Okay.

Calls meeting order, please call the roll.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Councilmember Pluckybaugh.

Councilmember Maple.

Here.

We expect Mayor Pro Tem Gata momentarily.

Councilmember Jennings.

Councilmember Vang.

Here.

And Mayor McCarty.

You have a quorum.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kaplan, can you please lead us in the land acknowledgement and pledge?

We are rising to for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands.

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

May we acknowledge and honor the Native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather today in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous peoples' histories, contributions, and lives.

Please remain standing.

Flash.

I agree to the flag of the United States of America and just republic for which we stand.

One nation under God and divisible with liberty and justice for all.

City attorney, do you have a report out from closed session?

No, no report out.

So, Mayor, we move to special presentations.

Um, we've got women's history month being presented by council member Kaplan.

Thank you.

Councilmember.

Thank you, Mayor.

Excuse me.

So, Mayor, Council residents and colleagues, we stand here March 2026 to observe women's history month.

Historically, this is a time for speeches that look backward.

A time to honor our suffragists, our trailblazers, and the pioneers who broke down barriers.

But as women serving in local government today, it's incumbent upon us not to only look back.

I must look forward.

And what I see right now is a moment that demands not just celebration, but profound resilience and resistance.

We are in a time where the very foundation of equality we assumed were permanent are being tested.

We are witnessing a systematic effort to roll back decades of progress on reproductive freedom, to threaten the safety of our LGBTQI neighbors, and to chip away at the economic security of women and particularly women of color.

When federal policies seek to define our existence, restrict our health choices, and silence survivors, it feels at times like we are moving backwards.

But I refuse to believe that the future is already written for us by someone else.

That is why the work we do on this council is more critical than ever.

When national leadership turns its back on equality, it's up to the council to be the first line of defense.

If they try to restrict health access, we must ensure our city remains a sanctuary for care and privacy for our immigrants and our LGBTQ community.

If they try and push women out of the workforce through economic pressure, we must support local businesses owned by women and advocate for pay equity in our city budget.

If they try to undermine diversity, equity, and inclusion, we must double down on making our city halls and our local boards a reflective of our diverse community.

History teaches us that women have always been at the forefront of creating change during times of crisis.

We do not need to wait for permission to protect our residents.

We have the power right here to protect the right of every woman in this community.

So therefore, I challenge my colleagues as we look at this month and beyond to be vocal.

Do not let the narrative of our regression become normal.

Be present, support local grassroots organizations supporting women and families.

Be relentless.

Use every tool in our local government to strengthen our safety net.

And to all the women in our city, our city staff, our nurses, our teachers, the business owners, the mothers, the organizers.

Your voice matters.

Your work matters.

We may be facing a challenging, at times discouraging era for gender equality.

But just as those before us did not give up when facing impossible odds, we will not stop fighting now.

So let us make this women's history month not just a reflection of the past, but a promise of our future.

Together we rise, together we resist, and together we march forward.

And so with that said, I am proud that each of my female colleagues and I have chosen a woman of note this year that we would like to recognize.

After I am done, I'm going to pass it off to my colleague Vice Mayor, then Councilmember Maple and Councilmember Vang, and we're each gonna talk about our person of note, and then we'll have uh them come up and we can take pictures.

But this year, um, she probably knows because I sabotaged and surprised her.

I am recognizing Yachtine Campbell.

Because I know if I told you I was recognizing you, you would conveniently not be here.

You're a mom, you're a Girl Scout leader, you're a zoo troop leader who is integrating girls into Boy Scouts.

You are demanding more.

You are a founding member of the Sacramento County Commission on Women and Girls.

You have led the festival every year in its existence.

And in your day job, this is not just you as a woman being a leader.

And in your day job, you work for the California Commission on Women.

You embody everything good about our community, your zest for what is right, for just doing the hard work without recognition.

It does not go unnoticed.

You are a mother and a person, personified with our young women that they should emulate you as they become adults.

I am proud to call you friend, and it is such an honor to be able to honor you this month.

Thank you.

And I'll actually pass it on to Councilmember Maple and then Ving, and then I'll go last and say.

A Sacramento-based nonprofit located in Oak Park neighborhood that provides critical support and services to women and children who are experienced who have experienced sexual exploitation and trafficking.

Under her leadership, uh, Cash offers survivors access to food, clothing, medical care, case management, and child care while helping them build long-term stability through housing support.

Hundreds of survivors in our region at each year are helped by creating a safe and compassionate space where women can seek help on their own terms and begin rebuilding their lives.

Swan's commitment to this work is deeply personal.

As a child, she herself was kidnapped and trafficked.

And the an experience that shaped her lifelong dedication to helping other survivors heal and reclaim their futures.

After overcoming her own obstacles, she pursued training as a substance abuse counselor and began working at Cash as a case manager before eventually rising to become the executive director.

Today, she has transformed her lived experience into powerful advocacy, ensuring that survivors in Sacramento know that they are not alone, that support dignity and hope are always within reach.

Um during my time in elected office, and I've gone by and toured the facility, learned about the work that they do, and um by far one of the most effective organizations in our communities.

They do a lot of work with very, very little.

And so I won't, I wanna um I won't say anything here, but they also may have a very important announcement uh tomorrow that we'll be a part of.

And so I just want to say it's really timely to have you here today because uh only big things to come from you and the work that you're doing.

Thank you for everything.

And I will pass it off to my colleague Kelly Rang.

Thank you so much.

Um, Councilwoman Kaplan, thank you for spare heading uh this awesome resolution to celebrate Woman History Month, not just in March, but 365 days a year.

Um, you know, Sacramento has been home to so many trailblazer um who have led the effort to advance equity and just leaving lasting impact uh on our communities, and and oftentimes we don't um get to read many of them in our history books because they are in our neighborhoods, they are at our community center, they are um walking with seniors, they're working with youth.

Um, and one individual that I want to actually call up today is someone that I admire and absolutely look up to, um, and that is District 8's very own Rhonda Rhonda Henderson, who's been a long, long time resident and a dedicated community leader in South Sacramento.

Rhonda is the founder and president of our North Laguna Creek Valley High Community Association, where she works tirelessly, being our eyes and ears on the ground to make sure that we have cleaner, safer, and healthier neighborhoods.

Um, something I also want to share with all of you is that Rhonda is deeply committed to our youth and families.

She actually organizes free chess classes for young people at the Macroad Valley High Community Center every Saturday, helping our neighbors and young people all the time.

She also leads a lot of our national night events uh in the South area.

Um, and we're looking forward to this year uh in particular.

Um, and Rhonda just in particular really just embodies what we love in our neighborhood leaders.

Um, and I'm just so grateful to be honoring her today, um, her and so many amazing women leaders in our region, but in particular for District A, Rhonda, thank you for your heart and your hustle.

Thank you for keeping us on our feet, calling our office and letting us know uh what this community needs and always demanding that this mayor and council do everything we can to provide the resources for district A.

And so uh District A is grateful for your leadership and your dedication, and I'm honored uh to be honoring you today for Woman History Month.

I love all these special presentations.

They're so much fun because there's so many incredible women in the community that continue to accomplish so much and do so much, and it's always the busy person, the one that gets things done that you ask, can you do more?

Because you know that that task will be completed.

And sometimes it's a blessing and then it's a curse.

Um, but with that being said, um, happy women's history month to everyone here in our council chambers, to everyone watching at home.

I just I love this month because it's full of positivity, and really honoring the past too.

You know, all the women before me that protested, that marched, that said no, that spoke up, and that did everything possible to make sure that we had a seat at the table.

And now in 2026, and since 1849, only 15 women have served on this dais.

And we are 13, 14, and 15.

And for me, that's just the start.

It's a very beginning, and we're gonna get a lot more women elected in the years to come and make sure that we have a seat at the table in every single body of government from the local level to the state level and to the federal level.

And my honoree for this year's uh women's history month is Marbeya Salah.

Can you wave Marbeya?

Where are you?

There she is.

Marveya is a regular here at Tuesday's council meetings.

And can I just say I love it?

Because at every single town hall in my district, she knows the facts of what's going on.

And sometimes I'm like, pass it on to Marbella, she knows too.

So if I'm absent, I'm like just pass it on to Marveya Sala.

She's also um I measure you commissioner.

Um, and she's the president of a neighborhood association, the Northgate Garland Community Association, and she is retired from the UC Davis School of Medicine.

And one thing I always say when people retire from the city of Sacramento or from their perspective jurisdiction is they never retire.

They actually get more busy and continue to do more and continue making an impact in the community.

And for me, that's Marvea Salah.

She makes such a positive difference in our community.

She's really proud of our roots in Nathomas, and she has helped put our community on the map.

So for that everything that you do, Marbella, thank you so much.

Okay.

So to each of our honorees, if you wouldn't mind, ladies, uh have a picture with our honorees and everyone down below, and uh our our leader, our city manager should come join us.

And our city clerk and first our city auditor, too.

Yes.

Maybe not here.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving along to the consent calendar.

Are there items that members like to pull?

Councilmember Garrett.

Uh just discussion on item number two.

Uh Councilmember Maple.

Comment on item six, please.

Going once, going twice.

No.

Okay.

Councilmember Garrett.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

I just wanted to one thank the staff on uh this process moving forward.

I know the issue over at Fruit Ridge and uh in front of Earl Warren has been a difficult one with families trying to cross the street.

And um appreciate the opportunity to make this area uh much safer for for uh the families over at Rural Warren.

I do want to just uh ask, and you know, City Manager make sure that as we're doing the outreach effort that we're also coordinating with a lot of the businesses that are on the Fruit Ridge Corridor and how we can address the impacts on the south side of Fruit Ridge that might be impacted between um sixty fifth and power in.

Thank with that, madam uh uh Vicemair.

I'll go ahead and move the item.

Perfect.

And Councilmore Maple.

All right, thank you, Madam Vice Mayor.

Uh, just a quick comment on item number six regarding our um Oak Park Peabid, otherwise known as the Oak Park um business district.

Uh they are they do incredible work in the Oak Park community.

They help make sure the Broadway corridor um keeps business moving, that it's clean, that it's safe, uh, and that the property owners have what they need to be successful, and so I'm really proud that they are going to be going for their renewal and to have the city's support in doing that, which we're gonna be doing today.

So just wanted to say that, and thank you.

Okay, wonderful.

We have a motion and a second, and we have one public comment.

Um Lambert Davis would like to speak on item four.

This is district two.

District two, for those who aren't aware, we can't use this.

You know, this is gonna be a freedom of speech First Amendment right.

You can all we see things up there, but the public cannot see what we do up here.

I'd hate to turn my back and show it because it's useless.

But District Two has over 20 communities, over 20.

And that's the only district that has over 20 communities.

What does that mean?

That means the money that comes into District Two is weakened because it has so many uh communities.

Now, my parents moved here in 1946, 1946, 80 years ago.

So on as you're honoring some women here today, I'm gonna pay respect to Mrs.

Alpha Ruth Davis.

A lot of you knew of her, and these are her cheesecakes, by the way.

As I look at this, I think Mr.

Dickison should move this to a discussion because it has a lot of groups that are receiving funding, and there's two groups that I would like to highlight.

One is Tories Restaurant.

They should receive some money to pave their driveway parking lot.

And what can I say about to the Bay and Back Cheesecakes?

It just went global.

I was notified today that we are being invited to a global summit.

Now I won't travel because I've traveled all over the world, but the millennials are actually not physically fighting each other, but they want to travel.

And I want them to go get it.

So I'm hoping you will because there are some companies on here that have received funding that me personally I consider a boondoggle.

Thank you for your comments.

Mayor, I have no more speakers on the consent calendar.

Item one through 13.

You've got a motion by Councilmember Gatta and a second by Dickinson.

Okay, we have a motion and second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

No zero abstentions.

Hearing none, one absent splucky bomb.

We move now to public hearing item 14.

It's 2026 weed and rubbish abatement.

I'd like to open the public hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Council City Manager.

My name is uh Sean Bartos.

I'm the code enforcement manager with the community development department.

I'm here today to recommend that city council authorize code compliance, the authority to abate weeds, rubbish, refuse, and debris from undeveloped properties that constitute a public nuisance and a fire hazard.

The deadline to comply with the weed abatement requirements is April 15th and runs throughout the fire season ending October 31st.

Staff recommends that council consider any objections and comments related to this matter.

Thank you.

May I have one speaker, Justin Wilson.

Excuse me one second.

Justin.

Good evening, Council.

Uh my name's Justin Wilson.

I represent the Robo Park Community Association.

The members of the Robo Park Community Association oppose this uh proposed resolution.

As you may know, Robla includes substantial rural areas that lack common city infrastructure, such as storm drainage across the community or patches of natural marshes, waterways, riparian vegetation, trees, and bushes that shouldn't be cut.

They exist because Robla is often often not developed like most other parts of Sacramento.

We shouldn't be set to the standard of developed areas with engineered storm drainage.

We have semi-we have a quasi-rural environment such as various forces of nature resulting from rain, fertile soil, and factors such as wind.

We have agricultural rural lands that shouldn't be held to the standards of Sacramento's paved communities.

These lands are still subject to the former contours of the area.

Properties flood, and after storms, the land takes weeks to drive prior to wheat abatement opportunities.

Communities that have no sidewalks, gutters, engineered storm drains, cannot be treated equally to greater Sacramento that have those features.

Understand that this resolution takes no exceptions for the obvious differences between Robla community and Sacramento's other communities.

And it's wrong.

Something needs to be done about this and the way it's enforced.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

May I have no more speakers?

Okay.

Thank you.

Councilmember Dickinson?

Can I comment?

I support whatever uh Justin just said.

And uh you know, Robla is an isolated community that's trying uh being forgotten by the city.

We're a quasi-rural area always have been, and uh recent developments, including the abatement uh code enforcement embatements just suggest that the rural nature of uh Robla is being squashed by the city through code enforcement, uh housing ordinances, and a proposed tax disc uh district.

So anyway, thank you.

My name is Renee Venegas.

Good day.

I have no more speakers.

Back to Councilmember Dickinson.

Uh thanks.

If we can have where do you go?

Sean?

Oh, okay.

Can you just talk about the process and the application of uh the weed abatement requirements in the in the city and to whom they apply uh as well as uh the notices that go out, the time that is given.

Uh so walk us just for the benefit of everyone, walk us through from beginning to end to beginning here today.

I believe two Fridays ago to all uh property owners of a vacant parcel.

Vacant parcels basically any unapproved land that doesn't have a permitted structure on it.

Um as far as then we we do um inspections uh when the time is right.

We are authorized to do it as of April 15th and through the fire season, October 31st.

We do take the weather and rain into consideration, so rarely do we actually start the enforcement April 15th.

Uh we do give as much time as we can to allow the uh land to dry so they can get it cut.

Um but at some point we do need to start taking enforcement action if the fire department uh starts determining that these properties are fire hazards.

Uh once the property or once the fire department um declares uh it's a fire hazard via fire declaration, then we have our contractors that abate those uh properties for us.

So the the action that is being requested to be taken today is to is fundamentally to start the process of giving notice to those who who may need to We came a few weeks ago to get approval for no the noticing today is to authorize us to do the abatements of the properties that did not get in compliance and are deemed a fire hazard by the fire department.

If in fact that's determined to be the case sometime between now and uh summer.

Correct.

Uh and so will there be any other notification to to those who are on this list of their need to take independent action to individual action to abate?

Uh no, we we sent the notification down, that's the notification they get yearly.

So uh everyone on this list has received notification?

Correct.

And if we get uh letters returned unclaimed, we do our research and find out where the new property owner lives, and we'll resend out new notices once we're able to get their new mailing addresses.

And are there any opportunities for uh property owners to uh approach um uh approach the department about uh extenuating or special circumstances regarding their property?

Our contact information is on these letters.

If they have circumstances, they can reach out to us, and if it's a reasonable time frame uh to get it done before it becomes uh too bad of a fire hazard, we do work with several property owners yearly to uh give them extra time as needed on a case-by-case scenario.

Now, some of the concerns I've heard have to have to do with the nature of property uh in Robla in particular, it may apply in certain other areas of the city as well where um it's uh an area which uh doesn't drain well, doesn't dry out, um, isn't accessible, um, may have other uses.

How how can how can a property owner uh work with work with the the department to address those those kinds of of conditions and and the fire department for that matter to address those kinds of conditions?

Well, like I mentioned, we if there is a lot of rain late into the spring, we hold off the enforcement to give time for it to dry.

Um further than that, if they do reach out to us and they're unable to get it for whatever reason, we try to work the best we can with them and give them extra time if the situation um does require so.

Uh but once it does become too far uh too much of a fire hazard, especially if it's adjacent to a a dwelling of some sort, then we can't give too much time if it does become declared a fire hazard.

But we do work with several property owners throughout the city that reach out to us with uh special circumstances.

Can you can you uh take time to speak with uh Mr.

Wilson this afternoon about his his property and his circumstances to see what it might be possible to do in his particular case?

Yes, of course.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Jennings.

Just one last question because I think I'm pretty certain that this is true, but you can tell me if it's so is this hearing today would be a la last opportunity for a resident to be able to state why they could not do anything regarding your property.

Would that be the case?

Uh no, today's the opportunity to speak to the council.

Um but they do have our contact information that is in the letter that got mailed out, and they can reach out to us between now and when we start enforcement if they have any special circumstance that needs maybe some extra time or a conversation about how to move forward together on it.

So by them speaking to council, what right does that give them?

What does how does that help them?

Um I I think today's conversation is the any objections they might have to the program itself.

Um however, on a case-by-case basis, we can talk with anyone up until the end of the fire season uh regarding their their specific property and how we can work together in a reasonable manner that gives them time to get it cut without uh allowing too much of a fire hazard to uh be on their property for too long.

So I think what I'm hearing is today would be an opportunity if they're here to speak about their property.

Okay, and then like I said, they can still reach out to us after today if they have other questions or concerns about their property.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Okay, request to speak on my property.

Did you did you still uh speak or slip?

I didn't speak to speak.

Yeah, yeah, you only get one shot.

Thank you.

Um from council.

Do we have a motion?

No, but I'm gonna say uh Sean, if you can connect with with Mr.

Wilson, that would be great.

Did you close the public hearing?

No, I'm not moving.

Yes.

Oh, council member Guerra.

Yeah.

Uh a question here.

If there if there is one property in the past, uh what we could do is delay that one property so that they can talk because my understanding, council correctly, if once we take action, then this goes to the county.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Okay.

So there is a some time.

There is some time.

The final assessment if they all made their own property, then there'll be assessment.

Right, Sean.

Okay, very good.

Okay, that's fine.

Okay.

Did you make a motion?

I will close the public hearing and move the item.

Second.

Okay.

The motion is second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any nose or abstentions?

Hearing none.

Item passes.

May we now move to item 15 on the discussion calendar?

It's an ordinance amending section 12.74.030 of the Sacramento City Code relating to the public right to use city hall facility related restrictions.

Thank you, Madam Clerk and Mr.

Mayor.

If it's okay, I'll start the presentation.

Um thank you everyone for being here today.

This uh this ordinance changes a very long time coming.

Um, and I will uh welcome up our presenter in just a moment who will give more of the detail, but I did want to I did want to start out by saying um what this will do will allow those who are practicing in the sick faith to bring a Kerpon into the city council chambers and city hall uh city facilities, something that hasn't previously been allowed.

Um, and this is very important because this is an article of faith.

It is important to practicing of the religion, and it allows people who practice the sick faith to participate in city government.

So I'm really glad and honored to be bringing this forward today.

Uh I did want to say at the outset that when we first uh met with members of the sick community, was almost two years ago now.

Um, and it was then uh Mayor Daryl Steinberg and myself and others in a room.

Uh and I just want to take this moment to apologize and say I'm sorry that it's taken this long to get here.

Um I I know that there we have been going back and forth.

I want to thank the police department and other members of and other city departments for working with us.

Um this has been an iterative process, but it has taken too long.

So I just wanted to say that.

And with that, I would love to welcome up just sheet singh, uh, who's uh one of his titles is trustee of the Sacramento City Unified School District, but he is not here in that capacity today.

He is here as an individual, and I'd like to welcome him up to present.

Welcome.

All right.

We have one that just like goes up for tall people and short people, but I'll I'll lean in um just a little bit.

So good afternoon, everyone.

Um thank you for the introduction.

My name is just sheet Singh.

I am yes, your city count, your city sax city unified school board member for Area Two.

But the capacity I'm here in today is as a resident and as the incoming director of legal services for Gigata Movement, which is one of the largest uh SIC nonprofit organizations in the United States.

Um I'm here to speak on behalf of our 40,000 plus Sikh community in Sacramento, and um have the support of every single Sikh Gordwara in the region in speaking on their behalf today.

So I'm here to express the Sikh community's strong support for this Gurpon ordinance.

I uh really value the fact that um Councilwoman Maple, you have um at least noted that it's taken way too long to get here.

Um this is a long overdue opportunity for us as SIG community members to participate and attend city council meetings and enter city owned properties with our religious articles of faith intact and actually work for the city with our religious article of faith intact.

Um it's what makes this city beautiful, it's actually what makes this country beautiful.

I will argue that there's other people that think that's what makes America great, but what makes America great is the tapestry of diversity of religious beliefs, of cultures, um, and the ability to practice our faith freely.

What we're not seeking is a special privilege.

What we're seeking today is equality as afforded by the laws of this country, so that we can practice our faith freely as each one of you do.

The Svic Sikh Faith has an over 500 year history of an established faith with a well-established code of conduct.

The Kerpan, which we will be talking about, is a religious article of faith required by practicing members of the Sikh Faith to be worn, either over or underneath their closing, resembling a small dagger.

Currently, uh you can wear a Girpon and enter our beautiful state capital.

You can actually enter Kirban and enter many city council meetings at major cities across this great state, including the one that's before you, the ordinance is actually a I would say carbon copy of the ordinance that currently exists in the city of Fresno, which was passed by then this police chief, uh, under Chief Dyer, who is now the mayor of the city of Fresno.

Um at the end of the day, this is home to one of the largest communities of six in the United States.

That is what you represent.

I know each of you in some respect, and I think I should point out the relationships that you have built with our communities.

Um councilwoman, uh Councilwoman Maple, and Councilmember Jennings.

Um I had the privilege of showing you two around at the Bradshaw Sick Cordora just uh, I think two years ago, um, we'll have that same parade coming up in two weeks, actually.

Um Councilwoman Talamantes, you were honored just this past weekend in Rio Linda.

Um, and you were amongst so many folks who are wearing the religious articles of faith, and I'm sure you felt no fear being amongst our community members as they were practicing their faith.

Um, Councilmember Guida, uh, I personally took you to two Sikh places of worship, and I was not even elected official at that time.

I did it because I wanted to show you around and show you what the community that you represent looks like.

Councilwoman Kaplan and Councilwoman Bang, you represent actually some of the largest percentages of Sikh community members in our city.

Um, and I know those folks will be very appreciative of your support today.

And I don't want to leave everyone out, so I will make sure Councilmember Pluckabum, my council member, and council member Dickinson, um, you supported this ordinance um in the law and legislature committee, which already passed this ordinance with the 4-0 vote.

I'm gonna stop reading this and just say this.

Member McCarty.

I'm gonna say Assembly Member McCarty, because that's when I first met you at West Sacramento, SIC Gordona with your two daughters, and that was the first time we met, and you've always been a champion of the SIC community, so thank you for your work.

All we're asking for is a long overdue opportunity to be present.

Um, this isn't about religious beliefs, as much as it is that we have community members who have thoughts on every single thing that you present on.

We have SIC community members who are business owners.

We have SIG community members who have thoughts on every single item that comes up, and they have felt far too long that they're unable to enter these chambers with their religious faith intact, and they have left that at the door and decided not to come inside here multiple times over the last three years.

Um, it shouldn't take for a visible SIC like me to get elected for us to make these changes, but that is where we're at.

So with that, I will kind of just leave it up to you all to make the right call here tonight.

Um, and I also want to thank SAC PD, although this has been a long and grueling process in my new role as uh director of legal services for Jigata Movement.

Um, I will personally be taking on any opportunity to provide any outreach, any teachings and other services that we need to do to bring the department up to speed and make sure that we are able to practice our faith and all of us are able to remain safe in these chambers together.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Jesse.

And I'll just briefly say in closing, and then love to hear from the public that this has been this has been a long process, but I'm glad that we've gone through it.

I want to say uh thank you to my former chief of staff, Ryan Brown, who really started this process so long ago and really helped us get here.

And thank you to our current chief of staff, Katie Hanslick for getting it across the finish line, along with uh police department and all of the the city staff who has been really helpful on this.

Um it's been it's been a long time coming, but it's really important.

Uh and it's important that we get it right.

And so I uh last note that I want to make, I know that um Jasit mentioned uh the city of Fresno.

They've had this in place for several years on nearly identical ordinance.

And I am on the California League of Cities Board and recently had the opportunity to speak to their mayor um well while we were at a meet board meeting together.

He is a former police chief, as was mentioned, um, and currently the mayor, and I really valued his opinion because of those things.

Um I know that uh there can be concerns from law enforcement about this, and and uh so I asked him, how's it going?

How has it been implemented?

Have that have there been any challenges or uh any uh concerns on your part, and he said, absolutely not, everything's gone gone very well, and so I can only expect the same here in the city of Sacramento.

So with that, I'm happy to close and uh eager to hear from the public.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's do public comment first.

May I have three speakers?

The first is Henry Harry, Mandeep Singh, and then Chinwa Rhodes.

Hello, council, and I guess I'm gonna be that guy.

Um last week I was standing here, there were about 20 cadets behind me.

I was very much aware of their presence.

So with this ordinance, you're gonna have people in here who may have a blade up to 10 inches if I'm reading this right.

Uh lots of emotions in this chamber, lots of things being said, people might not like what's being said, and they'll be right behind me with a blade.

I'm uncomfortable with that.

No offense to the people.

Uh can they fly with these blades?

Do they do they fly?

Because I don't think a plane will let you on with a 10-inch knife.

Um if they're arrested and go to jail, we're certainly not gonna let them into the jail with a knife.

Uh can they go into a courtroom?

I hope that our courts over here don't let people go through with a knife because they have a religious belief.

Then that person goes up to a courtroom and stab the person that they believe raped their daughter.

Uh, that's gonna be ugly.

Uh I believe there's some churches in the United States that practice where they hold snakes as part of their process.

But I also believe there's some states that won't allow them to do that.

Um who qualifies for this?

Um guy comes up out there, looks a little suspicious, but he says, hey, I'm a part of this religion.

I qualify like these other guys qualify.

You gotta let me in.

I think that's gonna be a problem.

Uh are they gonna be ID'd?

Will these people out here know who they are?

So uh you're screening people.

And do we remember the guy that came up and jumped right up on the diet uh years ago?

And also we have to consider that we've had officers struggling with people right here in this chamber.

So next time they're struggling with someone who might be armed.

Thank you.

Mandeev and then Chinwa.

And then he's gonna come on him and tell them.

Hello, council.

Uh my name is Mandeep Singh, I'm the regional director for Jagata Movement.

Um, we're the largest Punjabi Sek uh nonprofit that works here in California.

Um to short off, I would like to answer the gentleman's question.

Um, in Canada, it is actually allowed on airplanes.

Um, you can wear a cut upon the um third most popular um candidate for their prime ministership, Mr.

Jagdeep Sangh, Jagmeet Singh.

He is a practicing um Khalsa Sikh.

So somebody who was running the third most popular um person for their leadership of their country wears a karban every single day.

And I want to just um highlight that we are not asking permission from the council to wear the karbon.

We are going to wear the karpan regardless whether you know this is allowed in here or not.

It's just that we would be outside versus inside, right?

All we are asking for is to participate in the process of the democracy that is here.

Um we are asking not to be discriminated against.

Um, you know, there could have been lawsuits, there could have been a bunch of things.

Um, how I personally have been treated outside, but we don't want to go that route, right?

This is we want to work with the council because you you all nothing to have nothing to do with that.

It's just kind of a thing as uh Jajit mentioned.

It took him being elected for this to come up to see the importance of this.

And I would end it off with just saying that this is not just a blade.

This is something that was commanded to us.

Um, you know, 500 years ago when there was oppression happening, and that is one of the reasons why we were the turban and we wear the beard that we cannot hide in the crowd.

We are commanded to help people.

When something happens, we cannot run away.

So when there's an old saying that, you know, when the building is on fire, look to those who run into the building and not away from the building.

That is why we look like this.

We run into the building when the building is on fire, and we are not afraid of that.

Thank you.

Your comments, Chinwa Rhodes.

Hello everyone.

I will uh keep my comments brief so that uh you all can have discussion.

Um, but I would like to think um I know the first person came up and said he's gonna be that guy.

I would urge you all not to be that guy.

Um Sacramento, California is a diverse place.

Um this is an opportunity to lean into our better angels and not fear um area five, district eight, uh, one of the largest Sikh communities.

Um, and I'm gonna stand up for my constituents um and fellow Sacramentans as much as I can.

So, you guys have a big vote.

Um, there's gonna be people who don't agree, um, but it's already proven at the state level in other cities.

Um, this is not recreating the will.

Um, we just want to drive a better Sacramento.

Thank you so much for your time.

And Mr.

Mayor, I'll move the item.

Yeah, thank you.

We have a motion and second.

Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, just huge kudos to Councilmember Maple and her staff, and I mean all the city staff that worked to get us here.

I know how long it took.

It shouldn't have taken that long, but it did.

Um, and it's important for us to be inclusive of all people here in the Sacramento community.

So kudos to Jaz G, you know, for getting us here.

On Sunday, I had the honor of attending the Sikh Sikh temple in Rio Linda, and it's been open since 1992.

They've served the community as a shelter and open house for anyone to come out and enjoy a hot meal, regardless of their caste, religion, color, and creed.

And it was just such a special moment for me to learn about the community and how many Sikh community members there are in the Sacramento region.

And they gave me this honor of um this honor that I'm wearing today, and it was just it was just so meaningful.

Uh so I just I'm just really grateful for their like their kindness, their hospitality, and just thankful for Councilor Maple leading and spearheading this.

And like I said, like I knew it was gonna be on the agenda for today, and I went to the event on Sunday, and just the difference it has made in learning more and also attending the event.

So I'm just so happy to um to support this item, and thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Bank.

Oh, Councilmember Gare.

Uh, thank you, Mayor.

Uh, first again, let me just thank uh my colleague um, you know, and also the community here as well.

You know, I had the opportunity to work with the sick community uh at the state level to try to educate and get post um to start recognizing this at a statewide level.

And uh, you know, it's unfortunate that it's taken this this long.

And the reality is the Sikh community has been in the Sacramento community for over a hundred years.

Uh, many of them, like uh many of folks with long history here came to work on the railroad.

Uh, and when they came to work on the railroad, then they started what they knew from their uh their their uh origin is farming.

And so now we have some of the largest farmers and folks who are stewards of our land here in the Sacramento Valley.

And uh I think that's a long part of the Sacramento history, and I think it's important that they be uh included in their ability to uh you know address their their government, their where they pay taxes as well, uh, and in a way that uh respects them.

So I'm very proud to obviously second this uh motion and to continue work alongside uh the sick community.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilmember Bank.

Thanks, Mayor.

I just want to take this moment to thank Councilwoman Maple for her leadership on bringing this item to council um and also her urgency, even though it's been two years.

I know there's been a lot of conversation and work through and process to get to this moment.

So really appreciate Councilwoman's Maple.

Um her her sense of urgency, even though it's taken a what a long time.

And so I really want to thank uh former chief of staff and current chief of staff for getting it across the finish line.

Um and this policy is important because it's about strengthening uh a sense of belonging and ensuring that all residents in the city of Sacramento feels valued, seen, respected, and included.

Um, and I look forward to working with trustee Singh and the SIC community as we work together to make sure that everyone has this has a sense of belonging here in the city of Sacramento and hoping that we get the votes needed to get this item across the finish line.

Thank you.

Councilmember Katlin.

Thank you, Mayor.

Also want to thank uh my colleague, Councilmember Maple on this.

Um I've been attending uh Sikh Temples for uh a very long time.

I have a close relationship with the mayor of Elk Grove, who has uh this issue has been fully explained of the whys, the why's not the the understanding of the ridge religious significance, and it's not just religious, but it's the embodiment of of the sick faith and their five tenements that they must hold.

Uh more importantly, as a school board member, um I helped push forward the first sick uh appreciation month, and we had individuals in our school board meeting that had Kerpons, and it was not thought of twice in regards to safety, and having done that for numerous years as a school board member, I don't see why the city council would be any different as we move forward with this.

So, this is something uh I see as fundamental to their faith that this is not the city of Sacramento per se leading on something.

This has been done in many other cities that uh we are just following to make sure equality and representation is there.

So I'm happy to see this come forward.

Thank you, Councilmember Jennings.

Yeah, I too want to thank uh all my council members for their comments on this, um, especially those who are in support as a man of faith.

Um taking away an opportunity to practice that faith is not something we should do to anybody.

And so I I do support moving forward with this.

Um I don't want fear to rule over all of us or any of us, and we can look at all the cities that have done this in the past in order to understand what their best practices have been to get them through.

And so um, I know that's that research has already been done, and that's why it's in front of us today.

And so I'm gonna be supporting this so that everyone can practice their faith and live in this free country that we have.

Thank you.

We have a motion, a second, full support of this.

The time has come to make this common sense change.

Uh all is a favorite, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

He knows your abstentions, seeing none, item passes nine-zero.

Mayor, we now move to item 16 early budget work session, budget context and city department reports on departmental budgets, reduction strategies, and potential impacts.

And that'll be for the city manager's office, Office of Innovation and Economic Development, Convention and Cultural Services, Community, Department of Community Response, Fire Department, and Police Department.

Okay.

Uh good afternoon, Mayor, Council members, and members of the public.

Um, Pete Coletto, the city's finance director.

And today we're continuing your council's early budget work sessions.

So uh, as you recall, last week we gave an overview of the budget.

We went through various budget balancing scenarios.

Um, and then to today we are going to go over what I am calling the baseline plan.

Uh so these are your staff's recommendations to set a baseline to balance the budget.

You're also going to hear today and then for the next two weeks from the departments, and the departments will give you an overview, brief overview of their budget.

Uh they'll let you know how they met the 15% reduction target with the strategies they submitted, and then they'll go through the impacts of the strategies that were actually chosen to be in the baseline plan.

So uh not the full 15% is uh necessarily in the baseline plan, but the departments will go through what was chosen and what the service impact would be, and then they'll end with how they are aligning with the delivery of core services and advancing council priorities.

Uh so again, uh this is our situation.

We're in a structural budget deficit.

We need to close a 66.2 million dollar budget gap to balance the coming fiscal year.

And our expense growth is just uh faster than our revenue growth.

And so we're really looking for um ongoing strategies to help balance our budget and get us in a better fiscal position.

For our approach, this was scenario three last week.

This is what I'm calling our baseline plan.

So we wanted to define and preserve core services, advance year priorities, and minimize service and staffing impacts.

To do this, we wanted to create a menu of options.

We didn't want to do just a straight across the board cut.

We wanted to give council choices and we want to hear from council and the public about the choices that we're putting forward as the baseline.

So we directed every department to develop reduction plans to hit a 15% net general fund reduction target and then define the service and staffing impacts of each of those strategies.

So as far as available strategies, between the citywide strategies and the departmental reductions, we have over 200 individual strategies.

So I'm gonna uh very briefly walk through the high-level baseline plan.

You're gonna hear more about each of these impacts directly from the departments.

Um, but I I'm gonna go over kind of how it all rolls up.

Uh I'll I'll answer the the question you probably all have first, which is hey, we have a 66.2 million dollar deficit.

Why are you coming here with 72.8 million dollars of reduction strategies?

Um, the main reason is as you recall, uh, we had built into our forecast the value of city proposals for labor negotiations that were currently on the table.

Um, you know, we are still in active negotiations with uh almost every one of our labor groups, and how those resolve will have an impact both on the current year budget and on the budget year.

Uh so one, we want to account for that, uh, and we also want to give council options as far as what to include in in the balancing plan.

So, first is the interest on the treasury pool.

Uh, we talked earlier this year about you know, part of our prior year savings was being able to pay ourselves back from unrealized losses as we rolled off low yield securities into higher yield securities.

So uh that has a double benefit.

Not only did we get to pay ourselves back, but now uh we're also earning more interest income on those investments, and that will support the general fund.

Uh the next is debt refunding.

So the treasurer's office worked earlier this year to refinance some of our debt service, uh, and that will uh generate roughly 1.4 million dollars of general fund savings next year.

Uh the debt service funding shift.

This has to do with the debt service for the Golden One Center.

So our parking fund has recovered enough where we can uh essentially lessen the uh amount of on-street parking revenue that needs to be transferred over, and that helps support the general fund.

Uh, the citywide strategies, these are primarily either projects that we haven't started or we completed and have a positive balance.

Uh the baseline plan is saying let's sweep those things and use it to help offset the deficit.

Uh the homeless services contract deficiencies, you're gonna hear more detail from that from Brian Pedro and the DCR team uh a little bit later.

But really, this is uh all of those efforts around renegotiating contracts, driving down costs, coming to fruition.

So doing those things is allowing us to invest in different strategies, but also experience some ongoing savings without cutting services.

Uh the hotel voucher program shift.

Again, Brian will talk more about this, uh, but this is refocusing our hotel voucher program on the most needy communities, not necessarily cutting capacity, and this is forecasting savings.

Uh, for the X Street shelter, uh, this is contingent on a uh Caltrans lease being extended, but we're proposing transferring operation of that shelter to a community-based organization, uh, which would save the city's general fund and allow services to continue at the site.

Uh the fire single roll savings, you'll hear more from uh Chief Costamania about this.

This is something that the fire department has been working on for a number of years, and we're able to start recognizing the savings from all of their efforts.

Uh the violence prevention grant and my op, this is from the police department.

So the police were awarded a violence prevention grant, and we're able to shift uh large amount of that funding over from the general fund to the grant.

And we did have some funding left over in a MIOP, and we can uh help offset general fund costs with that.

For the additional departmental revenues, this is across many departments.

There are some new things.

You'll hear uh probably most of those next week from the public works department.

But a lot of these strategies are really just actualizing revenues towards budget or towards our projections.

So you'll hear from FIRE on uh their uh IGT program, which is projecting more revenues.

Uh, some of our EMS fees where we're not raising the fee, but we're we're going to align our budget with what we're expecting, same with fire prevention revenues.

Uh as far as expense reductions, we tried to break them down into the biggest categories.

Again, you're gonna hear from police and fire today around what those expense reductions mean.

Um I will preview the fact that uh while you know a number of vacant and filled positions are impacted in police and fire.

Uh we are not uh proposing any separations of sworn personnel from police or fire.

So any filled sworn position uh would move into a vacancy.

Um you can see the Yepsi cuts.

You'll hear from Yipsey uh next week, and then you'll hear from the other departments on their expense reductions uh next week and the week after.

So our staffing impacts again, staffing is always a point in time.

So uh a position that is filled now might become vacant later, uh vice versa.

So this is a point in time.

Uh the baseline reduction strategies call for the elimination of almost a hundred vacant FTEs and over a hundred filled FTEs.

Uh one thing I want to stress though is that eliminating a filled position does not mean necessarily that a person is walking out the door.

Uh they might be moving into being bumped into another vacancy.

Um other staffing impacts, uh, you know, the police department has eliminated some contracts with other agencies.

Again, those officers not being separated from the city, uh, they're being assigned to other vacancies.

Um in Yipsey, they they will talk more about this, but we did lose some state funding uh, which is the primary reason for these position impacts.

Again, these aren't part of the baseline reduction plan.

These are separate, but they are staffing impacts.

So, what we're doing right now is our human resources department is doing that analysis for the filled positions that were impacted.

Um, where might they bump to?

How does that shake out?

Um, have people retired or left or had attrition, how are we going to manage that?

So we're we're in that process right now.

Uh just like last year, we're to continue to update council as we go through on the status of uh the filled positions impacted and our vacancies.

Uh, as far as our one-time versus ongoing reduction strategies in the baseline plan, it's uh vast majority ongoing, so roughly 53 million of ongoing strategies, with the balance being one-time strategies.

Our alignment with council priorities, again, you're gonna hear from a lot of the departments that are really holding your priorities today, and they'll articulate things better than I can.

Uh but we are going to continue our economic development programs.

We're gonna continue to try to do innovative things around tax increment financing, streamlining our permitting process, and supporting entrepreneurship.

Uh DCR will outline how we're planning to really maintain our homelessness services at a lower cost.

I mentioned earlier no sworn fire or police separations from the city and a much lower share of fire and police reductions versus an across the board uh reduction scenario.

Um, and then as we mentioned last week, the the baseline budget maintains another year for the community prosecutor and maintains fuel network uh funding for another year.

Uh pending factors, the big one I just mentioned is labor negotiations.

That's a huge cost driver.

You saw last week uh the share of our budget that is staffing, and we are in these negotiations and they will have a budget impact.

Um, our long longer term our unfunded liabilities are our major factor.

Again, we've talked a lot about the state homelessness funding through the HAP program.

Uh that is still a pending factor, it's ongoing.

Hopefully, it's a positive pending factor, uh, and we get more and ongoing funding from the state.

Um, and then again, you know, we've seen the economic volatility, especially this week.

Uh, there's always the risk of a downturn, which would make our budget situation worse.

So uh I am going to to stop here for to see if there are any questions, and then again, you're gonna hear from uh some of the departments today, and they'll be able to outline the impacts of the baseline reductions on their ability to provide services.

That's all for this presentation.

Yes, thank you.

Okay, we'll go do public comment.

Do the departments um yes, departments.

There's other departments for uh first would be the city manager and office of innovation and economic development.

Good afternoon, uh, Mayor and members of council.

My name is Amy Williams, and I'm the city manager's chief of staff.

I'm joined here today by with Denise Malvetti, uh Deputy Assistant Director of the Office of Innovation and Economic Development.

The city manager's office budget includes OIED, so we will be presenting together.

The city manager facilitates the implementation of council's policies and priorities citywide.

She directs services and programs overseeing the majority of city employees.

The city manager's office supports these endeavors and consists of assistant city managers, a centralized media and communications team, government affairs, performance management, and administrative staff.

This org chart uh reflects our structure.

Uh the city manager's office, including OIED has 48 FTE.

However, the executive office of the city manager's office holds 16 FTE.

The city manager's office general fund reliance is 3.5 million.

This includes all labor, services, and supplies.

Like every department, we developed a 15% reduction plan.

This graph illustrates our reduction plan and how we achieved it with reductions in services and supplies, and three FTE positions.

The reductions included in the baseline plan include two positions within the media and communications team.

One position is filled, and one is vacant.

These reductions will impact operations, but the media and communications team will be able to absorb the current duties of both positions by realignment of work, further employment of technology, and prioritizing.

In services and supplies, we better aligned lobbying contracts with appropriate departments and also reduced contracts.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Denise Malvetti with the Office of Innovation and Economic Development.

Great.

Our office is committed to growing a strong, inclusive, and vibrant economy.

We encourage job growth and investment by retaining, attracting, growing, and scaling new and innovative businesses.

And we do this by facilitating projects, developing policies, and implementing programs that support Sacramento's people, places, and businesses.

In order to achieve this, we are 32 FTEs organized into seven teams that work closely across the office with other city departments and external partners to support inclusively growing Sacramento's economy.

Our general fund budget totals approximately 5.7 million dollars.

While our office doesn't generate traditional revenue streams such as fees, we have been very successful in securing grant funding.

Over the past five years, our office has brought in more than 25 million in competitive grants.

Although the majority of these grant dollars are invested directly into the community, a portion helps offset staff costs that support this work.

In terms of staffing, 30 of our positions are funded by the general fund, and two positions are supported by the innovation and growth fund.

The same fund also supports several key programs, including a forgivable loan program, financial empowerment, economic gardening, and innovation grants.

Many of our projects and programs span teams.

Centralizing these resources allows us to stay flexible and responsive to emerging needs each year.

For example, this structure enables us to purchase purchase shared data tools that benefit the entire office or support community events and programs that advance multiple team priorities.

The core investment that allows our team to deliver priority projects and programs.

The remaining portion of the budget supports supplies and services that enable our staff to carry out this work effectively.

This table illustrates how our office proposed meeting the 15% reduction directive.

It's through reductions of supplies, services, and programming, and a funding source change for one position.

And I'll get into the details on the next slide.

The proposed reduction in supplies and services budget means less funding for economic development activities, including conducting real estate due diligence, purchasing data, conducting fiscal analysis, and supporting community programs and events.

While there's a proposed reduction to the economic gardening program, the impact will be minimal.

We are aligning the program budget more accurately with the timing of expenditures.

When we launched the program, we anticipated each cohort would complete the program within a single fiscal year.

In practice, many businesses take longer to finish, and expenses often span multiple years.

The program is budgeted to accommodate up to 10 businesses per cohort.

With this adjustment, we may need to reduce that by two businesses in the out years.

The final change is moving one vacant position from the general fund to the parking fund to support the continued revitalization of the Sacramento Valley Station area.

The SVS is a critical regional transportation hub and a major opportunity site for central city development.

Public works has been the lead on the planning and implementation of all of the SVS projects, and this will allow them to focus on transportation priorities and partner with our office to advance economic development opportunities at both the station and on the 20 plus acres of city owned property in the vicinity.

By dedicating OIED staff to the SVS, it provides an opportunity to accelerate revenue generating opportunities at the station and surrounding district.

We remain committed to advancing economic development.

This work is essential for a thriving local economy, vibrant commercial corridors and neighborhoods, and long-term fiscal sustainability for the city.

In the year ahead, we will continue to move forward on major catalytic projects.

This includes the old Sacramento waterfront, the rail yards, the hail building, and the 102-acre site.

We will also elevate our business attraction and expansion efforts by developing a strategic economic development work plan that identifies near mid and long-term opportunities for growth.

Supporting residents remains a core priority.

We will continue implementing workforce development initiatives, seeking innovative housing solutions, supporting financial empowerment and language access programs that create economic mobility opportunities for our residents.

We will also maintain strong support for our small businesses and our entrepreneurs through the Business Solutions Center pilot program, which is in year two, the neighborhood development action team, and our innovation program.

The executive office will continue to advance the strategic plan and city council priority initiatives.

In April, the city manager's office will present an update on the strategic goals and the work plan that will guide implementation of council's priorities.

The work plan is a critical tool for translating council direction into a clear, actionable roadmap for the organization.

Lastly, the city manager's office will continue to advance efforts to help us be more efficient and responsive to media requests and proactive media strategies and promoting our own storytelling on all communication platforms.

We can pause here, and Amy and I can be available for any questions or comments, or I can turn it over to Megan Van Boris with Convention and Cultural Services for the next presentation.

Yes.

Next speaker, please.

Thanks, Denise.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of council.

Thank you for the opportunity to present the convention and cultural services department budget.

As a city department, we advance the cultural and creative life of the city and contribute to a vibrant tourism and creative economy.

In practice, that means we support the creative economy through grants, programs, and public art, facilitate entertainment activity across the city through incentives and permitting, preserve and make accessible Sacramento's history, and manage districts and facilities that bring millions of visitors downtown each year.

The department has five divisions, you'll see there, and works closely with nonprofit arts and cultural partners like the Crocker Art Museum Association Zoo, Museum of Science and Curiosity, and others who reside on city property.

In total, the department has about 124.5 full-time equivalent positions, but about 24 of those positions are supported by the general fund.

The department's total operating budget is approximately 36.1 million.

85% of that is community center fund.

Approximately 12% is supported through the general fund, with the remainder coming from several smaller funds, smaller special funds.

Looking specifically at the general fund portion, the department has approximately 4.4 million in appropriations with about 800,000 in revenues and offsets, resulting in a net general fund cost of approximately 3.6 million.

These resources primarily support the History Division or the Center for Sacramento History, the Office of Arts and Culture and Entertainment Services, three distinct business lines that to a certain extent form the core infrastructure in the region for their areas of focus.

Approximately 61% of the budget is salaries and benefits for positions across those divisions.

Services and supplies includes a $950,000 contract for old Sacramento Management Services.

I'll just draw a point there that maintenance isn't included in the PBID, so a big part of that is maintenance for that district.

And the Maya funding is for the city's long-standing cultural arts awards program that supports nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in partnership with Sacramento County.

As part of the city's budget balancing effort, the department contributed approximately $540,000 in possible reductions.

Approximately $291,000 in reductions are included in the city's base budget balancing plan.

Our first reductions are staffing related and involve eliminating vacancies for marina aids in the old Sacramento Waterfront, as well as reducing the registrar position at the Center for Sacramento History to halftime and funding it entirely out of a special fund, the Felt Fund.

Historically, the marina aid positions were designed primarily to provide customer service and general oversight on the docks rather than enforcement functions.

Much of the payment process of dock usage has now been digitized, which reduces the need for staff to manage those transactions directly.

With the expected reopening of the public docks in Old Sacramento, we'll monitor dock activity and determine if operational adjustments are needed in the future.

Collections management is a core function of the Center for Sacramento History.

This work includes cataloging, processing, and managing archival materials that support exhibitions, research, and public access.

At a halftime level, we will be able to maintain essential responsibilities, but the volume of processing will be reduced, and timelines for making materials accessible will be slower.

The budget also includes a change in funding source for the McClellan Park Storage Facility lease.

This facility houses materials used by both the Crocker Art Museum and the Center for Sacramento History and supports exhibitions, research, and public access.

Approximately half of the facility is already supported through TOT because it houses infrastructure related to the Crocker Art Museum.

This adjustment aligns the remaining portion of the lease cost with the enterprise supported cultural infrastructure that benefits from the city from the facility, which is specifically the Sacramento History Museum.

Finally, the budget does include a small reduction in discretionary spending within the arts stabilization program.

I'm going to spend a little bit of time here because there's a lot on this slide, but I will be brief.

Despite these reductions, core services remain intact.

Arts and cultural creative economy grant making and programming will continue through the Office of Arts and Culture, and we're working to develop an ongoing cycle of grant making beyond the Cultural Arts Awards in alignment with the Creative Cultural Plan funded through the Innovation and Growth Fund.

Our core history work, including the Center for Sacramento's history's collections, acquisition and management, organization, accessibility work also remain intact, including historic district management services in partnership with the downtown Sacramento Partnership.

The core function of entertainment permitting also continues.

Overall, the department continues to advance council economic development priorities, including encouraging activity in the downtown core and strengthening Sacramento as a destination citywide.

One of those priorities is marketing and advertising of our entertainment rebate programs.

These programs help incentivize activation of city venues, particularly within the convention and performing arts district, along with encouraging film production in Sacramento.

These activities contribute to local vibrancy and tourism and uplift local businesses, restaurants, retail establishments, directly influencing city sales tax and parking revenue.

And just to share a successful example on one of the rebates, an independent promoter who produces concert events associated with pop culture phenomenon, like Harry Potter in Attack on Titan, tapped into the rebate program and is expected to increase activity at the Memorial Auditorium as a result.

The ripple of that is direct employment opportunities for musicians and vocalists associated with the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera.

And while the film rebate wasn't available when one battle after another, an Oscar nominated film 13 times was shot in Sacramento.

That successful production coupled with the rebate that we have on film keeps us on the radar of location managers.

Another key priority is continuing to streamline entertainment permitting.

We've heard consistently that Sacramento has faced challenges in this area historically.

One of the most important steps we've taken as a city is consolidating entertainment-related activity into a single team within convention and cultural service.

That structure has improved coordination, communication, and accountability.

Looking ahead, we're developing online permitting tools and communications that will make the process clearer and more transparent for applicants, as well as improving internal policies and procedures.

Bottom line, when we make it easier to do business here, we get more vibrancy in our city, and that influences our revenue streams.

Creative economy, one of the fastest growing industries worldwide, accounting for 7% of GDP globally and 12% of GDP in California.

Despite that growth potential, the industry is undercapitalized overall, and particularly in Sacramento.

Over the past five years, the city has invested significant resources in this sector through local, state, and federal funding.

As many of those resources wind down, we're working to bring together a broader set of partners to support continued growth in that sector.

That includes collaboration with banks, credit unions, CDFIs, and philanthropic partners.

We also have an enormous opportunity to build on Sacramento's existing assets in culture, creativity, and history to strengthen the city as a visitor destination.

Sacramento holds extraordinary assets in this area.

The Center for Sacramento History maintains the most complete set of local government records in California, along with unique collections like the Tower Records archive and KCRA footage documenting pivotal civic moments.

These collections are not just historical artifacts, they are the foundation for exhibitions, storytelling, and visitor experiences that can distinguish Sacramento in the same way cities like Boston or Washington, DC leverage their history.

At the same time, Sacramento has untapped cultural assets across our neighborhoods.

While the historic practice of redlining created lasting inequities, it also produced cultural enclaves that represent opportunities for community-rooted economic development.

Establishing cultural districts can help elevate those identities while strengthening neighborhood corridors.

And as we know, retail vacancy remains an issue even as arts and cultural organizations struggle with access to affordable stable space.

The Office of Arts and Culture will be advancing work both on creative space and cultural districts in the coming fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the Center for Sacramento History is working with the Sacramento History Alliance to begin planning for a future co-located hub that could elevate history as a part of the Sacramento's destination experience.

And at the same time, our ongoing work to transform the old Sacramento waterfront physically and experientially represents one of the most significant opportunities to strengthen Sacramento's destination identity.

Ultimately, this work is about encouraging activity when venues are active, when events and film productions choose Sacramento, when cultural districts thrive, and when visitors come to experience our history, the impacts extend far beyond our department.

That activity supports local businesses and influences key city revenue streams, including sales tax, property tax, and parking revenue, while keeping while helping position Sacramento as a place where people want to live, work, and visit.

Happy to answer any questions, but the main takeaway is we are forced on the ground that can help increase city revenues, not immediately in terms of the fees and services that we charge us, but through the activity that we're doing in the city and facilitating in the city.

Thank you.

You're getting it.

Okay.

Perfect.

All right.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Brian Pedro, Department of Community Response.

Before we get started, I wanted to acknowledge the DCR team that has worked, excuse me, I got allergies are killing me.

My uh DCR team that has worked just as hard to try and uh provide efficient services and equally trying to create uh be physically responsible and create some cost-effective funding so we can maintain our homeless effort.

It is uh quite the challenge that uh is before us.

Um I also wanted to thank our providers who worked with us in renegotiating our contracts and realizing that we're in challenging times and we need to keep our homeless services moving forward and uh the sacrifices that they uh they have created is going to take a collaborative effort for sure for private and public to work through this.

It's gonna take a collaborative effort for sure for private and public to uh work through this.

Um as you can see on our left is our mission statement, and um on our right is uh the services that we provide to meet the mission.

Uh our outreach division makes connections with uh people experiencing homelessness and provide supportive services and shelter.

Uh our homeless services ensures our shelters are providing uh effective shelter and services, but also in a cost effective manner.

And uh then the uh pictures on the right illustrate the balanced approach of our dual mandate of providing compassionate care.

Well, understanding that uh providing that care doesn't always relieve a person's responsibility to follow our city laws and ordinances.

Uh we're here supporting all of our community.

Um and the center picture, I couldn't uh not give a shout out to our incredible staff that we have out in the field every day.

Um this is Tiffany, one of our neighborhood resource coordinators, uh making daily connections with people experiencing homelessness, and uh I don't know how anybody could say no to that smile.

Uh within our department, we have the uh director's office and uh two divisions.

Um I will note that uh two of the uh FTEs in the um in the community response division are offset with uh opioid settlement funding uh around 200,000 dollars, and then there's another almost uh 200,000 that helps offset uh two of our admin analyst uh FT physicians uh with um uh uh opioid and um HAP has administrative carve out to uh bill back.

Um and then also a side note there is I'm also the director for our incident management team, which has another 30 FTEs that are out in the field every day.

All right, so our general fund uh we had a 54.1 total budget appropriations, uh 48.2 million of that is a uh under our MIOP projects or multi-year operating projects, and then 5.9 million is for uh DCR operating costs.

Uh the uh we're anticipating the HAP 6, uh which is uh 12.9 million, and then an additional 1.6 million that uh is carry over from FY24 to bring our net general fund need of 39.6 million, and again operating with the 38 FTEs.

So our general fund appropriation breakdown by divisions.

Uh we're looking at uh again the total general fund need of 39.6 million.

Um the funds are distributed into our three divisions with community outreach making up 10% of our budget at 3.7 million.

Uh Office of Director has 3% or 1.3 million, and then homeless services is uh the remaining 2% or about uh 900,000.

And then as you can see, most of our overall funding are going to our multi-year projects of 33.7 million or 85 percent.

Uh if we look at our general fund appropriations by spending categories, um we have a uh total operating cost in DCR uh of 6.3 million.

We have the offset of the 400,000 from the HAP and opioid that gets us to our 5.9 million.

Um, 13% of the total 6.3 uh 5.3% of that, or 5.3 million of that is our salaries and benefits, and then we have 2% in about 700,000 in services and supplies.

Um that's the need for renting our buildings, our uniforms, our phones, et cetera.

Uh we have another one percent, about 300,000.

That is uh city property, this is equipment computers.

Um, and so that's about 16 percent of our total general fund expenditure, and then the 84 percent is our uh our my ops, our projects.

All right, here is uh an overview of our 15 percent reduction plan uh summary, and we can get into a little more detail in the next slide, but um I will talk about the uh revenues that we will uh project to generate.

Uh this is we are projecting our first microcommunity community to open in January of 2027.

Uh we went conservative with this figure because we will have that 90-day operating period where there is uh no program fees and we're uh we're estimating that we'll open in January, take that three months into account.

We'll get three months of program fees, which is at 36,000.

Um then it's also worth mentioning that we didn't put in revenues, is that uh we are finishing up uh uh to be a cow lane provider.

Um and we again we didn't put that revenue here because we know that there's a lag in providing the service and getting the reimbursement, and it will likely not be in this uh fiscal year.

Uh so we didn't put that as revenue, but uh that will be projected in the future.

Our um uh our level two projections here we have for six million.

So this is the 3.2 million for the city motel program to the voucher.

Uh I put this at a as a level two because it is a transition at about the same time that we're uh right sizing our uh city motel program, in that um if we look at uh the actual uh families that we have unsheltered uh versus what we're sheltering in the city motel program as we have had it in the past uh is a big mismatch, and so as we restructure that and get our unsheltered families in the program, uh that will we're not only reducing our overall costs on top of this reduction, uh, and we will still be budgeted for about 150 beds.

Um and then our uh other 2.8 million to make up that six million is X Street.

Uh we know that X Street is on the last year of the Caltrans lease.

Um we have already been talking to Caltrans to look for a continuation of that lease.

Uh we have already been talking to service providers that were interested in providing recuperative care out of that location.

And uh, if we don't get the lease, if um we do get the lease, we have the option of going to recuperative care.

If we don't get it, then we're already looking at uh off-ramp to get the hundred uh people that are in that shelter into our other shelters.

It's okay, Mayor Canesca.

Quick question.

Thank you.

Um just to clarify so the lease with CalCrans is up at the end of this year?

Or it's uh April of 2027.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so uh here's a little more on our breakdown again.

Uh we talked about the new fees for the microcommunity program, and then our shelter shifting to a voucher-based model and the Xtreet Caltrans lease, and then um overall operational efficiency.

So, on top of reductions and savings, we had an overall reduction in our need of our budget of 3.8 million.

So FY27 need is reduced by 3.8 million.

And then this last page is uh I I looked at uh council's priorities for homelessness, and uh the priority was more sustained and better cost effective solutions.

And uh we we took that with with uh full intent and looked at better and cost effective solutions.

So safe camping, safe parking are the least expensive build-out models that you can provide, and are obviously the most cost-effective solutions that we can put into play.

Um microcommunities again is shifting that one-time funding for a long-term one-time cost versus the year-on-year lease, and so that we don't end up with uh a lease ending and not having the site anymore.

This will continue.

We don't have to worry about uh a lease.

Um we have an 8.8 in operational savings, and uh that 8.8 is through contract negotiations with uh one contract that I've been wanting to get back is our contracts with SHRA for emergency shelters.

We're able to pull those back into the city.

Um that alone was about uh a uh about a million dollars per site in uh operating costs and then reduction of uh renegotiating the contracts for those sites.

Um and then we also uh renegotiated all of our contracts this past year.

Um so on top of renegotiating and putting up programs that are more cost effective.

We're also reaching outside of our general fund and looking at encampment resolution fund grants, and there's another uh NOFO coming up for ERFs, and we will also be applying to that.

So with this ERF grant, we're able to put 135 tiny homes up in Roseville Road because uh we renegotiated the price of the cost of the tiny home that allowed us more funding so that we could purchase another 35 tiny homes.

Uh so that will put us at 170 units just from that ERF grant.

And uh that has been highly effective.

We just opened it, and we have uh about 70 people in the 100 homes already.

So people are moving in and people do need shelter.

Um, and then again, DCR is uh developing a Calame Community Sports Program.

Um, I will stomp my foot on this again.

We are one of the only cities that has a Cal Aim program and actually offering services for reimbursement.

Um Cal AIM reimbursement is for every person that we touch.

So if our outreach worker runs into somebody and signs them up to for Cal Aim provision, that is funding reimbursement.

Anybody that's in our shelters are ours for offsetting contract costs in our shelters.

So this uh it does sunset at the end of this year, but uh there is our already work in play to try and get this extended.

Uh and then the last thing we did with uh not having to spend our own money on this is we uh applied for a grant of 168,000 to help fund the startup of the work that's required to bring the CalAm program up and online.

That's what I have for now.

Thank you.

All right, good afternoon, Mayor Council Chris Costamani, your fire chief.

I'd like to talk to you first.

Um I'd like to thank a few people.

I'd like to thank all the firefighters in the Sacramento Fire Department who are out there working today.

Um I'd like to introduce you to my executive team who's behind me.

Um Deputy Chief Michael Taylor, who's in charge of special operations in the Office of Emergency Management, which is new to the fire department this year.

Deputy Chief Tilden Belleter, who's in charge of training and the daily operations of the fire department.

Deputy T Deputy Chief David Sharon, who's in charge of EMS and our professional standards, and Deputy Chief Derek Parker, who's in charge of communications, IT and support services, who's not with us today, and also fire administrative manager Crystal Harlan, who couldn't be with us today, um, but for a very special reason.

The Sacramento Fire Department is dedicated to safeguarding our community with innovative and effective public safety services that truly make a difference.

Currently, the department handles 110,000 calls a year, covering fires, medical emergencies, hazardous materials calls, technical rescues, water rescues, and it serves that and then it and it ensures that the safety of our community.

Additionally, the department manages the city's Office of Emergency Management.

This division coordinates the city's response to large-scale disasters such as windstorms, floods, and power outages.

Sacramento OEM is committed to being present from start to finish, providing support from the response to the recovery.

The department's structure is designed to enable the six executive team members to effectively lead and manage the Sacramento Fire Department's 24-7 mission.

There are 80 administrative staff who are split into support divisions, managing tasks such as our daily staffing, scheduling mandatory fire inspections, fire budget, billing and procurement, professional standards, information technology, and department logistics.

Each of these functions has a support role for the 685 sworn personnel who serve the community every day.

The graph here is a breakdown of the department's budget and offsets by category.

The table shows how our funding allocation is broken down.

The total allocation includes capital improvement general fund revenue and grant funding.

This allocation also supports 767 positions annually.

As you look at it, the revenues brought in bring the department's net general fund to 155.1 million dollars.

Currently, the department offsets its appropriations by more than 30 percent, which comes from a combination of revenue, grants, and the largest source of revenue, which is generated by our emergency medical services provided through our EMS transport system.

Slide five breaks it down and highlights the cost allocation by division.

Operations and training are at 142.5 million dollars or 66%.

Community response and EMS is at 45.2 million dollars or 20 percent.

Support services at 17.6 million dollars or eight percent.

RSIN investigations in code enforcement are at 8.7 million dollars or 4%.

Administration is at 3% or excuse me, 3 million, which is less than 1%, and special operations is at 1.3 million, also less than 1%, and it also includes the OEM.

When we look at it by spending category, salaries and benefits dominate this the chart at 198.5 million, approximately 85% of our budget.

Service and supplies are at 31.2 million.

Reimbursements are at 2.3 million, excuse me, 2.4 million.

Slide 7 is our reduction summary and our proposals.

Revenue is set at 9.4 million.

Our level one excuse me.

Revenue and fire prevention this year was increased from July of 2025 when we voted on the fee increase to 1.3 million.

Revenue in the EMS has gone up this year to 1 million.

New revenue in EMS through the voluntary rate range program, which is part of PPG GEMT is at 4.8 million.

And there's a one-time revenue recognition from the fire districts from Pacific Fruit Ridge Fire District of 2.3 million.

I listed the single role program as a level one priority, but it actually is converting 12 firefighters to 20 new positions for a net gain of eight positions in the fire department.

This is us trying to meet our customer where they're at, getting more ambulances on the street and being able to handle more of those 110,000 calls.

Aligning our budget projections to follow the revenue sources.

The district reimbursement is important, however, it is a one-time source, and we will take that up each year with the city's budget department as it can change from time to time.

The single role implementation is what's important on this slide, and it continues to grow.

Each year that we can convert single role fire or dual role firefighters to single role positions, either paramedics or EMTs.

It helps us grow our ambulance transport transport system, which also aids us in about 70% of our call volume.

The budget balancing impacts.

One of our fire assistant chiefs and realigning the door division.

The chief formally over the door division will be moved to training, reducing the department's total to fire assistant chiefs to six assistant chiefs.

The door division will be realigned into two divisions.

Training for our pipeline programs and EMS for our EMT and paramedic training programs.

Although Doors mission will be reduced.

Elimination of vacant positions and implementation of brownouts or dynamic staffing will result in longer response times, reduced operational capacity, increased risk of injury for all firefighters, and diminished community outreach.

However, no sworn fire personnel will be separated from the city.

All right, slide 10.

This is where we align our mission.

It's always been to protect life, property, and the overall well-being of our community.

Even as we face financial constraints, the mission remains non-negotiable.

It is a foundation of every service we provide in every decision we make.

We are navigating serious fiscal challenges, and those pressures require discipline and focus.

But preserving core fire and EMS services is essential to maintaining effective emergency response, maintaining our communities, and the rapid response times that our citizens are provided.

Safe and well-equipped firefighters and community are what people trust.

Every choice we make must strengthen our ability to deliver the consistent, reliable public safety services.

When we evaluate staffing models, apparatus needs or deployment strategies.

The driving question is always does this help us protect our communities effectively and without compromise.

Our frontline companies and our fire suppression units are the backbone of Sacramento safety infrastructure.

By safeguarding these operations, we protect both immediate public safety needs and the city's long-term resilience and infrastructure.

Meaning strong frontline capability prevents greater risk and greater costs down the road.

And through collaboration, we continue strengthening essential services while navigating fiscal realities and responsibility.

Our community relies on us every hour of every day.

Together, we will ensure that Sacramento continues to receive the dependable fire and EMS services it deserves.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Did you see that?

Making my life difficult.

Thank you.

Thank you, fire.

All right.

Taking my click for the case.

That's a thumbnail.

That's a theft.

All right.

The one the football competition chief.

Um okay, that's that hurts.

Okay, thanks.

I'm getting it from both sides.

All right.

Well, I'm your last presentation.

I know that's they that they're just likable, right?

Um, good afternoon, everyone.

I'm your police chief, Kathy Lester here to present our proposed budget.

So thank you.

All right.

Um I'm just gonna talk about kind of the work that we do.

I know all the departments are doing this.

We really build our work around a core set of public safety values.

First and foremost is what you see every day.

It's our frontline policing services.

Those are our patrol officers, our specialized teams.

They're on duty 24 hours a day responding to emergencies in this city, answering our calls for service, and they are the most visible part of public safety that you see.

Supporting that work are criminal investigations and our evidence uh management functions.

These are detectives, our forensic specialists that follow up on crimes, they gather evidence, they process digital information, build cases that really allow offenders to be held accountable, and present great cases to our district attorney because we know solving crime and supporting those successful prosecutions is really a critical part of keeping our community safe.

Another core service that um often operates behind the scenes are our communications center and our records operations.

Our 911 dispatchers are the first point of contact during emergencies.

Last year they took over 600,000 calls, if you can believe that.

They coordinate a lot of our responses, deploy officers and fire resources, and they ensure that the right help gets to where it needs to be very quickly.

And then our records team, they maintain all of the reports and the access to information that the public and courts and investigators rely on.

And then, as you know, we also maintain a very strong policy, compliance, and transparency set of systems.

This includes our professional standards, risk management, and then adherence to a number of state reporting requirements and oversight, including internal affairs.

In addition to responding to crime, and I know um we did a presentation just recently on this.

We really focus heavily on data-driven crime reduction and prevention.

We analyze crime trends and deploy resources very, very strategically, really trying to focus on the individuals driving crime and neighborhood issues before they escalate.

But none of this works without community trust and partnerships, and we work really closely with residents, with businesses and youth programs, and really community organizations to solve problems together.

So these relationships we feel are essential to maintaining and building safer neighborhoods.

This is our structure.

This is a very abbreviated organizational chart.

It shows how we are divided essentially into five major offices, including the office of the chief and the newest Office of Strategy and Compliance.

I have the chiefs from all of those offices here, and we're joined by the commanders who work in those divisions.

They put a ton of work into our budget and have been very involved in this process and can answer any of your questions if we can't about specific details and proposals.

But I just want to thank them for all the work they've done, as you know, for all of city staff.

This is a challenging task.

So I'll touch really quickly on our general fund.

Our net general fund is about 246 million dollars after revenues are deducted.

These revenues include contractual obligations, supplemental employment, alarms, and a very small amount of public counter services and miscellaneous permits.

And then I'll go into kind of our general fund appropriation.

And so before moving further into our staffing impacts, it's really helpful, I think, to look at how our department resources are distributed across the organization.

What you'll see is the majority of our staffing supports frontline operations and investigative work rather than administration.

So this slide illustrates how resources are allocated across the major organizational functions.

The largest portion, which is about 41% supports the Office of Operations.

That's your patrol, your patrol officers, your supervisors, these are the folks that are responding to calls for service and provide the day-to-day policing in our city.

About a quarter, 25% supports the Office of Investigations.

Those are detectives and the investigative units responsible for all of the follow-up investigations and case preparation for the district attorney.

And then about 19% supports our specialized services.

Those include units that provide citywide operational support, such as traffic, canine, air operations, and very specific specialty teams to assist patrol and investigative functions.

About 12% is allocated to strategy and compliance.

And those functions ensure the department meets our legal standards, our training requirements, our policy oversight.

They do a lot of data analysis, and certainly they help us meet our transparency obligations and mandates.

And then only about 3% of the department's labor costs fall within my office, the office of the chief.

That includes the chief, the executive staff, and the administrative coordination necessary to manage a large public safety organization.

So overall, this distribution illustrates that the overwhelming majority of the department's personnel resources are focused on operational policing and direct public safety services.

It also, I think, highlights why staffing reductions have such a direct operational impact because most of our personnel are already concentrated into the work of responding to calls, investigating crime, and supporting frontline policing.

Chief, I have a quick question on this slide.

Yes, ma'am.

The police officers that are patrolling the streets right now, do they fall into the operations bucket?

Yes, they sure do.

Or all, or did you separate them?

Most are assigned to the Office of Operations.

There may be other officers like an Office of Specialized Operations that are also in the field, but the majority of the folks that are responding to calls for service doing the work of like POP officers or violent crime reduction teams, those are all in the Office of Operations.

Sure.

Thank you.

Good question.

All right.

And then this slide here shows how the department's overall operating budget is distributed across our major spending quarter categories.

And as you can see, 90% or so of our budget is really dedicated to salaries and benefits, and it reflects the nature of our job as really personnel driven.

We're our primary resource really are people.

About 5% of the budget is allocated to services and supplies, which includes equipment, technology systems, training resources, and other operational support needed to run our department.

And then about 5% supports the multi-year operating, the MIOP projects, which include some of our longer term initiatives and investment that support our department priorities.

And then there are a very small portion, less than 1% is associated with city property costs.

So really, this distribution highlights that the department's budget is again overwhelmingly tied to personnel, which means that just changes in funding or staffing levels have a direct impact really on operations and service deliveries.

Like everyone has who has come before me, all departments had to provide a list of reductions that were equivalent of 15% of their budget as a reduction.

So for the police department, that totaled almost 37 million dollars.

It resulted in the identification of 195 positions, including 129 filled positions and 66 vacancies.

That full list of reductions that were proposed can be found in Mr.

Coleto's presentation and the agenda item from the third for the early budget agenda item.

And I'll just kind of give some background on how we made our selections.

Our priority through this process was to protect core public safety services while identifying areas where reductions could be made with the least impact on emergency response.

Not to say that there was no impact, but we tried to pick the lesser of the impacts.

The strategies we submitted included eliminating some vacant positions, reducing or discontinuing certain programs, implementing cost savings measures, and proposing a limited number of filled position reductions.

And I'll go through through those for the majority of this presentation.

Before outlying the operational reductions, I'll begin by highlighting several strategies the department has identified to help offset the budget short thrall shortfall through revenue, some existing funds, and some external grant support.

So first on the revenue side, the department will get about 120,000 annually for sexual assault examinations.

And then secondly, we identified about 405,000 in previously unspent funds within the violence prevention BIOP that can be applied as one-time savings.

And finally, and we were so blessed to have received this as a city.

The most significant support comes from a recently awarded CalVIP grant.

This is a three-year grant and totals about $5 million.

And it's important to note that funding will allow our department to really continue its violent crime reduction strategy in partnership with OVP for the next three years.

This will be the bulk of the presentation where we talk about specialized unit reductions and re-orgs.

Really, this next set of reductions affects many of the internal systems that allow the department to function effectively, things like hiring, training, investigations, and community engagement.

Many of these roles are not always visible to the public, but they are critical to sustaining our ability to deliver public safety services.

So the reductions I'll go over, they span operational, administrative, and support functions, and I'll walk through each of the proposed balancing budget balancing strategies as well as their anticipated impacts.

The first one is the elimination of a captain position in the administrative services division.

We are proposing to eliminate the captain and replace that position with a civilian police administrative manager.

That change will convert a sworn leadership role to a civilian governance and compliance position, where we believe we'll have greater institutional stability, centralized oversight, and will serve like the captain has as the department's liaison with external partners.

In our records division, we are proposing the elimination of 11 vacant positions, one record supervisors and 10 records specialists.

We know that reducing staffing at this level will slow our ability to process police reports, court documents, and public record requests, and it may lead to some longer wait times for the community officers and partner agencies.

And we know that fewer staff will make it a little bit more difficult to meet our legally and mandated deadlines and could potentially increase the risk of errors or delays that could affect investigations or compliance.

In our hiring pipeline, there are some significant CSO reductions.

The proposal would eliminate the CSO2 program by seven vacant positions.

These are non-sworn personnel that handle thousands of nonviolent calls every year, like cold burglaries, traffic collisions, missing persons, property bookings, and they allow our sworn officers really to focus on emergencies and violent crime.

So it will place an additional demand on patrol, and it will also narrow an important and really diverse recruitment pipeline that prepares these employees for employment as sworn officers in the future.

The second reduction in that area is the elimination of five of the department's 10 CSO 3 positions.

That's the career classification for CSO, and they full-time support investigations, help with community engagement, and also handle a very large number of nonviolent calls.

So we know reducing this program will decrease the department's ability to absorb some lower priority calls and place some additional demand on our sworn officers and potentially result in some delayed or limited follow-up on minor crimes.

In our recruiting unit, the proposal reduces the recruiting unit in half by eliminating two sworn officers.

These positions, as you know, are responsible for conducting a lot of community outreach.

They manage applicant engagement and they sustain a lot of our partnerships and pipeline programs with schools and community organizations.

And that reduction will limit our ability to consistently recruit and may slow some hiring momentum during a period when law enforcement agencies nationwide, just like us, are facing some significant recruiting challenges.

In our advanced officer training unit, the proposal reduces the unit by two officers.

This unit was a recommendation by DOJ.

They coordinate and deliver mandatory annual training in critical areas such as de-escalation, medical aid, decision making under stress, and certainly evolving use of force and search and seizure law.

And so while the required training will, in fact, continue, the reduction will strain the unit's ability to provide updated curriculum, provide additional trainings, and certainly meet some of the mandates that we've placed on them effectively.

In backgrounds, we are proposing to remove five sworn officers from the background investigations unit.

Each police applicant, including dispatchers, CSOs, professional staff, has to go through a background process that takes about 90 hours.

So reducing this capacity will slow hiring timelines and certainly increase the risk of losing qualified candidates to other agencies if they can be hired faster, potentially prolonging our vacancies and increasing overtime.

We are recommending a reduction of one officer.

This was the team itself was a recommendation from the Department of Justice.

So this will leave that unit with two investigators.

The reduction will significantly increase caseloads and make it more difficult to consistently meet mandated transparency and reporting timelines for use of force investigations.

And over time, that increased workload without some changes may affect the unit's ability to conduct timely investigations.

In our canine unit, we are proposing eliminating one canine handler position.

Canine officers provide a critical capacity in safely locating and apprehending dangerous suspects, conducting searches, supporting narcotics and explosive detection operations.

And so reducing the unit will result in gaps in canine coverage and could potentially lead to increased risk to officers in the public during high-risk incidents.

In forensics, we're eliminating one fingerprint clerk.

That role supports the processing of about 2,100 mandated offender registrations each year, including sex and arson offenders, and manages live skin fingerprint submissions that assist investigations and generate fee revenue.

Reducing this capacity may increase processing times and could require some additional administrative or sworn staff to take on those duties, potentially diverting them from the regular assignments.

In our crime analysis unit, the proposal continues our effort to civilianize certain analytical functions by replacing two sworn positions with professional crime analysts.

We know that civilian analysts bring specialized expertise and provide continuity in analytical work while allowing sworn officers to focus on patrol and enforcement responsibilities.

However, because we can't add to that unit, we will have to delete two sworn vacancies to fund those civilian positions, and it will thereby reduce the department's long-term sworn staffing capacity.

We're doing something similar in our policy team.

The proposal will replace one sworn officer position with a civilian administrative analyst.

And civilianizing this role supports best practices by building long-term continuity and expertise in policy development.

However, also like the crime analysis unit, deleting a sworn vacancy to fund that civilian role will reduce the number of sworn positions that we'll be able to fill in the future.

In communications, we are proposing a realignment of certain personnel responsibilities within that division to match the duties with the appropriate classifications.

We believe that it'll improve organizational stability, strengthen our compliance with leave management and post requirements, and help address some chronic vacancies while ensuring that the accurate personnel are in the right positions for the department.

And then finally, in the community support services, our proposal eliminates one community service representative.

The unit coordinates community meetings, supports neighborhood watch programs, conducts outreach and youth engagement across the city.

So with this reduction, that will leave us only two representatives serving the entire city, which will limit our capacity to conduct proactive community outreach and engagement activities.

The next recommendations that I'll go through are some of the most difficult ones.

The programs you see here are not new initiatives or discretionary efforts.

We have worked very deliberately for the past few years to protect these programs because they provide a real value to our community, to our youth, and to our policing strategies.

And in many ways, they represent the very last things that we've been able to preserve after years of budget reductions.

But without the funding, really, the department has to have we've reached the point where we can no longer sustain them at their current level without impacting some of our core operations.

The first one I'll go over is the mounted unit.

This would be the elimination of the entire unit, one sergeant and four officers.

As you know, the mounted unit has long been one of the department's most visible and approachable forms of policing.

Mounted officers are great at community engagement.

Um will offer also offering a really unique operational advantage during large events from their very elevated vantage point.

So eliminating this unit will reduce police visibility, especially in the downtown core and in old Sacramento, and it will remove one of our most iconic and effective tools for public interaction and crowd awareness.

The second uh is a restructuring of the magnet public safety academy programs.

So the magnet schools have been an important partnership with our schools and currently serve about 650 youth every year.

This proposal transitions the program to a hybrid model similar to what we did during the recession about 15 or 16 years ago.

Um, and it reduces the officer presence at each school from four days per week to one day per week and will eliminate the supervising sergeant position.

Well, the academy wanna stop you real quick.

There's a question.

Yes, ma'am.

I'm sorry, I meant I tried to speak up during the original mounted unit.

Um question about that um what happens to the horses in that scenario.

Would you like to come up, Robbie, and talk about it?

They we actually receive donated horses um through the wild horse program, and uh we do have a mounted foundation, so there is the opportunity for officers to um you know purchase the horse afterwards.

But Roddy is our downtown captain, Captain Young.

And do we currently store them in stables that are managed by us or managed by another agency?

Okay, I'll let you answer.

Hi, good afternoon.

I'm Captain Robbie Young under the central command.

And uh, yeah, so to answer that question, we have our own uh mounted marine barn where they're stored, and we provide all the health care for them.

The officers are actually the ones that go there in the morning to feed them, the water them, take them out of the stalls, clean the stalls, they exercise them.

Those are the same officers that are riding those mounted mounts.

They call they don't call them horses, they call them mounts.

Same officers that take care of them are the ones that ride them.

And there's a lot of opportunity, a lot of options for those horses if the mountain unit is to um uh if we no longer have it.

Um there's a lot of uh places that will take the horses.

Um, for instance, when the horse uh no longer is able to be ridden out on patrol just because of age or because of injury, we always find homes to rehome them.

So they we find really good places uh to re-home the horses.

Okay, that's really helpful.

I mean, you know, I don't know what we'll obviously end up doing at the end of the budget process, so it may be a moot point, but I'm just curious.

Um, thank you.

Very welcome.

Um, and then before we proceed with the presentation, I know at the beginning of the conversation we said there's gonna be no layoffs, so sounds like it's more restructuring.

Uh, city manager, can you please clarify on that or chief?

Yeah, I sure can.

Um, I actually have a slide on that.

Um, so right now the total reduction is about 62 FT within the department.

Uh, there's about 40 sworn positions.

Uh 14 of those are through the end of contractual obligations, three are through the elimination for the civilianized positions.

Um, right now we have capacity within the organization for no sworn layoffs, and um, when we get into the non-sworn classifications, there's some HR, you know, HR will have to weigh in there.

But we do have vacancies right now.

I have about 65 vacancies for officers and about 65 for professional staff.

But chief, can you clarify that there are no sworn uh officers being um laid off, correct?

Correct, yeah, there will be no sworn layoffs with this current proposal.

Um, and I can go through the numbers and and explain those.

But yeah, we what will happen, and I think um Peter did a great job of explaining it.

If we have officers that are unfilled positions, if that unit is collapsed or if we eliminate those positions, they'll just move to an unfilled position somewhere else in the department.

Yeah, I I just want to make a uh slight cla clarification because I got lectured on this by the human resources department.

So um, if we are moving, if we are impacting a filled position, and so let's say it's a detective who's moving to a regular um officer position or something of that nature.

That's tech in HR world that's considered a layoff.

Um, however, what we're saying is there's no separation.

So, because when I say layoff, I mean someone walking out the door.

Um, and there's a that kind of nuance there, but we're having no sworn officers walk out the door.

So let me pose this question just a little bit differently.

How many of these sworn positions are vacant?

Um, I believe we have 29 that were vacant at last um at last count.

Okay.

Okay, yeah, and thank you so much just because obviously public safety is our number one priority.

And we just want to make sure that the public understands that hey, we're doing restructuring, not layoffs, and making that really loud and clear to the public, I think is really important.

Well, I think Peter for coming up because I may have called them a layoff and did the same thing in some main HR is.

Yeah, I know terminology is tough sometimes, so just for the general public, there will be no layoffs.

Yeah, thank you.

Great.

Did I answer your question?

Actually, and I Captain Young did a great job of answering, so thank you for coming up.

Yes, I was educated.

Okay.

All right.

Uh talking uh really talking about the um the magnet academies is kind of where I left off.

You know, they serve 650 at risk youth.

We have great um metrics, we've got great um outcomes from the program.

Obviously, I had a lot of the kids come and speak, you know, last week about the importance to them.

So you can see why we hold that in such high regard, but we think that this proposal is a good way to continue to support the program and to continue to support um support the students in that program.

We know that the reduced officer presence will limit the level of mentorship, some classroom engagement and uh program support that historically has made that program so impactful.

We are also proposing to reduce shot spotter coverage.

Currently, we have it in three areas in the city the south, the east, and north areas.

Um we're recommending reducing that coverage to the north area only.

That's because that area is the most affected by gun violence, and it would allow two-thirds of that funding to go back to the general fund for other areas.

So the proposal would reduce the gunshot detection coverage by limiting those two areas.

The reduction will limit some real-time detection of gunfire incidents to only one area of the city.

Many calls of gunfire, as you know, historically go unreported to 911.

So it may, and it I would say it will reduce our situational awareness and intelligence available to identify emerging gun crime patterns and hot spots.

And then finally, uh, the last elimination we have is of something called our spider technology platform.

Uh, this proposal discontinues that use.

It'll save about 125,000 annually in savings.

And what that platform currently does is provide automatic updates to community members when they call for the police, gives them an update about their call for service, but it also allows us to collect structured feedback about police interactions.

And so while eliminating this system does not affect emergency response or investigative operations, it does reduce transparency and eliminates a formal channel that we have from the public to just measure how we're doing.

So taken together, these recommendations represent programs that strengthen community engagement for sure, youth mentorship and transparency.

And there are certainly reductions that we don't take lightly, um, but really are what we feel are the remaining options available to us after absorbing cuts elsewhere in the organization.

Okay.

And then to our uh vice mayor's question about the baseline plan.

This is the elimination of 62 FTE.

Um we've got 40 sworn and then the 22 professional staff.

And you know, I just want to take a moment to um talk about the steps that we have taken as department over the past several years to talk about how we have managed or tried to manage our staffing resources, reduced reliance on overtime, and continue to deliver that core service despite our ongoing staffing challenges.

So for the past four years, the department has implemented a series of operational and organizational and workload reforms designed to reduce uh reliance on overtime while protecting our patrol staffing and maintaining service levels.

So I think these actions really reflect proactive management of these resources.

First, we reduced or eliminated programs that require dedicated staffing outside of core patrol operations.

Since 2022, the department has continued several externally funded or contract-based deployments, including Sac City Unified School Districts contract, the hospital policing contracts with Sutter and Kaiser, and most recently regional transit police services in the Nathomas Unified SRO program.

These decisions return patrol officers back to patrol operations and help reduce the need to backfill patrol shifts with overtime.

Secondly, we made some structural adjustments to specialty units to prioritize patrol staffing.

Over the past several years, we reduced um teams such as the cannabis enforcement team and the POP teams.

We eliminated our centralized mental health unit, our shot spotter teams, we eliminate outreach engagement unit, and we subsequently redistributed those responsibilities to area commands.

More recently, some additional staffing reductions were made to fit into our impact unit, and they were designed to concentrate our sworn personnel where they were most needed, which was really responding to calls for service and maintaining that patrol coverage.

Third, we implemented some workload reforms to reduce calls for service that don't require an in-person police response.

So we did a formal command staff review of service demand, and we discontinued responses to unpermitted ringing alarms, daytime noise complaints, and certain 911 hangups when no signs of distress were present.

We expanded our online reporting for non-injury traffic collisions and after the fact fact theft reports.

We adjusted dispatch priorities to reduce unnecessary cross-district deployments.

We limited our GPS bait deployment to felony cases and implemented a short form reporting for certain crimes.

These changes reduce officer time spent on lower priority incidents and help stabilize our staffing without generating additional overtime.

Fourth, we made some administrative and civilian staffing adjustments to ensure sworn officers are focused on core police work.

Our civilian classifications were expanded to increase redaction capacity in our professional standards and policy unit, which helped address our transparency requirements.

We also modified the internal complaint intake process in a way that allowed five sworn officers to be reassigned from IA to the nighttime motor team.

And in addition, we expanded the use of community service officers and student trainees to handle administrative non-enforcement workload.

And then one thing that's a little bit unusual this year is another factor that's really affected our staffing efficiency was the loss of a significant portion of our retired annuitent workforce.

If you remember in the fall of last year, we had to separate 61 retired annuitants due to CalPERS restrictions.

In prior years, that those officers, our retired annuitants, contributed about 20,000 hours of work annually, which helped our department meet a number of our internal and state mandate requirements that were largely unfunded.

So as you can imagine, the loss of that supplemental workforce has required the department to absorb that work internally and modify our overtime forecasting.

Finally, we did something really unique, which was the implementing something we called back to the beat program, which allows officers that are assigned in investigations or other units to supplement patrol.

It gives us additional patrol visibility and capacity without permanently reassigning personnel or creating structural overtime.

But you know, despite this, staffing continues to remain a challenge.

Our authorized staffing declined from 769 positions in 2022 to 733 today, and we have 22 fewer working officers.

And we've also typically seen attrition of about 50 sworn officers a year.

Recruitment has certainly been impacted by a competitive hiring environment in our region.

But last year, late last year, when we did require a 60 college unit requirement for officers, we changed that requirement because most of our neighbor agencies do not have that, and we were losing otherwise qualified candidates to outside agencies.

Now that that requirement has been removed, we have seen a significant increase in applications.

For example, for the first three months in 2025, we saw just shy of 700 applications for the first three months in 2026.

We've seen over 1,400.

And we expect to run a full police academy this summer if the vacancies allow.

So to taken together, these actions really, I think show the proactive management of the department's resources.

I'll also be providing this detail in further detail in a supplementary budget information item that we'll be providing to the budget office.

Okay, lastly, considering you know the budget challenges and the reductions we've discussed.

The department remains focused on moving forward.

These are our five department priorities, and in the coming year, our approach will not be about expanding new programs, but about staying focused, about maintaining the initiatives that are working and making strategic investments that support our mission and our people.

So under operational readiness, we are going to continue the back to the beat program.

We're going to continue to invest in the real-time information center and the public safety camera network, and certainly we'll maintain officer preparedness through updated roll call training platforms and advanced training.

For crime reduction, we will absolutely continue our data-driven deployment strategies.

We'll expand analysis of non-fatal shootings and violent crime patterns, and continue our regional task force partnerships addressing organized retail theft, human trafficking, and violent crime.

For employee investment, we are going to be implementing something called the Multiply Leadership Program for Sergeants to strengthen frontline supervision and decision making.

This will be grant-funded through our police foundation.

We'll continue the leadership development for our command staff through national executive training programs.

And once again, we are planning on hosting the regional conference for I'm sorry, we will be hosting a regional uh conference for public professional public safety staff with the association of professionals in public safety to support development and collaboration.

That's a new association and it represents over 30% of our department.

So we'll be making an investment in that.

In quality police services, you know, we obviously are invested in our community and our community partnerships.

We'll continue to maintain those through programs such as Community Connect, our youth engagement initiatives, and neighborhood outreach.

We'll continue to improve digital access to police services through a new SPD mobile applications and online reporting tools, and certainly we'll support regional uh collaboration and community engagement, including our annual violent crime summit, which is hosted by the Office of Violence Prevention.

We'll continue in our strategic governance area, the development of the strategic roadmap, and we'll use organizational assessments which we're currently involved in and performance metrics to guide future staffing.

So even as we navigate these really difficult reductions that we've discussed, you know, our commitment remains the same to protect our community, support our employees, and certainly lead the department with focused professionalism and accountability.

So in closing, um I just want to say that we're going to continue to do everything we can within our control to manage resources responsibly to support our employees and certainly deliver a level of service that our community expects.

And while over the last several years, we've made significant operational changes to support reduction.

As you can see, there are limits to operationally what operational adjustments alone can accomplish.

You know, year after year, we've worked very hard to mitigate the impact of staffing reductions through proactive management and restructuring units through trying to change our workload, and they have allowed us to main certain service levels, but they has that has also become increasingly difficult over time.

You know, um what I see every day, and I just have to say is that we have a group of employees that continue to show up and they give everything that they can and have for the city.

Our officers and our professional staff are working extremely hard under challenging conditions, and I would say that's the same for many of our city staff.

And you know, there's uh they're often um taking on additional workload.

There's a lot of uncertainty.

Many of them have seen opportunities reduced, assignments limited and eliminated, and workloads increase, yet they continue to step forward every day and do the job.

So their commitment has never wavered, and I just want to make sure that as their leader, I call that out.

So, you know, our people will continue to show up every day, I know to serve the community, and it's our responsibility to make sure that they have the support and the resources that they need to do that job well.

We know how important public safety is to all of us and to the well-being of our city.

So our commitment is just to continue to work with you to ensure the department has the resources necessary to deliver those public safety services, and that's why we've made the recommendations that we have for these baseline strategies.

I want to thank Peter and Mirthal and the finance team.

I know I work a lot and I'm in this building a lot, and every time I'm on the fifth floor, no matter what time of day or night it is, I feel like Peter and the team have been in their office for the last few months and have been very supportive and helpful to the departments.

Um finance is not our forte, and they've walked us through a lot, and we really appreciate that.

So, with that, I'm available for any questions and comments, but I believe we have public comment first.

Thank you for appreciate it.

Thank you.

That concludes our team presentations.

We'll now go to public comment and then members of the council.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have 15 speakers on this item.

Yating Campbell, Lena Heisch, Brian Powers, Henry Harry, and please feel free to line up in the middle aisle.

Yating, then Lena, then Brian, and then Henry.

Uh good afternoon, Mayor and City Council members.

My name is Yatine Campbell, and I'm an Atomus resident.

I'm here today to respectfully respect express my opposition to the current proposed location for the Natomas microcommunity, not to the goal of supporting our unhoused residents or the concept of tiny homes.

We all agree that finding humane, effective solutions to homelessness is complex.

People need stability, services, and pathways to long-term housing.

I support that fully.

But the proposed site as it stands does not set residents up to success.

The location lacks access to wraparound services, is situated in a flood zone, has no nearby public transit, and the design would be difficult for to navigate for seniors that this project is intended to serve.

I also submitted for public record a printout of the digital petition from more than 1,200 community members who share these concerns.

Notomas wants to be part of the solution, and that's why our council members, Lisa Kaplan, and Vice Mayor Karina Talamantes have identified an alternative parcel in North Atomas that appears far closer to being move in ready.

When the city is facing nearly its 67 million dollars in a budget deficit, that matters.

When the it affects how quickly the units can be built, what services can be provided, and ultimately how many people we can help transition off the streets.

A site that already meets infrastructure and compliance requirements, could reduce costs, shorten timelines, and avoid unnecessary legal environmental complications.

So my request today is simple.

Please give full consideration to the alternative site so we can provide a safer, more accessible, and more effective microcommunity for the people who need it the most.

Or alternatively, consider whether the funding allocated for this project could be better allocated to help prevent deeper cuts to the programs and services our community relies on in our parks, public safety roads, and other essential infrastructure.

So thank you for your time and commitment.

In my last 10 seconds, I also want to rise in support of supporting Yipsi's programs, the primetime team, young leaders of tomorrow, and the landscape and learning programs.

Those are excellent programs to keep.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Councilmember.

My name is Nila Dina Shea, and I represent represent West Shore Community at uh in Thomas.

First, I want to say thank you for your hard work, especially on the homelessness issue, which is very challenging.

I appreciate your dedication serving our city, and I want to thank Mayor McCarty for reaching out to us to schedule a special meeting soon.

Meanwhile, I like to share serious concerns that some many of our neighbors are feeling about the microcommunity site at El Central Road in Arena Borough Art.

If you are here today to oppose this site, please stand up.

I know some of our neighbors have a left.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for putting on your work and stay here for several hours just to present your concern.

And this is just a small portion.

I have a, you know, uh daycare center, uh operator, and uh, you know, dentist families, engineers' family told me their anxiety.

Over this past 12 days, I've been talking to any neighbors I encountered.

When I heard uh uh what I heard the most often is that they feel anxious, frustrated, and that their voices have not been heard.

They are still very important questions unanswered about the safety issues.

City council over oversight and how the city will fund this site long term with more than 66 million dollars budget deficit.

Definitely shortful.

Uh also right across the street of this site are many nice houses and a very popular trail that school kids and neighbors use daily.

So I urge you respectfully uh that you can agendize the proposal by the thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Brian Powers.

Thank you.

I appreciate uh Chief Lester's commitment to maintaining public safety services in Sacramento, but I think there's a point at which when you reduce the staff uh enough, it can't be done.

And I'm personally afraid that we've already got beyond that point.

Um all of this reminded me of something that may be a little bit off topic, but in 2020, the city council awarded 10 million dollars in Federal CARES Act funds to 29 community-based organizations to provide workforce training to 11,000 young people and adults in the city.

11,000 was an impressive number that was published in the Sacramento City Express in September of 2020.

I followed up on that to see what was going to happen.

Um there was a failure of the city to require accountability because I found out that not all of the grantees were required to keep data on actual job placements.

Later, I learned that it was eventually reported to the council that only 2,572 people received job skills training in this program, not the 11,000 originally reported by the city.

The average cost was $3,888 per trainee.

Of the 2,572 people who receive job skills training, only 500, I'm sorry, only 410 actually got jobs.

16 percent.

Why do I mention that?

Because it's proven, I think beyond any doubt, that the Sacramento Police Department is data-driven and data proven.

And we need to maintain public services, and and I think the council is not paying attention to line items in programs that are not producing or that don't want to show that they can produce.

That's what you need to focus on to say 15% across the board seems to me the wrong direction.

To say 15% across the board seems to me the wrong direction.

So please pay attention to line items.

Please pay attention to all of these programs, whether they're government, non-government, government organizations, and leave the police department budget alone because your comments.

Our next speaker is Henry Harry, then Christina Rogers, then Karen Corbs.

Thank you, members of the council.

You know, what's going to really be sad here is if we show up here next year doing the same thing.

Because it takes one leader on this council to change things.

Our safety is too important to come here year after year, and especially in a crisis, have our police department uh being cut or stripped down and reworked so that a few officers have to do so much work.

Um I heard the chief talk about that one of the things they might do is uh eliminate some background investigators.

Uh I've proposed to you guys last week, and maybe somebody will follow up with this.

I think we need to bring on some level two reserve officers, get them hired, get them trained, and let them supplement our police department.

Uh they can get in the field, they can put real boots on the ground, and that's going to be the people that will eventually fall in love with the job and want to be hired.

And I think if you talk to a lot of people in the police department, they'll tell you that a number of them probably came on as reserve officers.

Um maybe somebody can clarify something to me.

Maybe I misheard the chief.

At some point I thought she said that there was around 700 officers, but I believe the city manager mentioned that they were close to 600 last week when I was here.

Uh again, maybe I misheard something, and somebody can clarify that so I know exactly where we are.

But um an idea I mentioned before, and I'll repeat it again.

We shouldn't be on this hamster will next year.

Can't we come up with a way to isolate and find a funding stream for law enforcement that doesn't have us on this roller coaster?

It would be a shame that we're here next year.

Last thing I'll say.

Some of the stuff that the chief is reporting now, how about she just start reporting that in January?

Having these folks just kind of thank you for your comments.

Christina Rogers, then Karen Corbes, then John Frias Morales.

Good afternoon.

Right now, Sacramento is like a house.

The focus has been spent on painting the walls and redecorating bathrooms with minimal attention to the foundation.

That foundation is core services, police, first responders, parks, and infrastructure, and it's crumbling.

Pulling back on expenses is not fun.

That means saying no to even things that everyone wants but are not core services.

Yeah, it sucks to say no to your kids when you promised a trip to Disneyland after the main breadwinner lost their job.

Like it's going to be tough to say no to non-core expenses like free RT or fun little monthly community mixers.

Because I like that stuff too.

But sometimes, if we want all those extras in the future, we should ask everyone in the family to make small sacrifices to get out of this crushing debt.

Foundational city services like law enforcement aren't an extra.

Local businesses must be protected, customers must feel comfortable parking and walking to them.

Without robust patrols and swift response times, the message is don't invest here because we don't.

I know you don't want that to be the message, but what you invest in will determine the message everyone receives.

And increasing parking fees is short-sighted.

It only discourages outsiders from visiting Sacramento's downtown when cities like Folsom or Elk Grove have free parking.

Why should anyone pay extra to visit downtown when they see shootings and stabbings in the news?

No thanks.

So I understand this is a simple example for a complicated city budget.

But don't you have to begin with a goalpost, a solid standard while considering every budget cut?

You can't look at purchasing marble countertops for the kitchen until the plumbing system and floor underneath are secured to handle the load.

Same for public safety in a growing city like Sacramento.

When it relates to public safety in the city budget, it is that simple.

Thank you.

Karen Corps.

Following Karen is John Frias Morales, then Jim Randlett.

Good afternoon.

First, I want to thank the Sacramento Police Department and the officers who show up every day committed to keeping our community safe.

Your work does not go unnoticed.

We see you, and we are forever grateful.

We've heard that violent crime is trending down, and that's great news.

But over the past couple of weeks, we've still seen serious incidents around Sacramento.

Stabbings at DOCO, someone shooting at cars on I-5, and two simultaneous carjackings in the North area that ended with both cars and land park while the juveniles fled on foot.

And yet we're talking about cutting the police budget.

Who do you want to respond to these situations?

Who do you want to respond when someone has been stabbed at DOCO or when there is a shooting in the Thomas?

Or when an individual is throwing rocks and bricks at people in a parking lot.

How do we expect to keep our community safe in these moments?

Sacramento does not have a public safety problem because we fund the police too much.

What we do have is a spending priority problem.

I'm going to keep saying this until it sinks in.

The majority of people in Sacramento want a well-funded, well-staffed and well-equipped police department.

People want to feel safe leaving their homes, going to a downtown game, uh King's game, or simply going out to dinner.

When I see police officers around the city, I feel safe.

And I know I'm not alone.

Just look here.

Does everybody feel safer now that the police department is here with us today?

I think so.

If anything, now is the time to loudly support our police officers, invest in them, recruit the next generation of officers, and make it clear that Sacramento stands behind those who protect the city.

People want a safe and clean city, and when we get those things right, everything else will follow, including a thriving Sacramento that we can proudly pass on to the next generation.

Thank you.

John is our next speaker.

I support fully funded police and fire departments, and there should be no cuts to police and fire.

Cut 54 million from DCR.

They are not delivering on outcomes.

250 million wasted on homeless over 10 years and sell the 102-acre meadow view.

Problem solved.

The homeless commit 30% of crimes and cause 2,000 fires every year.

The auditors said the homeless crimes are expensive.

17 million for security, outreach, and cleanups.

16 million went to planning managers, attorneys, and infrastructure repairs.

Only 13 percent of homeless have funds went towards homeless permanent housing.

Spending so much on administrative overhead by DCR is a waste of money.

In the last 16 years, Sacramento's population has surged by 11%, with 67,000 new residents now calling the city home.

But the sworn police patrols that have protect us have actually decreased by 7%.

There are 78 police vacancies.

Key units that protect us, narcotics, financial crimes, vice, and high profile offender teams were eliminated and never restored.

This means dangerous criminals are slipping through the cracks.

Despite defunding the police efforts, the police have seized over 275,000 fentanyl pills from drug dealers.

1,398 fentanyl-related deaths on the streets, and 526 homeless deaths have been picked up by the county medical examiner.

The medical examiner corner has removed more homeless and addicts from the streets than city nonprofits.

Shameful.

The medical examiner gets more people off the street than DCR.

Cut DCR.

By adequately funding our police, we can increase life-saving homeless citations and offer a genuine chance for rehabilitation for those struggling with addiction and mental illness.

This is not about punishment.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Jim Randlett, then Jeffrey Lindsay.

Good afternoon.

Glad to see him.

Actually, I have too much detail here.

But I will just say this one thing.

And governments are organized.

If you just have warlords, as we're seeing around the world, uh the reason the governments exist is to protect the people.

And of course, in America, fortunately, the function of public safety is with the police department.

And if you don't have people feeling safe in the community and secure in the feeling community, how are people going to go downtown?

How are they going to go to the parks and do that?

So please respond to the number one function of government, which is public safety.

Thank you.

Jeffrey Lindsey.

Richard Wake.

And Michelle Gray Samuel.

Good afternoon, City Council members.

My name is Jeffrey Lindsay.

I am here on behalf of a homeowner here on West Shore in the Thomas area, 95834.

I'm speaking tonight respectfully to oppose the transition of micro housing development considering for our community.

West Shore is a relatively new neighborhood in the Thomas area.

West Shore is a relatively new neighborhood in the Thomas area that's largely consists of working families, first-time home buyers who have invested their savings and long-term futures and building a stable home in the community.

Many residents move to establish roots, raise families, and build their equity for their homes and have the American dream.

While recognize the sim and sympathize with the serious challenges faced with individuals experiencing on house, I believe that placement and transitional housing must be carefully planned and considered for neighborhood compatibility, safety, and long-term impact.

Residents in our area have several important questions that deserve clear answers.

For example, what is the screen and take process that will be used for these individuals placed in these homes?

What is the on-site management security measures that will be implemented?

And how was this particular location determined to be the most appropriate site?

These questions are important because homeowners and families are in this neighborhood and considered about maintaining a stable community and have their property values still appropriate.

I respectfully ask the city council to reconsider the placement of this project in our neighborhood and evaluate alternative locations that may be more appropriate in the transitional housing.

Thank you for your time.

I have five more speakers.

The next is Richard Wake.

Following Richard is Michelle Gray Samuel, then Paulina Collink.

Yeah, good afternoon, Richard Wake, City Council District 7.

First of all, I'm going to tip my hat to Mr.

Pedro, our neighbors down in Southland Park.

Uh you know, think the world of him, he's doing a lot with very little.

We appreciate you.

So, you know, I send a lot of emails about this issue about you know homelessness in City Council District 7.

But let me just say this the residents of the where I live on 35th Avenue in Southland Park are tired of District 1 NIMBYism.

Okay.

Now, while the impacts in City Council District 7 may not be as great, or there may not be as many homeless people, that's not how we look at it.

Despite Mr.

Pedro's good efforts to keep the levy clear down at Chicory Bend and at the South Hill Shopping Center, I mean, here's how it was explained to me, okay?

You get people that have income out of the homeless shelters that are in certain age groups, get them into the microhomes, and you have more room for people that have far more critical needs, and you're reducing the cost of battling homelessness because you're getting more of those people off the streets who really need more help that don't have income that need the services.

Look, Councilmember Kaplan was for that place.

It's on record.

Let me just tell you the people that I am working with in City Council District 7 are tired of her crap.

Period.

It's ridiculous.

We need to get more people off the streets and into the shelters and into the microhomes.

Okay.

That's it.

I mean, it's it's going if you find another place for this, all it's going to do is bring in the next group of uh of NIMBEs.

That's all that's gonna happen.

That is all that's gonna happen.

And you know what?

We need to start getting these people off the streets and into the shelters.

We're tired of Ms.

Kaplan's actions on this.

We're sick of it.

And as far as my city council district, council thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Michelle and then Paulina.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Michelle, then Paulina, then Marbella.

Good evening, Mayor McCarthy Cardi and Council members.

Thank you for allowing me to address you today.

My name is Michelle Gray Samuel, and I'm a 25-year resident of the Witter Ranch community in North Nothomas District 3.

In listening to the various budget balancing efforts for the Department of Community Response, my concerns are even more alarmed by the project that is scheduled to break ground in April on the corner of El Centro and Arena.

Throughout my 30-year career in managing state and federal grant compliance measures for various community initiatives, including homelessness, I've learned that the success of such programs hinge on three key elements: community support, comprehensive services, and reliable funding.

Without these, even the best intentions can falter.

This brings me to some very pressing questions.

If the city is prepared to ignore its own laws and procurement processes designed to prevent waste and abuse, what guarantees do we have that it will honor its commitments to uphold any regulations moving forward to maintain the community?

If the voices of our elected leaders who have offered viable alternatives continue to be dismissed, how can we expect this project to garner the community support it so desperately needs to be successful?

Considering the city's current $60 million budget deficit and the rising cost of essential services, these aren't questions just for North Natonists, but for all of Sacramento.

I urge you to reconsider the alternative site proposed by Vice Mayor Tolamentez and Councilmember Kaplan.

And please commit to uphold the city laws and safeguards that foster public trust and heed the voices of those in the community that they love.

Thank you.

Paulina, then Marmaya, then Michael Milton.

Hi, my name is Paulina Kulick.

I'm a resident of District One.

I'm here to oppose any funding to the microcommunities proposed at four different locations throughout the city.

Each microcommit community will cost the city five million dollars to build 40 cabins that are 120 square feet and don't even have bathrooms.

Quick math, that's over a thousand dollars per square foot.

Meanwhile, I can go down the street from this proposed location and buy a brand new luxury home for $300 per square foot.

That's over a 300% markup.

Now, why then would the city do this three more times at a total cost of 20 million dollars?

Something doesn't add up.

Why are you talking about firing city employees to pay so much more money for this project?

Where is the money going?

Taxpayers deserve transparency, and I think that city council members should be outraged at the amount of waste.

An email from the City Express from the City of Sacramento sent yesterday says the Roseville Road microcommunity, which these four communities are modeled after, is at only half capacity.

They state that there are 68 vacant cabins, vacant cabins.

This project was completed in 2025.

Why are we building more of these if we can't even fill the ones that we have right now?

In addition to the clear lack of oversight on the budgetary issues of this project, it is located in zone AG Open Space and within 500 feet of two city parks, which City Code doesn't even allow.

Please follow your own rules.

Should you choose to continue and proceed with this project, the community vice mayor Talamantes, Councilmember Kaplan have already proposed an alternate location.

It's construction ready, and it would save this.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Marbella Sala, then Michael Melton.

Good evening.

And thank you.

And I just want to say I feel so humbled by being acknowledged by my um vice mayor Talamantes as what happened today.

I I'm humbled and honored.

But my comments are I want to say that the Office of Economic Development.

I know that they're coming up with cuts and and every department is gonna have there's no no way around it, and I get that.

But I just want to acknowledge that the work they've done in Northgate Garden Land has been phenomenal, and I want to thank them.

They've worked with our community.

Our community is unique and it is challenging, but they rolled up their sleeves and worked with our businesses and have really gotten to know it.

And the whole issue of economic development is so critical.

And last Tuesday, it was mentioned, I think council member uh Vang mentioned it that economic development goes along with safety.

When you get when you deal with poverty, you also it's prevention and it also helps with safety.

It isn't a it isn't that brown and black people and young people are not good.

It's just there's no opportunities for them.

And when you develop a community and you help arise from the poverty and you do prevention, you eliminate in the long run the safety issue.

So I think that's a really important piece that we forget, and we need to always remember in Gardenland Northgate, we need that economic development.

And the last the last point I just want to make very quickly is I noticed that there's no mention on your agenda, access to interpreter services, and I think you need to mention that so people know that if I don't speak English, I have a place that I can call and get an interpreter or I can have an interpreter for me waiting.

I think that's important.

And thank you for funding not cutting the fuel network.

Thank you.

That was good.

Michael Melton will be our final speaker on this item.

Good evening, everyone.

All right, you know, Ms.

Peter, you my boy, but uh please stop building tiny houses and um shelters, short-term relief, when at the end of the day there are no apartments to move into.

Making parking lots, uh spending millions, like what five million you talk about on all these tiny homes instead of uh something like 85 Silver Eagle Road, it's 162,000 for uh 0.96 acres, and it's it's more land next to that, where you can and it's in the city, it's enough space to build over 50 apartments right there.

You can make 25 for the elderly, you can make 25 for for people with disallowed assistance programs.

And while you're doing it at the same time, you can make a parking area for the homeless, for the people you say you need some, so you can have security guards right there.

Wow, while while you're building it that building on the same site, the the people can can be can be parked right here at this same area.

And uh it's on Silver Eagle, is it's no schools or anything near there.

Um, and uh you know it's a bit of a bus stop right there on the street, or you could go to the Kennedy Estates across the street from um uh the Kennedy Straits Estates on 65th and uh Elder Creek right there.

It's it's a whole bunch, it's all it's acres of land right there that's in the city where where it is less than a hundred thousand dollars to get an acre, I mean less less than two hundred thousand dollars to get an acre of land.

So if you could get a uh uh uh eight uh put what nine point six acres for a hundred and sixty-two thousand right now, you can look it up on on redwood with Marbado, Zillow, wherever you want to.

So um 65th Street, like I said, it's a lot of cheap land instead of wasting time, wasting money on places and tiny homes that is just a short-term relief.

Why not make a real relief and get it all out the way?

If we're gonna spend five million here, five million there, five million here, why not just spend a hundred thousand here and just build a whole bunch of apartments?

Three story, three, the three the three-story apartments, and and build communities.

It's it's places a garden highway.

All right.

Thank you for your comments.

And may I have no more speakers?

I know there's some people in the audience who are confused.

This item is not the tiny homes project.

Um, and you've signed up for matters not on the agenda.

I do have your speaker slips for that.

Okay.

So, Mayor, we have no more speakers on this agenda item.

The budget hearing, we'll get back to that.

Members of council.

So, sir, you signed up you you assigned up for matters not on the agenda.

That's the next topic on this agenda.

Oh, next.

Correct.

Um City Clerk, can you explain uh what like the difference is like this is like or can I explain it?

Uh yeah, I'd be happy to.

Okay, that'd be great.

So the agenda item at hand right now is an early budget work session.

So the departments made presentations for matters not in the agenda, those are all the items that are not a topic that is listed on the agenda.

Um, and that would be the appropriate time to talk about the micro um, the commute the tiny homes um that you're discussing.

That project is not on the agenda this evening.

Everybody else, yeah.

Do we have questions or account or comments on the budget?

Budget presentation.

Uh Mr.

Jennings.

Oh, Council Mary Maple.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, well, first I want to say thank you so much for all of the presentations.

I know it was a lot of information.

Um, and I just want to acknowledge that this is this is the start of the process.

I pulled up the our uh handy dandy and you pulled up here.

Budget hearing schedule.

Um so we're at the our March 10th, and we have hearings on the 17th on the 24th of March on April 28th, on May 5th, May 5th, May 12th, May 12th, May 19th, May 26th, and then uh lastly on June 9th.

And I say that um for the public's information because I know what happens when the the staff recommendations and proposals start to come out is what gets reported in the news might be something like City of Sacramento considering cutting uh raising parking fees, city of Sacramento considering cutting police department and so on and so forth, leaving on the impression that we've made decisions and that things are set in stone, and it's really important to understand that that's not the place that we're at in this process.

In fact, we are at the very beginning.

It's really helpful to get information and understand what the various departments do.

Um and we've asked them to do an incredibly difficult task.

Uh, we've asked them to say what would 15% look like as a cut, and that's that's hard, but that doesn't mean that this council will decide to cut 15% from every place.

And uh, me personally, my view is that um across the 15% across the board in every department does not make sense to me.

There are certain departments that need more support, others that can probably that may be able to sustain it, and I think that that's the way that at least I am looking at it.

I know that's probably true of my other colleagues, and so I just say that so that the public understands that we are at the beginning of the process and that um there will be a lot of uh discussion and debate ahead of us.

We do have to make tough choices, that is no doubt.

Um, we have uh a budget deficit that we must uh address.

It is required by law that we balance the budget, and we will do that as we have done every year since I've been on this dais.

Um I hope that there will be a year soon when we do not have a deficit, uh, but unfortunately, this is the the place that we're in.

I like I always um like to mention because it's true, is we are not alone.

There are cities all across the state of California who are experiencing this, and it's very challenging.

It has a lot to do with economic conditions.

Uh, when you look around, I know that you all open up your pocketbooks and you take a look and you know that the price of gas has gone up and unfortunately is rising.

You know that the cost of food has increased, your insurance rates have gone up.

That is also true for the city's perspective.

We the the cost of things have gone up for us too, and we have to figure out how to pay for that.

And then unfortunately, when people are are pinched and squeezed in their pocketbooks, they spend less, and that means less on tax revenues for the city.

Um, and so these are things that we must do and balance, and we will.

Um but you know, I just think it's important to say because I have been getting a lot of questions and concerns from residents.

They see something on the news and they think that we've you know decided to increase parking or we've done uh one thing or another, and it's important that that we know that that that's not the case.

We won't be um passing a finalized budget until June.

So we still have quite a few months ahead of us of discussion.

I know that um this body will do the hard and diligent work to figure out what makes sense going into the line items, as was mentioned by one of the public speakers.

I agree with that.

Um, there's a lot of line items we need to look at, including as I will say again, I sound like a broken record contracts.

We have contracts in uh nearly every department of the city, and I'm not sure um when was the last time some of those, if not a lot of them, have been really taken a look at.

I think there's a lot of opportunity to renegotiate, as Mr.

Pedro has shown us.

Uh you know, with his great negotiation skills.

I think we can there's a lot that we could do in that front.

I also agree that we need to take a look at the programs in almost every department, really ask ourselves what were the goals, have these programs achieved the goals?

And if they're not, we have to be willing to say that um goodbye, or maybe not right now, depending on what it is.

And so that's the work that will happen over the next several months.

Um, but for now, I just want to say thank you to the departments, very helpful.

Um, and I'm hopeful that um particularly some of the most difficult cuts that were uh possible cuts that were mentioned today will not happen.

Uh we can find a way around them.

Thank you.

Budget questions.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Uh thank thank you, Mayor.

Um, for our Office of Innovation and Economic Development, um, and I guess I should also make sure I ask our our city manager and city attorney what is the status of the BOT proposal coming to council for full council discussion?

Because that at the baseline is uh economic development of bringing eight to ten extra million dollars into the city coffers for making large businesses, corporations who only pay five thousand dollars a year, pay the same for business operating tax.

And I'm talking about businesses that gross over 15, 20 million dollars a year, um, that should come for full council because I know it went to law and ledge, but it was supposed to come to council for full discussion.

Yeah, thank you for the question.

I had a conversation with staff this week, and we plan on bringing a TOT study session to actually prioritize the projects uh sometime in April.

Okay, I'm talking about BOT, not TOT.

BLT.

That is a good question.

I have not had a discussion around BLT at this time, so um, I'm gonna need to get back to you on BLT.

Okay, because I did send a request into the city attorney asking that I know it went through law and ledge, and uh several elected said we're not moving it forward, but the last direction from council is have this discussion and it should come back to council.

So just looking for when that might come forward.

Mr.

Mayor, I think one of the the law alleged chair wanted to pipe in here.

Yeah, thank you.

Um so uh on BOT specifically, uh, after hosting a series of listening sessions, working with the business community, working with our um residents.

Um it was we just are decided that with the mayor's approval that he we would convene a working group of the a subsection of the committee of the city council that would work over the next year or so to put together a plan alongside the business community and and members of um and our residents that would come forward with the plan of 2028.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I would still like to have this conversation come to the full city council.

As since this is something all of us should vote on, it should come for direction so that all council members can have uh input and direction as you go into the working group, so that subsection is actually representing the council will noted, thank you.

Um moving on to a couple other questions.

Um Brian, can you come on up?

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

You're still full of shit.

Appreciate that.

Another supporter.

Couple of things that that you brought up.

I just uh would like you to explain a little bit further.

Um in your budget you had 3.7 million for community outreach.

What exactly is that 3.7?

Let's go see exactly what we're trying to find here.

We've got to go.

So 3.7 in community outreach is uh the funding for um salaries for the outreach component of DCR.

Oh, okay.

So those that are on the ground, they had the outreach specialists.

Okay, thank you.

Um and then when we look at you said there's revenue of of 36,000 opening uh for the micro home communities.

What was that estimate based off of?

So that estimate was um very conservative.

Was one community that would be opened at the beginning of 27, and then we'd have the 90-day period of uh no program fees, and then we would still have three months before we got to end the fiscal year.

Has council seen or been presented what it's actually gonna cost to operate uh per site, the tiny homes.

Uh when we did the projection or when we did the um homeless workshop, we had um projected uh operating and um build out capital costs for the okay.

Is there a way that um we can be presented with a breakout of that because that was combined together, and now since you you do have one potentially opening to get a breakout, because again, um this is run under the city a city manager's authority and council has no authority to approve these contracts.

So uh I uh and the public have not seen them.

What contracts have been approved, what's the cost, and then what's the estimated breakdown for operations between security and whatever else uh is who's picking up the trash, is the city operating it, are we getting another operator?

So I think it would be um incumbent that we get a breakdown of those costs for transparency for taxpayer purposes if possible.

Is that is that sure, sure.

And and again, a lot of that was brought forward when I uh presented the whole concept of microcommunities, and we talked about capital costs, we talked about operating costs, uh, and there is uh a lot of misinformation that uh I would be glad to uh get in front of and explain that um that we heard here today on what the microcommunity actually is.

Yeah, and I would appreciate that because as what we talk about things in theory, um, I think it's important upon as as elected officials, we're also incumbent upon uh double checking and transparency.

What is the actual cost?

Because that was a projection, and you now have actualities.

So I think bringing those forward and having conversations about what the actuality of cost to construct and then the cost to to operate um would be would be fruitful.

Um switching a little bit to the 3.2 million you had for the city motel voucher program.

Can you explain it a little bit more?

I don't understand where the savings is going to come in because we did have an audit that was released last year that showed um things we needed to fix, which you're already on top of.

Um, and I appreciate that, and you've streamlined it, but it's also one of our most effective programs and cost effective, where I think it said it was about eighty two hundred dollars per person served in our hotel motel voucher system.

So that is truly effective when you look at the cost of um everything, and uh have you looked at expanding that, but I don't want to see a reduction in it because you say there's savings.

So help me understand where the 3.2 million um so there's a couple of things that are so I mean simultaneously things that are going on with the motel program in that we had the audit, but two years ago we already started looking at the motel program.

So we started with that program costing us about 9.2 million a year.

We renew renegotiated it last year, brought it down to 7.8 million.

We renegotiated again for the voucher program, bringing us to about six million.

And within that, we looked at the um and and it was part of what we were already looking at, but also part of what the audit brought up of what is the the actual goal of the um city motel program, and it was to provide uh housing shelter for families, unsheltered families.

As we have been digging into this and looking at who's staying in this because it started as COVID sheltering.

Uh we have a lot of uh tail enders that uh weren't families, um, and then we're looking at because we are making sure that we're being effective and efficient with all of our funding.

How many unsheltered families do we have in our system?

Now I can tell you with all of our outreach teams in the street over the last year, we've run across nine families that are unsheltered, and we immediately grab them and put them in our program.

And so as we go through the program and look at which families are unsheltered versus which families don't want to stay in an inconvenient place, we have to make those tough decisions.

Now that will bring us that not only the cutting down of the cost of the program, the additional reduction in that program will right size that program for the need, and that's where that savings is coming from.

So it could be possible that a discussion of our motel hotel program comes back to the council for fault policy, because while it was originally set up for families, this could be expanded to address couples, correct?

Or seniors.

It it could be.

Because when I'm hearing you when you say you right size it, there are people who are currently using this, but are now going to be exited out to where or back onto the streets.

They will not be exited back onto the street.

What we're doing is we're going through the program to determine who is is truly unsheltered and who is staying at the site for convenience essentially.

Um it is the uh most cost effective because you're taking and paying for one room and putting uh family in it.

And so if you divide by cost per person, it's the least expensive program.

Um but you're also putting a family unit in there versus a single taking up a single space.

I mean, that's just math.

But but it is a conversation.

So you say family, what about I know there are many uh homeless couples that get spread uh split up because there's a woman and a man shelter.

So you could have that.

Um there could also be seniors who wish to be together, and this is a room that has same amount of bed, but it also has an inside bathroom and and hot pots, almost like what the tiny homes would have, correct?

Um except tiny homes don't have bathrooms.

So the and and we're talking we're talking about budget, not necessarily.

Yes, 100%.

And as it relates back to budget because of the cost per tiny homes, I'm looking at ways because I can tell you I heard the presentation from our police department and our fire department.

Um, I think my family uh our priorities in the city, we've got a little bit of a compliment between our our our homelessness and public safety, and my my community has been very clear that we got quality of life issues, and while we've experienced a downturn in crime, the cuts that are being presented by the police department are significant and will have a heavy impact.

So I'm trying to find ways and have the discussion and get from you what is the most effective.

If tiny homes, as elected leaders, we have to have these honest conversations.

If the tiny homes are not the most cost effective, but looking at our hotel motel shelter system is, and that saves a couple million dollars, because that's what I'm looking at.

I'd rather have that couple million dollars.

I'm not supporting the elimination of OVP or the cadets or all of our specialty units.

That to my community is more important versus expanding and wasting taxpayer dollars when we already have efficient systems in our homelessness like there.

So I'm trying to get answers from you on that because how do I make good budget decisions if I can't weigh those policies of what is effective and what is not effective?

And so the uh prime example of uh what you're talking about of uh spending uh our money on microcommunities again.

We looked back, and one of the reasons was exactly what's happening with Xtreet.

That shelter, the leases running out, and if that shelter closes, we have a hundred people that have that we will have to figure out and put back in the system.

If we spent that same amount of money on microcommunities, we would have people in permanent and the money runs out, the microcommunity still stands.

The reason that the microcommunity was built out in such a way and back billing for Cal Aim and a program fee was to offset the operating costs of it and keeping it low to save the city money for that to on ongoing operating costs.

The um if we try to build even a simple shelter right now, we're looking at when when we built X Street, it was five million dollars in 2020.

If we try and do that today, we're looking at six, seven million.

So there's there's no comparison in that.

And um I I appreciate what you're saying, and but also appreciate that we have cut over the last two years.

We've trimmed off 11 million last year that we set aside for CIP for microcommunities.

This year is another eight and a half million, and then we still have HAP funding, and we're giving back uh four million dollars.

So with DCR alone, we're looking at like a ten million dollar give back in cutting our operating costs and savings and getting us through next year.

And I will laud every day that you have done an amazing job on that.

In our contracts, like, and I have said that publicly of where I really appreciate how you've gone through and done that efficiently.

But as we have these policy conversations, I think it's really important that the council asks the hard questions of what are we weighing?

Are we getting rid of our canine units or are we expanding tiny homes?

Are we getting rid of our uh high school cadets or expanding tiny homes?

These are the decisions we have to weigh because uh help me understand that eight million, five million is general fund for the tiny homes that could actually be used elsewhere.

Um five million is for safe camping, safe parking, and then a portion of it will be to uh but we could use that it's general fund, so we could use that elsewhere, correct?

Sure, we would have to make the decision of whether we want to support where we want to support how much we want to support homelessness.

That's really the bigger question.

And I would say that homeless prevention and getting unsheltered off the street is a as an important part of public safety as anything.

So then the challenge is where will we spend our money?

100%, and that's what's before us because when you talk about prevention, actually, we don't spend money on prevention, which is actually more effective than when people end up on the streets.

So we have a lot of difficult decisions, just as much as I agree with uh council member maple outside contracts.

What are we spending our monies on?

Um, but I think we also have to have that hard discussion of do we pause expanding things, look at what's working, and maybe at a a more cost effective expand what is working.

And then uh at elk X Street Shelter, do you have an outside provider providing services?

Yes.

But at these tiny homes, we don't have an outside provider providing services.

Uh we will we will use our current um uh case workers that we have in a current contract and expand that contract to provide the case management at the sites, but they won't be on site like X Street.

They will be on site, they will be on site uh Monday through Friday, and then security is 24-7.

So but there's only one 24-7.

Security will be security, but not on-site services.

There will be on-site services Monday through Friday, a case management and anything that is needed, and then the weekend is security, which will likely be a case manager over the weekend as well, because it's it's more security for the site itself and monitoring cameras to make sure that uh access is only for the people that are living there.

So I think as as council members, um, and thank you, Mr.

Picho.

I'm good.

Um, I think council members, as we look at this, we have to have these hard policy conversations of where are we going to spend our money?

Um, I think homelessness is a priority, but is it more effective spent elsewhere than some of the things we're doing?

Um, because we don't have data where we have uh data other else, and while we're calling these temporary shelters, they're long-term shelters, and we really have to think about as we're looking at budget cuts.

Are we gonna have the operating expenses to continue these, or are they gonna shut down like camp resolution after a year or two?

And and what was this for?

What did we gain?

Versus I know right now, I think it's on the corner of 7th and T.

There are approximately 77 uh units that were built at 250,000 that CADA could buy, SHRA could buy, the city could buy, creating permanent already pre-built affordable housing to get more people off our streets, and there may be gap financing of three million, and isn't that a better use of our funding of creating permanent housing and permanency versus spending it on something that we're claiming is temporary, being built as permanent because people are saying that they can live there for the rest of their lives, and that's not meeting the definition of temporary.

Well, at the same time, we're listening to our our police and fire talking about decimating um their their programs.

So um fire chief, are you still you're hiding?

I appreciate uh your conversations and honesty.

I want to dig into a little bit about the budget impact because sometimes we talk about numbers and don't understand the reality of the impact.

Um there was a study done in 2016 that said that the department was responding to 68,501 calls for service per year with 34 fire companies and 15 ambulances.

Last year that was looked at, and today the department is responding to approximately 110,000 calls for service, a 60% increase, which is even more because that was you know early 2025 numbers, with no additional fire companies, and we've only added in single roll.

I also just saw that is it 42 or 47 that are off on injured work-related injuries firefighters?

It's I just checked it's 43 as of today.

43.

Um new fire stations.

We have an obnoxious amount of increased calls, we have more firefighters out on injury reserve.

Have we looked at what that actual cost is to the city versus potentially building another fire station and getting more fire personnel?

So a couple of different things.

Yes, we we have looked at the cost, like firefighters on injury on duty.

We know that there's a cost that we can put to that number.

Um this year it'll be about four million dollars in lost hours.

So um but in that too, there's um Chief Builder has been working on with risk going around.

I don't know if he's spoken to you yet, but his study um on how we can recover those firefighters sooner so their time off is shortened.

Um that helps us with the mandatory overtime, it helps us with overtime and staffing in general.

So um, in this structural deficit that we're facing right now, it you know, if you're gonna ask me as the fire chief in the city of Sacramento, do we need more fire stations and firefighters?

I'm going to tell you yes.

But as we participate in the structural deficit, uh what we went through, the 15% reduction, it it doesn't allow us it actually we're getting rid of um vacant firefighters positions right now to meet that 23 million dollar cut that we're looking at.

Will it uh require brownouts by fire stations?

Yeah, if if we go to the total amount, yes, so we caught it cost two browns.

And what does a two burnouts a day?

Yes, two burnouts a day.

Um and and are we meeting our fire safety standards for response time um according to national standards?

We do in the downtown core, it's a little bit um it depends on the area of the city that you're in right now.

District one, we have nothing in North Lake.

How approximately how long does it take for you fire uh the various fire stations who are not close to get to the North City community?

Actually, for me to fairly answer your question, I'd have to do a run study for North Lake and get back to you, but it's it's going to be uh north of the five minute mark, which is what we shoot for, because that's in any medical aid, or if I'm talking about fires, it's a different number, but medical aids, five minutes, that's where brain death starts.

Fires double in size every minute.

So all those numbers, anything we reduce reduces all the services that we have, whether it's fire, medical, technical rescue, swift water rescue, um anything that we reduce now is going to increase our response times and decrease our services.

So one of the things as we look at the budget, because I thought this was an I appreciate the cost of like four million like work hours.

Yes, but it also puts where it increases overtime.

But it also puts where it increases overtime.

So it almost has you've got the four million here, but you're increasing, which is more expensive over here.

And I've saw that like the fire department went a little over because overtime of covering for those uh injured.

Yes.

So if we go brownouts, people are going to continue, firefighters are going to continue to do overtime, which is actually going to cause them additional burnout, which might lead to additional work-related injuries.

Am I wrong?

No, you're you're not wrong.

If you reduce firefighter FTEs, you're going to have people the same workforce that's here that was here in 2016, is going to be working to fill those vacancies.

Um if we reduce the vacancies, where there are no people, right?

But those aren't the people working.

It's the people that are here today that continue to work.

They're the ones that are going to get injured, and they're older, they're 10 years older now.

So as we get older, as we age, our backs and knees, um, shoulders, everything, it's repetitive motion type job.

So injuries will go up.

Um, the backfill, there's not as many people to backfill, so people are working more.

Um morale goes down.

There's it's it's measurable.

I think it's important as as I look at this as a budget as we move forward, actually understanding while we might be making these cuts, it will actually be costing the city more money.

So I don't have enough data to balance of versus we keep firefighters.

Um we should be staffing the what's gonna go out uh and hopefully get constructed in the next year, the North Lake Fire Station, because it really is, I've heard uh approximately an eight-minute response because you got freeways and no easy way to get there.

Um, and that community, this fire station should have already been built.

It's on the county side.

So I know we're trying to work through the county to get that built.

Um, but also I know the rest of the city has huge fire infrastructure needs, and then when you don't have adequate stations, that impacts firefighters and well, which may impact the revenue, uh, single roll, everything else we're getting getting in.

So I need to understand the cost benefit analysis analysis.

I hear you made these cuts, but what I'm seeing by data that I've read is that it's actually gonna cost the city more if we make these cuts.

So just something if you and your team can get together, I want to want to dig in and see a little bit more of.

Yeah, we can bring that to you.

Thank you.

Okay, Chief, same question.

One chief to another chief.

Um just to clarify about our vacancies and uh who's out.

Where I know we're down 22 officers this time uh this year versus last year, so that's significant.

Um since you asked the chief the question, I had the opportunity to ping um uh chief Bails.

We uh currently have 17 people, I'm sorry, 22 people that are out, and then another 15 that are out light duty, which um you know it's not a typical to have about 10% of your working staff out any time due to injuries, leave, etc.

And I would like to clarify uh there's a question about vacancies.

We have we're proposing 40 sworn vacancies to be reduced in this budget.

11 of those vacancies will be eliminated from contracts from RT and from Natomas Unified.

The filled positions are actually 15 on that list that are filled now.

Um, and I won't mess up the word layoff, but um they won't um they'll be moved to additional positions, so they won't leave the organization.

I just want to clarify that, make sure I gave you the right info.

But it could be so just for example, because we all love horses, right?

You know, you eliminate that, an officer can go look and for another jurisdiction that may have it.

Not likely, but but they could leave the city if because that is their passion and love.

Yeah, our loss um with the proposed budget is uh of the 62 positions equates to about 128,000 hours of staff time and over six million dollars.

And so that would have to be reduced out of our budget in order for us to meet um our you know, kind of our budget mandates right now.

Question on on that, because you jumped ahead, that was next uh my list.

That's okay.

Um, when you're talking about the retirees and the reduction and the amount of hours you don't have, who's filling those hours?

Um, so we're having to use our permanent staff to do that, and many agencies across the state of California use retired annuitants um and use that program to fulfill functions and vacancy savings has always funded those positions.

Um it also funds our police recruits, um, any other reserve um position.

Our budget is about six million dollars and authorized overtime that hasn't changed over the number of years, and last year we came in at about 21 million.

So we would need to reduce that just with the proposal an additional six million, and then we have to transfer the work that those reserves were doing to either full-time employees or it just delays us in a lot of what they were doing were transparency efforts, as you know, the laws have changed, and so there's a lot more that we make publicly available and things that um are retroactive.

And so that's a lot of what the work was that they were doing.

What would prioritize that work would be you know, if we had a significant use of forest officer involved shootings?

Uh clearly there's state mandates and there's certainly council mandates, and then we try and get that information out as quickly as possible.

So it's an all hands-on-deck um operation.

We have to do that type of redaction to get that out.

So on the retired annuity, is it something you can fix?

How how do we fix that?

I need a legislative fix.

Um, we're trying to work with PERS, and I think everyone recognizes that the 2013 PEPRA laws that were put into place.

Um, you know, there is definitely some confusion around some of the definitions, um, and certainly there is a need and a demand for uh the work of retired and new advances to do around the state.

So we're currently, you know, working with our legislators trying to fix that.

But in the meantime, um, you know, we have to take the language as it currently stands, which really limits our ability to use retired and nuance past about five years.

So um knowing your capabilities, have you talked to our state leaders about the introduction of legislation and handling because it's not just the city of Sacramento, right?

Right, the city of Sacramento can't control obviously uh how the law is currently written, but yes, absolutely, we're working with um you know, a number of lobbyists we're working with state agencies because I think everyone realizes that there needs to be a fix there.

Okay, so this could be maybe next year if there's a fix, an answer in some of this, but in the meantime, we've we've got this this gap.

Um, kind of almost the same question as you know, you've got officers that are out, um we are down officers.

What is the cost benefit analysis of you know that's causing overtime?

Now we're cutting, are we actually increasing overtime?

And if we're not, what services are we actually?

I need to be clear with my my community.

What services are they getting now that they will not get?

Well, right now I think the the biggest user of our overtime is backfill overtime, which is to make sure that patrol has sufficient staffing.

And um we've tried, you know, knowing that we use vacancy savings, which is not ideal.

I know we've talked about this at a number of council sessions throughout the budget.

You know, you're paying um an employee time and a half.

When if you had a full-time employee in that position, you'd be getting the same work for less, right?

And we want to fill those vacancies, that's the better option.

If we are um, if we do need to reduce the budget by um, you know, several millions of dollars uh due to the loss of vacancies, we'd have to make some hard choices.

Um, obviously uh we have mandates, things are outside of our control, and we have demonstrations, you know, we want to make sure that people are safe during First Amendment events.

We have CommCenter and 911 requirements that the state has that we need to fulfill and meet, and then certainly we need to provide a basic level of service.

We're not is the community safe, but we have enough officers in the field so that they can keep each other safe and handle calls appropriately.

So something specialty services or event services, sometimes they request officers.

Who's paying for that officer?

Um generally, if it's not a supplemental employment or contracted or a permitted um function, that comes out of our overall budget.

There is no funding for those events.

So if we've got to look at potentially cuts and that comes out of that, then there could be where we get requests and special events get turned down because there are no officers.

Correct.

Uh, we also have supplemental employment where people can permit through the city, they can request officers.

We currently have a very difficult time filling those positions because there are so much backfill overtime and mandates.

And you know, I don't need to speculate about what this looks like.

You can go back to 2020, 2021, where you saw very clearly, you know, when you remove officers and employees from their regular duty assignments, there are impacts in other parts of the organization.

I just recently reported, as you know, on the violent crime spike that we had between 2020 and 21.

Um, and that um there was a lot of reasons for that, but I can guarantee one of the biggest reasons is that uh we pulled officers out of our communities to do other things that were also important, but the impact was uh pretty significant increase in cross.

So on your list of potential cuts, is that pulling officers out of our communities?

Absolutely.

Because I think that's important that we dig down and ask these questions and be very honest with the cuts that are on the table that are being proposed, what what the impact is.

So if you can, you know, I don't know how you fully, but like just understanding the cost benefit because as we're looking at a budget, a cut may actually end up costing us more versus saving the money in the long term.

Um so anything you can you could do on that, uh I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks, Chief.

We'll report back.

Thank you.

Um just a couple of my comments on vacancies.

Um I'm good with some temporary pauses, but for how long it takes to get a police officer hired, get a dispatcher hired where we've got significant shortages.

We cannot eliminate all vacant positions.

If that's the direction the council is going to go, we cannot eliminate those.

We have to have positions that our new recruits and our dispatchers can go into because it takes a you know, six, nine dispatchers, potentially 18 months, um, which is going to set us back.

So I am I am not for eliminating we have to have positions to hire people, especially knowing that we are down 22 officers from last year to this year.

And I think we have to have an honest conversation and not keep all of our our department budgets chunked.

It could be that some reductions come from some apartments to fill the priorities uh in in other areas.

And I'm very supportive of um, I've already said it for our cadets.

You know, we should not be eliminating our high school programs.

I'm still disappointed.

We don't have our SROs at Nathomas Unified because we need to fill our patrols, because I can tell you those cadets got people interested into the police and fire academy, which are our future officers, which keeps them here in town and also creates relationships at our schools.

That intercome as big as it is, does not have you know gang and other violence issues because we had officers in our Natoma schools, um, and that makes a big difference when we have to pull our officers out of our communities.

That's a less community touch.

And I can tell you uh a big reason for our violent reduction that we are all touting is the good work that the Office of Violence Prevention does and our community-based organizations that are on the streets every day and out there talking to our teens.

It is a concerted effort between our officers and those uh community-based organizations who are on the streets.

Um, and I just can't imagine that we would we would remove funding from them.

Um I will end my time.

I've spoken a lot.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Plucky Bond.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh a few thoughts.

Um economic development is uh we've been talking a lot about that over the last year.

Um the the reason that we're as focused on economic development right now is in part because of this budget crisis.

We are trying very much to invest in this city and grow our tax base so that we don't have to make these kinds of uh difficult decisions.

Uh a few weeks ago we had a deep dive conversation about economic development.

I'm not gonna repeat everything I said there, but there was uh one uh glaring omission in my comments at that time that I would like to correct now, which was uh I did not mention how important the arts are uh as a part of that overall conversation.

And so uh apologies in particular to the uh uh convention and cultural services group.

Uh the work that you're doing in particular is the stuff that makes Sacramento fun.

And that is a big part of what will make us an attractive place to be an employer, uh, attractive uh place for those kinds of investments.

And I and I it it is too easy uh when we are looking at um you know other uh core services and and strategic priorities to uh you know discount some of those uh other uh vital services, and uh and I I really just wanted to spend a moment highlighting that as a part of our overall uh economic development strategy.

Um the Department of Community Response was set up as an incident command model.

Uh incident command is designed to be a response to an emergency.

Uh I I had uh concerns at the time when that was done because I wasn't sure we were ever actually going to be able to uh roll out uh roll off of that work.

Uh and I and I'm I I share Councilmember Kaplan's concerns today as we're losing hap funding.

How are we gonna absorb uh you know this uh expenditure in our general fund on a go forward basis?

I would very much like for the city at some point to have a conversation about um how we are going to uh either uh make this an ongoing feature program that we're going to support uh in perpetuity or uh an exit strategy or or or some something in between about what that might look like.

Uh you know, clearly, you know, there is more work to do.

We're not here today uh declaring uh you know victory over homelessness or anything close.

Uh but uh we are also uh at a in a in a you know in a bit of a crisis point in terms of how we're going to uh align our priorities, um, which brings me to uh you know the public safety discussion.

Uh clearly uh, you know, public safety, police and fire, you are our number one priority uh that is uh represented in our budget uh today.

We we want to continue to uh support that uh important priority.

I will say I do not support um one size fits all across the board um uh reductions.

I don't think that's thoughtful.

I think we need to be more strategic and and disciplined about how we make uh these uh cuts and investments, but I will take one point of privilege and say there are a couple of uh all of the 5,000 uh employees of the city, which are all uh unique and important.

There are a couple that are uniquely special, and those are mounted officers.

Those may be the most uh popular city employees in all history.

Uh I can uh attest uh authoritatively that they are more popular than Santa, which is saying a lot.

And if there is a way for us to preserve that as a uh community outreach and um relation up relation building uh opportunity, I know that is not our highest priority.

We need to respond to uh crimes, but if there is a if if there's a chance that we can find room in our hearts and our budgets to preserve those mounted officers, I'm telling you uh yeah, uh all rest there.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, council member Vang.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, just wanted to take this time to thank all the departments who spoke today and uh really shared their proposal uh of how we're gonna address this deficit um and what a potential 15% reduction may look like.

I too do not agree with implementing 50% reduction across the board.

Um a big part of that is because some departments are significantly smaller than others, and applying the same percentage to cut every department uh could really harm those departments, um, especially like our Office of Innovation and Economic Development, our convention cultural services, um, which is a huge economic driver to increase our budget, and council member Polkybaum talked a little bit about that.

I do agree uh with some of my colleagues that we should carefully review some of our contracts and program.

And if certain contractor programs um are not achieving their intended results or outcomes, then we may need to reconsider whether we should continue or whether adjustments should be made to those contracts.

And so uh fully support that as we're moving forward on this conversation.

Um I do have a question uh for Chief Lester, um, and then also a request for the city manager as well.

Um the first question, Chief, I just want to say thank you so much for your really thorough presentation and presenting what a 50% cut will look like.

Um and I I know how incredibly tough that is, and just really can I just um I apologize?

I just want to clarify just because I've heard it um a number of times, and it's probably my fault for not being very clear.

So the budget balancing impacts that the departments presented are not 15%.

Yeah, they're not because I I added them and I was like, oh, that's not 15%.

Yeah, exactly.

So we're um and we we and part of that we've heard from council, hey, we don't want to do across the board cuts.

Uh but I did want to just clarify for everyone, everyone submitted a 15% plan, but only a portion of that is used in what we're calling the quote unquote baseline.

The baseline.

Great.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I apologize for interrupting.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate that.

Um, in your slide, um, what there was one on the slide on um 1.8 cost shifting.

And I know the cost shifting means um that the expense would move from one budget category to another project.

And so I just had a question for the state violence grant in particular.

How are we using that in the cost shifting?

Because I know that with grants, usually there's like a deadline and specific around how the grant should be used.

So I was just curious about the state violence grant and also for the violence prevention my op, how are we using this in the cost shifting?

Yeah, there's a 405,000 savings.

If you remember back in 2022, uh the Office of Violence Prevention was absorbed by the police department.

And so that had been unspent funds um from prior to OVP coming over to PD.

So that's just being returned to the general fund.

The um uh and perhaps I can ask Peter for this too.

We have a five million dollar grant we've received through BSCC.

Um we have proposed a very similar program uh to what we are currently doing, their violence prevention efforts called CLEAR.

Um I can certainly bring up Dr.

Clavo and we can walk through kind of what that looks like.

I touched on it just briefly at during the violent um crime reduction uh presentation that I did.

Um essentially, if you break down the five million dollars over the three-year period, um the 36 month operational period, um, it's essentially a third of that for this year, and that would basically offset any general fund costs.

And so that the funding that we would typically use to pay for OVP and a lot of our grants in that same type of work can now be covered by that grant, and it frees up general fund um money for other things.

Did I explain that the right way from the nonfinance person?

So okay, that's great.

No, thank you so much.

I I appreciate that.

Um, I think for me it's just being able to articulate this back to the community because I know that like some of these programs um they care deeply about, and so it's just thank you for that clarity on how the cost shifting.

And so it's just thank you for that clarity on how the cost shifting.

Um and then the other ask I have uh not really towards you, Chief, uh, but also just to the city manager, and I mentioned this to her.

Um, I I know that we are still in the beginning of these budget conversation, uh, and particularly for police and fire and all of our departments, but I think it's really important for mayor and council to have a better understanding of our nine 911 calls that come in, like how many 911 calls um are nonviolent, how many of those calls are violent crime, how many of those calls involve um imminent threat or danger.

And I think that's important as um we are looking at the police budget as well in terms of needs and priorities.

Um, so would like to request if the city manager, if Chief, if you could work with the city manager, um if we can have a breakdown of those 911 calls, um, maybe last last year.

I like to just take a look at that um as we're continuing the conversation around budget uh for PD.

I think that'd be good for PD and FIRE as well.

Uh through the chair.

So you would that would be priority one or priority two calls, Chief?

Uh well, so we receive um we received over 600 um thousand calls at the comm center.

Yeah, um, only about a third of those are actually dispatched, and those are what we will um we break down into the call type.

Um, but I will work with uh Captain Moore and um and Chief Heinland, and we can we've got a lot of data about call times, answer times, and then the types of calls that we do take and we do respond to, and I'm happy to provide that information through the city manager.

Great.

I think that would be uh really helpful as we're having continued conversation about the trade-offs, and I just wanted to kind of see what the what the calls are and the trends for the 9-1 calls.

So that would be great.

Um, and then um I think the last piece, uh, Chief, you're good.

Thank you so much.

That's the only questions I have.

Can I clarify?

Would you also like that same information?

Yep, absolutely for police and fire.

That'd be great.

If I could, if I could, I'd also um maybe suggest 311 calls because a lot of our um information gets sent over to 311.

Yeah, that that would be great too, because we're gonna be talking about code.

Other departments are coming forth too.

So thank you, Chief.

Appreciate that.

Um, and then lastly, just more of a comment because I I I just want to share um with the public and my colleagues that I know oftentimes there is this conversation in the public that the city of Sacramento um has defunded the police, and I just wanna say that this is just simply not true.

You know, since I've been on the city council, the police budget has increased by a hundred million and growing, and every budget for the past four years has been passed by this mayor and council.

And so I just want to let the public know that there is a commitment around public safety and that the budget has gone up for for PD.

Um, and I also just want to remind my colleagues in the public as well is that you know, this council, uh, while I have deep respect for police and fire, I want to remind folks that this council passed a resolution in 2020 before I was on the city council that redefine public safety to move beyond traditional services.

And yes, public safety includes fire and police, which are important, but it also include our preventive services offered by both city uh city services and our community-based organization.

And um, you know, I mention this every year because I think that's important we talk about public safety.

It is also um, you know, investing in our parks and our streets and the conditions of our neighborhoods.

That is also public safety as well.

And I wanted to just share that because when we talk about public safety, it includes um all of those departments.

Um, I know that there are going to be some tough decisions all around.

Um, and um I I'm looking forward to the conversations moving forward.

I appreciate that we're starting this process early so that we could request for uh you know data, we can have these conversations early.

I also hear a few of my colleagues on us having to have a debate and a conversation about priorities because eventually these items are gonna come to us proposed by the city manager, and we're gonna have to weigh uh do we want to invest dollars in uh micro sites?

Do we want to eliminate vacant positions?

Do we want right?

There's there's gonna be these trade-off.

Um, and I'm looking forward to that conversation.

And I also look forward to the city manager's proposal when she brings it back because last year it was a little bit chaotic because we did it all on the diet last year.

Um, and I'm really glad that um it's gonna be a little bit organized this year, um, and just really looking forward to the the future conversations to come.

So those are all my comments.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Talamantes.

Thank you.

Uh kudos to the budget balancing for doing 73% ongoing.

That's amazing.

Uh at least us to the slides.

So, what does that equate to in terms of millions of dollars?

Uh sure.

So uh the ongoing strategies would be uh approximately 53.2 million and one time uh 19.6.

Okay, so 53 million.

50 over 53 million, yes.

Okay, that's amazing.

Thank you so much.

And then I agree with my colleagues that 15% reductions across the board just hit differently for a department of five versus 60 versus 200 versus 400.

So as we move forward with 15% reduction cuts, that's something that I will also be very mindful of.

And then kudos to finance, really presenting this and helping us understand the budget impacts.

I know last year we did more like budget presentations about the work that people do.

And this is a lot better because it's showing us the true picture of what would happen in each department if uh the cuts were to hit their prospective departments.

On BOT, I am 100% supportive of taxing the large businesses in Sacramento.

Uh they well, more than the small businesses currently pay.

You know, Walmart pays the same amount as the Tacaria on Northgate, and that isn't fair.

Uh with that being said, Councilmember Maple hosted three different listening sessions with the business community on this subject matter.

And she spent countless hours having conversations.

So I just want to just give kudos to Councilmember Maple for really like championing this, leading this, and as chair of Law and Ledge, like you went above and beyond, so thank you so much for your work on it.

Um public safety, economic development, housing and homelessness continue to be our priorities.

So I do believe that the budget should reflect that.

With that being said, the amount of dollars associated with homelessness is alarming to me because of no money from the state government helping us to help us with relief.

So to our city manager, how do you plan on balancing your five million dollar city manager authority with the current budget and the status of balancing it as projects move forward?

Um through the mayor, uh Vice Mayor, I think one of the things we have to continue to look at is operational efficiencies.

Uh I think uh Director Pedro has done a good job of you know looking at contracts, seeing how much he can trim off and bring back to the budget.

I think as we open up these microcommunities, I think as we look at our sites, we have to turn determine uh what's our greatest return on each site.

Um I heard um council member Kaplan uh discuss the specific site where we're actually using vouchers.

Um is that better suited for us to do vouchers, or is it better suited for us to do tiny homes?

I think we have to look at where we're getting our the most bang for our dollar.

Uh I think that's something we're just gonna have to look at as we continue to move through these sites.

There's not one particular answer, there's not one particular need.

Uh I think we have to meet people where they are.

Everybody's not fit for congregate shelter.

We have to look at non-congregate shelter.

Um, but I think at the end of the day, we have to look at operational efficiencies, and we have to bring um you know the data to the community, you have to bring the data to this council so you can actually see exactly how much we're spending, how much we're spending per person.

Um, is there an exit strategy?

Um, because these are not long-term.

The goal is to get individuals into permanent housing.

It is not an easy solution as we see now, and we're just now getting to the point where I feel like we're turning the corner.

Uh I know everybody's not happy uh with the micro uh community sites, but I think it is a great solution.

I think with the funding that we have on the table, it is actually an opportunity for us to reduce some of our general fund by having some some of the 30% funding to keep the operations going because sometimes when we get buckets of money, we get operation money, or we get capital money.

So when we get capital money, oftentimes there's not enough to keep the operations going, or we get operations money, but then we don't have capital.

So we have to look at what's in front of us, and at the end of the day, it's just about figuring out what the operational efficiencies are.

And like I said, I think Director Pedro has uh started that process, and we'll just have to bring it to this body, and it's a policy call.

And if you would like to shift policy, then that's a direction that I will go, and we can continue to have that conversation moving forward.

So, in terms of communication with us here on the dyes, how how do you plan on navigating that?

Is it like quarterly emails about how much has been spent on this, or what would be the best way for that?

I can come back as often as this body would like.

I think we can come back monthly.

I don't think yeah, maybe quarterly, maybe too long, uh, depending on what site we're sending up, but I think we can come back.

Um, I would actually look to look to uh director Pedro to see um exactly uh how often you know he runs his numbers and can bring that information back.

But you know, I don't have a problem bringing that back either quarterly or monthly.

Okay.

And then uh to confirm the violence prevention dollars are not being cut.

They are not being cut.

Okay, I just want to make sure that that's clear.

And then additionally, for the police overtime chief, I think I've asked you this question before.

Uh you know, like Councilman Kaplan was talking about events.

We get reimbursed a hundred percent from all the events that get hosted in the city of Sacramento.

Can you say that again?

I'm sorry.

We get reimbursed for all the events that police staffs in the city of Sacramento.

Oh no, no, absolutely.

Um no, we actually get reimbursed if there's a permit and someone um hires off-duty police officers, then if officers sign up, that goes through our supplemental employment program.

But for many of the events that we do, especially a lot of the demonstrations and the First Amendment events, those are staffed strictly out of our um our our current staffing.

Um we even have a protest staffing model to where if we know we need to stand up a large group of officers for pulling officers out of their jobs and assigning them to that event, and that is not reimbursed.

Uh, for the special permitting events, is that in your diagram that you had of the different buckets?

What bucket does that fall under?

Um I well, I believe we'd fall under the Office of Specialized Services, but then it's also in revenues, is where that would um would be.

So when we talked about our net general fund, you've got um that's where it came to about the 246 million dollars.

It was after revenues and supplemental employment is included in there.

Okay, sounds good.

And then for the police uh budget, I do not want to cut recruitment.

Uh I think it's the most important thing that we can do.

It's gonna help us with our overtime down the line, and we need to show people that this is a great place to work, and we need to be a part of that effort too.

So count on us on support for like job fairs and hosting them in district and really doing uh community policing and helping us promote that.

So I really appreciate the support on that.

You know, I couldn't agree with you more.

We know how important it is.

The reality is we don't have vacancies to hire into, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have a very robust recruiting unit.

Um so you know, I know we have to make some hard choices there, and that was the reason that proposal was submitted, knowing where we would be potentially with the available um spots to hire into.

But thank you for the support.

Thank you.

That's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Mayor, this morning, the budget and audit committee had a chance, albeit too briefly, to look at the results of what I will notice is statistically significant community survey.

And among other things, and I and I uh invite all uh community members, council members, staff, to take a look at at this survey because I think it's it's uh instructive.

Uh but it among other things it it showed that in a number of areas that the perception that the respondents had of the quality and level of services that the city provides is declining.

And this wasn't with this wasn't confined to any particular area, it was across a number of different areas.

So as I look at the as I look at what we're doing with trying to balance this budget, and which we will in fact do, let there be no doubt.

I think it's been embedded in in those presentations and the and the work that the finance staff has done, but I think it uh deserves to be specifically articulated, and that is striving to not see a reduction in the level of services or doing the best we can to maintain the level of services that we provide as a as a city.

Because for each one of these services that we're talking about, and we run the human risk of slipping into the battle of one versus another, there uh is an important community interest that seeks to have those services at least preserved if not augmented.

So what is incumbent upon us, it seems to me, ultimately, is to try to achieve that balance of maintaining in these kinds of times which are the most challenging, the level of services that people expect from the city under the circumstances.

Not what they would like to have, not what any of us would like to have.

But what we can do to build, I think both confidence and trust in the public that we hear them when they say they want to see homelessness addressed.

They want to see violence prevention, they want to see response when they call 911 to report a fire.

They want to see animal care and all the other services when they need them.

Be in a position to address their issue.

So I I hope that we will focus on what we can do, whether it's through economies, operational efficiencies, additional reasonable revenue sources, whatever it is that helps us achieve that maintenance of service, or at least as close to it as as we can.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any more comments from council members?

Council Murguer.

Yeah, thank you.

I think the uh uh our budget chair really uh summed up a big component of the conversation earlier this morning.

Um so I don't want to repeat what anybody just said.

I do want to take though this opportunity to thank uh our police department uh in their response and meeting with uh some of our local small business owners.

We had five local small restaurants.

Um they're all neighbors in the community, they live near their their places, and uh uh and we heard it last week when uh Ernesto Delgado came here and he talked about his uh his windows being smashed open and you know that that cost it has a large triple effect, economic development-wise, uh, and also on the pride of the community.

Uh but I just want to take this opportunity also just uh to say thank you for you know those uh the the department responding quickly on those and uh connecting them with the resources that we do have to be able to respond to those that that vandalism and the and the theft that occurred.

And so they're not you know big chains uh restaurants or anything, these are our local ones, and so if we're going to strengthen our economic development, we have to maintain that level of public safety.

So uh thank you, City Manager in chief for uh making sure that we were responding at that point uh quickly.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

I'll I'll just uh close it out by thank you, uh Pete and departments for presenting today and giving us uh a better scenario than we had a week ago.

We were preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

So I'd like to go back to three weeks ago.

We had an amazing hearing on economic development on streamlined Sacramento, talking about growing our economy, because that's really where we need to go to keep this from happening um in the in the upcoming year.

So, as the vice mayor noted, if we make these choices, they're all tough choices.

This is the best case of a list of bad scenarios.

Um it would address our deficit and address it on in an ongoing fashion.

So I think that's important.

I would note that um I we pinned in zero for for HAP.

I don't think that's accurate.

That first of all, there's a difference between the HAP year and the budget year.

So even if we got none by the by the timelines of HAP, we wouldn't necessarily lose out.

That's how they're scoring it, but unless we're still trying to increase the level.

I know that's a that's a top priority for you know, I know um the League of Cities and our conference of mayors is the number one on our list when we have uh those conversations.

I I just wanted to to raise uh two issues.

One, as far as the the the uh the police and fire budget, the we're they're all reductions, it and uh we don't want to sugarcoat it, they're difficult impacts of the budget.

Positions are gonna go away.

Granted, we minimize the impact for services in the communities.

But I I I know we're late in the hour, Chief, so can I ask you to come up here and uh be brief with your answer?

Police chief.

Yes.

You and the brevity, yes.

So in the in years past, we've been funding a lot of patrol by taking people and get paying them overtime to work double and some shifts and so forth, by and we pay for that by using the money that we have uh budgeted for vacant positions.

So getting rid of some of those vacant positions that begs the question that people would ask.

Well, how does that allow you to keep you know filling uh roll call three times a day?

Yeah, it's gonna make it very difficult because it's about a six million dollar cut um in vacancies, and that has to come from somewhere, you know.

Um we have to stay within our budget, we know that we'll do everything we can.

Obviously, patrol on core services are a priority, so it come from you know, other things, um, and that is yet to be determined.

Well, just a technical question.

If you pay for the overtime to fill the gaps with the money you had for those vacancies, how would you pay for the overtime if you're getting rid of the vacancy budget?

We would still maintain some vacancy savings, um, but if we are able to fill those vacancies, then we have very little.

Um, and so it would affect our things like the ability to run an academy, um, the ability to um run overtime operations for critical needs or for crime series, the ability to staff, and what we would end up doing is um essentially flexing people throughout the department, taking them out of their regular jobs to fill critical needs, and that's really where you would see the impact.

Okay, thank you.

And then uh lastly, is I just want to note for for DCR.

We spent many months having you can stay there, Brian.

Um, having discussions up here on the council, and council was engaged and embraced what you were doing, which is making these adjustments to save money, not to help balance the budget.

Thank you.

We're trying to, you know.

So, in essence, these adjustments were made to serve more people.

We didn't say at a boy, and thanks for making the adjustments to help bail out parks or police or fire.

Granted, those are all important positions, departments, but this was done to do serve more people because we know that you go outside right now at Cesar Chavez Plaza.

There are more people who are unsheltered, need a place to go tonight.

So just want to make sure that's clear that the adjustments on the list aren't necessarily to keep those savings and balance the budget, but to continue and expand uh the programs that you uh operate throughout the city of Sacramento.

So uh, you know, this is certainly part of our process, but I I will note that this is uh much more optimistic than we were facing um a couple weeks ago, and still tough decisions, but um uh with that.

This is uh the beginning of the process, and we shall continue.

So this was a receive file and provide comment, which we just did.

No vote on this item.

Uh next, this concludes the budget item.

Next, we have public comment for items not on the agenda.

Um we do have council comments, ideas, and questions, maybe one, two, three reports.

Do we want to take those?

Or do you want to do public comment?

We can do those, yeah.

Councilmember Vang.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, just wanted to announce that I have quarterly virtual lunch session with Supervisor Pact Kennedy with our SAVE coalition that started during the pandemic, the Sacramento Alliance for Vaccine Equity, and we usually provide city and county update on how we're navigating the federal impacts locally together, and our first luncheon for this year is actually tomorrow from 12 to 1.

Um, the dates are uh March 11th, June 10th, September 16th, and November 18th with me and Supervisor Kennedy.

So just wanted to invite folks to that.

You can register for our virtual luncheon at heart and hustle.org backslash save virtual.

Uh, the second event I wanted to announce is that this Saturday we are uh hosting a tree planting event at Edward Kimball Park from 9 to 12 at 3065 Loma Verde Way.

Uh come join Rewild Sacramento, our Yipsies department uh to plant new trees in South Sac.

Um, as you all know, we're gonna um do some pre-digging holes, plant, stick the trees, name the trees, mulch the trees.

So come out and uh come plant some trees with us.

And then lastly, I just wanted to invite um the public and my colleagues uh to our annual community conversation, uh, an event that I hold every year.

Uh it's kind of like a town hall, but we call it community conversation on Saturday, March 21st, uh, to provide updates about what's happening in South Sacramento District 8.

And in particular, we actually have breakout sessions for every department uh in the city, and this year we have a special guest, our new city manager is joining us.

She's gonna have her own very uh her own table, so we're gonna have her being rotated around the different groups.

So just wanted to invite folks to our annual conversation and looking forward to that.

Um, and those are all my updates.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Jennings.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um in case you didn't know, it is time to play ball.

So the landlord land park little league has its opening day this Saturday, March the 14th, starting at 9 a.m.

You can join the league and kicking off its 72nd year of youth baseball.

So come on out for a great time.

Um Land Park Little League opening day this Saturday.

And then it's also time for Easter.

And the annual District 7 and Pocket Greenhaven Community Association will have its Easter egg hunt.

You it will take place at Garsha Bend Park this Saturday, March the 21st.

10 o'clock will be pictures with the Easter bunny.

So you can come on out there and get your picture and make sure you're in line for that.

And then at 10:30, we have the egg hunt.

And each each youth should bring their own basket to collect all the eggs that are gonna be out in the field.

And trust me, there are going to be many gold eggs, golden eggs that are out there that'll give each one of you a special prize.

So come on out for a great time.

Easter egg hunt, March 21st.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Maple.

All right, thank you, Mayor.

Would like to um welcome and invite the community to our town hall next week, Wednesday, March 18th, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

featuring our incredible, wonderful, talented budget team uh to go over a present budget presentation and answer questions.

Also featuring our incredible city manager who will be making a short appearance uh to say hello.

Uh we welcome the community, there'll be snacks, will be water, um, and we want to see you there.

So see you at 6 p.m.

Thank you.

Council Member Gier.

Great, thank you.

Just a reminder again.

We have our uh our community town hall this uh with District 4 and District 6.

Uh Councilmember Plucky Bomb and I are will be at the Coloma Community Center of uh from 5:30 to 7 o'clock with our fabulous news city manager, and we hope you enjoy our uh Kaloma Center.

Thank you very much.

Okay, seeing no more council members to speak.

Um, I do have a few from speakers for matters not on the agenda.

I believe some have left.

Tier any Bates is no longer here, Gary Fleshman.

Annabel Gonzalez.

In your name.

Tierney.

Yeah, thank you.

So the homeless population in California is 170,000 people, but year-round shelter beds in California is 208,517.

Taxpayers are paying for a surplus of 40,000 extra beds, and the mayor is being allowed to streamline an additional 40 beds into my neighborhood.

My name is Tierney Bates.

I live in the Sundance Lake neighborhood, and my kids are active within our community.

We ride our bikes and we play at the Sundance Lake Park.

And now we're being told that a city-owned microcommunity will be placed within 500 feet of that park, rushed through bypassing full council approval and community input.

There's no transparency, there's no partnership, and it sounds like something that's self-serving.

I care about the success of people experiencing homelessness, but compassion without planning, compassion without planning is not compassion, it's actually negligence.

So North Natomas lacks infrastructure infrastructure necessary to make this successful.

There's limited jobs nearby, no public transportation, no affordable grocery access, no mental health care resources, and these are the very resources experts say are necessary to help people transition out of homelessness.

So when you place vulnerable people in areas without services, you don't solve the homeless problem, you're actually just relocating it.

Families like mine have invested our life savings into and chose the Thomas because it's safe and family-oriented.

I bought my house in Sundance Lake when I was eight months pregnant with my daughter, who sat with me for three and a half hours today.

Now we're watching the decisions being made that could fundamentally change our neighborhood and our lives.

So today I beg you to reconsider wasting the tax dollars on a project that has no guarantee of success for 40 people when we have a surplus of 40,000 beds in California.

People need wraparound services, they need preventative services, and not just beds.

Mayor McCarty, I want to take this as an opportunity for you to elevate the city and not just fight you on it to elevate the city.

Thank you.

Is Gary here?

Um Annabelle?

Annabelle Gonzalez, Henry Harry, Richard Wake, and then Tao.

Hello.

Um, I'm Tao.

Is there someone else before me?

Okay.

Um, I'm Tau.

So I'm a resident of District One, resident of Sundance Lake Community, where the proposed microcommunity is expected next month.

So when I first heard about the microcommunity in my neighborhood, unlike most of the not in my backyard nimbies that you hear from, I was actually really excited.

Um, because I was excited that my city was gonna address the homelessness issue.

However, the more I learned and the more can I the more concerned I became because my background in urban planning and the affordable housing sector and the nation's capital advocating for fair housing and homes for homeless veterans.

This shows is not this this is not thought through.

And I don't I understand the operational efficiency, and I think that's actually what my consulting business is based on for business owners, and I believe in that, but this is not the way to do it.

Although there have been public statements that the uh site is over 500 feet from the park that I live that my two-year-old son and I go to, it is not.

I am trained in geographic information systems and have taken parcel data from your city website and measured it.

And it is actually less from parcel to parcel.

So I urge you to please do your due diligence.

And I know that the city is not required to follow those rules, but I am concerned.

And we have heard from people, and I have long volunteered in homeless shelters that the most successful ones are the ones that have holistic services.

Please, we just need to know if you already are planning for that.

And no, we haven't had that information clear and presented to to any of us, even my district person um at Lisa Kaplan.

So I want to end here with I want to represent the people who can't be here today.

I am able to take a day off of my business, but those that aren't here and can't share their voices, they're not.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Henry Harry, then Richard Wake.

Thank you.

Um I would like someone to help me um find out how much the consultant firm Ractalis charged the city when they hosted this off-site meeting for you guys.

I would like somebody to help me get that information.

Uh I would like someone to help me understand how much we paid for the polling around the uh vacant lot tax.

So if anybody uh will step up and tell me uh how they can help get that information, maybe somebody in the city manager's office I can contact, that'd be great.

Okay, shifting gears here real quick, so I'm trying to be clear.

Um I believe we updated our immigration platform and coming from that is an ordinance.

I think it's coming forward.

Um within this ordinance, they keep using the word support.

And so I'm thinking that something's going to be interpreted as different things in that ordinance means monetary support is going to come out of it.

So if this um ordinance is going to be a platform to grow funding for uh legal uh immigrants and illegal immigrants, then can that be clearly stated?

And if it's not going to be used for that, great.

But if it is going to be used for that, I think we we may start, we may need to start talking about a vote on the status of our sanctuary city uh sanctuary city status and the spending of our tax money.

Because um again, in different parts of that document, uh I see them saying things like they want to support efforts to promote available government services, and that seems like it's gonna open up a can of worried of spending.

If you're gonna do it, I guess it's okay if you do it straightforward and tell us that's what you're gonna do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have two more speakers.

Richard Wake, then Devante Morris.

Yeah, hi, Richard Wake from City Council District 7.

I'm gonna go back to the microhomes issue.

So Lisa Kaplan said it was okay last year for that site to be open.

We all know it's the only parcel in District 7.

You know, there have been comments about well, you know, move it to another site or we're tired of homelessness in the neighborhood.

Well, you know, whether the microhome site opens or not, the homeless people are wandering around everywhere.

Trust me, it's in my neighborhood.

I just want to clarify one point.

Maybe you know, like 10 people up on Chicory Bend on the Sacramento River near where I live, aren't having there's not nearly as many people maybe in other areas of the city.

But let me tell you, the vandalism that's happened at the South Hill Shopping Center because of the unhoused people, and don't get me wrong.

Councilmember Maple knows because I brought food to her refrigerators when she was before she was there on the council.

All right.

I give money, a lot of money to the Sacramento Homeless Union.

I care about this issue.

One of my best friends from SAC State was homeless for two years.

I care about, I've been following this issue for 10 years.

I know what I'm talking about.

Not opening up those micro homes is wrong.

And again, despite Brian Pedro's good efforts, the whack-a-mole approach on Chicory Bend is not working.

A permanent solution needs to be implemented.

But again, I'm working with well over 40 people in my neighborhood, ranging from business members to neighborhoods, apartment managers.

We are not gonna tolerate District 1 NIMBYism anymore on 35th Avenue and Riverside Boulevard and Southland Park Drive.

It's not gonna happen.

And Councilmember Jennings, with all due respect has done some things.

But Vice Mayor Talamantes and Councilmember Jennings need to focus on results for their neighborhoods and let Lisa Kaplan resolve her own problems.

No more NIMBYism.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Devante is our final speaker this afternoon.

Hello, I've been trying to use your uh you think it's fun.

Uh affordable housing uh resources, and I have had no successes.

I've tried your say our US H A R A program, and none of those uh affordable apartments uh uh qualify for um I try to get into student housing, but then they wind up ruining my credit by requesting it me to move in on the 20th and then charge me a whole month's rent, then tell me to pay for the following months.

Uh I mean they ruined my credit on uh 65th Street.

Um I've been uh going on Instagram, contacting you guys, talking about this issue.

I've had explicit details uh in these posts that you guys make explaining my issue with uh housing.

Um there is no housing for like there's housing for veterans for families for um the elderly, but there's no housing for people who are single occupants, people my age that are that need uh afford housing at under a thousand dollars.

All of your uh housing is above a thousand dollars, and my um income is limited, and it's like I'm trying to find room for rent on Crazy all over the place, and everything's expensive.

I can't really find nothing.

And you guys need to do better when it comes to uh dealing with this uh housing issue because there's actually no options.

I tried 311 or 211.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

And uh Michael Jazz was back there, assistant uh city manager, he can talk to you.

Thank you.

And there's a more public comment.

Oh, there's an adjourn in memory.

Councilmember Garrett.

I may have for Tangero.

Thank you.

Give me one second, Vice Mayor.

And I don't know if Madam Clerk, do we have uh uh photo of uh of um Miss uh Josefina Davila?

We do stop when you put up a photo.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

Today we're uh adjourning in memory of Josefina Dávila, who passed away peacefully on February 28th, 2026, at the remarkable age of 103.

Okay, surrounded by her family.

That that's her and I playing Loteria at Manitos over at the Heart Senior Center.

And a cherished mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, aunt, and loyal friend to all who knew her, and specifically in the East Sacramento community.

Uh she served she is survived by her three children, Bob, uh Josie Hernandez, Mary La Casa, her three grandchildren, her three great-grandchildren who care who carry her love and legacy forward.

Uh Josefina spent her life rooted in community.

She worked at Blue Diamond Almond Growers, uh, volunteered at Sacred Heart School, and was a proud member of Manitos, uh the Latino Senior Group that gathers weekly at the Hart Senior Center.

Uh interestingly enough, she was part of the first uh cohort of Manitos 30 years ago.

Uh she was the young one then, and it's a uh that senior center.

Uh a place uh that uh she uh helped uh you know encourage more and find a place where Spanish speaking community can come and participate uh and enjoy their time in retirement.

To know Josefina was to be loved by her, whether a family gathering in California or Mexico in the workplace or in her community.

Josefina's warmth, positive energy, and joy touched every room she entered.

I know it, I saw it.

Uh, you know, with everyone was singing uh at the last time we were at the uh Manitos event this February.

She lived a hundred and three years and filled everyone with love in that time.

Um and everyone in her community then know her knew her.

Uh they uh her and her husband bought that little home in the East Sacramento uh when they first came in, and uh since then uh was uh integral part of the community.

We asked that the council adjourn today in her honor, and we extend our deepest condolences to to the Davila family.

May she rest in peace and 103 years young.

That's beautiful.

Thank you so much for your pro time.

And with that being said, we adjourn at 624.