CSIC.

They conduct their own internal audits of of us and of them as well.

Um they regularly have findings of those issues, and then we're required to come up with a remedy that's future looking, right?

That would be something that um looks back historically.

Um, however, as far as um how will the UASI develop plans to um to create guardrails around information sharing that would be outside of the realm of the UASI itself and would be uh I think up to each individual municipality because we're talking about 34 different counties and uh for the CSIC and just four different counties uh for the UAC.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Uh, you know, first, you know, clearly, you know, funding for domestic violence and human trafficking are resources we desperately need.

We need, and in many of those cases, the information that we collect and those the ability to address those issues allow many immigrants who are eligible for a U visa to get adjustment of status.

I think that's an important thing.

So I I don't take this question here lightly and concerning wise because we need these resources, but I think there's still a lot of questions about you know where our data sharing is, particularly if if there's any other third-party agency involved.

And I and I that I think is is a clear hesitation, and even if our role is a pass-through, we should have uh a response to how we're managing that privacy.

I mean, and even if Cal OES is involved in this, I'd like to see some clarity from Cal OES how they're uh complying with SB 54.

So I think those questions before this item moves forward from this council need to be answered with clarity, and rather than just the generalities that are in the staff report, I think that there's got to be more clarity.

Um we don't want to leave money on the table for things that we need now.

And there's no question we need the resources to address, you know, uh, you know, Lieutenant Kanayuki, you and I worked on a lot of human trafficking issues on Stockton Boulevard.

We need those resources, but I think the clarity on uh on where the data sharing is has to occur.

So uh before my my uh concern uh mayor is uh is if this is gonna move with if this was to move forward, those issues have those questions must be answered.

Okay, we have other items members to ask questions on.

I do have other items, okay.

We'll go to those.

Perfect.

Um Council Member Kaplan on item 11.

Thank you.

Um sometimes uh we're just want to look at uh this is authorizing our insurance broker to renew city contracts for insurance fiscal year.

Um I just want to point out um our insurance is going up.

So when we say where do the costs go, or why do we have to cut and what's our budget impact?

Excess liability is going up 24% for one year, workers' compensation is going up 15% one year.

A good hooray is our property insurance is actually going down 10%.

Uh, the cost for fine arts insurance is going down two percent, aircraft uh insurance is going up five percent, and other insurance which includes pollution crime and our uh our airport is going up 40 percent in total.

It means our insurance in one year for coverage is going up 14 percent, which is a 3.1 million dollar increase, which again, when you think about it, another reason why we're starting off next fiscal year in a budget deficit while we just approved a balanced budget.

That's an additional three point one three two million dollars.

We were not accounting for um councilmember Dickinson on 13.

Oh, 12, pardon me.

Vice Mayor Talamantes on 12.

Thank you, Clark.

Um so I just want to thank Sean and Jackie um from UFC for making this meatification project uh a reality.

It is a pilot program for the Niños Parkway so that people can community members can help us with beautification of it.

A lot of neighbors throughout the years have extended their backyards, and there are things that you can do on city property and things that you can't do, and so this is Yipsey's creative way of addressing uh this issue that we've had for about 20 years and seeing if we can make it work.

And so I look forward to working with neighbors to help answer a lot of the questions that are still pending, off our flexibility and really uh kick off this volunteer pilot program.

Councilmember Dickinson on 13.

Thank you.

I just wanted to give a uh hearty yay on this one.

Uh this is actually a million dollars that uh Congressmember Amibera was able to secure and uh deliver to uh our city for improvements at the Johnson Park Center.

The pool is open and operating, which is which is great, but the center still needs some significant work in order to be the full community asset that that it is, and this million dollars uh will contribute significantly to that to that effort.

So a lot of people put a lot of of work into this, starting starting with our director uh Jackie Beecham and on down through the the Yipsey staff.

I appreciate that very much.

And and uh when we have a member of Congress working so hard on our behalf, uh I think we ought to also recognize that.

And for the record, that item 13 that you were speaking on will be withdrawn this afternoon and will be heard after the recess.

Oh, okay.

So I thought you said 13.

I was hoping you didn't, but we'll say yay again.

Thank you.

Um, and Councilmember Dickinson, I'm 30.

I think this is also another yay.

Um get there, we just have to this is uh again um something that uh we received a federal grant for uh actually quite some some time ago, before the end of 2024, if I recall.

Jennifer's gonna signal at me if it was.

Yeah.

And it's really an opportunity to reimagine a significant portion of old North Sacramento and reaching into a little bit and into Gardenland Northgate, I uh I'd say.

Uh it's very exciting to get the consulting contract and get the contractor on board uh to accelerate and go four times as fast as we've been going.

I see thumbs up from Jennifer.

So this really uh has the opportunity to um reimagine and transform uh not just uh the the transportation network within uh old North Sacramento and to areas surrounding it, but but to create an environment which will be much more conducive, I think, to the kind of economic investment and development, the kind of neighborhood improvement uh and prosperity that uh this part of the city deserves.

So I'm I'm delighted to see it.

I want to give it give it some recognition.

Thanks.

Councilmember Kaplan, item 31.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Um I just want to say thank you to city staff.

This is regarding our vision zero school safety projects and phase two studies looking at 10 different schools throughout uh the city of Sacramento on how can we look at traffic.

If you have ever had a child and had to drop them off at school or pick them up, it is our least favorite thing I think anybody has ever done and has never said drop off and pickup has been done extraordinarily well.

And the only way to make it better is in my experience as a school board member.

We were one of the first districts to get a million-dollar grant from Caltrans to redo the ingress uh in some of our schools to make it safer is to actually get people out of their cars and make it safe for our kids to walk and bike to school.

Um, and one of the things that I am hoping our city staff does, Nethomas took this on as a school district, and we are leading in this because we partner with our North Natomas Transportation Management Transportation Authority and others, but also don't forget I think protected bike lanes.

If parents actually knew there was a protected bike lane in a certain route that they could get their kid to and from that could ride that, that you would get more kids out of cars and to their bikes and walking with that protected bike lane, but also making sure that we are working closely with school districts, because while we know SAC City and other districts are having financial difficulties, the one thing they do have that is very separate is they have bond funding, and that bond funding can be used for facilities and sidewalks and other infrastructure.

So there is money that I know Elk Grove and Robla and Sac City and Nethomas and Twin Rivers actually have because they have past bonds.

So making sure that we work with them in that regard.

Um I just want to make sure that loophole is that we close it and work together with them because I think we could actually implement some of the things that your study comes up with.

So thank you.

Um Mayor Patam Gata.

Thank you very much.

Well, just appreciate everyone's work here.

I'll go ahead and make a motion to move the consent calendar with the exception item number eight and continue item number eight.

Yeah, I'm not done quite yet.

Um we have Councilmember Kaplan on 36 and then Dickinson on 36.

It's a long consent calendar.

Trying to get a lot done before we we go out on break.

Um, this is the citywide cleanup and storage services with um SF Global.

Uh, I just want to point out that we are spending um a significant amount of funding for for cleanup um in what we do with the 311 calls and addressing um the amount of um trash that is out there.

What I would love to to understand, and I don't need to know now, but uh a follow-up is it's written in this report, but how we've streamlined the when somebody calls 311 and says there's an abandoned, um, you know, people have camped on the sidewalk, there's a lot of things abandoned.

Um, I know that's not necessarily a priority, but what's the process and how do we prioritize?

Because I know we look at active camps, but I think sometimes we miss the empty or abandoned camps that are there and they may get left in the wayside, and especially when we look at when winter comes in in the rain and everything else of what is that process, and I know it's a balance because there isn't enough time or resources, but how do we look at that?

Um and address that uh Brian, I actually had a question.

Uh and my question just uh goes to the portion of of this that indicates this uh enhanced approach, as it's called, um, is going to be uh implemented in the in the central city.

And so I just wanted to be um clear on is it own is it only the central city or and is that being used as something of a of a pilot to see how this combined approach works that might then be expanded other areas or uh is it seen as this is really the only geography that it makes sense to use it?

Can you elaborate a little bit on on that?

Sure.

Uh so some of this came from um you council member and council member bang on the meetings that we brought together and looking at our trash efficiencies of how we can uh uh be more efficient across the uh city.

So this kind of morphed out of that in that um we have the 311 calls coming in in the central city that we have FS Scoble picking up on one side of the street, and then we have a solid waste pickup on the other side of the street.

Uh it made uh sense to pull in pull off public work solid waste in the central city.

They have a um currently have um funding to work central city, and so we simply pulled that component from um solid waste, pulled it into our budget, and uh made it more efficient that we would just clean up anything that we see, whether it's on either side of the street and whether it is a solid waste or a uh homeless engampment.

Um you referred to a source of money that could be pulled in to fund this uh approach in the central city.

Is that any is it any a different source than what normally underwrites the act of the activities and functions of of the solid waste division?

Uh that was funding that was from Solid waste, so it'd have to have um solid waste or public work speak on where why that funding was specific to Ryan.

I look uh what I'm really trying to get at is appreciate this for the central city, love it, wondering why why not North Sacramento, why not other parts of the of the city?

That's that's really what I that's where I'm going.

Briefly, uh Ryan Morris, the city manager.

So the funding for that comes from uh commercial compliance fees for the recycling solid waste division.

I'll let Brian answer it, but basically, it was an efficiency in the Central City to have two different groups, DCR and Recycling Soulways doing the same thing.

Didn't seem like a wise move.

So let them each folks on their own area.

So uh well, the two of don't go away, Brian.

With the two of you, this is so did you make did you make some determination at least at this point that because of the geography or the circumstances or the characteristics, something that it that it would only work uh effectively in the central city as opposed to other parts of the city, or is that yet to be the determined?

No, I I think we looked at the central city and saw the much larger density of homeless-related activity, and you have uh DCR operations which have a certain mission, which is largely related to the homeless function, and you have the recycling solid waste group, which has a different mission, it's illegal, it's more the sort of garden variety legal dumping.

So it's it's awkward to have uh one group on one side of the street picking up trash which should be construed perhaps as homeless related, and on the other side of the street, literally sometimes you have a different group doing almost the same thing, it's just different.

It was like why are we doing that?

It's more efficient to have one group in the central city pick up all the legal dumping, don't ask questions where it came from, and then outside the central city, same thing.

If that makes it just efficiency, okay.

I I get it.

I mean, I'm not uh I'm certainly not opposed to this.

I'd actually like to see it expanded.

The funding for that is yeah, it's the um commercial compliance is the same.

The recycling solid waste group is an enterprise fund, so the the work they do is all paid by ratepayers.

Right.

Illegal dumping is not covered, but and this is the work this the study that that's underway to kind of look at it.

We're gonna ask Gus about that.

Yeah, a better uh they've they've looked at it extensively, but um basically the the illegal dumping needs to be funded by something other than ratepayer funding, which is protected by proposition 24.

So I'm sorry, uh 218.

Yeah, so your source your source here is not ratepayer funding to to do this.

That's right.

It's uh okay, okay.

I I understand that that distinction.

Okay.

Well, we'll ask we'll ask us to to revisit that question of what limitations to proposition two eighteen puts on on these kinds of activities.

But um, I hope I hope that and I expect that you will uh watch this closely to see if it makes sense operationally in the central city, because as I read this, I said, Boy, could we use this in in North Sacramento?

And we are still having those conversations to to work on.

And I understand Solid Waste has been doing a lot of work.

I uh on this.

I know you guys are busy.

We're gonna come back to us in the late late summer or fall, early fall with with some ideas.

So I appreciate that.

Thanks.

Councillor Kaplan on 37, and then Vicemar Telemanti's on 37, and that can would conclude our comments.

Thank you.

Um again on 37 as we look at um our our coordinated access with Sacramento steps forward.

Um, the same comment I tend to go with, thank you for finding ways to save money, but data and accountability and the follow-through.

While I know we have certain things in, um making sure we're in alignment, everybody's getting into the coordinated access system, but also just the um accountability on it, and then just occasionally we'll call out.

Um, I would want to make sure I don't like that we have to pass things by a two-thirds vote because we did not meet the council rules and timelines.

Um, so to the extent that we can be forward thinking and not having to so that we can meet the uh 10 days notice prior to council and not having to get a two-thirds vote um on this would just be appreciated.

Thank you.

Vicemar Talamontes, item 37.

Thank you.

Uh Brian, I know we used to put in a million dollars and now we're putting in $600,000.

How does that change the level of service?

So that was a great question.

We had several meetings on this with um SACSTEP forward, because our reduction from a million to 600 was also matched by the county's uh funding as well.

So they went from a million to six hundred.

This is our will be our second year at 600.

Um the our funding is uh almost like 99% of it is directly for 211 staffing and to run the 211 portion of the coordinated access system.

Um our discussions have been next year.

We don't have it budgeted.

What does that look like?

And uh what does that do with our 211 system?

Uh there's the overall budget for CAS is around $7 million.

Um, this is a component of that.

It would um require uh SSF to look at their entire budget and determine if we can still run the 211 system uh where are they going to pull funding from to keep the 211 system up?

Okay, and then uh how did the city and the county end up in this type of agreement where I know we were both paying one million and then we did 600, so the county did 600, but at the end of the day for me, like we aren't the health and human services agency that has services for people.

I mean, we have housing, but we don't have services, and so um, and obviously a smaller budget.

So can you tell me about the history of that if you know it?

Um I I don't know the expense specifics of it.

We've had this contract for um five years uh since 2022, so go forward going on five.

Um, and it was uh an agreement uh upon the city that we were going to put money into this, um, and I've been working this back out of this.

Okay, and then and part of the budget includes one million dollars for prevention.

Can you tell me a little bit more about this?

Um so our prevention is uh carve out from our HAP funding that we uh are moving two million into prevention.

So there is a there's prevention funding in the coordinated access system, and then we will be adding two million to that.

Um the system itself spends about one and a half to two million on prevention currently, uh, and then we are having meetings to uh ensure that um we meet uh council member Dickinson's demands and requests for prevention on uh how to target the correct uh population on that.

A lot of the prevention.

If you look at how it's being used currently, a lot of it is for um more of uh rehousing and not grabbing people uh before they fall into homelessness, or um a lot of it is also spent on uh legal for evictions, so that's what we're digging in right now and trying to get a little further upstream so we're not and some of that timing was the old way that it was required.

You had to be the requirement to use the prevention was uh a three-day window of being homeless, and with the new requirements, they expanded that out so we have more time to actually react.

Okay, yeah, and that's where SHRA did a presentation last year on their prevention efforts and the dollar amount of how many families they helped prevent from becoming homeless, um, was incredible.

They did a lot, they made a little bit of money go such a long way.

So I do encourage you and city staff to to look into seeing what their strategies were.

Um, and then the last thing is you know, for for the longest time, I thought 211 um the people behind the phone were county staff, um, but they're not.

They're um they're contractors through a subcontract through SAC steps forward.

Um, and that's problematic for me.

I just feel like we're going one to three degrees of separation of accountability and transparency.

Um, and so can you tell me a little bit more about who the SOP subcontractor is and what kind of education the employees receive for what kind of services the city and the county have?

Um yeah, so you're correct, SSF contract subcontract set out to um community link.

Um I don't know if SSF is what's the name of the organization that um so Peters here from SSF.

Um, but some of the things that they have to report.

So they report to us on our city contract.

SF reports to us quarterly.

We have number of callers for housing status, number of callers a day of week, number of callers, time a day, number of uh references to connected to shelter, uh connections and referrals to other sources, uh housing sources, um, number of assessments completed.

So there's a whole laundry list of what's reported to us quarterly as well as call wait times, call abandonment rate as far as people waiting on the phone and and uh abandoning the call and then um referral rates.

Um I don't know if Peter wants to speak any more on sure tracking uh community links work.

Yeah, so community link is the 211 operator, and 211 serves the entire uh county geographic area versus like 311 systems, which can be uh broken up by jurisdictions.

And community link is a nonprofit or the link is a nonprofit uh operator of 211, so and they're the only operator of the two on one system locally.

How many employees does community link have?

For this line in particular, there's 24 full-time employees that are using the homeless service back line.

Um, and uh beyond that I believe they have additional staff that staff like the regular uh like just service center line and uh also benefit um navigation services that they that they work on community link is a subsidiary of the Goodwill Industries of Northern Sacramento.

Okay, yeah, because I remember two years or a year and a half ago, my staff was using two on one to help someone, and they didn't know what department of community response was in the city of Sacramento, and so that was problematic for me.

And so having the employees on the other line that are picking up the phone be aware of the resources that we have is just so important if we're gonna actually help people.

So, okay, thank you.

Councilmember Getta on uh item 38.

Uh thank you very much.

Uh item 38, uh, a great uh program here and item that we're gonna continue.

This item supports both St.

John's uh program for real change and weave.

Uh they have helped since we began this effort in this contract hundreds, hundreds of women and children who have either experienced uh domestic violence, homelessness, uh also uh many of them dealing with challenging issues that uh that um the city has taken a leadership role in to making sure that we prioritize family and children.

So uh excited that this is here.

I know uh, you know, I agree with councilmember Kaplan that we would like to have not had the two-thirds vote requirement, but nonetheless, we need to make sure that we move this item forward so that we can continue to service um both of these great programs, uh St.

John's program for real change and weave that have uh shown that they can help people transitioning out of the worst part of their life, being out on the street, finding some stability, and then back to independence.

So uh looking forward to the uh this item moving forward again.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

So Mayor, if we have um concluded comments on the consent calendar, items one through 42 item with the exception of 13, which was withdrawn and eight or a separate vote.

We have a um except there's a clarification number eight, is not a separate vote.

The motion is eight to be continued.

So it's a motion on the entire consent calendar with eight to be continued.

So eight is continued and everything else.

So the item is on one through forty-two, but the vote is um eight to continue the item.

Correct.

So that was a motion by Gera, second by Talamantes.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

No, there's abstentions.

None.

Nine zero.

Thank you.

And Mayor, if we may, can we take item 44, a public hearing prior to 43?

Item 44 is a public hearing on renewal of the Oak Park property and business uh improvement district to number 2026-03.

And at this time, I'll open the public hearing.

Good afternoon, mayor and members of the city council.

I am Suzanne Tan with the finance department.

The item before you is the public hearing for the renewal of the Oak Park P bid for a 10-year term.

Renewal of the Oak Park P bid will continue to provide services and activities that create a special benefit to assess properties within the district.

At this time, staff recommends opening the public hearing upon the closure close of the public hearing.

Staff will count the ballots and come back to council as a consent item on July 21st with the ballot tabulation results.

Thank you.

Staff is available for any questions.

Thank you.

And Mary, I have no public comment on this item number 44.

Okay.

Do we have a motion?

Motion by Councilmember Maple, second by Councilmember Jennings.

And the I the morning item had already been opened.

I just needed to close and make the motion.

The motion by Maple, second by Jennings.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Unplucky bomb absent.

Um passes.

That member passes.

Thank you.

We go back to item 43, which is fiscal year 2026-27 business improvement area BIA annual proceedings.

Thank you.

The item before you is the annual proceedings for the BIAs.

The city has six BIAs as required.

Each of the BIAs has prepared and submitted an annual report for the upcoming fiscal year.

The annual reports specify the expenditures for the various programs, the assessment rates, and the types of programs the assessments will be used for.

There are no changes to the BIA boundaries or the method of levying the assessments.

Thank you.

Staff is available if you have any questions.

Madam Clerk, anyone sign up to speak on this item?

I have no speakers on this item.

I still need the public hearing opened.

I will then move to close the public hearing and adopt the staff recommendation.

Council member Dickinson opened and closed the public hearings.

Okay.

Councilmember Kaplan seconds.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Unplucky bomb absent.

Uh motion passes.

We move now to item 45, which is a tax equity and fiscal responsibility act TEFRA hearing, approval of tax exempt bomb bonds, and loan commitment in the amount of 5.1 million for floor and family apartments.

Good afternoon.

Christine Weikert with SHRA.

Um staff is requesting approval of a loan commitment of 5.1 million dollars for the construction of the Florin family apartments.

The proposed project will be located at Florin Road on and 29th Street.

So five-story buildings will consist of 122, 1, 2, and 3 bedroom units available to households earning 30 to 60 percent of area meeting income.

Amenities include community room, community lab.

Sorry, uh play structure, and the property will be gated with security cameras and evening patrols.

Christian Church Homes will serve as the developer, property manager, and resident service provider.

They currently have property management and resident services for over 50 developments, but this will be their first project in Sacramento.

40 hours of residence services will be provided, including 14 hours of after school programming.

The developers applied for affordable housing sustainable communities funds and after award, the project will apply for mortgage revenue bonds and low-income housing tax credits.

So in closing, staff's requesting a $5.1 million dollar loan commitment for the floor and family apartments and is available to answer any questions you may have.

So Mayor, let's open the public hearing.

I have no members of the public to speak on this item.

I was just gonna open and close the public hearing and move the item, but I think there's like several folks in the queue.

I don't know if we can clear that.

Unless council item Dickinson.

Yes, yeah.

Oh okay.

Yeah, I um Christine.

I I don't have a problem with uh with the project.

I had a couple questions and an observation, I guess.

One was um, and I can't remember whether the staff report addressed this that this particular um applicant has developed uh not other projects in Sacramento but in other jurisdictions.

Is that right?

I I have a regard recollection you you you told me that.

Yes, they're located in the Bay Area, done almost 50 developments there.

I believe, unless I have the wrong developer in mind.

I think they have a project in West Sacramento.

Yes, they do have a project in West Sacramento.

Okay, and um, so you've had a chance to see their projects and how they're how they're maintained.

Yes, they're a nonprofit developer who put a great deal of effort into their property management and resident services.

So, yes, we have seen and they have a sufficient reserve to meet the obligations necessary for maintenance and repair over time.

Is your op is your observation your conclusion?

That is, we've done a lot of underwriting and review of their reserves, and it's adequate.

Okay, that I mean that is that that is a concern.

But um, I was just gonna say with respect uh to the renderings of this is a this is a uh somewhat of a difficult site because it's so linear, first of all.

But um, you know, I have to say, looking at this, both the the site plan and the renderings, um this looks pretty institutional.

And I don't I don't know if there's enough latitude in the in the budget for some architectural enhancements or not, but but my concern would be that if it is seen as institutional, that over time um it won't get the kind of uh respect and treatment that it it deserves, and I'd I'd hate to see it degraded um on that basis.

And and frankly, I'd uh I'd like to see it as a more what I would think is a more attractive addition to the to the landscape of both floor and road frontage and and um as the building proceeds south on the on the on the lot.

So I I don't know what kind of uh ability you've got to do some more work in that in that regard, but having looked at the the way architecture is going and um uh my degree of architecture is bestowed by virtue of election.

I understand that.

Um I I really think it could be more attractive, frankly.

Actually, I agree with you, council member.

I think what we'll do is get back together with developer in uh city planning, the design review staff who reviewed this, and we can see what we can do to enhance the facade.

I think that'd be great.

I'm just I'm just channeling my inner Donna totally here, so that is correct.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you.

Second the motion.

You have a motion.

Um, and did that include closing the public hearing, council member?

Thank you.

Um we have a motion by council member vang, a second by council member maple.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Passes unanimously.

We move to item number 46 and 47.

Um these items are similar, so we will be taking the two um as one.

So we're taking item 46 and 47 together.

46 is an ordinance amending provisions of Title 17 planning and development code related to cannabis consumption land use.

Um the project is M26-014.

Item 47 is resolution establishing business operating permit fees for cannabis consumption lounges.

Thank you, Mindy.

Good afternoon, Mayor.

Um, members of the city council.

My name is Kevin Collin.

I'm the zoning administrator for the city of Sacramento.

I'm joined with Kurt Skirsky, Senior Planner, and Matt Hurdle, our director today.

I'll be presenting the zoning aspects for cannabis consumption lounges.

And Kevin, I did I was a miss.

Can I open the public hearing for both 46 and 47?

Thank you.

Great.

Thanks.

By way of overview, give a brief background on the zoning aspects of this or lounges in general.

Uh provide a summary of the ordinance that's presented for your consideration today, and then conclude with the staff recommendation.

Um, as I mentioned last week, uh presented the same slide for four years.

Uh, the staff had been working on uh cannabis policy questions that have spanned from finance and business regulation to land use planning and zoning and had dozens of uh community meetings, public meetings to discuss various topics.

One of those included the idea of exploring consumption lounges.

More recently, uh there have been a series of meetings that our our peers and finance office of cannabis management have facilitated on the lounge question specifically that a notable date of November of 2024 included the adoption of Title V regulations for the business aspects of consumption lounges.

And today they are here for a final remaining aspect related to the fee that would be presented shortly.

I thought it would be important to frame the regulatory context for conversation purposes so that our audience understands that this topic is regulated by two titles of city code for different reasons.

So on the slide here, what I'm highlighting in yellow first, Title V, already on in the books as law today regulates a variety of topics, many from who can file for a permit, how businesses are conducted, which products are able to be sold, how many of these businesses may exist in the city, a whole host of regulations there, and I'll give some more details in a moment.

For purposes of zoning, we're looking at one central question, that is where in the city could a consumption lounge propose to be located.

These are not land use regulations, although they may blur the line in some senses, but adopted in November, there are a series of regulations that already would apply to consumption lounges that are not duplicated in the zoning.

So you need to be connected with the dispensary, for example, age restrictions, health and safety provisions, signage and education, etc.

For purposes of zoning, the ordinance before you is rather straightforward.

It builds upon the adoption of an ordinance last week for zoning overall, in that the criteria are simply onefold.

A dispensary is the only location, a storefront dispensary is the only location a consumption lounge could propose to locate pursuant to state law and the ordinance that's before you.

There is no other location or standalone consumption lounge that is possible under law.

And so we have drafted an ordinance that does that presents that central question.

If a dispensary exists, it could propose a consumption lounge.

If a new dispensary were proposed, they could propose just to dispense, sell cannabis, or they could also propose a lounge in conjunction with that.

In the former example, the sensitive use buffers would not apply because the dispensary is either going to conform to the current standards, which will be in effect in 21 days, or they will not, but but the direction from this council was not to penalize lawfully established cannabis businesses from changing or modifying their businesses.

For new or proposed lounges that are in conjunction with a dispensary, the sensitive use question will be on the table for virtue of the dispensary.

All lounges would be subject to a commission-level conditional use permit.

This is a novel, unique new land use in the state, generally speaking, and we did not have the benefit of a cannabis comprehensive study that evaluated that land use to give us information about its potential effects.

So we have proposed to have essentially the highest level of review for lounges.

In conjunction with that, as mentioned last week, all conditional use permits for all cannabis businesses would be subject to call-up review from the mayor or the council member in whose district the project is located.

The zoning districts on the slide show where dispensaries are permitted to locate, not show and are the sensitive use buffers, which would further reduce that available land area or affect the review authority for a proposed dispensary and lounge.

With that, I'll keep it brief.

Um our recommendation is that you pass a motion determining the ordinance exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act and adopt an ordinance submitting various provisions of Title 17 to provide for the new cannabis consumption lounge plan use.

Good afternoon, City Council Al Romero Gibou with the Office of Cannabis Management.

Item 47 includes the proposed fees for both types one and two, respectively, for consumption lounges.

And this fee would be applicable to both and new applications and also renewals.

These fees were developed by uh our contractor, economic and planning systems, EPS, as part of the ongoing permit fees study.

These fees uh can be will be reevaluated at the end of the social consumption pilot program through the end of 2029.

The fees are calculated based on the reasonably foreseeable cost uh required to administer the cedar's regulations for the issuing, monitoring, and enforcement of the cannabis consumption lounge uh permits.

Uh staff recommendation is for um for the city council to approve the proposed fees for types one and two uh consumption lounge um BOP types.

Thank you.

Mayor, I have nine people for public comment.

Would you like to take this now?

Please.

Thank you.

Meesha Bahati, Kimberly Cargyle, Josh Lewis, Deanna Garcia.

Good afternoon, council.

Um I am in support.

Surprise, surprise.

Umisha Bahadi, I own Crystal Noggs, we're in District 4.

Um, just a couple of things I wanted to let you guys know, um, just in case you don't, in regards to lounges, because I know that um it's been a hot topic.

Um, based on the count or based on the city's own outreach, there's only like a handful of dispensaries that even qualify because they have the space.

And as someone who went through the conditional use permitting process, um, something that took us six months, and we had a public hearing that was very intense.

I can assure you that if you don't have the support of your council person or your community, you're probably not gonna make it through that.

Uh, because the commission does take the community's voice very seriously.

And even if you have the support as a business, you are going to be expected to answer some difficult questions in regards to how you're going to control the environment, levels of protection for employees, protection for customers, etc.

etc.

Um, also by pushing this through, you're just pushing it to the next phase.

You're not gonna have a plethora of lounges opening because they're still the process.

It took us six months.

Um, I've been told that, or we got an estimate for our HVAC ventilation that will take us six months.

So we're already at a year and we have the space, so this is not something that's gonna happen overnight.

Um, and at the end of the day, you need pilots to pilot this program.

And you have a few of us here who have been consistent who are businesses in good standings, who believe we have the support of our community and our council person, and I would ask that you would give us an opportunity to scale our businesses and show you guys that this pilot program can work.

Thank you very much.

Kimberly Cargall.

Following Kimberly is Josh Lewis, then Deanna Garcia.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, City Manager, and staff.

My name is Kimberly Cargyle.

I'm the owner of a therapeutic alternative, a medically focused storefront dispensary and delivery in East Sacramento, operating operating since 2009.

I'd like to thank you all for taking your time to work through the issue on Title 17.

I think the current agenda item takes into account both the community concerns and the industry concerns, so I support that.

Um however, I do not support the agenda item regarding the onsite consumption fees.

We currently already pay $20,000 for our annual business operators permit, and much of the information required for the consumption lounge application has already been submitted and vetted through the storefront permitting process and ongoing compliance inspections are also already um taken into account for our initial BOP.

So the proposed consumption fee lounge um lounge fee is duplicative and excessive.

It's also very high compared to other cities, and um I think since it's already overlapping with our other permit and only already permitted storefront dispensaries can even apply for this, and it is only a pilot program.

I ask that you consider a lower fee, since there's only a few of us who are going to apply anyways, and it is not a revenue generating business.

Thank you.

Josh Lewis.

Good afternoon, honorable mayor and members of the council.

My name is Josh Lewis, government and community relations manager for Embark.

We operate 17 stores statewide with one location here in Mac Road.

We do not plan to participate in this pilot program, but are here to emphatically support its adoption nonetheless.

Where we have concerns, similarly to similarly to what Kimberly mentioned is with the fee structure.

And I want to raise three points to that regard.

I think first is that the onus on the city to review applications for these businesses is very similar for both dispensaries and consumption lounges.

The application requirements for both business types are incredibly similar, and as Kimberly mentioned, significantly duplicative.

In that regard, we encourage you to at least look at the March numbers that were presented.

We find it challenging to support a 43% increase in staff review time in just three months between the March report and what is being presented today.

But additionally, I think other points that I could raise.

What that means in practice is we are submitting the exact same documentation year after year to the city.

And for consumption lounges where that process is already duplicative, staff review time should go down after its first year and after the initialization of one of these businesses.

So we heavily encourage you to adopt a tiered structure wherein those fees are reduced annually, in accordance with the idea that that staff review of the exact same information should not need necessarily to be as extensive.

In the third piece, and more of an emotional plea than anything, but I think it's critical to understand that fees are oftentimes the difference between a cannabis business's success and failure.

In 17 communities where we operate, in every single one, we have seen businesses be unsuccessful on a margin smaller than the fees that are being proposed on this item.

It's meaningful.

And in a business where margins are as tight as ours, and success and failure is a very thin line.

Uh, we encourage you to take as generous of an approach to uh the fees that we have to pay.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Deanna Garcia, then Kaylee Olgerson.

Hello, city council members.

Mayor's just left, but um, I appreciate you looking at this item today, and I agree and um hope you approve the zonings.

Um, the fee schedule, like the last two speakers have mentioned, are kind of outrageous.

We are a core store, which is um a program that the city of Sacramento has put together to help people who have been harmed by the war on drugs to succeed in the cannabis industry.

These fees are very outrageous.

Um, the information that you your city staff is asking for for the stores is been presented before and is not much different than uh what they're gonna be asking for in the future for the on-site consumption.

So as you go through these two today, I would ask that you would lower the fees, and thank you for all your hard work and dedication to move this forward.

Kayleigh Olgerson and Mindy Galloway.

After Mindy is Janet Carpenter.

Good afternoon, Vice Mayor, City Manager Smith, and members of the city council.

My name is Kayleigh Olgerson, and I'm here on behalf of the Sacramento Metro Chamber and our coalition of licensed cannabis operators throughout the city of Sacramento.

While we're supportive of the Title 17 updates, we must oppose the BOP fees for cannabis consumption lounges as proposed.

We're particularly concerned by the substantial increase in the proposed fees compared to those included in the March 3rd staff report, and by the limited opportunity that stakeholders have had to provide input on the assumptions used to develop these costs.

This is a pilot program.

The purpose of a pilot is to test, evaluate, and refine a new policy before establishing a permanent model.

Imposing substantial upfront fees before the program has even launched creates a significant barrier to participation and risks limiting the varied data and operational experience that the city hopes to gather.

It also, it's also important to recognize that consumption lounges are not a standalone business.

They're an accessory use attached to existing dispensaries that already pay significant fees and permitting compliance inspection and oversight each year.

For these reasons, we respectfully urge the council to adopt the fees originally proposed in the March 3rd staff report with a lower fee tier for renewal applications.

Thank you for your time and consideration today.

Mindy Galloway.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Mindy Galloway.

I'm the CEO and owner of a the Pocket Dispensary.

And I want to thank you all for the time and dedication it has for discussion on this topic.

It's been a really long road, and I'm really glad that we're here currently, and in absolute support of the Title 17 amendments, but oppose the fees when it comes to the cost of doing the application.

So I was planning to do an on-site consumption after doing it reviewing my budget.

I'm still working on it, but it doesn't look like it'd be feasible for me.

My budget would be around 400,000 just to open up with the HVAC and other construction cost.

But as a person who lives in an apartment in downtown Sacramento, it would be nice to go and have tea at a therapeutic alternative and go smoke at Crystal Mugs.

So I understand how costly things are, and given that the on-site consumption is attached to a dispensary which we already pay fees on, and currently with the initial application and then renewals being very similar to what we do for initial application.

I'm hoping that we can work to streamline processes to save the city money as a whole and to be able to reduce our fees so that we can be able to thrive and succeed as an industry and be able to have the on-site consumption, which is a benefit to the community and to other people who live in apartments like myself.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Jeanette Carpenter, then Anhelica Sanchez, and then Kevin W.

McCarty will be our final speaker.

Good afternoon, Vice Chair and Council members.

My name is Jeanette Carpenter, and I'm here on behalf of Child Action.

For 50 years, child action has empowered Sacramento County's families by connecting them to subsidized high-quality child care.

We are proud to partner with 4,500 child care providers, and we serve over 20,000 children across the community.

We respectfully request the inclusion of child care centers into sensitive use category and therefore allow a buffer between child care centers, cannabis dispensaries, and consumption lounges.

At last week's council meeting, this council approved churches to sensitive use category, and you also approved a thousand-foot buffer between dispensaries and high schools.

Yet our most vulnerable young learners aged zero to five within child care centers were not included in this sensitive use category.

Prioritizing churches and high schools for sensitive use rather than child care centers is inequitable.

Over the last year, child child action has received over 15 emails from different providers and parents requesting that child care centers be included in the sensitive use category.

Therefore, we are respectfully requesting parity in the field because our K-12 ecosystem, I'm sorry, because the K-12 ecosystem is included in sensitive use category, whereas the ECE field providers are not.

Please consider our youngest learners and respect our ECE educators that work in child care centers.

Thank you.

Inhelica, good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, and staff.

My name is Anhelica Sanchez, and I'm here representing Perfect Union, a cannabis retailer that has operated in the city of Sacramento for the last 15 years.

I'd just like to thank staff for the significant amount of time.

Kevin and Kirk, thank you, that has gone into developing this ordinance and these amendments.

This has been years in the process.

Office of Cannabis Management has had different community meetings.

We've had public input, you know, we've talked about it for a very long time.

So I'm very excited to see it moving forward, and I hope you're able to support it today.

While I support the cannabis consumption lounge programs, we do have concerns about the fees.

The city's own EPS study found that cannabis generate a significant fiscal surplus to the city, and that revenues generated by the industry are substantially greater than the cost of operating the Office of Cannabis Management.

Sacramento's regulated cannabis industry continues to contribute millions of dollars annually in local taxes supporting programs like Measure L.

Cannabis consumption lounges are also not standalone businesses.

They are an accessory use attached to an already licensed and regulated storefront dispensary that is already subject to permitting inspections and compliance checks.

For those reasons, we respectfully ask council to consider a more measured fee structure that supports participation in the pilot program while still allowing the city to recover everything at reasonable cost.

Thank you for your time.

Kevin McCarty is our final speaker.

Good afternoon, Mayor, although he's not here, and council members, I am Kevin McCarty, the other one, a compliance director for capital compliance management, representing COLIS and many other licensed cannabis operators throughout Sacramento.

As everyone else said, I'm here to uh support today's consumption lounge ordinance and launch of the pilot program.

What a long, strange road it's been over the last, I think, four and a half years, but I hopefully we're finally here.

Uh, this is really, as been said, this is not a revenue generating business.

This is not a huge step, but it is a step toward bringing cannabis consumption into a safe, regulated and transparent environment.

I do also urge the council to adopt the March fee structure, which we believe is uh more reasonable and uh achievable, especially for a pilot program.

We don't know exactly how it's going to play out.

There's, you know, their accessory businesses were already inspected monthly, uh, you know, significant fees and uh ongoing regulation and compliance costs, and the purpose of the program is to encourage participation and gather data for the pilot.

If the fees are set too high from the start, fewer operators will participate, and the pilot won't be able to provide a true picture of its potential benefits.

We want it to be diverse.

We want as many operators who are within the uh the confines and the guardrails of the ordinance to be able to participate and see how it plays out.

The march fees were already substantial, but and it would allow the city to recover its costs, but while still giving the pilot program the best chance to succeed.

If actual costs prove higher, uh the council can always adjust later based on real world experience.

So I respectfully ask you to approve the ordinance and support the lower fee structure for the pilot program and uh let's move forward and see how it works out.

Thank you so much.

Vice Mayor, that concludes our public comment on item 46 and 47.

All right, thank you so much.

Um, and thank you all for your public comments.

So I'd like to close the public hearing for item 46 and 47.

And next up, we have Councilmore Maple.

Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor.

Um, I want to start by saying thank you to the staff.

Um I know this has been uh long in the making uh before I was in the seat and now I'm going on to my second term, so just to show you how long it's taken to get to where we are.

But I think that that's uh in large part due to the significant amount of outreach that was done to the community, to different stakeholders, to the businesses, um, and just making sure that this is something that and to the council, um, making sure this is something that can work for our city and that we're doing it in a way that makes sense for Sacramento because not every city is the same.

We know that there's a lot of other cities that do this, but um we need to make sure it worked here.

So I just want to appreciate all of that time and energy that got us here.

Um, I'm very supportive, I was supported, I've supported this every step of the way, um, and I'm excited at the opportunity for this to be a reality in Sacramento.

So I want to ask a few questions, and then we'll kind of drive into the fee question.

That's one of the things that I heard.

So maybe whoever's most appropriate to talk about fees, come on up.

And this is also a little bit about structure because I I want to I'm gonna ask these questions, um, not because I don't know the answers, but because I think it's important for the public to know too.

So, how we have structured this pilot program is that only existing dispensaries can even apply to be participants.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then of those, so we know that's a finite number because we only have so many um dispensary permits in the city of Sacramento.

And so of those uh dispensaries that could potentially want to do this, then it will also be dependent on whether or not they meet other qualifications, such as do they have the appropriate amount of space to have a separate room that they can um portion off, do they have the ability and frankly resources to be able to pay for a pretty expensive ventilation system that will be required under this and and also comply with all the other regulations and rules that have set forth, that's correct?

Correct.

Okay.

And so when we talk about um going in and doing inspections for renewals, let's say, so let's say we have someone in the program, they have uh put in the ventilation system, they have submitted all of their documentation, and we've said, yep, you approve for a permit, and then as we do right now, um every year you'll come up for your renewal, and then we'll basically review their documentation and sure that they're in line with uh the rules and regulations and compliance.

That's correct.

Correct, yes.

Okay, and so the big distinctions as I understand it between their current operation as a standalone uh dispensary and having also a consumption lounge is that they have the separate uh portioned off space, they have the ventilation, the proper staffing and all of that.

Um help me can I would love to understand um the the fee structure and why we're proposing set in my view such a high cost on what I seem to be most dispensaries are they're going to be putting in the same documentation as they already do year after year, unless they make significant changes to their business operations plan or their security plan.

So I'd love to understand that a little bit more.

Yes.

Um so to answer your question, it has is a bit of a two-part answer.

So the first one is what is it in code that would that adds uh to what is a consumption lounge use?

So we're looking at you have an additional ventilation and circulation plan review, uh, as you know, specifically for type two.

It is a more intense use in terms of um mitigation of uh what would be the order of cannabis.

So that comes into play.

Uh floor plans may change if there are some dispensaries that would like to, you know, uh look at their facility now to include a consumption.

So that's also something that goes under review.

Um the security piece also comes in into play because you have a use that is now distinct from what from what it originally was.

It is no longer just a retail use and now has a consumption aspect to it that by itself it's also divided from the original user was retail.

So these are additional and amongst others, um, these are elements that OCM incurse additional time to review to make sure that you know, through the initial application review and also through renewal, because we partner with other departments to make sure that their use and operation is consistent with code, and that's something that we're gonna start doing on an annual basis.

So, the not just OCMs OCMs, but also different departments' time is what is being considered under the study.

So that kind of goes back to my the second part of my answer.

Um over time, EPS has obtained data to make their initial calculations.

And uh as we all know, EPS has been spending some time on this for a couple of years now, the sample that they took initially goes back a fiscal year before this one, and what uh the fees reflect now is this sample of just about five months actually uh overlaid on top of the most current permitting data that we have from fiscal year 24 and 25.

So the data that is uh feeding the calculation of these fees is the most current one that we have at this time.

Okay, I think you anticipated my next question, which was no, that's good, uh, which was why the change from March to now because it seems pretty significant by thousands of dollars from what was proposed in March, and then what?

Yeah, so um another thing that uh EPS had informed us is initially this sample of about five months was also in the prior calculation also understood as what would apply for the entire year.

And since that March third date, EPSS has some has had some additional time to actually look at the entire annual distribution of permits throughout fiscal year 24 and 25.

So now this sample that is being now applied to a whole 12-month period is providing more accurate numbers in terms of the distribution of permits and the uh more uh accurate staffing hour allocations that now help them form how much to assess for these fees.

Okay, great.

Those are all my questions.

I appreciate it.

Um, so you know, just again, very excited about this program.

Um, I do have some concerns about the the fees.

I uh oh, actually, one last question.

So, and for core program participants, because that was one of the other questions or comments that was made, they are waived, their fees are waived.

Is that correct?

They are exempt from a BOP fees.

Okay, so if you're if you're a participant in the equity program, you your fees will be waived, but if you're not, then you would you would these will be.

Thank you.

Um so yes, very very supportive of this program.

It's been a long, long, long time in the making.

I'm I'm excited about the possibility in Sacramento.

It is a pilot, which means that we have the the time and the ability to see how it goes.

I think realistically speaking, um, knowing what I know about the industry is maybe we'll get one or two you know in the next year or two, and we'll be able to see what that looks like because it does take time to go through our process.

It takes time to, you know, we heard one estimate at 400,000 to do a the ventilation system and the tenant improvements, which is really expensive.

Um, and so once you go through all this, I don't anticipate that we're gonna see lounges on you know every corner in Sacramento.

What we're gonna see is a small trickle of businesses startup, and we'll see whether or not those are successful and ways that we can improve our process over time as we always do.

Um, and so that's why we're doing a pro uh pilot program.

And so what I'm gonna do, um I talked to our clerk, and we need two separate votes on this, one for the actual um program, uh and use regulation the land use regulations in the program.

So I am going to close the public hearing and move that item.

For 46, and then we'll do a separate vote for the fees.

Okay, that's what those are my comments.

Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor.

Okay, Councilmember Dickinson.

Um thank thank you.

Uh why don't I start where uh council member maple ended um with the fees?

So uh I was also curious um about the the suggestion of tiering the the fees over over time that the subsequent renewals uh really present much the same or identical information to the original application and whether it would be sensible to and and feasible to uh reduce the fees over time to tier them.

Did you did you did you guys think about that?

That was um that has not been that wasn't considered as part of the study.

Uh however, these fees are coming uh as a proposal from EPS, and these fees can always be reviewed uh in the staff reported list that after at the end of the Palo program.

Uh you know, and once we can gather some data from operators that open up consumption lounges, we'll be able to better assess you know the fees as applicable to you know um throughout throughout the life of the pilot program if they are consistent with uh what what the fees are covering in terms of staff uh our allocations.

Um on a different point was was the difference in fees at all uh discussed with with the interested parties between March and now.

So these are currently part of an ongoing study from our contractors.

So uh we would defer to the contractor on the level of engagement that they have had, but um this this study is reflective of whether calculations have been based on the data that has been provided objectively by OCM to EPS.

All right, so um maybe I I don't maybe I don't understand.

I thought the request under item 47 was to adopt these as the fees, yes.

So if it's an ongoing study with EPS, the study how does that how does that match up?

So the consumption lounge fees portion, that one is completed by EPS.

This is part of a comprehensive permit fee study that EPS is uh just about to finalize.

Um the consumption lounge calculation did come before to also you know match this uh this here in date uh to make sure we were able to bring all elements being uh in consideration for lounges, and that is what we're bringing these fees at this time.

Okay, so I'm back to I'm back to my question.

Was that was the the uh was the amount of fees that since it's changed since March when you're talking about a smaller number to now a greater number?

Was that discussed with the interested parties prior to this post-March and prior to this hearing?

Um it was it was not.

Okay.

So they hadn't had a chance uh to discuss this or see the methodology or talk about the things that they might think were necessary or unnecessary to include in the analysis.

They had that there was no chance really to do that.

Um there wasn't a chance uh for engagement.

Uh however, um the fees that are proposed right now are coming from calculations from a contractor that has been given data for them to assess you know what are the appropriate amounts for fully cost recovery uh you know in alignment with city policy.

Right.

No, no, I understand that part.

Understand that part.

I was really talking about the interaction with with interested parties as an opportunity to review that, ask whatever questions they had to see to see the methodology, uh all of those kinds of questions.

Okay.

Um thanks that thank you for that.

Uh I have um I had a question.

I think uh city attorney, Mr.

City Attorney, this this may go more into your venue, and it's really occurred to me since uh a little bit since last week.

Um if uh if an existing operator applies for uh a CUP either under um, what are we calling it?

Type one or type two uh and satisfies the objective elements of that.

Does that uh does that preclude uh either the commission or the council should that item be called up?

Um does that preclude them from denying the CUP?

Is it CUP expert?

Yes.

Hi.

Courtney Verdick, City Attorney's Office.

So the conditional use permit can be called up that land use decision.

The type one, type two licenses, that's part of the separate Title V operating scheme, and so no, that cannot be called up.

At least part of the land use scheme, maybe the title five folks.

I thought I thought the the this let's let's back up for a second.

I thought the CUP requirement applied to the lounges.

It does.

Okay.

So regardless of whether it's one or two, my my question is if an applicant satisfies the objective criteria that you have listed for qualification for either a type one or type two, can that conditional use permit be denied?

Yes.

So the sequence of ultimately the council would retain discretion to deny it or not based on other considerations than the necessarily the bare objective requirements that are included in the title.

The criteria in Title V do not apply to a conditional use permit.

I'm sorry, I missed that.

And I just I just didn't quite hear you.

The criteria in Title V, the business regulations for a business operating permit, do not apply to Title 17 conditional use permits.

The sequence of events for permit consideration would start with a conditional use permit.

That would need to be granted for the business operating permit to receive clearance from our staff to be approved.

And most applicants would not even bother to proceed if they were denied uh under Title 17.

Well, I uh you don't have a site.

I understand that when I'm what I'm okay.

What I'm just trying to nail down as much as possible is the degree of discretion that remains with ultimately the council in deciding whether or not to grant a CUP for these purposes.

In other words, if a an applicant says, look, I've got the right size, I've got the right equipment, I've got the right distance, I've got all these things you put in in here, but the the council ultimately, let's say that the council says, you know what, this just isn't a fit in the in the neighborhood.

Is that's is that a defensible decision?

So it's our j it would be our job to support you in developing findings.

You might identify an issue, uh concerns.

We would assist with the support of supporting the drafting of findings that would demonstrate that you could not make all the required findings for issuance of a conditional use permit, and therefore you would issue a denial and a de novo, a new consideration of the permit, you're not bound by the prior consideration of a previous body.

Okay, good.

That that I understand that is a good staff answer.

Um I don't I don't necessarily I don't mean that in a derogatory sort of way.

That's uh that is a good statement of your job, I understand.

Okay, but but uh it would be a matter of of defining what the findings might be that would justify the denial is really what you're saying.

Okay, um Kirk, come on back up.

Um I have a question about type two uh lounges uh and specifically to s to smoking and and vaping.

And I see that there are certain items that that are required for uh application for that that purpose um, including non-recirculating a high rate of air exchange a HVAC system, um, in particular.

I'm curious whether either uh you have done, not you personally, but but uh staff has done, or or you are aware of studies that uh address the impact of smoke on uh secondhand receptors under these conditions.

So I'm actually not the right person for this question because that regulation is under Title V.

The health and safety of uh consumption lounges in terms of employees of you know of customers was debated during the Title V amendments last in November of 2024.

Um, under the zoning criteria, it is literally where the location, the property, um how the business is conducted internally.

Um, could I I don't I don't yeah, I don't think we asked this, and to the best of my recollection, we didn't ask this question.

I mean you may not be the right person, but um if I don't know if the right person's in the room, but Councilmember Dickinson, don't don't want to interrupt, but this was something that I remember council member Gera asking about, and I know this was uh before you were actually seated um on the dais, and from what I remember, and if there's staff to correct me, it's the highest level of ventilation was put in place under Title V to accommodate that as well as signage and then asking the employee if if they were okay of of doing that, but that that it would be completely blocked off and and would only be the smoke would be comp contained in the room, not that it would go into the rest of the lounge.

But but I know you know your colleague on the air resources control board, you know, was was very fastidious and particular about that, and and I think what we agreed to was the highest standard uh that was put in Title V.

Pete, do you have something to add?

Yes, I was just going to add, we um I uh if council recalls we did bring in some public health experts uh to discuss this issue with council, and um as council member Kaplan was mentioning this along with another uh a number of other um safety restrictions were put in as as kind of a condition of of issuing a business permit.

Okay, thank thanks, beat, and thanks uh council member Kaplan for the history.

Um I know this was a sensitive subject uh before I got here as well, uh, and it and it certainly is for me, but but is it is it then correct to say that the employees could avoid exposure to second-hand smoke?

Is that what you're saying?

And is that is that uh physically, is that physically feasible within the construct of the lounge?

I will defer to our program manager who can speak on airvention.

And and and if it is, is that a requirement of how these lounges would be constructed?

So, okay, hold on.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Fiona Mass.

I'm the program manager for the Office of Cannabis Management.

So I think I'm gonna try and answer your question, but stop me if I'm you know incorrect here.

Um, so essentially the business and professions code, um, which gives us the authority to you know create this program, the pilot program that you all voted on in November of 2024, and it allows employees under that code to have their employers pay for N95 masks, and they are required, there's certain pieces in that business and professions code that the employee the employer has to go through in order to protect their employees upon them asking.

There also has to be education, training.

So there's a lot that has to go through on the employer's part to have someone go into a lounge.

Okay, but I mean people need jobs, and whether they're gonna be willing to say no, I wouldn't wear masks to the employer or something of that kind is is doubtful from my my point of view.

Um so uh but I understand your answer.

Um, but the further question is uh is the construction of these lounges such that the employees are isolated from where the smokers are.

Um it can be it's all how they are it's all how it's construction, and it remember this is a pilot program, so part of that pilot program is there can be a window into the dispensary as well.

Okay, can be is different from must be.

Yeah, I mean I mean, it's not it's not required under this.

Under under what under these uh under these regulations, it wouldn't be required to be isolated.

I see, okay.

I just wanna add council member uh it is not required, but OCM would conduct a review of the floor plan as you know former uh prospective businesses that want to have a lounge would submit those modified floor plans to OCM for our review.

Okay, so uh and then in terms of your review, you could include exposure to secondhand smoke.

Yes, we can include that as a policy piece in our consumption lounge um plan, that is their operation plan that is gonna be required to submit to our office and reviewed.

Okay, all right.

Um I I I appreciate that offer.

Um I'll look forward to to seeing the work uh when it when it happens.

Um okay, I think those were the questions uh uh I have um I am I am uh persuaded that this is uh justified and trying out, although you can tell by my questions I have reservations and I certainly do have strong reservations uh regarding uh anyone who uh is is subject willingly or unwillingly actually to secondhand and smoke of any kind.

Uh that's the reason we took smoking out of restaurants and bars, out of office spaces, out of virtually every private and public space uh we have because we know the we know the effects of secondhand tobacco smoke.

Um the question though, I think for me at least goes beyond tobacco to all kinds of uh substances that uh are subject to being burned, and um what the what the health impacts may be uh of exposure to that, especially by by someone who would prefer that not to be the case.

So uh with the recognition that uh we're this is a pilot, we're gonna evaluate it as it goes as it goes along.

Uh then uh I think it's fair to see uh how it works, and I know you have tried to put measures in that that will reduce the the likelihood of uh significant uh exposure to to smoke.

So that's that's that's somewhat uh helpful as well.

So uh as uh I've said a few times in the past, I'll I'll vote for this, but with an asterisk.

Thank you, Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I want to concur with my colleague, Council member maple.

Um, since I got on council, I have been very supportive of how we move this forward.

It is a business, and I think you can do that.

You know, we have what approximately what 30, 35 dispensaries could up have up to 40, 30, 38 currently.

38 currently.

So if everybody met every rule, we could potentially have 38, either type one or type two.

I have uh driven around and seen many of the storefronts all over the city, and probably maybe only a third could even get close uh to potentially qualifying even less for a type one, more could potentially qualify for a type two, which is non-smoking um type type of permit.

So for me, um I'm not really worried about the overproliferation because of the time, the energy, um, you know, I know some have been planning for three years and have fully invested, hoping um that this is gonna come to fruition.

So with item 40 46 setting it up, um, I'm very supportive of moving forward with the pilot program as I was um in November 24.

Um on 47 on the fees, um, I I have some of the same questions, probably don't need answers because they were answered, uh, but same questions as my colleagues.

I think it's always important when we have an outside contractor as we did with EPS who came up with a fee.

And then between what we noticed in March and then what got published now, um, I think it's incumbent upon us as as a council and a city to be more transparent, and that even there should have been an outreach or an email to everybody last week with a full explanation to have industry come here and say, I don't understand it's a 43% increase, but you don't have that explanation why it leaves many to question you know why EPS knows why, but I think it's incumbent upon us to say this is why this is what we're gonna do, um, and this is the cost.

Uh I am uh, you know, for example, not totally similar, but sidewalks.

When when somebody gets a complaint about a sidewalk and they need to fix their sidewalk, the city gives them a fee and gives them this is how much it's going to cost.

I have worked with a significant amount of my community members.

City gives a quote and then we start working on it, and then we start working on the contractor.

And does it really cost this much?

And does it cost this much?

We break it down and uh every single time the original cost is not the cost that the homeowner pays because we break down as to what the actual cost is to replace it, and is the contractor marking up costs, and could we let the community member actually do it for a cheaper cost?

So I know that's not equated the same, but when we have an outside contractor that comes up with a fee, I have a lot of questions.

Is that really the fee?

Does it really cost that much?

And why wouldn't we considered a tier structure when for the most part it's copy and paste when you've already got a dispensary, and I know there's slightly different things with the lounge, but it shouldn't be where they're already paying 20,000, and then almost another like 50, 40 to 50 percent another fee for a lounge.

It feels like we're feeing to death, which has kind of been the theme of this budget year, um, and you guys are just falling into that.

So I would be very supportive.

I don't necessarily support what just what EPS claims.

No offense, I don't, because not enough why has been asked, but I think in reality, um the state sets this, this is so overly regulated, it is so dot the i's and cross the t's that there has got to be a way that we can streamline this and reduce the fees somehow.

Uh yeah, council council member.

I just wanted to step in because I've heard obviously that this concern from a number of the council members and also from the community, and I think one thing that we could do is um, you know, for our regular um dispensaries are renewed, we have a different renewal fee than kind of that initial inspection fee for the the reasons you just laid out, and um I think what we can do is work on what should a renewal fee look like and bring that to council uh in the f in the future, and I, you know, I think that makes a lot of sense as well.

We don't want to uh be duplicative and charge businesses for the same thing twice.

So that that makes sense, and we can certainly take that direction and come back to council.

I appreciate that.

Thanks, Pete.

I think that's one step in the right direction.

But as we look at this pilot, I would really like to see the streamlining and how could potentially the fees um be reduced.

Especially if somebody's already gone after I get the initial, but the renewal really shouldn't be be costing the same amount, and I think there's a there's a potential happy medium um with finding uh that.

So thank you for that.

And that makes me a little bit more comfortable with I'm still not comfortable with the increase between March and now, I gotta tell you, don't like it at all.

Um, and if there is some way that we can claw some of that back as we we go through this pilot, because I really only see right now off the top of my head potentially three, one lounge and maybe type one and two type twos coming to fruition under this this pilot to start the process.

So um I and I don't want the we're waiting for data to see whether this works or not.

We're never going to get that data.

We're just not.

I think we have to look at what's been done elsewhere and what's the experience of the individuals going through the process.

I think we need to heavily rely on them and base the pilot program off of that feedback.

Um, with that, I will reluctantly uh move the fees for um item 47 uh with understanding that they will look at the renewal structure fee as well.

So 46 was moved, okay, 47.

Okay, okay.

We have a motion 46 and 47, two separate items, two separate votes.

Still need a second on item 47.

So second, thank you.

Okay, so let's let's call the roll first on 46.

Thank you.

On 46, motion by council member maple, second by Kaplan.

Council member Kaplan.

Aye.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Vice Mayor Talamantes, yeah.

Councilmember Pluckybaum.

Councilmember Maple.

Aye.

Is absent.

Councilmember Jennings?

Yes.

Councilmember Vang, yes.

Mayor McCarty.

Yes.

Motion passes one absent together.

And one no.

And one no.

Talamantes.

Um item 47.

Motion was by Councilmember Kaplan, a second by Mayor McCarty.

Council Member Kaplan.

Aye.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Telemontes.

Yeah.

Councilmember Pluckybaum.

Aye.

Councilmember Maple.

Councilmember Garrett is absent.

Councilmember Jennings?

Yes.

Councilmember Vang.

Yes.

Mayor McCarty.

Hi.

Motion passes.

Okay.

We move to item 48, which is delinquent charges, special assessment for sidewalk repairs and related costs.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

I'm Leslie Curry from the revenue division, receivables and collections unit.

I'm appearing today to present the 2026 annual delinquent sidewalk repair costs and request a resolution to place a special assessment on the 2026-27 property tax rule for unpaid fees.

Currently, there are 159 accounts totaling 569,437.80 cents that remain unpaid from 2025 or earlier.

This amount includes unpaid invoices and invoices that were previously in payment plans that have now defaulted.

Exhibit A in your packets contain accounts and totals broken down by your council districts for your convenience.

Thank you.

I'll open the public hearing.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Thank you for the thank you for all the work staff does.

I have like some policy heartache uh with this matter.

I know we need sidewalks and side work repairs, but also I'm dealing with community members where in new development, the city planted the wrong tree, which caused the sidewalk disrepair, and now the city is asking for the homeowners to pay for the sidewalk repair.

And there's just been one too many instances of me working with community members in low-income areas, getting charged different fees, and the more I get involved, the more we relook at the fees and what's being paid and what homeowners can handle.

I think we need to reform this.

And this is something councilmember Guerra and I have consistently discussed, but I think just continuing the status quo where it really does harm our most disadvantaged neighborhoods, and many don't know to call my office to get help.

Okay.

Do we have any speakers on this item?

I have no public comment on this item.

Okay.

So moved.

You need to close the public hearing.

Yes.

Thank you.

So I'll close the public hearing by Mayor McCarty.

Do I have a second?

Sorry.

Second by Dickinson.

Let's do a roll call.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Member Kaplan.

No.

Councilmember Dickinson?

Council Member Pleckybaugh.

Council Member Maple.

Councilmember Jennings?

Yes.

Councilmember Vang?

No.

I have Vicemar Talamantes and Mary Travotem Gata absent.

Mayor McCarty.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

That's no for Councilmember Kaplan and Vang, absent guetta and talamantes.

Okay.

Next item, please.

Item 49 is proposed ballot measure.

Sacramento City Employees Retirement Systems Scurs Termination Act, which is a charter amendment.

Afternoon, Mayor and Council Members.

Matt React with the City Attorney's Office.

Presented for your consideration today.

Is the proposed ballot measure for the November 2026 election?

If approved by the voters, the measure would amend the Sacramento City Charter to provide a wind down mechanism for the Sacramento City employee retirement system.

The Sacramento City Employees Retirement System or SCURS is a defined benefit plan paying benefits to certain um eligible employees.

It is a closed system.

There have been no new members in the system since 1977.

And as a result, the system's actuary has calculated that currently for every dollar of liabilities or benefits to be paid to retired members, there is a dollar and ten cents of assets to make that make those payments.

So the proposal that we're asking for you to approve to put on the ballot for November 3rd, 2026 is a measure that would amend the city charter to provide a mechanism after due consideration by the city council of certain criteria to ensure that all uh due benefits are paid to the um the retired members, that eventually that uh the system would be wound down, um, there would be appropriate accounting uh mechanisms to assure for the accounting of the money and the benefits to be paid to retired members, and then there would be um in that situation most likely a surplus fund that would revert back to the city's uh the city's coffers to be spent according to the um purpose stated in the measure, which would be a revolving housing loan fund and um uh potential for affordable housing.

So I'm here to recommend that you approve putting this on the November ballot.

All right, I have one speaker, Alison Lee.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Mayor McCarty and members of the city council.

My name is Alerson Lee of the Sacramento Regional Business Leaders Council.

Uh, we appreciate the opportunity to speak in support of this resolution to place the SCORS Termination Act on the November ballot.

Scurs is a closed system, as you guys just heard, and this is currently well-funded.

Um, as its small participant base continues to age in this decline, this charter amendment provides a responsible transparent mechanism to protect every earned benefit while creating a pathway to direct any future surplus into a dedicated housing revolving loan fund from our perspective.

This idea is smart governance.

The city understands housing projects and has a background, expertise, and strong relationships with organizations like CADA who know how to put public dollars to good use for developing new housing.

This resolution has the potential to turn prude and pension management into tangible progress on Sacramento's housing challenges without new taxes or burdening the general fund.

It aligns with our calls for fiscal discipline, outcome-focused policies, and leveraging existing resources to deliver more housing faster and at a lower cost.

We commend council members Guetta and Maple, Treasurer Colville, and staff for advancing this thoughtful proposal.

We urge you to approve the resolution and give voters the opportunity to support this common sense reform.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor that concludes the public comment.

Thank you, uh Madam Clerk.

So I just wanted to set the stage for the council on this item and the next sub-roll items.

So this item will be informational tonight.

We won't be taking a vote on this, but we did want the council to hear about the idea, want the public to hear about the idea.

And if there is the willingness to put it forward on the ballot, we would hear it on the first.

We'll hear this item coming back right after the break.

But the big picture, as we know, you know, a couple decades ago, the city employees transferred from this city uh pension system to CalPur's, like most municipal governments, and we you know paid the beneficiaries for several decades, and as you know, there's just one left, and uh I think she's worked for the city for 50 years, so God bless her.

And she can work for however however long she wants to.

When she does retire, she will get a key to the city.

So we've already told her that.

But uh, when uh she's done and we start closing down.

Our treasurer noted that we do have a surplus, not a massive surplus, estimated about 20 or so million dollars, and so we need to know what to do with that.

Um so it's not up to us, it's up to the voters.

So I know that the treasurer uh briefed many, all of us about this for well over a year, and he went to the offices of all nine council members and talked about this idea, and he did come back with uh a list of ideas of how we could um dispense with the uh residual amounts, and the issue that came up with the most amount of support from council members was focusing on housing, specifically affordable housing.

And one thing that um that we talked about, I talked about with him and other council members like the idea as well, according to his conversations.

And he's not here tonight, by the way, so Mr.

Ruyak is his his proxy, but I'm speaking for the treasurer as well.

Was the idea um to have this uh pay it back, not just a grant and good luck, see you next time, but a revolving loan fund.

I I love that idea because you know, in the in the extent that we have an opportunity in the future with our with our um city coffers growing, we can consider dipping money in that fund as well and paying for projects and having it paid back and replenish it and do and do more.

So this allows us to see this idea.

Uh we did want to make sure that uh business groups, um, taxpayer associations, others know about this idea, so we won't be taking a vote tonight on it.

But um, I think this is a worthy good government idea.

Thank the treasurer for for coming up, putting this forward, and certainly our city attorney and our and our our budget department um came up with options for this, but again, this would have to go before the voters.

So the first chance is for us as the council to talk about this tonight.

So, start with you, Councilmember Maple.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and appreciate the presentation, and I also appreciate the fact that we're having this discussion in public, but um waiting on the vote because I think it's so important that we're transparent that we have these conversations with all the relevant partners, and then nobody feels like something's been sprung on them.

Uh, which sometimes people do feel that way, whether intended or not.

So I think being intentional about that is is very important.

Um I'll speak specifically to some of the recommendations, bless you, around housing.

Um so it should be no secret to anyone that that housing is one of the priorities for this council.

Um, we've all talked about it, I would say at length at different points of time from this dais, especially with the focus of affordable housing, workforce housing, infill housing, and missing middle, all things that we've focused heavily on over the years.

And one of the challenges is, of course, is that we don't build housing.

Uh we're a city, uh we do create the environment for housing to be built, and we we try to facilitate wherever we can.

But we know that we're in a housing crisis, and we know that there's a lot of challenges, folks, uh both folks being able to find and keep housing that they can afford, but also for affordable housing developers to actually do to build that, uh, in part because it's a really difficult economic environment.

So, one of the things that I think many of us have heard talking to developers in our districts and and beyond, is that there's a lot of really great ideas for projects.

There might be a lot of really great locations and and things that are just about ready to make it work.

They're almost there, um, but they're often having challenges uh doing what's called cap financing.

So they might have everything lined up for a project and they're just missing a couple million or a few hundred thousand or something in the interim.

Um, and unfortunately, that that missing dollar amount has actually led to projects not only being stalled for years at a time, I can name quite a few in my district specifically, sometimes killing those projects entirely.

And those are um those would be otherwise great housing projects that people can live in in our communities that we do not get to see because of that economic environment and situation.

So with those conversations with the community, um, myself and Mayor Pro Tem Guerra last year um submitted a proposal that was heard in the lawn legislation committee with the idea of creating a revolving loan program for affordable housing and workforce housing in our city, um, and the the idea being providing gap financing for projects that are just about there and have a reality, and the idea behind this is what if we could invest in Main Street and not Wall Street?

What if we can have real tangible things in our community that we're investing our tax dollars in and seeing it back versus investing in the stock market, and we can and so this was one of those ideas.

Um, we've talked at length with the treasurer uh for months on how this could work, and this uh this funding pool is one of the number one ways uh that he identified that we could fund such a program, and so um I'd be thrilled to see this be something that we move forward.

I recognize that we have a lot of other conversations to go, but I hope that you will consider this as a worthy proposal.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and I I really appreciate the direction tonight.

Uh open discussion, transparency, and getting um some council direction.

I love the idea of having money set aside that is the gap financing, but also I think the nature kind of changes as the deal the state made yesterday of putting on the November ballot, a pure uh state housing bond, affordability bond for affordable housing and also for veterans.

So having that ability to have state matching funds, which I know sometimes when you look at it is really important.

One of the things when our treasurer first came to have this discussion at council that I actually asked, which gives me a little pause with fully supporting 100% of the funding going directly to affordable, is I asked to see one was a poll, which I know a poll was done.

The results that I got of people who voted said 19% wanted for affordable and for housing.

21% wanted economic development uh for our parks, community facilities and com and or commercial corridors, 14% wanted investment in public safety, and 22% wanted uh investment in homeless services and solutions, and there was a couple other minor ones.

I know in going through the budget, the uh those who did our budget surveys said, I want you to focus on housing, homeless, homelessness, and safety.

And then we as a council have housing, economic development, and public safety.

So, how do we intersect all of those and understanding that we need to invest in more affordable housing?

My concern is is 25 million may over the years get a thousand or twelve hundred affordable units, depending on how all of this is structured because things are more expensive, it could potentially go more.

But will that get, because ultimately what we might want, if the voters in my district don't see it as something that is going to benefit them, will they support it?

And knowing that a statewide uh affordable housing bond is on the ballot, will voters get confused and thinking that instead of this not this giving money back and finding a new structure, will they potentially consider this as another tax?

In my years as and and sorry that I do this, but equate it to a school board member.

I've personally been involved in my own district and several districts, 10 different uh facility spots that all passed.

And one of the things that's really important is you ask the community what they'd be willing to support, and a lot of times it was always when you go for bonds.

Um, the community absolutely loves knowing that they're going to get new playgrounds or an investment in new playgrounds, and that is a small amount invested, knowing that you can then modernize and get new classrooms and new school buildings or new gyms, and I can tell you I'm not sure because Nathomas and Robler are very consent uh sensitive about affordable housing that that the votes would be there for my community to fully fully support this.

So I I would be open that I see like a like a majority of this money should go to some revolving housing whatnot, but I think we shouldn't ignore that, like my district uh specifically that's part of mine and the vice mayor's uh community members tax themselves so we get maintenance on our parks.

But remember, we've also discussed a parks bond, and we have a huge infrastructure backlog.

What about and and I believe however we structure this, it should only be one time usage, it shouldn't be ongoing uh, you know, funding, like one project, you know, a housing is one project, so like maintaining a park, you know, upgrading the infrastructure that's one time cost.

That's not an ongoing cost.

And then what about a majority of our community is made up of small businesses?

What if we used to have a small business office and that addresses economic development, especially if we are working with our Hispanic, our Asian and our black chambers on supporting small businesses, and it could be a small revolving loan or grant that we look at that, and that brings in economic development as well.

That I think slightly giving a couple more options for the voters to see how it will impact them.

I want to whatever we put on the ballot, make sure that it passes.

That ultimately, and I want to see that that Sacramentans can see that how we took taxpayer dollars and are reinvesting in them as well.

And especially when you look at nobody's mad at parks and and nobody's mad at small businesses reinvestment, that that may be adding some funding in for the uses for that is something that I could I could get behind, and I hope that'll be considered.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just a couple comments.

First, first of all, I appreciate the proposal.

This is not a vault-breaking amount of money.

It's a modest, relatively modest amount of money.

So I think two things are really uh critical here.

One is that we use this on a revolving fund basis so that so that we can turn that money over time after time after after time.

And that means necessarily it has to be invested in the kinds of things where the money can be paid back.

That's pretty simple, pretty simple equation.

Um the second thing that I think is uh critical here is that we focus.

We can't hope to be all things to all people.

Um so we know that housing is uh a crying need in the in the city and uh county in the region.

Uh we know that we have so many people who can't afford housing because uh of a variety of factors, including limitations on supply.

Uh and and we know that the answer to many of our basic challenges uh is in large part the availability and uh of housing.

So I uh I'm very supportive of focusing this on housing.

Um both the affordable and a market rate is uh as I understand this proposal to encompass, and I would make the suggest the smallest suggestion of uh adding mixed use to the to the permissible uses.

So it could be mixed use housing and office commercial, whatever it might be.

But that I think that'll open up a little broader uh spectrum of projects that'll that'll actually be consistent with what we're trying to do, especially along our commercial corridors, uh and in other places in the in the city.

So I look forward to to uh advancing this.

I don't I don't um uh share the the concern so much about the voters getting confused.

I've seen a lot of times in the past where there have been state measures on the ballot on a subject and local measures on the ballot on the on the same subject, and the voters make that distinction.

So uh I'm not I'm not particularly uh concerned about about a confusion factor.

Uh I do think that housing is is broadly supported as uh something the public recognizes that that needs to be uh addressed in in the community, so uh I'm also not uh uh overly concerned uh about people voting against it because they don't think that that it's an immediate benefit to them.

I think people realize how critical housing is to our overall community health and welfare.

Uh but that's but that's for also for the whatever the campaign is to be able to convincingly make those those arguments to the uh to the voters.

Our job is I think to figure out uh what we think is going to be uh the the best alternative in the service of the of the goals uh of the people of the city and then present them uh with that with that option, hopefully, for their um for their consideration and approval.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Tolamantes.

Um so, like Councilmember Dickinson said, it's such a small amount of money, 22 million dollars up to 25 million dollars.

I do not want to see it spread so thin over different subject categories.

I'd rather focus on housing and doing a revolving loan.

Um, but the housing needs to be 60% AMI or lower.

I do not want it to be 80% AMI because that's to me it's market rate.

So I would want it to be very specific that it has to be for affordable housing.

Next up, we have the city auditors report, and it shows that when people are ready to exit our shelters, they just have nowhere to go because they can't afford a home, lurking one job.

Nice segue.

Well done.

I really want to make sure that like, but the a the percent of AMI for housing needs to be very specific for me as we come back to the staff report.

Okay.

Thank you.

Councilman Maple, you want to close it out?

Yeah, sorry, I just wanted to um I was inspired by your comments.

Um, and I you know I wanted to one say one thing that Mayor Pro Tem who had to go pick up as children.

So I want to make sure that I uh relay this on his behalf, um, in line with uh Councilmember Dickinson's comments about the idea of mixed use.

Uh, we completely agree.

And one of the actual tangible examples that already is underway in our community on Stockton Boulevard right now is actually the Gateway Project, um, which is a mixed use, it's got a it's got um affordability, it's also got um workforce housing components.

It's in an area of the city that would otherwise be very, very difficult to get this kind of investment.

Um at the time, the city was able to find a way to get them a um a short-term loan to help them bridge the gap.

And that's kind of what inspired this for us was this wow, this was really tangible, this had an impact, and now we're gonna see this housing in our community.

Um, and so I just want to really agree and align myself with Councilmember Dickinson and Vice Mayor Tolamontis on the idea that it's very important that this be revolving in nature because it's not a lot of money.

Um, we can add to it over time, but at the outset it's not a lot.

Um, and so if we are able to invest and get paid back with interest, um, so an example of this is right now in a lot of uh for a lot of developments, if they're borrowing money at let's say seven or eight percent, which is not uncommon right now in the market, and let's say the city can provide you a loan at four percent.

We are both seeing a return in our investment.

We're seeing more money coming back to us, and that means that we have more to go out over time for projects that can last far, far beyond all of us.

Um, on this council, and hopefully um, we'll see many, many projects that can come from this.

And so I just want to agree with all of that and say that the possibility is great.

I know we're at the starting point, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, so a lot of conversations to come, but I think this has a lot of possibility and I appreciate the support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh good conversation.

I think that lays the the groundwork.

So we want to uh further flush out um kind of the option and maybe some of the language they heard from tonight, city attorney and our treasurer, but more importantly, uh reach out to uh the community about this idea so we come back the first council meeting after recess, we could potentially uh deliberate and vote to put this on the ballot.

So, with that, this item will be uh not voted on tonight, and subsequently the corresponding implementation items for such a ballot measure will also be um delayed till after our summer recess.

Yes, next item.

Thank you.

So, Mayor item um 50 and 51 will also be continued to July 21st.

Those are the, as you said, the administrative items um placing the measure on the ballot, consolidating with the county talking about um ballot arguments and authors.

So we move to item 52, which is audit of the city's homeless response evaluation of cost and outcomes of sheltering programs.

Alright, good afternoon, Mayor and members of the city council.

I'm Farisha Arrari, your city auditor.

With me today are Joyce Chi and Ricardo Sanchez Molinero, who are primarily responsible for conducting this audit.

The recommendation before you is to approve the audit of the city's homeless response evaluation of costs and outcomes of sheltering programs, and the accompanying fact book.

So first I wanna uh cover what the audit objectives were.

At a high level, the audit sought to analyze the various city-funded sheltering programs to understand which shelter program types are most cost effective and most successful in helping individuals transition to stable housing, with the broader goal of informing future policy decisions and investment strategies.

More specifically, the audit examined several areas, including the different shelter models currently funded or operated by the city, the relative costs and outcomes, how effectively different programs serve diverse populations and needs, and what characteristics or practices appear to be associated with stronger housing outcomes.

The audit also aimed to identify broader opportunities to improve efficiency, coordination, and overall effectiveness of the shelter system.

And then we also included a review of the good neighbor policies.

Alright, so I want to emphasize that this audit was not designed as a deep operational review of a single shelter.

Our objective was to kind of step back and take a look at the shelter system more broadly and how different program models function together, what patterns emerge across shelters, and where broader structural factors may influence outcomes.

We recognize that shelters serve different populations, operate under different program designs, and contribute to outcomes in different ways.

So we focused on homeless sheltering programs operated or funded by the city from July 1st, 2022 through June 30, 2025, which is fiscal years 23, 24, and 25.

Certain analyses focus primarily on fiscal years 24 and 25 based on data availability and the relevance of more current information.

And some information also reflects current operational procedures and practices because of timing.

As part of our methodology, we interviewed both city staff and service providers, visited all active shelter sites, and conducted additional research on different shelter models and practices.

We also reviewed contracts, financial and operational information, HMIS client and services data, and good neighbor policies, including feedback from surrounding neighbors.

Note that not all shelters were included in every analysis, depending on the relevance of the data or the methodology used.

This audit has six findings and makes 12 recommendations to increase shelter capacity and further strengthen performance measurement, resource allocation, and program implementation to better understand program effectiveness and maximize the impact of shelter investments.

There is a metrics table that analyzes performance metrics across all shelters in the audit report.

And this audit report is also supplemented by separately issued fact book that provides additional background and comparative information on the city's homeless sheltering programs.

The fact book presents information on program characteristics, operational priorities, outcomes, and costs across sheltering programs to provide broader factual context and illustrate similarities and differences amongst programs.

Together, the audit report and the fact book are intended to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the city's homeless sheltering system, but my presentation today will be focused on the audit report itself.

So during our review period, the city had 14 active city-funded sheltering programs throughout the city.

13 programs were active during most of the period, and as of June 30, 2025.

One program was active but not utilized.

And then we also had three programs that were inactive.

So the various sheltering programs can be grouped into five different categories by physical design.

That's safe grounds, fully congregate, semi-congregate, partially non-congregate, and fully non-congregate.

The physical design and population served is typically how the Department of Community Response has grouped the shelters in the past.

I do also note again that this audit only includes those sheltering programs that were owned and operated or funded by the city, and not all shelters or housing programs in the city.

So, for example, we don't include primitive supportive housing programs, because that came up at budget and audit, and then county-funded shelters such as Stockton Boulevard Safe State.

But we did go and visit that site during our site visits to see how it compares to our city sites.

It does have a hundred and seventy five bed capacity with close to six and a half million annual budget for fiscal year 26.

It is operated by first step communities who also operate some of our sites, and referrals are made by DCR to that shelter.

A major part of the audit was trying to group the shelters in a way in a way to better compare them.

So you'll see in some parts of our audit that we use DCR groupings, but we did try to use a smaller group as well.

So we chose to group the shelters into three different groups reflecting operational priority as well.

These groups are generally similar to DCR's groupings, but focuses on what the shelter is trying to do as its main priority.

And we found that this grouping actually is quite consistent with the patterns that we saw in the numbers.

Essentially, these priorities align with the city's sheltering objectives, which are to shelter as many unsheltered individuals as possible, assist them in their path towards stable housing, and provide them with services that ensure individual well-being.

And then we actually go into this into a finding later.

The first group includes those trying to resolve a crisis or emergency situation.

Clients typically enter through street outreach and are provided immediate stabilization and safety.

Based on our review, these clients overall may have higher acuity levels or not be ready to engage in services quite yet.

The next group are those focusing on sheltering and supporting housing progress.

In short, these include most of the bigger shelters and most entered through the coordinated access system.

They focus on providing stabilization, supportive services, and pathways toward improved or permanent housing outcomes.

And then finally, the last group includes those that focus on resolving homelessness and supporting long-term wellness.

These shelters have a stronger emphasis on wraparound services and longer-term wellness support, and they're often part of a provider's portfolio of various homeless support programs.

And I want to clarify that we realize that some shelters do all of these things.

It's more to indicate what stands out as our primary operational priority comparatively.

And again, one of our findings does go deeper into this.

Additionally, we have identified many more characteristics to group shelters.

These will show up throughout the report depending on what we're analyzing.

So this is just one framework that we used.

As I previously mentioned, clients may enter the city sheltering programs through different avenues.

34% of the clients entered through DCR's street outreach team, and 65% through the coordinated access system.

There is 1% of clients that entered through other means as well.

Overall, our analysis of fiscal year 24 and 25 data found that 20% of the clients that exited during this period had permanent exits out of homelessness.

28% were to improved but not permanent exits.

39% exited negatively, and the exits of 12% of the clients was unknown but most likely negative.

This table, which is on page 32 of the audit report, provides the summary of the various performance metrics that we calculated for the different shelters.

I really realize you can't read any of it.

But the rest of the audit report really provides more context for some of the variances in the metrics amongst the shelters that we noted.

Uh oh, I can't go back.

I accidentally skipped a slide.

But the first slide was finding one.

It focuses on how shelter costs vary across program types.

We compared the cost structures across all programs, and most cost differences align with different with the program design.

So we also found that costs overall tend to emphasize sheltering and stabilization roles rather than longer term outcomes, which may suggest that the cost structure could better align with the program intent.

While costs per bed and client also vary across programs, there may also be opportunities to improve cost efficiency and some higher cost per bed programs.

So this graph shows the total program expenditures for fiscal years 24-25 by shelter.

We also include the average occupancy to show that the higher total costs are generally consistent with more clients served.

The city span approximately 63.2 million for these various sheltering programs during fiscal years 24 and 25.

And according to DCR, approximately 27% of the funds came from the general or measure U funds, and 73% came from other sources, such as state homeless housing assistance and prevention funds.

Here are our estimated costs per occupied bed per night for fiscal years 24 and 25.

There is a lot of variation in the cost per bed per night.

Differences in shelter costs appear to reflect the program design, operating models, and facility types, but the city has not clearly defined or evaluated the trade-offs between maximizing shelter capacity and investing in services that may improve client outcomes.

These trade-offs are reflected in both how much the city spends on different program types and how those programs allocate their costs.

Some programs receive more total funding and each program allocates their resources somewhat differently, leading to different cost structures.

At the same time, differences in the program costs are not driven by these trade-offs alone.

They are also influenced by factors such as the number of participants specified in the provider contracts, the policy decisions that shape the program size, and the availability of potential sheltering sites.

However, without a framework to define and evaluate these trade-offs, it is difficult to clearly assess program value and understand how different approaches support the system goals.

We did try to compare each shelter's positive exit rates with their cost per positive exit.

Overall, the relationship between cost per positive exit and positive exit rates appear weak and inconsistent.

If higher spending consistently produce better outcomes, we would expect to see a clear upward trend in this chart.

Instead, the shelters with similar costs often achieve very different positive exit rates, while some lower cost shelters achieve outcomes comparable to or better than the higher cost programs.

For example, EBH at the Grove and the City Motel program achieved relatively strong positive exit rates without having the highest cost per positive exit.

Overall, the analysis suggests there is no clear correlation between positive exit rates and cost per positive exit, indicating that higher spending alone does not consistently correspond to better outcomes.

And this suggests that factors beyond spending, such as the program design and service delivery may play an important role in influencing outcomes.

Finding two focuses on shelter capacity and utilization across the system.

Overall, we found that some shelters may have additional capacity available under existing occupancy limits, and that larger congregate shelters may be able to serve additional residents at relatively low marginal cost.

We reviewed the process for determining capacity limits and largely concluded that existing capacity was an operational decision and not a regulatory constraint.

As a result, we recommended evaluating whether capacity at certain shelters could be safely expanded within existing resources.

And this finding focused on our larger congregate shelters, and the number of individuals that we did our analysis on is between one and five.

So this figure illustrates conceptually what we're referring to.

Essentially, there is a gap between the contracted capacity, basically the operational capacity, and the maximum occupancy, which is what's posted in the buildings when you go see what the fire marshal has said can be allowed in the building.

Not included in this figure is also that there might also be a gap between the maximum occupancy and the full physical capacity that's within regulatory limits.

We compare the occupancy of the shelters with the costs of each of the shelters in our review.

We assess the fixed cost, depth fixed costs, and variable costs of the shelters to estimate the nightly cost of an additional bed at each of the shelters.

So as you can see, the cost ranges from less than $6 to $23, which is significantly less than the average cost per bed per night that we covered earlier.

Given the city's ongoing efforts to expand shelter capacity and current fiscal constraints, prioritizing cost-effective expansion options can be beneficial.

Lower effort, lower cost approaches, such as maximizing capacity within existing large congregate shelters, where operational thresholds permit should be considered a practical option to serve additional unsheltered individuals.

Finding three focuses on how shelter outcomes vary across different program types and populations served.

Overall, we found that differences in outcomes often appear to reflect program design, shelter roles and client populations, more than immediate indicators of program effectiveness.

We also found that the city's shelter programs exceeded the statewide average for permanent housing exits, while larger shelters accounted for a significant share of exits due in part to their size and number of clients served.

This finding is largely descriptive and intended to provide context around how shelter outcomes vary across different program models and populations served and does not contain any recommendations.

So this figure has a lot of information, but it shows how we group the shelters into three groups based on operational priority.

It shows the averages by group, and it shows each group each shelter's exit rates as well.

So the goal is to compare across and within groups.

Our main conclusion is that the positive outcome averages, which are in solid green, are directionally consistent with the intended function of each of the three operational priorities.

Similarly, the averages for negative outcomes, which are in solid red, are also consistent based on each group's objectives, but expectedly in the opposite direction.

And this slide combines the positive and improved exits into a single measure and compares them against the negative and unknown exits in a single measure.

The clearest pattern is that outcomes generally align with each shelter group's intended role within the shelter system.

Shelters focused on long-term wellness achieve the highest rates of positive or improved outcomes at 69%.

And by comparison, crisis focused shelters averaged 44%, and housing progress shelters averaged 41%.

This is consistent with expectations that programs designed to support longer-term stabilization and wellness would generally be expected to achieve stronger exit outcomes than programs primarily intended to address immediate shelter needs.

However, we still see notable differences amongst the shelters within the same operational group, suggesting that operational priority alone does not fully explain the outcomes.

So finding four focuses on the city's ability to evaluate the impact of shelter services on client outcomes.

Overall, we found that current HMIS data limitations constrain meaningful analysis on which services are most cost effective, most effective, and that broader structural barriers outside of the city's control may also influence housing outcomes.

As a result, the recommendations focus on improving data collection, standardizing data entry, and better tracking barriers that affect clients after stabilization.

So these charts compare the relationship between the length of stay and the number of services received for participants with both positive outcomes, which is a chart on the left, and those with negative outcomes, which is the chart on the right.

In both charts, we see a similar pattern.

Participants who stay longer generally receive more services.

However, the overall distribution of data points appears broadly similar between the two groups.

So participants with positive outcomes and participants with negative outcomes can both be found across a wide range of lengths of state and service levels.

As a result, the available data do not show a clear relationship between the volume of services received and whether a participant ultimately experienced a positive or negative outcome.

This doesn't mean that services are ineffective.

Rather, the data do not demonstrate a clear or consistent association between service volume and outcomes across shelters.

So this chart measures participant readiness rather than exit outcomes.

So several shelters reported that a substantial share of participants were both document ready and housing ready.

These results suggest that many participants have completed key preparatory steps needed to obtain housing.

However, readiness does not necessarily translate into immediate housing placement, kind of like Councilmember Tolamantes brought up earlier.

These findings raise the possibility that factors outside the shelter system may be limiting participants' ability to exit to permanent housing, such as housing availability and affordability.

In other words, for some participants, the primary challenge may no longer be becoming housing ready, but finding housing to move into.

Then we did a similar analysis of those that were ready to be referred to treatment centers and found similar results.

The shelters had individuals ready to be referred but had not received the treatment, suggesting that limited treatment beds may also explain the lack of positive exits out of the sheltering system.

Our research found that this is also an issue that has been identified by local area hospitals in their 2025 community needs assessments.

So finding five focuses on how the city measures shelter system performance and progress.

We found that existing shelter metrics might not be directly indicative of progress toward broader shelter system goals or measure client progress towards stabilization and wellness, and that the city has not established consistent performance targets or expected ranges for evaluating outcomes across programs.

As a result, the recommendations focused on developing a more comprehensive performance framework and improving how client progress is tracked over time.

So our analysis found that the city can strengthen accountability by more fully defining and using performance targets or expected ranges, and that existing metrics can be improved to measure the extent of client progress towards stabilization and wellness.

We found that we typically focus on the clients' outcomes, but that, but that although client stabilization is a key component of service delivery, it is not reflected in tracked measures.

Established approaches in human services and healthcare present options for tracking individual progress over time, such as a goal attainment scaling gas and the clinical global impression scale, CGI.

Both apply standardized rating scales to assess changes in individual condition, with gas measuring progress relative to predefined goals and CGI assessing improvement or decline relative to a prior baseline.

This figure illustrates how these two methods compare to each other.

And we believe that case managers can utilize assessments like these during their regular meetings with clients to track client progress.

And finally, finding six is our review of the good neighbor policies and is focused on our larger shelters.

Overall, we found that many issues are influenced by broader neighborhood conditions, and that responsibility for responding is shared across multiple entities.

As a result, the recommendations focus on clarifying policy expectation, such as the radius of influence for providers, and improving communication and response processes with the surrounding communities.

We reviewed 311 and police call data, data survey of neighbors for a sample of shelters and reviewed the policies themselves.

This figure identifies the various responsible entities for responding to neighborhood concerns and the limits each face in responding to neighborhood related concerns across city shelters.

In summary, service providers lack a defined uh radius of responsibility.

The city's incident management team can prioritize calls around shelters, but is limited to uh clearing a mere 25 feet buffer around the shelter, which is designated as critical infrastructure, and police calls are prioritized based on standard police dispatch procedures.

This slide shows how jurisdictions, other jurisdictions define areas of responsibility around shelters and other facilities.

So current city good neighbor policies reference the area around the shelters, but they do not define a specific boundary.

Other examples that we looked at range from 100 feet to 2640 feet with Sacramento Stockton Boulevard safe stay using a 1000 foot radius.

A defined boundary helps translate neighbor expectations into clear operational responsibilities.

The radius should be large enough to capture likely shelter-related impacts, but small enough for providers to reasonably monitor and respond.

We believe establishing a defined radius and corresponding response expectations could improve consistency, accountability, and community understanding.

So, as I mentioned, there is an accompanying fact book that supplements the audit report and provides additional information about the city sheltering programs.

The fact book that includes shelter profiles for each of our shelters in our scope period and additional analysis beyond what is identified in the audit report.

So this concludes my presentation.

I'd like to thank the Department of Community Response and the various shelter providers for the collaboration and assistance.

DCR's response to the findings and recommendations are provided in the back of the audit report, and staff from both my office and DCR are available to answer any questions.

Thank you, Madam City Auditor.

Um appreciate the really thorough presentation, and now my second time hearing it, so I feel like I learned something new every time.

Uh with that, do we have a big comment?

You want to call Brian?

Now I would like to call up Brian Petra to please give DCR's perspective, and then we'll go to public comment.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

We're still an afternoon.

So I wanted to thank Paris and her team, City Auditors team.

It's a very, very big lift to try and understand the magnitude of homelessness and our shelters, and what we do in our shelters and all the different types of shelters we have and the services provided.

So I thank them for taking the time and effort and asking plenty of questions to try and understand to provide a good audit, overall audit.

We uh agree with all of the recommendations that they found.

Um, I think it's consistent with everything that we've been tracking as well.

Uh and the we are constantly trying to improve our system in all aspects of it.

And uh, as you can see, there is many different shelters with many people, different people with many different needs.

Uh, and we have many different services, and we have many different services that are tracked on many different uh platforms, and so trying to uh pull that into one cohesive understanding of uh what our magic solution is to uh to solve uh I wouldn't even say homelessness is to solve the many challenges of every individual that is in our shelter um with housing being only one of them.

Uh this audit shows a really good um small piece of the challenges that we have.

Um, and with that, I am open to any questions.

Thank you.

We'll hear from the public first, and then I'll pass it over to my colleagues.

Thank you, Mr.

Peter.

We have three speakers.

First is Lambert, but it appears he's not with us any longer.

Annabelle Gonzalez and Nick Goling.

Oh, Amber's.

Oh, there we are, Ambert.

Well, Lambert is here.

Can we take Annabelle first and then Mr.

Mr.

Davis?

Thank you.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Annabelle Gonzalez, a 12-year North Matomas homeowner and a 10-year child care business owner.

I am here on item 52, the homeless audit, and it confirms what neighbors have been saying for years.

We are spending big and no one can prove what is working.

That's the audit in one sentence.

Accountability matters, transparency matters.

That brings me to the city's recent actions.

On June 4th, they filed a notice of exemption on three micro-community sites: 3511 Arena Boulevard, 6360 25th Street, and 2461 Garden Dell Road, claiming these projects have no significant environmental impact.

Here are the concerns.

A portion of Project Site 1 is located within a FEMA floodplain.

Their solution, elevate the units on ground screws about three feet off the ground, no hydraulic hydrauli report or no drainage and LS is just screws in the dirt.

If you stand on the land, you will see two large storm drains, a fenced-off water basin, and a utility shed locked behind a metal fence with a sign that reads hazard.

Was any of that ever studied?

Was a real biological survey completed?

And how does combining three different sites under one exemption give each one a fair and honest review?

The people who sign this exemption are environmental consultants, experts in biology and noise, not Sacramento Zoning Code.

So who actually verified these micro homes meet the city's own standards?

Setbacks, lot coverage, and utility access.

An environmental survey is not a zoning review.

And do you know how the public found out the city filed this exemption with the county?

The minimum required by law and never bought it to this council, never had a hearing, and never told the neighborhood, technically notice to practically invisible.

So my ask is simple.

Adopt the recommendations on this audit, set one standard for success, require outcomes to be tracked and reported, and answer these questions for the public before another dollar is given.

Count people when they come in, count them when they leave.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Lambert, the Nick Goling.

Welcome.

Before I begin, it what I'd like to ask is this is a quorum.

Yeah, we have five.

Because I don't see, of course, Mr.

Pucky Bomb's not here, but I don't I want to make sure this is a uh forum before I speak.

Yes, we have five members of the council.

Yeah, this lady right here, she's telling this is this is my viewpoint on uh the homeless in this department.

As a person who went to a lot of meetings, I was so glad.

I don't believe believe I would be going to the meetings of Mr.

Uh Bickison wasn't the chair.

Because I've never gone there because every time uh you crunch the numbers, that's where you can find out what's really going on.

Now, in the Sacramento B, the Sacramento B came out with an article and said that that's why I respect this lady just spoke.

It's true.

What goes in, what goes out if the city if the city auditor can find out what's wrong, what's gonna happen if a federal audit comes in here where you can't control them?

You're gonna find out that suspended competitive bidding is part of this problem.

I read where one uh group is thousands of dollars more than another group, but the one spending the most money doesn't get the outcomes of the smaller one.

So as a business person, I would think, well, we have to just go to the smaller one and upscale, but because you have allowed these contractors to get the contract without bidding, that's why you have this disparity.

It's very easy to figure out, and to the city auditor, uh outstanding work.

Outstanding.

Because I still don't understand how she could be the city auditor and come up with these results and then not sabotage internally.

Nick Goling.

Nick's our final speaker on this item.

Good evening, Mayor and Council, Nick Galling, executive vice president with the gathering in.

We have been operating your North Fifth Shelter since November of 2024.

I could be mistaken, but I think we might be the only uh provider here today that was included in that analysis.

I would like to thank the city auditors team, specifically for Rishta, Joyce, Kevin, and Ricardo for their work in this process.

They were consistently professional, responsive, and thorough from start to finish.

At the gathering in, we regularly analyze all aspects of our various programs related to outcomes, calls for service, guest engagement, community integration in the neighborhoods in which we operate, and others.

We strive to be best in class in all that we do, and we won't know if we're going in the right direction unless we analyze the data and make adjustments as needed.

This audit was an important step for our community and right in line with how we like to do business.

The truth of the matter is that a common narrative, especially around HAP funds, is that billions of dollars were spent and no one can account for any of it.

While it can be argued that certain investments have had varying success, and that generally permanent supportive housing can be outrageously expensive to build, we can indeed account for where the money went, and this will help guide improvements and next steps.

Finally, there's a lot that we can glean from these findings.

These investments have resulted in thousands of lives that have been changed.

Each of those lives represents someone's somebody.

So when you think about the family members, the parents, the friends, the loved ones that also are impacted by this, able to rest easier at night, knowing that their loved one is safe and has dignity and respect.

That's tens of thousands more.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now opening up to my colleagues, Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you.

Um, Frishta, thank you.

I I really appreciate um all the work that you and your team have put in.

What this is our third audit, I think.

Third report, yeah, third report.

Um and I see a version of more coming as the more you dig into it, it leaves more questions that maybe we need to look um into.

I think what I gleam from this and what I hear from my community and and neighbors and people in Sacramento is a frustration.

Is they see the money that we've got from the state, they see the money that we invest in, and there isn't always data to show what works and what doesn't work.

Um, unfortunately, your audit highlights that, um, but I think it gives us knowing that we have this basis and we have this data, how do we move forward and do better?

Truly honestly, that's that's where I see, um, and and colleagues, um, I really do hope we like take a look at this and the shelter and the audit findings, and how do we implement them?

So I think one of them which maybe you're already looking at uh Mr.

Pedro, is uh the capacity versus what we're serving.

Even if there's room in a couple of places that we can add five beds, that's five more people we could potentially help.

So, how do we balance that?

Because I know there is dignity and space and capacity that we all have to look into, but but why don't uh we we look into that?

Because you know, um, you know, I think it's important when we we have to be very careful when we talk about what's most cost effective.

Well, what's the definition of cost effective?

What's the definition of success?

And so that's something I'd like to see us moving forward with because we have varying levels of shelters, and I think success is different at every level in our shelter system, and so I think we need to kind of disaggregate that data so that we can start defining success of we know those who um just as I I stopped by uh the safe camping in the opening today, we know those have generally been on the street for really long time, and it's just kind of almost living within rules and procedures, they're not ready to go into housing, so that might have a higher um return to the street rate, they might not be as successful where we know if like you look at um the village, the Waking Village and St.

John's, which have may cost more but have more services, that there may be a higher success rate to permanent supportive housing.

And so, what I'd like to see is that we we break it down and define what success is, but also when we define that success, what is that data look like that is the data we get from whatever tier of support system that is, that it's the same success is defined the same way.

So the data is the same that we get, so we can start analyzing based off of that, you know.

Um, because I'm afraid sometimes when somebody says they've got services, somebody may define services.

I handed you a toothbrush, and somebody may define services as I had a 15-minute conversation with you, and and that helped that individual maybe tech take those next steps or um get the support services they need for um you know a drug addiction, and and so how do we measure um and look at that?

So you're finding one on different uh shelter costs may reflect program design.

How do we now align that so that people can see program design is impacting different levels of those who are homeless?

Um finding four is a little hard for me because um, you know, and you explained it perfectly, and why you said the limited review of shelter services show no strong link to positive outcomes.

We know and studies have been done that actually show a certain level of services, do show positive and strong outcomes.

Um Madam City Manager, I think this is potentially something where we have to talk to our state level partners because I think the restriction of when we get hat funding that we can't require services really hampers the success rate.

Now I think there are varying levels of whatever shelter you're in.

Some you can demand and some it's just getting them off the streets and starting, but every report that I have ever read success increases when they get off the streets and it's paired with support services, and knowing that our hands are somewhat tied, that we can't require that.

Um I'd also like, and I will continue to bring up that when we look at what programs are most successful, what are most cost effective?

I think sometimes something sounds good, but now that we have data and the cost, maybe the sounding good isn't matching the cost and the outcome.

And should we take a look at that and knowing that while we're getting hat funding and it's uh you know, thank the state for the next level, but you never know what the next level is going to be, but also that we've been significantly investing general fund dollars we don't have that that we really have to take a look at how do we realign uh what services we're providing.

Um, you know, ultimately you and I have had this conversation.

Should the city be in the homeless business, and that's a lot of what the county does, and how how can we balance that um because I think we're doing good, but it's not something that I think is completely sustainable, knowing just the cost in the funding and in how we do that.

So, and then finally, um I did put in a um oh two more things.

One, um I have always said it and I have been on board even uh before council member Dickinson joined us.

Is we got ARPA funding that that really showed done right prevention and keeping people in their housing, um really is a extremely cost-effective way for keeping people off the streets, and and we've got to, as we look at that, that has got to be part of our homelessness sheltering protocol is the actual prevention um part of it that I don't think we're concentrating or looking at enough.

And then finally, I did submit uh my colleagues, it was part of a larger proposal which hasn't been re referred to committee, but one of the items in it was a good neighbor policy.

Now the county has adopted a good neighbor policy that I think the city should just adopt.

We should mirror the city and county.

They went through a very long process and there may be some tweaks, but I you know, if I need to work with some of my colleagues and put in another proposal, but I think we need a written good neighbor policy.

If the county has passed one and we and we work with the city and we work with the county on a lot of this, that we we should uh we should put forward um one as well.

And those are my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Plucky Bong.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um just a few um highlights from findings I wanted to point out, all things that we're already doing.

Um, you know, uh expanded good neighbor policies, enhanced case case management, a real focus on um ROI in terms of um you know how we're deploying limited resources and getting uh you know the best value for the investments that we're making.

But the um thing that I really wanted to highlight about this audit was what it does in terms of signaling leadership and building trust in the expenditures that we're making.

I really appreciate that we've taken the time to do this level of of review on the work that we've done.

Um, you know, as as we all know, the the common narrative out there is that you know the state has spent billions of dollars and no one can account for any of it, and certainly you can make that argument.

Um, but the you know um also you know permanent supportive housing is super expensive, and you know, all those kinds of things are kind of floating around in the the dialogue out there, but now we know for a fact, at least as it relates to the city of Sacramento, that thousands of lives have been changed and and many thousands more when you think about family members, children, parents of those people that we've helped, and I think for that we should uh be proud and and um know that for the you know those folks we found safety and dignity and and helped transform their circumstances.

That said, we know there's a lot more work to do.

This is not a you know mission accomplished moment, but uh I think is a you know milestone in the work that we're doing.

I think it's a a moment to um recognize you know all the the good things that we've done and and all the the more good that we still have to do.

So thank you uh first of producing the audit and thank you, Brian, for doing all this good work.

Thank you, Councilmember Dickinson.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh I made a number of comments on the budget and audit committee, so I won't well try not to repeat too much.

Well, I didn't hear you, so tell me then all you're enlighten me.

I forgot.

You can just give me a summary, Roger.

I've forgotten where they were.

You'll get the gist.

Um first and uh first of all uh I appreciate this this audit uh as capturing um uh a picture of what we're doing uh and where outcomes are for the different approaches taken.

I I think it's no great revelation to say that uh homelessness is is uh a compound complex uh equation with a population which is far from monolithic.

And that means that that it it often is gonna take different approaches at different points of time uh to to to work successfully with with people uh that's why I think there's no simple answer to if we just did it this way it would work for everybody because that's not the way people are and that's not where they are in their lives it's not what they're ready to do.

What I think you have shown quite quite uh demonstrably is that uh there is no there is no uh uh proverbial silver or magic bullet here there's not one simple approach that works there are different approaches that diff work for different people at different points in time and so the person who enters one form of of homeless assistance and leaves with an unsuccessful quote unquote exit may the next time be the person who enters a program and succeeds as we define it in get getting to permanent housing it's enormously frustrating I think for everybody that it that it can't it can't be reduced to a simple equation but the fact of the matter is it can't uh and that's why we try different approaches we that's why that's why we have uh emergency shelter and we have transitional housing and we have housing first we have different modalities because different modalities work for different people at different points in time so so uh for my part I think that the audits actually quite helpful in in demonstrating that the results are mixed because matching up the person to the right approach at the right point in time is it is the magic of it and that magic's hard to come by especially on a especially on an everyday basis.

So I do think that as we look at capacity and I'm I'm one of those who thinks we should be to the extent possible moving away from congregate shelters because I don't think they're the the most effective form of uh getting people off the street and housing them while we do have congregate shelters we need to we need to look at what we can reasonably uh occupy those shelters uh with uh in terms of capacity we need to we need to look at where we have space and and where uh we can put more people if it helps people getting off the street and getting a chance uh uh to move out of homelessness on an ongoing or or permanent basis I also think uh and council member kaplan touched on this I think the takeaway for me from from this is if there's anything that's important to do it's to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place just because it is so difficult to find the to find the right place at the right time for the right person to help them off the street even with an enormous concentration of resources to do that very thing it's far more effective far cheaper to keep people housed who are at risk of homelessness than than to help them off the street once once they're there.

So I I know this is the the drama pound I'm aware of that but I'm not gonna stop because I think every time we we do some sort of analysis of this it keeps coming back to that same basic point.

And so I think that that we'd need to look at this audit in a slightly larger way about if we're interested in trying to prevent and then house people who become homeless what what are the strategies and what are the tactics where should the money be spent in in order to accomplish that that ultimate uh objective the ultimate objective is is not to find the the holy grail with respect to which form of uh of shelter works best because uh unlike uh uh unlike Harrison Ford we'll never succeed so so uh maybe uh we're smarter to figure out how we uh how we use our resources uh in a way that reduces the pressure on the system to to get people off the street successfully once they're there that's that's I think the takeaway for me and I I this is an enormous undertaking I very much appreciate the work you and your staff have done uh and that uh Brian and the DCR our staff who and all those who are operationally in in this field because uh the plot it's aren't very many uh the complaints are a lot uh and the thanks are are often too little thanks okay thank you councilmember bang mayor I'll just keep it short um you just want to think for Richta I think the only question I have is really next steps on the recommendation um and I think that's important because I know this is a motion on the table to approve this audit but I think the report back is going to be critical because there are several recommendations uh from this audit and and just wanted to know what the timeline is several findings several outcomes from the audit and what we need to be doing as a city and so just wanted to know what the timeline is on is on that.

So our office once an audit is approved do follow up uh every six months um on all open recommendations and we do have a report that we uh report out to the city council on the status of all open recommendations so we follow them until they're implemented or dropped for whatever reason um but if there is additional reporting for the specific audit um that you guys would like to think that would be more DCR.

And and I will add to that so um we agreed with with all the recommendations most of them as as because these audits take time um as the audit is going on we are also changing programs and processes so we're we're kind of one in the same so most of these should be uh not a big lift for us to accomplish um within the year there's there's nothing that is um outside of something we aren't already working on thank you that was yeah that was a good uh question I was gonna get to that as well um council member bang but uh but first I I wanted to to thank you and your team for for working on this um I I know the first day I became mayor I I came and met with you and told you I wanted to ask that the audit department you conducted an audit and so it was very thorough it took a while but we had a lot of work in the hopper as far as other important audits but there is no issue that we hear about more and that constituents ask me about so literally when I was running for mayor I made two campaign promises and uh this was one to to do an audit of our homeless programs and as I said then as I'll say now I think most people trust that we're doing the right thing in government but there are a few that saying where is that money going is it being you know shifted off illegally spent is it is there something nefarious happening with our homeless money and so what I wanted to do is to just lay out where all of our money goes in all of our programs and try to see to some extent um how if we can compare apples to apples how much programs cost uh per bed um per person which programs have services uh which ones have better results than others and and focusing on how we can serve more people with as many people sit here tonight sometimes fewer resources we're getting stretched at all levels of government the state uh the federal and even our local resources are are are stretched and so we we're essentially doing more with less and it's a miracle that for two uh pit counts in a row the number of unsheltered homeless has gone down but certainly we're not done you walk outside the street today and you see too many people out there languishing in our in our communities including right outside of city Hall.

So this was, you know, a piece of the puzzle to look at it.

And I want to ask um our DCR department to do more.

Just wait right there, Brad, is to is to focus on not just you reporting back, but this is an audit bigger than my in my opinion, anything else.

So I would like you to do a report to the city council on on these pieces and talk about your analysis.

And the big picture is I think that what you outlined is what the interim audit from the department had already found.

And many of these issues we already identified, and we made needed reforms and you know, renegotiated contracts and partner more with the county and services and so forth, so we could essentially do more and serve more people.

So uh, you know, I I think we are in the right direction, and I think the big picture is I think about the the the outcomes, and I know this is a hard thing to say, but is this is it the city of Sacramento's job?

And I heard earlier, Councilmember Kaplan, that the maybe city shouldn't be in this homeless.

Yeah, I talked to 13 mayors on a regular basis, and we all say the same thing.

We wish we weren't in the homelessness business.

We wish we're focusing on senior programs and parks and police and fire, the basics, but this lays in our lab.

And so the question we ask ourselves is it the city's job to essentially fix people that are many times broken with behavioral health and addiction, all these other issues.

Is that our job to to be the fixer of all this or to help triage and get unsheltered people out of our parks out of our neighborhoods to somewhere better where we can hopefully link them with services, mainly non-city and county services to help them graduate somewhere else?

And so I think if you're solely judged on the score as their success record, we're not always going to have an amazing batting average, in essence, because our our our main goal is to get people in a safer place than they are today, whether it's you know, a shelter program, congregate, motel program, a tiny home, state camping, safe parking, uh transitional uh youth programs.

Certainly they run the gamut, they're very, very different.

But um, but you know, this work is not easy, but our but our work continues, and uh proud of the city council and our city manager and our city staff for coming up with a policy to cite new programs across the city because but for that we wouldn't be able to reduce unsheltered homeless.

I think it's a miracle last year.

Our unsheltered homelessness went down the city by about 590 people.

Last year, you know how many beds that we opened because of our city policy with citing, about 500 new beds.

And so it shows that our work, while not perfect, while we still see the impacts, we are headed in the right direction.

This helps give us uh a guiding uh light as far as what we need to keep on doing.

So thank you, city auditor, and thank you our department of uh community response for implementing uh these um items today and for the past uh year and a half to address this key issue.

So thank you.

This was um a uh informational item.

Um, to have a motion to approve and adopt the audit findings, and so we have a motion and second.

So that was by council member Dickinson, a second by Talamantes.

Thank you.

Yes, all those in favor?

Aye.

Aye, closed.

Uh looks like council member plucky bomb absent.

So that motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, Brad.

So, mayor, we now move to um council ideas, comments and questions due to the time.

I think we can postpone that till five.

Yes, and public comments matters on the agenda.

I have five speakers Lambert, Miguel Luciero, Michael Milton, Eric Clark, and then Jamie Garrick.

Okay.

When I was here earlier, I'm gonna prove something here now because you you have a problem, and I'm talking to the city attorney, you should pay attention.

There's a there's a problem here.

When I was here earlier, and shout out to Mity Cuppy on what happened during that moment, as I left, there were uh family and friends waiting for me because uh something very positive has happened with the cheesecake business in the South.

Southern California.

I shouldn't say the South.

That somebody might think I'm talking about the Deep South.

Southern California.

And as I left, that's it.

Please continue.

I don't believe so.

Anyway, Scar PD.

First thing they got check, check it out.

Thank you.

Let me just left.

Do I continue?

Mr.

Lamford, please continue.

All right.

As I left here, this was earlier today.

I left after I spoke on consent calendar and I went outside, and some family members and friends were waiting for me because we were gonna go celebrate.

And guess who I saw outside in the uh courtyard?

I saw Mr.

Plucky Bomb out there during this, and all of you were here, and he was being interviewed.

That's a dereliction of duty on display.

You are not as much money as District 4 gets on the uh consent calendar.

It's at least eight uh funding sources coming into district four.

And I'm all for district four getting cleaned up because I'm a native.

Uh downtown looks terrible, but that can be confirmed, and the city attorney should be into that.

That's a dereliction of duty.

He should not be outside getting interviewed when all of you are sitting here.

That's you should be outraged by that.

And I just happened to see it because the millennials pointed it out.

I said, forget him, let's go to lunch.

Miguel Lacero, then Michael Melton.

Wow.

Is Miguel still here?

I don't see movement.

Michael Melton.

Following Michael is Eric Clerk, and then Jamie Garrick.

Please proceed.

Good afternoon.

I'm Michael Melton.

Um I've been here a bunch of times.

Today I'm here to uh complain about a few things, uh, like with the shelters.

Uh, the shelters should have a licensed counselor at every shelter, and that would help to get uh the disability uh papers pushed through that HMIS need that the HRSHRA needs, they need some kind of a counselor in there that is a licensed counselor that can help the people that are in there.

It's like 60 days in.

If you guys ever watch 60 days in, like I was in there and I seen the things that they were missing, and like today, I got an apartment today, but because I didn't get all my paper paperwork through HMIS and different uh therapies or stuff like that, they try to say you gotta play crazy or something like that to get your apartment.

Uh, although you could be everything fit for your homeless, but if you're not disabled, if you don't get a social security check, or they try to send you to counselors and stuff like that, if you don't pass with the counselors, then you don't you're not gonna get uh any help.

So we need something to change about that too, where it's it's like a Ponzi scheme or something, like you got to be fake crazy to get uh housing or some help like that, or to but they should have in the shelters some way to uh have uh uh counselors in there to help people with mental disabilities to pass the paperwork along because uh Sacramento Steps Forward needs uh disability papers and things like that.

So we had Sacramento Steps Ford in here earlier, we had the SF and we had SHRA, we got uh DCF, whatever.

So if we if we want to uh, and I also think of this, we need a federal audit because if we're bringing up how I've been thinking you're corrupt, and you and we we're doing this now, or bringing this to the page, and then I'm here for it just to hear you say that that I've been saying you're corrupt.

We need to get the audit.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time's complete.

Eric Clark, then Jamie Garrick.

Hello, my name is Eric Clark.

I am uh a resident in District 2, and I am a landlord and business owner there also.

Um, I'm coming here to complain the homelessness.

They are ravaging our neighborhood.

Okay, uh the Del Paso Boulevards, specifically above the uh 1500 to 2300 uh block.

Um Councilmember Dickinson, I'm really directing this at you also.

Um it's it's it's it looks like night of the living dead out there at nighttime.

Um we have people uh I have families that live in my property.

I have a 12-year-old, um, and people are taking naps in front of our house, defecating on the street.

Um the Sacramento Youth Center, which should be where our youth are uh able to have a safe place.

That's a gathering place for people to camp out every night, and I do not see the outreach from the city.

Um, and we're frustrated as residents.

I'm frustrated it's it's becoming unsafe.

I can really not even market my uh property when it's vacant as a safe place because if any of you come and look at that boulevard during the nighttime, it looks terrible.

We have burned down buildings on Del Paso Boulevard.

It looks like the Bronx in the late 70s.

Okay, and something needs to give.

I understand that you guys have done the audit, but I don't see the outreach.

And it's becoming a place where it's undesirable, and I think that um that that's you guys are a little bit out of touch, and I am the one that's cleaning up every morning.

I'm um I'm asking people to if they can please move.

I'm actually giving homeless people money if they could please, you know.

Hey, if you can just please just move and keep it moving.

And so um, this is a plea um for uh help in this area.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Jamie Garrick.

Jamie is our final speaker this afternoon.

Good evening.

Um, this is a quick comment related to the shelter audit.

Um, my name is Jamie Garrick, Chief Program Officer with the Sacramento LGBT Community Center.

I want to highlight the critical life-saving work the center does in partnership with the city to shelter unhoused transitional aged LGBTQ youth ages 18 to 24.

Sheltering transitional age youth now helps to prevent adult homelessness later.

Thank you to the city for your continued partnership and support.

Mayor, you have no more business to come before the city council.

Okay.

We will adjourn and recess for 10 minutes.

10 minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we're gonna re adjourn our 2 p.m.

meeting, our 5 p.m.

meeting will start in approximately 10 minutes.

Thank you.