Good morning and welcome to the budget and government efficiency committee meeting of September 10th, 2025.

Our committee liaison, Natalie Kessler will provide information and instruction for the public to participate in today's meeting.

Thank you, Chair.

While members of the public are able to attend the meetings in person, this meeting is being televised and live streamed on the city's website, and the council administration will continue to make arrangements for the public to comment using the Zoom webinar platform.

Members of the public who wish to provide virtual testimony must enter the virtual queue by raising their hand before the virtual queue closes.

The queue will close when the last virtual speaker finishes speaking, or five minutes after in-person testimony ends, whichever occurs first.

This will allow for better meeting management between the two platforms and ensure the committee is able to manage and conduct city business.

Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Councilmember Elo Rivera.

Chair Foster.

Present.

Also attending the meeting today is Lisa Byrne and Julian Andalina from the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst, Deputy City Attorney David Powell from the City Attorney's Office, Matt Besby, Chief Financial Officer, Matt Yean, Director of Policy from the Office of Mayor Talk Gloria, and Jacqueline Kennedy, committee consultant.

If you're in person, please complete a speaker slip located at the entrance of chambers and place it on top of the box indicated at the speaker's lecture near the public comment microphones.

Please do so in a timely manner to ensure proper meeting management.

Members of the public can join the webinar by computer, tablet, or smartphone by accessing the link, which is listed online in the preamble language of the agenda on the city's webpage.

If you need to participate by phone, you may dial 1669 254 5252.

The webinar ID is 161710317 pound.

This information is also available on the agenda and will appear on the screen during the public comment period for each agenda item.

Please note that if you're watching via City TV 24 or online, there may be a delay.

Please participate via the audio on your phone and mute your TV or computer when it is your turn to speak.

If you wish to speak on a particular item, wait for that item to be called and then raise your hand to speak by tapping the raise your hand icon, or if you're a colon participant, press start star nine on your phone.

If you raise your hand during a non-comment period, your hand will be lowered.

Chair.

A quorum is now present.

We will now take up non-agenda public comment.

The council members respect and appreciate the public's input and are fully committed to protecting every participant's free speech rights at council and committee meetings.

Natalie, please proceed with non-agenda public comment.

Perule 2.7 non-agenda public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to comment on items that are not on the agenda, but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the committee.

Each speaker will have two minutes, and we have received two speakers from two individuals in chambers.

Perita Javier and Caesar Javier, please approach the lectoring.

Okay.

Yes.

Start.

Good morning.

October 23rd, 2022.

Dear Mr.

and Mrs.

Fraser.

Thank God.

Every time it rains, that's us this morning.

We felt relief.

And once again, Manshell and Atmosphere had a cleansing.

Science declares that climate change is real.

Global warming is true.

Clean air, we all breathe.

Is foremost in our healthy survival, young adults, and fragile.

Allderly residents, especially those with existing medical condition.

Respectfully, we convey to you that our vulnerability and exposure being immediate proximity to your home base.

Ever since weather, wood or gas fueled conversion to gas and started June 13, 2021.

Ceramics and pottery count, wood or gas emits, pollutants and toxicity hazards are known and are wildly published.

From our learning and teaching, we earned the benefit of knowledge.

First is fear.

And citizens arrest.

And he said you go home.

That's what they call freedom.

But the owner, who looks like the Natchez, systematically poisoning our community, the community of Mr.

Citizen Rivera, you look like a colonizer.

Please erase your moustache or bird.

You look to us a colonizer.

We were already colonized many times.

And what happened?

I was recommended to a temporary restraining order.

And in the court, you know, we just want justice here.

Mr.

Chair.

Citizen Foster.

The judge said, Mr.

Javier, if you go home to the Philippines, you're cannot enter.

LA.

If you will be judge or sentenced to permanent.

Did you do your job, citizen Rivera?

You were absent in the air pollution control district as governing board member.

How would you know toxicity?

How would you know air pollution?

In your letter, you deceive us.

You're a traitor.

You're a criminal.

Not only for us, but our community residents.

Thank you.

This concludes another.

Justice.

We will now move to the virtual queue.

I've started the five-minute timer for all those in the virtual queue to indicate that they have an on-agenda public comment.

We have seven hands raised in the queue.

We will begin with Blair Beekman.

Please unmute and begin.

Hi, uh Blair Beekman.

Thanks for the meeting today.

A very possibly sad report on previous public comment.

Thank you.

Uh though for um reporting.

Um I wanted to comment.

Um I guess firstly, you know that uh I hope that we are still working really hard on issues, uh, much on issues in San Diego about really demanding that uh if ice agents are going to come into our town, that they are not going to be over-weaponized and over-militarized.

They can do their things without huge automatic weapons.

Um, I think that sort of effort uh is just going to exacerbate violence.

And we've had some violent issues, it sounds like in San Diego lately that easily can go back to what the Trump administration is currently doing, and they know it.

They have to learn to calm down, and they know it.

How do we talk to them on those terms and uh bring that out?

Man, uh it's really important.

I think we can do it, and it's important we do it.

Good luck in our efforts to really ask that they don't overmilitarize them uh our local neighborhoods.

Man, it's so important.

Um good luck in our efforts.

I wanted to comment um also on the on the parking meter issues, uh, ongoing.

I guess I'll save that uh upcoming uh consent calendar time.

Uh what other uh budget items are uh concern.

Um I guess just an overall um yeah, I'm I'm happy.

Um I I think we can be working on the tiered system more, making that a more open conversation is important uh for the future of the parking issues.

Um we I think we're clear the importance of serving city first and then serving people of the county also.

Let's not San Diego just has an incredible.

This does include your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Becky Rapp.

Please unmute and begin.

Good morning, committee chair foster and council members.

My name is Becky Rapp, and I'm here today because I'm concerned uh that members of this committee have voiced interest in re-exploring the socially equitable cannabis program.

For years, many residents have requested a clear, updated financial analysis of the already permitted businesses, showing the true costs and revenues of marijuana businesses in San Diego.

Over two years ago, the city auditor reported that fewer than 50% of marijuana businesses were paying taxes, and that oversight was costing the city considerable resources.

The auditor even recommended creating a dedicated um auditing team to address the problem.

To date, residents have not seen that follow-up.

Meanwhile, San Diego has issued 36 permits, but 10 of those businesses remain closed, nearly a third of the market.

This shows a saturated underperforming system, and yet the city still incurs the costs of regulating, monitoring, and managing those permits, whether or not the businesses are operating or even paying taxes.

The concern is real.

Millions of dollars, possibly five to ten million a year, are going uncollected due to underreporting and lack of enforcement.

That's revenue that that could restore services to our commit our communities.

Um families should not bear service cuts when the city is failing to collect revenue that is already owed.

I urge this committee to prioritize and revisit the auditor's recommendations requesting a current financial report on the marijuana program.

Enforce the taxes already on the books and reinvest that revenue where it belongs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Madison.

Please begin.

Hi, good morning, budget committee.

My name is Madison, and I'm here to talk about prioritizing funding for drug prevention measures for the budget.

Drug misuse is not only a public health issue, it is a budget issue.

Because every dollar we spend on prevention saves an estimated seven to ten dollars in costs related to emergency services, law enforcement, and long-term health care.

In San Diego, we see the strain on our hospitals, our schools, and even our streets when prevention is not adequately supported.

Investing in prevention means supporting school-based education, community outreach, and early intervention programs that give young people and families the tools they need to make healthier choices.

It means funding partnerships with local nonprofits, health providers, and neighborhood organizations who are already doing this work, but often with limited resources.

By allocating these funds now, we can reduce emergency calls, improve public safety, and strengthen the well-being of our communities.

My suggestion is that you see prevention not as an expense, but as an investment in a safer, healthier, and more financially stable San Diego.

Thank you for the time and consideration.

Thank you.

The five minute timer has concluded.

We have four hands remaining in the virtual queue.

We will take no additional callers after these four individuals.

Terry and Skelly, please begin.

Good morning, budget and government efficiency committee.

Chair Foster.

My name is Terry Ann Skelly.

It is very important how and on what our city spends its money.

I thank you for serving on this important committee.

As a mother of three adult sons, I was extremely pleased that the city council members have supported funding for internship programs with the city for teens and young adults.

The journey from high school into college or employment training is far more complicated and stressful than ever.

And decisions about college are confusing, expensive, and seem demanding.

I appreciate the city's emphasis on reaching young people, 16 to 30 year old with this program who might be low-income, involved in the justice system, transitioning from foster care or engaged with the mental health or substance abuse treatment.

So it's disheartening for parents to battle against the marijuana advertising promotions that arrive in the mail.

And the city's billboards all suggesting the use of marijuana is a solution to young adults' anxiety and stress.

And to parents, it appears the city wants to push marijuana businesses as a business opportunity when parents do not want them for our young adults or near where youth congregate.

Parents would be thankful to this committee for your efforts in moving our young adults in a positive direction, perhaps public service, education, and the tech industries and away from using marijuana or profiting from its sale.

Thank you for hearing my concerns this morning.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is phone number ending in 870.

Please press star six and begin.

So I wanted so much to be uh in the chambers today, but uh here I am on Zoom.

Thank you for Zoom.

Uh Joy Cata District 3.

I wanted to uh I promise you this is uh the uh I wanted to one more time uh tell you my position on the structural budget deficit uh because I will no longer be uh researching it and commenting on it after almost 19 years of doing the work on that item.

I feel it's time for me to move on and to look at things from a different perspective from a different lens, and that feels really, really good.

And I want to thank the IBA.

Uh, good morning, Lisa and Gillian.

So good to hear that you're there uh this morning.

Love the IBA.

So when they brought out the budgetary uh the uh excuse me, the structural the budget uh the the statements, excuse me, I'm just not getting it at this point.

But when the principals were brought forward for the FY26 budget uh and the word any was in there, and I really, really wrestled uh feeling not good about that.

So uh after spending some time over recess, I really decided I need to come up with a new acronym with a new uh term for what's happening in the management of our money.

And I haven't done that yet, but I do know that I'm done with the structural budget deficit.

So that will be it.

And uh I hope I touched just by everybody that that I want to have here that so um committee member Ilo Rivera.

I want to thank you so much because I really really think that you're uh guiding us in speaking to the public for uh the value based on the concluding statement.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you.

Thank you, sorry.

Now our next speaker is Megan Stewart.

Please begin.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Megan Stewart, and over the years of working with youth, I've become especially passionate about underage drug prevention.

Um and I'd like to echo a few of the previous speakers.

When we allocate funds, it's not only about balancing a budget, but it's also a statement of our priorities.

By investing in youth prevention, particularly around marijuana, we invest in stronger futures and stronger communities.

Despite evolving perceptions, the evidence is clear.

Locally, the California Healthy Kids survey has shown troubling trends.

In San Diego County, 21% of 11th graders reported using marijuana in the past 30 days.

And daily use among ninth and 11th graders has doubled since 2007.

Marijuana remains the most commonly used drug among San Diego youth.

Compounding the issue, you describe marijuana as very easy to obtain and among the least harmful substances despite its increasing potency.

Along with that, combining marijuana with tobacco hurts academic outcomes.

In 2021 and 2022 data, about 4% of California high school students use both marijuana and tobacco.

And these students had significantly lower grades and higher absenteeism, missing on average three to four days more per month than peers who did not use either product.

These statistics show that we cannot afford to overlook marijuana in our prevention efforts.

Prevention programs, particularly those that provide education, alternative activities, family support, and mental health resources not only save lives, but will save the city money.

As you make strategic budget choices, I urge you to prioritize funding for youth marijuana prevention programs from school-based initiatives and community outreach to enhance youth services and underserved neighborhoods.

This is not only the right thing to do, but it's the smart thing to do for the city.

Thank you for that for your time and all the work that you just does conclude your time.

Thank you.

And our final speaker in the queue is Judy Strang.

Please unmute and begin.

Good morning, budget and government efficiency committee and Chair Foster.

I appreciate your work.

I work in PTAs and have for decades, and usually the job I volunteer for is treasure.

Because I feel like it's the most significant contribution I can make to the organization.

Because when it's well run from a budget point of view, and yes, PTAs have a very stringent budget that they adopt and require votes for every expenditure.

That organization runs more efficiency.

And I know it's the goal you all have.

And like you, we have controversy sometimes about how our money is spent.

So I do appreciate what happens when you serve on this committee and the type of decisions you make.

I come to city council meetings and committee meetings sometimes to share research regarding the role of vaping and smoking, be it tobacco or marijuana, on health.

And I always want to reinforce how costly is poor health.

And I know that's something you're very familiar with in your own circle of acquaintances.

Our family ran a small uh pharmacy business for quite some time.

And one of the things that came as a surprise to our teenage children that came in to help their dad was the role that vaping and smoking played in lung disease and how debilitating lung diseases were.

And I would just like to remind us that what's sold in marijuana storefronts are vaping and smoking products.

They make up 85% of the products sold from marijuana stores.

So we do not need more for any reason in the city of San Diego.

Thank you for letting me share these concerns this morning.

Thank you.

And Chair, this concludes non agenda public comment.

Thank you for that.

We will now move to committee members.

Mayoral staff, city attorney, and IBA for any comments.

Do we have any comments?

Having none, we will now move to any requests for continuance.

Having none, we will now dispense with the approval of our consent agenda.

Do I have any requests to pull an item from the consent agenda?

Hearing none, Nelly, please proceed with any public comment.

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment period for the consent agenda is now open.

The consent agenda includes item one approval of the committee minutes from July 16th, 2025.

We have two speakers who've submitted speaker slips in chambers, and there's one hand raised in the virtual queue.

We will begin with those in chambers.

Cesar and Furita.

West Bank of Choyas Creek, where Citizen Rivera leads.

Councillor Moreno.

I thought that was the seat of Dr.

Campbell, but uh city attorney, it's not your you're not the city attorney, sir.

Place your rightful name there.

Please, for the sake of justice and transparency.

Do not hide behind these cards or heads of this revered position.

In two minutes, I must tell you that history of the bench in the minutes only reflects the corruption going on in our city.

Look at the agenda in the budget.

If we will set an example, they are not meant for public welfare, honestly.

Am I right or am wrong?

We budget resources, not only money, but trusts amongst you.

Where is the queen of public safety?

Where is the king of flower?

Mr.

Mayor Representative, listen.

We deserve honest service.

This does your time, and this concludes in-person public testimony.

We will now move to the virtual queue.

We have one hand raised in the virtual queue.

Blair Beekman, please unmute and begin.

Hi, uh, Blair Beekman.

Uh, I wanted to speak to um the um the approval of the uh council agenda or the committee agenda from last time, July 16th.

Yes, you're you have 45 seconds.

Can you start my time over?

I did not know my my clock was doing that.

Can you start it over?

Because I I I I was just late, I've got what are we paused your time.

This the consent agenda is the past meeting minutes.

Is that the only item?

I thought there was a only item on the consent agenda.

I didn't know that.

Can you please start my timer over?

Okay, we will start your time.

Thank you.

Incredibly thank you for that decency.

Okay, uh, Blair Beekman.

Uh, thank you.

I wanted to speak to item 10 uh that was on the previous agenda, uh, parking meter issues.

Council person aloe did a really elegant job that last meeting talking about excuse me, Mr.

Beegman.

You need to speak to the item, and that is on the approval of the previous meeting.

Yes, I'm speaking specifically to item 10 on that agenda.

Which was the parking meter issue, and I wanted to describe that council personality did a very nice job in in describing the issue.

I wanted to thank him for his descriptions and his efforts in addressing the future of data collection within the parking meter issues for downtown.

He's very concerned, and he's making a very good point that we have to be mindful of our future data with our technology.

How you can do that with ALPR use, really good luck that you are making the efforts to limit our future ALPRs as well, and to really question the data collection.

Uh a flock is questioning their their passing on of information.

Good luck in your own efforts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And this concludes public comment on the consent agenda.

Thank you, Natalie, and thank you to all the members of the public for participating.

I will now turn it over to committee members for questions and comments and entertain a motion.

We will start with Councilmember Ilo Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll just move approval.

Thank you.

We will now go to we have a second from Council Member Moreno.

We will now go to each committee member to register their vote.

The motion passes 4 0.

All right.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, everyone.

We will now move on to our discussion agenda.

Natalie, please introduce item two.

Item two, amendment to the citywide safety shoes contract with Bootworld Incorporated.

And if you're watching City TV and wish to provide comment on item two, please call 1669 2545252.

The webinar ID is 161 771 0317 pound.

Chair.

Staff, please introduce yourselves for the record and let us know how much time you'll need for your presentation.

And you can begin.

Thank you.

Good morning, Committee Chair Foster and Committee members.

My name is Christiana Gogger, the city's chief compliance officer and compliance department director.

Before I turn over the presentation to my colleague Matt Griffith, I wanted to give a short introduction to this item.

The compliance department is here today to request approval of a second amendment to the city's as needed safety footwear contract with bootworld.

This amendment, if approved, will increase the not-to-exceed spending authority of the contract by one million dollars.

This contract is one of two five-year safety footwear contracts entered into by the city in December of 2021.

Now in its fourth year, the boot world contract has been overutilized by city departments as the other vendor no longer has a store within city limits, which is the condition of the contract terms.

I will now turn over the presentation to Matt and ask him to introduce himself and indicate the time needed for this presentation.

Thank you.

We appreciate your consideration.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Foster and members of the budget and government efficiency committee.

I'm Matt Griffith, the program manager of the occupational safety and health section of the compliance department.

I'm joined by our Chief Compliance Officer Christiana Gagger.

We will need six minutes for this presentation and will be available for questions afterwards.

We are here presenting on the second amendment to the citywide safety footwork contract with bootworld.

Today's action would authorize an increase of 1 million dollars to the citywide safety footwork contract with bootworld.

This action will increase the not to exceed amount to 3.2 million from 2.2 million dollars.

The contract term is for a total of two years with three one-year extensions totaling five years.

The original contract was executed on December 7th of 2021 for a term of five years.

Two years with three one-year extensions and a not to exceed amount of two million dollars.

Two contracts were originally signed at that time, one with bootworld and one with industrial safety shoe company for the same term and not to exceed amount.

The scope of the contract specified that contractors must have a minimum of one current business location within city limits.

After the contracts were awarded, industrial safety shoe closed at San Diego location.

Currently, Bootworld is meeting the ITB's requirements, and as a result, city use of the boot world contract has outpaced use of the industrial safety shoe contract, resulting in the need to authorize more funding for the boot world contract.

The city and bootworld are currently under the second option year to extend with one year remaining and a final termination date of December 6, 2026.

The city is responsible for providing safety footwear for its employees to prevent foot injuries while performing their duties.

At least 18 city departments have employees who are required to wear safety footwear while performing their duties.

An increase based on department's actual expenditures over the previous fiscal years as displayed in the table.

Based upon prior year expenditures as illustrated in the table, compliance is projecting that the requested one million dollar increase in contract authority will meet the safety shoe needs of city employees.

We recommend the approval of the second amendment request for the one million dollar increase to the not to exceed amount of the boot world contract.

We want to thank you for your time and consideration of this item.

We are available for questions.

All righty, thank you for that.

Natalie do we have any public comment?

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, we've received two speakers from two individuals in chambers.

Perita Javier has ceded her time to see Caesar Javier, so you will have two minutes to speak to item two.

I'll try my best to stick on the agenda.

In the Benn diagram, you cannot discard or exclude the other features within that framework.

Citizen Rivera has low units from Western College.

And so I believe with Citizen Foster, a contractor by historical economic sphere.

We are here to analysis.

What is going on?

EBA declared 85 million.

This is about budget within this peer.

85 million.

25 days.

Later it tripled 252 million.

Oh, by the way, ma'am, are you the director of uh DSD?

I always question this because these are all related.

I didn't say this department compliance.

I see compliance in DSD.

The blue.

Mr.

Mr.

Caesar, just a reminder.

This is on a boot contract, please.

Yes, yes, we're talking about foot.

Please keep your comments to this protection of the foot.

Okay.

My question is have you budgeted, Mr.

Chair and members of this Congress?

The essential were for the mass of the environmental department employees who are collecting through.

Citizen Rivera, did you discuss about with the chair about the air purifier that we need in our independent political unit city of San Diego?

Thank you.

This concludes in-person public testimony.

We will move to the virtual queue.

We have one hand raised in the virtual queue.

As a reminder, each speaker will have one minute.

Phone number ending in 870.

Please begin.

Hello.

We can hear you.

Please begin.

Thank you so much.

I'll join you at a district three.

Uh quickly, uh, first of all, I approved the contract.

Uh I worked with the feet.

I was a body worker, uh, massage therapy and education.

The feet are not, they don't need to just may require safety, they're for safety, but they really move us through the world.

They are so critically important.

Always take care of your feet.

So uh workforce report and EOC report, 34 employees.

The admin admin workforce under representation, Asian and ANE science and computers.

Now, I would like to say this.

I know it's only 34 employees, but I would like to understand how they compute the underrepresentation.

I've got to find that out on all cases.

Because out of 34 employees, no male female blacks, no Pacific Islanders.

So the type of business is retail footwear resale.

But there's a lot I don't know about.

Thank you, thank you.

Our next speaker is Blair Beekman.

Please begin.

Hi, uh Blair Beekman here, trying to work out ways to offer constructive criticism without at all being hostile.

And it's difficult to work that out.

But man, I'm trying.

And uh just want a good process for everyone.

Uh so I just wanted to quickly offer um is uh there are question.

Um, you're only allowing one minute public comment.

There isn't that many public speakers today.

I understand you have a lot of items on your agenda.

Is it possible we can have a minute 30 public comment time just to ask the question?

Thank you.

Thank you.

And with no additional hands in the queue, this concludes public comment on item two.

Thank you so much.

I will now turn it over to committee members for questions and comments and entertain a motion.

We have Councilmember Elo Rivera on the lights.

All right.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Um thanks for the presentation.

Uh, I will move approval of staff recommendation.

Thank you so much.

Um, don't see anyone else on the lights.

Um, I guess I do have just a quick um question, and it looks like we have two contracts in place for um footwear, and we are ext we are looking to increase uh the amount for boot world.

Is that correct?

And I understand for the industrial safety, we do have a balance uh in regards to their contract somewhere around 1.7 million or so.

Is that accurate?

That's accurate.

And it looks like if you look at the actual spend, um going back from FY22, it doesn't look like it's utilized the industrial shoes utilized.

Is there a reason we're not terminating said contract and just moving the 1.7 over to the boot world, so we're not per se allocating um additional dollars and using the the leftover spend.

Uh there are you see about 25, 27,000 that is spent.

Um so one of the the requirements of the contract is it be within city limits to make sure it's convenient for city staff to be able to go and purchase those booths.

My assumption would be that it's convenient for some folks.

We don't want to take that away from them.

Um different departments have their budget for boots approved within their annual budgets each year, so it would just be increasing the authority for the not to exceed.

So we hadn't want to to close the industrial safety issue because we didn't want to take that away, that choice away from those folks who were still utilizing it.

Okay, uh understood, and um I haven't received any phone calls or concerns from our REOs on this.

Uh I definitely will um have some conversations.

Um, but I just can't stress enough, just based on our budget, our current budget situation.

I just don't understand the the concept of encumbering an additional million dollars when we have 1.7 that is um tied to another contract that we're not per se moving forward, unless we're don't actually have the the dollars encumbered, right?

There's a difference between the dollars actually come encumbered versus actual author, I almost say authority to us to spend it.

Sounds like more so authority to a spend versus encumbrance.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay.

All righty, very good.

Um, with that, um, I will second um the motion.

Um so we have a first by council member Elo Rivera, second by myself.

We will have each committee member register their vote.

And the motion passes unanimously 4-0.

All righty, thank you for that.

We will now move on to item number three.

Item number three authorization to enter into and sign a cooperative procurement contract with 72-hour LLC doing business as National Auto Fleet Group for the purchase of class four to eight chassis and cabs with related equipment accessories and services.

Chair.

Thank you so much.

Staff, please introduce yourself for the record and let us know how much time you will need for your presentation, and you can begin.

Good morning, Chair Foster and members of the budget and government efficiency committee.

My name is Gina Do Lay.

I'm a deputy director in the Department of General Services.

Uh joining me is uh Director Meshura Little.

Uh, we'll need about 10 minutes for the presentation.

Just really quick, your presentation indicates that you are taking items three and four together.

We did not have that on our side, so is that what you are doing?

We do have one presentation, council uh member foster, but we do have a break in the presentation to pause between items three and four.

Okay, very good.

All right.

Uh we are here this morning to present on two agenda items.

Item three on the agenda is seeking authorization to enter into cooperative agreement for the purchase of medium to heavy duty vehicles.

Item four on the agenda is seeking authorization to execute a First Amendment to the cooperative contract for the purchase of light duty vehicles.

The light duty and heavy duty contracts are cooperative agreements where we have piggybacked off another agency's agreement.

In this case, a co-op of SourceWells contract.

SourceWell is a unit in the state of Minnesota.

Light duty and heavy duty contracts were competitively bid.

13 bids were submitted for light duty, and 35 were submitted for heavy duty.

National Auto Fleet Group scored highest on both RFPs for depth and breadth of offering.

They also scored highest for warranty and coverages.

And National Auto Fleet Group offers competitive pricing scoring highest on the light duty RFP and second highest on the heavy duty RFP.

We did reach out to the highest scoring bidder in price for the heavy duty RFP and confirmed they were only able to offer their brand of vehicle, and that just does not meet the needs of the city's diverse heavy duty fleet.

National Auto Fleet Group, as part of the competitive bid process submitted documentation to Sourcewell that they hold a minority certification through the California Supplier Clearing House under the California Public Utilities Commission.

The vehicle replacement plan is the basis for estimating contract amounts.

The city's total fleet is currently over 5,000 pieces of motive equipment that will eventually need to be replaced.

The majority of light two heavy duty vehicles are purchased off these two contracts, with the remaining 20%, for example, refuse packers, street sweepers, Vactor trucks, and fire trucks having separate distinct contracts with other vendors.

Vehicle replacements are funded through the vehicle replacement fund, which is funded annually through the budget process.

Fleet is responsible for developing vehicle acquisition budgets for the asset managing departments in collaboration with Department of Finance.

There are currently 107 EVs in the city's fleet and 33 on order with planned delivery by the end of calendar year 2026.

Fleet conversion plans are being led by General Services Energy Division and will be used to identify ideal charging locations and most importantly, how EV conversions may change operations.

That concludes the presentation for item number three, and we'll pause there.

All righty, thank you so much for the presentation.

Natalie, do we have any public comment?

Oh, I'm sorry, we have some comments from the IBA.

Excuse me, Chair Foster.

We actually have we we want to go into details about item number three if we could continue our presentation.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just so you have a little more information on this.

The next few slides.

Yep.

Yeah, there you go.

There you go.

The next few slides will provide an overview agenda item number three for the medium to heavy duty vehicle co-op.

Uh we're seeking authorization to enter into a cooperative agreement with National Auto Fleet Group for medium to heavy duty vehicles.

The term of the agreement is from execution, which we hope to have in place by November 2025 through July of 2028.

The co-op does have three optional one-year extensions, which could potentially take us into 2031 for medium to heavy duty vehicle acquisitions.

Some examples of heavy-duty vehicles include aerial boom lifts, dump trucks, paint striping trucks, and wood chipper trucks.

The actual number of vehicles that are acquired will be based on annual budget appropriations.

Here we have a summary of the medium to heavy duty estimated costs and how we plan to utilize the contract through its maturity, including the three optional one-year extensions.

Contingency is included to account for unknown costs, such as unlike replacements, price increases, and any additions to the fleet.

There we go.

That now concludes item number three.

Alrighty.

Thank you so much.

We will now turn the to the IBA for comment.

Thank you so much.

I uh believe that Jordan Moore is on the Zoom call, and he will provide the IBA comments.

Yes.

Thank you, Gillian.

My name is Jordan Moore with the office of the IBA.

Our office has been working with General Services to review the contracted items, the contracts included in both items three and four.

We would note these contracts are crucial to maintaining city services as they provide the city with the means for procuring vehicles for city crews that are vital to the delivery of these services.

The new not to exceed amounts and the new contract for the heavy-duty vehicles, aligns with the city's FY26 replacement plan, as well as the plan to add new vehicles to the city fleet, which was funded in the FY26 adopted budget.

Adding new vehicles to the city fleet for current city staff will reduce rental costs over the long term.

This was highlighted by our office in the review of the proposed budget, which included an additional 21.8 million dollars just in FY2026 to add vehicles for departments such as public utilities, transportation, and stormwater.

According to information we received from the department, this contract in item three for you includes an additional 26 vehicles representing the majority of the spend that you just saw for FY2026.

Again, procuring these vehicles will reduce the need for rentals once they are once the vehicles are procured and placed into service.

Our office will continue to work with fleet operations and general services to find additional ways to lower vehicle rental costs over the next few months, which is a commitment that our office made to this committee.

However, for today, we would recommend that this committee forward these contracts for approval to council.

Thank you.

And I'm available for any questions you have.

Thank you so much.

Uh, with those concluding remarks, we will now turn to public comment.

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment period for item three is now open, and we've received two speakers' lips in chambers.

Caesar Javier and Preet to Javier have submitted speakers' lips, and pre to Javier has ceded her time to Caesar, so you'll have two minutes.

We need air purifier, so we would inhale oxygen.

So our discussion would be bright and intelligent.

Procurement of uh vehicles.

Value analysis.

What happened to those vehicles that we procured earlier?

She sees Citizen Rivera.

One time, one of the fleets came to us.

And you know what?

Chair, Mr.

Chair.

The wheel is on the right side.

So it requires a specialist to operate the uh truck sweeper.

I could just imagine to uh save money.

I will use the uh vehicle uh bicycle of citizen ribera and put in one man sweeper in our street.

Volue analysis, Mr.

Chair.

What equipment should we use to clean up this storm water drainage system?

It's as big as the amount of citizen ribera who is upset in the air pollution, which is polluting our neighborhood.

What vehicle with what picture and function that would shock the libs and cans?

Ballionalysis, as far as you are procuring this.

Procurement is a testing, a tripwire for corruption, Mr.

Chair, government efficiency.

What happened to the trucks and vehicles name it?

We just purchased it last year, or what are you doing?

Ballior analysis, maintenance before procurement.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time, and we will now move to the virtual queue.

We have one hand raised in the virtual queue.

Phone number ending in 870.

Please begin.

You'll have one minute.

Thank you, Natalie.

Are you there?

Yes.

Okay, sweetie.

I love it when you acknowledge that it makes me feel good that the connection is crisp.

Joyce and Yara.

All right.

Thank you for the minority uh certification.

I uh really appreciated what the IBA just said.

Um excuse me, but reducing the long-term cost, uh reducing the use of rentals.

That's such good news because that's what I call value-based money spending.

So I'm really excited about the use of the EV, city electric vehicles.

A hundred that are there already that we're running and using to uh keep government, excuse me, moving and using.

My voice is really off a little bit.

So uh I wanted to just suggest to everybody go over to the Navy Broadway complex if you want to understand electric vehicles.

There's a dealership over there, and I'm going over there.

I saw it yesterday.

I'm going over there in a weekly.

Thank you for that concluding statement.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Chair, this concludes public comment on item three.

All righty.

Thank you so much, and thank you to the members of the public.

I will now turn to my committee members for questions and comments and entertaining a motion on item three.

We will start with council president pro Tim Lee.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, I'll start with item three.

And um I just notice that this is an expired contract, um, correct?

Or is it August of this year?

That's correct, Councilmember.

And so obviously that that kept a little bit of a gap between that time and now I assume that we have needs sort of ongoing.

How how have you been able to work sort of through that that time frame as as you're setting up for this um new cooperative agreement moving forward?

Yes, thank you for your question.

Uh when the uh right before the contract expired, we did have remaining contract capacity um of of close to six million dollars.

So what we did was we started early on our replacements.

So we were able to replace about 14 heavy duty vehicles.

And so the six that we need to replace remaining for the 26 plan will be purchased once this contract was is issued.

And we'll we're also taking this time to work with the departments to spec out the vehicles.

Um that takes a considerable amount of back and forth between the AMDs and our fleet manager.

Um and maybe just to ask, as I'm not as familiar with the process through which the cooperative purchase agreements are sort of done, but is the RFP handled uh just on our end, or because of sort of the relationship with source well, sort of how how does the RFP process tie into the broader sort of co-op model?

Timeline-wise for us so the heavy duty or the medium to heavy duty co-op um was executed by Source Well with National Auto Fleet Group in July of 2024.

Um so, in terms of the competitiveness of the of the RFP, that entire process is handled by source well.

So what we do uh when we're evaluating a co-op is the purchasing department is uh ensuring that their process aligns with the city's requirements.

And if it does, then we're able to enter into a cooperative agreement.

Got it.

So the timeline though that RFP being issued and um and everything coming back really was on the source well side as well.

Now everyone knew that that August 1st deadline was on our end.

So I I just think that's important to point out because I think that it might be a little bit different than the typical RFP process that we think of with some contracts that are expiring here.

Um but I'm glad we were able to sort of work through that time frame.

Uh I I know you mentioned the presentation that we're not really factoring in for tariffs at the moment.

Um, and and frankly, even the EV environment as we know it, feels like it's changed overnight in a sense.

Um so those are things that I I'm certainly watching as well and concerned about as we look forward.

I know we in this current administration we really can't seem to predict um what's coming down the line, but I anticipate that that'll create challenges um down the road.

So as long as there's flexibility with within that 15% contingency to account for some of that, I I think that's gonna be a necessity given what we're seeing.

Um and and I think having toward some of our sites as well, we understand that with um last year's revenue measure not going through that the city's ability to um ensure that we have infrastructure in place for some of the long-term um objectives that we have, especially with a transition to EV fleet vehicles, um, that that will also be a challenge that we have to be ready to address.

So I just note all of these things because this I know this is just this contract for heavy duty vehicles, for example, but um there are a lot of other I think ancillary impacts that we're gonna have to consider as we move down the line.

So um, with that said, I will um move the staff's recommendation for this item.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We have a motion to move staff's recommendation by uh pro Tim Lee.

We will now move to Councilmember Elo Rivera.

All right, thank you, Chair.

Um thanks for the work on this.

Um appreciate the IBA's comments as well.

I heard Jordan say crucial and vital, I think multiple times.

So um noted on the importance of of what we're aiming to purchase here.

Um also you know, obviously this the scrutiny is important as well.

Um you mentioned that the estimates here don't include don't include impacts, potential impacts from tariffs.

Is that accurate?

That's correct.

We we're we would utilize the content the contingency that's built into the contract amount um to address things like tariffs.

Council member, just to add to that, the reason why we did not factor, we didn't know what you know, because it's so volatile, we didn't know what percentage to go with there.

So we wanted to have some stability to see potentially before we just add an enormous amount to uh our contract ask.

So we felt comfortable and study with the 15%.

Understood.

And I I I totally understand.

I mean, trying to predict what this president's going to do is impossible.

So um that being said, what I what I also have seen is um real economic impacts and be exploited by this is my opinion, by people that we contract with, companies that we contract with for as profit opportunities.

We're see still seeing that from COVID as supply chain issues and the pandemic are pointed to as reasons for why we're still paying uh outrageous rates for certain supplies and um and and project overruns.

So what I'm especially curious about is to what extent we are protecting ourselves from market fluctuations being used as opportunity as profit opportunities by um those who were contracting with.

So you know, uh if I had my way, we'd lock in price and they'd be taking the risk.

That'd be my preference.

Um I don't know if we'd have a business partner on the other side of that equation, but that'd be my preference.

That being said, I would like to know what we're doing to protect ourselves from any of those fluctuations being used as as opportunities for additional profit.

Hello, Councilmember Alia Corey, Deputy Chief Operating Officer.

Great question.

And we are getting paying by a lot of our vendors and partners for additional price increases.

Fortunately, as you stated, we do have locked-in prices, and when we are under contract with the vendor, there are locked-in prices, but there also is a variable set percentage of increase for some of our contracts that come up on an annual renewal.

They're they're limited in what we do increase them for, and then they're limited in in how much and when we do it.

So if they wanted to do more than what they're asking for, we then have to bring that to council.

And even then, if we're gonna increase what is allowable in the contract, there's a validation procedure that goes through purchasing.

A lot of it is just regular price increases, there's nothing to do with the the abuse that we we saw in COVID and/or tariffs.

If it's tariff related, we are requiring proof from the bill of lading.

We are acquiring something like from the port that shows proof that that good had a tariff on it.

Without that, we're not doing it.

I will say that there are some vendors that are not even tariff related that because of the volatility total in the market.

We saw this with the Ukraine war, we saw this with COVID, that are saying we're just not gonna do business with you anymore unless you we force this price increase on you.

And we said okay.

Some of them we said okay, some of them specifically like chemicals contracts for our water and wastewater system, we did amend those contracts and they were brought to this council for approval.

So it's it's a large variability.

That question stems from.

Yeah, yeah, it we were disappointed as well.

But we are we're we're vetting them, we're asking for proof.

It's all coming in to purchase the department.

Thank you for your question.

Thank you.

Um Jillian, is this something that the IBA can keep an eye on as well?

Um I I believe that staff side of the house is taking a look at this, but I also I think it's one of those things that we can look back a year or two down the road and see that things have crept in a certain direction, and I think it's important that we keep an eye on it on a very regular basis.

Yeah, absolutely.

We'll monitor these costs.

Thank you.

Uh all right.

Uh, thank you for the responses um with that.

Uh I'll second uh um council member Lee's motion.

All righty, thank you for that.

Um we have a motion by uh council president pro Tim Lee, second by uh councilmember Ilo Rivera.

We will now go to um council member Moreno.

Um apologies for the confusion with the with the items not being combined, but um why don't you go ahead and proceed and we'll see how we can everything.

I was told by city staff that this would be taken as uh uh one item and voted on two item two times.

Um my questions are really geared towards four item number four, but item number three obviously uses uh the similar mechanism for um finance um as item number three.

So I will hold off and I will hold off on voting, maybe, and then after number four, why don't we do it like that?

I could I adjust the works when we will come back and um register your vote for item number three.

Does that work?

There's no issues with that separate yeah, yeah, we're doing a separate vote for three and four.

That's fine.

Okay, that makes sense.

What we'll do is we'll go ahead and continue with the um presentation and then we'll do the vote separately at the end that we will weave in.

You'll be able to take care of what you need to take care of on behalf of your constituents.

Um, just really quick, just before we leave item three, um, just a general um I I guess question and and kind of um if I understand council member or or council president pro tem's comments.

The IBA indicated this is a critical contract, and if I understand this the contract is expired, correct?

That's correct.

And so uh I guess my question is if we are all here saying it's a critical contract, why are we dealing with an expired contract?

If you can help me to understand that, well, council member, that is a good question.

Thank you for that question.

Uh, during this time that we were in transition from to um obtain a new contract, we did have transition and staff, so that uh caused delay in the contract, uh bringing it forward here as well.

And then also in between that time, fleet handles a number of contracts.

Uh like uh Gina mentioned earlier in the presentation.

So we were also working other contract actions separate from this contract action and also had staff transition out of the department that would have brought this uh before you in a timely manner.

Okay, under understood, and and and also it's my understanding that we use the cooperative procurement agreement for two reasons.

One is to mitigate staff time that it takes to actually do a full RFP and we save our own resources in time, which makes that process more efficient and streamlines it, right?

So that's a concern.

And then two, when we talked about cost benefit analysis, I guess how how is that conducted?

Who does that?

Do you do that?

It's purchasing the contracting to do that, do they do that?

And how are we doing that check as we talk about ensuring that the contract not only follows our um per se procurement policies and procedures, but what about the cost benefit analysis to make sure that we are being responsible as we are looking at taxpayer dollars?

I'll take on that question, uh, council member.

Um I again want to note that we do have a number of contracts that we work uh within the fleet operations department.

So uh within this FY26 budget uh process, as you know, we did receive additional staff that acknowledge that shortage of resources in our department.

So with those resources, we are in our administrative division standing up a contracts management uh team of folks that will prevent these issues from occurring again.

I think it was again, we are working a number of contracts.

The cooperatives are beneficial for us, they do save time, but with all of the over 5,000 pieces of equipment and vehicles in our fleet, uh, there's a number, um, I don't want to quote that number of contracts that are required outside of this contract to be awarded, managed and put into place uh such that we can provide our services to our customers across the city.

So it was again just a matter of resources and managing all of those contracts that we do manage in fleet.

Understood, and what about the cost benefit analysis to determine that we are getting the best um the best use of our uh dollars as we are signing on to this obligation?

Uh thank you for the question.

Um Sourcewell is putting out their RFPs nationally, and so we've we feel comfortable that it's competitive in terms of pricing.

Um 13 bids for light duty and 35 for heavy duty.

Um looking at the evaluations across the different companies.

Um, National Auto Fleet Group does appear to be the most competitive in terms of value.

But we're also looking at things like depth and breadth of offerings.

Um, I mentioned earlier in the presentation that there was a vendor for the heavy duty contract that did come in as a higher score in terms of pricing, but they just were not able to offer the the breadth of products that the city's fleet needs.

And that includes upfitting as well.

Okay.

All righty.

Um thank you for that clarification.

Um we'll pause here.

Um we'll probably have to do some more work so I have a better understanding on the cost benefit analysis process and what's performed as we continue to utilize the the uh cooperative uh uh procurement process.

Um, with that, um, based on our discussion previously, we'll we'll um pause here and then we will move on to item number four um and move to that presentation.

Just before we do so, it's my understanding we do have uh it looks like the IBA put his hand down.

Uh Jordan, are you okay or do you have comment?

So to your initial question, Chair Foster, I was just gonna point out what Meshira did too, which is that the vehicle acquisitions process within fleet has become time cumbersome.

They've added I want to say the size of the fleet over the last decade's gone from 4200 vehicles to 4800 without adding any additional people to manage the procurement process.

So again, it's one of those things we've been looking into, but I did want to note as well that three new positions were added in this last budget to get on top of the things that include things like ensuring contracts are done on time, ensuring ordering windows are met, and ensuring that departments are getting vehicles in a timely manner, which also relates to rentals.

So I just wanted to make sure that was pointed out.

Thank you.

All righty, thank you so much.

Staff, please proceed with item number four okay.

The next few slides will provide an overview of agenda item four for the light duty vehicle cooperative agreement.

The current light duty contract was approved by resolution in July of 2022 and expires in November of 2025.

The city is exercising the optional one-year extension, which will take us through November 2026.

The photos here represent some of the more commonly recognized vehicles that are purchased off light duty contracts, but we also purchase grounds maintenance worker trucks, park ranger vehicles, sedans, SUVs, and EVs off of this contract.

Similar to the heavy duty contract, actual vehicle acquisitions will be based on annual budget appropriations.

As noted, the city is exercising the optional one year extension, and we are seeking authorization to amend the contract by increasing the total contract capacity by 40 million dollars.

The original amount of the contract was 92 million, and with this action, the total not to exceed will be 132 million.

Similar to the medium to heavy duty cost estimate, contingency is meant to account for unidentified costs, such as unlike replacements, price increases, and any additions to the fleet.

That concludes our presentation of agenda items three and four.

We're happy to take your questions.

Alrighty, thank you for that.

We will now go to the IBA for any additional comment.

Thank you.

Once again, Jordan Moore is on the line and we'll provide the comments.

Thank you, Jillian.

Um just to reiterate the comments we had.

Once again, we would note that this contract is just as crucial to maintaining city services as the prior one.

In fact, it's arguably more so of the breadth and depth of the number of vehicles that are covered under this contract.

Um even still, this contract also will cover vehicles that were added to the 26th budget for public utilities, transportation and stormwater, and will once again be crucial to the city getting a hold of its rental costs into the future.

Um our office would also recommend that the committee for this contract to approve or approval to council.

Thank you so much.

Alrighty, thank you for that.

We will now go to public comment for item number four.

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment paper item four is now open, and we've received two speaker slips from two individuals in chambers.

Parita Javier has ceded her time to Cesar Javier, so you'll have two minutes to speak to item four.

And Purita District 9, West Bank of Joyce Creek.

Looks like very very bleak as we go forward as the mayor stated in his city address.

Number one.

And it's good.

Let's Ford make.

Specify what make, please be a patronage of uh Ford, which is American car.

I drove my Jip Chrysler, and it's still working like uh brand new for 24 years.

Value analysis.

What maintenance did we do perform the FICAL blow up?

We call it in the military that we are now hurrying up to buy and make or procure new ones.

We could say money, and perhaps that money could be used to purchase SUB like the two-wheel drive bicycle.

Mr.

Rivera, who is parking it right here at the 10th floor.

Very convenient, versatile.

And I will say efficient as far as our money crisis all about.

My God, my God, value analysis.

Let's do the right way.

Which we are expecting all the time from this meeting.

We expect from you to perform the quality services.

Yes, we have available money, but is it adequate?

Therefore, we should live within our means.

Americans, citizens.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Each speaker will have one minute in the virtual queue.

We have one hand raised, phone number ending in 870.

Please unmute and begin.

Thank you so much, Natalie.

Uh Joy Sanyaka.

On the light duty vehicles, yes, to the extension on the contract.

And I want to say this chair, Foster the third.

I really, really appreciated your analysis just now, and you're speaking on the cost benefit analysis, because that is vital to our government.

And you just said it very astutely just now.

And thank you for that.

I want to say to all the people that work in these departments that we're talking about.

Thank you.

I love you.

We're in transition.

It wasn't good.

We found out it wasn't being done right.

It wasn't being done accountable, didn't we?

And we're changing it.

And the contracts are improving.

I mean, this one expires, I believe, in November of this year.

Uh, but you're gonna extend it to November of next year.

That's giving us some wiggle room there.

That means that you're helping us, that you're doing your best to serve the public.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you.

And Chair, this concludes public comment on item four.

All righty, thank you so much.

I will now turn it over to committee members for questions and comments, um, and also um entertain a motion.

Um, as I indicated, we will go back and um take care of um well.

I guess we'll go back and modify um the overall motion at some point, I guess.

Does that make sense?

Chair.

Um, I'm sorry, pro tem.

All right, and then we'll take care of it.

Okay.

Um we'll go to council member Moreno.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for those uh presentation, and it's nice to see you, Gina, in your new capacity.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Uh, we will miss you in parking rack, though.

Thank you.

So uh first the staff report, um, the staff report mentions on item number four that this is meant to purchase 513 pieces of motive equipment.

Um, how many are for general fund department versus non-general fund department, and what would the debt service be for the general fund vehicles and equipment?

Thank you for your question, um, council member Moreno.

Um I don't have the exact vehicle counts, but I can tell you the percent of the general fund obligation on the light duty of the 40 million is about 28 percent.

Um, so that's 5.8 million dollars.

Okay, um I'm sorry, I did not understand your answer.

So you said you do not have the information on how much um how many are for general department department versus non-general fund department?

No, I I don't have the the exact counts in front of me, but um what I'm estimating is that 28 percent of the 40 million will be used to to service general fund to purchase general fund vehicles.

Got you.

Um can you get us that information, please?

Absolutely.

Um, also how many are replacement vehicles versus additional vehicles to the fleet?

Um I believe I I don't have that number in front of me right now.

I will I can add that to the general fund um versus non-general fund count.

Your staff provided a response to my staff, so I I would like that to be on the record.

Yes, we was that information wrong?

No, we we did send that to Kevin.

Uh-huh.

Um, I just don't have that in front of me right now.

Okay, does anybody have that so we could have it on the record?

What I provided, Jordan were counts.

Um the light duty acquisitions.

Let me count here.

What I did was I highlighted for him the number of vehicles that were general fund.

Could I or just real quickly for the light duty counts, so the additional vehicles, then just the number.

Um, I have 45.

Does that work and say what you have?

Okay, thank you for that.

Um and then also the financing was something that was um very difficult for me to comprehend.

Um because once the general fund vehicles are financed, they go into debt services.

So if you could explain to the public how our finance works for these uh vehicles and its equipment for item three and four.

Sure.

So when we go to order a vehicle, uh we will issue a purchase order for that.

And what that does is that encumbers the funds for the vehicle.

Uh when the vehicle arrives is when we actually pay for it.

So we'll receive the invoice, we will pay for it.

Um, in terms of debt financing, what we do is we take uh that invoice, we pay it, and then we say, hey, bank, we want to finance this vehicle.

Um, and they say, okay, great, it's new, there's no miles you, you know, utilization miles on it.

We will finance that.

And so if we paid $10,000 from city funds to pay that initial invoice, the bank will give us that 10,000 back.

And so we put it back into the vehicle replacement fund and then move forward with paying additional vehicles that are delivered that were previously ordered.

Got you.

So we pay cash, then we finance it.

Right.

So we end up paying more because of the financing, because of the interest of the financing later on.

I would say.

So obviously, I understand the importance of um of this department and of obviously of the work that you guys do.

This is something that the audit um committee has been looking into.

Um it seems strange to me that we pay cash and then we utilize it for fine, we utilize financing to pay what we paid for in cash.

Obviously, it's to free up money for other um needs, but it just I scratch my head um as to why it is we do it that way.

But um thank you for answering.

Those were my questions.

And and is there a reason, Matt, if you could respond?

Excuse me.

Yeah, it's it's just cash flow.

We don't have the cash.

Um we we haven't appropriated the cash to purchase the vehicles with cash, but from a cash flow perspective with the vendor and with the lending, our our lending agency, we pay cash up front, we let them know what we've what our cash outlay has been to acquire the vehicle, and then we finance that cash.

So then we get the cash back, and then we have that as available cash balance for all of our other appropriations.

Got you.

Okay.

Well, thank you for answering the question, and thank you for your um patience with me, Chair.

And if I could just correct the record, the um the information that I sent uh your staff um for the replacements, the general fund replacements, the number of vehicles.

It's actually um 82.

Um, but I just want to caveat that with the vehicle replacement plan can fluctuate in terms of which vehicles we're moving forward on, and that is really primarily based on market availability.

Wonderful.

Thank you for that.

Sure.

Thank you.

All righty, thank you for that clarification.

It looks like the IBA um has some additional comments.

Yes.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, and just to provide some context to Council Moreno's questions.

So prior to a switch that I want to say was about four or five years ago, everything the city purchased was in cash.

So enterprise funds continue to use cash.

I will say the police department continues to use cash.

Um, and what the city had traditionally done was you know, you use cash to purchase a vehicle, and then fleet would over the lifespan of that vehicle, you know, collect little amounts of money into a sinking fund so that when it came time for replacement, the city had the cash already in a bank account to grab it, spend on the next replacement vehicle and move forward.

Enterprise funds still work that way.

The police department still works that way.

Um, but other general the decision was made to move other general fund departments to a financing method.

The reason why that was done was basically in around 2020, 2021 was to save cash on a one-time basis.

So all that cash that had been saved up was sort of swept back into the general fund, and then the decision was made to use debt financing going forward for these vehicles where the vehicles purchased and paid off over the next 10 years.

The only thing I will note for the council member is there's not a correct way to do this, whether you want to do debt financing or whether you want to do cash, both are applicable.

I will note, though, and this actually came up with one of our new enterprise funds, is while you save money on a one-time basis going from a cash system to a debt financing system to go back would require a one-time infusion of money.

So you would actually need more money in that year that you transition back to being cash finance because you now no longer have all that money saved up for those replacements.

So I just want to make that clear that this was a decision that was made years ago, and to go back to it would require some significant financial analysis to be done by fleet DOF and our office to sort of give you an idea of what that would require.

Thank you, Jordan.

This is Alia Corey, Deputy Chief Operating Officer.

Uh, much of what he said is is fully accurate, just a little bit on the timeline.

The city had been debt funding general fund vehicles for for decades from back in the 2008 2010 recession and hardship.

They they rated the sinking fund that was kept up to to fund you know critical services, and then went into a completely debt funded model for general fund vehicles later on into the late 2019 2021.

We did further analysis, we were a little bit more flush with cash at the time, and we looked at vehicles that had very short lifespans, police vehicles being one of them, and we transitioned those into being cash purchase.

But as Jordan mentioned, to turn the entire general fund fleet over to cash purchase, it would require a significant infusion of cash.

So they looked at those that have short lifespans that don't make sense to have, as council member Marino pointed out, it does cost us more to debt finance.

Just want to make sure that was correct.

If if I could follow up.

Yes, please.

I think I'm I'm not confused.

I'm just, it just seems like not good practice in in theory.

Why would I purchase my car in cash and then finance it as an individual?

I could see why a business would want to do that to free up cash to make more cash, but as a city of San Diego, and and I'm gonna spend this time between this committee and the council to kind of dig in deeper and see is this something that all jurisdictions do, that all cities do.

It doesn't seem like um the right practice.

So I'm gonna be voting no today, but like I said, at the council meeting when this comes to council, I will exercise my time to educate myself more on this issue.

Thank you.

All righty, thank you for that.

Um and as indicated um previously, we will um go back and dispense of item number three.

Um, in regards to item number three, um, we have a motion on the floor by Pro Tem Lee and a second by Councilmember Ilo Rivera.

Natalie, we will call for the vote.

And the motion passes three one with committee member Marino voting no.

Thank you so much.

We will now dispense of item uh number four.

Um I would like to entertain a motion um for item number four.

So moved.

Pro Tem Lee, second by council member Ilo Rivera.

Um, with that, Natalie, we will call for the vote.

Councilmember Ila Rivera, can you please register?

Thank you.

And the motion passes three one with committee member Moreno voting.

No.

All righty, thank you so much.

So item three and four both passed three to one.

We will now move to item number five.

Thank you, Chair.

Item number five, fiscal year 2027 budget development and fiscal year 2026 budget monitoring key dates.

Chair.

Yes, thank you, staff.

Please introduce yourself for the record and let us know how much time you need, and please start your presentation.

Thank you, Chair Foster.

Um good morning.

I'm Lisa Byrne with the office of the IBA.

Um last week, our office released a report 2528, which includes the proposed key dates for both the fiscal year seven budget development and fiscal year 26 budget monitoring processes.

We are asking the committee to review the proposed calendar and forward it to the council for approval along with any desired changes.

Moving to background information, the key dates calendar provides a timeline for major activities for monitoring the fiscal year 26 budget and for developing the upcoming fiscal year 27 budget, including both operating and capital improvements program or CIP components.

The key dates are based on timelines included in the city charter, prior year's key dates, and consultation with several departments, including the Department of Finance, the Engineering and Capital Projects Department, as well as the budget and infrastructure committee consultants and the director of legislative affairs.

We appreciate the input of all of those folks and the hard work that everyone contributed.

The key dates calendar provides a means for control over financial processes and serves as a way to communicate our budget processes to the public.

The proposed key dates timeline is similar to last year's budget cycle, but there are a few changes.

First, the proposed timelines for several report releases are being moved back to previous year's time frames, as last year's key dates were adjusted for inclusion of the results of the November 2024 sales tax measure.

Last year's shift in release dates for these reports was only intended to be one time in nature.

And we are now back to the normal timelines for those reports.

The affected reports are listed on this slide.

First, the five-year financial and public utilities department outlooks are moved back to early November from last year's early December release.

Next CIP appropriation adjustment request for general fund asset types will not be separated like last year.

Instead, they will be included in the normal CIP mid-year budget monitoring report for fiscal year 26.

The second change of the key dates, which is due to time constraints, is the removal of a provision for additional dates when the city council could consider its fiscal year 27 budget adoption.

We note that the proposed calendar does incorporate the full charter prescribed time periods for transmittal of the budget resolution to the mayor, a potential veto, and potential over veto override.

The last change is moving the council hearing for the fiscal year 27 statement of budgetary principles from the end of July to the end of August due to a plan change in the summer fiscal 26 legislative recess, which is to better align with the San Diego Unified School District calendar.

The council recess is planned to start in mid-July, two weeks earlier than in 2025.

So this slide provides highlights of the proposed key dates for fiscal year 26 budget monitoring.

As you can see on the left, the release of the first year, the excuse me, the first quarter report and the CIP mid-year are scheduled in November.

These reports will be reviewed by the budget committee and active transportation and infrastructure committee respectively, with subsequent review by the full city council.

Other budget budget monitoring report release dates are highlighted on the right.

This slide shows major fiscal year 27 budget development dates included in the proposed key dates calendar.

On the left, initial initial council member budget priorities memos are due to our office September 24th.

Moving to the right, the five-year financial and public utilities department outlooks are released November 7th, which, as I mentioned, is back to its historical time frame.

On January 9th, updates to council member priorities memos are due to the IBA.

The release date for the CIP outlook shown in green is early February.

Then moving to the right is a release of the proposed budget and our review of it in April, followed by the council convening as the budget review committee in May, and then also the release of the May revision on May 13th.

On May 20th, Council members' final budget modification memos are due to the IBA.

Then, based on our analysis of the budget modification memos and other information obtained throughout the budget development process, our office will release our final budget recommendations on June the second.

Not shown on this slide.

We're going to have we scheduled a budget review committee meeting, which is the will be the third time that we've had such a hearing where the council can consider the final budget recommendations before the final council budget approval, which is scheduled for June 9th, as you can see on the slide.

So we believe the proposed key dates for the development and adoption of the fiscal year 27 budget do provide numerous opportunities for input from the public as well as for council review.

With that, we request the committee review the proposed fiscal year 27 budget development and fiscal year 26 budget monitoring calendar and forward it to the full council with any desired modifications.

And that concludes my presentation.

We're here for any questions.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Natalie, do we have any public comment?

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment period for item five is now open, and we have received two speaker slips from two individuals in chambers.

Perita Javier has seated her time to Cesar Javier, so you'll have two minutes to speak to item five.

Our wealth using versus the wealth getting, including the kickback of you guys from all these projects, etc.

Look at our community in our district.

This justifies what is supposed to be being monitored.

Think Council Olivera at our sphere, West Bank of Cholas Creek, including our neighbor.

Does it reflect the progress monitoring?

That's it.

Equate with the progress and product.

Well, this money.

One of the resources.

You failed our trust.

That's number one resource.

Because we with that spirit, unified mass action to help our community is lost.

Trust Mr.

Rivera.

Trust Mr.

King Flower.

Where are you, Mayor?

Oh, you will be exiled in Marseille, France, a few days from now.

His I mean sorry.

The absence of King Flower will relieve us from the wrong direction that is being navigated.

For what's supposed to be for our shell, for our people, for our for his shelter, for our society and mobility, which was mentioned.

Where are we?

And this concludes in-person public testimony.

We will now move to the virtual queue.

There are two hands raised in the virtual queue.

I've started the five-minute timer.

Phone number ending in 8700.

Please press star six and begin.

Thank you, IBA.

What would we do without the key dates list?

It's our timeline to the budget.

It structures it for me.

I really rely on it.

So thank you so very much.

I uh appreciate the changes.

On the uh statement of budgetary principles, the new date.

That sounds, you know, like you had to do it or it's right.

You know, it's it's it's going into August.

That's fine.

Thank you.

But I want you to consider rewording what you say about the structural budget deficit, because I think you need to eliminate it completely, as I am doing, or you need to reword it.

And please remove that word any.

Uh, if you do nothing else, remove the word any from there and reword it or eliminate it.

So this does conclude your time.

Thank you, Natalie.

Thank you.

Our next, our final speaker in the queue is Blair Beekman.

Please unmute and begin.

All right, uh, Blair Beekman.

Thank you for this item.

Uh it being the fall, and uh we did a lot of hard work together.

Everyone uh contributed to budget issues uh this spring and summer.

I just wanted to be able to remind the important work of uh ALPR use.

Um we really can be limiting, you know, by 25, 50 to 100 AOPRs and having a really significant budget savings.

Uh it's kind of a no-brainer, and it can be easy to figure out.

I don't know why it's so difficult for yourselves to more openly talk about it and to be clear in all the good data collection practices you're trying to develop right now to more mention how you can talk about AOPR reduction clearly and and to the public.

I uh you're making it difficult when it should be a noble thing you're actually doing.

Good luck on those efforts to to practice nobility and decency.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Chair, this concludes public comment.

All righty, thank you so much.

I will now turn turn it over to committee members for questions and comments and entertain a motion.

I will start with Councilmember Moreno.

Happy to make a motion.

Thank you so much.

We have a motion on the floor.

Any other we have a second by council member Ilo Rivera.

Any other comments regarding the key budget aids?

Um, having none, um, I will close and just say thank you to the IBA for all the work that went into this.

Um, I know there was a lot of back and forth on this one as we were trying to align things with the Senegal Unified School District and the changes that they are making and what we did with our recess and ensuring that things still align and we got things in a timely fashion.

So just thank you for all that work.

Um, and also thank you to Council President for uh his help as well.

Um, always good to see that we're maintaining our evening meetings for the public to come in and give public comment.

Um so I always encourage the public to make sure they keep hold of this document as we continue to move forward.

Um, so with that, um, seeing no other members on the light, uh, we have a motion by council member Moreno, a second by councilmember uh Sean Elo Rivera.

We will now call for the vote.

Thank you.

And the motion passes unanimously 4-0.

All righty, thank you so much.

That concludes item number five.

Natalie, please introduce item number six.

Item number six as needed consultant agreement for a facility condition assessments with Kitchell CEM Incorporated.

Chair.

Thank you so much.

Staff, please introduce yourself for the record and let us know how much time you will need for your presentation, and please begin.

Good morning, Committee Chair Foster and Committee members.

Thank you for your time and consideration to discuss our item, which is to request the authorization to approve an as-needed consultant contract with Kitchell CEM Incorporated for facility condition assessments.

I'm Harold Eggett, Deputy Director with the Department of General Services Facility Services Division.

And with me today are Mishir Little, Department Director, and Assistant Director Michael Tolley.

I'll need approximately four and a half minutes for this presentation.

The City of San Diego owns over 1,600 buildings and structures.

The facility services division provides maintenance, repair, and improvement services to those buildings.

Some of the services provided include carpentry, electrical, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, plumbing, custodial, painting, and roofing.

These are all performed by division employees.

Other necessary services, such as elevator inspections and repairs, fire sprinkler and alarm inspection and repairs, and proprietary work, such as HVAC controls, are performed by vendors but managed by facility staff.

While division staff is very knowledgeable of facility cities' buildings, we are not experts in providing high-level assessments of all building systems.

However, current and accurate assessments are an important tool that is necessary to invite to identify deferred maintenance and capital improvements to both plan for and fund those needs.

What are FCAs?

FCAs are systematic evaluations of a building's condition by assessing each building system, identifying deficiencies, estimating repair costs, and calculating the facility condition index or FCI.

An FCI is similar to the pavement management scores, but with FCIs, lower scores indicate a better condition and higher scores indicate worse conditions.

Ultimately, using current FCI data will help the department shift from a reactive repair-focused approach to a proactive plan strategy that prioritizes preventive maintenance and reduces unplanned repairs.

New and updated FCAs are essential for departments to make informed decisions about capital repairs, operations and maintenance, and budgeting for preventive maintenance activities.

It is recommended that FCAs are conducted every five years.

FCAs for city buildings were last conducted in 2016.

Here are some examples of building systems that will be assessed from the roof to the basement, and almost everything in between will be evaluated.

It's important to understand that both individually and collectively, these systems are critical to operating safe and reliable buildings.

Current and accurate FCAs will provide a detailed analysis of each system and allow for planning and prioritization of major repairs and improvements.

The Department of General Services respectfully requests this committee's approval of the five-year as needed contract with Kitchell CEM Incorporated.

With approval of this action, the department will prepare to bring this item to the full city council.

Facility condition assessments are truly a critical tool for the city to have a clear and current understanding of what is needed to ensure that all buildings remain safe and reliable.

This will ensure that residents are able to receive necessary services and for city employees to provide those services in buildings and spaces that reflect the city's values.

The information gained in these assessments will be used to determine what the true funding needs for facility repairs and capital needs are.

That information will be used as a key component of the facility management plan that will be created as recommended in the 2024 performance audit of the facility services division.

Expanding the assessments to other non-generations will require subsequent contract actions.

That concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I understand we have comments from the IBA.

Thank you so much, Chair.

I'm Gillian Andalina with the Office of the Independent Budget Analysts.

The item before you today is a request for an as needed consulting contract not to exceed $5 million over five years to conduct facility condition assessments for general funds facilities.

These include fire stations, police stations, libraries, recreation centers, and other city-owned buildings.

The last time the city did an assessment of its facilities was between 2014 and 2016.

The plan at the time was to use the condition assessments to create a facilities asset management plan to optimally maintain the city's facilities at a certain level, but the efforts were stalled due to funding constraints as it would have required a major investment.

While there's no funding included in the fiscal year 2026 adopted budget to begin the condition assessments, if this item is approved, it will position the department to be ready if funds are budgeted in the future.

Our office believes it is important to assess the condition of city facilities, but want to recognize that the assessments are a significant investment.

Though this time around, the costs may be spread out over several years as funding becomes available.

The information from the condition assessments is intended to inform future budget requests for maintenance and capital projects and to develop the facility management plan, which will both require additional resources.

And just for context, the most recent five-year CIP outlook showed 191 million dollars worth of unfunded capital needs for existing facilities.

And on the operating budget side, the city auditor noted in its 2024 performance audit for facility maintenance that an appropriate amount to budget for annual maintenance and repairs is at least 143 million dollars, which is far above the facility services budget of about 30 million.

And currently, due to underinvestment of city facilities, a large portion of facilities maintenance efforts are reactive associated with addressing emergency repairs.

Again, while this item does not commit funding at this time, it does reflect a step forward in responsibly planning for long-term management of city facilities.

Once the city does fund condition assessments in the future, it'll be important to follow up that investment with funding one budget request resulting from the assessments, and two, the more long-term facilities management plan, which will also require an associated long-term funding plan.

Thank you.

Thank you for those comments.

Natalie, we will now turn or proceed with any public comment.

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment period for item six is now open, and we've received two speakers' lips from two individuals in chambers.

Perita Javier is seated or time to Caesar Javier.

So you'll have two minutes to speak to item six.

Cesar and Purita Westbank.

Rivera.

She Tis Rivera.

Step down.

Where's the King Flower?

You're exiled to Marcel, France.

You are criminals.

Look what is happening.

Look at the club.

It's different from my club.

Look at the arrangement of the flag.

Where is the LGBT civil rights movement here?

The versus whatever.

Where are the symbols of justice?

Freedom.

Liberty for all.

Look around our facilities here.

The symbol of philosophy, the wise men's headquarters.

Look at our front.

Corners of this compound.

Did you file EIR or do you talk to the compliance air pollution control district, Mr.

Rivera?

Oh no, I should not talk to them.

I am the governing board member.

Who reported?

The air pollution right here.

You should be the one reporting, sir.

Maintenance.

You're fired from the point of view of the subject of public service, César and Purita, humbly.

And we represent 74 residents in our community.

And we are proud because we are consistent to help you.

Redirect your direction, your vector, if only to deliver public goods.

And spend those money to zero.

This concludes in-person public testimony.

We will now move to the virtual queue.

We have one hand raised in the virtual queue.

Phone number ending in 870.

Please unmute and begin.

I'm really sorry for what I'm gonna have to say, because I do not consider this a step forward.

I I just do not.

What I want you to do before you come to City Council.

I want you to tell the public what golden opportunities you are going to take care of advantage now.

Now where is the resilience to face what we're facing in the deferred maintenance?

This is going on for years.

Years.

This is getting to be unsafe and dangerous.

And we just want to know that you got a hold of this.

Please don't put this five million dollars on paper.

And and and I don't know what you do when you put it on paper when we don't approve it, but it's on paper.

And and maybe it holds up something else just because you're waiting to use the money.

Uh I I'm very upset about this.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you.

And this concludes public comment on item six.

Thank you so much.

We will now turn turn to our committee members for questions and comments and entertain a motion.

We will start with council member Moreno.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh movement on conducting a facilities assessment is is a definitely a long time coming.

Um, as was noted, the last one was in 2016.

And even then I question if the assessment was completed in identifying total needs for city facilities.

Uh the staff report mentions that for structures and known flood zones, services will include recommendations for the repositioning of equipment to be out of harm's way in case of flood, in case of a flood, and recommendations for the mitigation of potential uh flood water infiltration.

Would this assessment include our storm channels or storm drains, or will it just focus on how to protect city buildings and equipment and equipment for potential flooding?

Thank you for the question, Committee Member Moreno.

Um, this assessment is only going to look at buildings.

It will not be looking at storm conveyances, storm drains, storm storm channels.

It's only going to focus on buildings.

What about um pump stations or um other systems?

It will focus on some pump stations, pump stations that are more built-up brick and mortar pump stations, uh, four walls and a roof, so to speak, other pump stations may not be assessed as they're different.

Other pump stations may not be assessed as they're different.

They're you know pumps in the ground, so to speak.

Okay.

Um finally, was the capacity for this contract anticipated in the current fiscal year?

No.

Okay.

Now I want to make clear that I very much support this contract because we really need to get a handle on what our top needs are when it comes to addressing our facilities and also ensuring we're extending the life of each building we own.

But currently in San Isidro, if you go to a library on Sunday, it's closed.

In District Eight, if you go to a library on Monday, the door will be open only in San Isidro and only in Logan Heights.

So it pains me to not support this item because I know it's very much needed, but I can't look at my constituents in the eye and say, hey, this is the city tightening up its belt as was mentioned early on in the budget process.

So I'm not going to be supporting staff's recommendation.

Um there's no ability for the city to utilize it given the funding for this was not included in the budget as well.

That's another component to this.

So when if there is a motion, I will vote no.

Thank you though for the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

We will now move to council president pro Tim Lee.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh thank you to the General Services Department for your work.

Um and uh I think everyone here agrees on the importance of the facilities conditions assessments.

Um the last one I think you had mentioned was conducted in 2016, correct?

That's correct.

Uh and unfortunately, I think same thing with papin and other areas.

We've we've fallen behind sort of the recommended time frames when it comes to best practice to conduct those assessments.

Um I think as my colleague pointed out, uh, you know, this this is specifically to have an as-needed consultant available.

Uh there is no funding currently allocated in the budget for it.

Um so it is unfortunate that that we're gonna continue to see the delay, but I do see the significance of having the capacity ready to go if there is funding to be able to conduct assessments.

Um I think one of the questions I have is is considering the very, very large number of buildings that we have, the separation between those that are public serving versus those that are um maybe more internal per se.

Um how would we ultimately prioritize which assessments would be completed in what order, if that makes sense, once funding would be available.

Thank you for the question, Committee member Lee.

Uh we're we're still assessing how we might address the prioritization.

We're kind of are looking at different buckets, so to speak, of how we would put facilities, public facing versus internal, obviously, and then public facing uh libraries, rec centers, um, semi-public facing, like police stations, fire stations, um, old versus new, and how that might look.

So we're still trying to uh assess and address how we might uh prioritize those to your question.

Just to if I could add to that, uh I think that prioritization will also depend on the amount of funding as that funding also comment comes in.

But uh to Hal's point, we kind of wanted to look at public facing.

Uh we know that there's a ton of needs out there, over a billion dollars uh in backlog.

Um but I think as though funding is becomes available, we can look at prioritizing, of course, those uh facilities that are public facing.

We know that there's a large need also for our city facilities where our our our city employees work.

So I I think it's just to be a matter of also how much funding comes in and those buckets that we'll be able to fund as the funding uh is allocated.

Um I think as that comes forward, if we if we're looking at a future budget where funding might be allocated towards this, I'd be interested in that discussion.

Uh I mean, obviously on the public facing side, we we tend to hear back from residents on specific types of public facing facilities, particularly rec centers and libraries of all varying conditions across the the city.

Um I would imagine in some of those facilities because maintenance needs have been logged and sort of backed up at this point as well, that there is a pretty good need uh sense of what the difference is between um some day-to-day maintenance that has fallen behind versus some greater capital need.

I imagine that's part of also why these facilities conditions assessments are important in determining what is ultimately maintenance versus um a longer-term capital need.

But I I do also think that some of the facilities that we may not think of as public facing are just important.

And since we do have fire here, I will point out I mean many of us have have toured some of the stations within our communities, again of varying conditions based on when they were built, but um it it it would be a shock, I think, sometimes to the public, some of the conditions that we um place on even our the folks that we rely on for our public safety on a day-to-day basis, um, the needs that exist in those facilities as well.

And since we do have fire here, I will point out I mean many of us have have toured some of the stations within our communities again of varying conditions based on when they were built but um it it it would be a shock I think sometimes to the public some of the conditions that we um place on even our the folks that we rely on for our public safety on a day-to-day basis um the needs that exist in those facilities as well so um when that time comes would be very much curious on how we um have a great conversation about that prioritization um with that said I I do understand the significance of the item um and I'll go ahead and move staff's recommendation all righty thank you so much so we have a motion by pro Tim um Lee not seeing anyone else on the lights okay we have a second by uh council member um Ilo Rivera um this too is difficult um for me because what I am hearing is we have no funding and therefore there will be no assessments done at this time um what's the minimum obligation associated with this it's one thousand okay so if we don't do anything for the term essentially we will have to pay out a thousand dollars correct um as my colleague stated um and then this just seems more of a of a procedural formality than um true value I'm assuming how much time does it take to put this together from a procurement standpoint what have we spent in city resources and um scoping put you know developing the RFP and putting this out what what what dollars are we talking about thank you for the question committee chair it's taken approximately a year 12 months to put it together but in dollar can you translate to that to investment by the city and resources what is what would you say it costs to put this procurement together I council rough order magnitude I'm not gonna yeah I I don't know if we can quanta accurately quantify that so I don't want to know if I want to go on record saying that but I can certainly pull that data together for you and provide that to you.

Our our action here was to try to be proactive knowing that there is a lot of needs out there such that when funding does become available we're not then spending that time we're ready um to award condition assessments as the money becomes available such that we don't have to do that in the back end.

So this is a proactive measure for us understanding the budget limitation so we still thought it was the the smart and appropriate thing to do given uh that there's such a dire need out there for condition assessments and to understand what the true needs are okay and and and um I I guess my next question would be even if we do an assessment then the next step is to then identify funding to take care of the maintenance that is indicated correct that is correct it'll also help us advise to ensure that we are prioritizing the right uh facilities and buildings as we are uh working to uh with the allocations that we currently have in our operations budget okay um we'll do um I'll pause here it looks like I have members back on the lights but I'll pause here and um turn to council member thank you chair um I'm curious and this is more for probably Matt than anyone um sorry um has there any been any conversation about talking to some of our philanthropic philanthropic partners or stakeholders who would like to see some of the improvements made that could flow from this in helping them support um and fund the this work um it's as it's a necessary step to get to where many of them would like to go in terms of improvements made throughout the city.

Yes council member there have been conversations about engaging philanthropy and other partners to engage in uh public private partnership or um other sorts of models that may help to uh infuse city facilities with the capital needed to improve them uh we're anticipating bringing some um concepts forward to the council for consideration uh later this year and we're working with the economic development department and others in formulating that now I I appreciate that I think another part of the conversation might be that in order to get to that stage we we need to do this assessment and um it it might be a a good opportunity for some of those um folks who are are potentially interested in those sort of partnerships to help lay the foundation um not laying the foundation just pushes off what what we will eventually be able to do um and so um I I I wouldn't encourage um

I think another part of the conversation might be that in order to get to that stage, we we need to do this assessment, and um it might be a good opportunity for some of those um folks who are potentially interested in those sort of partnerships to help lay the foundation.

Um not laying the foundation just pushes off what we will eventually be able to do.

Um, and so um I I wouldn't encourage um some exploration of of those conversations as well.

I don't know that that would require any sort of um anything special in terms of action from the the council besides perhaps receive approving receiving funds um from someone who would be willing to contribute.

Um but uh again and in thinking about you know who uh is at times asking for some of these improvements to be made, um the the people who are attempting to step up and um get frustrated at times about how long things take enlisting them in the effort to lay that foundation and build a path to actually get work done might be useful.

So I just wanted to plant that seed, uh ask that question and then plant that seed.

Um thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

We will go back to Pro Ten Lee.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, and I think these are good questions.

Uh I you know, I I'm really thinking of this from a foundation laying standpoint, knowing that this is gonna be necessary for us to think of even just how we are allocating maintenance dollars moving forward, because if if our it did existing assessments are aging, at some point they're not gonna be relevant in terms of understanding what our priorities are.

I think the other piece that's important here is that it may not be in this current year's budget, but I I regardless at the moment, we're gonna need to think about how we're going to conduct these assessments to plan out our future capital and maintenance needs.

Um, given that you shared the 12-month time frame, I think it's safe and transparent for us to assume that this was kicked off at a time when there was hope that a revenue measure would actually mean that these would be a pretty quick and immediate need in order for us to actually allocate funding that was going to be spent.

Um so I understand that that obviously has not come to fruition, um, but I don't think that need goes away.

But the timeline probably has shifted significantly.

So for me, the comfort here is knowing that this is a five-year as needed contract that allows us the opportunity to move forward.

Um to everyone's point, we're gonna need actual revenue and dollars allocated in the budget to move forward, not just here, but on the actual projects that end up being identified.

So thank you.

Thank you for that.

Um, just really quick.

Um I guess my question is if this contract is to continue to move, if this items going to be moving forward as a task is identified, what is that process?

What does that process require?

Is there a need to come back to council as there's no appropriations right now, or is that in the hands of the operations team to make that decision?

Here's an item that we are going to move forward on and expend if the assessment is if the task is 150,000.

Who who makes that decision or what is that process?

What does that look like?

So if this action is approved, we wouldn't need to come back to council unless we exceed that uh NTE amount, but we can certainly, as funding becomes available, uh reach out and provide our recommendations and moving forward as the funding is allocated and get feedback from the council districts on our plan.

Good morning, Councilmember Alia Corey, deputy chief operating officer.

So if there are any savings in this year in any department or in the facilities budget, then no, we're not required to go back to council to act and do any assessments on facilities.

If there's anything greater than that and into budgeting for FY27 and beyond, then that allocation would come to you for appropriation.

We would give recommendations in the current year again.

That if there are savings, which is unlikely, we would have the author authority to go through with that.

We would note it in our mid-year monitoring reports, which is first quarter, mid year, in year end, we would let you know they're just identified savings and we're moving forward with an assessment.

So that could be done under the authority and the controls that we've set up in our powers.

It's unlikely that we're going to have savings this year, but to answer your question, that's how it would go.

Okay.

Um thank you for that.

I'm not going to to um spend too much more time on this.

Um I still have concerns in all transparency.

Um it is a very hard decision.

Um, as council member uh Moreno indicated that we have made um budget decisions to um per se look at services that we have pulled back.

Um and so as we are making those um types of decisions and and I guess I'm uh uh concerned not having an opportunity to input as certain decisions are being made in where the dollars are going from a council perspective with the decisions that we're faced with.

Um having said that um I will support the item um moving forward um to council um but in all transparency um I will um reserve uh my right um to vote no um when it goes to council and and I think um all y'all be reaching out to you and um have some additional um conversation to um address some concerns as I make my decision as the item um is is taken to counsel so um with that we have a motion on the floor by pro Tim Lee, a second by council member Elo Rivera.

Um Natalie, please call for the vote and the motion passes 3-1 with committee member Moreno voting no righty, thank you so much.

That concludes item um number six, and we will move on to our last item, item number seven.

Item number seven, exemption of an assistant fire chief position in the fire rescue department from the classified service.

All righty staff, please introduce yourselves for the record and let us know how much time you'll need for your presentation, and feel free to begin.

Good morning, committee chair Foster and committee members.

I am James Gabriel Assistant Fire Chief.

Joining me today is Willie Melendez, deputy fire chief, and Chief Logan was here, but he had to go meet with the mayor.

Uh we need five minutes for our presentation.

We are here to request exemption of a new assistant fire chief's position from the classified service.

The new assistant fire chief's position uh reports directly to the fire chief and will oversee the newly created strategic operations that will have direct oversight of the emergency services division as well as the emergency command and data center.

The position was approved in the FY26 adopted budget within the EMS fund and has no impact on the general fund.

The position exemption was approved by Civil Service Commission on November 7, 2024.

The assistant fire chief will oversee uh ambulance transportation services, ensure consistency with strategic planning, policy development, operational oversight to include budgetary and resource management and ensure compliance with local, state, and federal regulations as well as contractual obligations.

The proposed action is to adopt the ordinance to authorize exemption of the assistant fire chief of strategic operations from classified service in the fire rescue department, and we are here to answer any questions you have.

All righty, thank you so much for the presentation.

Natalie do we have any public comment?

Thank you, Chair.

We've received two speakers lips from two individuals in chambers.

Parita Javier has seated her time to Caesar Javier, so you'll have two minutes to speak to item seven.

We will not tire because we are a stakeholder.

You were there at the disaster conference operation.

Yes, sir.

And you confirm to us that firefighters can enter private property to effectively put off the fire.

Yes, sir.

You are lying, citizen Rivera.

Zero score for today.

You're cheating.

Step down.

Three years more.

Sir Chair, respectfully.

He's fired.

He lied to the public.

He brought an entourage and say one of the exception from the police was there.

Mr.

Caesar, this item is on a position.

Can you please comment the intellectual level?

Capacity.

And I am trying to draw an example.

That a position like that or whatever in the system.

Firefighting.

One of the firefighter and blur said.

Oh, we cannot enter property.

What was the answer?

Oh, we respect the peaceful evacuation of the populist there, Mr.

Chair, and made it shape for the ebook wish.

The answer should be.

Mr.

Cesan and residents of this Mr.

Caesar.

Mr.

Mr.

Caesar.

I paused your time.

Please keep it to the assistant fire chief position and the item.

Please.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, for the uh chance to continue.

If I may to help you think about it is not whether the it's classified, sir, or unclassified.

What we expect from you is the moral dimension.

When you rescue someone, hey, I am expert on this.

I am I smell some toxicity in the next doors.

Ceramics business.

That's what we're doing.

Each speaker will have one minute.

Zoom user, please unmute and begin.

Well, hi.

Our fire department is great.

I live in Mission Valley uphill from that fire last year.

They did a great job.

And they also did a great job over just recently in that fire and lakeside.

But one thing I have this new new position.

Now the building you guys are sitting on, you're on the 12th floor.

Look up in the ceiling.

There's no fire sprinklers in this building.

I think it's a very dangerous to have the public sitting up there.

Because if someone pulls the fire alarm, the elevators do not work.

How are they gonna get down to the bottom?

12 floors down the hill.

I think we should have hopefully you're gonna test on that every year.

I think most buildings, especially of this caliber, it's really old, very dangerous.

If someone is there is a fire, you can't use the elevators.

You gotta go down those stairs.

So I think you should have a test.

Just unannounced test.

Some pull the fire alarm.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is phone number ending in 8700.

Please begin.

Thank you, Joyce and Yada.

I fell in love with the ECDC from uh the alliance model.

And you know I followed that thoroughly.

Uh thank you, Chief Logan, for your memo.

I read every single word in this backup, every single word, because it's important to me.

And so here's what I want to point out.

Uh, it is a symbiotic relationship between the EMS and the ECDC, and yet in the memo, it says that these divisions are currently underserved.

The word is underserved.

So, Chief Logan, do we have somebody already chosen for that position?

Because we need them in it right now.

This is critical.

Thank you for this.

I love all of our emergency service people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for what you do for the public.

We love you so much, Chief Logan.

Hang in there, you're doing great.

Let's move forward.

Love to all.

Thank you.

And Chair, this concludes public comment.

Thank you so much.

I will now turn it over to committee members for questions and comments and entertain a motion.

We will start with Council Member Moreno.

Happy to make a motion.

Thank you so much.

We have a motion to approve staff recommendation.

We have a second by Pro Tim Lee.

Any other discussion?

Having none, we will call for the vote.

And the motion passes unanimously.

4-0.

Thank you so much.

That concludes item seven.

And this brings us to the end of today's agenda.

Thank you to the members of the public and staff for your participation.

I will now adjourn this meeting of the budget and government efficiency committee to our next regularly scheduled meeting, which is on Wednesday, October 15th, 2025, at 9 a.m.

We are adjourned.