Welcome to the April 21st, measure you community advisory committee meeting.

The committee is now called order. Will the clerk please call the roll to establish a quorum?

Thank you, Chair. Commissioners, if you can unmute your microphones.

Commissioner McKee.

Present.

Commissioner Smith.

Present.

Commissioner Sala.

Here.

Vice Chair Wolff.

Here.

Commissioner Johnston.

Here.

Commissioner Goris.

Here.

Commissioner Drowfsky.

Here.

Commissioner Pichall.

Here.

Is absent.

Commissioner Frey-Lucas.

Here.

Commissioner Rosa is also absent and Chair Drowfs.

Here.

Thank you.

We have a quorum.

Okay.

I would like to remind members of the public and chambers that if you would like to speak

on an agenda item, please turn in a speaker slip when the item begins.

You'll have two minutes to speak once you are called on after the first speaker.

We will no longer accept speaker slips.

We will now proceed with today's agenda.

And as a fun little thing, we're going to start like having other people do the land

acknowledgement and pledge allegiance just to kind of bring in the members of this committee.

So Vice Chair, would you mind doing the land acknowledgement and pledge allegiance?

Yeah, if everyone could please rise for the opening knowledge and honor of Sacramento's

indigenous people and tribal lands.

To the original people of this land, the Nisanon people, the southern Maidu, valley and plains

Miwok, Putwin-Wintoon peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only

federally recognized tribes.

We may be acknowledged and honored by 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 peoples history,

contributions, and lives.

Thank you.

And now the federal agents.

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

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

Okay.

Our first business today is approval of the consent calendar.

Clerk, are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this?

Thank you, Chair.

We have no speakers for the consent.

Okay.

Is there any members of the committee who wish to speak on it?

If not, can we get a motion to approve in a second?

I'm going to get a motion to approve.

Okay.

I have a motion by a member of Johnston, but you have a second.

I'm second.

Okay.

Second by Solot.

Okay.

And let's see the next item.

So I can, Chair, I'll call the roll.

Oh, actually, you're right.

What can we just do instead of a roll?

Just a quick yay-nay.

If you don't mind.

So everyone in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone nay?

Abstain?

Perfect.

Okay.

Next will be, oh, the approval to dissolve the budget metrics.

No?

Next one.

Okay.

So then let's see item four.

We're going on past the discussion.

Like, because I see here it's three.

Okay.

So we're going to, we just approve that through the approval.

Okay.

Great.

Great.

So just in case anyone wasn't aware, because it is kind of sneaky boy.

We had to re-approve the, the dissolution to the dissolving of the budget and metrics

ad hoc that we kind of talked about last meeting.

Yeah.

I guess it takes a vote to remove an ad hoc instead of just the chair saying so it be.

So like, we did that.

We just did that.

Hope everyone was cool with that.

Okay.

Moving on to discussion calendar.

But before we go there, I just want to quickly call out, we did have a new member last meeting,

but because it was my first time chairing, I kind of was, you know, in the midst of it

and was messing stuff up.

But member Smith, first off, welcome.

We're glad to have you.

I won't make you speak unless you want to.

Just to say a quick intro, but okay.

Perfect.

And we're excited to have you.

All right.

Let's move on to now number four.

Overview of measure you funded departments and programs, specifically the fire department.

And we do have a staff presentation for this.

Good evening, members of the measure committee and Mr. Chair.

Thank you for having me tonight and thank you for being patient.

I missed my meeting time.

So what I was supposed to be here.

So I'm here with you tonight.

I'm going to talk a little bit about how measure you helps the fire department this evening.

And I'll walk through it with you.

If you bear with me.

So starting off the budget measure you serves as a supplemental funding source for the fire

department to maintain minimum operational staffing levels and string consistent emergency

response and capacity alongside the core general fund support.

Measure you funding helps maintain daily 178 firefighters and ensures that all stations

remain open and fully staffed.

But on top of that, it also staffs our door division diversity, outreach and recruitment.

So I'll talk a little bit more about that as I'm sorry.

Did somebody say something?

Okay.

I'm just hearing things.

In front of UCR goals, it's to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in the department and

the Sacramento fire department's applicant pull and specifically the applicant pull

that comes from our city, from within the city.

We found that we do very well with people that have grown up in Sacramento, want to stay

in Sacramento.

We don't do as well with people that are from San Diego.

It also provides opportunities to people that may not have known that they had a future

or a career in public safety.

Dorda is a really good job at getting out to the schools to high school age children,

but even younger.

And we start with the youth academy and they can be involved in that as well as the girls

camp.

And I'll talk more about that in a second.

Okay.

Diversity, outreach and recruitment, you can hear me say it a lot.

But we have several programs.

We have the pathway programs.

We have our youth programs, which is the fire youth academy.

I'll talk more about that.

The Sacramento area girls camp, which reaches across the county, not just the city of Sacramento,

but it does have a lot.

We just had it two weekends ago and there was 46 campers this year.

That's been about our running averages around 46, which is really good for camps that size.

And then our pipeline programs that really are starting to pay off with the young, what

we saw, like young either youth academy members or girls camp members starting to get into

the pipeline programs right now.

And they're becoming an EMT or a paramedic.

So in a few years they're going to be ready for the mainstream fire department.

Okay.

So our outreach and recruitment division, it's small.

It's mighty.

They do partner with other community-based organizations to help them.

So a lot of times at job fairs and stuff like that, you'll see them out there.

They also participate with the local high schools and mentorships.

They do a lot of demonstrations for kids.

They like, we have a set of virtual reality goggles, so they can go inside of a fire,

see what it's like.

The heat, but they see what it's like for us going from zero visibility to some visibility.

They can climb an aerial ladder and it gets them interested in what's next.

So that's where a lot of times we get the interest in the youth academy is that first

step with the virtual reality goggles.

So that's been, I don't know, it's been fun.

It's been interesting.

It's amazing to see the interest that the kids have in it through that virtual environment.

The youth programs themselves, this is the youth academy.

We have 35 cadets, over 800 hours of community service.

So they do go out to other things besides just us training them on how to be a firefighter

or an EMT or learning CPR.

They've been at the air show and they help set up and they help people get to where they

need to go at the air show.

They do learn CPR with us while they're with us.

And we've seen their average GPA increase from 3.04 to 3.33.

So there is a lot that goes on with the youth academy and keeping the kids involved and

engaged.

Sacramento area girls camp.

I talked about this a little bit in the beginning, but we're seeing the program hours go up.

We're seeing this was fall of 24.

We had 42 campers.

We just had 46 campers this spring.

And you can see it's from all areas of Sacramento, including the county and the diversity that

it does bring in the groups.

Our EMS internship program.

Program hours are a lot.

It takes a lot to become an EMT or a paramedic and climbing.

But this is where we're seeing the payoff in a lot of our outreach is getting kids interested

to the point where they're in these internship programs now.

And they're coming out the other side.

We just started our first single role academy.

Graduated on April 4th.

So you're seeing the byproducts of some of this now out in the field working on the streets

in Sacramento.

Some of those were residual from other programs that we had in the past.

The reserve program, Sacramento fire reserves was another program that we had.

It just didn't get them enough of the training.

It was more firefighter based and it was more led by the reserves themselves with a proctor

that was there with them.

But now we have a dedicated proctor forum and in the EMS academy they have dedicated

proctors that are career paramedics or career EMTs teaching them and helping them.

Just spoke about the fire reserve program.

The pictures are in black and white right now because we're retooling the program.

There's 27 reserves that are dedicated to the Sacramento.

We want to give them a more professional program to help them be prepared to step into service

with the fire department whether they choose the EMS route or the firefighting route or

both because you can do all of those today.

The door accomplishments.

You can tell two are in paramedic school which is a big deal.

High school takes about two years to accomplish and get through the end to where they get

their national paramedic license.

We have five EMS trainees that have completed and been hired with the Sacramento fire department

and then 10 are progressing through various portions of the phases.

So they might start out with no EMS background.

They become an EMT and then they go on to be a paramedic.

So it's our building blocks.

We also offer a paramedic scholarship for people to upgrade or someone that's in school

that's interested in the fire department can sign on and get their paramedic school paid

for as long as they're going to come and work for us.

We have the fire equity core committee.

It's a committee that started actually it was an idea of a former chief, Walt White,

and it's had variants over the years but we have our core committee now.

There's 14 members and they're committed to the development and the professional development

of the department.

Its capacity and training and advancing the youth that we work with all the time.

The funding roadmap we started out a while ago.

It's actually started in 2016.

In 2021 we had our first full year of funding with the seven staff.

We had a lot of one-time purchases that year.

So in 21-22 was the first year.

In 22-23 we continued to roll out and we stated what we would call phase two in that year.

We added an additional staff member but we also added 20 EMS trainees.

So they're part-time positions so when you look at the budget, if you look in the budget

book it will look like 10 full-time positions but we split them into halves.

So they're whole people but half-time.

And we're seeing a lot of success with that.

That's what we were talking about earlier.

As we pushed them through the different courses EMT and paramedic we're seeing great success

with that program.

It took place we kind of shuttered our paramedic internship program that was only paramedics.

Back in the early 2000s and 2008 we had to shutter it and we started again with this

and this is working out well.

Because it's not just a paramedic.

It's an EMT or a paramedic.

It lowers the barrier for entry into the department or into public service.

It doesn't have to be the Sacramento Fire Department but people in the community are

having a lot of success with it.

Year three, we talk about year three or phase three would be the permanent funding of all

three phases.

We're not there right yet.

We're still holding the phase two funding levels and we'll see what the budget is like

this year.

I talked a little bit about chief white and the diversity challenges.

It came from an audit where we saw ourselves alongside other city departments dipping in

diversity.

A lot of it came from several years of not hiring and then a glut of hiring and we hired

only paramedics at the time and we did not realize the barriers we had put in front of

ourselves and our community by doing that.

So our numbers had dipped down and it was across the board, dipped in diversity and

in gender.

We had dipped down to only 4% women.

Those numbers and our goals are to raise those numbers across the board and the door is helping

us do that.

So for us to continue, it's our call to action to fund the program at the level we have it

at today.

Continue investing in the program.

We're seeing right now the beginnings of our returns on the first years of investments

because the kids that were in high school now are the ones that are just getting to the

age where they can be employed in the department.

They've gone through their career technical education, they have their EMT or their paramedic

and they're ready to hit the streets in Sacramento.

They have that background that makes them successful as well in the fire service and

understanding what it is to be a firefighter.

It does help us provide a long-term impact on the workforce being here in Sacramento,

having people from Sacramento that know the city of Sacramento and what the communities

expect, we see a benefit from that as well.

The continued funding is appreciated and it's critical for us to maintain the programs.

We can't do it without your help.

So with that, I'll ask if you have any questions.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Before we go to questions, I just want to make sure there are any members of the public

who wish to speak on this item.

Thank you, Chair.

We have no speakers for this item.

Any commissioners want to queue up and ask some questions?

Member McGee.

Thanks so much for your presentation.

Just giving the current climate, and I know a lot of your presentation focused on diversity

and just opportunities and looking at your baseline and where you're trying to improve.

Do you see any changes to that based on the current climate?

The current climate is abroad.

The financial climate is rough, but what we are seeing and what I see is we're seeing

a much more diverse workforce come into our academies.

There's a lot of different ways.

With a single role, I talked about a little bit.

In a single role, I'll demystify it right here.

All that means is you don't have to be a firefighter.

You can be an EMT or a paramedic.

And it's a little more...

The shift is split into 12-hour shifts instead of 24-hour shifts.

So I think it's more conducive to family life, personally.

As the fire chief, I think it would be nice to know I'm going to be home 12 hours out

of the day.

So I think that's helping us.

I think reducing the barriers that we had and didn't realize we had put in front of

ourselves is what's really going to help us.

And I think across the board, we're seeing that in our academies in the last two to three

years.

Has it made an overnight change?

No.

But I do see the change happening.

And I liken it to when I was a young firefighter and captain in this department, when we had

the internship program.

The one program that gave us great diversity across the board was the internship program.

And we have more than one program like that now.

So I do see it helping us.

Thank you.

Member Jelsen.

Thanks so much for taking the time to present and come here.

One of the things that our job is to help advise the city council on how measure you

funds are spent.

Because they go into the general fund, it's sometimes hard to say one-to-one directly

how they impact the departments.

I just kind of want to know how you feel or your department generally feel about measure

you.

And can you speak specifically to any programs that you know that exist now only because

of measure you?

Maybe they didn't exist before measure you.

The DOR program funding that you came in, I couldn't see when it started.

It's only been going for a few years.

Do you, does your department track how much sale sex is coming in so you can project

forward or you just kind of say the city council is going to give a certain percentage measure

you funds to us or do you feel that's pretty reliable?

I just kind of want to get a general sense of how the department feels about measure

you funds and forecast that.

So there is a baseline that is in the department that's part of our general fund allotment.

It's 6.3 million.

And when I say baseline, it's not baseline.

6.3 is a big number.

But it's been that number for quite some time.

And that number has been built up and over years, but it's been based that base for several

years now.

What's new is the diversity outreach and recruitment division.

And it's set out by council to do what we're saying we're doing.

We're increasing our diversity.

We're recruiting in our community and around the county.

To answer your question a little more directly, there are things that we brought back with

measure you funding over time.

The 4th battalion came back because of measure you funding.

It's rolled into general fund now.

So there's other things.

Truck 43 came back because of measure you funding in its initial years and then it rolls into

the general fund.

So those are off the top of my head.

I could give you a much more detailed list of things that measure you has helped the

department with.

But over the years, since measure you passed, there has been several things that it has

been able to help us with.

And the whole idea is for us to get started with measure you and then let the sales tax

take over in general fund takes on the cost that general fund was funding.

Excuse me, measure you was funding.

Great.

Thank you.

Member Gors.

Thank you, chair.

Thank you, chief, for the presentation.

Always good to see you.

So I just have a general question.

I know the police department is down about 100 officers.

Are you down any firefighters right now currently for your levels?

We have an academy going right now but we're down over 40 firefighters right now.

We'll graduate an academy in June and that number will be pretty good.

But it's typical and you'll see budget documents and I'll explain this right now publicly where

we come down to a certain number and it'll look like a firefighter has been not replaced

for thousands of hours, years and years.

And what was happening was we weren't rotating our job numbers.

So if you use the same job numbers all the time you'll have a position that looks like

it went unfilled as a firefighter for five or six years.

To answer your question though is we do have vacancies.

We will have vacancies and we expect a lot of vacancies this year as we're in the middle

of the timeframe when we were hiring two academies a year when we started our paramedic program

back in the 90s.

So we're seeing the retirements now.

Being up with that in the future we may have to look at more than one academy a year.

But right now we're able to keep up with one academy a year.

I would like to change that because to flatten it out essentially with one academy a year

you have highs and lows by December will be high in vacancy again and then we hire in

January and we graduate in June.

If I could do January and September academies I could flatten out our vacancies.

And we do not typically have the police department is a bigger department so they will have more

vacancies than we do.

But when you compare apples to apples we have about the same amount of attrition or vacancy

rate.

And that's just like in the police department.

I know that it's apples and oranges but nationwide it seems like that it's a shortage.

Is it the same thing with the fire department as well?

Yeah nationwide it doesn't matter if it's a paid department or a volunteer department

they're seeing less people that want to do this job.

And it's harder to recruit for.

And that's part of what Dora is helping us with is recruiting showing the options and

that's what we had to do too is learn that we couldn't be rigid in our ways.

We had to create new options for people in the community that suits family life.

And that 12 hour shift that single role has is one of the things that suits family life.

And any other options that we can staff the department with that 178 number is a real

hard number every day we need to operate with.

So that's the 34 companies and 27 medic units out there every day.

Thank you.

Yeah thank you.

Member Sala.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation and I want to echo that.

I think this program is very important because we definitely especially at the end where

you said that there was a determination that diversity needs to be better in the fire department

and I would agree with that because I was I don't I was so thankful that I was invited

to your promotion event.

I'm not sure why but I went and it was great.

It was great to see that.

But I also noticed that there was a couple there was a two females women that were were

promoted to engineer or this or there were engineers and they were promoted to the next

level and that was very very good to see.

But mainly what I saw my observation was it was mainly all white males promoting to

the next level and the next level.

So I'm glad that you acknowledge that diversity needs to be better in the fire department.

So that being said I want to make sure I understand and this is just observation.

So you said you have 18 staff working to in your DOR program.

Yeah I can make $10 million funds to that that work.

So I can break that down a little better.

So there's eight professional staff.

So there's and there's sworn staff and professional staff.

There's two professional staff.

So like an analyst and I forgot the other rank but two professional staff that help us

manage the program.

There's two firefighters two captains and an assistant chief.

That's the core right now that makes up DOR that runs it day in and day out.

There's 10 positions 10 full time equivalents that we break in half and those become EMS

trainees.

So they're not running anything they're in school they're learning how to become an

EMT or a paramedic.

That's the 3.9 million that you'll see in the budget book is running those 18 positions.

The other portion of it I don't have it up in front of me it's 6.3 I think is going to

operations and that's the 24 stations across the city and it's helping us keep positions

open or fill positions.

And I'm just making these observations now because I don't support what you're doing.

I really do support it.

I think it's so important.

But I would like to see I would I would like focus in certain areas that I noticed I just

stood out for me is it seems like a few district 4 5 and 6 you get the most recruits from in

these in the various programs and very little there's hardly anything from district 3 and

I'm not sure why and you don't have to answer why but there must be something going on.

And then very like in the programs very quickly in the in the breakdown by ethnicity African

Americans are just like there's very low and I'm not sure what's going on with that but

and you don't need to answer or maybe you do but there should be some way of taking a

look at that and saying what could we be doing differently and maybe it's it's talking to

community members and saying we really you know our programs why aren't we attracting

African Americans into these programs same thing with why why aren't we attracting more

people from district 3 and and 1 and 2 because that that stood out to me like while these

other districts are getting more participants and then my last observation is I would like

to see at the end from because at the end you said we you know these been the success

of our programs so how many because I also noticed that there's there's still in some

programs there's more white males and well I'm make I'm not saying the white males there's

still more males and females so after these programs have you've had these programs and

you had some success how many of those were hired and what's this you know at the end

you said we had these successes I'd like to see the ethnic breakdown of that so and the

reason I say this is that I we're going to invest and part of what measure you is is

to invest in helping under resource communities underserved communities lift them up and so

that if we're if we're doing that lifting them up and then getting them into hiring

the money that measure you's going to that is well worth it so in order for for me in

district 3 to justify and say yes it is making an impact because this is what we're getting

more from district 3 or overall in Sacramento and not only are they in the programs but

now they're also this is what it's going to take a while to get them at the ranks we want

them because it is it does take time but at least during the they got the foot in the

door and they're going and we have African Americans and we have Asians and Latinos

in a in a in a representative of our community right now I don't know that we could say that

so that's but I I am a whole 100% supportive of your program I just think that if you can

give that data and then focus on some of these areas where I think is my opinion is kind

of weak would be helpful that's it okay I thank you so much I wrote down a lot of the

your notes and there's there are some answers but I don't have all the answers for you some

of it I'll speak to the whole committee about this is when you see large groups being promoted

right now you're talking about people that have been with the department for probably

seven to ten years plus and that was a time when we weren't focused on hiring from the

community hiring from Sacramento I would like to see more people in all the districts

you see that number 25 in the county I'd like to see the numbers reflected in the community

that way too and I know we're coming online with schools but we don't have enough navigators

for the schools right now so I think about you can't talk about district two without

talking about grant high school and what a great great high school it's a part of our

community for ever and we don't have a navigator for that high school and I know that we're

we're missing there so and that's something that we want to try and turn on.

Member Johnson.

And if we're paying to my two different member questions thank you.

First I'll ask this I was a little surprised by the number of district six I must have

missed this point is it only high school students or is it possible that it's Sac State that's

potentially drawing more of that or is it.

No it's the numbers you're seeing are high school students they're not it's not Sac State.

Okay interesting but my main fall question from before I realized I wanted to ask if your

budget increase we did a magic wand let's say 10% I would think it would be hiring more

firefighters but your response member Goris this question didn't seem like that's the

case is that the top priority if you had a larger budget or were there be other priorities

that you would you would move up.

If we had a magic wand.

If I had the magic wand yeah I would build like eight fire stations and hire appropriately

for the fire stations but to do that I think you need to look into your communities like

I said before and so to answer your question I have to balance it I have to balance what

door does with the hiring otherwise we'll be out of balance again.

There was academies where we were hiring 50 plus people at a time but we were hiring

just for the role of paramedic and that is a very small pool of people we've changed

how we do that today we have we hire a bigger pool of people it's more diverse and it's

a lot more diverse so if I had to hire 100 people today with door I would have to increase

what door is doing as well I would have to have more navigators in the schools I would

have to be out in the colleges and universities because that is another place we hire from

in the military I don't want to forget the military a lot of people come out of the

military and they're ready for this job they've trained to do this job in the military and

they're crossing over into civilian life to come into the fire service and the military

is very very diverse so we've been successful there as well we are behind though so to answer

your question if we were going to we have the magic wand I have to balance it I have to

put money in the door and I have to put money into the front line operations.

Thank you.

Thank you that was a great question.

I'm room again.

You've kind of started answering my question but to the point as I was sitting I forgot

to say in my last statement about just really creating that pipeline right so I'm glad to

hear that you're talking about like hitting you know high school great audience but still

a little bit young you know need to be trained up but you know I think our community colleges

our students that want to go into something medical they haven't really decided yet I

do a lot of work with Sac State you know that's a higher level but still you know I think

that those are great pipelines and I know you talk about needing a navigator so that

means is that someone like dedicated to going into the schools when you say navigator?

There's that and they can explain the job they can explain to that person you know it's

the 13 seconds that you have their attention that this is what the job is this is what

it's going to demand of you and your family and get them started and then be able to go

on and let them know that it's not a get hired tomorrow thing but we're here to help you

all the way through and that's where the navigation comes in is making sure we don't lose that

person.

Right so kind of pipelining them from start to finish.

Yeah we don't want to lose touch once we once we make contact with someone we want to keep

engaged with them.

Thank you.

Member Ors?

Yes so just piggybacking off member Sala I too attended a promotion ceremony but when

you open the River District that's where we first met chief.

Yes.

The firehouse and I'll be attending the upcoming promotion ceremony on the first so I've been

in contact with Alma and I hope our fellow commissioners too will join on the first as

well so just wanted to just tell you I'll see you there.

Okay and the first is it's an award ceremony we haven't had one in a while but it's for

the men and women in the apartment that have done something above and beyond the call of

duty so a little different than a promotional ceremony but you will get to hear what they've

done and community members will receive awards from the department as well.

Alright chief I just have a few questions for you so just real quick what is the percent

of pay in the fire department that is overtime pay?

I don't have to get back to you on that one.

I guess I'm curious is it you have like a rough number of like greater than 10% lower

than 10% or something along these lines or just you don't have to check.

Reason I guess the reason I ask is because in the police side of things obviously overtime

is like quite a large issue and the reason that we can't bring that number down is because

we aren't having enough people becoming police officers right and so we have to basically

pay quite a large amount of overtime.

Are you feeling that same sort of heat in the fire department or not?

It's a different type of heat no pun intended because you open that one up.

It is a little different and when I say when I started out by saying there's 178 positions

that we need to staff daily that's we have to staff those positions daily or we close

companies so the fire department has mandatory staffing and you'll hear mandatory overtime.

I don't like to call it mandatory overtime but it is mandatory.

Our folks are at the fire station and they're ready to go home to their kids baseball game

in the morning and they can't leave because we don't have a person to replace them with.

That's where I talked about flattening with the two academies a year that would really

help us and that would help reduce overtime as well because you're not seeing the peaks

and valleys throughout the year.

The actual number I would have to get back to you.

I don't want to guess at the number.

Sounds good.

Yeah so this kind of plays into that diversity and outreach parts of it right like it sounds

like the strongest changes I guess you guys have made internally is not necessarily like

who you're reaching out to but rather the internal workings of the shifts right like

making it so that the shifts are a little bit shorter you have family time I think you

mentioned that or do you agree with that or do you feel like there's other things that

are no I it's not that I disagree with you but we those are the things that we saw right

away that we could make changes with but it took us two years to make some of those changes

and our union was great in working with this on single role which was new and it's new

to the fire service but I do think what was done with volunteers before is now done with

a professional staff and that's the training for EMTs and paramedics that's the recruitment

that's led by a captain that's the oversight of the reserve program those are changes that

we made that professionalized the whole thing and it kept people interested before what

we would see with the reserve program which is our oldest it goes back to 1953 and they

were kind of self led not real professional so by putting a captain in charge of them

and giving them structure we had people stay around longer and they walk across the aisle

all the time in the academy you'll know we know that who was a reserve in the past so

door really was a multitude of things coming together and that's in my notes I have to

look for you but the door six it's the six things that we said that we were going to

change and I'm going to look for you because I don't want to leave here without leaving

I kind of skimmed over it in my notes but it took time to build the door program it took

people wanting to be there and do it and it took people that were skilled enough to teach

the classes but the door six were the recruitment officer who's a captain the participation in

community outreach which seems simple but it's a full-time job for us to participate across

the region and the Sacramento city itself and outreach expanding our programs which created

the girls camp and the youth academy that we didn't have before and the youth academy was

something that a long time ago we talked about having a charter school and we weren't successful

with the charter the reason why is plugging in with youth young when they're interested in

keeping them interested in this job and keeping their grade points up was real important developing

the high school pathways so we have the three high schools right now intercom health professions

and Valley not to leave grant high school out we just don't have that navigator in place for

contract in place with grant high school and improving and expanding our community

relationships with the community-based organizations across the city was another challenge of the

six that was our fifth charge that we had I guess for me a question would that naturally comes

from this is what sort of like measurable lifts have you seen come out of this like do you have

like for example one of the things that you mentioned is in 2020 you had a 29 percent

bivouac and four percent women and you said you know we're we're about to see that payoff

and what do you expect or what is your goal associated with like maybe this year of what

that should look like or what that will look like I could get back to you with that answer I don't

have the that data point for you but it's kind of it's a specific one that I probably should have

for you yeah we've already seen that those numbers start to change I just don't have this year's

number to give you perfect yeah I think if you can get back to maybe ash about those numbers

that'll be fantastic and he can pass us along I think for us you know as we start to hit structural

deficit like getting those you know concrete numbers associated with the dollars that we're

spending to ensure like a proper return we can advocate for you on your behalf then and that

if you know because we all I think we've all sort of unanimously agreed we support your program

we want to see it thrive everybody needs a fire department but like it's no joke so you know if

we can advocate for you on your behalf I think that getting those numbers test is one way we can do

that thank you okay I think there are no more questions so again thank you so much for your

time and your presentation your chief thanks thank you all for your time and your questions

I guess we'll move on to number five which is again a department and program presentation

I think this one's for community though and there is a staff presentation

welcome good evening members of the committee and actually you'll be getting multiple staff

presentations so I'm just going to do a preamble since all the departments that are presenting

fall under my oversight so first of all good evening members of the measure you advisory

committee my name is Michael Jassu and I'm an assistant city manager for the department of

for overseeing the departments of convention and cultural services the office of innovation

economic development where I'm also the director and the department of community development today

I'm joined by some of my leadership team that works daily to advance for the betterment of our city

joining me in presenting today are Megan van Voorhis director of the department of convention and

cultural services Denise Malvetti the deputy director of the office of innovation economic

development and Matt Hurdle the assistant director for the department of community development

Megan joined the city of management in 2020 bringing over two decades of public policy

and advocacy in the arts and culture most immediately prior to being named as Sacramento's

creative economy manager Megan was the president and CEO of arts Cleveland in 2022 we were fortunate

to be able to name Megan as director of convention and cultural services Megan has and continues

to demonstrate an unparalleled commitment to the city's cultural life as a vibrant creative and

equitable place for residents visitors and businesses following Megan will be Denise will

be Denise Malvetti who has worked in local government for over 20 years most of that time

spent in economic development and redevelopment she joined the city of Sacramento in 2024 as an

economic development project manager and subsequently advanced in the city ultimately being promoted

into her current role as deputy director of the office of innovation economic development in 2022

over her career as the city at the city Denise has led a number of economic development programs

projects and initiatives as a Sacramento native Denise has always demonstrated her commitment

to be part of the continued revitalization of her hometown and I am immensely thankful to her

hard work creativity and leadership closing our presentation will be Matt with the department

of community development Matt was appointed assistant director of the community development

department last July prior to joining the city in 2018 Matt held planning and community development

positions in private public and nonprofit sectors he has a master's degree in community

development and planning from Clark University Matt has particularly been invaluable in leading

the city's planning efforts and promoting the production of more housing recently he has been

the lead staff member in streamlined Sacramento our efforts to lower the barriers to all types of

construction in the city I want to stress as we present CCS OID and CDD collectively they

helped shape the environment our efforts to address the need for greater equity the provisioning of

housing the success of our businesses and the vibrancy of our city as a truly unique and

indispensable jurisdiction within the greater Sacramento region this team believes that as a

city we need to be intentional on growth in a manner that recognizes the imperative for all

our communities to participate in that growth and the determination of the future of our city

secondly our work is done collaboratively with residents businesses institutional institutions

government and educational partners less visible is that our work invariably is done through a

highly collaborative approach within our government you will hear about many projects and programs

that cross department boundaries I took some time to stress the credentials of the leadership team

because that expertise is at the disposal of the city and ultimately we are your team and

the mayor and city council's team in moving these efforts forward so with that I'd like to turn this

over to Megan who will present the Department of Convention and Cultural Services thank you

Good evening everyone so yes I am Megan Van Borris I am your director of convention and cultural

services and it's my pleasure here to provide you with an overview of our operations and highlight

key accomplishments before I begin I do want to take a moment to consider the time we're in

because I do think it helps us sort of frame and put in context the important work of the department

we're in a time when about 64 percent of Americans don't believe they can have a respectful conversation

across this agreement when loneliness and isolation have become an epidemic when our youth face mental

health challenges and work to recover or to catch up from pandemic era learning loss and when our

downtowns look and feel like nothing they once did I'm proud very proud to lead a department

that is a part of the answer and to work for a city that recognizes the role of arts culture

history entertainment and tourism not as extras but as vital tools in addressing the economic

social cultural and civic issues of our time I just take a pause here to share a little bit of where

I believe our influence really is convention and cultural services is the backbone of the city's

efforts to support the cultural and creative life of the city and a vibrant tourism and creative

economy each division plays a distinct role in advancing our shared goals

we fund permit and support creative individuals and businesses who drive activity citywide and

generate local state and federal tax revenues we commission public art that builds identity

enhances neighborhoods promotes safety and beautifies our city we manage districts and

operate facilities that attract millions of people and drive hundreds of millions in economic impact

and we collect preserve and share the region's rich cultural heritage

our work is increasingly interdisciplinary and that's a trend we're embracing

my department overall is comprised of 124.5 employees who it is my pleasure to serve and

support outside of the safe credit union convention and performing arts district which represents

about 60 percent 68 percent of overall ccs employees on average the other divisions have fewer than 10

last year's or this year's I will say FY 25 approved department budget was 31.7 million

80 percent comes from the community center fund 15.6 from the general fund and measure you

and the remainder from other sources

so the general fund and measure you portion represents just 0.6 percent of the city's overall

budget yet it supports divisions that deliver outsize impact across equity access and cultural

reach I'm going to focus briefly on three of those divisions the office of arts and culture the

center for Sacramento history and entertainment services

so the office of arts and culture is the city's central interface with the creative sector in

Sacramento guided by the creative edge plan it plays five core roles train invest inform

advocate and convene the office manages public art makes strategic investments and supports

professional development curatorial programs and youth partnerships the office staffs the

arts culture and creative economy commission and serves as the Sacramento county state and

local partner for the California arts council it functions as a regional partner and thought

leader and regularly provides technical assistance essentially acting as an arts and culture help

desk for artists organizations and creative businesses internally it serves as a thought

partner to help the community and the community to help the community and the community to

it serves as a thought partner to other city departments and providing expertise on

grant making practices and the integration of arts and culture into broader city initiatives

one of the most common requests the office receives is support around access to affordable

space this is a critical field wide issue that we believe deserves greater attention at a systems

level moving forward the art and public places team is responsible for percent for art there we go

percent for our program administration collections management and technical assistance related to

public art and community initiated projects and public proper property it is a cost recovery

program that also engages in consulting activities and grant seeking to support its work in 2024 the

office of arts and culture had 213 grants under management the previous year it was the largest

grant administrator in the city by number awarded 204 with an average grant size of approximately

43,000 through its signature grant program the cultural arts awards which is funded annually by

through measure u the city ensures all districts are served last year 67 grantees offered

programming at over 2000 locations within the city of Sacramento through the art arpa arts and

cultural nonprofit recovery program grantees generated 123.9 million in direct spending and

attracted over 1.5 million attendees 309,000 of them which were free partnering with Americans

for the arts we learned that arts nonprofits in Sacramento County we do have a partnership with

Sacramento County drives 148 million dollars in organizational spending 94 million dollars in

audience spending and generates 16.7 million in state and local tax revenue in short the

nonprofits that we're funding are driving real economic value in the city and county

the art and public places team installed 19 new sculpt permanent sculptures three murals

and hosted three dedication ceremonies in the last year they led seven public workshops handled a

number of maintenance projects and facilitated temporary projects with local partners uc-davis

and downtown Sacramento partnership we were proactive with our city colleagues to successfully

identify and secure funding through clean california for a number of significant projects

shaping the way people experience our city i'd like to call out to you where the office of arts

and culture played a significant role a five mile trail now runs from pocket meta view to land park

it was partially funded through clean california and half of that project budget was devoted to artwork

the project employed 27 artists involved 12 community events and resulted in new permanent

public artworks along the trail the art and public places team worked closely with the

center for sacramento history to develop interpretive panels as well the office of arts and culture and

department of utilities worked closely with community partners along florin road led by the

creative vision of the sojourner truth african heritage museum while the most visible elements

of our founding murals sculptures landscaping and banners the project involved youth and

community cleanups in partnership with luther burbank high school and youth led communications

campaigns to promote litter abatement we were also successful in securing a 4.75 million dollar

grant from the california arts council for the capital region creative corps we provided grants

and developed an artist in government program that deployed artists to develop creative messaging

using various arts disciplines to reach underserved communities around the issues of climate change

public health social justice and civic engagement lastly through the everyday creative program with

culture we invested in six and 12 week accelerators that support creative entrepreneurs at the startup

and scale up stages of their journeys paired with financial resources and i would like to just give

you a minute to hear directly from them the creative economy is important to sacramento

because there are so many creatives that live here i specifically moved here in high school

to go to a performing arts school and so to go from a performing arts high school to then study

dance and college and get a degree in the subject and then to come back and then teach within the

community it was so important for me and so recognizing sacramento as a creative hub is just

what i know and it's what i see every single day this is the the richest amount of like information

this is all of the puzzle pieces that it takes to like make a business go to understand why it's

working when it's working and to understand how to properly affect change when it's not working

i i couldn't find this information anywhere else and we've been looking we have been looking so

to have access to this um curriculum is astounding it is important that creatives have a path to

success and a community that can help them you know learn about what they're doing learn how

to scale their businesses and learn about their industry in this way in this cohort type of way

and it's important for them to have this access

so before i move on one of the things that i think is really important to recognize

is that many of the projects that i just laid out were made possible with significant investments

that aren't going to exist moving forward whether it was the american rescue plan to act or whether

it was one time funding through the california arts council but i i would be remiss if i didn't

acknowledge that a lot of the measure you funding or most of the measure you funding actually goes

to our people and it was our people that brought the leadership to make those projects happen to

to secure those resources for the people of this community and i think that's a really

important thing for us to consider moving forward i'll also share that i think they learned a lot

i know that i continue to learn a lot in this role through the whole process that i think

everything from the capital region creative core to the work with culture and all of that

it's just going to shape how we work as a as a staff and as a team and i think that's something

to build on so i think we've made tremendous progress with these projects and there's probably

way even more to share but i just want to say that i think that our people are our most powerful

asset and it's one of the most significant like that's your return on investment for measure you

so the center for sacramento history's mission is to collect preserve and share the region's

vast cultural heritage what does that mean in practice the center houses the most complete

set of local government records in california um this is a letter from the first city manager

to council in 1922 it was about four years after the influenza pandemic there had been a

political shift to conservatism and a rise in kkk activity in sacramento this letter

this letter the city manager cv makes clear the city would not tolerate white supremacist

activity within its ranks private collections include personal papers from individuals families

businesses and organizations that document life and people in the sacramento region we have about

half of the observers collection which includes newspapers photos and advertising material

the artifact collection features tens of thousands of items documenting the cultural

social and political history of the sacramento region loy darson was a sacramentan and a paratrooper

during world war two he created his own flying suit fly like a bird we have it the film archive

holds some of the rarest and most valuable film in the nation including 15 million feet of historic

footage regularly licensed globally for major motion pictures documentaries and other local

productions digitized films are available online or accessed more than any other repository around

the state the photography collection is renowned and has millions of images in a variety of formats

we beat out the rock and roll hall of fame and museum in my former hometown for the tower records

collection this photograph is a part of that collection and i would like to share a little

bit of story ross allam and used to collect ties of the people he did business with and he would

stable their business cards to the ties yeah we have the ties too and then oral histories include

key voices from sacramento's lgbtq plus black and latino communities to name a few our collection

would be impossible to access if not for our team of archivists they work daily to process materials

in the collection so they can be made available for interpretation and education post those materials

to online repositories and support and respond to requests from researchers educators filmmakers

genealogy groups schools etc all those amazing collections power the center's ability to expand

historical understanding through interpretation and education programs youth programs like kids and

teens collect connect students to their own stories the we are who we are exhibit was the

culminating exhibit of the teens collect program in partnership with american leagent high school

personal artifacts were not as easily accessible to the student population as others to solve that

the center partnered with the office of arts and culture to bear a visual to pair a visual

artist with each student to create an artwork based upon their lives the students were just blown

away by the idea that an artist was going to illustrate their story and that the works would

become a part of the city's collection the center's team engages in programming community outreach

historic district management and films pause here the production company on site in this photo

is lebron james's company seated with our archivist who is uh seated with our archivist is a

descendant of daniel blue a formerly enslaved black man living in sacramento who won a legal

case freeing a young girl from slavery it's the last known court case involving an enslaved person

in california seeing the archival records brought generations of family storytelling to life

to wrap up the center engages in public speaking opportunities response to media inquiries

and supports other departments seen here is the city attorney's office engaging in an educational

program focused on the history racism series in f y 24 digital repositories were accessed 291

thousand times and social media the center earned 4.36 million views while youtube garnered 262 thousand

views old sacramento boasts 4.2 million visitors a year we're expanding interpretation there to

tell a broader story we envision our partnership with the sacramento history alliance will lead

to new programs and activations in the district in the meantime last year saw a considerable amount

of interpretive work that we installed in 2025 and in fact some of these the the panels were

have already been installed so if you've been in the district lately um you can catch them

um new interpretive panels will surround the theodore june judo monument as well as a recently

renamed mary gregarry park and 20 new directory panels situated throughout the district will

illustrate uh or do illustrate now the significance of specific buildings in area of the districts

this center has been working with the tribes on new interpretive panels along the embarcadelo

or embark embarcadelo great embarcadero that will help illustrate their story in the district

and we're proud of the history race and some series now used in classes at sac state and uc davis

and the john sutter film used as the opening film at sutter's fort we're also happy to serve as a

resource for many department and department equity teams who have watched the films and

participated in facilitated dialogues last but not least launched in fyi 25 this uh the entertainment

services division brings together sacramental film and media the office of special events

there we go and entertainment venue permitting to better serve the public the team oversees uh

entertainment permitting promotes sacramento as an entertainment destination supports the growth

of local providers and connects the public to key resources the entertainment venue permitting staff

overseas about 70 uh entertainment venue permits in the city that number is expected to rise or to

increase with the introduction of the limited entertainment permit that was in the district

that was approved by council uh in early april and which will likely go into fact

probably by june at this point because we have to get the fees adopted

and that has been a partnership just want to give a shout out to the office of nighttime economy on

that staff officially transitioned entertainment venue permitting over the new division in february

so the special events team is responsible for permitting events in our city's public spaces

events permitting is a complex activity that requires extensive coordination with many

competing interested interests and limited resources and yet the number of special event

days has grown from 900 in 2018 to nearly 1300 in 2024 we're already seeing some great synergies

arise out of the development of the new division the team has been working on online permitting

projects with other departments facilitated with support from the it team and funded by arpa

it's a huge undertaking that is expected to take a year to roll out so we'll probably see that in

effect february of 2026 the aim is to streamline workflows produce greater accountability for

both applicants and staff and facilitate greater communication among all the necessary parties

a centralized website and communications campaign is also in the works to help improve

communications with applicants and the public overall the team is working in partnership with

the office of nighttime economy to update policies in regards to entertainment related sound

while we don't have the data systems yet set up to track the impact of entertainment venues

and special events we are looking to Sacramento film and media as a model for how this can be

achieved to give you a flavor for what that looks like here's a taste of what our investments in

film and media have yielded in 2024 74 films were permitted for 136 film days and generated 6.4

million in Sacramento spend 953 local hires 4,000 hotel room nights and the Warner Brothers Pictures

film which i'm not going to remember the name off the top of my head brought 5.3 million in direct

spend to Sacramento additionally the $70,000 film grants program produced a return on investment

of 4.6 every dollar invest we got $4.60 back and one grantee was accepted to Sundance

so i'll stop there and just say i have a very very cool department that i feel very lucky

to have the opportunity to lead it is the people across the board that make this happen

and their connections all over their hard work and so happy to entertain any questions you have

ash i'm not sure if you want to take questions now or to take yeah let's take questions now and

then we'll move on to the next presentation if there's any commissioners you have questions

don't be shy i don't see them queuing up actually but i saw people press buttons okay

remember johnson yeah i i've been asking you've probably heard me the question before to the

fire department this was very helpful thank you so much for putting the time into it um

very informative and even though i've lived in sacrament over a very long time i didn't know

most of that so it was very eye-opening but one of the things that i saw was that you kind of see

the general fund and measure you combine to i think it was 15.63 percent and i so i posed a

question of like how do you how does your department see the measure you funds and how do you think

about it is it something that you feel is pretty stable do you feel like when it increases you're

able to add more programming do you pay attention to sales tax to be able to forecast potentially

increases in budgets just kind of generally how do you think about measure you and then the magic

one question if you can increase your budget theory funding what would you immediately want to spend

it on um so a couple of things just for reference the the amount of money that came in uh it was 4.167

million for measure you funded programs in terms of the budget just sort of sort of put that in

perspective it's most of it at this point if you consider when we say general fund and measure you

most of it is measure you at this point and then this is like a smaller portion this general fund

and a portion that's innovation and growth fund um i mean i'll be honest we this is you know the

office of arts and culture and the center for sacramento history i mean we have um experienced

wonderful leadership on behalf of council in terms of making those investments um and great

leadership from you know assistant city manager michael dasso and other and you know howard was

really great but it's always a battle right because you're you're dealing with the departments that

really for the most part haven't grown much right entertainment services was in was a new one and

we felt it was really important to bring that to to really think about that primarily because

those are the people right now that are driving sales tax parking revenues all of those things

that power the rest of city budget so we have to do a really good job in helping those folks get

through those processes so that we can have the returns that we have so for us from policy

perspective from programming perspective it's really designed to help support that if you

look at the center for sacramento history and office of arts and culture office of arts and

culture received a significant investment like significant investment of cares and arpa funding

and we're able to access state funding so so i will say that i am worried right because all of

that funding is going to drop off now many of the community organizations that we funded for that

they're all facing all these issues they're facing the drop off of that funding and then they're

facing the drop off and because they're under attack out there right like the national damage

for the arts i am a less all of those things like there's some questions so that money the

n e a money comes to the state the state money goes to the locals you know it's like a whole

thing that they're having to having to deal with so at this this moment it's going to be really

challenging for them so that's just something that you know we've been readying for increased

investment is always great right and we want to see we all want to make these investments and we

also recognize that you know we're going to the creative edge plan specifically calls for

trying to identify a dedicated revenue stream to support that work so um i think uh we'll continue

to explain people what we're doing i think we want to be strategic moving forward about how our

investments can um we can build off of the work that we've achieved so far i didn't talk about the

project that we did with um uh that we've done with solving sacramento because you know i'm a big

systems infrastructure person that's why i bring up the issue of space because i think it's really

important right now arts and culture infrastructure is not equitably distributed throughout the city

it's not so what are we going to do about that because we need those anchors in every neighborhood

of the city people need to be able to access arts and culture wherever they live right so that's why

i think space is actually a particularly important thing for us to do if we can't make investments

in just the grant making at the level and the scale that we have been making through cares and

arpa perhaps we can look at new strategies for helping people get access to space and those other

things they can help them build business models that are going to work moving forward because i

know many arts and cultural organizations that they get a space they lose a space they can't build an

economic model that's going to work they need to be less dependent upon one source of revenue right

like they need more but if they can't get the space they need to address it so i think that's like

the next key strategic issue coming out of this work that would be important for us to help folks with

so yeah there's a lot in the mind but in general i'm like a real systems oriented person

i think when you have limited resources you have to invest those limited resources in

in the best way possible make sure that you're impacting the system so that that you know that

can kind of continue so is that helpful yeah i think it's helpful thank you i'm emmer wolf um yeah i

guess i'll just start with thank you so much for coming down here i really feel like i can sense your

passion for this topic and trying to dramatically increase you know i guess just the aesthetic and

the vibe of certain places all over the city right it's it's just so fundamentally important right

to be able to walk outside and see something you think is beautiful in that way um yeah i just

like i mean i just talk off the top of my head right i think everybody has a mural they've seen

in the city once or twice and like they're it is really appeal to them for some way that aren't

really should and it's a really important thing you guys are doing and thank you for connecting

systems and funding and people to you know what they ultimately think is beautiful so

it is almost a thank you for being here and speaking on this member salla

hi hi i well you know i i love arts and culture and i i think for the well-being of our community

and vitality of our community and our young people it's so important so 4.1 million investment

for measure u for all that's happening in our community is definitely an investment well worth

it and we're getting our returns and um i want to also thank you because when you first came to

Sacramento you stepped into controversy on north gate over a mural and there was a lot of issues

that came out of that it was we have a beautiful our only mural on north gate but that's because of

arts and culture and and navigating that but there was controversy around it who who was the

artist that was doing the mural and i and it was a very painful time for us on north gate to

kind of go through that but you you listen to what the community was saying it was mainly like we

needed more Chicano artists mural and and that the office needed to hire more and get more Chicano

muralists um and you listen to that you heard it and then there was other recommendations

that were made and i've seen those changes implemented and as a result we're how i you're

seeing a lot more Chicano muralists Chicano art image um we still need more murals on north gate

but that's a different story um and i think because north gate finally got their mural that mural

seen every it's everywhere and the city uses it as a backdrop for a lot of things and our community

loves that mural we love that mural even though it was there was controversy we love that mural

and it it has it has and is an anchor for uplifting north gate that really needs to be uplifted

and it's it has spearheaded more activities and recognition that north gate needs to look and

feel differently that's what art does and that's what music does and i i watch for that to continue

because even in the midst of all of our budgetary difficulties and all our challenges we need to

feel good and be uplifted during these challenging times and it isn't just a budget that we're

experiencing but everything that's happening at a national level um we need to be uplifted and art

and music is a way to do that so 4.1 million for all that you're doing and in our community and all

of um and the impact that you haven't known a community i think is well worth our investment

and i'm hoping um that the city will not see this your program or um and all that you do as as um

a way to reduce what you do because the impact will be great on our community so yeah my support

and i i'm it was very very um informative to hear and see all that you're doing so thank you

mcginn it's a great north gate mural i do have to say uh member smith

thank you uh thank you uh mr chairman um

um

i wonder how you interface with organic opportunities that are happening

throughout the city um opportunities are sponsored by organizations perhaps and venues that

could be grown could be um i don't know could could be professionalized could be uh uh

uh how are you doing that yeah i think um we've done a lot um to do more community outreach we do

a good amount of work and a shout out to linette's team with endat um you know we have our signature

arts and cultural organization grant right cultural arts awards it kind of comes out

but the neighborhood work is really important and you really have to be connected to the

trusted people in those neighborhoods um i appreciate that linette brings that partnership

to us too but i know that i just like i will just say as a leader and then i hope my team

will also emulate that is that the job is to be out there to be in the places that don't feel seen

and to make sure that you're listening to the things that they have to say so that we can build

programs that are responsive to those needs so i mean we do have um resources um that we're working

on in our neighborhoods neighborhood grant making i think not confirmed yet but they we want to bring

community murals program back um soon um and so i think those kinds of things and making available

you know sometimes it's not a lot of money that they need right i mean this is the thing you've

been with the investment that we're making through arpa um sometimes those folks like they're completing

they complete the six weeks and they just need like 1500 to hire an attorney or something right

we need 500 to file something right that you can make small investments that have a really important

impact and i think it's and so it makes our dollars go far farther so i think it's just important to

make sure that we're listening and responsive to what people are saying and i believe that my team

does that i really do um and if they don't i just you guys don't think that i just say tell us okay

uh well i mean if a a business an organization comes to you and says hey we need help um is there

someone in your office who will sit down with them work with them assess their needs and try to

figure out how they grow their their event their art yeah it's a mix so really there's a number of it

depends on who it is right so if someone that wants to do a community public art project right we might

send them we might send them that way if they're looking just to grow their programming might be

like melissa sarone in our office as arts program manager so they aim is to get them to resources

even if we can't directly provide the resources because sometimes we don't have the necessary

program available to meet that need but if we can connect them to other people and we want to try

to do that um so again i mean anytime got someone just reach out jason jong is our culture and

creative economy manager he's a very cool individual musician himself really widely recognized used to

be with the state and and he's always taken those calls awesome thank you um one other question

as uh your department grows its resources its historical resources its our collections

what have you how are those collections cataloged how are those collections

assessed where do they appear on a ledger um

how is it done like an asset value perspective or just like uh that too sure but i mean look i mean

i don't know how you value ties with business cards stapled to them but um how do you

yeah i mean i think um what i'll just say about that is that that's i mean that's the process of

really having important like having registrars on staff making sure that like that's where our

archivists really come in because they know the collection is better than anything else

and that's what makes it accessible so all the people i mean you know our film on like the golden

state killer is something like the most accessed film around you know so helping people um it's just

an it's not like okay to just have these things sitting in a storage unit right like people need

to be able we need to make them accessible we need to help them understand what's available

that's why the whole daniel blue thing i mean it's like mind-boggling to me right a descendant of

daniel blue coming into the because they could look online they knew what we had they had access to

that so i think that really for us is a really big measure how much are we constantly like processing

and making available through those online platforms and how are we reaching out particularly with

history i think it's so important and i think it's really important right now um to make sure that

people connect to it because we have the stuff right so that's i think a big priority and i think

should be one of our most significant measures of success cool thank you

hi um i just first want to say thank you so much for all the work that you do and for your

presentation much like um commissioner wolf mentioned you know i see a lot of this stuff

happening but it's great to see or you don't know the intentionality that's happening behind it right

it's not just that these murals are popping up or suddenly we have these great events happening

there's a lot of intentionality that's coming behind it i also loved hearing from you the

intentionality around hiring artists to be able to create messaging for some underserved communities

and be able to do that intersection of art with social justice with climate action with public

health and get those messages to those communities so one of the questions i do have though is um

you know for the film part for example you said there were about 900 jobs that were um created

through that i'm sure there are other jobs being created through the other events too

is there are there any steps being taken to ensure that folks from some of these underserved

communities are being able to have some of those opportunities for hiring or that there are workforce

development opportunities or even work-based learning opportunities for youth who are coming

from some of these underserved communities that may not think that art is an option for them some

don't have exposure to some of these creative opportunities for career paths yeah so we're

tracking data on that so anytime anyone completes a film permit we're trying to gather information

so we can get a sense of of what that's what that's looking like moving forward we're working

with economic development on how we look at restructuring our workforce development work to

reflect that and i do think there's some opportunity to build off of like what we did with creative

core and the artists in government you know the potential to do that we just had a conversation

today with the art of mass gatherings that is using it's crazy they use the festivals as a

ground for teaching emergency management so we had our emergency management people around the

table Cal OES ours arts and culture events right so that is that's the power that can happen right

if you just bring the right people to the table so i think there is potential for that i think

we're interested in figuring what that looks like out with the office of innovation and

economic development so that we can create opportunities for folks because there aren't a

lot of entry-level opportunities and the creative industries are one of the fastest growing

they're like way up there right now and so bigger than transportation like it's it's a big deal

shouldn't be ignored like there's significant growth there so we want we want youth to know

that there's like a career in that field and something that you can make money off of

yeah anyway passionate about that

yeah i just have a few questions for you it seems like a lot of the programs so there's

nine programs that we fund up from the measure you side into the arts and creative edge many of

these seem to be driven by grants that are not coming from our budget right i guess i'm curious

to see like you know as you mentioned i think in the slides at one point for every one dollar we

invested we got like four back or something along those lines you know what through all these programs

can you give a value for like how much grant money we've secured through your programs versus what

we're spending yeah i mean i'll just take between the creative core funding which was state funding

clean california i think when we got that was and then the national endowment for the arts grant

that we got which i didn't talk about was probably 11.5 million dollars specifically to fund those

activities yeah so i mean when we spend 4.1 although i think it was 4.7 in 23 fiscal year

either way 11 million dollars coming back seems like a pretty good value investment um yeah obviously

we want we all want a city that we like to live in and i think these sort of programs give us that

i one other thing i guess i'm curious about is you know most of the funding that we provide here

at those programs i mentioned that are getting grants are actually even cheaper it seems like

that's only about one million dollars worth of cost most of the money that we spend two million

into crocker and 1.3 ish into the program uh the center for sacramento history and that's

you were mentioning the archive archivist i guess is how you say it um that's that's what that's

funding is that correct yeah yeah so we have like three archivists a curator of history uh register

our position uh programming position the center's division manager etc so yeah we're mostly funding

people there and again it's people power yeah and i saw some of these collections were moving is

that correct to the mclenan uh mcclillen park yeah so that particular site where the center for

sacramento history is which is on sequoia on sequoia pacific um isn't ideal in the long term and so

we've been having conversation about that and how we how we address that um so but for now um we're

we just needed a larger space and in fact the mcclillen project is both for the crocker art museum

and um and the center for sacramento history so some collections are moving off-site some things

have been pulled back from another section so um but the big picture on all of that is to want to

make all of those collections just more accessible to people and the site at the sacramento history

museum is just too small to do to realize all of that so we're engaging in some strategic

conversations i feel pretty good about that partnership and where it might lead to do to

really do something bigger the idea of like how do we elevate history and heritage tourism as central

to sacramento's identity in the same way as we have done for creativity that makes sense um

i guess as a follow-up you mentioned how much of this funding is at risk or you help you said this

funding is at risk and i'm asking how much do you think is at risk given the new climate

i mean many people are scared out there in sacramento we didn't get a lot of national funding to begin with

um but it's important to recognize that the national funding that comes um like for example from the nea

that goes to the state so the state match associated with that so when that number goes down

you know that goes down as well so i think there's a lot of nervousness and also candidly arts and

culture has been a part as you know of the civic movement um around social justice

anti-racism all of that so there's a reason why they're being i'm just being perfectly candid

there's a reason why they're being targeted because they're they've been the people to fight for

diversity equity and inclusion in this country so there's a lot of fear in many circles that i'm in

people who don't want to be vocal about it i'm not one of those people sure i appreciate that candidness

um given that yes as you mentioned like a lot of the funding that comes from federal

then states sort of redistributes from there potentially do you feel like that a lot of the

state funding will be i guess i'm just trying to get like we had 11.5 last million last time

this time half like one fifth well all of the projects i will just say that so the clean california

maybe that's coming back um i'm not exactly sure what will happen for that but that was like a one

time deal we got a lot done with that and the creative core program um while we'll be talking

with state legislators about that um and trying to get funding for that program to continue that

was also a one time thing so we've been successful in in getting some one time things to demonstrate

the power of what arts and culture can do in addressing some of these issues um but the work

remains so this is going to be it it's just going to be a tough time for folks as a lot of those

pandemic era dollars kind of go away as we're seeing shifts the whole recession how does that

impact people tariffs what they want to spend on discreet indiscretionary like all of those

dynamics are going to just hit the field yeah okay um uh that sucks and uh i don't know what how

much we can do about that but um do you have a sense of what we'll be getting sort of like the first

cut in a sense uh if we can't manage those if we can't get those dollars well i think it's

important to recognize that those a lot of those treat them as demonstration projects so what we

got from those investments we learned and so the question is then how do we take that and work with

our other city colleagues to advance some of the causes with the limited resources that we might have

and i think that there is the promise and the potential to be able to do those things um even

you know given the circumstances that we're facing um and again i just reiterate i think it's

important for us to invest really strategically there's a reason why we invested in journalism

through solving sacramento because we wanted to make sure that the work of that of those

artists and creative people was being covered um so i think the job is to try to invest strategically

to listen to community to make sure that we're being responsive in light of the times i think

is probably more important it's always important to never be understated but now i think we really

need to to really pay attention because there's some there's some arts and cultural organizations

that can't share like they're programming because they're afraid they're afraid that ice is gonna

come i mean that's where we're at so we need to make sure that we are out there and listening

and understanding to that and just crafting and modifying our programs to make sure that

we're meeting the needs of community that's my big message it looks like members all of you

make a comment and there was a response to our commissioner over here about i'm getting you

to see that that can be a career our theater movies all those things that you're involved in and

i i are a couple years ago participatory budget budgeting funded some really great

community organizations doing some really creative work with youth and some of it was

web design and different different kind of one in in uh district two was using art and cleanup

and so i'm wondering if maybe ash could send you the list of of those community organizations

that we funded and it might be a place for you to look at at some point as you develop a ways to

try to get to these kids and say hey there's opportunities here with these community there's

small organizations doing some really good work with youth and that would be and just with give

them that in a little description and contacting just you could give a tour that might be a good

start i mean not a good start but it might be an additional resource for you okay and that is

it uh meghan thank you very much for yeah thanks for your time before we move on to the next

we just need to take a quick vote to extend the meeting an extra hour so uh we can do that by

i and so we the motion here is to extend the meeting by an hour till 8 30 all in favor say i

oh we need a motion okay i'll make the motion we need a second is anyone second

uh member gorsuch second okay now i'll skipping ahead a little bit but if you agree with this

motion say i i i need a pose i'm staying okay cool um all right please sorry about that procedures

welcome thank you good evening i'm denise malvetti i'm the deputy director of the city's

office of innovation and economic development and i'm excited to be here this evening to give you an

overview of our office and some highlights from the past year

so in our office we are committed to growing a strong inclusive and vibrant economy and we do

that by working to retain attract and grow businesses and support our residents so that we

can participate in the city's economic growth and since it's been a little while since we've

been before you i thought i would just do a brief overview here of our office so in order to achieve

this goal we are organized in the following department or following teams community investment

economic development workforce development nighttime economy housing and community engagement and i

would like to um point out that managers who lead three of these teams are here this evening we have

linette hall who is our community engagement manager we have tina lee vote who is the city's

nighttime economy manager and yiyin isle who's the city's housing manager so in addition to the

fte's that you see on the screen there are four of us in administration that work across all of

the teams to assist with the operations and implementation of many projects and programs

so our team is small but mighty we have a total of 34 fte's and an annual um general fund operating

budget of just over six million which is less than one percent of the general fund it is worth

noting that all but three positions in our office are funded by measure u but very few of our programs

are funded by measure u so as i go through the presentation i'll point out those programs that

are funded by measure u so while we're talking about the numbers i'd also like to highlight that

over the past five years our office has distributed approximately 200 million dollars in loans and

grants to approximately 2 000 businesses and organizations most of those were funded by one

time state and federal federal grants to the city i'm also proud to report that we have also been

awarded approximately 27 million in competitive grants and earmarks during that same time

we often talk about our work is centered around people place in business so i will start with people

because we're here to serve Sacramento residents and our residents are also the most important

asset in today's knowledge-based economy the community engagement team fosters inclusive

civic engagement by striving to ensure that all residents and businesses are well informed about

city matters resources and opportunities especially those who have been historically underserved

you will see in this slide many of the ways in which the community engagement team engages the

community two related strategies that i'd like to highlight are the recent hiring of the city's

community sorry the city's language access coordinator and our ethnic and cultural media

contracts where we fund entities like the observer, introvision, long daily news, outward, and others

to ensure we are reaching a broad audience a couple highlights from 2024 include our third

cohort of community ambassadors who represented 19 different languages the community ambassador

program is a partnership with the community development department who you'll hear from next

as a part of the neighborhood development action team it is a language and cultural justice program

that pays residents to establish and maintain relationships with culturally diverse and

historically underrepresented populations to broaden the city's reach into the community

last month like i was probably two months ago now the 2025 ambassador program and this group of eight

has launched with a group of 18 ambassadors who speak 21 languages it is important to note here

that these programs are funded by measure u as is the neighborhood development action team which is

the partnership between the office of innovation and economic development and community development

another impactful program managed by our office is the financial empowerment center which provides

free professional one-on-one financial coaching for residents over 18 through our partner the

international rescue committee since the launch of the program in 2020 the fec has assisted over

1500 residents with various financial needs a couple of major accomplishments of this program

are the reduction of client debt by over three million dollars and increased savings of 800,000

so just think about the the burden that's been lifted by from so many of our residents

the success of the fec has also opened doors to additional funding including a city start grant

that focuses on addressing racial wealth inequities and a small business boost boost grant to expand

our fec work to support small businesses another way that our office supports people is our investment

in the workforce development system in order for our economy to grow we must have a workforce that

is prepared for the jobs of today and tomorrow our focus in 2024 was the californians for all program

which was a state funded grant to support youth and youth development and community development

which was a state funded grant to support youth and young adult employment in public sector and

nonprofit career pathways we were able to support over 600 youth and young adults including nearly

100 young people in roles here at the city in public works in parks in it and in council offices

and i am thrilled to share that last month we learned that the state intends to award us with

another three million to support continued programming through 2026 i would also like to highlight

that there is a the thousand strong program which is funded by measure you which was an

initiative of the former mayor has recently transitioned to our office to better align youth

and young adult workforce opportunities so in addition to working to align training

with employer needs we must also remove barriers that prevent our residents from entering the

workforce one such barrier is the cost and availability of child care sacramento invested

1.5 million of arpa funding to support expanding child care opportunities and we have since secured

an additional 1.2 million of federal funding to support continuing this work that was through two

grants one from sba and one from department of labor a key highlight in 2024 was the completion of

our first early early childhood education apprenticeship cohort in partnership with

los rios and pivot sacramento who provides the wrap round services apprentices are simultaneously

enrolled in courses at los rios which that is funded by the city and then getting paid work

experience at local child care centers this program assists our residents with their career

advancement and also assists child care centers by helping address their severe workforce shortage

i am pleased to share that nine people completed the first cohort and we currently have 17 enrolled

in the second cohort we focus on place because we want sacramento to be the place where people

live work and play and it has been a big year for place-based initiatives and the next few slides

will show just a few of the highlights you know this one will be very familiar to at least

one of the commissioners but 2025 kicked off with unveiling of the letters for taco plaza this

rendering shows what the plate what the space along northgate boulevard will look like when it is

transformed from a parking lot to a vibrant gathering space and you can't well you can kind of see the

infamous mural we were just speaking of in the backdrop of that taco plaza is a public private

place making effort of the city the property owners the sacramento hispanic chamber of commerce and

the garden land northgate neighborhood association and is one of the many efforts underway to help

northgate small businesses thrive after the pandemic the city's investment in taco plaza

leveraged additional funding from the state and that funding will enable this vision from taco plaza

to be realized i think it goes without saying that it's been a big year for the rail yards with the

opening of the wong center which is a senior affordable housing development council approval

of the preliminary term sheet for the soccer stadium and just last month we celebrated the

groundbreaking of the new keiser hospital there is no doubt that the momentum will continue in the

coming year with the opening of a j a mixed income housing development in the new courthouse and

continued progress on the paint shop and the soccer stadium there's also been a lot of activity in

the old sacramento waterfront over the past few years economic development staff has worked

closely with public works as well as megans team on a two-prong recovery strategy for the old

sacramento waterfront the first being clean and safe and marketing activities which included

installation of new led lights police pod cameras wayfinding painting of the public markets and

the recently launched old sacramento waterfront marketing campaign to attract locals and visitors

to start and end game day in the waterfront the second component of the waterfront reinvestment

program came to council late last year and it is related to investing on in some infrastructure

improvements in the waterfront he was also it is a monumental year for aggy square which prepares

to open in about two weeks aggy square is where university industry and community meet to create

opportunities for everyone and was made possible by the formation of a city eifd which will yield

approximately 30 million dollars in addition to enhancing the built environment along stockton

boulevard the project has also provided numerous community benefits including 120 million in regional

subcontracts during construction 93 apprentices from targeted surrounding zip codes and over

1700 people have been assisted with housing stabilization services

in order to bring more public private partnership and place-based initiatives to our neighborhoods

to our neighborhood commercial corridors the neighborhood development action team was established

in 2019 as a collaboration of our office and the community development department a couple of

highlights from the last year are the completion of end at first two planning efforts marysville

del Paso forward together and the stockton boulevard plan and that was designed so that community

and the city co-create plans with the assurance that plans will be put into action following

through on that commitment after completion of forward together plan we issued a solicitation

in partnership with also convention and cultural services also contributed some funds and we're

in the process of awarding 16 grants to the community to implement actions contained in the plan

next up will be a similar solicitation to implement initiatives from the stockton boulevard plan

and although i mentioned it earlier i just wanted to highlight again neighborhood development action

team and these investments are funded by measure you i would like to wrap up the place discussion

on housing housing has been a top priority of the city and is also a critical component of

economic development in order to attract and grow jobs in sacramento it is critical for there to be

plentiful housing and a range of housing types this slide shows the this slide shows the pipeline

of about 3700 housing units that the city is actively supporting through the various stages

of development and a city funding commitment to support the production of nearly 1500 of those

units in addition to the city's support to create permanent units our office also works closely

with the department of community response and regional partners to secure funding and develop

programs to address homelessness one notable accomplishment during this past year is the

award of 5.8 million of state encampment resolution grant funds in january we entered into a contract

implement the street housing pilot and the first more than five households yagin could give the

exact number have already been placed into housing okay in our people place business framework i will

wrap with business because it is at the core of what we do in the office of innovation and economic

development we strive to create the conditions for businesses to thrive in sacramento our local

small businesses are the heart of our community they are a huge part of what makes sacramento unique

and it is critical that we support them especially as we continue to face challenging economic times

cares and arpa funding provided the opportunity for us to launch programs and invest in businesses

and partners in an unprecedented way we learned a lot from our work the past five years which

informed the recently launched small business assistant center pilot that came before council

late last year the pilot program includes an investment in outreach and engagement through

our corridor pbids technical assistance with california capital micro grants and an investment in

data and technology one key component of the center is enhancing our business registry so

that we can monitor businesses as they receive services and identify trends so that we can

continue to evolve our programs to respond to the current needs of our businesses

we also recognize the importance of supporting businesses at various stages economic gardening

supports scaling up and accelerated growth of second stage businesses these are small businesses

well positioned to experience exponential growth businesses selected for economic gardening receive

intense technical assistance and expert market research from the national center for economic

gardening which leads to recommended strategies to grow their business and a plan to implement the

solution which is made possible by a matching grant from the city of up to 50 50 000 dollars

the third cohort of economic gardening participants wrapped up at the end of last year

and the 26 businesses that have completed the program report both increased hiring and revenues

we plan to announce the fourth cohort or the participants of the fourth cohort in the next week or so

supporting innovation and entrepreneurship is critical to sacramento's continued economic growth

and competitiveness one way our office supports growing the entrepreneurial ecosystem is the

sacramento innovation grant program in 2024 we funded 28 grantees for both innovation event grants

and ecosystem building grants the 2024 grantees are currently wrapping up but we're already seeing

some impressive results from the grantees although closeout reports are still coming in and some

programming still wrapping up the ecosystem building grantees are already reporting that

their participants have accessed nearly one million in capital since starting their programs

based on the early reports of success on the ecosystem building grants and due to limited

resources we focused our late 2024 solicitation only on incubator and accelerator grants so not

the event grants and we'll be working with six partners to provide these services to local

entrepreneurs throughout 2025 in economic development we do not just focus on supporting

our eight to five businesses we focus on all businesses especially those that create vibrancy

and make sacramento a great city nightlife is a vital part of the city's economy culture and identity

it has been a busy year for the nighttime economy team as they completed a storefront

economic study conducted quarterly pubs clubs and bars trainings one of which happened last week

and you may have seen some press coverage on it they assisted with facilitating entertainment

permits for new venues and collaborated with partners to provide training to support the

businesses and employees of the nighttime economy and as we look ahead it will be another busy year

many of the items up there Megan actually just spoke about we do in partnership with convention

and cultural services which is the recently approved limited entertainment program and

a discussion with lawn ledge maybe just two weeks ago related to entertainment zones which

will be coming forward to council and I should mention the international social city summit

is coming to sacramento the first week in may as well so big big couple weeks coming up for

nighttime economy so I feel like this presentation just scratches the surface of the team's great

work over the past year so here are a few more highlights I did want to highlight hopefully

many of you have heard of the shop 916 gift cards we did hit a milestone of selling over one million

in gift cards purchased this past year we've entered into more than 80 arpa grants in council

districts two and three we have seven active ground field sites that we are supporting with

assessment or cleanup through funding from the uscpa and we have recently closed out the

arpa funded food justice in city of festivals programs so we have a lot planned over the next

year I would like to highlight our support of small businesses with the continued launch of the

small business assistant center and enhanced business retention and attraction as we must

be committed to growing our local economy this is critical in order to have a thriving economy

vibrant corridors neighborhoods but it is also directly tied to the city's fiscal health

we remain committed to supporting sacramento's people places and businesses so thank you I'm

available for questions if you wanted to do questions now or if you wanted

Matt to do the community development and do questions together yeah let's do questions now

let's do it uh commissioners if you guys have any questions feel free to request to speak

uh member soler you is that an old hand or is that a new hand not yet okay

go ahead member johnson I guess I'll start questioning again uh it's not like a broken

record but I just thank you again so much this has been very helpful in very detail a lot of this

is new to me even though I've lived in the city for a very long time I was very surprised to hear

that three of your ft all but three of your fts are funded by measure you so I'm trying to put

that in context you're saying that if the measure you funding just disappears you would have only

three fte's what's the historical funding of the department uh and has that increased as measure

you fund increase how do you think about measure you funding and it I can't imagine that the city

would just say sorry no fte's after that because it's it's a pretty significant margin of your

fte's right so um you know our funding has changed over time there was a point in time where we were

partially funded by like redevelopment and that went away um and so then we were funded by the

general fund but as many of you know measure you passed and a priority of measure you was

inclusive economic development and so it was at that time um you know we were primarily general

funded but in the 1920 fiscal year our department expanded significantly we added the community

engagement team completely new so that team was created shortly after measure you passed and so

that is a completely like new team in our office and then we also expanded other existing teams

to really be more responsive to the city's inclusive economic development priorities

in addition to community engagement being added at that time we also added housing and workforce

development so again really evolving the economic development work to more holistically look at

growing sacrobinos economy that's fantastic and it's very helpful what was it apart what was the

the team that you said was created directly after the measure you passed so um shortly after the

community engagement team which is in our office the neighborhood development action team which is

a partnership of economic development and community development who you'll hear from next so we added

positions in economic development and community engagement and then you'll hear from community

development also so that was newly developed after measure you that's sick and if your budget

increased what would be the first priorities that you would want to expend on i know that obviously

budgeting is unpredictable especially nowadays but what are the priorities that you wish you could

fund if you could so you know similar to what meg had mentioned so much of what we have funded over

the past five years has been from one time state and federal funds a lot of it you know funding

that resulted because of the pandemic but we've been able to try things that we haven't been able

to try before and kind of take the best of that so you'll see you know a number of these community

engagement programs or this newly launched small business assistance center you know using much

less funds than we had from CARES and ARPA but really focusing in on those areas that we saw

greatest impact from that programming great thank you so much for your time i appreciate it thank you

a member wolf hi thank you for a very thorough presentation um i'm wondering if you have any

data on like i guess the denied applications for say like the gardening funding that you guys were

referencing um like do you have any numbers like how many were accepted versus you have the ones

that were accepted on the screen right but how many that are denied yeah i would have to go back

because since it is a pretty small program and it is targeted so economic gardening is focused on

businesses whose revenue is either approaching or exceeding a million a year and has at least gosh

is a five or nine employee so it is those second stage companies so it is a smaller pool than we

get for some of our other programs but i can certainly um get that information and send it to

ash to forward to you all yeah please yeah i'm i mean it's for my own education right i'd be

interested in like the other kinds of the applicants too just i think it'd be fun fun to look at the

numbers on it and just you know to point out like economic gardening for instance although the staff

that implement the program are funded by measure you the funding for the program so the consultants

the grants that is not measure you funded member salla okay thank you um you i know your your

presentation was very thorough and i um personally can attest to the importance of the in-dat program

has had on northgate you've worked very closely with our community not only for the taco plaza

for the facade programs and our business helping our small businesses your team has been very

responsive and i've heard it from from some of our small businesses not not so much talking

about your department but the individuals within your department and that have helped them and then

also um a member of your staff for your the end that has worked very closely with the gardenland

northgate neighborhood association to get sake hog funding that um and that was really a creative

grant that was proposed to sake hog which is the first time that just that gardenland northgate

neighborhood association is partnering with members and district two communities organizations

and district two to come up with this innovative um outreach and community engagement with our two

our two community so that was very very helpful and because of that support it happened so those

kind of partnerships are so vitally important to small little neighborhoods that don't have a

lot of infrastructure and that are trying to um do what we can to make a difference and having

staff and the city supporting that and it is just been very it's helping us and it's so important

so thank you and your staff is just amazing so i i i do have a question like an or a comment

and observation because i've been um with measure you for a little bit and there was there's always

been an issue that comes up um or a question that comes up about the thousand strong program

that it was a very challenging program and an expensive program

so um i know it was the mayor's program so um it stayed and even though there was the challenge

was that asking businesses to come up with the funding of internships was was difficult and

they were having hard time finding um businesses that were willing to do that so when it's now

shifted to you is that and you said measure you is funding that program with it shifting over to

you are you making changes to that program to make it uh more attractive to businesses that

want to participate so as beggin mentioned we're looking at you know all of our programs these are

you know tough financial times and looking at ways to partner and really maximize so

you know we've recently um taken over management of that program there are some great providers

that are providing services to young people a number of them are actually nonprofit organizations

and so i think you know we're at the point right now where we're you know getting up to speed on

those programs the outcomes of those programs um and want to kind of incorporate that into our whole

workforce development approach as i mentioned we just received about three million from the

state for next year's youth programming youth and young adult it's 16 to 30 thousand strong

is a much smaller um age range and so just really looking at how we can you know maximize our limited

funding looking at what's worked well and what hasn't and really kind of focusing on what's had the

strongest outcomes okay and i just so i the economic gardening that was helpful because i was trying to

figure out what is that program but it's the it's not the starting businesses it's amid they're just

at that point where they're a million and they just need that extra to get to that next level so that

was very helpful to understand that um but i do i want to say that the community engagement program

is is it's funded by measure you monies and i appreciate um the work that they're doing and

getting out um information to the community about services in the city i'm really letting them know

about that i i i still kind of wish we could figure out a way and it'll come out in the report

that's after this um as a result of our focus groups a way of there were several comments that

all programs that measure you funds should people should know about it and a way and there's some

programs that are very good they say funded by measure you and um and others don't do that

and i think community engagement could could pay um play a vital role anytime they're out in the

public just having our information about measure you the dashboard or measure you or whatever every

every event because that is that's one mechanism along with other um departments that's being

funded by measure you that they need to just put that logo there our measure you logo and that being

said um and i but i think that they do a good job of of really going out there and letting the public

know of the services that the city's um offering and making the community aware of city services i

think that's important i um i also want to understand a little more about and i think

the community ambassadors is one way i think that they're trying to get the word out in

communities is having the map ambassadors attend different my guess is because i'm not sure is

that 10 different events community events in their neighborhoods and by language and culture

again getting the word out about the services that are being offered and things like economic

gardening and etc etc the different services but i'm interested because i saw that they're paid

ambassadors so what is the total annual um monies that goes to that program for the ambassador

so that could probably give us the exact number i believe it's 5400 per ambassador

it's 6000 per group faster um the program is run that's the 200 000 a year but that includes

translation interpreter services um special events and so it goes beyond them just being

a liaison to the community they also educate various departments on the best way to engage in

various communities that may have cultural or language barriers that have prevented people from

receiving the information and so it's more of a two-way conversation for us to share information

with them but more importantly to find out what's happening in their respective communities and then

that comes that comes to you and then you share it with what when the community says these are some

of the issues that are going on this is how does that so the ambassadors are required to meet with

us monthly for three hours a month in addition they have to do quarterly trainings which are

three hours on saturdays so there's quarterly trainings that they're required they're also

required to do monthly reports for payment of their invoices and so we have different departments

that come and present um information um they may be looking from input from the community and so

it's a way for them to share the information but also hear what's the best way to get the

information out because every community is different so our approach to outreach and

engagement always have to shift and be flexible of changing okay thank you and then i just want to

applaud you for your two management academy and your planning academy those are really

i participated in both of them and and if if any of you have not been in any of them i really

suggest you do it you learn so much about um what how the city works and functions and

everything that the department um and each department uh that's the management academy

each department has to do but also um the planning and how that all happens but your your staff

organize that and plan it out are phenomenal and some of the other funding for both the ambassador

and the city management is child care so we set on the application if child care would be a barrier

for you to participate and if so we provide a stipend so folks can make arrangements for child

care to participate in any of those programs it's it's really good it so um and then i want to i'm so

pleased to um that you hired um an interpreting manager to language access um manager to look at

policies and and systems and how to improve offering that because there's well on you all know

there's gaps in in providing that service so that's that was a big one and thank you and she

i've met her a couple times and she seems uh very engaged and dedicated and so i i think that's

going to do a lot to improve language access for our community so thank you glad to have her on board

and just another plug for city management academy i think linette told me today applications will

open in june next month yeah if you haven't half so i really think commissioners um we're seeing

kind of like a high level presentation but the you've been there the um management academy gets

more into the weeds and and then at the end that you do a project that um trying to make a change

in our department so it's a great program thank you thank you i just have a few questions for you

um and i'll try to be quick because we do have quite a few agenda items to go through still um

but uh again on thousand strong i guess my question is what is the pool size of the

participants and how many connections were made between workers and or like i guess youth and

businesses uh in like a year so i would have to get back to you on that again our office just got

involved in that program earlier this year so um it's been around for a few years and we are just

getting up to speed on it i will say that the two primary there's you know a couple people placed

in various businesses but the bulk of um young people are placed through the center for land-based

learning that has programs at two schools and then um the bia also so um people learning the

construction trades those are really the two largest um providers right now for thousand strong

it looked like there were 20 paid interns for the clbl uh at least according to our uh documents here

i was just curious if that and come do you and you mentioned another for the construction trades

i don't know if i have that number but um it's maybe it's yeah i don't know if you can get that

be great and then in the terms of the uh approved budget for this of 750 000 how much of that

internship are we paying for as a city versus the business that they're working for like in terms of

a is it a split or is it fully us is it yeah do you know so for those two programs since it's with

nonprofit organizations the city i believe is paying 100 percent got it okay and then you

mentioned like a three million from state for some program but i didn't quite catch which program this

was or so it's um it was originally called californians for all it is now called youth service core

so we have about 2.6 million for this year and about 2.8 for next year and that is the program that is

for public sector and nonprofit career pathways participants must be between 16 and 30 so we

just did a solicitation um that wrapped up for our 2025 partners we see the bulk of the

programming happened during the summer months do you see like a potential for these two programs to

more or less be merged like the 100k could go into yeah to make it sort of simpler or do you think

they would have to be separated i think we're you know looking at all options to you know be more

efficient but also you know have the greatest impact yeah one thing to keep in mind the funding

from the state is specific to nonprofit and public sector career pathways it's my understanding

when thousands rung first launched you know there was a focus on getting young people

placed at businesses but as commissioner solah pointed out um there you know were some challenges

in getting businesses engaged i think right so it seems like since it's mostly nonprofit almost

they're like attacking the same problem okay cool all right any uh last do you in okay appreciate

thank you for your presentation thank you

all right good evening i am matt hurdle i'm the assistant director of community development

all right so cdb is comprised of these five divisions that focus on city development property

maintenance regulation of business and care for animals our activities have significant impact on

the development and maintenance of housing the protection of public health and safety and support

the city's quality of life and economic development initiatives we are also integral to the city's

infrastructure development climate initiatives and homelessness response the overwhelming majority

of our staff and budgeted resources are devoted to activities that are mandated by law are essential

to the public welfare so our mission is to help plan build and maintain a great city

cdb is comprised of 318 staff and a total budget of 63 million we bring in revenues close to 32

million with a net measure you and general fund reliance of 24 million which is less than 30 percent

of the general fund the administrative services division provides centralized support for a

department and also handles development related financial transactions for multiple departments

the planning division plays a key role in the development of our city the role of city planners

is to help us anticipate and meet the needs of a changing world especially as it affects us here at

home planners analyze trends to see where we might end up and they help us determine

whether to embrace those trends or to take actions to change course for the better

planners do this through long-range planning that looks decades ahead and current planning

which evaluates development projects happening today they are supported by zoning staff who provide

customer service keep regulations up to date enforce zoning requirements and conduct public hearings

environmental planners who help navigate federal and state environmental laws

urban design architects and preservation planners who help shape the look and feel

of new development and preserve our heritage and new growth planners who focus on annexations and

the special needs of the anatomous basin measure you supports the long-range planning and zoning

sections of the planning division so i will spend just a few moments highlighting their work from

this past fiscal year or current fiscal year rather so long-range planning is comprised of four groups

citywide planning neighborhood planning climate sustainability and housing planning

the 2040 general plan adopted by council last year is now in the implementation phase including

amending the planning and development code or title 17 of the city code for consistency as

mentioned earlier the city's planning academy is in the midst of its 23rd cohort and that's going

underway right now a couple of highlights from the neighborhood planning which includes the

neighborhood development action team and a partnership with the office of innovation

economic development we've got the stock and bulldog plan which was adopted in october

is in the implementation phase including working with oi ed toward grants to the community to

implement the plan the update to the 2011 river district specific plan was also launched last year

with public input kicking off this summer the climate action and adaptation plan

also adopted by council last year along with a general plan is also in the implementation phase

and the city and food illiteracy center received a sacramento air council of government

engage in power implement grant to develop an urban farm action plan at the one acre floyd

farms near the atata floyd elementary school under housing the small developer incubator

pilot program launched in february with three successful events already held and the sacramento

for all housing education campaign launched resource center and conducted eight citywide

workshops so three million in measure u funding supports the affordable housing fee reduction

program or zero dollar impact fee program for short this program remains very popular with all

funds for this fiscal year already being allocated to eight affordable housing projects for a total

of 537 units as shown here the zoning team wrapped up three significant projects this fiscal year

in december council adopted an ordinance lowering regulatory barriers and expanding

opportunities for five types of special needs housing such as residential hotels or sros and

supportive housing council also adopted a revised density bonus ordinance for affordable housing

projects to be consistent with state law and resilient to annual changes to state law two

omni bus ordinances were adopted in 2024 each made streamlining improvements administered to clean

up and changes responsive to new housing laws from 2022 and 2023 state legislative sessions

in 2024 over 400 planning applications were received and over a thousand units were approved

i also want to highlight a public notification tool the agency counter this allows residents to

track and receive notifications for planning and building projects in their specific neighborhoods

or citywide the other half of cdd's development group is the building division public safety is

the top priority for the building division and depicted here is the safe credit union performing

arts center a project with convention and cultural services those supported by the building division

helped ensure it was designed and constructed to protect the safety of visitors who come here

so the two parts in the development process is first planning and then building and the four steps

in the building process are submitting a building permit application with plans construction drawings

that are full compliance with the building code second receiving a building permit to initiate

construction third complete onsite inspections of each construction phase to ensure the work

is safe adheres to the approved plans and meets the building code and ultimately receiving final

approvals allowing the building to be occupied so in 2024 over 23 000 building plan reviews were

completed and almost 72 000 building inspections were conducted and the last five years approved

building projects are valued at eight billion dollars spearheaded by mayor mccarty and council

member plucky bomb the city has launched streamline sacramento streamline sacramento is a customer-driven

cross departmental effort to examine the city's procedures for reviewing and improving development

projects then emphasis on housing the goal is to identify and implement internal processes that

speed up approval times and reduce the cost of construction in the last couple of months we formed

an internal working group with representatives of five different departments and have been formed

and had several meetings with the development community a number of action items have been

identified in our process of being implemented and we've got informational interviews and

meetings with the development community that are ongoing over the next few months

codes focus is on maintaining the city's housing stock protecting the public safety from blight

abandoned vehicles and dangerous buildings and ensuring that businesses operate within state and

local guidelines measure u supports the neighborhood and business section of the code enforcement

division and code staff are responsible for ensuring these businesses are properly licensed

regulations and our new night team has expanded our capacity to work within entertainment businesses

to ensure a safe and neighborly nightlife experience code staff also respond to a wide

range of council priorities ranging from tobacco retailer licensing enforcement to vacant lot and

vacant building regulation into ensuring safe street vending practices code inspected nearly

5,000 rental housing units last year over suck appliance of 3,500 vacant lots in the city

and conducted over 33,000 vehicle abatement inspections codes engagement team provides

education resources at community events throughout the city they're currently doing a

neighborhood cleanup in north sacramento and through a partnership with the hispanic chamber of

commerce are holding boot camps for street vendors for folks to learn about how to be code

compliant when selling food and goods since 2012 animal care services has turned itself

around from an organization that was known mainly for impounding and unyutthiazing animals to an

industry leader that focuses on saving and enhancing the lives as many pets as possible

in addition to providing the minimum services mandated by the state this division sustains

this legacy of lifesaving through the dedication of the staff and managers at our front street

animal shelter and an enthusiastic network of volunteers and donors measure u supports the

staff positions of the animal care services division last year animal care conducted almost

6,000 medical exams performed 3200 spay and neuter surgeries and i'd also like to highlight

the 900 volunteers and 95,000 volunteer hours donated by our community to help raise the

quality of care we are able to offer to the pets that come to friend street city staff and our

friends of friend street nonprofit have raised over five million dollars for animal care over the

past five years and this operation is one of the few core city services that relies on donations

of cash and labor to sustain it the homeless outreach and assistant program or hope provided

services to 832 unhoused pet owners and served over 1500 pets in 2024

so i'm going to wrap up by conveying three top priorities for each of the divisions

for animal care we are working with a number of providers to supplement our in-house veterinarians

to reduce the backlog of spay and neuter surgeries that are critical to getting animals out of the

city's care and instead loving homes to reduce overcrowding we are constantly looking for ways

to reduce the intake of animals that do not need to be at the shelter and constructing a new facility

at an approximate cost of 40 to 60 million or rehabbing the existing facility at a cost of 30 to 50

million key priorities for the planning division include continuing streamlining housing development

projects through citywide rezoning and updating zoning regulations to reflect the recently adopted

2040 general plan facilitating missing middle housing and helping build the local capacity

to develop these small scale housing solutions and responding to the avalanche of 110 new state laws

relating to planning and housing passed over the last eight years

for building supporting the mayor's streamlining initiative hiring and training new building

inspectors due to generational turnover and retirements advocating for sensible state legislation

that balances regulatory streamlining and increased building safety and energy efficiency

and finally for code recruitment and retention of our code enforcement staff so that we can

maintain and improve our service response times managing an increased role of code enforcement

staff as the city identifies ways to provide alternative public safety response response

which has meant new programs like our night team and increasing responsibilities to help maintain

a safe nightlife in our community and addressing vacant lot and vacant building bite and safety

concerns through increased regulation and enforcement so in conclusion the community

development department has a broad range of responsibilities and services and the work

we do is essential to the quality of life in our community each of the division managers are here

and we're available to answer any questions you might have thank you thank you uh commissioners

if you have any questions please press your speak i like you're trying to get there all right

uh same question first thank you again for the presentation i am such a wide ranging department

covering so many different areas of the city so it's it's i would imagine it seems like you're

have a very disparate responsibility from zoning to animals it's kind of wide ranging right that's

right how do you how do you foresee because i think i did some quick math you said about 18 million

for for measure you have the 63 million dollar budget so that's about 30 percent is that a correct

back of the napkin in terms of measure you measure you funding yeah but i couldn't discern

exactly what percentage went to what part of the very disparate sure yeah and how do you how are

those um because of the wide ranging uh requirements of this department how do you assess the various

needs that apply the measure you funding or is that a city council kind of thing because i'm not

actually sure they say your department where you say 18 million is allocated to the community

development then do you subscribe that to the within the department where the needs go

yeah so the measure you funding received is really aligned with the intent

of measure you and and so i've tried to highlight you know where those places that's going

in terms of the community needs so we have a 24 million dollar in a general fund

reliance and 18 of that is as measure you it's about six is a general fund so measure you

supports 122 full-time positions so that's about 38 percent or so of our our staff members

yeah and maybe my question is tied better the second question is yeah maybe it's a comparative if

it increases how do you make the assessment of where those those funds are allocated within the

department yeah from the department's perspective we have two glaring needs and needs that measure

you really help support and that is one on affordable housing so one of the programs that

measure you supports is you know the zero dollar impact fee program it leverages other very critical

state and federal dollars it is an excellent program in terms of the the limited amount of

money we put in in the return on investment and that program year after year gets allocated prior

to that end of fiscal year so you know we're in april it's fully allocated so we're going to have

a number of affordable housing projects and units they're going to be waiting in line so we get

basically a three million dollar allowance we have last few years um and in measure you um we could

always use more dollars to support affordable housing the second need would be on animal animal

care right so we talked about some of the critical needs we have around our facility uh we desperately

need a new shelter and we need some upgrades to the facility now so we're always looking for

additional dollars to do that great thank you so much i see no one else in queue so i will guess

i'll just ask um real quickly i was trying to you're whispering a little bit but you seem to work

pretty closely with the dcr department community response in terms like of code enforcement you

mentioned right so i was trying to parse where you sort of what responsibilities you have versus

what responsibilities they have just so i can figure out you know we have funding going to both

where like measure you is the biggest uh contributor to department of community response so i'm just

trying to get you know uh clear clarify that for that or clarify that for me please yeah i would say

there's there's probably two uh you know functions that are really closely aligned so we have under

animal care services we have our hope program talked about right so that's support for unhoused

population and been in particular you know their pets and so you know our team works closely with

dcr on that front uh and then also our you know code compliance team also works very closely with dcr

you know helping ensure you know code compliance and working with that team

is in for that code uh compliance team i remember reading somewhere this is stretching my memory

here but essentially uh there was like a 94 or so success rate with co-compliance of not sending

an officer but sending when i heard it it was department of community response but i guess this

is technically under you guys not dcr uh or am i missing the yeah i'm gonna ask peter lee must come

up he's our uh code and housing enforcement chief so this group is under his purview he'll

build an answer more detailed questions perfect yep peter lee most code and housing enforcement chief

for our code enforcement involved with the um unsheltered unhoused um we have three actual

code officers embedded into the dcr team so we do the um private property um initiated response

and then the vehicles on the public right of way working with the impact and dcr so that's our

role in that um their dcr is making the contacts with the individuals and such we're dealing more

to assist private property owners when um unsheltered have impacted their properties and then of

course you know they're working with them to uh once they make their contacts and get their um

dealing with the unsheltered then we deal with the vehicles and stuff they're left on the public

property understood okay thank you for that clarification uh i guess the next question um

was around the animal care facility um in our like financial quarterly report we get some numbers that

uh your department gives to us and one of those was that the it struggles to perfect provide

veterinary care for the 175 plus animals housed at that facility um but then we didn't get any

of the data that i find very strong um in your slides and i would love to have that data just

in our quarterly report so we can when we do that uh analysis and we give our recommendations

this gray data is in there too because and this was yearly data if i'm not mistaking the we're

only find it again real quick um i think you said like 5000 medical procedures or 4000 medical

procedures and that was yearly is that correct we can yeah we could certainly get you the information

we have an annual report that is put together every year um for the great work that our animal

care services does um and then we also you know recently completed a facility you know

shelter needs assessments we've got a lot of great information we can certainly share with you okay

yeah i'm seeing here now i found a 3200 in-house spain uterus surgeries and that you're saying this

is this i'm just wondering if this is a yearly number this is like collectively since so that's

annually it's annual okay great all right any other questions if not thank you very much appreciate

your time here and so much for showing us all that you guys do okay um we do have a member from

the public who would like to speak on this uh sorry it took so long there were a lot of

presentations and stuff to go through but um before we move on i'd like to invite uh our public

speaker and yes and uh we have Lambert

thanks for being patient

uh measure measure you i understand measure you what's what puzzles me is that there's a lot of

people that are on the rostrum that seem like they don't understand measure you measure you

first of all shout out to mayor steinberg because i was invited to a lot of meetings

and i mean i went to a lot of meetings uh shout out to uh former chair marge dickison she acknowledged

that one time that i came to a lot of meetings and i felt like i understood measure you and then

once the participatory budgeting process got started uh in district two i'm from district two

my parents been there since 1946 and so i understand every topic being discussed tonight

no matter what it is i can i can pretty much understand it measure you to me was not uh presented

as as what it is being portrayed as today uh first of all they combined it with the general fund

that's a hidden agenda because now we're hearing about everything but the underserved

we're hearing about things that should be in the general fund animal care what have you those

things and then uh when i hear innovative economics and uh ambassador programs uh i'm a person that

goes to a lot of meetings and i've submitted a lot of paperwork to city hall and one thing that we

have found is that there's a discrepancy of handling my paperwork and we have it well documented uh i

wasn't ever coming back here but my family asked me to come because it's measure you and i will

continue to talk about measure you later thank you for your comments chair we have no more speakers

okay great um let's move on to uh number six which is the focus groups presentation julie if you

want to come up thank you staff all right hi i'm back um i'll keep this brief i know you've had

a lot of uh listening this evening um just you have our written report um i just want to

highlight a few things um first i want to thank ash for his support and uh helping us get out

surveys to the respondents who were who indicated in 2022 that they would like to give more feedback

about measure you um we sent out emails to 400 people with a certain link to a new survey that he

created 100 people responded 60 people received an invitation to one of four focus groups and a

total of 11 participants actually participated in a focus group um these are the top priorities that

came out of all four focus groups um parks aquatics especially with a youth focus um i want to also

highlight support for business development and regulatory reform um some people believe less

regulations would lead to more economic development um also zero fee programming was was highlighted by

the group areas for d prioritization um and i want to emphasize here it wasn't that people were against

these items it was if we have to choose something over another and so that's the

determination they made you'll see libraries here again which was also on the top priority slide

i think some of those comments were related to the recent passage of measure e for the libraries

and so there was a feeling like but didn't we just fund them um and then there was very it was very

clear that focus group members didn't want general budget shortfalls to be paid for by with measure

you funds um people loved the measure you dashboard um have you ever heard of the children's story if

you give a mouse a cookie then he'll want a glass of milk and once he gets a glass of milk he'll

probably want another snack and it just keeps going and going that's what's happened with your

dashboard um there's um they love it they love it for its transparency we dug down in it on in

almost every focus group um the transparency of the dashboard was superb but then there was a link

and comments for like well how are we getting the accountability for the things that we say we're

funding with measure you um high desire to have functionality or a way to reflect investments by

neighborhoods i don't know if that's even possible i can only imagine how hard that would be um

there was interest in having a comparison to the measure you funds in comparison to the city budget

overall and one person suggested perhaps the text of the original ballot measure when it was

passed in 2018 could also appear on the dashboard as kind of a reference um in terms of the impact

the questions from the focus group members were our measure you funds really helping what are the

outcomes specifically um lots of data people and these focus groups and they want more information

um one person described success of measure you funding as a vibrant active community that has

access to measure you services would attract more people to Sacramento as the city becomes more

populist there'd be more support for businesses making the community even more vibrant and so the

theme of vibrancy was really important for them um they want more information about

um quantity and quality so for example how many homeless people were housed because of measure

you funds how many recruits from diverse communities came to the police or fire department

um and there was a lot of discussion about smart goals if you're familiar um these are stands for

specific measurable achievable relevant and time bound um so there was a lot of interest in having

those kind of of goals outlined along with the measure you funding um

there's a very diverse group of people that participated in terms of their length of time

in the city of Sacramento I was born and raised here I think I have a pretty long memory I can hold

a grudge like a 12 year old girl um a lot of our long time residents have long memories of promises

not kept by the city and that emerged throughout the focus groups um and I won't go into details about

those but people say I remember the city promised and now the city's not doing it anymore and so

there's some that leads to the feelings around trust um there was um a desire for some auditing

or third party reviews um especially when it came to these monies are allocated to these

different departments but what is actually being produced as a result and I think you probably

have that information having sat through some of these great presentations but the community

doesn't have it and they want it um and again they mentioned they don't want their funds

shuffled around they want them to go for what they said they were going to go for so um just

wanted to highlight the they want to people want to trust that the funds are being used

um a lot of conversation about um reaching under resource communities very clear across all the

focus group members um that this money is intended to uplift our under resource communities um

and so they had ideas about how to build trust in the community hosting community events engaging

with neighborhood leaders using the city's seed tool um they also mentioned though and I would

concur based on my observations we had good rep representation from most of the council districts

but hardly any of the participants felt like they represented personally under resource communities

so there's a lot of conversation about how we reach under resource commit communities um

to get their feedback and uh this is a quote I just want to call out from one of the participants

just to be mindful of what what we see as the greatest need might not be the greatest need

if we don't live in that community excuse me um there was a real focus on equity rather than

equality um there was a stated desire to not compare neighborhoods so rather than saying all

neighborhoods should have x y and z again going to the community and asking what their need is um

there was a lot of conversation about building up marginalized communities without wiping out

communities and some conversation around gentrification um also want to just acknowledge

that it's a privilege to be able to participate in a focus group and um we suspect that some of the

people that we wanted to have at the table don't have the luxury or weren't in the first group

of people that responded three years ago um the last thing is people really want to participate

um there's something about being invited to give your feedback that makes people feel like

their perspective really matters um people are hungry for more inclusion and more engagement

there was also a stated desire that next year's city budget process should use focus groups so

good luck with that to the city um but using more creative ways to engage with the community so

Sacramento is unique because we have so many neighborhood associations we're not that's not

typical but that's a great strength for our community and so maybe for the commission to

tap in with some of those groups to share information table at community events um

I ran through that really fast because I'm mindful of our time um I just want to have your questions

but also say thank you for the opportunity to do this I I I don't get to relate to the public

every day and then my job and it was really fun to meet so many people who care so much about

our city like I do and like you do so with that I'll open it up for questions yeah thank you very

much uh before we do questions from the commission if there are any members of the public who want

to speak on this item yes we do we have one speaker Lambert

time that I come up here I'm probably gonna shock everybody and I intend to um

um I've come to a lot of meetings and a perfect example of somebody that's sincere is this lady

right here because I know a lot of my elders when I was growing up they love Stanford settlement

it had integrity to it they weren't just talking about district three or whatever district that is

they covered a lot of districts now when I say I'm gonna shock you I'm I I'm not here to be

popular I'm here to uh I'm on a principled mission to uh expose some of the things that are going on

here in the city that I love I was raised here now if you look at this audience right now

all of the power broker players are gone so to me that tells me that it's not even worth their time

to wait for the public to speak where did they go all of these people that spoke are crucial

to making decisions and for them to leave like that to me is an insult it's one of the reasons why

I refuse to come back after tonight this is the epitome of uh why you're in a uh structural deficit

a lot of these people that have left to me should be terminated they should be brought up on criminal

charges and put in prison why because this is not their money this is not the money of the city staff

to do whatever they want with this money measure you money as taxpayers money that comes in

just think where this city would be without measure you it would be drowning in red

thank you for your comments chair we have no more speakers

great um uh open up to questions just be mindful we have eight minutes left uh member wolf oh

actually sorry come here where you first or is that an old hand that's an old okay yeah member

yeah um thank you thorough presentation being mindful of time fantastic uh time management skills

i was just hope is there a way that we can get access to the like the full data how it was

collected is like in a spreadsheet or something yeah some of it's in the back of your uh report

the long report um show this one right here no okay but if there's more data points you want

happy to share that with you okay thank you yeah i'll make sure i relook at that yeah it was a

lot of pages thank you there's good like uh diversity data in the back of that yeah member

mickey i just want to say thank you so much um i just want to call it that i love that you gave

voice to the fact that even though there was a wide representation across districts that the people

that showed up realized that they weren't the true people to mr lambrood's point that really

need to give voice and give um their perspective that community feel so um i want to applaud you

for pulling that out because that's what gets lost in the weeds right we think because we have a quorum

or we have a diverse number across districts that we've hit the mark but for them to give voice to

that says that there's so much more to do because we're really not impacting collecting the voices

that need to be at the table to have true change and impact because we can change but if it's not

impacting so thank you for that and just giving credence to mr lambrood's point as well thank you

for that sir remember johnson oh solas sorry yes so thank you i i went to all i went to all three

focus groups and participated and heard directly what was being said and um for me it was very gratifying

because it's what was being said was nothing new that we've been saying all along that needs to happen

and that's neighborhoods want to know data they want to know impact they want to know

the questions you're all asking appeared to the departments they want in impact outcomes and who's

being served and how is this money the investment um wise investment and is it really going to

underserve communities uh and that was that was a common thread and then the other common thread

was and our finish here is that they really want the more um opportunities in the community give

feedback on measure you monies so maybe not every year but every other year coming back and saying

like doing a dashboard and then getting feedback that they they think that's really important and

originally measure you we had a committee that that was part of the committee was to do community

outreach and get information out there and engage with the community and never really developed

well the best thing that came out of that we came up with the measure you logo

but absent that it never really developed and so I don't know with these recommendations

that our industry port what we do next can we put it on like adopt it um work towards I mean I don't

want this to fall great report good information and nothing come of it because we didn't take action so

how do we move these recommendations into action I know we can't do it now but I really like to see

these recommendations and even if we can't there's a lot of them but we can pick two or three that

we're going to work on for the coming year and we adopt them and make it and and um make an impact

and then also speaking to Lambert's not only was it important for them not to leave because of public

comment but they missed hearing what was in this report totally and I don't I don't even know that

they'll have access to the reports so how do we do we have how do we get this in the hands of the

council members and um so they see what the community is saying about measure use so then I know we

got it we're almost but those are my thoughts and thank you so much you you are a fabulous facilitator

just fabulous remember jelson I'll try to be quick too my main question goes to the weight of the

opinion uh this is very helpful 11 people is not nothing but it is a very small number considering

the size of our community and you drew on the fact that I think there was no one under 40 no one

under 75,000 household income and 70 percent were above 150,000 household income which is

obviously not representative of our community how do you feel professionally we should wait

this information it's obviously helpful to know but I don't want to overweight it given you know

the fact there was 11 people that spent time and really give us their opinion but what kind of weight

should we give this that's a great question um on the one hand I think it even though it's a small

number um and I think that the themes that emerged were significant and I think you could make the

argument that it's no accident that those that those themes emerged across the focus groups

but I also recognize that it is a small sample size and and you have to you have to balance it

I didn't answer your question I don't know the answer I'm sorry I think sometimes it's the best

answer okay thank you all right I just want to say yeah thank you I was able to send out one of the

meetings but um I you I think even did an extra meeting just because you felt it was right which

is very impressive so thank you that was four made it four from the degree to prong three which is

crazy shows your dedication which is awesome um I think to solid this point um how do we move on

these things um from the quantitative to qualitative or sorry qualitative to quantitative

movement like I think we are trying to do that and we're bringing that into hopefully our quarterly

report which apparently a lot of people love so we're like almost combining two needs into one

with that sort of um at least that sort of advocacy that we're doing and on top of that in terms of

like the outreach and community I think we can all agree you're regardless of 11 people or one person

because we we ourselves know that we need to be more out there in the community

because we're we're out in the community and we hear that and so there was previously an ad hoc

for in Measure U way before ad hoc's got removed that did do community outreach and I think that

might be something that we should discuss in our next meeting and figuring out though what they

would be responsible for and who wants to be a part of that if that's something that we want to do

I think you know the way another way we can bring this to city council

is through our annual reports right we can include this in our both our annual report and our budget

suggestions so yeah I think if there's anyone else who wants to talk on this or not uh either way

thank you so much for your work here and you did a great job and we're very thankful thank you

okay um I think we should move on to the next next woman um let's see where it's six

yeah so we started the meeting six minutes after four what was it four minutes after so we have

four minutes six minutes perfect so we have six minutes to finish um I think what we're gonna do

is probably have to boot both of these two things uh the next meeting and then we'll just go through

the last uh like public matters uh public comments matters on the agenda because I think we have one

and then just adjourn and try to move these ones unless anyone's very much against that I don't

think we can do one of the seven or eight in one matter of two minutes no okay so we'll move seven

and eight to the next one um and in that case there is budget ad hoc committee updates metric ad

hoc committee updates um real quick though budget ad hoc did not meet because I wasn't sure we could

given we had to like dissolve the previous one but now that that's done we'll be able to like

focus and there is actually this budget priorities thing that we need to finish um but uh I guess

I'll try to lead that and get you guys all connected who is in the budget uh ad hoc and like we can

try to get this budget priorities report together um I don't know if we'll be able to do it by like

here we have we're supposed to bring it by May 19th I don't think that's just I just not gonna happen

but yeah let's okay so we'll move to uh public public comments matters on agenda now um and I

believe we have one yes we have three speakers our first speaker is Lambert followed by Zion and Juan

okay now as a person who studies the agenda during the uh consent calendar it said that you were

abolishing or I don't know the term budget ad hoc and metrics ad hoc committee I'm gonna read it

it says approval to dissolve the budget and metrics ad hoc committee do you really understand what

that means that means that you just eliminated what's at the bottom of this page you should never

come back here again because I know I'm not to talk about the budget ad hoc committee metrics ad

hoc committee you just dissolved it in the consent calendar and it was unanimous this is one of the

reasons I'm never coming here again and I have a lot of respect for measure you committee but your

hand cuffed when you can see something on the consent calendar that I can see and then you come

back at the bottom talking about where we're gonna talk about that next time how can you dissolve it

and still deal with it and I think ashra ghani should be reprimanded he should be speaking these

people are not here he should be speaking to the public that's the problem with this city

there are a lot of people that are on the payroll that should not be there's no way people should

be on the payroll that can walk out of here none of you are getting paid you know who's getting

paid ashra ghani the lawyer and this lady nobody else including me but guess what we own a company

called to the bay and back cheesecakes you look that up and find out some integrity the better

business bureau has selected us to be in the convention center this sunday and we get ready

to take off because the millennial young people took me under their wing and getting ready to take

us to another level in southern california thank you for your comments our next speaker is zion

hi everyone thank you for having me my name is zionthe tessa the owner of queen shiva restaurant

i've been doing businesses over 18 years so i'm here actually to talk about my carnivorous

business that on district five on kerry mepple is a three acre of land and so i've been working on it

the past five years when it comes to we we had carnivorous equity fund but now we got all the fund

got distracted like you know not listening to the community what really we need and what we want

when it comes to investment into our community so what i'm asking here today is that i've i have

exhausted my fund and my resources to build shashamani institute which is a one-stop shop for

carnivorous it has cultivation manufacturing manufacturing distribution health and wellness

center as well as education center so i need the fund to be able to hire people for to to build the

actually facility it has a five c up i'm probably the only person who has a five c up in california

on just one three acre of land but because of lack of fund i'm stuck right now i have already

exhausted my funds and my resources so i'm here to ask just like how measure you were supposed to

intend to for under self done under underrepresented community so we can actually get into businesses

and and other resources but the way the measure your money is spending is that to the people who are

really uh functioning so i'm asking today to help me uh at least in some way get my business my

construction uh get going so i'm here to ask for measure your money thank you for your comments

your time's complete thank you our last speaker is one i promise to keep my

my remarks pretty short i don't like being the last person to speak and i know that we

had gone way over time which by the way i really appreciate that conversation today

my name is Juan Novello um actually the mayor is appointee to this commission so i wanted to

take the opportunity to not only educate myself and get ahead of the game and understanding what

you all and what we all can be dealing with uh in years ahead there's difficult conversations

and different things that i actually really aspire by the fact that there's a lot of blends on

priorities and voices that needs to be you know embedded in those conversations is something that

i actually prefer your domestic um i i'm actually also a graduate from the uh uh mayor uh the managers

academy i serve as currently as a vice president for the sacrament of hispanic chamber of commerce

and i often uh get a question by from my mom and ask me what is it that you do i'm sure that you

all ask i get asked the same questions and i always tell her that i'm in the business of giving the

folks the best possible opportunity and that's what i'm trying to bring into this commission

to make sure that we bring the best possible opportunities for our city council to consider

and for the people of sacramentel thank you thank you thank you for your comments chair we have no

more speakers and this meeting is now concluded because we've hit our time with it so great timing

thank you everyone

again like at the bell oh yeah you want to smack it

so