Thank you.

Good morning, and welcome to the next session of the budget review committee of May fifth, twenty twenty-six.

Our committee liaison Sarah Jordan will go over instructions for today's meeting.

As we shared yesterday, the budget review committee will convene for one continuous meeting starting yesterday, May fourth, twenty twenty-six through Friday, May eighth, twenty twenty-six, beginning each day at nine A.M.

The meeting will continue until the entire agenda is complete.

Department budgets will be heard in the order of the agenda, subject to the chair's discretion.

Throughout the continuous budget review committee meeting, public comment will be taken during each sub-item.

The public may also comment on any departments not listed for a formal presentation on the agenda during sub-item S additional department review.

This information and instruction is also available on the budget review committee agenda on the city's webpage.

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

Committee member Campbell.

And Chair, Committee Member Foster.

Here.

Also attending the meeting today is Deputy Director Gillian Andalina from the Independent Budget Analysts Office.

Senior Lead Deputy City Attorney, Christina Ray from the City Attorney's Office, Chief Financial Officer Rolando Charvel, and Senior Policy Advisor for Mayor Todd Gloria, Randy Wilde.

If you are in person, please complete a speaker slip located at the entrance of chambers and place it on the top of the box indicated at the speaker's lecture and in the front of the room.

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

In person testimony will conclude before virtual testimony begins.

Members of the public can also 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 telephone, you may dial 1669 2545252, inputting webinar ID 160326900 pound.

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

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

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

If you wish to speak to a particular item, please 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 calling participant by pressing star nine on your cell phone or landline.

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

Thank you, Sarah, for reviewing those instructions for the benefit of the public.

A quorum is now present.

We will now move to committee members, mayoral staff, city attorney, and independent budget analysts for comments.

Hearing none, we will now take up our information agenda.

As a reminder, these are informational items only during our budget review committee hearings.

So no motions are required.

As Sarah mentioned, public comment will be heard after each subitem.

Subitems have been categorized to follow areas or branches of the city.

Therefore, several sub items include multiple city departments.

For these subitems, the department official will introduce, we will hear a presentation or presentations regarding all the departments included.

After each department's presentation, council members will have an opportunity to ask staff questions at the conclusion of the subitem and after public comment.

Council members will have the opportunity to provide concluding remarks.

With that, we will begin this morning's hearing with subitem E, City Engineer Overview.

Sarah, please introduce subitem E.

Thank you, Chair Foster.

I have noticed that Councilmember Campio has joined us virtually.

So if Council Member Campio would like to provide his virtual declaration at this time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair.

Good morning, Council.

I'm notifying the public I'm joining virtually today under just cause under the Brown Act related to child care needs.

I'm no one in the room is over the age of 18 with me, and I'll update that notification if that changes.

Thank you, Chair.

And subitem E is the City Engineer Overview.

This includes the engineering and capital projects and capital improvements program.

And if you're watching on City TV and you'd like to dial in a speak, call 1669-2545252.

Inputting webinar ID 160-332-690 pound.

Chair.

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

And please proceed.

Good morning, Ranya Amen.

We're going to need 10 minutes for the first presentation.

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

My name is Ranya Man, Chief Officer of the Community Services Branch, and I also serve as your city engineer.

In this role, I help support engineering functions across the city, including technical review, infrastructure planning, capital project delivery standards, coordination, and problem solving with our operating departments.

Our goal is to ensure engineering decisions are practical, fiscally responsible, and aligned with the city's long-term infrastructure needs.

We work closely with departments to move public and development project from concept to construction while maintaining a focus on safety, reliability, and services to the public.

This morning, the engineering capital project department, together with the Department of Finance will present three items.

First, we will review the engineering department proposal for the uh operating budget, its accomplishments, and the resources needed to support core engineering functions.

Second, we will provide a capital improvement program performance update for the first six months of fiscal year 2026, including progress, delivery highlights, and key trends.

Finally, we will present the proposed FY27 CIP budget.

Before we move into the CIP budget discussion, I want to thank you and your offices for taking the time to receive these budget briefings and for the thoughtful questions and feedback you have provided throughout this process.

Your input has been invaluable in helping our teams better understand council priorities, evaluate trade-offs, and continue refining a budget that is effective and responsive to the needs of our communities, particularly given the constraints of limited funding allocations.

I also want to thank the IBA team, including Kim Dusmant, for their continued review, analysis and partnership throughout the budget process.

I want to highlight that the proposed FY27 CIP budget was developed with an equity focused approach, with priority given to the FAIR maintenance, protections of existing public assets, and projects that support public health and safety.

At the same time, we recognize that the proposed budget does not fully address the citywide defair maintenance gap or the level of investment needed to bring all infrastructure assets to the desired condition.

This gap continues to create operational and liability risk for the city, underscoring the need for sustained long-term investment backed by stable revenue source.

Before I hand it over to the department, I also want to recognize the work of our staff and the partner asset management and internal services departments, such as purchasing and contracting.

Over the past year, together they have strengthened cross departmental coordinations, advanced capital project delivery, improve reporting and transparency, and remain focused on responsible investment in city infrastructure.

With that, I will turn it over to Elif Sitten, Director of Engineering Capital Project Department.

Thank you, Rania.

Engineering Capital Projects Department is the lead in delivering the city's capital improvement program, plays a critical role in ensuring San Diego's infrastructure is safe, reliable, and built for the future.

Department's mission is to deliver high-quality public infrastructure systems by cultivating diverse expertise and leveraging our engineering responsibility in a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment.

In addition to its core function of delivering CIP projects, ECP provide a variety of specialized services that most cities contract out.

For example, we have our own certified materials lab that performs material and sole tests.

We conduct inspections of private development projects in the public right-of-way.

And we provide fiscal monitoring and dashboard reporting on the capital improvement programs for both the public, city council, and the city departments.

Ultimately, our broad service portfolio positions the NCP as a strategic partner to us to the asset management departments and the City of San Diego organization at large.

Now I would like to mention F of ANCP's accomplishments and operational efficiencies.

This year, we advanced the convention center management agreement amendment and revalualization plan through council, paving the way for more than 100 million dollars in critical infrastructure improvements.

We continued elevating the city's CIP program within the regional construction industry.

This visibility is helping improve the bidding environment and attract competitive proposals.

In partnership with purchasing and contracting department and city attorney's office, we developed a new specification template for progressive design build project delivery.

This will streamline procurement and support in innovative project delivery for the capital improvement program.

We awarded construction contracts for 39 projects and completed the construction of 59 projects to date in fiscal year 2026.

Lastly, we transitioned more than 400 employees out of towntown as part of multi-phase relocation effort.

Phase one and two are now complete.

Staff completed construction for phase three is underway, and all remaining understaffed are scheduled to move by the end of the year.

Demand for infrastructure investment has continued to grow, requiring the department to manage a high volume of complex projects.

Over the next five years, the city estimated needs are 12.8 billion dollars with an annual demand of approximately 1 billion dollars.

The first three quarters of this fiscal year alone, 743.8 million dollars has been expanded in CIP.

An additional 821.7 million is being requested in the FY27 CIP proposed budget.

Despite fiscal contraints, the department has prioritized efficient planning, strategic resource allocation, and disciplined project delivery to ensure this capital investments move forward.

This ongoing level of work demonstrates department's importance in supporting cities' operational needs and long-term goals, even with the limited financial resources.

Now I will turn it over to Mark to provide department operating budget details.

Morning.

Here's a high-level overview of the charges to our fiscal year 2020-27 budget compared to the previous fiscal year, which I'll go into more detail in the next coming slides.

But in short, we are requesting to decrease 34 positions, of which 32 positions are vacant to our field, and at approximately 3.4 million in one-time expenses to complete tenant improvements, tenant improvement work at the Gibbs Drive office buildings.

This slides provides a summary of ENCP's individual budget requests, starting with the addition of $3.4 million for engineering consultant services and construction activities required to complete tenant improvement work at the Gibbs office building.

The scope includes professional design, construction management, and construction work necessary to bring the facilities into compliance with applicable building safety and accessibility codes, as well as modifications required to support department operations and employee occupancy.

The tenant improvements are anticipated to be completed by December 2020-26.

Next, an adjustment of $310,000 is being added for ENCP shared costs of one Deputy Chief Operating Officer.

Four hourly positions, positions associated with employee and power program are being requested for fiscal year 2020-27.

This represents no change to the department's employee and empowered program compared to fiscal year 2020-26 due to the state's limited funding at the grant program.

One-time revenue adjustment of $481,000 is being added to the budget for the San Diego Gas and Electric Right-of-Way reimbursement for fiscal year 2020-25.

ENCP provides inspection services for SDGNE construction projects in the public right-of-way.

And per the SDGE franchise agreement, the general fund reimburses ENCP for work performed two years in the rear.

And lastly, a revenue adjustment of 19.6 million is being requested as a true up to align revenues with the department's operating budget.

As stated in the previous slides, our reduction proposal includes a reduction of 32 vacant positions and associated revenue, of which two are on classified positions and one filled assistant deputy director position with it within the construction engineering and services division.

The proportional impact between classified and unclassified positions being reduced is 5.5 percent compared to 9.4 percent, respectively.

In other words, we are reducing 9.4 percent of our unclassified staff compared to 5.5 percent of our classified staff.

Additionally, we are proposing to transfer one organizational effectiveness supervisor position.

This position this position is filled, and the employee has been on loan to the performance and analytics department as part of a development opportunity from over a year.

The performance and analytics department has agreed to acquire this position permanently and has requested budget for this position in fiscal year 2020-27.

Our budget equity impact statements.

By offering structured and transparent access to mentorship, the program ensures employees at all levels have the opportunity to gain career guidance, develop skills, and better understand pathways for advancement.

ENCP's in-house leadership academy program remains a successful cornerstone of the department.

It is designed to develop classified supervisors into effective and ethical leaders.

These academies aim to strengthen leadership competencies, promote diversity and inclusion within leadership roles across the profession, and foster a culture of professional growth.

The department continues to utilize the employee empowered program to provide paid internship opportunities to young people and students from communities of concern such as low-income, unemployed backgrounds, those who are justice involved in foster care and individuals who have experienced substance abuse or mental health challenges.

Lastly, ENCB continues to collaborate alongside asset owning departments or I'm sorry, asset managing departments to score CIP projects in accordance with Council Policy 800-14.

This process ensures that the equity factor is properly evaluated for projects within historically underserved communities, maintaining the council's commitment to an equitable approach in capital investment for these areas.

And this concludes our presentation.

We'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much.

We'll now go to the IBA for comment.

Thank you, Chair Foster.

I'm Gillian Andalina with the Office of the IBA.

Our review of the engineering and capital projects department begins on page 162 of our report.

The most significant adjustment is the proposed reduction of 33 FTE positions.

This continues reductions seen in fiscal year 2026, where a net of 70 FTE positions were reduced.

According to the department, this continues to right size the department staffing to meet current demands of the CIP, both in volume and project type.

ECP's operational needs are closely aligned with the size and scope of the CIP.

As and as the CIP has expanded over the years, additional resources were needed to support project delivery.

Just for context, the CIP grew from 434 million in fiscal year 2015 to 925 million in fiscal year 2018.

And during this time, the department also grew its staff by adding over 200 positions.

Since then, the CIP budget has grown to 1.2 billion until fiscal year 2026, which totals 980 million.

Although this is a decrease, it still represents a 126% increase since fiscal year 2015.

And with the proposed reduction in staffing for fiscal year 2027, staffing will hang have increased by almost 52% compared to 126% since uh fiscal year 2015.

And that concludes my remarks.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We will now turn to council members for questions or comments.

We will start with Council President Lakava.

Right.

Thank you, Chair.

I know when you said these meetings were continuous, I didn't think it was all hours of the day and night, but uh we'll soldier on.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Thank you for the good work.

Um, you know, that last comment by the IBA, I appreciate that we're actually staffing at the levels.

Um, and we're actually the employer of choice now for engineers, and it was grateful, especially given my background, to see a lot of engineers who left the city, came back and be able to get our work done.

Um so I have a number of of questions, some of which you might be able to answer, some of them which I'm happy to take um offline going forward.

Uh last night we got two calls about the assistant deputy director cut.

I'm a little bit nervous that because that's a fill position, that might be a little bit of an HR sensitivity.

So I just want to double check the rationale of why we decided we do not need a city land surveyor official position kind of thing.

So I'm happy to take that one offline.

Um the ad, which is the Montgomery Gibbs TIs.

I assume that's work that's already underway when we took engineering capital projects staff out of leased buildings and put them into a city facility, and this is just a continuation of that work and and consolidation all in one building.

So I can see you nodding heads.

Um the um one of the things I'm concerned about, you know, my budget memo was pretty sparse and focused on stormwater.

And I have a little bit of concern that because stormwater has traditionally been underfunded over the years, that we have not been able to keep up in identifying stormwater projects outside the emergency repairs.

Gilma Drive and Village Lahoya comes up to mind.

Very pricey repair there.

Um, and therefore it's difficult for them to compete through the 800-14 process.

Uh, and so looking for um how we change that narrative and get more projects identified and then figure out how to fund it in competition with all the other CIP needs that we have.

Um, you know, this came up the other day, I think at least once, if not more, as both an equity issue because how we built our older neighborhoods back in the day where we decided to put houses up against creeks that had very low capacity is the problem we face today.

Um, standards changed.

District one doesn't have that quite that problem because people got smarter, engineers got smarter and built to a much higher standard.

So I'm particularly sensitive to that, and there typically aren't a lot of voices prior to January 2024 arguing for stormwater because we have so many infrastructure needs.

It's kind of an open-ended question, a little bit tough probably to answer.

But how do how do we change the narrative on the stormwater side?

Which is not only stormwater flood control, but it's also the water quality and the other things that state mandates too.

So go ahead, Chris.

Okay, if I may, thank you.

Uh Chris McFadden, Chief Infrastructure Officer.

Excellent question.

And because what you're seeing is unfortunately, we have about 50 million program for CIP for stormwater next year, and those are typically emergencies.

And what you're seeing is something is emergency, it just automatically rises to the top and almost bypasses quite frankly 800 14.

One thing we've tr we've done, the Todd Snyder's group has done is with the WIFIA program, that's 733 million dollar uh low interest loan from EPA programmed the majority of that funding, a large portion of that funding into those communities of concern.

That's just a start.

It's not enough.

Ultimately, what it comes down to stormwater is we we know we have limited general fund um ability to actually borrow money.

Um it will be ultimately a dedicated funding source uh for stormwater.

But at least I would mention the WIFIA was the start, uh, but it's definitely cannot be the end of it.

Okay, yeah, I mean we can start off a conversation given all the other challenges we have this year, but we had those challenges last year and we had those challenges the year before, so we never kind of catch up.

So, how we change that narrative, despite the good work that you're all doing.

Correct.

So, Ronia, you wanted to.

Yeah, yeah, may I add, and forever is worse.

I mean, you're gonna see uh in the next 30 minutes or hour talking about the CAP budget, and most of the um that financing allocations is going towards stormwater infrastructure, right?

I know a portion of it is to pay for the city obligations on the WIFIA uh portions, and then the other for emergency.

But again, when you have a very limited source of revenues, is like there is not much of options.

As far as the 800-14, um, there is, as you recall, there is seven different factors, and one of that is uh environmental sustainability and water quality and whatnot.

So a lot of those stormwater projects they score high, uh given especially if they are in a community of concerns or underserved community, they score really high.

It just boils down to um some of this dedicated reliable source of funding.

Okay, fair enough.

Um then I'll throw a couple of make a couple of spicy comments, which I know you guys love when you're sitting there.

Um the um one of the things that came up, and and my colleague might refer to this as well, is a little concern about how we've structured ECP versus the other departments, and the question of there's been a big ask about putting a civil engineer in parks and rec, so to move park projects improvements faster than that.

Do you have any comment about that?

I mean, they perceive that to be the sore point in not getting park projects through the system faster.

Yeah, no, I I think uh we're currently going through a memorandum of understanding between the two departments, engineering capital projects and park and recreation really is about how we are utilizing our uh costly resources, which is a civil engineering, senior civil engineers in the most efficient way, and how we can make those resources available to those different asset management department based on the needs.

So if it's a full-on building, a new park like biarparks, that years in the work, right?

That says goes through the full-on CIP process.

But if we do just an upgrade of a conversation or um a playground, that civil engineer resource can be made available to the operating department to do the necessary uh sketches or uh shop drawings to to get this work moving.

And then they're all uh report to the city engineer.

So I I hold those monthly city engineer meetings where I ensure that um they're all consistent with the standards and regulation and requirements.

All right, uh, Councilmember Ila Rivera might want to follow up, but I think it's I heard it loudest in his district.

Um this one's really gonna get you.

I've heard complaints that that ECP's overhead cost is pretty excessive uh and driving the cost of projects up.

Have there's been a not quite zero-based budgeting, but has there been any attempt to look at what the overhead cost is and what that adds to projects?

Uh yes, actually, and then I'll let Mark and Elief to add, but this is this ongoing process to ensure that the department is sized correctly, and then just the example that Jelly Antion that we're continuing to size the department operation with the program with the CIP program, and then part of that sizing and looking or overhead cost, and then um it has been um decreasing over the year where we start it.

We ensure that we at the end of the day that we break even our special revenue funds.

So we have to be cost recoverable from that perspective.

And as a matter of fact, I think the team is looking into further reducing the overhead cost for FY27.

So I'm not sure if Elifa and Mark want to share some of those exact numbers.

Yeah, thank you, Ryan.

Rania, um, yes, we just actually finished an analysis of our overhead rate.

And because our costs are decreasing due to many raisings, uh, our overhead rate is actually going to be going down by 10 percent.

So that would be a huge savings to the acidonian departments.

Okay.

So no comment on the quality work you guys do.

Uh, but as we try to figure out funding for projects, it's just one more element.

But that's gets good news.

I'm glad I'm glad I asked the question.

And then just to go off on the bang, um, one of the things we also heard, and I know my colleagues have spoken to this about the climate equity fund, which is being swept again.

Um, and like there was public comment about it, and I thought about it as I was driving home at 10 30 last night.

Um I think we set ourselves up at budget, and and this is kind of my reflection on the comments of the council president pro tem yesterday.

Is we this council, this mayor, prior councils, prior mayors, has a tendency to create special buckets of money to show I don't just need three minutes, but this will be my last one.

Um to create special buckets to show that we care about an issue, uh, maybe to get a sound bite out of it.

Um, and we create these special buckets rather than embedding our values into the existing process, we create these new things.

And what appears to happen, and we saw it last year, we're we're seeing it again this year, those become things with targets on their back that says, oh, we're gonna sweep that bucket.

800-14 has, and I keep referring to that, that's the one that creates a matrix to prioritize CIP projects.

Built in a major equity component to that, which gives a dramatic bump to under-resourced communities.

And it seems like that one, if we just embedded our focus on 800-14 and believed in that, instead of creating buckets that are easy targets during budget cycle, that we would avoid this problem.

At the end of the day, the public only cares that we build these projects.

This is not as much of a question for you as a question for us elected officials and how we do things.

Um, but you know, that somebody made a joke last night that got a good laugh, but it really wasn't very funny that if you stop calling things equity, they will stop getting cut during the budget cycle.

But they're they're they're targets on their back, and I think we have to think about stop doing that.

That's not your issue per se, but this was a good moment for me to raise it and for the rest of us perhaps to think about it.

Let's build it into our values, let's bid it into our evaluation matrixes, and so we're delivering what people need and want rather than setting things up to be cut every budget cycle, and we have to go through these painful conversations.

I want to see these projects delivered.

I've committed to an equity focus outside of my district, but we have to do it differently.

And any suggestions you have, I'm not gonna ask for an answer, but any suggestions you have about doing it that way so that we don't kind of keep doing this over and over again as the Pro Tem was so eloquent in the statements yesterday.

But that's kind of what I learned from all the public comment last night and a very late night drive home.

So with that, I'll close.

Uh thank you, Chair, for the time.

Thank you all for the good work you're doing.

Thank you, Council President.

We will go to Pro Tim Lee.

Uh thank you so much.

Um, Chair.

Um just uh just to start off looking at the department.

Um so the significant reductions in positions were largely to um the 32 FTEs that I believe were all vacant, and then there's the discussion of the one filled position.

Um because so much of uh ENCP's budget is funded by CIP, it noted the revenue reduction as well of 4.3 million dollars.

Can you help me explain the offset between the two?

And if how long have these positions been vacant and I'm just trying to understand if they've been vacant any any longer than a short period of time, then we weren't generating revenue off of them anyways.

Uh sure.

So a lot of the positions are revenue generating, so when we budget for the for the position, there's an expense and then a corresponding revenue adjustment uh for that position.

Um so when we reduce the position, we're also reducing the revenue that goes with that position.

But those positions have been vacant various times, some a few months, some have been six months, maybe a year.

Some a few months, some have been six months, maybe a year.

Um we we don't have a lot of turnover, but you know, we have retirements, we have people transferring out to different departments, so it's kind of hard to tell, you know, exactly when they became vacant at that point.

Thank you for helping to share that.

It's helpful just to understand what the net was and it made me think of where this might have applied in uh in a prior year as well.

Um I appreciated the IBA's analysis, especially in in showing the growth of our CIP program over the last decade.

Um and that frankly despite the staff growth that people have seen to recognize that that actually hasn't kept up with the amount of work um that we are delivering.

Uh and I imagine it's been more complicated as well, considering how much we're working with public utilities and others on some really major projects.

Um another component I was curious about was, and it's only a small paragraph in the IBA's report, but the $19.6 million in revised reimbursements.

Um is it a multi-year set of reimbursements that are being caught up and are they reimbursements from other departments or from um enterprise departments?

Sorry, other general fund departments or enterprise departments.

Uh so typically um each year our revenue um gets adjusted to either match our expenditure budget or to match our projected revenues based on our five-year financial outlook.

And so last year there was some miscommunication between our department and Department of Finance, and that revenue adjustment wasn't um adjusted.

And so there is a there was a big gap of about 19 million.

So 10 million of that was because of an adjustment, the other 10 million was because of projected revenues.

Uh so for this for 2027, we're asking for that $19 million adjustment so that it equals our expenditure budget.

If that's what you are referring to.

Yeah, I don't know, Jillian, if you could walk us through that.

I think I think both to understand not just what it is, but also if there is any budgetary impact.

Is it just an accounting?

Correct.

It is accounting.

Um the money comes from the CIP, so it's a lot of different funding sources, probably largely PUD.

Um but yeah, it's just to make sure that the expenditures equal to the revenue.

So la last year, for example, if if we discovered we were 10 million dollars short in some of the reimbursement, uh and we had budgeted, under budgeted for that.

Did we end up in this current fiscal year?

Have we made the adjustments to catch up for that, if that makes sense?

And now we're budgeting for it moving forward.

No, what really happens is that come next year during the budget monitoring reports, then we would have to explain why our revenues are either higher or lower than the revenue budget.

And so that's where it really comes into play.

So for example, if this $19 million adjustment wasn't um approved, then that means uh and that means our revenue budget would be really low.

But in reality, next year we're gonna generate 180 million dollars in revenue, and then we're gonna have to come to council and explain why do we generate so much revenue compared to our uh adopted budget.

So it's really just a true up to to ensure that the revenues reflect what we're trying which we're actually which what we are actually accurately going to um bring in for 2027.

When I think of true up, I just think of usually looking at arrears, right?

So at the end of a year, sure.

Seeing that we're behind, then we're making a budget adjustment to alignment then.

So what you're saying is that yeah, based on your projections for next year's revenue, correct.

Um that's the okay, got it.

That makes sense.

Um then my last question is is maybe just a broader one, which is the um shift of a deputy chief operating officer position or part of one uh specifically into ENCP.

And so and and Rolanda, I I will acknowledge I I think this is just one move of many um under the office of the mayor.

And so maybe I'll just turn to the chair to ask for a quick moment.

But we don't have sorry, I don't want to interrupt the chair, but we don't have the office of the mayor presenting this week on their budget, correct?

Okay.

Thank you for the question, Councilmember Roma Chairville CFO.

Um this was a change that was implemented in FY26.

Uh the cost of the the various chiefs of the P Chief Operating Officers were allocated based on the funds of the oversee, for example.

A good example is Chris McFanna receives half of PUD or half of his time goes to PewDieP, a quarter goes to ESD.

So those those costs were basically allocated to the the appropriate funds in this case.

Uh Rania's time is being allocated to the ENCP fund.

Um that was done to achieve budgetary savings in the general fund and properly um allocate the cost uh of that function and the oversight to the appropriate funds.

Um is the move being made to the ENCP general fund or is it being moved to a non-general fund component?

To the ENCP special revenue fund.

Oh, to the special revenue fund.

Okay.

Maybe we'll get to the we'll get to the broader series of moves as a result because I think uniquely, and then I know you mentioned maybe some of this has been applicable in past years as well, but there seems to be a fairly sizable number of moves coming from that office and to other departments, especially at a time when we're actually decreasing and removing positions from a variety of departments.

But we'll touch base on that at a later point.

Thank you, Chair.

And Councilmember Lee, just to clarify, uh ECP does not have any general fund allocations, part of their budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pro Tim.

Council Member Ray, I just want to check, make sure you're okay.

I I have comments on the next um item.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll do.

Um we'll go next to Councilmember Ilo Rivera.

All right, thank you, Chair.

Um apologies.

I thought I'd hit the the lights before.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Um thanks for the from the question for the questions from my colleagues.

To pick up where um council president had kind of touched upon the the issue raised from some of the advocates in city heights.

Um I I want to kind of drill down to what I think they're they're trying to understand, which is basically like how do things take so long and why do they cost so much?

And why wouldn't it make more sense to assign engineers to parks and rec so that they can just focus on the playground that's trying to be designed in a way that we can explain to community members?

Is there a way to respond to this request that they're they and and they're making a very specific request with CityCAN, but there's I think there's a broader frustration when community comes to us and asks us for not like a whole park, but like things that seem pretty straightforward, and we tell them the timeline is going to be years, and they're they're they look at us like why?

Like help us help us understand that from a like departmental high-level understanding.

Um I think in the case of a park, for example, either installing a brand new playground equipment or replacing a playground equipment.

The process is um outlined by council policy six under 33.

And it uh if it is a brand new playground, it requires a general development plan to go through the community input process and end up with a uh park and rec board.

That may take some time.

Uh but in case of a replacement of a playground, um we need to look into the associated AD upgrades and if any environmental impacts that are uh associated with that playground.

But if I could um specifically address the collaboration between park and rec landscape designers and the engineers and engineering capital projects department, throughout the years that collaboration existed, like it did within any other department, but in recent years, uh Park and Rec uh employed more landscape designers creating this in-house resource to be able to handle the design part of it.

In return, engineering capital projects department with the current MOU assigned a specific civil engineer focusing on facilities and park design related civil engineering components.

Could it be the design of the footings, what have you?

That is a strength in that collaboration more.

It will have savings in the time.

Um in addition to that, we are also looking at alternative delivery methods for her playground replacements, like we did in in the past, which is putting out a design build contract and asking for the design and the replacement in this particular case.

Actually, the community group members that are bringing the SABA uh part of the uh interview panel, which we are about to open base.

So we are going from two uh avenues, if you will, council member, definitely uh documented it strength to the collaboration between the park designers and park and rec and a dedicated civil engineer that is focusing this type of projects within engineering capital projects.

You will see more of these collaborations coming forward, reducing the timeline of hiring a consultant if you will, and one procurement of just putting out the construction bit.

So um outside of the uh the CO environmental requirements, there is efficiencies within us.

We just kind of control the external permitting, if I could.

And we are gonna utilize design build more and more for the playground replacements, like we did in the past.

I hope that answers your question.

May I add council member?

So I I met with Mid City Cans recently, uh now with my new role overseeing both park and recreation engineering capta project as also city engineer.

So um just rip like maybe present a little bit more opportunity for better collaboration and oversight on both ends.

Uh one of the biggest concerns is uh you don't want to um put an expensive positions such as senior civil engineer and general fund departments, really where you do not know how the work fluctuates as far as uh the ability to to do more of those uh improvement, park improvement within the park and rack department versus having it uh part of the engineering capta project.

That was another concern or consideration when we said we will make uh this resource available in the special revenue fund department, and then when the works is um presents itself, we can pull that resource and provide the support needed.

So it would require like collaboration between staff and then I'm I don't mean to be optimistic with the with the new structure now, and then I provide oversight to the two department that we will gain that efficiency.

I appreciate that.

I think you know it it was uh well, I appreciated it.

I all I think that that response would similarly if I was explained that if we sat down with again, just an ordinary person in the neighborhood and walk them through that, it'd be like I can go buy a playground at a hardware store, I can order it online, like get it installed in in a couple months.

Like w i I I think they're just so especially given where we're at in terms of budget.

There's a uh we we need to be more efficient.

We need to be more efficient.

And we need to be more efficient not just because we need to like save as much money as possible, but because we need to continue to deliver for folks and and if we they don't see us doing things, and I I want to say this with like full acknowledgement that your work's essential, but people don't see it, right?

It's like they see the result of your work, but they don't see your work.

And so I I want the end product to show up in people's neighborhoods as quickly as possible so that they believe that the city actually does stuff.

Um there council policies that we should be thinking about that are adding unnecessary time and expense in in a in a way that we really should be kind of reflecting upon and saying, you know, that was uh common sense thing a while back and doesn't make sense now.

And you know, I would say just personally, like it the nothing's off limits in terms of being told like, yeah, we should be taking a look at X, Y, or Z in terms of council policies.

Uh absolutely there's a few council policies that park and recreation department will be bringing forward to council.

Those are related to uh the GDP requirement and then that process um in order to be able to do any improvement in a park, you have to do a full-on GDP or GTP amendment, and then that can be a year or two and in in the work.

So um this is something that the park and rec staff they're working on a couple of council policy related to community engagement and then general development plans and those requirements, and it will be bringing forward to council.

Okay, I I appreciate that.

And and in terms of money, what is that time?

Do you have an like do you have a ballpark of what that ends up resulting in?

Uh the saving, like uh on average uh for any general development plans, it takes could be half a million dollars to a million dollars, and then the time can be up to 18 months.

Yeah.

Okay, that's we should do that.

Um I know there's like you know, we need to look at the uh uh the totality of what's coming, but I also think we should do that as quickly as possible.

Um and uh this is I think just like a broader uh a broader um recommendation for for staff.

You you all know, like in a way that is much more difficult for us to see from our vantage point of the things that are just kind of baked into process because of policy decisions, many of which many of which were made by councils of the past, that doesn't mean that they were wrong then, but again, like they just were made a while ago.

They're baked in and and we just kind of like take on face value that that is the length of the process now.

Um I would say again, because we need to be as efficient as possible, and two we need to be as efficient as possible because we needed to save money and because we need to deliver tangible results in people's neighborhoods.

I would say that nothing's off limits to me, at least for discussion.

And I would really welcome you and anyone from staff to like raise your hand and say, hey, just so you all know this part of the process that's baked into everything that we do is adding 12 months or a year and a half at a half million to a million dollars in cost.

Um I want to know when that's unnecessary.

And by unnecessary, I mean that like in a very literal way.

Like this is like we don't actually have to do this, and we're doing it every single time.

Um please let us know when we're coming across those things.

Okay.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Um councilmember Ilo Rivera, I think I'm not seeing any other members on the lights.

I think I do um just to kind of um I guess clarify.

I agree that things need to move faster.

Um I think Ronnie, you and I have had several conversations about that.

Um, the longer we take as we are in certain phases, I guess, of the projects, at the end of the day, it ends up impacting the CIP in regards to what we can get done programmatically overall, right?

And I think that's why it's so critical to understand your cost and how everything relates to the CIP.

Um, even how we deal with other administrative things in regards to the CIP.

If it's equal opportunity contracting or prevailing wage monitoring, right?

All of that gets hits the Cits these specific projects and the and the CIP.

Um I think just to clarify when we talk about parks and and parks are always a sensitive um subject, but not everything requires a GDP um revision.

I've had upgrades to tot lots in my district that did not require a um a GDP amendment.

Um so I think we just need to understand exactly when that triggers um what's required, which typically it's when you are saying changing a per repurposing a certain area within a park.

So um typically if we have a tot lot, if we are if we are adding square footage, making it larger, doing certain things, then yes, it triggers other conversations and and and needs.

But like for like, typically we should be able to move pretty quickly, go in and take care of what we need to take care of.

Um I think ADA has come up.

Um I think we had a a young lady that came and um was advocating for our ADA improvements.

We have a considerable backlog from the meeting that I went to.

Um I am right, you know, I do have I want to say two parks right now where we are going through some ADA um improvements, which um again I will say it seems to take quite a bit of time um to get us through that process.

Um my question is more so how are we still use outside um designers and so forth that we subcontract with?

Can you kind of shed some light on how you guys are managing those contracts and and how you prioritize uh to make sure that we're getting things done that we need to get done, especially as I've kind of raised the question about as needed, right?

We have an as-needed contract, and we tend to use the same same consultants on a regular basis, but how are we monitoring their progress and ensuring that we're driving uh as as you're prioritizing amongst all the different stakeholders?

How how how do we make that happen?

How are you managing that?

Um I think every is needed consulting me, higher.

Um they need to stay as part of a rotation process that we usually have two or three consultants in any um engineering specialty area.

Uh the way that we monitor their progress is the um the is uh at every stage of the project delivery, uh our project managers are required to provide consultant evaluations, um, indicating and looking at the uh performance of the consultant for that particular pace.

Could it be 30, 60, and 100?

And to add that uh the comments um in the areas of improvement or maybe accolades are proposed for for the better performance ordinance.

And at the end of the construction phase, be the number done, construction is the actually the biggest feedback they receive from us because their design in a design bit built environment is a could be direct result of the change orders and the progress of the construction.

So the final evaluation is part of that as well.

And uh we recently updated AR actually with the help of purchasing contracting to have this more robust in an area that is um accessible to all the project managers going to interview new consultants so that they could have a look at that past performances and indicate that.

We also have a diversified interview panel.

Members from the construction team, members from the asset managing departments interviewing this uh consultants, make a consortium effort that the new um consultants are um submitting proposals through the consultant industry meetings and such so that we have a better portfolio of consultants supporting us, good or bad.

And yeah.

I appreciate that.

Let me ask it a little differently.

Yes, yes.

Do you guys have a scheduling software or or something in place that how you're managing the 20 task orders that RIC engineering might have to provide service?

That's what I'm looking at.

How are you guys managing and prioritizing?

Can you give some insight to that process?

Because it's as my good friend, Councilmember Ely Rivera said, he's getting calls about a park, but I'm also calling you for my four for four parks.

Pro Tem Lee's calling for his six parks.

You know, Councilmember Moreno is calling for her parks.

How are we?

And of course, our good friend Councilmember Whitburn, how are you guys should I think there needs to be some some conversation?

And maybe today's not the day, but I think it's something you should look at.

Sure.

Um so that we can understand how we are prioritizing and managing things.

Um because that's where my concern is at, because we should be driving the the phases of the projects, right?

I'm very, very um fair, but uh I'd like to say very um uh firm with consultants if you reach a milestone, good.

If you don't, hey, I'm gonna look some to I'm going to look at other means and methods to get done what I need to get done.

Right.

I asked the question how often do we go after our consultants' ENO insurance?

I bet you that's I bet you those not I bet you that doesn't kind of exist, right?

So I'm just looking for accountability, making sure that folks as they commit to a contract, they're hitting their milestones.

We're able to coordinate amongst the nine districts to make sure that we're moving forward and not running into unnecessary delays, which for me in construction and engineering delays means dollars are increasing.

If I could just add, council member, I think uh we don't want to put all our exit in one basket.

We do have in-house design teams that are actually uh capable of delivering park improvement projects.

Just recently for conference station replacement projects that have been designed by our in-house design team, um, independent of the consultants, and they are in construction now.

So that was a concert that I would start, I think four or five years ago, but with Arania's time, and we are continuing to do that.

So that's our alternative.

In that realm, we can better control our resources and prioritize as opposed to um maybe partially being dependent on the consultant resources.

So this is that uh service is currently available to all the park projects, and we can continue expanding on that if if it is more efficient in this realm.

So, correct.

I think, for example, we had some hard courts that were designed by in-house city staff or Neil Penny's part, right?

Some hard courts that we used in.

So I understand that.

I just think I think it would be good to fall back as we are looking at efficiencies as you are still right-sizing your organization.

Um I think it's important to have that in the into the discussion to um see how we can even improve on on certain efficiencies.

Council members just shed a little bit light on that one.

As Alif mentioned, uh consultants is just to supplement existing staff, what we're trying to build is based on expertise within in-house engineers.

Um they're all a very talented engineers, and I think we owe it to them that build this expertise within and provide them with the training and resources.

Having said that, uh, when it comes to the as needed, yes, we have a team that monitoring uh and managing the as needed, but once that task is issued, is the responsibility of the project manager to see through that task and ensure that they're getting the service that the intended from that task and then monitoring the performance uh of the consultant through that task, and then provide the feedback, the evaluation if need to be terminated, they do.

So this is responsibility that is um housed with the project manager once the task is issued.

Okay.

Very very good, because I I think not only parks, there's other things we could discuss that take.

Absolutely.

I always talk about sidewalks.

I think how long it takes for us to design sidewalks is totally ridiculous.

Right.

Um we have so many standards to where it should be quite simple in my opinion.

Um with that, it looks like we have um pro Tem Um Lee on the lights.

The one thing before I go to Pro Tem Lee, um just want to say that I have asked the um city auditor to look at um council policy 800-14 as it has been in place now for um what I think are a few years um to see um and just make sure that we are uh meeting our intent and to see if there's any um changes that need to be made.

My concern is always making sure as we are putting certain things in place that we have it weighted appropriately so that we are achieving the goal that we are trying to achieve.

So I think it's time that we fall back and check that policy as we are relying heavily on it.

Um also um just uh you know, equity is always a tough conversation.

Um I'm sure Kim and her team will have something to say on the next item.

Um I too feel um having to put equity in front of everything is really a disservice, but it comes down to hearts and minds, and um we find ourselves there as account more accountability efforts and able to make sure that we are doing what we should be doing.

So um I think there's more that needs to be discussed there.

But with that, we'll go back to Pro Tim Lee.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming back to me.

Um I did have one follow-up question, which is given the structure of ENCP being uh you know a special revenue fund and getting a significant significant amount of um the funding is reimbursed, um, I'm gonna presume uh often from enterprise funds as well.

I think the real question is that it it does look like there are a number of positions that are being reduced.

How much of that reduction that we're seeing is really just to align with where we project we're headed with capital improvements uh moving forward, because with all of that in mind, I imagine the the actual immediate general fund savings is very small given a significant amount of that funding isn't coming from the general fund to begin with.

Um council member as IBA indicated, uh the increase in the staffing was correlated to the jump in the CIP.

But I I would like to say we will be gradually decreasing the number of staff because the cost of CIP is higher.

Uh the cost right now it doesn't equate to the same number of pro reduction, the same number of projects for per se, right?

So the increase we have is not going to be correlated the way that we are going uh backwards.

But we are watching the um the workloads and the uh and the assignments to each group we have correlating to the type of assets they are coming forward, right?

You will see now there's a shift in um PUD's projects.

And um there is a based on that, we are looking at different in-house teams and moving them into construction.

So the correlation is there.

It it may not indicate this number by number, but this is our reaction to the this at the change in the CIP portfolio, and we are adjusting that.

I don't know if Ranya wants to add anything.

So just recognizing it takes time to build the expertise, build the bench.

So we don't want to over shrink the resources.

Well, the time comes and then we have uh an increase in the capital improvement project uh programs, and then we'll have no ability to continue responding to that one.

So there is a colorations, but we were trying to do it gradually and then watching and having conversations uh with the enterprise fund.

I mean, uh public utilities is the main customer or uh client for the engineering capital project, about 60% of the workload, and then how the rates is really impacting their ability to uh move with some major CIP programs and whatnot.

So the so and then the pure water phase two as well.

So I I mention all this because especially because of what the council president noted as well.

I think I think what's really helpful to notice here is that what's different with your ENCP budget and the reductions you're making is that this isn't just a response to the budget situation that the city is going undergoing.

This is actually a little bit separate from that.

And I think that's actually really important to distinguish because it's wonderful that on paper it's looking like you guys are making a reductions to sort of match up with what we're seeing in other departments throughout the city.

Um but because of that separation, I I think exactly what you said, Ranya, is really uh something for us to all recall because in a year or two, if funding does look different and we find ourselves in a position to expand upon um CIP opportunities, then the city has to scale with that.

Knowing that every position that's being reduced is actually not a an equal cost savings, and especially not an equal cost savings in the general fund.

Don't get me wrong, I am sure uh water rate payers, super ratepayers, um, you know, other public utility projects that we're doing all benefit from lowered costs and overhead.

Uh but again, I think in this rare case, you know, we're looking long-term as well.

Um, so I just want to be thoughtful as the council president note if there's a position or two that as we near the end of this budget process, we think is necessary to keep that we at least consider that as council because again that that cost is not the same as other reductions that we're seeking in the general fund.

Thanks, Chair.

All right.

Thank you for that.

Seeing no other members on the lights, that will bring our discussion on engineering and capital projects to a close.

And now we will move on to our next presentation, the capital improvements program.

As you set up, just please introduce yourself and feel free to get started.

Thank you, Chair Elif Chitin Engineering Capital Projects Department Director, and here with me today's program manager, Semira Palace.

And now we will be presenting the fiscal year 2026 MEDIER's state of the CIP and construction report.

And I will kick it off by saying giving a quick overview of what we'll be presenting.

But a quick reminder, this report is presented twice a year as an informational item is required by Council policy 31 for CIP transparency.

This report covers the period of July 1st, 2025 through December 31st, 2025.

We will provide an overview of the city's entire capital improvements program, where ENCP is responsible for delivering nearly 80% of the program, and the remainder of the projects are managed by other departments.

In the report, we will also review the status of some major projects, provide a high-level overview of programmatic expenditures, and review general CIP performance during the first half of the fiscal year 2026.

We will provide a summary of emergencies declared in fiscal year 2026.

And lastly, we will highlight just a few of the project awards received in fiscal year 2026.

With that, I will now turn it over to Samira to give the presentation.

Thank you, Alif.

The CIP program and what we accomplish in any given year are dependent at least in the part on the funding that is made available in that year.

The fiscal year 2026 adopted CIP budget was $843.7 million dollars, and various council actions throughout the first half of the fiscal year increased this amount by 11 million dollars to a total of 964.7 million dollars in new funding dedicated to the CIP.

As you can see on the graph on this slide, the mid-year CIP output over the last five years has continued to increase, reflecting the growing investments in our high-cost infrastructure projects.

The CIP expenditures at mid-fiscal year 2026 were 489.6 million, and as of the end of April, we are now at $850.7 million expended.

The $489.6 million in expenditures are shown here, broken down by asset owner.

As you can see, the largest expenditures are for public utilities assets, making up nearly 60% of program activity.

The next largest groups of investments are for the transportation and parks and recreation related projects.

The expenditures in fiscal year 2026 occurred across 1,339 active projects.

The project count is shown here by asset owner, with public utilities and transportation departments being the largest of our clients with the highest number of active projects.

Where we have the highest number of projects is also where we see the highest expenditure levels.

This table compares performance measures from mid-fiscal years 2025 and 2026.

Expenses are up this year, 489 million compared to 459 million last year.

Construction contract awards at mid-year are valued at 72.1 million, which is lower than what was reported at mid-fiscal year 2025.

However, there are several larger projects that are planned to be awarded in the second half of the fiscal year that will significantly increase this metric.

We are paving more miles in fiscal year 2026 than we did in the same period in fiscal year 2025, and our SLBE ELB awards are up 7% over what was reported last year.

Between July 1st, 2025 and December 31st, 2025, 0.2 lane miles of concrete panels, 30 lane miles of surface seal, and 55.2 lane miles of overlay were completed for a total of 85.4 lane miles.

As you can see on the graph, we have done more paving than slurry seal, which is an indication of both the transportation departments and ENCP departments focusing more on permanent roadway improvements.

The report also highlights project status on several major projects throughout the city that have met a major milestone in the first half of the fiscal year.

We will review a few examples in the coming slides.

Additional information is available in the report itself.

The Marina Pipeline Project started construction during the first half of the fiscal year.

As a reminder, this is the first project awarded with the project labor agreement requirements.

The current project schedule estimates construction completion in fiscal year 2029.

We also began construction on the City Heights Library Performance Annex, located in a historically underserved community in Council District 9.

Construction is anticipated to be complete next fiscal year.

We also began construction on the AC overlay group 2520, located in Council District 1.

We anticipate paving completion this summer 2026.

Lastly, construction is underway for the Mira Mesa Community Park Project, which also includes renovation of a rec center.

Construction is anticipated to be complete this summer 2026.

ENCP hosts regularly scheduled meetings with SLBE ELB contractors as well as our consulting and construction partners.

In addition, ENCP holds special meetings such as the SLBE ELB workshop with purchasing and contracting that was recently held on April 29th.

We provide attendees with a 12-month look-ahead dashboards and interactive maps to further highlight upcoming contracting opportunities across the city's nine council districts.

This enhanced communication method has been very well received in the construction and consultant industry meetings and will help further our efforts to implement the CIP transparency policy.

The CIP website continues to be an essential tool to inform the public about CIP activity.

It is mobile friendly and easy to navigate to various reports with vibrant photos and clear explanations.

The website can now be accessed via the QR code shown on this slide, which is also available in the report.

In early 2024, the City Council approved the implementation of a comprehensive citywide project labor agreement.

Until the end of fiscal year 2026, only contracts with an engineer's estimate of $5 million or more are subject to the PLA requirements.

The six projects that were subject to the citywide PLA requirements shown in this slide were advertised and awarded in the first half of the fiscal year.

The contract value ranged between 5 million to 8.6 million.

In fiscal year 2026, the city awarded 19 construction contracts with 90 bids from 48 contractors.

The current year overall average number of bidders of 4.7 is higher than last year, when only had 2.8 when we only had 2.8 bids per contract.

This indicates an increase in competition and interest in completing city projects.

In mid-year 2026, ENCP issued a total of 36 notice to proceeds and 39 construction notices of completion, which is lower than the previous mid-year.

To help manage peak workloads or to provide specialty inspection services for projects such as Pure Water that require unique expertise, construction management teams have executed as needed CM consultant contracts.

CM teams are structured to provide construction management services for all possible types of CIP projects and inspection services.

This table describes the status of the current as needed construction management contracts in fiscal year 2026.

The city initiated eight new emergency projects in the first half of the fiscal year, five of which were stormwater related.

This compares to three new emergencies being declared in the first half of the fiscal year 2025, all of which were stormwater related.

The number of emergencies, especially stormwater emergencies, have increased year over year.

We will continue sending aside funding for future stormwater emergencies in upcoming budget cycles.

Finally, I'd like to touch base on our climate action plan efforts.

Advancing the climate action plan is a priority for the CIP across multiple departments and types of projects.

The city's climate resilient SD plan calls for infrastructure investments to protect residents and city operations from the impacts of climate change, such as extreme heat, flooding, and wildfire.

The council policy on CIP prioritization also gives higher weights to projects with CAP considerations and positive impacts.

Shown here are the number of projects by CAP energy category.

As you can see on this slide, the highest number of projects are in the climate resilient SD flooding and heat categories.

As older projects initiated prior to CAP adoption are completed and more CAP relevant projects are initiated, we will see more CAP and EV take place.

I will now pass it back to Ali for closing remarks.

Thank you, Semira.

The month of May marks the beginning of a project award season for ENCP, much less stressful than the budget season.

These awards represents years of dedicated work and underscore our department's ongoing commitment to excellence, as well as meaningful impact our projects have on the communities we serve.

To keep today's presentation focused, I will not go through the each project individually.

However, I'll compile a detailed summary MOMA outlining all recognitions which will be provided to the council by the end of the fiscal year.

Here are a few examples of this awards we received so far.

We received four awards from ASCE for the Crystal Pierce Structural Emergency, Mapil Canyon Restoration, Lemidia Road, and Alcapandem Civil Bay Vegetation Removal Projects.

We have also received six awards from APWA for different projects, some of which are John F.

Kennedy Neighborhood Park, Jarabek Park, and Olive Street Park.

This concludes our presentation.

Now we will continue with the DOF's presentation on CIP, I believe, Councilmember, to take questions later on.

I'm sorry, say that again.

Yeah, we'll we'll do uh we'll turn to council members for questions and comments.

Okay.

We will go to Councilmember Moray now.

Thank you, and thank you for the presentation and thank you to the IBA for your analysis.

Uh the capital improvement program is vitally important, especially in communities where infrastructure improvements have historically not been prioritized.

Um I, for one, am very proud of the progress we've made in building new infrastructure throughout uh district eight.

And I'm gonna start off with San Isidro in Bayer.

Um, Bayer Park Phase 1.

It's in its final stage with an opening anticipated for the fall of this year.

Um, after more than 30 years of uh community advocacy, this long-awaited park is finally being delivered.

And I had the pleasure of touring the construction site last week uh with the fine members of ECP, and I just was blown away by just what a beautiful amenity.

I'm sorry to pause you.

Can I have them?

It's my understanding they have another port of their presentation that I think will be helpful.

No problem as you do your comments.

Thank you.

I get my time back, right?

Yes.

Okay, my apologies.

Just so everyone knows, we'll do we'll do this and then we will um pause for comments and then we will do the uh mid-year update as well after that.

So okay.

All right, good morning.

Uh Michael Palaeo from the Department of Finance.

All right.

The fiscal year 2027 draft CIP budget of 821.7 million dollars is part of the city's 25.4 billion dollar multi-year program and allocates existing funds and anticipated revenues to both new and continuing projects.

This budget provides funding for 71 different projects and annual allocations.

In addition to the draft budget, we are also anticipating funding of over 381.4 million dollars to be allocated throughout the fiscal year.

The anticipated funding sources primarily include expected state and federal loans and grants and impact fees.

For the capital improvements program as a whole, there were a variety of considerations in determining the allocations for the fiscal year 2027 draft CIP budget.

Council policy 800-14 continue to be used in the prioritization, as well as project readiness, legal compliance, conditions of the assets, continuation of critical programs, in addition to the various priorities.

This table shows the total $25.4 billion capital program by asset managing department, including over $8.5 billion of previously city council approved allocations, the current proposal of $821.7 million, and future funding needs of $16 billion.

The future years column includes fiscal year 2027 anticipated budgets as well as future fiscal years anticipated budgets and unidentified funding for future needs.

The four highest asset types of buildings, some of which include public utilities, water, transportation, and wastewater make up about 86% of the draft CIP budget.

In addition, when comparing the split between deferred maintenance and replacements versus new and expanded assets, the majority of the funding is going towards deferred maintenance and replacements.

Focusing in on street repair, this slide provides a breakdown of the street repair program budget and miles funded in fiscal year 2027.

It's important to note that for the street resurfacing allocation, the projects may span over multiple fiscal years.

The investment in the street repair program aims to continue the progress made in the recent years.

This slide shows the investments towards Vision Zero and the funding sources tied to the allocations.

The city continues to make investments towards Vision Zero to achieve the program goals.

Stormwater emergencies continue to cost millions of dollars each fiscal year, varying based on the amount of rain each year.

The fiscal year 2027 draft CIP budget includes $52.5 million investment in stormwater infrastructure, which is all in addition to the $733 million WIFIA program.

Based on the increasing number of emergency projects, the city must continue to invest in stormwater infrastructure.

This budget also begins the planning and design phases for stormwater in-house projects that are anticipated to be constructed in fiscal year 2028.

While the CIP budget is large and made up of a variety of funding sources, nearly all funding sources have some type of restriction attached to them.

These limitations can be the type of project the funding can be used for, community where the expenses are considered eligible, or other restrictions as defined by contractual agreements.

This leaves a limited amount of unrestricted funding available to allocate.

This slide summarizes the fiscal year 2027 draft CIP budget by funding source.

I will review some of the major funding sources in the following slides.

Since it will cost the city to borrow and repay the debt, it should be used strategically in instances where critical projects are needed where cash funding is not enough.

The allocations that are debt financed primarily address stormwater emergencies.

Transmit will also also help to fund a good portion of the Vision Zero projects included in this draft CIP budget.

We will be looking to reduce this allocation in the May revision and replace with other restricted funding sources so that future transnet revenue is not affected so significantly.

Community-based impact fees must be used in the community where the funds are collected and to expand existing or build new facilities.

A total of $12 million in impact fee funding is proposed to be added to many projects in fiscal year 2027 to support a variety of asset types.

The largest contributors to the fiscal year 2027 draft CIP budget are the public utilities enterprise funds.

287.1 million dollars of wastewater funding is proposed to support 17 projects and annual allocations, 290.5 million dollars of water funding is proposed to support 23 projects in annual allocations.

As a pure water program phase one approaches completion, the allocations specific to the pure water program have decreased from the last fiscal year.

There are also some allocations to projects for the environmental services department for landfill improvements.

New for the budget cycle, the fiscal year 2027 draft CIP budget includes the allocation of the new TOT Convention Center Fund, which is a new funding source from the Measure C Citizens Initiative.

$18.3 million has been allocated for convention center modernization projects.

This slide shows some of the smaller funding sources included in the fiscal year 2027 draft CIP budget.

All of these sources have restrictions associated with them, such as geographic location or asset type.

As you may remember, Council Policy 800-14 was updated in December 2022 to prioritize equity and the scoring weight of total project scoring.

The updated scores elevate the scoring for projects that serve historically underserved communities.

This slide highlights some examples of the changes in scores as well as some scoring examples in the fiscal year 2027 draft CIP budget.

This slide shows some examples of equity across the various asset types.

Some of these examples highlight equity investments over multiple years, not limited to just fiscal year 2027.

While equity can be prioritized, it is important to note that limitations do exist within the realm of the capital improvements program, such as restrictions to geographical location on certain funding sources, the unpredictability of where emergency projects will occur, and the various phases of projects as they complete the project lifecycle.

The largest investments primarily focus on water, wastewater, stormwater, and transportation assets.

Volume three of the draft budget document provides additional details of the program, including details for each of the city's capital projects and annual allocations.

The next milestones for the CIP budget are released on May 13th, with the May revision going to the budget review committee on May 18th, and the year-end CIP budget monitoring report going to the ATI Committee on May 21st.

You can also expect additional allocations from the Citywide Parks DIF, Regional Parks Improvement Fund, and Mission Bay Park Improvement Fund to be included in the May revision.

And thank you for your time.

We also have representatives from each of the asset managing departments here as well to assist and answer any questions.

All right, thank you.

We'll go to the IBA for comment.

Thank you so much.

I'm Jillian Andalina with the Office of the IBA.

Our report or review of the capital improvements program is included on page 79 of the IBA report.

The proposed fiscal year 2027 CIP budget adds $821 million in new funding, of which 69% is for water and sewer infrastructure.

This represents a 20 22 million dollar decrease or 2.6% from the fiscal year 2026 adopted budget.

Since the CIP project allocations are highly dependent on funding availability and associated funding restrictions, our report highlights major changes in funding sources.

The largest driver of the overall decrease in the CIP's reduction in water funds.

Public utilities is delaying several projects for three years to mitigate the need for rate increases in the short term in response to council approving a two-year water rate increase last year.

This results in less funding available for water projects in fiscal year 2027.

We also want to note an 11 million dollar decrease in bond financing as compared to the fiscal year 2026 adopted CIP budget.

As the city nears one of its debt ratio policy caps in fiscal year 2028.

Bond financing is the largest and most flexible funding source for important infrastructure needs like parks, street resurfacing, and upgrades to libraries and fire stations that do not have a dedicated funding source.

Nearing debt capacity limits constrains the city's ability to expand CIP financing and highlights the need for alternative funding sources to support capital projects.

This funding pressure contributes to a nearly $20 million drop in street resurfacing funding.

Combined with the operating budget resources, this puts the city on track for a pavement condition index of 63, which is considered fair and is below the PCI goal of 70, set with the initial adoption of the pavement management plan and the updated goal of 65, given limited funding.

There are, however, areas in the proposed budget where we do see increased investment, and that's largely by prioritizing financing allocations.

These include sidewalk repair and new sidewalks, two bicycle facility projects, capital improvements to various libraries and fire stations, included, including roof repavement roof replacements that are needed, a new Oak Park Library, and that's funded with citywide library diff, a new Fire Station 48 and Black Mountain Ranch, funded with community diff, and a new Mission Beach Lifeguard Station.

Regarding alignment with City Council priorities, the table on page 86 shows that almost all priorities are funded.

However, large funding gaps remain across all categories when compared to the needs outlined in the most recent CIP outlook.

To conclude, we raise three main issues for council consideration.

First, funding constraints and funding restrictions combined with regulatory requirements and emergency projects.

These all limit the city's ability and discretion to fund new projects and further advance equity and other priorities.

As stated earlier, bond financing is the city's most significant and flexible CIP resource.

The $89 million included in the proposed CIP budget makes up 11% of total funding.

And within that, 58% is eaten up by stormwater projects, given the great need.

This leaves limited funding to address key projects, many of which have large unfunded needs.

The city may need to increase efforts to better align expectations with available resources by reducing service level standards or look to defund projects that are early in early stages with large funding gaps remaining.

Second, continuing to underfund maintenance will continue to drive up costs in the CIP as deferred needs ultimately result in more expensive repairs or rehab.

Council discussed the general services facilities budget yesterday, and that department is currently under resources and is facing more cuts in the proposed budget.

Failure to properly fund basic maintenance of city infrastructure will only lead to increased costs in the long run, which we are seeing today.

And finally, aging infrastructure, especially stormwater, heightens the city's exposure to financial and legal risk, as evidenced by recent flooding events.

A dedicated and ongoing funding source for stormwater continues to be a critical need.

As we noted in our review of the capital five-year planning outlook, the 1.3 billion dollar growth in the five-year funding gap amounting to $7.8 billion is driven by stormwater drainage assets, which itself had a $1.3 billion increase in funding gap.

And that concludes my remarks, and I will pass it over to Grace for equity implications.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gillian.

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

My name's Grace Bagunu with the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst, Division of Race and Equity.

The budget equity implications in fiscal year 27 proposed budget for CIP is included in the IBA report, starting on page 86.

The equity implication for CIP is in the process of prioritizing projects specifically in districts 4, 8, and 9, in accordance with Council Policy 800-14, which guides project prioritization with a scoring process.

Because CIP project prioritization is heavily influenced by project stage and funding source restrictions, equity related investments may naturally fluctuate from year to year.

The long-term goal would be to make this process more consistent over time.

However, we do want to highlight that the city has established new dedicated funding streams, such as the neighborhood enhancement, active transportation in Luffy, and the citywide park Diff that all require a portion be invested in improving assets in historically underserved communities.

According to the 2026 pavement management plan update, the city is committed to paving at least 43% of streets within city within communities within with equity needs.

Since those communities make up 43% of the city streets, 45% of the capital street resurfing and restrict reconstruction projects will be located in council districts four, eight, and nine, not including the Millen PAVE team, which operates citywide.

This may not be the method of determining whether the threshold has been reached.

However, it does serve as a la strong indicator of work being completed in these historically underserved communities.

Council policy 800-14 did not set a numeric target or a fixed funding percentage for these projects in underserved or structurally excluded communities, which would operationalize equity and see equity process in the prioritization of these projects.

Related to council policy 608, underground conversion of utility lines.

The MIU requires prioritization of underground utility and underground utility districts in communities with higher fire risk and communities of concern.

With the ramp up of the program expected in this fiscal year to seven, 35% of those projects are in council districts four, eight, and nine.

Other notable investments among sublet projects with annual allocations include new walkways.

There's one project funded in districts four and nine.

Side rock repair, 57% of the projects and 70% of funding allocated are in projects in districts four, eight, and nine.

Traffic calming, two out of the three total projects are in districts four and eight.

Traffic signals, two out of five projects are in districts eight and nine.

And bicycle facilities, one out of two projects have been funded, and 67% of the funding will be in district eight.

Notable standalone projects in district in these districts include funding for new Oak Park Library, Bio Park Development Phase 2, and University Avenue Bikeway Payment Repair.

Given the structural budget deficit, the requirement to transfer $7 million to the climate equity fund is proposed to be waived, which would have other been available for city infrastructure and underserved communities to help them respond to the impact of climate change.

Only interest earnings totaling 450,000 from the fund have been allocated to the CIP, specifically for stormwater green infrastructure.

Council may want wish to consider funding this priority against other not funded in the proposed budget.

Ultimately, the city's fiscal position necessitates a focus on prioritizing the completion of existing CIP projects over starting new infrastructure projects.

Various funding restrictions coupled with failing infrastructure and emergency projects limit the city's discretion on how to allocate these limited resources.

This has equity implications in the process of prioritizing CIP projects, specifically in districts 4, 8, and 9.

This makes it difficult for council to advance infrastructure equity goals further, such as making the major investment required to fund the skyline fire station estimated to be approximately 2029 million.

This concludes my comments for CIP and happy to field any questions.

Thank you so much.

Alrighty, thank you for that.

We will now turn to council members for comments and questions, which is just to clarify.

So your comments can address anything and everything.

Thank you, I shall uh thank you for the presentation and also thank you to the IBA for your analysis.

Uh the capital improvement program is vitally important, especially in communities where infrastructure improvement improvements have historically not been prioritized.

I, for one, am very proud that we've uh I'm very proud of the progress we've made in building new infrastructure up, particularly in district eight.

Um I'm gonna start with in San Isidro with Bayer Park phase one.

Um it's in its final stages with an opening anticipated for fall 2026.

Um after more than 30 years of community advocacy, uh this long awaited park is finally being delivered, and I had the pleasure of touring uh the construction site just last week with the fine folks of ECP.

Uh phase one of Bayer Park will include uh skate park, basketball court, and a range of amenities.

Um and it's just breathtakingly beautiful and just such a game changer uh for uh district eight.

I will note that Prop 68 funding did help us get across the finish line on this one.

Uh phase two is gonna include um the only dog park uh in the southern part of the city, uh sports lighting and a picnic area.

Um all of these are amenities that Sanny Citro has historically lacked, uh, significantly expanding recreation opportunities for residents.

Uh moving on, Howard Lane Park, I believe still requires full funding, as only a portion of the estimated five million dollar project costs has been secured.

Uh the project would replace existing park infrastructure, enhanced accessibility, and expand recreation opportunities uh for the community.

Uh my understanding is construction cannot proceed until funding is fully secured, and we're gradually approaching the project's fiscal year 27 quarter one construction start date.

Um the other project that I wanted to mention in San Isidro is Cyprus Drive, which provides uh pedestrian and streetscaping improvement enhancement safety and access in access and accessibility while also honoring the cultural identity of the community.

Uh the project is fully funded, and I look forward to the construction starting in fiscal year 27.

My understanding is that there's only two projects like this in all of the state of California, where the city of San Diego has turned an alley into a more friendly walkway.

Um the um other item that I wanted to talk about, moving now on to Ocean View Hills, is Fire Station 49, which will be located at the corner of Ocean View Hills Parkway and see Fire Point.

Uh while land acquisition was completed in fiscal year 22 and 1.5 million in Otai Mesa enhanced infrastructure financing district funds were allocated in fiscal year 25 to initiate the project that total cost has increased from 36 million in fiscal year 26 adopted budget to over 39 million this year just in one fiscal year.

Uh given that public safety is a priority in this budget.

I urge the administration to fully uh fund this fire station.

Um I am also pleased uh to see that Grove uh Hayden Trails Park and Denary Ranch projects are moving forward despite a lot of challenges, and based on the latest um information, all should see construction happening at their respective sites starting next year.

Um I will mention for the record that um what the this council approved on Grove Park, which was playground stations, um amenities for the children, was very different from what the mayor put out in the adopted budget.

Um I believe that was rectified because I think the mayor was only proposing right away for Grove.

And if we could just put on the record that that was rectified and that the play station in phase one will be moving forward.

Um I will ask acting deputy director at Polita Amarala to answer that question, Councilmember.

Hello, good morning.

Um, my name is Parita Amarlan.

I'm an acting deputy director uh at ENCP.

And yes, so the current scope for Grove Neighborhood Park includes um play areas, picnic facilities, security lighting, stormwater and drain drainage infrastructure.

We're also looking into a comfort station and on-site parking if the budget allows.

Wonderful, thank you very much.

Um during my term, I've prioritized turning empty lots into fully functioning parks that residents will be able to enjoy for decades to come.

And we need to make sure that these last few projects reach completion and are enjoyed by the community.

Um I do want to point out that we absolutely need to see the Lamita La Media Road improvement projects through completion of the Siempre Viva to Truck Route missing segment, and that just for the record, that's S22006.

Uh, we invested a total of 57 million dollars, including almost 23 million from the CTC, which is a state grant, and 9.3 million in EIFD funds in the LaMedia Road Improvement uh CIP.

This project would benefit the thousands of trucks that transit through Otaymesa every day, making our regional economy stronger with our number one trading partner, Mexico.

In bar moving on to Barrio Logan, there are new roundabouts in front of Perkins School and near Boston Avenue Linear Park.

I think these are, if I may have my next three minutes.

This is not in our CIP, but I will like to make a pitch for Harbor Drive 2.0.

That is it, it is a major uh infrastructure project that will transform the corridor through street improvement, safety pedestrian access, upgrade by connectivity, and beautification efforts that strengthen the connection between Barrio Logan, the waterfront, and the surrounding neighborhoods, while also supporting long-term economic growth and mobility.

Boston Avenue Linear Park represents years of community advocacy, thanks in part to our partners over in EHC and City Partnership to bring new green space, recreation opportunities, and gathering areas to Barrio Logan.

In Logan Heights, I am looking forward to finally delivering the old Logan Heights library to the community.

The Logan Heights Library will serve as a memory lab within the San Diego public library system, and we'll welcome youth and members of the community to capture storytelling and also to preserve history.

This will be the first memory lab in the southern portion, in my understanding, in the southern portion of the city.

Um which will deliver illumination for memorial park, sports field, and pedestrian areas.

And once again, to get it on record, my understanding was this was fully funded through Assembly Member David Alvarez, and the scope of work was modified to add basically more requirements in the scope of work.

My understanding it was EV charging that was added.

Why was that done?

Good morning.

So EV charging wasn't added to the scope.

There was an EV charging project that was going on at the exact same time.

So there was some coordination between SDGE between their project and our project, which required some coordination between us.

Okay, so those were two separate projects that were merged together, therefore making the project a lot more expensive and taking more time, which is what the community is seeing.

This community has been waiting for four years.

We got the funding.

We you know, we didn't get funding from the this is like the ideal scenario for the community, and we're still we still haven't broken ground on this.

So when will we be breaking ground?

So we are currently in 100% design, and we plan to break ground in um sorry, in uh summer of early 2027.

So we'll go to construction in early 2027.

Fiscal year 2027.

Uh no, calendar year 2027.

Okay, so we're in a few more months.

Correct.

Okay, wonderful.

This is wonderful news.

We're hearing it hot uh hot on the mic, and and I didn't recognize you without your hard hat, so I apologize.

Um thank you for that update.

As I mentioned, this is something that the community has just been waiting for so long.

Um, and so this is really really good news.

Um the Beta Street Channel and Storm Drain Improvement Project is also a significant ongoing CIP project.

Um I am thankful for the design work that has taken place, and I look to forward to seeing this project come to fruition.

We're not going to be able to do this by ourselves.

And I would venture to say that this is probably our number one.

This is not probably this is our number one project, and it should be treated as such.

So if we could zero in, especially when we're asking for state and federal funding.

This is just a portion of the CIP projects that we have in District 8.

My mantra has been, and I've told this to the community.

If you ain't a CIP, you ain't nothing.

I truly appreciate, and I'm very grateful for the dedicated city staff that we have.

You guys, any time I go out there, I feel like we're we're cohorts in this effort.

District 8 was left behind for far too many decades.

And I really appreciate the staff's uh dedication and also to my colleagues really leaning in on equity and making sure that these projects come to fruition.

Um it is um it is it's just awesome to to see Bayer Park phase one, you know, from from what it was to what what it will be and what the community will benefit from.

Um thank you.

I guess that's my way of saying thank you.

And um that concludes my comments and I appreciate the extra time that my colleagues gave me.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

We will now go to Pro Tim Lee.

Thank you, Chair.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Um just diving in right here.

Obviously, the the CAP budget for the city still remains fairly um large.

And I I just want to take a moment to recognize that the amount of work that's being accomplished across the city is not not just with pure water being as sizable as it is, but delivering on a lot of small projects.

And I think um each of us have probably had a lot of opportunities to work with the NCP in looking at CIP delivery and all the challenges we have faced in the last couple of years, from rising costs to multiple bids to whatever it takes.

And so on our district's behalf, I think we want to share our thanks that um projects that have been difficult to move have gotten to the finish line or very close, um, and that some major projects that we have are actually ahead of schedule.

Um I think that says a lot about what's being delivered on this front.

Um when I look at the overall budget, I think it's really important to identify that um I think roughly 70% of CIP seems to be water and sewer related, um, and that is mostly uh you know enterprise focused, and that's wonderful because that's there's actually a significant amount of need there.

Um I think what the uh presentations don't ever fully sort of encapsulate is how backlogged we are, even on those two fronts.

And that just means that even though we're spending so much, that remaining 30% or so is all that we have when it comes to delivering on a lot of the infrastructure needs in the city that we consider sort of core basic services.

That's why we have um facilities that uh need a lot of work that are deteriorating, it's why replacements aren't happening.

We're excited still to see new facilities come up.

But I think one of the biggest challenges we have as a city moving forward is um how do I identifying identify the revenue needs necessary, not just to balance our budget to deliver on new infrastructure moving to the future, but to really have a plan put in place to address this backlog, and that is something we still need to just get across the folks moving forward, especially this November.

I think with the potential of uh very negative detrimental impacts to the city's budget.

Um, what folks are missing is that if if if they're upset about city services being cut, they're gonna be even more upset in the next decade ahead if roads continue to fall and deteriorate and other facilities that we rely on don't catch up.

Doesn't matter how many new facilities we end up building.

Um that front, I I've always wondered if there's some low-hanging fruit that we can address that that I think always gets um sort of stuck between what is CIP and what ends up being really just maintenance and operations from a day-to-day.

I think we heard from residents that came in yesterday.

We hear from residents all the time, you know, we're building a brand new park down the street, and here in an existing park, we've got playground facilities and structures that are chained up because of broken equipment that needs to be replaced, et cetera.

Um so I think that is something that I'd like to figure out even in this really difficult budget year, how there are ways that we can address even these small sort of quality of life needs within different facilities.

Um I know if I'm seeing that in my district, I'm gonna assume that we're seeing them in others, and we heard the stories yesterday.

Um, but that's one area what where I would imagine a small amount of investment could make a significant difference in just rehabilitating a couple of existing structures.

I mean, we're not talking about replacement, but just um replacing a couple of equipment pieces that have broken, you know, just small quality of life enhancements that I think will that refreshment will go a long way at a time where we're gonna be limited into what we can deliver in terms of new or complete completely refreshed facilities.

Um that's just the one note that I would offer as a takeaway uh that I'm thinking of during this budget cycle.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

We will now go to Councilmember Ilo Rivera.

All right, thank you, Chair.

Um thanks for the presentation here.

Um I'm gonna kind of pick up where we're council president pro Tem left off, uh at least kind of generally speaking.

Um understanding, you know, we're in a the budget situation that we're in, um, recognizing that 800-14 lays out prioritization.

W one of the things that we're trying to understand is um how health and safety resources in in in parks are prioritized.

Uh I'll just be like very specific.

Dennis V.

Allen um park restroom burnt down.

I think we're going on our second year now.

And what's the plan to re rebuild that restroom?

We're hearing a cost of two million dollars.

Um it seems extraordinarily high, um, given that there was a restroom there.

Uh so I can tell you from the uh ENCP, we finalized the the general development plan.

Um, and I would defer to park and rec on um on the status of where the project is.

Yeah, I can take that very quick.

I think this is uh one of the there's so many different improvement that necessary across all uh cities park that we're currently looking into for potential allocation, part of the mayor revise, part of um deaf allocation or park improvement funds.

Um yes, there the this there is a long competing list of those type of uh improvement necessary for essential uh services, whether it's a broken playground areas or conference stations, but I can say it's um on the list of considerations and evaluations.

Okay, so if you live in Bound Hope and Dennis V.

Allen is your park, and it's a park that we've had to scratch and claw for funding to repair playground equipment that was um vandalized.

You the bathroom in that park burns down, no fault to the community.

Um what is the city saying is its plan to make sure that a restroom is at that park?

This is a historic park in the community, it's incredibly important for a variety of reasons.

Um I understand there's a lot of competing requests, but this isn't really an impr improvement.

I mean, like in I guess like in a very technical way, sure.

Um why didn't yeah, just w what should they see as the plan to make sure that they're gonna have a restroom at their park again?

Um we'll be able to share with you uh all those list of improvements that um across the different parks again that have been competing for the source of funds that was trying to allocate part of um the May revisions, and then we'll review that list with your office.

Um as we are currently in the internal conversations uh with the mayor and the executive team.

And then before finalizing that list, we're committed to have a conversation with your office.

Okay.

Can you talk to us about the cost that we're hearing and why that might be so high?

Again, if you're in Mount Hope and you hear two million dollars, and you're in a that's a that sounds like a lot um again for ordinary ordinary folks.

Yeah, I I think this is just in the back of the knapka kind of estimate, and then just not without knowing how many stalls that are needed, how big is the confrontation and whatnot.

This is like the average where those type of confrontation they run into, but definitely uh with those uh conversation with your office and the community, maybe we can look for immediate uh skills back uh just to have a restrooms out or conference stations facility in there.

So this is just the back of the napkin, rough numbers, but has not been vetted um based on what we are visioning to install there.

One last question on this.

Why is can you help us understand why that's the back of the napkin math?

Again, so if if you live in a home that's valued at say $500,000, $600,000 in the Mount Hope community, and you get told the restroom is gonna cost two million dollars, and because it's two million dollars in the community competing list of across uh uh of of things that need to be done across the city.

I think it's gonna be difficult for someone to wrap their head around why that would cost two million dollars, even if it's just back of the napkin.

Can you kind of just broadly lay that out for us?

Yeah, uh again, I think that was numbers used from reference of most recent conference stations that has been built, part of other projects, right?

And then that's like average size of conference station with minimum numbers of stalls in there, and that number was um really captured from most recent beds and and similar project that we have installed.

And if I may add, council member, um I know that the main scope is to replace the comfort station.

However, that triggers all the ADA compliance that needs to be uh provided uh to the pathway to the conference station, and also the materials we pick for these comfort stations are a lot different than the ones that we have our homes, you know, the Stanley still, there is a certain AML list.

Um so it is not only building a three or four comfort uh stall conference station, but every other upgrade that we need to do to get to the conference station that is triggered by the regulations, and then stonewater might be triggered depending on the improved reservations we are creating.

So um in the surface, it is not a um per square footage comparison of a food house or a um comfort station, if I could.

And we can break that down if you like.

Yeah, and then the reason I'm saying back of the napkin because there is absolutely no CIP project has been created or engineering vettings has been done.

This is just at the park and recreations department level, trying to really estimate what would be the needed allocations for pu uh project we can initiate and afford coming FY27, part of the main revise.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for that.

We will now go to Council President uh Lacava.

Um Thank you, Chair.

Um there's a lot to chew on that.

I don't think we've talked about in other budget conversations and the challenges that you all face with increasing regulations and compliance requirements that are well intentioned, but um sometimes get in the way of the process.

Um I was kind of reflecting on a recent um CIP project that shall remain nameless.

Uh but this whole conversation about GDP was probably somebody's idea of saying parks are really personal to the public and we should slow the process down so the public can weigh in on the design of the parks because they're the ones that are gonna use it, that then gets in the way of us delivering at a faster uh faster speed.

Um the um the only comments I want to have because I got criticized by my constituents for the how I've talked about CIP projects.

So I want to mention a few um fire station 16 uh upgrade uh long overdue.

Uh Fanwell Park, uh which actually broke ground um yesterday, uh Fairwall Park playground replacement, because the playground was taken out by the King tides.

Uh we hope to see the Gerard um complete street project um happening pretty soon.

Those are all privately funded, 100% privately funded.

Um Fanwall Park playground is probably only the second incursion by the San Diego Parks Foundation in the district one.

So I'm very grateful uh for the magic that they have worked to bring uh private funding and a pretty sizable donation of the playground equipment itself.

Uh we're building comfort stations up in Carmel Valley due to a surprise uh allocation from Sacramento.

Thank you, Assembly Member Mainshine.

Um out there.

And then the big projects, storm drain replacements, emergency replacements.

A few on our coastal bluff, which is not important necessarily to the public, but incredibly important in terms of making sure that we don't lose our coastal bluffs and a coast that what will be have to be the poster child for emergency repairs, uh, Gilman Drive and Villa La Jolla.

Um, all the work that is taking place.

I saw you got an award because the Gilman Drive was an amazing project and should actually be put in every civil engineering book about why setbacks from major storm drains are actually important.

Um there were zero setbacks from a 12-foot diameter storm drain, gave the designers and the construction crews zero room to work with.

I don't know how they pulled it off.

Amazing, amazing project.

Um I appreciate the few projects that are uh in District 1 that are in the CIP.

And as I mentioned at the transportation conversation yesterday, and stepping outside my district boundaries.

Uh we heard it yesterday, we're probably going to hear it today about the West Valley River crossing, um, which is not in the CIP program.

My interest is because I sit on SANDAG.

I can't get SADAG funding for that project because we've got zero, it's not a CIP project, there's zero dollars in it.

So I would be interested in working to see what's the minimum seed money that we might scrape together that would satisfy a grant application to Sandag that I think uh the San Diego River Conservancy would be interested in leading that conversation, not to burden you all anymore, uh, but what would be take.

It's gonna be an expensive project.

We're never gonna have the money under this federal administration.

They're never going to give us a penny for a bikeway project.

Um so it's gonna be a little bit of a tough one, but it seems to be a noteworthy regional project that we should figure out how to how to navigate.

Um so um with that, thank you for the good work.

Thank you for taking what little resources are and trying to figure out how to allocate them.

Uh thank you to Councilmember Foster for asking for the audit for 800-14.

Um having been the very first 800-14 way back when I'm glad to see we're continuing revising and improving it and then test that it's actually achieving what we want to achieve again, given our limited resources.

So um I'll stop there.

Thank you again for your good work.

Thank you, Chair.

Alrighty, thank you so much.

Not seeing any other um members on the lights.

Um I think just before I just um give some comments.

Uh I just want to go back to council member um Ilo Rivera's um comments and um unfamiliar with um the location in regards to the restroom.

When we have something like that where we have a fire and something is is damaged, how is it we don't have a CIP set up for it or little concerned, I guess.

What is what is that process or what does that look like?

Is just a matter of the asset only department that has to reach out and contact you to get that set up because it seems when you have a scenario like that that you would uh it would be a natural next step to address what needs to be addressed.

Yes, I think when a situation like this happened, uh similar to the building with set on fire and NTC.

The first step is the department they go out and then trying to secure the site and then uh contact the ESD, make sure there is no hazmat or any concerns uh the fires and sit down for the necessary fence to secure the site, and then they go back and then start looking at uh what available funds to completely remove the impact and then if necessary to rebuild that facility.

In a lot of cases with again the limited resources, things start to accumulate on the backlog and um and things stays in that condition for quite some time.

And then when the fund has been identified along those different priorities, we go through down the CI.

If this is a CIP work, we go down through the CIP process by doing an intake form, uh, ensure that we have 800-14 prioritizing that project, have a budget uh management uh and then funding plan to support that, and then go through that process.

Okay.

And I guess I'm just concerned because I know you guys need to place as you guys start dealing with certain things as we talk about you know cost estimates on the back of a napkin if you need a place to land your time to actually um do the work that you do.

So um interesting.

Um well thank you for that.

Um and I just want to say thank you for the briefing um that I received.

Um and um Karen, thank you for this the the information that you provided, um, the condensed slide deck um during the briefing um that kind of outlined um our projects.

Um glad to hear uh looks like we have 142 active projects.

Um glad to hear we got 49 projects that'll be receiving some additional dollars in this um round.

Um glad to hear the fire station um 51.

Um the there'll be some um repairs, I guess the existing um facility there as we know that there have been issues.

Um can the one thing if if you guys can help me to understand um because I I am really advocating to to get a permanent station there.

And if you can help me to understand um and I guess this is where I'm not sure how something like a 800-14 would come into play because this is a public safety uh model, but is there um I see we do have representatives from fire here?

How are we determining how we are moving and prioritizing um stations?

I I assume some of it has to do with coverage and and certain things.

Um but if you can help me to understand because we've had a temporary station there for quite some time where I don't think it was intended to um necessarily be there as long as it has been.

So if you can kind of help me to understand, is there something we need to do to um better monitor track and and to help with those or how do we get to where how are we making the decisions we're making?

Yes, sir, Councilmember Ted Moran, Assistant Fire Chief.

Um we have service gaps that were identified in the latest study, which was the City Gate in 2017, and that's what we base our uh new stations on, and my understanding is that is how uh the current stations that are identified are um are brought to a project.

Um as for station 51, I would like to say it is a permanent fire station.

There are no plans for that station to go anywhere, understanding we are in a temporary facility.

Um with that being said, working with Ranya's team, as you mentioned, um we're gonna be able to make some improvements to increase the longevity of that until we do have funding available to put a permanent facility in.

Um but what helped us come to that decision was um we do provide the same level of service out of station 51 as we do any other fire station in the city.

So it brings us comfort that we're able to provide that service uh even with that identified gap that was um obviously about 10 years ago was identified.

Okay.

Um I I I guess I'd like to have um some more conversations to see how we can prioritize um as we talk about a I guess I'll say a permanent facility, right?

We have a permanent station, but we want a permanent um facility.

Um I have taken the position that um I'm not advocating for any new um houses, any firehouses until I get that um uh a permanent station there.

Um I think it's something that's needed.

I think we've kind of lived our extended or um outlived our um desire for for a temporary facility and and need to get our folks housed properly and um and and get that taken care of.

So um thank you for that.

Um we'll be working on that and contacting um the chief and and working with um engineering and capital projects to see what we can do.

And sir, if I can also uh the fire rescue department does share that desire.

Uh we do want all of our personnel working out of state of the art facilities.

Um but again as long as we're meeting that market providing that service, that's where it provides us that flexibility and and gives us the comfort to to have that um, I guess a delay would be the term in in getting those permanent facilities.

I can appreciate that, but then I would say, hey, let's let's look at putting some temporary stations temporary facilities in these other locations so I can get mine taken care of, right?

As we are looking at where we're putting those new facilities, right?

If it's good for me, it's gotta be good for my colleagues, right?

So um thank you for that.

Um the other thing, just um we got a lot going on that's going to kick off in FY27.

Um I'm just excited to see that on 47th Street.

We have some public safety improvements with the um Hawk that will be going in.

Um we just recently opened up um some new um housing for veterans.

Um so I think this hawk is greatly needed as we've had um some pedestrian um incidents there.

Um so really looking for forward to that.

And also with Gompers, as we have the kids that are walking to school and so forth, um, the the upgrades that will um take place there as well.

So thank you for that um work in getting that done.

Um so with that, oh, looks like we have um council president um back on the lights, so I will turn to Council President.

Um given some of the thoughts that have been laid out before, and I appreciate your patience.

This is really not about you and the great work you do, but things that I think as we're continuing to evolve.

The the comment that you made, Councilmember Hosser about uh following up on Councilmember Elo Rivera's, you know, one of the things that we talked about is emergency repairs uh when we have a storm drain or reservoir of water, and we don't think twice.

We just go do it.

Um it's critically important because those serve functions uh in themselves.

We need them to be operating again, uh, but also not dealing with them could cause greater damage to public improvements, it could cause damage to private improvements.

We just rush out there.

And so the one thought that I had, which is a little bit dangerous, uh, which is the idea of whether a restroom burning down should also trigger an emergency response.

There's a restroom there.

We thought there should be a restroom there from a public health point of view, and it should maybe think about a policy that says that gets added to the list of emergency responses that gives you a little more flexibility in terms of compliance and upgrades.

Um hopefully that may be the one time that ever happens and it never comes up again.

Um, hopefully, but I think those are the kinds of things that based on what our constituents are seeing, what we're seeing as council members, the challenges that you sort of that you know.

I know in your hearts, in your brains you want to be more responsive, but things that get in the way.

So, you know, that's one crazy idea that I'll just kind of float out there.

Um so I don't need a response, but yeah.

All I say uh is worth um exploring with uh with the city attorney's office on what really um meets the the city's um unicode as far as what is really qualify for emergency.

I see the relation to public health and safety, and then our focus is always on public health and safety, but it was exploration for sure.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for that.

Um just I'll close.

Um of course um you you know we've done well with our GDPs, right?

We have Marie Wideman, uh we just did Emerald Hills, we have one open at Berradini Fields.

Um, and so we are making progress in updating um our plans.

Just can't stress enough, man.

We got to find the money to get the actual improvements in place, right?

Um, and and that's always a challenge.

Appreciate Summer, her crew, um, everything they're doing at Marie Wideman, um, but just can't stress enough as as my colleague uh Moreno mentioned.

Um, stormwater is a major, major issue.

Um, you know, really need to mitigate and make sure we um do everything we can to prevent um the repeat of the floods that we had.

Um and so um like to see those move as fast as they can to get those designed and and moving forward because there's a lot of work that needs to uh be done there.

The other thing, if you can, um Ronia, just want to um get on the record uh the demolition of the um conference station at uh Marie Wideman, as we do have a big event coming up there, and um just want to make sure um that we have the access that we need and um we can get done what we need to get done, and that is um not in the way, I guess I'll say.

ECP steams walking on water as we speak to make this happen, Councilmember.

So I'll keep you posted on the progress.

All right, thank you so much.

Um and so with that, I think that will conclude our review of the capital improvements program.

Sarah, please proceed with public comment.

Thank you, Chair Foster.

The public comment period for sub item E, city engineering overview, which includes two departments, the engineering and capital projects and the capital improvements program is now open.

Each speaker will have one minute per department for a total of two minutes.

We will begin with Doris Nguyen, if you would please approach the lecture, and you've indicated you wish to speak to the entire sub-item.

So I will place two minutes on the clock in front of you to manage.

Great.

My name is Doris Nguyen, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club San Diego Climate Committee.

I'm here to urge you to align the fiscal year 2027 budget with the city's legally adopted climate action plan.

San Diego has made bold climate commitments, but this is this draft budget does not provide the funding or structure needed to meet them.

First, the city has lost centralized climate leadership with the sustainability and mobility departments still not restored.

With the sustainability and mobility departments still not restored, climate action plan implementation is now scattered across departments with reduced staffing and less accountability.

At the same time, city planning, one of the core drivers of climate work is facing cuts.

That weakens coordination at the exact moment we need to accelerate progress.

Second, the climate equity fund has lost its dedicated revenue.

Last year it received 1.5 million dollars.

This year there's no new funding, only left over dollars that directly undermines investments in the communities most impacted by climate change.

Third, we are seeing cuts to mobility staff, including 14 and a half positions in the multimodal team.

Transportation is San Diego's largest source of emissions.

Cutting the very staff responsible for expanding transit biking and walking infrastructure moves us in the wrong direction.

There are some positive steps, particularly particularly investments in urban forestry, but even those rely on one-time funds and reduce staffing, making long-term progress uncertain.

Finally, key climate action plan programs like zero emission vehicles and building decarbonization, like clear dedicated funding without transparency.

It's difficult for the public or council to track progress or ensure accountability.

We urge you to take six actions.

Restore ongoing funding for the climate equity fund, rebuild climate implementation capacity, reverse mobility staffing cuts, make urban forestry funding permanent establish dedicated budgets for zero emission vehicles and decarbonization, and adopt a clear climate action plan budget transparency framework.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Gillian Quinn.

Hi, good morning.

I'm with the San Diego River Park Foundation.

Council President Lacava, we want to thank you for your continued discussions, elevating the West Valley River crossing and highlighting that this regional mobility and safety connection will require city participation to advance.

And Councilmember Whitburn for your attention to this mobility connector.

I'm here to help carry that decision discussion forward to the capital improvement conversation.

This project has been identified and adopted plans for 17 years, was prioritized by the mobility board this budget cycle, and has generated more than 50 public letters in the last three years, sorry, days, because it closes a major safety gap, connects multiple districts, links transit, and expands coastal access.

The practical next step as we see it is to open the project in the fiscal year 27 capital improvements program with the estimated 750,000 needed for our 30% engineering design.

Mission Valley Diff appears to provide a logical restricted source for this initial local investment.

And we position the city alongside an already mobilized coalition of community partners ready to support pursuit for much larger outside dollars while advancing a long-needed safety improvement.

We appreciate the city engineers' coordination along with the council and mayor's consideration in helping moving this long planned safety connection toward implementation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes testimony here in chambers.

So I will begin the five-minute timer for all those in the virtual queue to indicate if they wish to provide comment on sub-item E, city engineering overview, which includes engineering capital projects and capital improvements program.

We will begin testimony with Sally Small.

Please unmute and begin.

Thank you.

Good morning.

What's left, Davis?

Thank you.

What?

Sorry.

My notes just flew.

Thanks to the cat.

Um wanted to say thank you very much for all the efforts regarding uh asking for the climate equity fund.

Uh deputizing a civil engineer to work in in uh parks directly so that we can speed up the process for GDP amendments and for smaller projects within parks as it stands now, uh, like Emerald Hills.

Uh it's a very long process, and we've been out of compliance for ADA for 23 years.

We're just getting there now for our design, and we have funding.

Uh stormwater, thank you very much to Lakava for your efforts.

We do need to fix 800 Das 14 so that stormwater can get moved up faster.

Uh overhead excessive, yes.

Oh, I'm sorry, I get more time.

That's right.

It's one minute per department.

Please continue.

Yeah, thank you.

Sorry.

Um, the cat has got me got me up a creek.

Okay.

Um, yes, uh, speaking of creeks, yes, Choice Creek and all the areas that were damaged in January 2024.

They're still dealing with the aftermath.

We need to have dedicated funding uh to deal with the stormwater and the pipes, etc.

with your loan only goes so far.

Um we do need to uh figure out about the revenue generating positions, whether we're ahead or behind on that one.

Uh with the cuts that you have, but the projects are increasing.

Uh CIP prioritization again, uh the audit of 814.

Thank you very much for asking for that.

Please uh consider the equity D4 D8 D9.

Thanks.

Thank you for your concluding remark.

Our next speaker is phone number ending in 8700.

You can unmute by pressing star six.

Phone number ending in 870.

I've given you permission to speak.

You can unmute by pressing star six.

We will come back to you.

Our next speaker is Blair Beekman.

Please unmute and indicate which item or items you'd like to speak to.

Um department.

All right, Blair Beekman.

Um I wanted to speak to uh both both items.

Uh engineering capital MCAP.

Thank you.

Happy May 5th to everyone.

Um I wanted to um ask the the question uh that was spoken of for the first item on um uh engineering and capital projects, but they don't have they don't get their funding from general fund sources.

And these are like really uh you know expensive projects.

So you have a way of creating uh money uh patterns for these projects that are of interest, I think, and how how we have different set-asides for for departments and projects uh I'm interested in that don't have to rely on the general fund and yet I can support city services.

So I I just wanted to mention that uh and how to be thinking in those terms uh and that um that we can re have continual sources of revenue and uh funding.

Good luck how to be doing that.

And for the uh second item, capital improvement projects uh improvements program itself.

Um I wanted to mention um it was spoken by council President Moreno, you know, all the good good that's coming out of the park development in um you know her district and and Sena Cedar area and I guess Barrio Logan also.

And um she used the term in how these parks were developing well, uh you know, the the accomplishments and and of sports utility lighting as a part of the development of good parks for our future of San Diego.

And um, ever since Memorial Park is used a few years ago, right out coming out of the era of uh the flood issues.

Um I'm really concerned that we use the term sports utility lighting because it really is sounds like almost a euphemism to describe that this is biometric technology that's being placed in our parks.

We don't know how to say biometric technology placed in our parks more honestly and seriously, and that has to be part of a slowdown discussion.

We have community that I hope we can have with community we can have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The five-minute timer has concluded.

We have four five hands remaining in the virtual queue.

We will take no other callers beyond these remaining five hands up.

Catherine Rhodes, please unmute and indicate which item or excuse me, which department or departments you wish to speak to.

Um hello, um, both of them, please.

Two minutes, please begin.

Wonderful.

First of all, I believe it's a state requirement for you to have official land um surveyors.

You know, that's kind of like uh that they enforce compliance.

I don't see how you could get away with not having one.

I think that would be illegal, personally.

Um, and then so for our top reform ballot measure two that will be heard in two weeks at the rules committee on May 20th, 2026.

It includes one percent of TOT or 30 million dedicated for streets and infrastructures, including you visitor serving lifeguard stations at Mission Beach and Ocean Beach.

And so um for the May revise, please have the IBA mayor and city attorney analyze how much money in the TOT reform ballot measure will be created for both the general fund and for special taxes and infrastructure.

Is it 200 million or is it less?

Please direct the IBA to work directly with us so we could come up with a number and they know what our numbers are based on.

For the period from July to November, please have um Mayor Todd Gloria and the city council agree to self-fund a six-month grace period for budget cuts by approving a 10-year loan from the hoarded 454 million in the SDGE underground surcharge fund balance at a 0% interest rate.

Also, in general, you could also take out loans against the almost half of a billion dollars in underground surcharge cash fund balance that could be used to um to pay for any CIP projects right now, including the Skyline Fire Station, the rest of the phases for Bayard Park, Howard Lane Park.

You could actually use this money.

It's sitting there unused, and for some reason, you guys just um allow it to gain interest, and you're not using your money to the best of its ability.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Bradley.

Please unmute and begin.

Thanks a lot, Bradley here.

I think you should standardize a lot of things with engineering, the insurance capital projects.

Just have five different kinds of bathrooms.

Boom, that's it.

No more, no more custom bathrooms.

Like right now, you're building these playgrounds and bathrooms in Mission Bay Park.

I ride my bike around there.

Those are like the blagio, man.

These are top of the line playground with all sorts of stuff.

It's like artwork.

And the kids that are playing on there, you know, I grew up with monkey bars, man.

There was sand and monkey bars and a pull-up thing.

I don't think the kids know it, but the adults know it.

But we don't have the money for those Bellagio playgrounds.

Just have there's five different kinds of playgrounds.

Which one do you want?

Just have the guys pick out their thing.

They've already had the engineering done on the buildings already.

The plans are already drawn up for one project, just put it 10 different places, and that's it.

They got nice bathrooms and showers.

The things you guys are doing down in Mission Bay Park are great, man.

But they got the money from the funds now you're spending and everything.

The sidewalks are getting replaced.

It's top, it's getting to be top of the line, but anything south of eight, they just need a bathroom, man.

And they don't have anyone that can put their name on it, like in La Jolla, they can have Memorial Jacobs bathroom because they'll donate the money.

There's just not a lot of donations going on for playgrounds in the in south of south of eight or south of 54.

And I say do everything south of 54 before you do anything north of eight.

You know, it's it's over.

No more bike lanes.

Just no more, you know.

We need to redefine what um climate climate is based on decades or the weather is based on decades, climate's based on centuries.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Our next speaker is Madison.

Please unmute and indicate which department or departments you wish to speak to.

Okay, the engineering and capital projects.

Okay, one minute, please begin.

Thank you.

Um, so as a mother of three young children, I wanted to connect some of the big picture work that you're doing to the everyday realities that families like mine are experiencing.

When we talk about meeting residents' needs, it's often the day-to-day issues that matter most.

Safe, clean parks, well-maintained streets, and rec centers that feel cared for.

These issues affect whether families feel comfortable letting their kids play outside, ride bikes, or participate in community programs.

And our parks, especially maintenance is critical.

Families encounter trash and drug-related waste and places meant for children.

And it's a safety issue because a lot of these are marketed towards children, and some of them have very colorful packaging or look like candy or chips or things like that.

I've seen my kids pick up things that are clearly drugs, but they look more enticing as if they're made for children.

So it would be better if we don't sell these things and have this kind of waste in our parks.

And hopefully, we can keep the cleanups and the visible upkeep up to date.

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony.

Our next speaker is Judy Strang.

Please unmute and indicate which department or departments you wish to speak to.

Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts.

I'd like to speak this morning to uh the engineering and capital projects as well as the budget for the next six months.

Okay, two minutes, please begin.

Excuse me, it's it's always difficult to call in when you're at work.

So I appreciate this opportunity.

As a person to whom parks has been an extraordinarily important part of our life and our family life.

And I did want to mention that we continue to get a tremendous amount of media regarding our lack of clean air and clean water in our most southern communities.

He actually made the first the front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning in the small right hand corner.

Clean air, clean water.

Gotta be a high priority, whatever capital improvement programs we undertake.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the final speaker in the queue is phone number ending in eight seven zero zero.

You can unmute by pressing star six.

Joy Sanyata, great presentation.

Thank oh, uh Sarah, I apologize, both of them.

Please begin.

We'll give you two minutes on the clock.

Thank you so much.

Uh great presentation.

Uh thank you, Mayor's rep, Randy Wilde.

Your presence this morning completes the team for me.

Thank you.

Okay, let's roll here.

Uh love the idea of the audit on policy number eight hundred fourteen.

Uh policy application.

Collaboration is absolutely terrific.

Thank you, Councilmember Elo Rivera and all.

Um TEs.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tim Lee.

Uh, I feel like you're focusing on them uh in the way that I really appreciate.

So here's what I want to ask of our operations uh people.

Uh log when the FTE becomes vacant or is vacant.

We need that data uh to help us with revenue and so forth.

So here's the five categories.

Who the position, the date, the why, and the revenue.

And if we could use an AI app to it would be a lot of logging, but I think it's critical for our budget and for our public to really understand FTEs and their impact on our budget.

So uh switching now to uh just a lot of general statements.

Um love the um the pure water focus, of course.

Uh thank you for the convention center center amendment.

Um again, the water rates impact.

I didn't understand that, but I think it's important for me to understand it.

Uh stormwater emergencies.

Uh this is a red flag of prevention.

Uh I don't know what happened to KPIs this morning.

Thank you.

This does conclude your two minutes.

Thank you for your comment.

And Chair, this concludes testimony on sub item E.

All righty.

Thank you to all the members of the public for participating.

We will now move to any final council member concluding remarks on sub-item E.

Want to check in with council member Campillo.

He's online.

He's good.

Alrighty.

We will go to Council President Lukava.

Um you hear something often enough.

I feel like I gotta I am not interested in building this budget based on November ballot measures.

Let me just make that very clear.

So um I'm not even sure about June ballot measures, but definitely not November ballot measures.

That's not responsible governance.

Thank you.

All righty.

Um thank you to my colleagues for their comments.

We will now take a brief recess in return for sub item F, community services branch overview at 2 p.m.

this afternoon.

Thank you so much.

Hey, good afternoon.

We're going to get started.

We will now reconvene for the afternoon hearing of the budget review committee meeting on Tuesday, May 5th, 2026.

Sarah, please call the roll.

Thank you, Chair Foster.

Vice Chair Council President Lakava.

Committee Member Campbell.

Committee member Whitburn.

Committee Member Von Wilbert.

Present.

Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Here.

Committee member Campio?

Here.

Committee Member Moreno.

Present.

Committee member Ila Rivera.

And Chair Committee Member Foster.

Here.

A quorum is now present.

We will now continue our information agenda.

Sarah, please introduce subitem F.

Thank you, Chair Foster.

Subitem F is the community's services branch overview, which includes department's library and parks and recreation.

And if you are watching on City TV or the live stream online and you'd like to dial in to speak, please call 1669-2545252 and when prompted, input webinar ID 16032 6900 pound.

Chair.

Staff, please introduce yourselves for the record and let us know how much time you would like for your presentation and feel free to proceed.

Good afternoon, Ranya Amen.

We will need 30 minutes for both presentations.

Good afternoon, Chair Foster and members of the budget review committee.

My name is Ranya Men.

I serve as Chief Officer for the Community Services Branch.

I'm pleased to briefly introduce the branch and help frame this afternoon's discussion.

In addition to the Engineering Capital Project Department discussed this morning, the community services branch includes two highly visible departments that residents rely on every day, the library department and the park and recreations department.

Together, these departments provide essential public-facing services and safe welcoming spaces across the city.

I also want to recognize the frontline staff who make these services possible every day, including our librarians, recreation center staff, ground maintenance crews, and many others who serve the public directly.

Their passion and commitment to their work continue to show through.

Next slide, please.

Next slide.

Overall, for the two general fund departments, FY 2027 draft budget reflect a reduction of approximately 132 full-time positions across library and park and recreation.

Will total expenditures increase by about $5.4 million to cover various obligations.

The department directors will provide additional details on their respective budget proposals, including preserved priorities and core services, specific reductions, service impact, and options for consideration.

NGField will also address the proposed merger of special events and filming into park and recreation, intending to improve coordination and support more efficient service delivery.

This introduction again is intended to set the stage for the upcoming detailed presentation and budget discussion.

Thank you.

And then I will now hand it over to the library department for their presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, budget chair Foster and Council members.

My name is Misty Jones.

I'm the city librarian and director for the San Diego Public Library.

And we are here to present our FY27 budget.

The library had some accomplishments and operational efficiencies this year.

We partnered with the WAVE football club to launch a sponsored library card.

The WAVE players also led a community story time attended by over 100 youth and families while the team promoted SDPL through its networks.

This collaboration highlights San Diego as a world class city and a world class home for athletes while strengthening innovative partnerships to promote literacy and broaden access and engagement.

The Logan Heights branch library was chosen to host the United States Postal Service first day of issue dedication ceremony for the low rider stamp.

The library staff collaborated with Department of IT in purchasing and contracting defined savings for the hotspot lending program by leveraging ATT's connectivity program for education.

And then the library department improved training efficiency by leveraging staff expertise to design practical peer-led programs such as Storytime Academy for Youth Services staff and library person in charge training for part-time employees stepping into leadership roles.

The department also partnered with the Division of Race and Equity to deliver tailored implicit bias training, strengthening staff capacity to serve the community with equity and responsiveness.

The library department engaged in several equity initiatives this year.

Through our partnership with San Diego Food Bank and San Diego Unified School District, we distributed 20,000 pounds of food to over 1,300 families and served nearly 3,000 meals to youth last summer, recognizing that many youth do not have access to nutritious meals outside of the school year.

The library and the Office of Child and Youth Success convened various partners throughout the city for a youth workforce development collaboration.

And also in line with our KPIs for early literacy competence, we saw an increase of 34% in completion of our 1,000 books before kindergarten initiative, strengthening early literacy and kindergarten readiness.

There are several reductions in the department.

There is a reduction in hours, though, as you will see in the next few slides.

There are options for council to consider.

Rancho Pianosquitoes will be temporarily closed for FY27 to address some much needed repairs and improvements.

The Office of Child and Use Success is proposed to be eliminated.

There is a $500,000 reduction in security services.

This is partially associated with hour reductions, but also reducing an overnight rover and one of the overnight guards at the Central Library, along with some minor pullbacks and other locations.

There is a proposal to completely suspend the $1 million match donation match for fiscal year 27.

The reduction of one gallery exhibition will result in being only three exhibits rather than four per year.

We are proposing to reduce the number of open hours in our special collections department and move to an appointment-based system with lower number of open hours.

This is in line with industry standards and will allow staff to dedicate more time to digitizing the collection so that it is more accessible.

We are also reducing the staff training budget.

On the next few slides, you will see different options for reduction in hours.

In response to your feedback from last year in regards to across the board reductions, the library and parks and recreation department worked closely with performance and analytics and with input from the Office of Race and Equity to develop an analysis of libraries and recreation centers based on nine different criteria.

Total population, income, educational attainment, child care availability, transportation availability, proximity to the nearest facility, crime rate, alternative service providers, and programs per population.

Libraries were then ranked from greatest impact if there was a reduction or closure to the least impact.

This analysis was shared with you all last week.

We also took your feedback from our initial budget briefings.

These options are in no particular order, and there is no preference.

All three options do represent about a 10% reduction in hours or approximately 170 fewer hours per week across the system from 1,717 to about 1,550 per week.

This does include the Rancho Pennesquitos and Ocean Beach closure.

Without those, it's a 5% reduction.

We welcome council feedback on all the options or to propose alternatives.

I also want to mention that it is important to keep in mind that we have a target had a target reduction of 7% to meet, and we cannot meet that target without proposing a reduction in hours and staffing.

The first option would be to preserve all the existing hours in one branch each for council districts four, eight, and nine.

We have proposed Malcolm X, San Isidro, and City Heights, but are open to other suggestions.

This option increases the number of branches that would move to a Tuesday through Saturday schedule and reduces Saturday hours at eight locations from eight and a half hours to five and a half hours.

I'll note here that we are not tied to the reduction of hours being Saturday.

It could also be shortened hours on Mondays.

This option keeps three branches open, one in districts four, eight, and nine open a full day on Saturday, so not reducing those hours at all.

This is about $376,000, and in order to achieve this, we would need to identify where the funding comes from.

One option is to further reduce hours at two additional locations.

On the slide, we have Linda Vista and La Jolla as examples, but it could also be Point Loma, Rancho Bernardo, Central.

There's many other options, but we would need to take into consideration the closure of Rancho Penosquitos and Ocean Beach to those communities.

In this option, 18 locations would maintain hours, and another four would shift to Tuesday through Saturday.

So 22 locations would be Tuesday through Saturday.

The remaining 13 locations would have slight hour reductions on Saturday, and we based this on utilization that shows the majority of users visit the library between 11 and 4 on Saturdays.

However, again, this can be shifted to Monday or to different hours, and we can work with the council office and community to determine this.

I do think trying to have some kind of consistency in hours is beneficial in normal times, but these are different times, so we need to look at things differently.

This option does meet our $2.4 million target.

Option three would be to preserve all the current hours in council districts four, eight, and nine.

We would reduce six locations to partial day Saturday and eliminate the Monday hours in four locations.

So there would be 22 locations open Tuesday through Saturday, six Monday through Saturday with a partial Saturday, and seven locations with full Monday through Saturday hours.

To achieve this option, we needed to find another $760,000 in reductions.

This level of reduction is the equivalent of completely shutting shuttering a branch.

And the one example we have provided for you is North Claremont.

North Claremont closure is only an option, and you do have options of other locations or identifying the funding from a different source.

Ultimately, the takeaway is that the preservation of hours and still meeting the target reduction requires identifying the $760,000 in alternative funding.

The budget does preserve many of the library's core services.

The literacy initiatives, youth, adult, and accessibility programs are all preserved.

The do your homework at the library program is preserved in the 10 locations it currently is in.

The current level of materials funding is preserved, and the SD access for all digital literacy initiatives such as hotspot lending and digital navigators is preserved.

For a zero-based review of contracts, our contracts and services budget for the library department is approximately $8.9 million or 12% of the operating budget.

Our security services provide security and patrol to central and branch libraries.

The FY27 $2.4 million is reflective of a $700,000 decrease due to reduced service hours and branch closures.

Janitorial Services provides cleaning and janitorial services to all thirties to 36 branch libraries.

Landscaping and tree trimming services for all 37 library facilities.

Parking management provides parking services to Central and the Mission Hills Library parking structures with offsetting revenues of 1.1 million.

Our building services includes our water chiller, arm law monitoring, pest control, carpet cleaning, etc.

for all facilities.

The system-wide programming offers system-wide programs that target key literacy, early learning, educational, cultural, and equity opportunities.

And our printing services for the public at all 37 locations has offsetting revenue of 150,000.

That is the end of my presentation, and I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you for the presentation.

We will now go to the IBA for comments.

Thank you, Chair Foster.

Good afternoon, committee members.

Baku Patel from the IBA's office.

The department's presentation is reviewed the significant adjustments proposed for their FY27 budget, which we discuss beginning on page 216 of our report, including the three options that they've developed related to the reduction in library hours.

I'm going to focus my comments today on those options, but I'll be available for any questions the committee may have on any of the department's individual budget adjustments.

As you heard from staff, the proposed budget assumes a $2.4 million reduction associated with library service hours, but defers the specifics of where those hours are to be reduced for council discussion today and through the rest of the budget approval process.

The three options that staff has presented are all focused almost entirely on adjustments to library hours, specifically at the 17 locations that currently offer Monday service, totaling 51 hours weekly.

Generally speaking, these are the locations that have their Monday hours restored by the council during final FY26 budget deliberations.

Our report has more detailed summaries of each option, but at a high level, options one and three both prioritize the preservation of current operating hours at libraries in council districts four, eight, and nine, with option one focusing on one location in each of these districts, and option three, preserving current hours at all seven libraries in those districts.

All other libraries that currently have a Monday through Saturday schedule would incur some reduction, either a half day or a full day.

This essentially creates three service level tiers.

The highest level would be libraries that are preserved from reductions and therefore would maintain 51 weekly hours.

Next would be libraries with a half day reduction, they would be at 47 hours.

And libraries with a full day reduction would be at 42 and a half hours weekly, which would be in line with all other locations that don't currently have Monday hours.

Option two does not preserve any locations from reductions.

Rather, it spreads full and half day reductions more evenly across all 17 locations, resulting in two service level tiers, with the highest being at 47 weekly hours for some locations and 42 and a half hours weekly for most other locations.

While three options are in front of you today, it is important to make clear that you are not limited to these options.

Modifications or an altogether different package can be developed so long as it can be operationally implemented and the general fund budget is ultimately balanced with other reductions in the library department's budget or elsewhere in the general fund.

Our office will be available to support council members as you evaluate these or any other alternative options you may wish to explore.

If council members prefer one of these three specific options that was presented by staff, you should communicate that today so it may be incorporated into the May revise.

Regardless of the discussion today, if there are options that have been presented or other particular modifications or alternative reductions you would like to see, we encourage each council member to be as specific as possible in your final budget modification memoranda, which are due to our office on May 20th.

Our office will then use that information to formulate final budget modification recommendations, which will be released on June 2nd.

With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Selena from the Division of Race and Equity to discuss equity implications.

Thank you, Bakou.

Good afternoon, Chair Foster and committee members.

My name is Selena Villegas, and I'm here to summarize the division of race and equities analysis of the library department's FY27 proposed budget as included in the IBA report on page 22.

And looking at the proposed budget adjustments, including the three options for reducing operating hours, we identified several areas with significant equity impacts.

Our analysis notes that the proposed reduction of library operating hours, totaling 2.4 million, will limit when residents can access library facilities, digital resources, study space, and youth programming.

The impacts of these reductions are expected to be most pronounced in communities with fewer alternative resources and with higher concentrations of low and moderate income households, where libraries play central role in bridging gaps and technology access and educational support.

Option one, which preserves Monday service and Saturday access and historically underserved areas, still results in reduced hours at several branches, potentially impacting residents who rely on weekday or weekend access depending on their schedules and transportation options.

Option two spreads reductions more evenly citywide, but raises greater equity concerns than options one or three.

Because it does not prioritize preserving hours and higher need communities in districts four, eight, and nine, it is less aligned with council's priority of avoiding across the board cuts.

Additionally, basing reductions on utilization may create equity issues since not all library facilities were built with equal capacity.

Some branches can generate higher usage simply because they were designed to accommodate more people, even when community need is just as great elsewhere.

Option three maximizes service in historically underserved communities and results in the complete loss of library access for residents in the North Claremont area who would need to travel to other branches.

We also highlight that the temporary closure of the Ocean Beach and Rancho Penesquitos libraries for renovation and expansion will shift service demand to other branches, potentially creating additional barriers for residents with limited transportation options or mobility constraints.

Further, the reduction of staff supporting youth, family, and equity-focused programming, including the elimination of the Office of Child and Youth Success as a whole, may constrain the department's ability to deliver coordinated inclusive programs for children, families, and residents with specialized needs.

This includes potential impacts on the implementation of the child and youth plan as well as progress towards meeting major H goals.

These adjustments, if not carefully mitigated, risk deepening existing disparities and access to library services and digital resources.

Taken together, these adjustments, spending reduction in hours, staffing, maintenance, and programming may significantly impact the city's ability to provide equitable access to library service for all residents.

That concludes my comments.

I welcome any questions.

Thank you for that.

We will now go to council members for any questions or comments.

We will start with Council President Pro Tim Lee.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the presentation, and I want to start by acknowledging the tremendous amount of work by Missy and the entire library team, and soon we'll hear from Andy and the entire park and rec team as well.

And I acknowledge this along with Ronia, all that your branch is doing.

Uh, just to recognize that both of you are the ones year after year who are the first in line of any major cuts that we have to receive as a city.

And as a result, ultimately have to piece together these ideas, these proposals that I know at the same time are the exact the very services that you're trying to protect and to deliver to city residents every day.

And let me be clear, we are absolutely in a challenging budget year, and with little repetite for revenue cuts across the city are necessary.

We've had those discussions from the very presentation of this budget.

I have suggested that the question isn't necessarily everything that we want to protect, because we won't be able to protect everything.

But at the end of the day, what is the balance of what we are able to achieve as a city that meets the needs that we have identified?

I think what is extremely concerning to me is how we're even sitting here today, looking at a proposed budget by our mayor that, even with all of the data from performance and analytics and the operational responsibility to implement the butt the budget could not actually recommend a path forward.

What we're looking at is a process that I believe much of the public would agree is backwards.

So let's look at libraries to start.

The degree of cuts to libraries was determined in this budget at a flat amount, 7% of their budget.

$2.4 million.

And as you've heard from the department, this reduction reflects nothing more than a set number of hours that have to be eliminated.

And we are to believe that there is no recommendation between all of the options that have been presented.

How is this not simply making another across the board cut?

Except this time, the difference is instead of making operational recommendations based on the data that's been analyzed over the course of the last year, this administration has presented what the public has now called a hunger games scenario, giving us the impression that the cut is already predetermined.

All we're doing is picking between the options of how it's implemented.

This council is being asked to debate with each other which communities should lose access to their libraries or parks first.

And I'm just gonna say that I refuse to play this game.

The question we should be asking as a city is the opposite.

Not which services and location should be cut, but what are the services and hours of access that should be protected?

For what we know, the answer to this may differ based on branch location by programming, I just heard branch size, uh, and the communities they're being served.

These are unique identifiers that go far beyond a district number, a geographic location, and some of the initial analytics that we've been presented.

And I think the challenge that we are all facing is that because the number has already been predetermined, every option that is being presented is simply designed to hit the exact same number.

If you really wanted us to consider a full menu of options, we would have broken down every type of service that's being presented, how it's being presented, and have that as a full menu for us to consider.

But I think what's most frustrating to me at the end of the day is that the nine of us sitting on this council, we are not the ones who operationalize this budget.

We leave that back in the hands of the mayor and the administration.

And frankly, for a mayor who has chosen to call himself the chief operating officer of the city, I do expect that they'd be able to rank a recommendation on how best to move forward.

So this is a tough scenario.

At the end of the day, we're being presented a subset of this data that helps us understand different sets of rankings for libraries and how they're being used.

Same thing for park and rec centers across the city.

But I think we need to do more than that.

I think we need to be able to actually dive in and identify what are the needed services at each of our branches, what are the hours that make a difference, and to be able to make those targeted recommendations that meet the needs of each neighborhood.

And we need to understand that while $2.4 million is on the table right now, this budget, as every budget does each year, changes.

And the May revise, we'll see additional revenues or cuts that maybe have to be considered.

By the time this council considers the final budget, there's often additional resource or challenges that we're gonna have to mitigate.

And all of those need to come into play to determine what is there at the end.

So that's why I'm gonna tell people that I don't believe the $2.4 million is the final number.

And it's not the one that we should set our target to.

Our target as a city should be to protect as much of these core services that we call core as we possibly can.

And in the scenarios where we cannot, to be able to identify in a targeted way which ones we are able to protect first, and to expand that as we're able to identify additional funding.

So that's the approach I'm gonna be taking, both with this library discussion as well as with uh our park and rec discussion next.

Um, I do have a couple questions that are specific for libraries, so I do want to at least ask those.

Um, first is there's been a lot of discussions specifically about the cuts to the Office of Child and Youth Success.

And I do want to ask who's being expected to absorb the duties of OCYS, and specifically, uh, there's been some reporting about measure H and how that was passed by voters uh several years ago.

Implementation has still been scarce.

Who ultimately is going to be serving as the contact for implementing measure H?

And then also who's going to be the liaison for the youth commission since the body that we formed as a city to empower youth voices was anticipated to be supported by that department.

Yes.

Thank you for the question, Councilmember.

For the Office of Child and Youth Success.

So you had the child and youth plan that was adopted by the council last year.

Those elements of that plan are still going to be in effect.

They are just going to live with the individual departments for which they pertain to.

So it will be incumbent upon the departments to make sure that whatever is in the child and youth plan is put into their own work plan and implemented within their individual departments.

For the youth commission, we will be working with um with CHIDA Warren Darby on who is going to be continued to be the liaison for the youth commission.

And then also for measure H, Measure H has been challenging, and that there has been some legal interpretation of the language and respect to modular units on parkland as child care facilities, and so we're working with the city attorney's office.

We we do have an RFSQ drafted from ready to go out.

It is being reviewed right now in order to move that forward.

It will need to be determined who owns the implementation of measure H, but that will be something that will be worked up on between the library department and um the parks and recreation department.

Many of the options that are presented seem to suggest specific, I still find them fairly across the board cuts.

Either you're losing all of Sundays or you're losing or I mean a chunk of Sundays, uh sorry, Saturdays, or you're losing a chunk of Mondays.

Um how much flexibility is there within the department and the staff that you have to be able to tailor library hours based on the communities that you serve?

We do have some flexibility.

We will need to um ensure that our full-time staff has 40 hours of um work, right?

Um, and then also if staff have a don't have two days off in a row, they are eligible for shift differential, which is a five percent increase.

So you have to take that into consideration with any reductions that you're putting forward.

Aside from that, we can tailor hours to individual um branches and individual communities, and we can look at particularly ones that are maybe closer together, is staggering the hours so that there's more coverage in particular communities.

Yes.

So when I talked about protecting services, I think some of um some of that is relayed, I think, in the proposal and the discussions that have taken place, specifically around homework hours for homework help for youth after school.

Um, there are a lot of weekend programs that library branches offer.

Uh I mean members of my own staff talk about bringing their kids every week for some of the reading programs on weekends, etc.

As you're looking at reductions to hours, how do you how do you avoid those impacting the unique programs that exist at branches across the city?

We do look at um, we will be looking at each individual program.

And so when we did the utilization and we used um performance and analytics um assisted us with um the utilization of libraries, we did see that the majority of people do visit between 11 and 4 on Saturdays, which that is the majority of the programming and things happen between those hours, which is kind of coincides with that.

So we would adjust, um, but like I said, we are not tied to any specific hours or any specific days, and we can work with the council and the community on how we implement those hour reductions.

I'll conclude my questions for now, uh, but certainly look forward to the comments that my colleagues might have as we're discussing both of these items today.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Pro Tim.

We will now go to Councilmember Elo Rivera.

All right, uh, thank you, Chair.

Thanks, Misty.

Um, thanks, Selena, as always, for the um for for your uh analysis and baku.

Um and I appreciate Council President Pro Tem's questions and comments as well.

Um I share the frustration that a number um was assigned to libraries without seeming to have much rationale for that number besides just wanting to hit a certain numeric goal.

Um Council President Pro Tem asked this earlier, and this isn't a question for MISTY, this is a question from someone from the mayor's office or Department of Finance.

Why this why this number Councilmember, I'll take uh first part of that question, then maybe DOF can come up and help with the process.

So all departments except for if you were asked to provide a 7% reduction in order to hit that 7% reduction uh based off of the information we got from the library department, that 2.4 million was associated specifically to ours.

I understand the frustration for selecting the 2.4.

I don't think we can philosophically disagree on assigning the 2.4.

Um but every department was asked for a specific target reduction, and as MISTY said, in order to meet that reduction within the library department, um there would have to be an impact to our reductions, and that's where that 2.4 million comes from.

Right.

I I so I'm gonna this the 7% to Council President Pro Tem's point, that sounds a lot like across the board maybe just kind of colored differently than not than last year.

Um and I my issues just forever's worth go well beyond just the 2.4 million, but I'll get into that.

Um you've been really good on being equity focused even before this council got here, and I want to give you credit for that.

I I also need to say that it was extremely challenging and frustrating to see the equity impact statement.

Um see this answer in the equity in the equity impact statement.

Do the budget adjustments address a disparity?

Do the adjustments impact any department disparities, gaps, and deficiency?

One word answer, no.

And then there are no disparities, gaps, and deficiencies associated with the adjustments that's just not true.

And when we see things like that, it makes I'll just speak for myself, it makes me more difficult to try kind of trust the entire process.

Um very clearly laid out the many ways that this will have equity impacts.

We've heard from um folks before today.

We'll hear from more folks today about how there will be an equity impacts.

Um I just feel like we need to be we need to be honest, and I acknowledge that.

Um I I have an another question in terms of what we did in advance of getting to this moment.

Was there any attempt to pursue sponsorships or philanthropic support um to avoid um or mitigate the reductions for libraries?

Yes, there was a meeting last year uh with philanthropic partners.

Um we did not get any interest, but the mayor's office is going to be hosting another meeting with philanthropic partners to ask if there's any interest in filling some of these gaps.

Was the depth of the cuts offered in that meeting?

Uh I can't speak specifically to the meeting last year as I was not present, but this year we will definitely be giving uh definitive numbers um to our partners.

I mean, yeah, because they're in the budget now.

I so um okay.

I'm gonna dive into the office and child use success.

Um, Missy, I actually don't think this is like most of these questions aren't for you.

Um, the intent was never for that office to live there.

Um that was the product of an initial round of defunding of um support for children and youth in the city.

Um so kind of starting big picture.

Um if you are a young person in San Diego or someone who works with young people.

What should you understand about the administration and the city's commitment to young people based on what um has been proposed in the budget?

Anyone can take that.

Not Misty, though, because it's this is not a library choice.

Yeah, um, Council Member, I just want to uh point out that um in addition to the purpose of the Office of Child and Youth Success, we have been having a lot of instituted programs that really serve youth directly, whether with the library uh department or park and recreations, and even uh with some of our safety department like police on fire.

So um those programs are still being protected uh in those departments and in the proposed budget uh across these departments.

Um the library offer programs um that help youth with uh literacy, early learning, uh STEAM education, cultural learning.

So those are still intact and been protected, part of the budget proposal, as well as uh do your homework at the library.

This is alone is a one million dollars allocation just to preserve that program.

And same as the park uh recreation, they offer so many programs through their recreation uh uh group to help youth and then cater to the youth.

Yeah, the the whole point though of the Office of Child Youth Success was to ensure that there was somebody at the city who is always looking out for young people, who is coordinating with the rest of the community, um, who's letting young people in the city know that somebody in the city that their mission on a day-to-day basis is making their lives better, making them um feel love from their city by way of ensuring that we're like really giving them a chance to succeed um and we we are dismantling like quite literally dismantling the thing that was put together for that purpose that community spent a lot of time advocating for because they when they saw what it when it wasn't there, there were huge impacts.

So who's in charge of there's a goal, there's goals in the child and youth master uh child and youth uh plan that we updated last year.

Um who's in charge of making sure um that uh youth empowerment is happening?

Who's who's the person in charge of that?

My branch who will be in charge of that, and then that would be divided uh responsibility between the two departments will uh looking back at the current um youth related programs and ensure the elements that in this plan has been implemented and been reported on.

And workforce development and financial well-being, who's in charge of that?

That will be a coordinations um with the department of finance, but my branch will be responsible to ensure those coordinations are taking place.

Will there be a person assigned to that?

Uh definitely eventually we'll have a person assigned to that, but right now with all those uh moving parts with the proposed reductions until we uh we see how the proposed reduction will impact certain positions and then the ability to reassign staff uh we will have a person assigned to it eventually so what I'm hearing is the plug is being pulled on support for children and youth and families without a plan for who will do that work and how the work that's being done will won't um won't slip, and that's extremely concerning because of who this office aims to serve.

If I may have my three additional minutes, Chair.

Um again, we're telling youth that we are defunding the the one place in this city that is specifically committed to them, the measly um you know amount of money that we dedicate to that in this city, um, that that's that's going away, and there's no plan for how to replace that uh the efforts that are being put in in into supporting them.

That's extremely disappointing.

Um there any conversations with philanthropy or anybody else about um helping fill the gap on the Office of Child Youth Success before the budget was proposed.

We had conversations with price philanthropies, and that was more associated with uh uh park after dark programs and then how they can help with directly serve the youth population.

Yeah, that's a very specific program, which is a fantastic program.

We're gonna talk more about it later.

I appreciate that, but what I'm hearing in that is that there was not an effort to keep this office alive.

Um that's again extremely disappointing.

In multiple forums, young people and the folks who um advocate for young people have talked about the message that's being sent when there is a um continual increase in in funding for um for enforcement for surveillance and other reactive um approaches to addressing um crime and negative activity in our communities while defunding positive opportunities.

I know that the mayor has been very clear that one of his goals uh in this budget is to uh maintain public safety.

And so, can you help me understand and those advocates understand and those young people understand why and how surveilling people is a better investment in safety than giving young people a safe place to play, a safe place to read, a safe place to study, um, and an office to coordinate efforts with other um agencies and organizations across the city and region.

Councilmember, I don't know that there's a very specific answer to that question, to be completely frank.

I think the mayor wants to protect public safety across the board.

I think the second conversation about exactly what you're speaking about for surveillance with the police department will be discussed on Friday.

I think the mayor understands that public safety is more than just within the police department.

He understands that it's within the community services branch, but I don't know that I can give you a specific answer as to why he feels that that's more important than community services.

They're they're both important.

Right, but there's this again the budget's all about choices and and the budget as proposed choosing to surveil people instead of give them a safe place to read.

The budget is choosing to surveil people instead of funded office that works with agencies and nonprofits and cities and and the county is the one government entity in this region dedicated to young people.

Uh it's it's it's telling us that it's choosing surveillance over that.

And I know that I'm in a minority on the council and believing that that should have never been funded to begin with, but I I need to call attention to the choice that is being made in this document to choose surveillance over giving young people a safe place to be.

And that is not okay.

And our young people shouldn't be okay with that.

It sends a terrible message, and um I've used my time, but um it's extremely disappointing to see that that is the choice that uh was made when proposing this budget.

Thank you for that.

We will now go to council member Moreno.

Thank you for the presentation and uh thank you to the IBA for the report.

Um I too am deeply concerned about the proposed fiscal year 27 library cuts as communities within districts four eight and nine will be impacted the most.

Uh the re proposed reduction of 3.4 million and the elimination of 38 full-time employees will result in large library hours um being cut, location closures, and the elimination of the Office of Child and Youth Success, who was tasked with implementing measure H.

Uh, these cuts directly affect working families, students, and seniors within my district who depend on weekends and early week access to their neighborhood libraries.

Uh these residents rely more heavily on libraries for technology access, homework support, and indoor public space.

Um, although these cuts were extremely disappointing, I was relieved to see that the do your homework at the library program and material are still being preserved.

Uh in 2022, former council member Chris Kate and I introduced ballot measure H, which authorized child care on parkland, which was approved by 68% of San Diegans.

Let me repeat that.

It authorized child care on parkland.

As a working mother to a young child, I understand more than ever the need for child care.

And child care is a humongous need in district eight.

Now, with the elimination of the Office of Child and Youth Success, this question is for the mayor's office.

How does the mayor propose to implement measure H, which was the will of the voters?

Thank you, Councilmember.

I think Misty spoke to that earlier that the efforts with Measure H will continue.

We do have a drafted RFSQ that we are planning to send out.

Once that RFSQ is completed, we will then uh work with your office and then continue to work with uh Parks and Recreation Department to identify who is the lead department after that.

But that's the next immediate step that will continue.

Okay, so from the mayor's office, are you in charge, or who is the person that my office needs to uh rely on to answer any questions from our COO?

Sure, you can work directly with me as the senior policy advisor who oversees the community services branch as well as Rania Amin, who is the DC.

And that goes for the public as well.

They can communicate with you regarding measure H.

Sure, if they'd like to communicate with you, they can do that.

Wonderful, thank you.

Um I want to be clear that the elimination of the Office of Child and Youth Success is not just a budget decision, it's a step backwards for the children and families in San Diego.

In my opinion, a lot of time was wasted on not implementing the will of the voters, which have which would have resulted with child care on parkland.

I cannot express my frustration enough about the lost opportunities in providing child care.

Um there was a reference made about um modules.

Um would the city attorney's office be able to speak on that.

And once again, this is regarding measure H child care on parkland.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We do not have the the information at this time, but we'll be happy to follow up with you on that.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Because I don't think measure H mentioned modules, right?

So this is it seems like it's a roadblock, and I don't know if if it's a necessary roadblock.

So if we can have more information, or if the public could have more information.

Uh families in San Diego pay an average of 14 to 24,000 a year in child care.

With the cost of living already being so high, uh many residents are already struggling to make and meet to make ends meet.

Our jobs um here is to listen to the needs of the people and to serve.

We cannot ask residents to engage in the democratic process and then ignore the outcomes when they do.

Our families deserve more than promises, they deserve actions.

Now for the gutting of our libraries, libraries are just too damn important in my community.

And let me say that our libraries are a core service of the city of San Diego.

We are in charge of our library services.

In the same proposed budget, this administration is adding $9 million for homelessness services while eliminating 3.4 for libraries.

I cannot support that, and I will continue to advocate for the resources and attention that our residents deserve.

That concludes my comments, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Um, not seeing any other uh we have Council President Lukava.

Sorry about that, Chair.

I thought others would jump in.

Um do you want to go?

Okay.

Um thank you, Misty, for the good work.

I know this must have been incredibly painful to not navigate this.

Um, because this is not just the first time we're doing this.

This is uh building on the cuts that were done last year.

Um you mentioned that excluding the two libraries that are gonna be closed all year that it represents five percent.

Now that's five percent against last year's hours.

So we've actually if the five percent goes through, we've actually done a pretty big hit on library hours.

Um, buried in the presentation because you only have so much time to get the information out.

Um, from what I understand that the library has a pretty good handle on people use the library.

You have much more data than say than Andy does in terms of who uses rec centers.

Um I appreciate what Panda did to try to say if we have to do this, that there was data, hard data to to drive that.

People may hate the the outcomes out of that, uh, may hate ideas one, two, and three, um, or any variation of one, two, and three.

Um the core services that you identify in I think slide 10.

Um, those are pretty, I mean, that was the decision point to say that's stuff that we're not going to touch.

Um, and to see if I can do this without making a jerk of myself.

The preserve to do your homework.

That's actually a San Diego unified program that we find out that their backlog of students who want that program, they can't meet, and we're stepping up to do that.

We um we created the um do your homework at the library program about 10 years ago in order to uh address a gap.

So the after school, we learned that the after school programs in San Diego Unified Schools had a waiting list of several hundred students.

So we worked with them to try to create a program that we could help them address that gap so it's a drop-in program for tutoring services until they can get into it to an after school program, yes.

Okay.

Um I'm trying to figure out where I should go.

Oh, the one of the things that we heard from the public at length last night.

Um I don't know, I think almost everybody was talking about the office of child abuse success.

One of the things I kept getting brought up was how much grants that the office had secured far in excess of what their cost is.

Um I'm not sure that my colleagues asked about that.

What would happen about those grants?

So they um they currently have um expended the grants.

They do have some grant money left for the child care subsidy for city employees that they are working to finish that out this fiscal year and award those remaining dollars.

There is a two million dollar grant, a federal grant from Sarah Jacob's office for the implementation of Measure H that will require a feasibility study of recreation facilities before we're able to expend that those dollars.

Okay.

And in terms of new grant applications, would I think what I've heard is and I I appreciate the the anger of my colleagues and the frustration of this while we recognize the budget challenge, but it's a little bit tricky in terms of do you want to actually say, hey, it's gone, and here's our mitigation for it, or we're thinking of making it gone, and if council comes up with a different idea and puts it back in, which is on the table, then why would go through the exercise?

Um so I think that would be the only thing I would say to both the public and my colleagues.

Nobody's defunded anything.

This is a proposal, and we don't have a lot of leeway.

There's not money sitting on the table that we can grab and say we're gonna fill that hole or that hole.

Uh as I've said way too many times.

If you don't like a gut, you've got to come up with another cut to balance things out.

I've heard that the May Revise is not going to come up with any silver bullets on um new dollars that will suddenly be available.

Uh, and I think the tricky part is uh operational questions are a lot more difficult for us to do because we don't have all the information that all of you do, but yet we're being asked.

We may have better knowledge about our districts, our libraries, our rec centers going forward.

I'm not sure I really have that.

I think I still understand Carmel Valley is probably the busiest library, branch library in the in the city.

Um, but I see that this is problematic, not because these cuts, but these cuts on top of last year's cuts that are problematic.

And I'm looking at you because you're the librarian.

This is not you.

This is the budget challenge we have.

So we have a short amount of time.

What do we have?

About a month and a half, uh, to figure this out going forward.

And someone's gonna make a decision at some point to balance that budget.

Um, and either we're gonna come in and just do a line item like it is today, and somebody else is gonna make the operational decisions, or we're gonna make those operational directions.

Maybe we fully fund the 2.4.

Maybe we fully fund Office of Child and Youth Success if we can figure out something else that we don't like.

Um that I think that's kind of where we sit.

Um it's hard for me to sit here and figure out with the council and under Brown Act how we do that, achieve that.

But I think that's really the challenge.

I think this is what these folks show up and expect us to do.

We can't just wave our wand and say, yeah, you we're gonna we're I'm gonna balance the budget and let somebody else figure out how to how to count the pennies to balance it.

So um I appreciate the work that you do and the passion that you bring to the conversation.

I'm gonna kind of wrap up here, but um that you bring and how hard this is.

Um I think the conversation for us is to really start looking in the other departments that we think are less priority um going forward.

And that may not include um, you know, I'm gonna say it out loud.

I am glad that things that this council voted on were not being proposed to be cut.

But this council can change its mind.

Some things get approved pretty narrowly, and we can change our mind.

So that's on the table as well.

One of the questions that I thought I was gonna ask every department that I haven't is what changes would be needed to actually achieve what's in the budget.

And part of it may be council going back and undoing something that we already voted on going forward.

So all of that is on the table.

It's a ridiculous ask in the next six weeks to be able to hit, but I don't assume anything.

So we have to dig in if we don't like the cuts that are in front of us.

Council president may add just quick things.

Um I just wanna um let the council knows that the elimination of the Office of Child Youth and Success where we did not take it lightly.

We had very tough choices.

It was down to whether maintaining or preserving the do your homework at the libraries or maintaining this office and then trying looking for the options to see what the priorities are.

So it was not an easy decision by any means, and then we did not take it lightly.

No, and I I like I I understand that um uh going forward.

Actually, the only last thing, and I don't know anybody who is in the room can answer this.

Last year we made some hard decisions.

We were not able to implement those hard decisions, and so we didn't get the savings.

My understanding is there's been better conversations.

That's if when whatever the decisions are made, that they will happen on July 1st and we will accrue all the savings.

So that's particularly important to me.

I don't like what happened last year.

That wasn't a council thing, but I hope that those conversations are happening, unlike apparently the surprises of last year.

So I'll close there.

Uh thank you.

This is not you, this is all of us.

So, Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

We will go to Councilmember Von Wilbur.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, uh Misty, for your incredible work.

Thank you to all of our librarians who are here.

Um many of them are in the room with us today.

We appreciate you and all the work you do.

Uh, thank you to MEA and AFSME and everyone who who helps support our library services.

Um, this is not your budget.

This is not your fault.

The the city's sales tax did not pass, and now we're being asked like other cities and school districts around this nation to make very hard choices in the budget.

But you know, libraries are one of the few places in our society where everyone is welcome, you know, regardless of income or background or age.

And they're all places for community.

Uh and you know, we had quite uh an incident at our Rancho Penosquitos library a few weeks ago in which our community was attacked, um, and people told us to take down the pride display, and our Rancho Penny Squito's community and the larger San Diego community fought back.

Not only did we replace all the books on the pride display, we had a huge community celebration in which we welcomed the books back and hundreds of people came.

And I I very much value our libraries.

I mean, I studied at Scripps Ranch Library when I was a senior at Script Ranch High School.

You know, I studied for the bar exam there too to become a lawyer.

Um so I do I do have some questions.

And one I I want to also echo my colleagues, we have to protect, you know, do your homework at the library programs.

And I realize that a lot of them are not in my district, and that's fine.

Uh they need to be uh in communities that need them.

So I agree with no across the board cuts.

It should be focused on equity if we have to make any.

So please, we do need to preserve the do your homework at the library program.

Um the communities that I live in are gonna take some pretty severe library closures under this proposed budget.

Uh one of them is Scripts Ranch, uh, but we have to replace the roof and the HVAC.

I'm not gonna tell you when I graduate from high school, but it was a little while ago now.

But the other one is Rancho Penisquitos, where we had the incident I just spoke about.

And so I've now heard from you know hundreds of my residents in Rancho Penny Squitoes have submitted a petition asking why does the library have to be closed, a full closure for for a year at least.

And so, you know, what is the scope of the repairs that have to be done and could they could it be open partially during just tell us more about what's happening at PQ?

I will um turn it over to Ra Godinho, deputy director.

He has the deep more details on that project.

Hi, good afternoon, Council members.

Thank you for the question.

It's the Rancho Penosquitos branch library uh will have to close just kind of due to the nature of the work uh that's happening there.

Um it would require the closure because of uh safety, uh some risk items when they're working um around, for example, the uh parking lots going to be completely uh milled.

Uh there's uh trees that have uprooted the sidewalks, those will be coming out.

Um it's gonna be quite disruptive uh for it would be for the for the public and for the staff.

Um they're gonna be doing uh fixes to the roof to the skylights, uh, all of those in order for us to take the proper safety precautions.

Uh we would definitely have to close uh the location there.

Um the design has been completed.

Um the plan check is up to date, and we'll be receiving the limited notice to proceed here in the end of June, uh beginning of July.

So everybody's ready to go for this project.

Um that's a huge endeavor, understood.

I think we're gonna need more communication with my residents about this.

So maybe coming to the Rancho Penezquitos Town Council would be very helpful because they're highly involved in this.

So I mean we use that community space also for our Rancho Penosquitos, you know, wildfire awareness space day, and we just we have so many events there.

Uh you know, I'd be happy to dig in and work with your team about hey, maybe there might be a way to open part of the library halfway through construction.

You know, as the project proceeds, if there is a way to do this, I think we should.

Um obviously putting the public, you know, keeping safety is the most important thing.

I understand that, especially if the entire parking lot will be ripped up, the sidewalks, the entrances, the passage, the roof.

Uh but my understanding is there's no the current CAP for this.

So do we already do we need a CIP created or is already funded, or how's this going?

Uh there is a CIP.

Um, it's within the Department of General Services as a sublet.

Okay.

Um so it's not in the department uh CIP project pages, but uh funding has been identified and the project has uh you know it's ready to go.

So there is a page for that.

I can get you that information.

It is, and then is also receiving additional uh allocation part of the CIP proposed budget to complete the the needed funding for this project to be completed for Rancho Penousquitos.

Okay, yeah, all right, thank you.

Um we'll dig into that more with my community, but I do want to make sure they get their questions asked and answered, so we should set up a time to go in front of the public in front of the town council.

Um and you know, Script Ranch will be closing soon as well.

Um is that project on yeah, this is a schedule for mid-May uh to be closed temporarily until the end of calendar year.

And then for the Rancho Penesquitos, I'll make sure the engineering capital project team that they will uh schedule a community presentations to walk all the communities about um what they expect and then the proposed improvements and then the timelines and the cost associated with it.

Okay, and what about the Rancho Bernardo library?

Are we still planning on doing in new improvements there?

Uh this project is also receiving uh allocations and the proposed FY27 budget to replace the roof.

Do we need to close it for that?

No.

Okay.

I don't think we could take three full library closures.

And we also need um, you know, my my neighbors down the street in Mara Mesa want to make sure that if we're closing Scripts Ranch and Penasquitos, Mare Mesa is the next closest library, so we will work together on that.

I also have a question about the decision not to support a million dollars in donation matching funds.

So uh what I'm reading in the IBA's report is that the donation received in FY26 are protected to total one million dollars, which will now be available for distribution this coming year.

So if we don't put up matching funds, how much money are we gonna be losing in donations?

Which seems a little short-sighted.

So I can I can answer the first um part of that.

So we do have the pool distribution, which is what the IBA is referring to.

So we've already met the million-dollar match for this year.

We do a 50% pool distribution that's distributed based on median household income and service population.

So that will be distributed to all the branches in the fall.

So they will get that allocation next fiscal year.

It will be the the following fiscal year if the if the donation matches suspended, that there will not be a pool distribution.

Uh we do um currently have really healthy matching fund balances.

Um, so I'm not concerned about any programming or services being interrupted with the um suspension of the match.

Um, so that is um, so I don't have that concern there.

Uh could it potentially impact philanthropy?

Potentially, people can still donate.

Of course, we just wouldn't have the matching component of that.

Okay.

Well, how much money do you think we would lose in donations?

We have met the million-dollar match every year for the last 17 years.

So do you think we would lose a million dollars?

So we would, yeah.

So it would be, I mean, if if people chose not to donate, all right, so but okay.

Well I I think we should dig into that more because it seems like we're you know we'd be losing money we would be already getting.

So I just I feel that that should be something we should talk about.

My last question is about um the Office of Child and Youth Success.

Uh the most important thing for me in this decision is that the work is still being done.

And so, you know, last year we had a budget discussion in which we decided to take the Office of Sustainability and Mobility, I believe that was the full name of the office, and eliminate the office itself, but then take the the employees, you know, like Heather Werner, who I respect highly, and I want to see her anytime, we're having it a sustainability discussion.

She's still here at the city doing the incredible work.

You know, we just voted on a hundred twenty-five plus million dollar contract to replace our diesel generators with solar and battery storage.

We're implementing electric vehicle charging, you know, we're meeting our climate action goals because she didn't the work didn't stop just because the office wasn't titled an office anymore.

And so my question is will the work for child and use success still be getting done, even if there's no quote office.

Yes, council member, I think we spoke to this a little bit earlier.

The work will continue.

Have we solidified exactly who the lead point of contact is for all of that work?

No, that still needs to be worked through.

But the work will continue.

I will say that we already have people within the library department who are focused on youth services.

Those programs will continue, but yes, the child and youth plan will still live.

As Rania mentioned earlier, we will um make sure to coordinate with the appropriate departments who are impacted by that child and youth plan to make sure that that still continues.

So we're still gonna have youth serving librarians, all the youth programming we pass.

Okay.

Okay, um, those are all my questions for now.

Um, and thank you very much.

Thank you.

We will go back to council member Ilo Rivera.

Thank you, Chair Foster.

I know I've used my time, so I'll be quick here, but I I heard a false choice earlier, and I I'm I'm just gonna make it clear for anyone who presents this week.

If I hear a false choice, I'm gonna call it out.

Yesterday, the false choice was choosing between city employees and our arts and culture organizations.

That was a false choice.

Today, we were just told that the choice was between funding the Office of Child Success or funding do your homework after school.

That is a false choice.

There's a false choice, and if we are running this, we are running a system where at the end of that decision making chain in the city of San Diego, we get to a place where we're choosing between the Office of Child Youth Success and funding do your school after do you do your homework after school, reset the damn system because that is not acceptable.

There is no way that those are the only two choices in front of us.

And so I appreciate the time, Chair, and I I I promise this to anyone who presents.

If you pres if you give us a false choice, I'm going to call it out.

Don't do that anymore.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Not seeing any other um members on the lights.

Um I will say just want to thank you, Misty, um for all of the conversations and and discussions we have had, Ron, you and your team as well.

Um I think I've been pretty consistent on this topic.

Um I can look um at what has been presented.

Um I do appreciate that we are um working to to support our communities of concern, I will say.

Um, but I still think we have fallen a little short.

Um, and I understand the fiscal constraints that are are um per se impacting that.

Um but I think we need to go back to the beginning of our budget conversation and as we talked about equity, and that's really understanding that not every neighborhood starts at the same point, right?

This isn't chess, right?

Chess is a game of strategy, not a game of life, right?

Uh chess, everyone starts, even number of fields, even number of pieces.

Life is not that.

Um, and and just as we look at everything that we are being faced with today.

Um for me, as we talk about core services and functions, library and park and rec is at the top of my list.

And as I have said, you know, as I look at my family's history in the city of San Diego, the first jobs that my aunts and folks had was at park and rec in those types of facilities.

And just as you look at again, we are heavy enforcement.

Right?

I think we've all said the general fund is majority public safety.

But these facilities, these amenities play a very, very important role into overall public safety.

And at some point, we need to really make sure that we are acknowledging that.

Also, I just want to acknowledge our partners with the Library Foundation.

I have to, I can only imagine, and and I think I've said this as someone I haven't seen, Patrick, as passionate as he has been in the last few months.

They are out there really trying to fill gaps to meet needs.

And that gets more and more difficult and challenging if we are not doing what we need to be doing, right?

And making sure that we are putting our best foot forward to accept the work that they are doing and to grow and expand.

And at the end of the day, one thing that we need to make sure that we are doing, and this is where I have to say I want to remain positive.

If we continue to put our youth first, I have to think we could find our way through this, what I will call a mess.

The way that we are uh the discussion we're having today.

So I will leave that there.

Um I think we have more work to do, um, more conversations to have, um, and and quite frankly, some more uncomfortable conversations that need to be had.

Um, so with that, that will conclude.

Um, as we have no other members on the lights, that will conclude um our discussion on um libraries.

Um just got to throw in again.

I'm so pleased that the Oak Park Library is moving forward.

We have a groundbreaking set uh for May 14th.

Thank you for all the work that's going into that.

And I just really look forward in in to that um project moving forward.

One last thing, and I just just didn't all transparency.

As council president said, we went through a very difficult conversation last year.

And this is where I think everyone needs to understand when we talk about there's one thing for the decision we make on the dais, but then when you look at the other side, the operation side, right?

And and one thing that disturbed me is we went through and made some very specific decisions, and then as we look at things such as furlough, voluntary furlough, and the way things worked out, where we made decisions, then you come back and you receive a memorandum saying, hey, here's where we are at staffing-wise, and we're gonna have to close a facility and the one I think that came through was Oak Park.

I think I got a memo that said, hey, we're gonna have to um shut down Oak Park for a period of time.

Um so even as we have these conversations and and as we make our decisions, there's still a lot of concern on the operation side and making sure that we are delivering what we say we will deliver, right?

It's about execution.

Um so thank you.

Um with that, um, we will now move on to the next presentation uh from our uh director of park and record.

Thank you, Chair Foster, and good afternoon.

Andy Field, Parks and Recreation Director with me today is Jose Mendoza, our finance manager.

So, first, we want to begin with some accomplishments that have happened in the parks and recreation department over the last year.

Uh, we've had the opening of the Ruffin Canyon Trail connecting Sarah Mesa and Taft Middle School alongside connecting it with Mission Valley at the Escala HOA.

That just opened last month.

Our aquatics program is working very hard with our nonprofit partners, including Price Philanthropies, San Diego Parks Foundation, and prevent drowning, as we continue to find donations and other donor supports help keep our pools open and offer more programs on the aquatics.

The Get It Done program now features parks on their drop-down menu.

That's a change from last year, and allows constituents to report on concerns with park maintenance, cleanliness, safety, enforcement, including dog off leash activity.

Among several park renovations underway this year, a couple just reopened, including Jerobec in District 5 and Coral Gate in District 8.

We appreciate the support of Engineering Capital Projects to help execute those projects.

And then also we received an award, a community impact award for San Diego River Park for the watershed enhancement team and the good work of keeping the area along that river clean and working carefully with our various partners in the river, including the Parks Foundation there and the Environmental Services Department.

So we'll begin then with our budget equity impact statement, which includes the continuing good works of the opportunity fund.

We appreciate the council for working very hard to get this in effect, and this particular opportunity fund allocation the current year has helped secure multiple locations of additional park programming by contractors under the Come Play Outside program with strong support from our San Diego Parks Foundation.

And then also we've created a new equity webpage, which allows us to showcase some of the good equity work that we have undertaken in the department and also showcasing partnerships and program growth over the past year.

Next slide will show you the impacts that we look at for the fiscal year 2027 draft budget.

Several revenue adjustments are shown on this slide, including a reduction in revenue for Balboa Park parking fees that aligns with currently adopted parking rates.

Additional environmental growth fund revenues, these are revenues derived from San Diego Gas and Electric Franchise fees in accordance with City Charter Section 103.1A.

Then there's an inflationary increase for user fees that will be forthcoming in July under previously approved council resolution, and the inflationary increase to the Gulf land use payment.

There's also some money set aside here for funds from the City of Chula Vista for our partnership in managing Otai Valley Regional Park in the South Bay.

We also have some new facilities that are opening.

Many asked me about how new facilities get opened in the middle of budgetary challenges.

And as many of you are aware, these are projects that have been on the books for many years, if not decades.

And some of the ones that are coming forward include Bayer Park, Eastbourne Park, East Village Green, Hickman Field, Mira Mesa Community Center, and Aquatic Center, the expansion of the Pacific Beach Elementary joint use, the introduction of two new joint uses, one at Perry Elementary and one at Rowan Elementary, and that's in Paradise Hills and in City Heights.

Next, the department prepared a series of reduction scenarios that look uniformly across all department operations.

So we talk about a 7% reduction.

This is across recreation, maintenance, park rangers, brush management, analytical and administrative support, unclassified managers and supervisors.

That amounts to around a $13 million reduction that is provided for you this afternoon.

Many of these reductions do involve personnel and therefore filled positions, as many of the reductions the department took for the current year were a lot of vacant positions by comparison.

One of the most impactful and difficult reductions involve recreation centers in the amount of $5.4 million.

We're going to come back to that topic in just a minute as we have a couple of slides related to specifically to recreation centers, much the same as what you saw with library.

The next line item reduces 15 full-time equivalent positions, including five park rangers, three unclassified positions, including assistant director, chief park ranger, and asset manager, three administrative and analytical positions, two recreation staff that support recreation contract services and therapeutic recreation services, two park designers that support both capital projects and non-ECP capital projects, including those led by communities, and two management analysts and one information system analyst.

A reduction in maintenance services is also listed here, and this is spread across the park system, not looking at any one part of the system.

It includes playground repairs, turf maintenance, brush management, and beach management.

The brush management impact in particular is a reduction of 20 acres thinned per year, which directly impacts one of our key performance indicators.

And we are working carefully with uh leadership to see if there's other ways we can try to uh help meet our goals, even with this reduction being listed here.

So we're looking at that and hope to have more to share in the future on that one.

Next slide, we have other reductions, including restroom closures in some regional parks, including Balboa Park, Shoreline Park, and Mission Bay Park.

And these would be located near, we have a redundant restroom facility that is nearby, but it would be with a longer walk and potentially longer wait times for those restroom users.

Annual swimming pool closures would increase from four weeks per year to 13 weeks per year.

This would be inclusive of all sites except for two that are governed by council-approved joint use agreements, one of which is located at Miramar College, the Ned Bomber Pool, and the other is the Stanley Pool at Stanley Middle School.

And then also wanted to acknowledge again price philanthropies as we're working with them to see if there are options to try to find ways to bring more aquatic funding in for locations in historically underserved communities with a focus on City Heights and Logan Heights, the location of Memorial Pool.

We appreciate Price taking the time to work with the city to try to find ways to bring water access to our kids.

Next slide.

And then now we're going to look at the slide that has the table that you probably saw in the memo from last week regarding the options of how to slice and dice the $5.4 million amount.

This has options that protect recreation centers that are within parks after dark, and also senior centers that are located in historically underserved communities.

The options vary based on how the data is analyzed and whether recreation centers serving historically underserved communities are prioritized for protection.

None of the options are preferred, as mentioned earlier, and all three have significant adverse impacts on our communities.

All options, however, meet the targeted reduction of 5.4 million, and each option can be tweaked and adjusted as needed to meet the council's needs.

On the next slide, we'll show you the first option, which includes minimizing reductions to recreation center hours in historically underserved communities.

This would result in around 23 recreation centers having no reductions in operational hours.

However, 11 sites would have to close under this scenario, and 27 sites would have reduced hours.

This in turn would meet or would reach the $5.4 million number that is derived from the draft budget.

Next slide.

Now, next we'll show you options two and three, and they both utilize data that was outlined from the performance and analytics department's evaluation that includes availability of alternative service providers, location of nearby city facilities, and several socioeconomic factors for those neighborhoods.

Like option one, option two also minimizes reduction to recreation center hours of operation in historically underserved communities, resulting in 28 recreation centers with no reduced hours.

But to get there, we'd have to look at 15 sites to close, and 20 other sites would have reduced hours.

Very significant.

And then the next slide is option three, which shows this contemplating reductions going more evenly across the city without as much of an eye towards equity.

In historically underserved communities, 22 recreation centers would have no reduced hours, but there would be 31 sites with reduced hours and 11 sites that would close.

So there still is some significance to this option as well.

Now I wanted to spend a moment talking about Balboa Park, which has been a focal point of conversation over the past year as the paid parking program began during fiscal year 2026.

Operations in Balboa Park cost around 17.3 million, and the park is primarily funded by the paid parking program, which is currently estimated around $7.4 million, transient occupancy hotel tax at $1.2 million, the SDG and E franchise fee environmental growth fund at $2.7 million, the general fund at $5.4 million, and then fees licenses and concessions at around a half a million.

We're going to continue to look at options to help bring more revenue into the park and help to allow for Balboa Park to be operated at an appropriate level.

Now, next we want to talk about the changes that are proposed organizationally to bring the Office of Special Events into the parks and recreation department.

Just briefly, some improvements here would include optimizing workflows, eliminating duplication, and creating new efficiencies, creating more rigorous review processes to strengthen how permits are issued, and seamlessly align those with special event permitting.

This would allow for permits to be processed consistently no matter where an event occurs, whether it's on parkland or in the public right-of-way.

This also allows us to look at using the online permitting platform to process other permit types.

So there is some synergy there.

Next, we do have some budgetary changes for the Office of Special Events.

One of them is the reduction of unclassified filming program manager, and the other is the unclassified program coordinator that is involved in planning events.

These positions are both filled, and they provide services to the filming industry as well as to the event industry.

There would be a request for a separate administrative aid that would be requested for addition to improve the operational capac competency of the program.

Next, I want to speak about the Golf Enterprise Fund and the Golf Operations Division.

This division is funded through user fees and has an enterprise fund.

The Tory Pines Golf Course is part of that portfolio and is internationally renowned with a PGA tour stop that occurs annually.

The last iteration of that event brought forward 13.9 billion media impressions, 14.7 million broadcast views, and 67.5 million dollars in local economic impact.

The draft budget totals 31.13.1 million in expenditure needs, and golf anticipates generating next year 42.3 million in revenue.

This is based on an approximate 427 rounds of golf played at the three golf complexes.

Annually, the general fund does receive golf revenue.

This includes 6.9 million in combined payments from the Golf Enterprise Fund to the general fund.

The Golf Enterprise Fund is planning several capital projects, including significant improvements planned for the Tory Pines Golf Course Clubhouse, and the combined capital need between 2027 and 2031 is estimated at 128 million dollars.

Next slide, you'll see the Gulf Enterprise Fund is expected to grow in the upcoming year with an increase of nearly $3.5 million in revenue and an increase of a million dollars in various expenditure needs.

Next slide, we want to close out here by describing our core baseline services, and we're looking to protect as much as we can while recognizing these reductions do hurt.

We have various areas that are listed here, including community parks, open space, recreational programming, swimming pools, regional parks, brush management, park rangers, and permitting that are all impacted in some capacity as a result of the budget that is in front of you today.

There are some other areas of the department that do not have reductions.

That includes golf, maintenance assessment districts, and the animal services contract.

And then our final slide here analyzes our external contracts and services.

Many contracts have increased year over year due to living wage adjustments and other cost increases passed along to the department.

And when possible, we have sought city staff assistance to address maintenance needs that can't be completed through contracts.

Notably, non-repair needs continue to grow within our external contracts and services category, especially for playground repairs, as it has become increasingly difficult to get the equipment necessary and purchase that and have it be funded and installed in a timely fashion.

So we continue to work on areas like that.

So that concludes our presentation.

We are here for any questions and appreciate you all for your support of parks and recreation.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

We will now go to the IBA for comments.

Thank you, Chair.

Again, Bakupatel from the IBA's office.

I have some brief comments on a few of the department's proposed budget adjustments before I'll turn to the recreation center reduction options.

And for reference, our review of the Parker and Recreation Department proposed budget begins on page 231 of our report.

First, regarding the city's animal services contract, $633,000 in additional funding is included in the proposed budget to support CPI cost increases only.

The San Diego San Diego Humane Society has agreed to accept and maintain the current $1.2 million contractual shortfall for both fiscal years 2027 and the following fiscal year, fiscal 28.

But it expects to be made whole for the cumulative shortfall from fiscal year 2026 through 2028, amounting to $3.6 million, which is going to be due in fiscal year 2029.

The other item I would like to touch on is the proposed reduction associated with brush management.

This is an area that perennially has been a priority for council members, including for fiscal year 2027, with a majority of council members prioritizing additional funding for the department's open space brush management program.

As you heard, with the proposed reduction of two grounds maintenance workers that perform brush abatements, the department expects that approximately 15 to 20 fewer acres would be cleared annually, though they are exploring options to mitigate this impact.

Now, turning to the proposed reduction of recreation centers, which is assumed to total $5.4 million in the proposed budget.

Again, very similar to the approach of the library department reductions, the specifics of where rec center hours are to be reduced, or potentially which facilities are to be fully closed, have been deferred for council discussion today and through the rest of the budget approval process.

A core tenant to the options developed by staff is the incorporation of council member and other park stakeholder feedback that prioritize the preservation of park after dark sites and senior centers, in addition to as many large recreation centers with gyms in historically underserved communities.

All three options incorporate the first two priorities, that is the preservation of preservation and maintenance of current hours at park after dark sites and senior centers.

And so how they differ is the extent to which those larger rec centers with gyms in historically underserved communities are preserved to help guide council's evaluations of these three particular options.

We've included a summary table for each in our report beginning on page 238 that shows how many facilities would be impacted by each type of potential change, whether that's a full closure, reduced hours or no change at all, and it also distinguishes facilities in historically underserved communities and whether they have a gym or not.

This, of course, only provides a high-level macro look at each option, so we also provide more detailed tables that provide more site specific context for each option.

Now, to reiterate what I said about the library options, you are not limited to only these options modifications or an altogether different package, can be developed as long as it can be operationally implemented in the general fund budget is ultimately balanced with other offsetting adjustments in the parks and recreation department budget or elsewhere in the general fund.

One potential opportunity may be available to utilize Gulf Fund resources to support some degree of rec center restorations.

However, additional analysis will be required to determine an amount that wouldn't have negative impacts on the golf program CIP or general operations, and we plan to include a discussion of this in our final budget modification recommendations report.

If council members prefer one of these specific options that staff has presented, you should communicate that today, so it may be incorporated into the May revise.

And regardless, if there are options, regardless if there are options that are presented or other modifications or alternative reductions you would like to see, you are encouraged to be as specific as possible in your final budget modification memoranda, which again will be due to our office on May 20th and used to formulate our final budget modification recommendations, which will be released on June 2nd.

With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Salina from the Division of Race and Equity to discuss equity implications.

Thank you, Bakou.

Salina Viegas again here to summarize the division of race and equities analysis of the parks and recreation department's FY27 proposed budget, including the special events and filming adjustments as part of their transition into the department.

We identified several areas with significant equity impacts, as included in the IBA report on page 246.

Our analysis notes that the proposed reduction of recreation center operating hours, totaling over five million and more than 55 full-time employees, will further limit access to safe, affordable indoor spaces, after school activities, and community programming.

These impacts fall most heavily on neighborhoods served by community parks too, CP2, which already experience higher concentrations of low and moderate income households.

Reductions at community parks one, CP1 areas have comparatively less impact because residents typically have more alternative options.

Option one preserves current hours at parks after dark sites and senior centers and historically underserved communities, but still reduces hours at 29 facilities and fully closes 11 sites, including some with gymnasiums.

Option two uses a data-driven approach to preserve as many hours as possible in underserved communities, resulting in 20 facilities with reduced hours and 15 full closures, with most closures outside of historically underserved areas.

Option three spreads closures more evenly amongst council districts, resulting in 30 facilities with reduced hours and 11 full closures, including some in underserved communities.

We also highlight that reductions in park maintenance, brush management, and public restrooms will lengthen service intervals, reduce cleanliness and safety, and may increase risk for neighborhoods adjacent to open space or with limited alternative resources.

The extended pool closures, totaling 958,000, with 764,000 to northern polls and 194,000 to southern polls, who will disproportionately affect families, older adults, and individuals who rely on public facilities for daily needs and recreation.

Because many residents, particularly those in CP2 neighborhoods, depend on polls as their only affordable nearby option for exercise, cooling during extreme heat, and swim safety programming, reductions in staffing and prolonged closures will further limit essential services for those with the fewest alternatives.

These impacts fall most heavily on communities already experiencing barriers to reliable public amenities, widening existing inequities, and access and opportunity.

Further, the reduction of staff supporting youth, family, and equity-focused programming, including therapeutic recreation and adaptive services, may constrain the department's ability to deliver inclusive accessible programs for residents with disabilities and those in need of specialized support.

The program manager reclassification slows improvements to e-proval permitting systems and reduces outreach, limiting support for community groups and first-time applicants.

The loss of a program coordinator further restricts the capacity to process permits, issue timely notices, and guide smaller organizers affecting those who rely most on staff assistance.

Together, these adjustments, spending reductions in hours, staffing, maintenance, programming, and event permitting support may significantly impact the city's ability to provide equitable access to recreation centers, public amenities, and community serving programs.

Without careful mitigation, these adjustments risk deepening disparities and eroding progress towards more accessible service delivery.

That concludes my comments and I welcome any questions.

Thank you so much.

We will now go to council members for any questions or comments.

We will start with Councilmember Ilo Rivera.

All right, thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Andy.

Um, Selena, um appreciate your work as always.

Umy, I I did I want to start by acknowledging um the transparency in your uh equity statement.

I did appreciate the acknowledgement that there will be equity impacts.

Um obviously Selena highlighted what some of those will be and provided some additional detail, but I I do appreciate when there's honesty in those responses.

Um Council President Pro Tem's question for in a couple other spaces, but I I will ask the the question for DOF, Rania uh whoever would like to answer.

The target number that Andy was given to hit.

What's that based on that was based on the 7% target reduction that was provided by the Department of Finance to be able to balance the entire budget and make sure that structurally balanced budget?

Okay.

When other departments were asked for less.

What was the what was the rationale there?

Uh those departments was uh mainly focused on public safety.

Um that was the rationale as to preserve public safety services.

Okay.

So it was prioritization based on a interpretation of public safety.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Um kind of dive into the weeds here a little bit.

Um, park maintenance.

I'm I have some concerns about what that's going to look like if um the proposed budget were to move forward as presented.

Um right now, you know, I could point to multiple parks in my district where playground equipment is broken.

I would guess that most folks in this room could do the same thing in their neighborhoods.

What would the impact on time to repair that broken equipment look like if the budget were uh to be adopted as proposed?

Yes, uh, thank you, Councilmember, for the question.

And this is actually a really good and timely one is we just completed our semi-annual low frequency playground inspections, and that helps to reveal where we have issues, such as where a playground slide or a S hook on a swing or whatever might be needing to be repaired.

The playground work is done in this manner.

On-site staff identify a problem, they submit a work order ticket to our citywide maintenance crew, which is responsible for all the playground repairs.

Those folks are the ones that are proposed for a uh uh cut, and what that would do if the cut is implemented is lengthen the length of time it takes to get the equipment replaced.

But one of the biggest challenges we have is actually not with the labor to replace it, it's getting access to the materials as the contracting process takes a bit of time.

It was uh we've grown with so many needs for playgrounds that we've had to get larger and bigger contracts to be able to get vendors to provide those, especially when many of our playgrounds are proprietarily sourced, meaning you have a manufacturer that is alone and having created that equipment, we have to find a supplier that actually offers that equipment.

So getting the equipment is part of the critical path, and I am aware of the locations in your district and as well as several across the entire city that have that need.

But upon discovery of an issue like that, we close the playground off so that nobody is able to access the broken equipment.

Not the whole playground, but like the area where we wouldn't want kids to get entrapped or injured or anything like that, as safety is our top priority.

Thanks, Andy.

But so what what is the what is the increase in the time to repair one week?

That we're expecting a one-week increase?

Yes.

Thank you.

Um I have a question about about some of the special events and and permitting there's been a lot of conversation publicly about community members who are just trying to put community events on.

And they're well intentioned.

They are trying to build community, they're trying to do that in a way typically that costs those who participate no money.

Um it's the sort of thing, in my opinion, that we should be encouraging.

And oftentimes those folks are met with a big red stop sign and then a whole bunch of red tape and uh bureaucratic maze to navigate with no guidance as to how to do that.

Is there any plan to change our approach for how we welcome folks who are trying to make free fund happen in San Diego?

I love the concept of free fund, Councilmember, so thank you for that.

And we do need to do more to help outreach to our various communities to make sure that they are aware that park system and by extension the City of San Diego is open for appropriate events that are in line with what the communities want to see.

Uh, we've been doing some specific work with your office to try to work on getting more events, especially in parks that don't see a lot of events historically and bring more of those forward.

So we're hoping to be able to do that through our on-site staff that are present at the local recreation center, but also through our uh staff that, like myself and and other leadership staff that can talk to the nonprofits and try to find ways to advance that.

And one of the most significant ways we've done that over the past several years has been through our partnership with San Diego Parks Foundation.

We mentioned Parks After Dark as being a critical piece of that, but it also includes things like I love my park day and other kinds of activations at the seasons like fall carnivals, winter events, spring egg hunts, things like that.

And we want to get those to be more routine and more expanded as we can.

So if there's any specific nonprofits that are interested in continuing or asking to create new programming that we should look at for park space, we'd love to talk with them.

As we look at the merger with special events, we're hoping to streamline that, because it is always in need of improvement.

And one of the most critical things is that our permitting system is not automated.

So one of the things that the Office of Special Events has done is automated their event permitting process, and we're looking to streamline that, which we think will make it easier and more just transparent to figure out how to do an event in the city.

So we're looking to move in that direction as well.

Thanks.

Councilmember, if I could just quickly add to that, I think Andy um hit the nail on the head at the very end there.

Part of the strategy with merging the Office of Special Events to the Parks and Recreation Department is to have a more efficient permitting process.

And part of the strategy, like I said, there was to move special events in so that it's a more transparent, easier process to navigate for our communities to be able to quickly get permits to host these types of events.

Thanks.

I appreciate that.

And Chair, I'm just gonna know quite a bit of my time was burned through in the response to the last question.

So thank you.

But the general idea that when folks show up to spaces and are trying to like clearly trying to create a positive experience that they be met with a thank you, we appreciate what you're trying to do.

Now let's help you get that done instead of stop what you're doing.

Don't come back until you figure it out.

Because time and again, it it does really feel like that's the key that that's what's happening.

And I just we need to change that approach.

And I would encourage uh only I appreciate um what you just said, but I would appreciate um you know the mayor's office really giving that directive that um when folks show up with those positive intentions and are doing positive things in our community, um, that they'd be given a uh a thank you and a green light instead of uh a big uh a big stop sign.

Um the the last thing I'll I'll say here is you know I appreciate the work that was done to provide options, but I don't appreciate that these options are presented without the context of having explored ways to avoid these cuts.

Um I for a long time have been asking questions about the golf course revenue and the way that it's it's um being distributed, the changes in approach, the the significant increase in profit that that enterprise has seen over the last uh several years.

And we're now, you know, I there I know that there's work being done, I appreciate that work, but this is one of the clearest examples that I can see of an opportunity for us as a city to lean into an asset to lean into into one of the things that is special and unique about San Diego that only benefits a small group of people right now and unlock that to benefit the city as a whole.

And um I very much hope that the revise includes a a change in that approach as well, where we're tapping in to that resource so that kids from San Isidro to Rancho Bernardo and everywhere in between are benefiting from the city having one of the finest municipal golf courses in the in the country.

Um that is a way to make all San Diegans vested in the success of Torre Pines and not make it feel like it's some far-off destination that that they are completely detached from and don't have any relationship with.

Um it's it's a potential asset for us and and one that again that can provide direct benefits, not tangential ones or trickle down benefits, um, real ones that that create that increase access to recreation and park opportunities uh throughout the city, especially for our young people.

Um and and I I do very much hope that the revise uh uh includes that that change in approach to how we uh utilize golf funds.

Um the the last thing I I will say here is um we've said it before, we've said it again.

We've got folks in the community who do an incredible amount of work to make sure that our parks are are well cared for.

We've got city staff that does that.

We have community members who are willing to invest and take care of their parks, um, but it it it's going to require more from the city at the top level to make a commitment that all of our parks are special and that we hold a are uh we hold the city to a certain standard in terms of what our parks look like, what they feel like, and I'm trying to understand where we're trying to get in terms of a goal for our parks and rec centers.

I think they should all be places where the people in the neighborhood around those parks and rec centers can feel proud of them.

And the budget as proposed would be a step backwards from that.

And so uh again, as the revise is is being worked on.

I very, very much hope that it is moving us toward the direction where regardless of where you live in this city, you can be proud of the park that you that is in your neighborhood.

You can be feel assured that your your your your child your child has got a great recenter uh to play in.

Um I think we can do that.

It's just gonna take a little bit more effort than we saw in in the proposed budget.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for that.

We will now go to Councilmember Moreno.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

Um and I want to start uh my comments by thanking Andy Field and all of the park and rec staff uh for your leadership and your continued commitment to serving our communities.

Um these men and women really are big brothers, big sisters, and in many ways they're the frontline workers when we're discussing safety in our communities.

I can't tell you how many adults in D8 have come up to me and said, you know what, if I wasn't at that basketball, uh if I wasn't part of the park and rec basketball, if I wasn't part of the I mean, you name it, I would have been in the streets doing drugs, gang banging, just doing things that I shouldn't have been doing.

And it was the park and rec who really changed my lives.

Uh just recently at a Lucky Waller um Little League uh opening, somebody came up to me and told me that.

And I think it's those messages that we sometimes forget about, right?

And we don't quantify panic.

Panda can't quantify that.

And I think it's important to note that.

Um I also would be remiss if I didn't uh mention and thank uh the San Diego Parks Foundation for everything that you guys have been doing.

We have a few board members here, and just thank you from the bottom of our of my heart.

Um, last year um, as the city council, we made it clear that we wanted equitable cuts, not across the board uh reductions.

Um I remain deeply concerned that this proposed budget still includes reductions that would disproportionately impact um high need communities.

It's unacceptable that we're still discussing reduced operation hours at rec centers that serve families who rely heavily on uh these spaces, particularly in communities that I represent in District 8.

These are families living in low-income neighborhoods who often do not have access to private recreation opportunities after school care or child um child care alternatives.

Now, analyzing the IBA's options, district district eight facilities still face our reductions from the proposed budget.

I am concerned that with the lack of staffing, our reduction and proposed closures, rec centers are still going to be expected to absorb the um increased uh demand.

Uh keep keeping facilities open uh must also mean preserving meaningful access through hours programs and also capacity.

Um I also too want to raise the concern regarding park maintenance reductions.

Uh these cuts will result in slower repairs, uh less frequent trash removal and a decline in the park in general.

Um obviously having um deteriorate deteriorating uh conditions um is not something that's conducive with um an effective park.

Um I heard you say one week, Andy, and I just want to turn over to the mayor staff and and make sure that this is uh this is what we're talking about when we're talking about um park facility reductions.

If you're maintenance reductions, I'm sorry.

Sorry, I hear specifically talking about too what the impact on the timeline would be.

I would definitely defer to the parks and recreation department as well as DGS who responds to inquiries.

So if Andy's saying it's one week, I would defer to operations.

Wonderful, thank you.

Um I have fought very hard for the parks in District 8, and I want to um make sure that they remain safe, clean, and well maintained.

Um buyer neighborhood park phase one is opening soon, and like any other park in the city of San Diego, it deserves proper maintenance and long-term investment.

Um, I think buyer uh neighborhood park phase one represents an important investment in our community that uh a community that has historically had limited access to park space and recreation amenities.

Uh phase one is a step in the right direction towards addressing long-standing inequities in district eight.

Uh another thing that I was concerned with uh was the reduction of park ranger security services.

Uh these cuts raise concern about public safety, vandalism prevention, and overall park maintenance.

The mayor is proposing a $52,000 reduction in security services, which will impact the Otai Valley Regional Park.

Uh, just a few years ago, 95 people were found in an encampment in at um Otai Valley Regional Park.

Um, how is the city planning on preventing these illegal activities uh from occurring at OVRP?

Sure, I'll take a first stab at it.

Um, and then Andy, if you want to try.

So um, I think your specific question about encampments is a little nuanced because I don't believe that our park rangers necessarily respond to those calls.

That would be they do at OVRP.

Okay.

In some of our parks, we do have our unsafe camping ordinance where it is illegal to be camping within a park to have a specific encampment.

That's a you know a tent-like structure, not necessarily an individual who is just residing within the park.

But I would defer to Andy on our park rangers' availability to be able to respond to those calls as well as making sure that we're connecting with our San Diego Police Department as well to respond to those calls depending on the uh level of priority.

Yes, thank you, Emily, and thank you, Councilmember, for the question.

Just to add on to that, what uh typically happens with encampments is is exactly as Emily had said, which is the park rangers often find them for the first time, report them up, get the resources from the two police departments, depending on which side of the jurisdictional line that it's on, and then environmental services helps as well.

So it takes a village to work through that.

And I did walk through that encampment you described and remember it vividly as it went on for over a quarter mile.

And that's uh not trivial in the park.

But back to the security and the parking lots.

We share the concern that the loss of the security guard may cause people to misuse the parking lot at night under a variety of different issues.

This is not a concern just for Otai Valley, it's really for all of our open space areas because these parking lots are located oftentimes away from people's houses, out of view, and so people don't know what's happening there, and therefore you know things happen.

And so we want to be aware of that challenge if those security reductions are indeed taken, because there may be some cleanup needed or some additional enforcement from Rangers or STPD after the fact.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, if our park and rec director is uh concerned with the $52,000 reduction in security services, I would like to put on the record that so am I.

Um April 27, 2026, we were we received a letter from the Southern California Golf Association and the California Lions for Golf.

Um basically in a nutshell, um they support a one-time transfer from the Gulf Enterprise Fund to help offset park cuts, preferably paraphrasing around two to four million as a temporary solution to a temporary budget problem.

Um has the department reviewed the proposal and um how is this being considered as part of this budget?

And if I may have my three minutes, Chair.

Councilmember, I'll take that questions.

Yes, uh, we're currently doing some uh financial analysis with the Department of Finance and also looking at uh the needed um secure funding to continue maintaining and operating uh those golf courses at the level that is expected by uh the people utilize those.

So this is currently in the Met Sub analysis, and then as the council member El Rivera mentioned, they were looking into to reflect some of that in the Mayor advice proposal.

Wonderful, thank you for that.

Um I obviously strongly support exploring the options.

Um Park and Rec is a core service for families in the city of San Diego.

It is a core service that the city of San Diego provides.

Um parks deserve sustained funding and support, and the community space must be protected.

Um this is not just a service for those who are lucky enough to be within an affluent zip code.

Um every time we need to cut the budget, it is the families from communities that have the least who are impacted the most.

I want this decision to reflect equity, inclusion, and investment that all residents deserve, especially those that I represent in District 8.

Um, with that, um, that concludes my comments, uh Chair, and thank you for the time.

Thank you so much.

Before we move on to Pro Tem Lee, just uh go back to the IBA for a point of clarification.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh just want to interject with a minor clarification.

I think you referred to the three options related to recenter reductions as the IBA's uh recommend uh options.

Uh these options were developed by staff.

We included them in our report to help your evaluation of those options.

Thank you for that.

We'll move on to Pro Tem Lee.

Thank you, Chair.

So let's talk about the reductions proposed for uh park and rec.

Um, if you can remind us again um what was the percentage of reduction that was um that is represented here in park and rec's budget?

Uh seven percent, around 13 million.

7%.

Um I think as I mean, Councilman Rela Rivera noted it earlier, but I think we see a theme that's sort of emerging uh in terms of the flat numbers that have been provided.

Um the key reduction being proposed here appears to be in rec center hours, roughly 1100, uh if I have that right, across the city.

And because these options were put in front of us, I'm actually gonna ask to get a sense of how they were formulated.

So maybe more so to the mayor's office.

I do want to understand what direction was given to the branch and or departments in selecting options and how those options were to be framed.

Um I think it's been mentioned a couple of times where we work with the performance and data analytics department to put together that data tool to help inform some of the options.

Um I didn't I would defer to Andy speaking through the exact rationale for each of the options, but uh we worked through with them.

What is the most operationally feasible for you to be able to accomplish this reduction?

Uh what is the feedback that we've received thus far from the council offices from stakeholders?

I think that's why you see in all three of the options for parks and recs, specifically parks after dark and senior centers are preserved, because that was uh one of the number one feedback we got last year and in the early budget briefings.

Um, and then also looking at uh rec centers with uh gyms to be prioritized as well, and then incorporating that panda data.

But um I would defer to Anne on specifically uh the choices for those three options, but that was the direction.

And the three options were prepared under the premise that we would use the performance and analytics departments uh the factors like uh socioeconomic proximity of various rec centers to other city facilities, the presence of other service providers besides the city that are proximate to those locations, and that's where the scores come from that were posted in the memo that was issued last week.

Then in turn, we looked at the equity focus of trying to preserve and protect locations in historically underserved communities, instead of taking the approach that we really have had for the budget for the last several years, which is to take a more equality approach and reduce every center by a certain number of hours, which is how we've historically gone about looking at recreation center reductions in the past.

So this represents two of the options represent the equity focus of preserving areas of historically under service, and then one of the options is more of that equality basis.

So let's walk through this.

Um you just mentioned that and Andy, I understand you're you know to some degree you're given the data that you have to work with, you're given the instructions on how to try to formulate options.

Um you just noted that one of the options is an equality-based focus that is similar to what we might have seen in past uh efforts to look at reductions, and you also acknowledge that that was something that we would that this council has rejected in the past.

So I think why I'm asking is how is that even an option that the city is putting forward, not just for this council to consider, but for the public to entertain.

And then of the two remaining options, um, you mentioned that they're both have an equity focus.

Can you describe the differences between the two options?

Yes, one of them takes the PANDA or performance analytics department analysis into consideration.

And if you it has like a ranking in there of all the different centers based on those factors.

The other one does not.

The uh so option one does not look at the panda analysis.

Option two does.

And the difference between one and two is one is looking more at what our staff and our own professional evaluation reveals in terms of our own observations of usage and so forth, whereas the other one is much more data focused on the PANDA analysis.

So that's that's the distinction.

But then there's another piece to this, which is small recreation centers that do not have a gym are less able to provide the same level of programming and thus scored worse on both options one and two.

So as you're looking at the you know, decision making about the different uh sites, you may want to look at that and see if the gyms are as important as we felt they were, because unfortunately, the pattern of development in our city did not re result in every community getting a rec center with a gym.

And I think that's where you see some of the challenges with the way the data lays out.

Hopefully that's helpful.

Thank you.

Um that is helpful.

I I hope for everyone who is listening here today that this highlights something I think really important, which is that we've just talked about how much data and analytics the city went through to try to understand the usage of our rec centers.

Um again, not a criticism on you, Andy, for trying to piece this together, but of the three options that were being uh asked to consider, only one of them actually considers that data.

The others just replicate the models of the past and the one that's sort of in between.

And I asked this question of the mayor's office because I think how we ask our departments to conduct this analysis and to piece together the data that formulates this budget is just as important to the numbers that actually come out of it.

And I would encourage everyone to actually look at the data that Panda analyzed here.

Um and and I don't mean to to note that the data points aren't meaningful in different ways.

Of course, we want to understand each of the elements of socioeconomic factors, distance to other centers that could be utilized.

Those are all important.

What I found that seemed to be missing in all three options is that in all of them you see data about how many hours would be at rec centers in what locations and the dollar value that's attributed to those hours.

Nowhere did I see analysis analysis that suggested what is the usage of those centers in terms of programming.

What are the number of people that are being served?

And in each option, how many people is are the city, is the city going to be leaving off the table in terms of our service?

To me, that that is if we're looking to protect services for as many San Diegans as possible.

I would argue that an effort to try to maximize the services that we have with the resources that we have would be one way to consider this.

And it's just not something that I see in how we're connecting the data with the numbers.

It feels like we've gone through these conversations as a council about equity and some of the geographical impacts the districts.

I I've been a council member who has long recognized that districts 48 and 9, for example, tend to bear the brunt of historical decisions in the city.

That might mean that they're lacking in services.

But I'd also be one of the first to tell you that there are communities in every single one of our districts that have a different level of service compared to others, whose needs are different compared to others.

And we we can't ignore those as well.

So when Councilmember Ilo Rivera pointed out that we're being given false choices, this is exactly why the options that are being presented are false choices.

We're spending our time arguing over, again which communities should lose access to services, as opposed to thinking the other way around as to where are services being most utilized and using that to inform the data.

And if that's what you presented to us, I I'd at least take it.

I mean, I think we'd still disagree.

We'd argue, we talk about how there needs to be work done to restore more services.

But it's not what we're doing.

And I don't see this council spending the next uh couple of weeks arguing over which ones of our community should be the first ones to lose their rec center or their library as a part of the discussions that we have, even though we recognize that the cuts have to happen.

Um delving to some of the specifics.

Um of the 93 FTEs that are being proposed to be reduced, how many of those positions are currently filled?

I'll take the three minutes now, too.

We have that.

Let me see if I can dig it up out of the binder.

Okay, so it looks like um I reading this correctly.

This is 107 positions, and we have 74 that are filled and 33 that are vacant.

So that's the numbers.

33 vacant and 74 and a half that are filled for a grand total of 107.5.

So I know the options that were being presented to us um were meant to just be it was a number plugged in the system, but I think the number does represent something.

Um, how many of those positions were assistant rec center directors?

Assistant rec center directors.

Thirty-four, no, thirty-five positions of which one is vacant and thirty-four are filled.

And uh these are the same positions that a year ago we were here discussing about the um and again I point this out because again, regardless of what the options say, the what we're being presented with and asked for is the exact same thing as we what we heard last year.

Again, we're just we're just being given the opportunity to argue that maybe we should um leave some some communities behind more than others uh in the process of doing so.

Um with the film division moving over uh as well, is there a plan on how uh is there a plan for how those film permits and will be processed within the department?

Would that someone attack to that?

Yes, with the filming process, we're hoping to integrate that with our larger permit center, and we're gonna be hopeful hopefully able to combine some of the synergy that goes with the work that the Office of Special Events and Filming does currently with the permits that are processed by Park and Rec so we can develop synergy that way, even with the uh uh proposed loss of the filming program manager.

I guess to the IBA, I I would just ask, and this is us not knowing how in-depth the film and program manager was in terms of attracting film opportunities to the city, but is there any anticipation for potential reduced revenue?

I defer to the department on that.

I would say the revenue is a relatively unsubstantive.

I think it's 164,000 total for revenue, but I defer to the department.

Hi, thank you so much for the question.

Good afternoon, Christina Chadwick, director for special events and filming.

When it comes to film in particular, the department uh processes about 439 permits citywide a year.

That results in about 550 film days per year.

Obviously, that has an indirect economic benefit of tens of millions of dollars.

However, currently the city's posture has not been to charge for film permits specifically as an indirect way of attracting film business to San Diego.

We would be fundamentally changing the way in which film permits are processed.

We would no longer be providing concierge service to the film production industry as we have in the years past.

Um we would obviously be processing film permits over the counter, very transactional.

Um, but we so we would still be continuing to do that.

But as far as the concierge service that we currently provide, that would no longer be possible with the reduction of this position.

Thank you for sharing that.

Um and I will admit this was one that I was a bit perplexed by, mainly because we're at the same juncture in time at the moment, where I believe uh County Supervisor Paloma Guerra has just announced taking up a new effort at the county to uh further the film commission effort there.

Um, and I I am one that believes that the city actually has a lot to benefit in terms of um film production here within the city that in turn generates opportunities and resources to support um needs for our residents.

Um I think that concludes the questions that I have at this point.

Thank you, Chair, for the additional time.

Thank you for that.

I will now move to Council President Locabo.

Um thank you.

Um Christina, since I'm sorry, since you were up here, I not that you're not up here anymore.

Um I want to thank you, Andy, for the good work you do, and you're running a city on by its by yourself with the good work you do.

Um does the the budget conversation influenced by the county's direction to stand up a countywide effort uh to manage that, or it sounded like it does, but I wanted to give you a chance to speak to that.

In regard to the county's effort?

And yeah, include right.

So with the reduction of the position um with the budget as it's been proposed, uh, our permit office and the integration of the permit center with special events, we would no longer be participating in a regional jurisdictional effort to support the attraction of film as we currently do.

Uh, the program manager that is currently in the position uh is an individual with specific film expertise.

He comes to us from Paramount and from Hollywood.

With the absence of that position, we would not have the expertise to continue to be a primary player with other local jurisdictions, agencies, cities, the county, the port, and other of our 18 local uh cities to attract film in any way.

We would simply be transactionally approving film permits to cover the city's risks and liabilities associated with business being done on our property, and that is it.

Okay.

And most of the choices by uh production efforts that come into our region, they're making the choices about which vendors to go with, what contractors, what unions to go with.

So as long as that work is still happening and there's an aggressive effort, which I think is what the county is trying to do, uh, but I would suggest that we keep an eye on what they do and see if they're doing their job well as they roll out, as the pro tem uh mentioned.

Correct.

Because I want to make sure that correct.

As far as the city of San Diego's boundaries go, uh the film program manager is responsible for working with productions to find suitable locations throughout the city, whether they are city facilities, city assets, the right of way, or working with other local jurisdictions, for example, the Port of San Diego and the Coronado Bridge is obviously an iconic um landmark to use as an example where we have multi-jurisdictional approach, we would not be playing a central role in many of those conversations moving forward.

All right, fair.

Thank you for explaining that.

Thank you for the good work and your team did uh and bringing film production uh back to San Diego.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I don't think we got a shout out in the Oscar winner, but uh she deserves a round of applause.

Um I apologize, I missed some of the opening comments if I repeat anything, uh, bear with me.

Um, although I probably can imagine some of the comments that were made.

So you know, I've been pretty candid about District One's ability to absorb some of the resources, uh, but I think the cuts go too far.

And while I understand your logic that recreation centers without gyms don't have the same amount of programming, they don't have zero programming.

Um and I, if I understand correctly, that a recreation center that is being closed would still have the restrooms, the outdoor playgrounds would still be accessible going forward.

Um but it's very tough.

I only have five recreation centers in all of District One, um, and closing one of them is kind of a big hit.

And you don't hear me say that very often, so you have an idea about how I feel about that.

Um so um I will circle back with that.

The other thing that concerns me, um let me stop for a second.

You did a lot of hard work.

You do an amazing work with the resources that we give you, and every day we give you more to do, and we don't give you money.

We do a lot of unfunded mandates with you, Andy, at the end of the day.

Please open more parks.

We're not gonna give you any more people or any more money to deal with that kind of thing.

So you do an amazing job.

I'm gonna look at you because you are the director of parks and rec, uh, but this is all of us in this conversation, as I said to Misty about libraries.

Um I'm concerned about the closure of the comfort stations.

But I think I've heard directly or indirectly that it's not just a budget issue and the staffing for that, but it's a safety issue.

That's there's some real challenges out there, especially those comfort stations that are kind of out there and isolated there.

Um, and I want to be respectful to employees.

I mean, one to find people that are willing to go there at the early hour mornings and clean out those comfort stations, just uh how horrific we're we're fortunate that people are willing to do that.

But I am concerned about some of the locations that are being identified, about the proximity, this close this conversation's closed, go to the next one, um, especially our shoreline uh parks.

So had there been any kind of putting the budget aside.

But in terms of the safety component, have there been any strategies trying to be developed about how we can protect our employees in terms of those that show up you know first thing in the morning so that safety is not part of the conversation that we need to have.

I'm really glad you brought that up, Council President Lacava, as that is a major issue.

And it's not just at shoreline or at the bay, but there are issues like this that pervade across the entire park system.

People tend to find their way to restrooms as a place of refuge.

It's a place for them to use the facilities, it's a place for them to get out of the rain and now the weather, and to be able to have a break from life.

And one of the challenges is sometimes those breaks result in a lot of difficulty when it comes time to ask them to leave so staff can do their job.

We've changed restroom design to get rid of the void inside of the men's and women's side.

So when you walk into a bathroom, you don't turn the corner and see something and be you know challenge-threatened, uh concerned with what you see, and we've shifted more to a gender-neutral approach, especially with comfort stations, so as to allow for safety in those facilities.

We haven't changed every bathroom yet.

And that's one of the big challenges is trying to find a way to get those older bathrooms redesigned.

We've been successful in mission bay in getting a number of those uh addressed through lease revenues from mission bay, but that revenue source doesn't extend into other parts of our city and still creates problems, including at the shoreline.

With that said, the challenges we've seen have been at locations that are far away from residents, far away from visitors or anybody watching early in the morning when staff do their work.

And what we've done is we've actually toured these sites with the local 127 labor union that represents the workers that are on the site, and some ideas have been generated, including doubling up resources, ensuring the vehicle is very close by so they can get away, access park ranger resources as the rangers begin their day at 7 a.m.

And those have been deployed with varying degrees of success.

But that issue still does remain and is still a concern as we look forward in operating those restrooms.

All right.

I and I I appreciate the challenge.

You can't have a security guard, a police officer or a company, um a grounds uh crew to go out there.

Uh so that's a tough thing that we do.

Um, you know, I I think I don't know who came up with the idea, but the old I conversation that if you don't have a restroom, your city is a restroom kind of thing.

And I think that was probably develop more of the downtown, but I'm concerned about our our parks as well.

Uh and maybe someday somebody will go in and change the charter about the mission bay and the less C's will understand that we could really use a little bit of OM money in addition to all the capital funding that the uh mission bay program currently um uh allows for.

Um because you're doing as somebody kind of referenced last night, it's called pretty amazing facilities that are being built in Mission Bay because you got that steady stream of funding.

Um the other thing that you know that I've been following is our um our joint use facilities.

I think we just opened one, I think there's two more that are about ready to open.

Um I'm not gonna go into the we're cutting here and we're adding here conversation.

But given the problems we've had, um what's the status of the pilot program to try to figure out a way to curtail the bad behavior by dog owners and dogs?

I said it.

Well, uh that thank you again for that question.

It's it's definitely a now issue as it relates to dogs off leash in parks.

And it's more acute at joint uses because of the presence of the fence.

Also, we see this at athletic fields during times in which athletics are not occurring on the field, because those two are surrounded by a fence.

What we've done is uh as you may recall from last year, we worked with the San Diego Humane Society to modify the approach to reporting off-leash dogs.

And that new approach is to use get it done as a mechanism to let us know where the problems are.

As we get more and more of a database on that, the park rangers are then assigned to go to those areas and identify what's going on in real time, give advice and warnings to dog owners that have their dogs off leash, and then proceed down something of an enforcement, but not to the point of like writing tickets yet.

Meanwhile, we're also working with the uh San Diego Unified School District to create a new sign that says that dog owners are behaving well and it's in the green category, and that's when you have everybody on a leash, all the dogs on a leash.

That's good.

Yellow is when there might be a couple times the park rangers or the school notice that there are dogs off leash, and we put some warnings out there.

But then when it gets to the red status, the intention is then to close off those areas.

And the school district and us are at the final stages of getting that uh across the finish line, and then we can pilot it out, and we'd love to hear any locations as I believe some of the prime locations I've heard about have been in your district.

So we're happy to support in any way we can.

I don't care where you do it.

And I know last year we closed the Crown Point Junior Academy.

Yeah, it's not the correct name, but you had it clear, and then all the people that actually had pulled permits to have organized sports there walked away before we even closed it because it had gotten so bad.

Um so your team has a hard enough time just routine operations and maintenance, but when people are out there actually beating it up or leaving droppings behind, you know, that's just that much more work.

So the sooner we can at least get the pilot program out to see if that's an effective tool.

Um supportive, I'll let you pick the 10 sites that I think we talked about just to get it, because I would like to see it rolled out for every joint use park going forward.

I don't want Sandy Unified to start shutting this program down because it's the best, the easiest way to get a park in a park deficient neighborhood.

So I want to be supportive of that.

Um I think I have one last question.

Um if I'm tracking or if my team's tracking, the East Village Green will soon be opening.

There's a underground parking lot on that.

Do we know where that money is gonna go?

Is that gonna go into the parking district or is that gonna go to park and rec?

It'll be going to the park and rec department to run that park.

Oh, okay.

That's kind of a break-even.

All right.

And then the last thing I said, I know my colleagues talked about it.

I want to be a little more emphatic.

This is not quite a blank check.

I don't want to study it.

I want to just do it because we need to get some of these things off the table because these people are gonna go crazy showing up.

We're gonna get matter about not resolving these things, and whether it's keeping every recreation center open, which I assume you're prepared to do if the funding is there.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Uh let's just do it.

And there may be some legal issues, but let's just do it.

I think it's time for us as council members to start telling you specific things to get into the uh May revised, which is a little bit hard and a little bit tricky for us to do that on the fly at the dais.

But we've got to start somewhere.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna cheat a little bit.

If we got you the money, the 2.4, you could keep the library ours open.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Want to make sure that there wasn't something we were missing, so but we'll do council president.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

And you can weigh in whether you want to use the 5.6 to recreation hour center hours or however we want to do that.

But let's get that money.

This is a really extraordinary letter.

So anyway, thank you, Andy, for everything you do.

Thank you, Misty again for everything you do, and Ronia and you, Emily as well, uh, for all everything that you guys are trying to do, and we'll get through this.

Right?

We're gonna get through this, right?

Uh come on, a little more enthusiasm.

We're gonna get through this.

Thank you, Chair, and apologies for rallying up the ground.

No worries.

We'll go to Councilmember Von Wilbert.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for thank you for all the work you're doing to the Parks and Rec department to Andy Field.

There's a lot of Parks and Rec staff in the room today.

Thank you for your work as well.

Um Jirabeck Park's a huge success.

Thank you for getting it done.

I really appreciate it.

Um I hope that we can continue to do that in the city.

I know it's a lot of work.

I also noticed in the IBA's report.

Thank you to the IBA for all the work on the budget.

I hadn't thanked you guys yet.

Um, you're having to absorb a four point something million dollar increase in water rates.

And it's another reason that I voted no on the water rates increase.

Um now we're finally seeing the county water authority sell off the excess water we don't need thanks to the good leadership of our city 10, but we don't need to be absorbing the county water rate uh uh county water authority rates anymore because it impacts you guys too.

Um I have a couple of questions as well.

I saw that we're cutting two brush management positions, uh which is a huge concern with fire safety.

So how are we planning to do brush management in our parks area?

Well, first and foremost, that's a 20-acre per year reduction, and that's really really detrimental to meeting our performance indicators, but more importantly, keeping safety in our urban wildland interface that we have throughout the city.

So as we move forward, one of the things that we've been working with the mayor's office on is how we can move to try to consolidate some of the functions of brush management.

So we're in the process of having that discussion now and hope to have something to share as we get into the May revise.

Uh Ronald Ronnie, you wanted to add to that.

No, you got it, and uh yeah, we're in the midst of um looking into the auditors' uh recommendations for the consolidations of brush management across city properties, and then we're looking into reflect in the May revised proposal.

Okay.

Thank you.

Didn't we have that discussion last year about consolidating brush management under Tony Tosca's shop?

That's correct, yes.

Okay.

So we're still in the process of implementing that.

Yeah.

It was not implemented or reflected in the budget last year.

And this is what I was trying to capture part of the May revised proposal.

Okay, thank you.

I'll look at for that in the May revise.

Um, you know, we have a lot of parks and rec employees who come to my fire safety councils and uh um planning groups to talk about brush management.

I really appreciate all the work they do.

Um I have another question about uh one, just a note with the Humane Society.

I'm glad that we were able to work out that contract uh very much.

The main society provides such an important function.

And I want to give them a huge shout out for the work they're doing, which has nothing to do with the city for the horrible animal cruelty situation we saw in Julian.

I just want to my heart goes out to all the humane law enforcement officers, over hundreds of horses, 300 cats.

I just it was horrible to see what was happening.

So just thank you to our Humane Society for doing that work.

Um I I hope they can pursue a legislative solution to require state oversight of those kinds of facilities.

So um want to thank them for that.

Um but thank you for working with them to make sure our contract is responsible and we're able to fund it.

Uh I also wanted to thank council president for raising the film support question because you know we have a great workforce here in IATSI, and the best picture of the year, battle after battle was filmed here.

So why would we not be continuing to recruit more film to San Diego?

Are we seriously cutting recruiting film to San Diego?

Is that what we're thinking?

I I didn't realize that was gonna happen in the budget.

So council member, I think uh, and I would lean on Christina if I miss anything here as the director of the department.

But um film permits will continue.

I think what you will no longer see is this concierge service that Christina was talking about, where we're able to kind of work very work directly with them very closely, but film permits will continue within the park and recreation department.

So we will still be advertising and bringing people to film here.

How much money is it gonna save by cutting this one program?

I'd have to defer that that exact cost as far as salary goes to DOF.

I don't have that immediately on hand.

It ranges between 180 to 200,000.

Oh, 100,000?

200.

Okay.

But uh but oh go ahead.

But it does not really bring that revenue direct revenue to the city through this uh positions.

I think what we were looking into is updating the municipal code to allow to to have more charges for those type of activities within the city of San Diego's premises.

To add some context to that, I think what Chief uh Rania is is getting at is that historically the city had made a decision as far as a posture goes to not charge for its services in this case with the understanding or the idea that that would then attract more film business because we would be a more uh you know it would be a more lucrative opportunity uh comparatively to other cities.

Obviously, we are because of that, we are not bringing in money or revenue specifically to the city for generating those 400 plus permits a year, those 500 film days per year currently.

There is, as I mentioned, residual indirect economic benefit and the tens of millions by doing that and bringing that business to San Diego.

Agreed.

And we can change our permit model to charge for those services to ensure that not only are they cost recoverable, but perhaps more than that.

I'm all for cost recovery.

It just seems kind of silly that we would be can make things more bureaucratic and film companies wouldn't come here.

So I'd like to follow up on that in the May revise.

If it's such a small portion of the budget and we're hundreds of employees come here, it increases our sales tax, our TOT, we should be continuing to do that work.

So I also will add, I just I will also add that that program manager also is responsible for commercial drone use for all of our drone-related permits that we issue as well.

We currently do not charge for that.

However, there is nobody uh, neither in my department nor in the park and rec department currently that has any type of expertise to facilitate environmental reviews or anything that would help to uh educate decision making when it comes to that type of permitting activity.

I just wanted to make sure that that was also clear that that would be a loss as well for that individual.

Okay.

I I I just I think that that is not just like we're not gonna put up matching funds to get more donations.

We shouldn't be cutting a recruitment to get film here because it's gonna result in more money for us.

So I'd like to dig into that for the May revise and if we need municipal code updates, that's fine too.

Let us know because that we're in charge of that.

If you need us to change the missile code, we can do that.

Just let us know what it is.

Yes, we need to do that.

Okay, thank you for your help very much.

Um I also have a question about Belboa Park.

So we implemented um parking fees for Belboa Park, and the only reason that I voted for that is because we were guaranteed those funds would go back into the park and help with the very serious maintenance needs we hear about all the time.

I mean, at public comment for this budget cycle, we heard folks from the park come in and tell us that the roofs are caving in and the HVACs need to be replaced in the plumbing.

So, how much money have we raised so far?

And why are we not plowing that directly into maintaining the park?

It doesn't need to sit in account, it should be used to fix the park right now.

So the Balboa Park parking is currently put into a fund that's dedicated for Balboa park expenses, and that is has been collecting ever since Balboa Park paid parking was implemented in January.

So since that time, that money has been accruing.

We estimate that to be around seven and a half million annually at the rates things are going between the zoo lease that was adopted by the council and the implementation of paid parking at the beginning of the year.

So with that combined, we're continuing to use that to pay for the operations and maintenance of Baboa Park.

And then as we see the program like a year's worth of experience, we'll know better what the numbers are, what the time frames are for spikes and declines in usage, and we can get better projections and continue to feed that into Balboa Park.

But that money is not going to any other place besides Babboa Park.

Okay.

Well, it should be used to fix the deferred maintenance in the park.

It shouldn't just be used to mow the lawns and do the things we're supposed to do as a city.

I envisioned it to be used to actually fix the things that have not been fixed for years.

So I'd like to see exactly what we're spending the money on.

Yep, that remains our goal is to push in that direction.

We're just not there yet because we've only had a short time of existence of the program, and the budget we have in front of you today didn't really have a lot of that history.

So as we get more data, especially this summer, we'll know more what we're looking at there.

Okay.

Well, and uh the for all the folks who hear, thank you to the Parks Foundation, the Library Foundation, the friends and the friends of Bubble Park, let us know.

You know, write to our offices and say these are the things we would like to use this money for because we can then help.

I know you have a whole committee going, but we can help argue in the budget for saying, I know you need lawn maintenance, I know you need security, but how about we fix these things in the park and we'll try and find something else to do?

Um, because that was the entire idea of this is it will go to funding Bubble Park.

Um I have uh one more question about the golf fund.

My colleagues have asked about it too.

Uh is the golf fund it seems to be very well capitalized.

I want our golf uh our all of our golf drains, all of our clubhouses.

I want it continue to thrive.

It's a beautiful organization, all the golf courses we have at the same time.

Are they do they have enough cash that we could actually pull it somewhere else and they could debt finance their CIP projects just like every other park does?