Councilmember Campbell.

Thank you.

Councilmember Whitburn.

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

Councilmember Von Wilbert.

Councilmember Campillo.

Here.

Councilmember Moreno.

Councilmember Elo Rivera.

Council President Lacava.

And Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Here.

Also attending the meeting, our city attorney Heather Ferbert, Deputy Director in the IBA's office, Gillian Andalina.

And myself, your city clerk, Diana Fuentes.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Thank you.

A quorum is now present.

We will begin this morning with an invocation by Clerk Fuentes, followed by the land acknowledgement and pledge of allegiance led by Councilmember Kimpio.

Grant those who hold office in this city the spirit of wisdom, charity, and justice, that with steadfast purpose, they may faithfully serve in their offices to promote the well-being of all people.

We respectfully acknowledge that the Kumeayai Nation are the original inhabitants of the unceded land, now known as San Diego.

Despite enduring the horrors of genocide and colonization, the Kumey spirit remains unbroken.

We honor the resilience of their ancestors who fought to protect their culture and land.

Today they carry their legacy forward, ensuring that their traditions continue to thrive in gratitude and strength.

We stand with the Kumeayai Nation connected to our past and committed to a thriving future.

Please face the flag.

Ready?

Begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the public for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

The clerk will now go over how the public can offer their public testimony.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

I will now highlight the slide on the screen that reviews how the public can offer their public testimony during today's meeting.

If you're located in person, please complete a speaker slip and submit it to the front of the room.

No further in-person testimony will be taken once the council begins virtual testimony for better meeting management purposes.

Each speaker will have one minute per item per person.

If you would like to speak on three or more items, you will have a maximum of three minutes.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Thank you.

Uh the clerk will now read the closed session items into the record.

Conference with legal council existing litigation pursuant to California government code section 54956.9 D1 is CS1, Lisa Castro versus City of San Diego.

CS2 is Uzman Ahmed versus Henry Esura, Estuardo, Sakai Alvarado et al.

CS3 is Harold Tombs versus City of San Diego or Gerald Tombs, and CS4 is Orion Construction, Balboa Construction, JV versus City of San Diego.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Do we have any uh public comment?

I'll set the five-minute time where I do not see any public comment speakers here in council chambers.

We'll go to those proceeding online, starting with the million mile man.

If you can please unmute and let me know which item or items you wish to speak to.

I'm here for the non-agenda public comment.

Okay, that will be at the conclusion of the 2 p.m.

session, towards the end of the 2 p.m.

session.

You can raise your hand again at that time.

The original, if you can please unmute and let me know which item or items you wish to speak to.

Yeah, as many as possible.

So CS1 through CS4, you'll have three minutes.

Please proceed.

Yes, so and also I just you know, for housekeeping, you guys can't even show up on time.

It's interesting that you're always like starting the meetings late, and you know, that's one thing Nathan Fletcher did right.

He was a tyrant, but he always started his meetings on the dot.

It was like military time.

Anyway, when you guys are dealing with all of these trip and falls and on a constant basis, um, you know, I just even though the money's coming from the people, you know, hopefully you're doing you know what's best for whoever's been injured and uh to make sure that they can um you know take you know be able to take care of themselves, whatever the injuries were, if they're significant or whatever that you're you know making up for it because of the lack of you know um you know your ability to keep up with the infrastructure, you know.

Hopefully you can make up for it on that end.

It's just unfortunate that we constantly have to pay out money for trip and falls um that come and arise from you know different things on infrastructure.

I mean, one of these is a slip and fall on grass, um, you know, so perhaps it was you know extremely wet, maybe the conditions weren't right.

Um, but you know, I don't it's hard to I mean, you guys can't be trusted, but you know, when you're going and you're litigating against people who lost things in the storm, you know, it's hard to see where you guys are going with these things.

And that's what's so funny, is you like to keep it really obscure and hide information and make sure that you know the people just have enough to just like you can't really speak on these things when you're like someone tripped in fall.

Well, anybody could stub their toe in the city and go file a lawsuit.

Like I could just go stub my toe and and then cut you know say that you guys owe me a million bucks.

So it's a fine line between you know negligence of the city and and people probably trying to take advantage um uh you know, part of the time.

Um, but when you also have things like a breach of contract and you know, it's with construction and um contracts with the city.

Um, you know, if the city's the one engaging in these breach of contracts, you need to make sure that you guys are course correcting and figuring out, you know, what led to it, why it's happening, and you know, make sure it doesn't continue to happen because it's ridiculous that the people have to pay extra money when you already take the people's money and throw it away.

You basically throw it into the sewer and give it back to us as water.

Um, you know, you just can't be trusted to uh you know handle things um in a way that is going to be productive for the people that you know we're really gonna see our money being spent wisely.

You know, we just seeing it being thrown down the drain, and all while you guys sit up there, you're late, you know, you don't do what you're supposed to be doing, yet we just shove out, shovel out more and more money every time.

And so it's just sad.

Hopefully, one day that this doesn't happen, but that's the way the government works.

Good job.

That does conclude public comment on closed session.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will now recess into closed session and we can be in council today at two o'clock PM or shortly thereafter.

Good afternoon.

I will now reconvene the city council meeting of Monday, October 6th, 2025.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Council President Locovo, Councilmember Campbell, Councilmember Whitburn.

Sure.

Councilmember Foster.

Councilmember Von Wilbert.

Councilmember Campillo.

Here.

Councilmember Moreno.

Present.

Councilmember Elo Rivera.

And Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Here.

Also attending the meeting are our assistant city attorney Leslie Fitzgerald, senior fiscal and policy analyst in the IBA's office, Aaron Noel, and community representative in the mayor's office, Emily Pietanesi, and myself, your CO City Clerk, Deanna Fuentes.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

A quorum is now present.

Uh are there any mayor, city council, city attorney, independent budget analyst, or city clerk comments.

Seeing none, the clerk will now go over how the public can offer the republic testimony.

Thank you.

Um I will highlight the slide on the screen that will be coming up momentarily that does review how the public can offer public testimony by laying out the phone numbers and webinar IDs.

The order can be found on the agenda summary, found online or at the table in the back of the room.

If you're in person, please complete a speaker slip located at the entrance of chambers and bring it to the front of the room, place it in the clear box.

Council ambassadors are available near the entrance of chambers and can assist with questions and speaker slips.

No further in-person testimony will be taken once the council begins virtual testimony.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Uh Clerk, please introduce item 201.

Sure.

Item 201 is an informational item.

It is the performance audit of the city's contract management.

If you'd like to speak on this item, please be sure to submit your speaker slip now to the front of the room in the clear box.

Or if you're participating remotely, now's the time to raise your hand by pressing star nine or the raise your hand icon.

Thank you.

Steph, if you'll please introduce yourselves for the record and just let us know how much time we'll need for the presentation.

Uh good afternoon, Council members.

Andy Henhouse, City Auditor.

Can we have about 10 minutes, please?

Thank you.

Thanks.

Over each of the last few years, the city of San Diego paid hundreds of millions of dollars to outside contractors to provide goods and services.

The San Diego Municipal Code requires city council to review and approve certain changes to those contracts, such as larger uh changes in value.

The city council's review ensures public oversight and transparency in the use of taxpayer dollars, and thus public oversight and transparency are reduced when changes to contracts are not brought to council as required.

Additionally, when contract alterations are brought to council late, it puts pressure on the council's approval responsibility and may impact the council's ability to provide meaningful oversight if there is not time to consider other vendors without disrupting critical services.

As I turn it over to the audit team, I do want to uh first thank city management, including purchasing and contracting as well as the city attorney's office uh for their help their help on this audit.

As I turn it over to the audit team, I do want to uh first thank city management, including purchasing and contracting as well as the city attorney's office for their help their help on this audit, and the audit team with me here today is Principal Performance Auditor Nathan Otto, Senior Performance Auditor Andrew Reeves, and Performance Auditor Kayla Edwards, and I'll turn it over to them for the details.

Thanks, Andy.

So good afternoon, everyone.

Our formal audit objective for this one was to determine whether the city appropriately extended or increased the value of goods and services contracts in accordance with the municipal code and best practices.

So not the awarding of contracts or the upfront stuff, it's uh the alterations.

To determine this, we reviewed 157 contract alterations that appeared to meet the criteria requiring city council approval.

And we had three findings, which we'll go through briefly here today.

Uh the first finding was that the city altered spending limits by at least 15 million dollars without required council approval.

So the second finding uh, which we'll get to in a moment, gets into timeliness aspects.

This one is focusing on whether the approval that should have happened happened at all.

The San Diego Municipal Code describes when contract alterations require city council approval, including if the contract extends beyond five years or if it's altered by over 200,000.

And in our evaluation, uh, we found that at the time we did the audit, 11% of the contract alterations that we reviewed had not been brought to council for approval, and that totaled $15 million.

Now, notably that was just 3% of the value of the reviewed alterations.

You can see on the slide for those uh following along there.

It's the little red uh slice on the right-hand side.

And uh also, as part of our recommendation follow-up efforts, we can confirm that uh PNC has worked on taking care of these, and they did bring these forward in July of this year.

In terms of why this happened, though, we found that uh confusion around approval requirements appeared to be the leading reason.

Specifically, operational departments that we spoke with told us they heard different interpretations from their departmental city attorney liaisons on whether particular contracts needed council approval.

We also found that the threshold amounts for city council council approval hadn't been updated since 2012.

Uh and as we all know, things are have gotten more expensive since 2012, and so uh that could help the city identify and prioritize higher value contract alterations.

Um back then was would be closer to 300,000 today.

So to address the issues identified in finding one, we made four recommendations.

Uh, first, for the applicable lead department to to present those those active contract alterations that we identified in the audit to council.

We talked about that, and that has happened.

Uh second, to propose updated municipal code language around approval thresholds and updating some language clarifying city council approval requirements.

And then after those changes are uh proposed, the city attorney's office and purchasing and contracting should work together to issue updated guidance around the contract alterations.

Our second finding is that departments submitted 19% of contract alterations, which totaled nearly $64 million to council for approval after the fact.

This is shown in the orange bar on the exhibit in the slide.

And additionally, we found that 11% of alterations totaling about $75 million was submitted less than 90 days before contract expiration, and one-third of those were submitted within just 30 days of the contract expiring.

Putting it all together, we found that 42% of reviewed alterations and 30% of reviewed contract dollars were presented to council in an untimely manner, retroactively or not at all.

Making contract alterations without proper approvals exposes both the city's and its vendors to risk.

For example, staff may allow work to continue after a contract exceeds its approved limit to avoid service disruptions.

But if a contract does not comply with city rules and regulations, it becomes avoidant unenforceable, potentially leading to non-payment.

Additionally, there is a risk that city council members may feel pressured to approve these contracts to continue services, possibly compromising the review process.

Our review found that delays and alterations occurred for several reasons, including COVID-19 impacts, poor planning, and the absence of a formal contract alteration process.

Guidance on changing contracts is shared through training, but it is not formally documented, which makes it harder to ensure consistency.

We also found that contract administration roles and responsibilities were unclear, and that some contract administrators may be experienced in these responsibilities.

For instance, administrators may not sufficiently estimate future price changes or wage increases while budgeting their contracts.

Benchmark agencies help with this by assigning a specific contract coordinators within operational departments that receive extra training.

Finally, these benchmark agencies require written justifications to submit for retroactive approval, which include detailing why the normal procedure was not followed, why the pricing is fair and reasonable, and corrective action to prevent reoccurrence.

To address the risks outlining finding two, we made five recommendations.

First, the purchasing contracting department should work with each city department to designate contract points of contact and provide them with additional training.

Second, a written procedure should be developed for submitting ratification requests.

Third, guidelines should be created to help departments provide council with ongoing updates on contract activities.

And finally, a formal contract alteration process should be established and implemented.

As of June 2025, four of these recommendations, including recommendation 2.1, have already been put in place.

Thank you, Andrew.

For finding three, we found that accurate information is not readily available in the city's contract management system AREBA.

One specific issue is that the contract spend field in AREBA shows how much money has been set aside for a contract, not the amount that has been spent.

Since city staff use AREBA to manage contracts, this system limitation means that staff do not have up-to-date information on contract spending.

Consequently, this can lead to potential overspending, inefficient contract planning, and delays in bringing contract alterations to council as required.

We determined that many of these issues could have been mitigated through implementing previous audit recommendations.

Issues around target value control, accurate contract information, and establishing procedures were identified in previous audits dating back to 2015.

The continued in-process status of these recommendations contributed to contracts with missing documentation, contracts missing from AREBA, and contract alterations following inconsistent procedures.

One example of the impact of lack of written policies is the city's contract with HERC for critical rental equipment.

This exhibit shows that council approved the first contract increase, but staff later raised the amount in AREBA twice so payments to the vendor could continue.

By March 2024, contract spend in AREBA had exceeded the council approved value by over $6 million.

Although there may be a need for some flexibility to continue vital services, without formal documentation, we could not determine whether these system changes followed proper procedure.

Additionally, this contract was brought to council for approval retroactively.

Recommendations that Andrew mentioned in finding two, such as implementing a formalized contract alteration process and providing written justifications about why changes occurred before receiving council approval and corrective action to present prevent reoccurrence could help ensure contracts receive proper approvals.

We made four additional recommendations, three of which were implemented.

These include that the purchasing and contracting department should develop a policy outlining where contracts are electronically stored and managed, implement a monitoring control to integrate SAP and AREBA contract spend information, establish a written policy requiring a written maximum value to be specified on all goods and services contracts, and develop guidance for its staff on altering AREBA in the absence of formal contract alterations.

In total, we issued 13 recommendations, 12 recommendations to management, and one recommendation to the city attorney's office.

The respective departments agreed to implement all of them.

And with that, we are available for any questions you may have.

Thank you for the presentation.

I believe next we have a representative from purchasing and contracting to make some remarks.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide a brief update on the performance audit of the city's contract management process.

Effective contract management is essential to ensuring that public funds are used efficiently, transparently, and responsibly.

Strong oversight promotes accountability, safeguards public trust, and helps prevent cost overruns, project delays, and disputes, ultimately leading to better outcomes and fiscal stewardship.

Over the past several years, purchasing and contracting has focused on strengthening internal operations, including achieving pay parity for procurement officers, filling critical vacancies within the goods and services division, and launching the procurement academy to expand citywide procurement knowledge and training.

While these improvements have advanced our internal capacity, responsiveness to external issues identified in last year's audit, and prior audit reports have been slower than desired.

The audit report made 13 recommendations, of which eight have been fully implemented.

I'd like to briefly highlight progress on the remaining items.

Recommendations 1.2 and 1.3, which relate to updating council approval thresholds and clarifying alteration for goods and services contracts require municipal municipal code amendments.

PNC have been coordinating with ENCP on a combined update, but at um after several discussions, it was decided that these efforts should be separated.

With the addition of other requested code changes, progress has been slightly delayed.

However, PNC expects to bring these items forward to council for consideration within the next six months, if not sooner.

Recommendation 1.4, which involves the city attorney's office updating its written guidance will follow the completion of recommendations 1.2 and 1.3.

For recommendation 2.4.

It calls for developing a process to keep council informed about key contract and activities such as upcoming expirations, capacity limits, ratifications, and full sort contracts.

To address this, PNC will begin issuing quarterly memoranda summarizing this information.

The first memorandum covering the first quarter F FY26 will be issued this week.

Lastly, recommendation 3.4, which directs PNC to establish guidance for staff on how to document changes in ARIBA.

When formal contract alterations are not required, is nearly complete.

A draft policy is currently under management review and will be finalized and submitted to the auditor's office within the next few weeks.

The purchasing and contracting department remains firmly committed to building and refining policies that strengthen contract oversight, promote compliance, and ensure timely and effective service delivery across city departments.

I would like to close by thanking the Office of the City Auditor for their collaboration and diligence throughout this process.

We are available to answer any questions the can the council may have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any public comment?

Yes, we do.

Paul.

Paul Garabai.

If you can please come.

Time seated by Tim Douglas.

Maybe I'm saying your last name incorrectly.

Oh, 200.

My apologies.

My apologies.

It was first so you.

We have no speakers for item 201.

I'm going to those participating remotely.

And we have five speakers in the queue, starting with Kathleen Lippett.

If you can please unmute.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Previously noted on ongoing recommendations by the city's fiscal performance audit department.

There should be a limit as to when those recommendations are implemented.

And if not, city council should come back within a 30-day window to provide justification for why the delay what is causing the delay.

This is a lot of money.

And in that the previous system was not updated since 2012.

That's really problematic.

So I don't know who else is responsible for, but please do make sure that you listen, that the city council listens to this its auditor, independent audits.

This is one of the best departments you have, and they give wonderful advice.

And thankfully, it is not politically.

It is not political.

So it's really important to listen to it.

So thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you.

Next is the original.

If you can please unmute.

Yes, this just highlights the fraud, waste, and abuse that you guys engage in on a regular basis, and why you know funding should be cut when you guys can't even make sure that the money that you get from the people and that you're spending is done in a manner that is the way that it's supposed to go.

You guys wait until you know the last minute to push contracts, and much of the time it seems like that would be done because it may not be passed if you didn't do it in that manner, you know, using the um excuse that it's to continue services that are needed.

Well, if they were, you know, so important, you would make sure that you're doing your due diligence to make sure that contracts are being up kept and that you're not waiting until the last minute.

And then you also have people self-report.

So there's you know, times when you know there's gonna be negligence in that, and when things are omitted, like you guys shouldn't be giving contracts to people who are having people die on a regular basis, like at Tent City.

You continue to increase contracts for that.

And Shannon Amelia Ball, 49 years old, just died a couple of weeks ago.

It'll be three weeks on Thursday.

She died of a fentanyl overdose because she was laced in by her neighbor, Bam Bam, who was next to her in her tent.

So and the the staff was told not to touch her because of COVID.

And it's like, what is happening?

Nobody could do anything, so this woman died because the staff that these people are hiring are negligent and told by dreams for change and Teresa Smith to do nothing and let these people die.

It is absurd.

They're also hiding sexual assault in Tent City, and yet you guys increase contracts.

You continue to do it without going and auditing and making sure that people aren't dying.

Instead, Steven Whitburn sits up there and laughs in my face, and when I'm telling him of the last woman who died, um, and Tammy.

And it's like, so instead of doing something, you're laughing about it because Teresa Smith is your friend.

So you guys can't be trusted with money because people are dying on your watch, all while you say that it's safer for them to be there.

You guys got a course correct because people are dying.

Your time has concluded.

Our next speaker is 5868.

After that, Blair Beekman, and then phone number any in seven four nine nine.

If you can please unmute.

Hi, uh can you hear me okay?

Yes, please proceed.

Thank you so much.

Well, first of all, I want to commend the Office of the City Auditor for this great work that they did last year, and that we're finally seeing some uh fruits of their labor.

Um I I I commend this department again, like the previous caller for disease they did.

I do have concerns about why some of these recommendations are taking so long to be implemented.

Um I saw the letter from is it from Miss Uh Claudia Abarca.

She wrote in July of 2024 about these recommendations.

So that's like you know, uh 14 months ago that her department has had the chance to work with other departments to implement these.

And now she's asking for another six months.

So that is rather alarming to me, and I hope that the city council will um get monthly updates from her.

For example, something simple as having each department have a uh point of contact for contracts.

That to me would be so simple to do.

You find out who your department, you know, every department they have to choose a contact, whoever the lead department person is, they can do it or they can find someone.

So I rather shocked that that wasn't completed.

But anyway, kudos for the uh office of the um auditor, and I really hope that the city council um keeps on this because this is where a lot of money can be wasted.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Blair Beekman.

The five-minute timer has also concluded.

There are three speakers in the queue.

No additional speakers will be taken after that.

Blair, please proceed.

Hi, thank you.

Blair Beekman, happy Monday to everyone.

Uh thanks a lot for this item.

Uh, this is years of work.

Um, and council person from Wilfurt has really tried to lead uh an important effort that uh a better sense of accountability can take place uh for our future contract issues.

Thank you.

Uh the first uh public speaker today mentioned how this uh kind of item can be uh nonpartisan, which is interesting.

Um the work I do with tech accountability, uh we we often try for the same goals and and the good feeling and and just good reasoning that's a part of this item.

Uh I I I I try to work the same principles with the future of tech accountability and what we can be doing.

That it's not a nonpartisan issue, it's just cleaning up you know, previous bad patterns and learning how to do that well.

And we're doing learning how to do that with this item.

Thank you.

Uh I hope you can be doing the same for tech accountability.

Uh there's a lot of loose ends in tech that we can clean up, and it's not too difficult to clean up if we just apply ourselves to it.

And it's just a matter if we want to apply ourselves.

And you've done that here, and I'm really looking forward to how this is going to be developing.

Um, having better accountability in the city is just gonna be uh awesome.

And the ways we can do that.

Um, so thank you.

Uh, to quickly offer you uh you have contract issues with the ALPR things.

That um how is that process going at this time?

Can you learn to make that a a public uh conversation open process where the negotiations stand, where where you'll be moving forward to.

I've spoken often uh for months on this issue on best practices, and that you guys want to do.

So I I don't think you have to fear talking in public about it, which I'm having a sense you are.

So good luck with the contract process overall and talking about our future of ALPR use.

And thanks a lot for your efforts on all together on this item.

Great work.

Thank you.

Thank you, phone number ending in 7499.

After that, we'll be million mile men.

Bob Kazuski here.

I just want to add that the management of contracts in this city has been terrible.

I've seen this first hand through the horrible mismanagement of the contract at Torrey Pine's glider port.

This is yet another reason to take advantage of outside resources such as advisory boards, which are extremely cost effective tools for providing independent oversight of city contracts and performance under those contracts.

These advisory boards are additional watchdogs provided for free by citizens who volunteer to help.

It is shameful that this city has allowed these valuable advisory boards, including the Tory Pine City Park Advisory Board to be disbanded.

Shame on you, Joe LaCava, for your own mismanagement of advisory boards in your district, and shame on Mary Mayor Gloria and shame on all council members for your similar failures.

Furthermore, I endorse the comments spoken by earlier uh speakers, Kathleen Lippett, the original, and others.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our final speaker is Million Mile Man, if you can please unmute.

Thank you for having me.

Um Bob, Bob, if you're still there, I communicated with you, you remember, from Tampa from Tampa, Florida, and Clearwater, about a month ago.

We were filming, and I gotta tell you, Bob, you gotta get real, man.

Feel the pain, and to all the people directing derision and emotional and psychological abuse upon discouncil.

Remember, when you run as a candidate, you are going to be hurt deeply, very, very hard.

You're gonna be hit hard.

And my recommendation, stop complaining.

All of you, every one of you, stop complaining and do something.

Do something that will help.

Complaining will not help.

Put your name on the ballot, do it.

And you know, to get nominated, to get nominated, just to put your name on the damn ballot, you've got to get over a hundred signatures, sometimes over 200.

And do you know how many people will spit in your face and call you horrible names and not even sign your nominating paper?

I got over 400 signatures on my own.

One man, yeah.

And I was hurt, trust me, and I'm tired of hearing all this bullshit over and over and over.

I'm too old for this.

I'm too old.

It's like the war saw ghetto.

You know, you'll fight out of the ghetto with a pick fork.

And Bob, you know what I'm talking about.

You're Polish like I am.

Get out there and freaking fight, Bob.

Do it.

If you want to help me, help me.

Otherwise, don't even call in anymore.

All of you.

Thank you.

That doesn't include public comment on item 201.

Thank you to the public for their comments.

We'll now take council member questions and comments as a reminder.

This is an informational item, and so no motion is required.

And we'll start with the chair of our audit committee, Councilmember Moreno.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um, and thank you to the auditor for conducting this audit.

Um, although I am disappointed by the findings contained in this audit, I wasn't surprised by them.

I was particularly disturbed that staff altered contract spending limits on goods and service contracts by at least 15 million dollars in the last seven years without the required council approval.

On average, that's approximately two million per year in taxpayer dollars that the public cannot account for.

Um this is not good government.

Uh when that happens, it's not just about the city council getting bypassed.

What this really means is that the public is being denied its right to know how its money is being spent because there's no public hearing to discuss the changes in the contract.

Additionally, the auditor found that staff brought 19% of contract alterations, totaling nearly $64 million to council for approval retroactively over the last seven years.

That works out to an average of $9 million per year of spending with no public discussion prior to the money being spent.

With little recourse if the council disagrees with the action because if we don't approve it, then work will stop mid-project, or if the work is already completed, the vendor could sue the city for non-payment.

Overall, 42% of contract alterations totaling $155 million were presented to council in an untimely manner, retroactively or not at all.

Exhibit 7 15 in the report shows an example where the department staff increased the spending in a contract to the tune of $6.7 million in the fall of 2023, months before obtaining council approval to allow for the additional spending.

Staff finally brought forward a request to increase the contract in April of 2024.

I find it very difficult to believe that nobody was aware that over $6 million being added to a contract would not need council approval.

Bringing a contract to council to replace an existing contract after the current contract has expired is inappropriate, unnecessary, and extremely frustrating because the council's put in a position of either approving a contract that might be flawed versus not approving it and the city not having access to that service anymore.

That would allow sufficient time to address any issues that the council or members of the public raise.

Lastly, implementing all recommendations under finding seven that would create formal procedures for contract alterations is critical, as this will help prevent what we saw happen in the REBA system with the HERIC contract, which was increased by millions of dollars six months before it was brought to council.

Four out of the five recommendations related to internal processes being improved have been implemented, and this is great.

Thank you.

We'll turn next to Councilmember von Wolbert.

Thank you to the city auditor for your work here.

Because it has to do with our fiscal responsibility as a city.

To know that it is being spent appropriately, to know that contractors are doing their jobs, to know that this is going to a valid purpose, to know that we are complying with the law.

And these are not small dollars.

Was found in this audit that was spent without authorization.

That's against the law.

And the reason is we need to know where our money is going.

Of course.

It's the Herc rental card tax slide.

I I have 14.

Whatever that one, thank you.

Could you yeah, zoom in on that one?

So if we're reading this correctly, this is a graph showing that someone in city management spent 6.7 million dollars on rental equipment without asking this council's permission to make that budget adjustment.

Is that correct?

The spending was this is a citywide contract.

You said spending, so the spending would be a lot of different departments.

But yes, someone uh in city management adjusted the allowed contract value without the council's approval.

By 6.7 million dollars.

Correct.

Do you realize that we had a budget fight this last year?

Over four and a half million dollars, in which the mayor vetoed it and we overrode the veto.

Do you know what we were going to use that general fund money for?

Funding for the arts and culture communities, a chief operating officer position, stormwater contingency funding, brush management enforcement, recreational programming at the lakes, and instead, someone from the city staff and management decided we're not gonna spend money on the things that the council voted for, we're gonna spend that $6.7 million on something else.

How do we know that's even authorized?

How do we know who that went to?

Who decided this?

I would like to know who made that illegal adjustment to a contract.

And the reason I'm so upset is because this keeps happening.

Sixty-four million dollars was unauthorized in spending.

Thank you for the question, Councilmember Bond Wolpert.

Um, what occurred during that time was that departments were engaging with Herc rentals directly to ask for services that may or may not have been on a PO.

And we were and we ended up finding that we were behind on payments because of these repeated requests.

Um, and so we were in a deficit of what we owed the the vendor itself.

So that's how we got to that point of going beyond our anticipated spend.

But this graph is showing our AREBA system, which is our software system to allow people to continue making purchase orders on a contract, was adjusted without city council approval.

So somebody had to use a computer, a city computer, and make that adjustment unlawfully.

It's against the municipal code to do that.

So who did that?

My staff did that.

My staff did that, we own that, and again, it was because we owed the vendor several millions of dollars without having the the appropriate purchase orders in place.

Well, Claudia, that's unacceptable.

I completely understand, and we've had that discussion with staff, and we've created policies to ensure that doesn't happen.

That's one of the audit recommendations as well.

Um, I think part of the issue is is we get put up against the wall sometimes by departments who aren't telling us the entire story.

Sometimes purchasing is the last department to know.

So did you tell the mayor or the CEO or whoever's, you know, chief operating officer at the time, whoever's supposed to rerunning the city that this was happening?

We did, and that's why we worked very very quickly.

It didn't seem that way to get the item to council and requested from the departments that they provide us what their anticipated spend for the contract was going to be moving forward because we didn't want to be in the situation where we were in arrears.

So then what was the mayor's response?

Um, I don't I don't know that it went to the mayor himself.

Um, I know that I did bring this up to the DCO and and we've been working on this contract for quite some time.

Um, we've done several several refinements on how we are monitoring and um actually managing the spend for each department to ensure that we don't get to this place again.

Council member, if I may, deputy chief operating officer Christina Peralta.

So Claudia's absolutely right.

Her and her department flagged it immediately for her deputy chief operating officer and then sprung into action on how we could mitigate the issue.

Contract and management is a team sport, and it's not Claudia's team's responsibility to manage, nor does Claudia have the ability to manage her peers and hold them accountable for making sure that their staff are doing the right things.

She's leapt into action, she's done all of the mitigating factors that we need to put our arms around this.

I know it's not a satisfying response for you, but she did everything right to address the situation and flag it for management, and we've done everything that we can to quickly put our arms around it and to work with our department directors to hold them accountable.

Well, Claudia, and I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you.

You're doing a great job.

You're trying as hard as you can.

You have worked so well with with this.

I so I apologize.

I don't mean to come off mad at you.

Um I know that you have a million things on your plate.

I just in the future, though, I do wish that you know, could call us directly.

Say that they're asking me to make an unauthorized adjustment to AREBA that I'm not supposed to be doing because I I don't want this to fall on your shoulders.

I know that you are trying very hard, and you're not the one making the purchase orders.

So just for the public to know, Claudia is trying very hard on this, but it's still somebody is spending unauthorized money to the tune of millions of dollars, and then six months later asking this council to approve it.

And this is just one contract.

If we're not over, if there's no watchdog at the hen house, who knows how many of their hens are gone?

It's the point of oversight is to make sure that we know what we're spending.

And so, quite frankly, Ms.

Peralta, this hasn't been fixed.

This has not been fixed.

We're still waiting for municipal code updates you say you need.

We will we will do them, we will vote on them here at City Hall.

AREBA is still a problem.

I'm reading things in this audit that says additionally, the city auditor found discrepancies between contract documents and information in AREBA.

For example, 12% of the contracts had contract expiration dates in Ariba that didn't match the signed contracts.

Another 9% had mismatched contract values.

That's almost 20% of the contracts in our software system are flat out wrong.

And so this has not been fixed.

And this is my ask to to my colleagues.

Because we are up here and we are the oversight board here, and we just rubber stamp this and we allow this to continue.

And I I urge my colleagues to have some some consequences here.

If we were the board of directors over a corporation, and the CEO had allowed misspending to 64 million dollars, we would fire the CEO of the corporation.

If we did not, our shareholders would sue us in the shareholder derivative lawsuit, and there are lawyers out there making a lot of money on these things.

If we were the board of a nonprofit and the CEO of the nonprofit allowed 65 million dollars to go spent unauthorized, we would fire the CEO.

Otherwise, the public would stop donating to our nonprofit because the board up here is not making good decisions.

Can I please have a few extra minutes?

If this was a household, if we were a family and we had spending limits and allowed some of our teenage children to way max out the credit cards, then every time they came to their parents, we forgave them and paid their credit card bill.

What happens when the roof leaks and we can't fix the roof on our house because we've been allowing people to spend unauthorized amounts?

We at this council need to start voting no on these contracts and saying no to city staff doing this to us because some of our libraries might close because now we're spending $6.7 million on rental equipment instead.

And this is just one contract remember, there are many others out there.

115 million didn't come to us on time appropriately.

11 million never came at all.

And so, as much as we want to sit up here and draft a budget, it's not being followed.

And so I just hope that my colleagues will start voting no because people need consequences, and we will help you.

You just need to bring us things to help fix this problem.

It's not being fixed.

And Claudia, again, this is not your fault.

I know you try hard, you always work with our office, but I don't see a chief operating officer here.

The buck stops with somebody, and the the solution is we've wrapped our arms around it the best we can.

That's ridiculous.

I'm just so sick of seeing us fight about money up here, and then the city spends it however they want.

So I urge my colleagues to start voting no.

Put some consequences.

We the buck stops with us, and then also when you do your quarterly memo on contract status.

Can you please also update us on how many of these recommendations that the auditor has been making since 2015?

This is now 10 years old.

This is two mayoral administrations, but guess who's been here?

The DCOOs.

They've been here the whole time.

Why haven't they fixed it between mayors?

Update us on how many of the recommendations are still outstanding and also what we can do to help.

You know, if you need us to put it in LSR, for example, like where are the new regulations?

Where city attorney let us know what we can do to help, but I can't sit here and be held accountable for money I didn't spend.

So that's all I got.

We understand.

Yeah, Councilmember Von Wilbur, I do want to mention a couple of things that we have put in place as well.

We have um created a report that will allow departments to understand their spend and track it better.

You'll see a copy of that with the memorandum that goes out.

Um it'll highlight a couple of different um milestones for departments so that they can take timely action.

I think that's probably the best report that we have so far.

Um we've also developed a contract administration guide to help departments understand what their responsibilities are after a contract has been awarded and turned over that to them for contract management.

Um that's in place.

We have actually been training since um, I want to say since May.

Um we are doing monthly trainings um to ensure that contract administrators know how to manage their contracts.

Um I do want to also state with the amount of um money that has been approved without council approval.

Um I agree it's not a good headline.

Um, but I do want to state that some of that was tied to us amending contracts under a process that we thought was correct, and later being told that it was incorrect.

So I just want to make sure that that's clarified.

That process stopped back in 2023.

We have not altered any contracts above 200,000 without it coming forward to council.

My staff knows that very well.

Um we are doing everything we can as a department to ensure that we stop most of these things.

Um I can't control everything and and what's done around me, but but you you certainly should know that we are doing our best.

Thank you, Claudia.

I appreciate it.

Um let us know again what you need to monitor this.

Um I mean, the libraries have gone over their budgets.

Police department's gone over its budget for contract, everybody has, and it's just um it's very hard to fight so hard over a budget up here when it doesn't seem to be followed.

And so um, I just appreciate you very much, and please keep us up to date about what you need.

And I just urge my colleagues to start voting no on these contracts, actually put some consequences in place so departments get their act together and we spend within our limits.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate the audit, and we need to hire a chief operating officer in this city.

Thank you, Councilmember Von Wilbert.

We'll turn next to Councilmember Iler Rivero.

Uh thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Um thank you, Andy, to you and your team for the work on this.

Uh, Councilmember Moreno, as always, for your leadership of the audit committee, um, Councilmember Von Wilpert uh for digging in here and your um continued your persistence that um the city do better on this front.

Uh Councilmember Von Wilper, I want to acknowledge you know the the some of the points that you raised.

Um one that you you drew a line in the sand a while back on this and thought it to be important that we not approve these contracts when they come to us um after they should have.

I think one of the things just for full transparency that I struggle with sometimes is that the effects, the the consequences of it's it's who will bear the consequences if those contracts aren't approved.

And I think this is what puts us in a particularly difficult situation as council members.

It is typically city employees, rank and file everyday employees who are doing the work and residents who will fill the effects.

And so the the rock and the hard place that I I feel myself in in these situations is that piece.

And that isn't an excuse for allowing a uh practice to go on when it when it shouldn't, um just an attempt to explain what I've struggled with in these situations.

Um I I the frustration is real.

I mean, we we've had some high profile um and very tense moments on this dais, um, some with me at the tip of the stip of the spear and others with others in that position when it doesn't feel like to your point the budget that this council has passed is actually being implemented or or um adhered to so I I just want to let you know that I I hear you, I I definitely appreciate the the frustration.

Um Claudia, I think you've got an exceptionally challenging job to do.

Um and it it you cannot on your own correct for um what seems to be you know more of a cultural issue and and uh um than than anything else.

Um so just again wanted to make sure I let you know, Council Mr Bonilford I I hear you on this and and I'm not going to disag disagree um with your frustrations.

I do have a question.

Um so there have been there's recommendations that are not yet implemented.

Um apologies if this was alluded to in one way or another before, but if you could very kind of methodically walk us through the plan next steps and time frames for the recommendations that are not yet implemented, but agreed upon.

Thank you for the question, Councilmember Ivara.

You're referring to this specific report?

Yeah.

Yes.

So they were mentioned two of them relate to uh proposing changes to municipal code.

We're hoping to be here within six months.

I think it should it really should be sooner to bring those forward.

Um the third recommendation and can you help us understand how that will change from your perspective.

We've got the auditors' perspective on recommendations.

You're you've agreed to them, so uh theoretically you you believe that there'd be value to it, help us understand what value you'd see and how some of the situation the some of the of what you're hearing frustration over would be different if that change were implemented.

Sure.

So we can go over the first recommendation that remains, which is increasing increasing thresholds.

Um obviously people believe the 200,000 alteration threshold is low.

They also believe the thresholds for uh mayoral authority on contracts is low.

We haven't updated those for a little over more than 10 years.

Um so we are going to be proposing some changes there to help um expedite the award of contracts and ensure that those are ready for operational use.

Um another uh of the recommendations is going to be to clarify the section on amendments.

I think that was where we um awarded multiple millions of dollars on some advice that said we could do so as long as we stayed under mayoral thresholds, so there's some confusing language that we want to change in that particular section to help avoid any issues.

Again, we've stopped that process since 2023, but just to be clear and to move forward, we do want to clarify that language.

Um third recommendation is that we work with the city attorney's office to um provide updated guidance once we have the new language if accepted by council um for uh the thresholds and also for amendment process.

So that cannot happen until we get the first two completed.

Um and then the other two we talked about one um the fourth one would be um alerting council to what is what contracts are due to expire, what contracts are are almost at capacity, how many sole source contracts we've had, and how many um ratifications we've had.

We actually have compiled that information for the first quarter of FY26, and we expect to issue that memorandum this week.

And following that, we will be providing um the council with a quarterly memo so that you will be aware of what um is due to expire or at capacity.

I do want to uh make a a comment on um there in the report you will see that we have color coded to kind of give directors and departments the ability to track a little bit better.

Um however, just because you may see a red or orange color, which is basically saying we're getting at time, um a department may or may not choose to take action.

Maybe that council is going to stay there and it's just gonna you know expire and we no longer need services, or sometimes it will need to be extended or a new procurement be done.

Um but that will depend on which what department wants to do.

And then finally, the last recommendation is uh develop an developing a policy on how to update our AREBA system uh with the amendments that that we have a do uh we do have a final draft policy routing currently with my staff.

Um we plan to complete that within the next two weeks and forward to the auditor's office for final review.

Thank you, Claudia.

Um one of the things that I I I want to know, which is is I think and adds to the challenges and the in and the importance of improvements being made quickly is increasing limits is requires trust from the council.

Absolutely.

So I I completely understand that one of the reasons for that is to minimize or not minimize, but mitigate the sheer volume of items that need to be brought to us for approval because that requires work and slows things down.

We all I think understand that.

And when we increase a limit, we are giving away some of our authority.

And what we were being shown is that our authority isn't being adhered to as it is.

And so the comments made by Councilmember Bon Wilper, I think are very much in line with comments we heard last week on an entirely unrelated item, but with a shared theme of a trust issue that is here.

And Claudia, this is actually much less for you at this point than it is for the mayor's office and our DCOs.

I I'm not going to assume that this isn't registering in this way, but we're like we're at a tipping point in terms of of trust and the ability to get important things done.

And I I just I'm very much hoping that we see the changes that need to happen because just heard from council Council Member Council Member Von Luport made a very just and um fair request of the rest of us to stop approving items when they come to us uh after a contract is expired.

There would be consequences of that.

We had uh an item last week in terms of water rate approvals.

If we're not able to figure that situation out in one way or another, there will be significant consequences for the city.

And so the clock is ticking.

I very much hope that the words of my colleagues are being taken earned in taken uh at face value.

Um, and that the council sees the changes that need to happen in order for us to get the work done that needs to be done.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Thank you.

Next up is Council Member Kim Pew.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Thank you very much, Claudia, for being here.

I I have a just a practical question about the four and the two or the two and the four million dollar increase, the six million dollars that were were approved without council authorization.

Um was there some sort of downside of waiting to pay that six million dollars by coming to us first?

Was there some sort of late fee?

Was was I'm trying to give the um benefit of the doubt to someone trying to do the right thing.

And I'm I'm hoping you're gonna say there was some downside.

Based on the amount that was owed at the time, yes, it would have disrupted services.

We would have had to return vehicles and equipment for nonpayment.

And that would have cost more in the long run.

Operationally, yes, uh, we would have stopped projects.

Um people may not have gotten able to do their work, so yes, operationally it would have affected a lot more than that.

I can be sympathetic to that, but understand that's not a good enough reason.

It's not a good enough reason.

Here's a another practical question.

The whomever adjusted internally the ledger so that six million dollars could go out without the city council's authorization.

Who then sends the check?

It's the treasurer's office, city treasurer's office to actually pay the bill.

Correct.

It it would uh get processed in the system and it would come out of each department's budget to pay those bills.

Okay, and so the city treasurer has the change order form that says pay this much more.

Does the treasurer's office not then check that against the contract internally to make sure that there's authorization for that?

Because the typically they won't just the city treasurer won't just take a piece of paper from a director of a department and say, Oh, you want two million dollars?

Just shoot two million dollars out the door, right?

Yeah, I don't believe it works that way.

I think within our SAP system, and I might turn to Christina to help me here.

Um the way it works is uh it will get processed uh again, it'll come through each department's budget.

If the department has available budget, it will just come out of whatever accounting that they they enter into their purchase order.

Claudia's correct.

As long as there's available funding in that department's budget, they can issue payments as long as it's available in their in their fund.

Okay, so the city treasurer looks at a total number left within the contracting budget for a department, does not actually look at the contract to see if it's allowable to be paid.

Payments are automated through the Department of Finance.

So the city treasurers doesn't have much to do with this process.

Okay, so let's go to the Department of Finance then.

The Department of Finance is the one that's sending the check out in this case.

Okay.

So the city, the Department of Finance doesn't actually check against the let me put this into perspective.

We can't have, as council members, a resolution to say hello on behalf of the City of San Diego without the city attorney's office looking at it, the mayor staff looking at it, nine other council members looking at it, the IBA probably looks at it if it's even if it's a little bit more than just saying hello.

And yet the Department of Finance is able to just send off millions of dollars without cross-referencing it against the actual contract that was approved.

So I'm wondering is there someone from the Department of Finance here who's gonna tell us why they allow that policy without them just checking one more PDF to see that it's allowable?

Is there anybody from the Department of Finance here?

Okay.

So that's problematic.

I'm and the city attorney's office obviously doesn't look over the shoulder of every single check that goes out, but they look over every single resolution that we put forward.

And I understand why they do that, and I'm glad that they do that for us.

There this is uh is it that much more work to put in one step to make sure that you don't just check that there's money in the bank account, but that it was actually that the contract actually said that amount.

What this seems to be uh an easy redundancy to put in to make sure that we're not doing something illegal.

So, council member, I hear your concern.

I think that what we would probably be useful is if we provided information on how the contract speaks to available funding for spend for departments versus the invoice processing part of it, which is based off of I get an invoice, I process a requisition so I can pay that invoice, and then as long as I have funding in my department fund that I'm using, that check will go out as long as DOF has approved that I do have the available funding to me and I've done all of my internal processes.

It doesn't speak to the system on a global scale.

Okay, which is I think the expectation that I think you have.

That's right.

The I guess the last point I'll make on on this uh is when a city employee uh improperly authorizes an expenditure over what the city council provides just from a uh discipline point of view, do they get uh anything in their employee personnel record that says they went beyond their uh statutory authority and was had a conversation, had progressive discipline up this and that that happens, I hope.

Absolutely it does.

Okay, and I have a feeling you can't respond as to personnel records at this moment, so I'm not gonna go there, but I'm I'm really hopeful that that's what happened here because this wasn't a few dollars over.

This was several million dollars over.

Correct.

Okay.

All right, thank you very much, uh, Council President Pro Tem, uh, and thank you to my colleagues for their questions.

Thank you, Council President Pro Temley.

Um I want to dig in a little bit to uh uh what Ms.

Peralta was uh saying um because I think it sounded like you were making a distinction between uh contracting and budgeting.

Uh the city council has a oversight responsibility for contracting, and the city council also has an oversight responsibility for budgeting.

Um and what I think I heard you say was that um while there may have been an overspend in the contracting, which should not have occurred, um that it went through because it was still within the budget.

Is that what I heard you say?

Correct.

So let's take Parkinson Rec for an example.

Huge department, huge departmental spend.

They are not budgeting down, or they are not um, they always have some available spend because they're not all of their expenses always hit at the same time.

So as long as there is funding available, they can process invoices for anything as long as it's available.

Okay.

So in other words, if the city council budgets a million dollars for X, and to effectuate that budget, the City Council authorizes several contracts up to a half million dollars.

Um that if somebody without council approval approves an overage of you know up to 750,000 dollars in the contract, we're not going over the budgeted amount that the city authorized, but we're going over the contract amount that the city authorized.

Those are different things, but I wanted to draw that distinction.

Um because I do think it's uh important to note that what you're saying is that we're staying within budget on these, uh, but that we are going outside the council authorization for the contracted amounts, and that's what needs to um be reined in.

Did I get that right?

Correct.

And what I will say about Ariba as a tool is it's it was not meant for government use the way that we are applying it.

So Claudia, God bless her, and her team have tried to work within its constraints to make it as useful as it can be for our organization.

It's not perfect and it's not real time, which is part of the struggle when it comes to think about 40 or 30 departments all using a citywide agreement at the same time, and it's not it's not speaking to our budgeting system quickly enough to make it even make sense for Claudia's team to monitor at times, which is why the the real-time reporting that her team is now making available is a godsend to our departments now as far as contract monitoring goes.

Okay, thank you.

Well, um, while I am uh glad about the point you're making that um these are not causing us in and themselves to go over budget, uh obviously there are all kinds of reasons why it's important that the city council have oversight over contracts and contracting amounts.

So uh I appreciate uh all of the efforts that are going in to uh improve this process, and I uh really um hope and expect that uh we will see this fixed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Woodburn.

Seeing no other speakers, we'll turn back to Councilmember Von Wilbert.

Thank you very much.

I should have a follow-up question about whether we're going over budget or not.

The six point seven million that was added to the HERC contract came from the general fund, correct?

Uh most of it, yes.

So then what what is suffering because we took six point seven million away?

What it had to we budgeted to the T this year.

Something else was gutted, so that money could be sent to the rental company.

So what was it?

Uh the 6.7 was a year and a half ago.

I'm sorry, I'm looking at my auditors' team as if they know.

Um, this was two years ago when we we brought that request forward.

Um, I wouldn't know to tell you, Councilmember Von Wolpert what was affected.

Um, we'd have to ask departments to see what they may have had to cut in order to get that additional money.

Okay, so who from the Department of Finance knows what was moved?

Councilmember, we can get back to you with that.

Why don't I have the answer right now?

I called the mayor's office last week and told the deputy chief operating or whoever I don't know what their titles are, Matt Yayagin, everyone coda, that I'm gonna have serious questions about this and expected answers.

Last week, I didn't want to bother the mayor himself because he's doing his job and traveling.

Why don't I have answers now?

When the public is watching, they don't want me to wait till next week.

Where is the six, seven million dollars go?

Because we budgeted.

We have libraries that don't have roofs, we have staff that are suffering, so I understand the rock and the hard place, but the rock and the hard place is just being moved to another time.

You can't tell me the Department of Fandons doesn't know where this money went when this audit came out a year ago.

Who is running the Department of Finance?

What is happening here?

Councilmember, I don't think that I would have an answer that would satisfy you today.

So we will get back to you with the information that you've requested.

And I apologize for the delay in getting you your answers.

Okay, tell me how to better communicate with the mayor's office, because when I have serious questions about how we're spending money, I expect them to be answered.

So Claudia, thank you.

This is not your fault.

I again want to emphasize that you are trying so hard, and you are trying to work on our EOSO problem, your EO contracting problems, like you and your department are doing wonderfully.

But it is very disturbing that if this software hasn't been working since 2015, why haven't we changed the software in 10 years?

And this is not a you problem, Claudia, this is an upper management problem, and it needs to get fixed.

So thank you again, Claudia, for your hard work and into your department.

I want to emphasize how much I value you as someone in the city.

But I cannot believe that even the Department of Finance isn't here today to even answer our questions about spending.

Thank you for the extra time, uh, Chair.

Thank you.

Seeing no other speakers, um, I'll chime in here because I I don't mean to laugh, I just this is sort of hard to fathom the conversation that we're having up here on the dais.

And um certainly thank you, Councilmember Ilu Rivera for pointing out that it follows a week of conversation that we've had, I think, around around trust.

Um I I do wanna first off, I'll thank the auditors team for your work on this.

Um the audit was completed last year, correct, and was presented to the audit committee in 2024.

I guess if you don't mind me asking if you know the timeline in which it took us, I don't know how long since it was heard in the audit committee to hear it at council.

Uh I I don't know.

Um sometimes it does take a while.

I think your docket was fairly busy the first uh few months of the year with budget uh issues, but um you know we prefer to take them a little sooner, but I think uh sometimes it's it's nice when they come a little bit later because the departments have a lot of progress to report uh rather than just you know saying the same thing that they would have said at the audit committee two weeks earlier, right?

And I guess just to follow up on that, um you of course shared the presentation the recommendations that were uh accepted and the progress that's been made on those.

That's the progress that's up to date as of now, uh not necessarily what was presented back when the audit was completed, correct.

Right.

It's the it's the status as of June 30th uh of this year, because that's when we do our recommendation fob, which we just issued and will be discussed at the audit committee on Wednesday.

Understood.

Meaning uh even to this date, there's still quite a bit of work that's either in process or needs to be completed.

Um I I agree with some of what my colleagues have shared on the dais.

Um Claudia, certainly you and your team, you're not the ones submitting all the contracts for approval.

Um and I don't think that means that we necessarily turn around and get to blame every department either for that work.

Um I think what this audit points out is that there is a much broader challenge that we're dealing with from a city operation standpoint.

Um, and it's easier to maybe point fingers at at one particular team or the other.

Um, Mr.

Peralta, I'm gonna just point out that while you're a deputy chief operating officer, I don't think this is the operational branch that you oversee either, is it?

Um, sir, but I am covering for Alia Corey because she's not feeling well today.

Understood.

Yeah, so I I you're taking the spears at the moment, but it's not necessarily your direct department.

Um I think this is just going back to to point out that this is frustrating for all of us, and you're seeing that boil up, and then I think that frustration stems from the fact that we are the eighth largest city in the United States.

And I I don't know if it goes through anyone else's head, but I'm gonna admit I sat here up here thinking an Excel spreadsheet would tell me when contracts are gonna expire and give me a rough sense of when I that's simplifying too much the challenges that we exit that exist.

But I think what I'm hoping to hear as a result of the city's response to an audit that is pointing out some severe challenges that we have, as council member von Wilbur pointed out that really script the line of whether we're operating lawfully.

Um that the city has a a strong answer for that.

And at the moment, I I feel almost frustrated that Claudia, you're here trying to answer on behalf of the entire city as to why we're having these challenges.

So I'll just leave it at that.

Um Councilmember Ilo Rivera pointed out that improving the Merrill threshold um certainly I I see why that would help resolve some of these, but it would only resolve them in the sense that we would just not see them.

And that actually doesn't solve the underlying problem that I think is being called out today.

So if that is still being planned for, I would certainly urge uh an earnest conversation about what that looks like and how it's presented, because an increasing of the mayoral threshold simply to answer this audit uh isn't it doesn't actually solve the problem.

I'm gonna guess based on the commentary you've heard today that you're gonna be met with some concern on that front.

Um last thing I will note is that in our team's meeting with the um Office of the City Auditor, um there was a discussion, Andy, I think you had presented just one idea uh in terms of best practice examples we've seen elsewhere that, for example, in the county of San Diego that they have a segment in their staff report that allows for staff to answer to any questions that might arise in terms of contract timelines, deadlines, um, and anything where they've exceeded an amount, et cetera.

Can you share a little bit about that?

Sure, I'll ask my my uh my team to jump in, but I think in general, it's they have uh kind of a remediation process where if there is uh department that has not brought a contract on time, they have to own up to it, it has to be in the staff reports and present a um kind of remediation plan so how for how they'll prevent that from happening again.

But I'll let my team add any additional details.

Yeah, just to follow up on Andy, it's recommendation 2.3 in the report, um, which has been newly implemented out of June is to develop a procedure and tempo for these requests to be submitted in writing and explain why it's necessary and what types of actions will be done to prevent um it from happening in the future.

Understood.

And uh I don't believe that's part of the recommendations as we have presented at the moment, but I I guess it would turn to staff and the mayor's office to see if that could be explored as a potential addition to council crowds.

I believe it is a recommendation, and we have completed uh uh developed that form, and it should be any time you see a contract that is being brought forward.

Um, that form should, if it's if it's late, if it needs ratification, that documentation should be provided in on base as well.

Thank you.

Claudia, I one last thing to ask you because of of what you've heard from um us up here.

Are there up any upcoming contracts that the council might be considering that are either exceeding the contracted amount previously authorized or that will be expired?

Uh I I know there are several that are expiring soon.

I know my my team has been working with each of the departments to try to get them here timely.

Um whether that happens, I I think we're still going through some some speed bumps to make sure that all of them get here timely.

Uh, but we are absolutely keeping track of that.

I think you heard uh council member von Wilbert loud and clear uh as we all did.

So um certainly we encourage that be done as expeditiously as possible.

Um I see no other speakers on this item that does include item 201.

Uh clerk, will you please introduce item 200?

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Item 200 is an informational item as well.

It is the performance audit of the city's fleet maintenance.

If you'd like to speak to this item, please submit your speaker slip to the front of the room in the clear box.

And if you are participating online, now's the time to raise your hand by processing pressing star nine or the raise your hand icon.

Andy, I'll hand it back over to you to introduce this item and your team as well and let us know how much time you need for this item.

Uh good afternoon again.

Uh, council members, Andy Hennaus City Auditor, and we're here to present our performance audit of this city's fleet maintenance.

And can we also have 10 minutes for this one, please?

Thank you.

Thanks.

Uh so first off, we want to thank the fleet operations division.

Uh, we really appreciate all the time uh and feedback they provided to help this audit identify, I think a lot of different key issues and make actionable recommendations to address them.

Also wanna uh quickly thank uh major vehicle operating departments uh who we worked with on this audit as well, including SDPD, fire rescue, uh parks and recreation, and uh public utilities.

The city's fleet is compar uh comprised of about 4,900 vehicles and motorized equipment with an estimated total replacement value of 437 million dollars.

When preventive maintenance and safety inspections aren't completed on time, it can create it can increase long-term vehicle costs, cause costly operational disruptions when vehicles break down, and create safety risks for city employees and the public.

Therefore, we conducted uh this performance audit with the two objectives uh that you can see here on this slide.

Uh the audit team uh with me here is again uh principal performance auditor Nathan Otto and uh senior performance auditor Nikki Kalmas and performance auditor Alberto Mario, and so I'll turn it over to them for the details on what we found and recommended.

Great, thanks, Andy.

Um so we looked at preventive maintenance services on this one.

We may lapse into calling them PM services, and uh these are ones that were completed in FY2023 across the city.

So these PM services are fundamental things like oil changes, fluid checks, cleaning or replacing basic parts, uh as well as smog checks and something called BIT inspections, which are a multi-point safety inspection for heavier vehicles that's uh required by the state of California uh every 90 days.

We made 10 run recommendations on this one to address issues we found and approve the timeliness and compliance rates of required maintenance and safety inspections, help streamline services, and to increase vehicle availability for department operations.

Uh and of note, uh given the city's budget position, we believe the recommendations are generally loaded, no cost things that the city can do and management did agree to all of these recommendations.

So the city has a big fleet, as Andy mentioned across a lot of different departments.

You can see some of the examples on the slide here, so the six departments with the most vehicles citywide.

And just in terms of the process, generally it's the case that these departments they have their vehicles and they're supposed to bring them in to fleet who provides the maintenance.

So it's a it's a bit of a two-way street, so to speak.

There are some things that fleet can do for customer service to city departments, but a big part of the issue too is uh improving accountability for departments to be bringing their vehicles into fleet services timely.

And with that, uh Nikki will walk you through funding one.

Thank you, Nathan.

In finding one, we looked at the timeliness of preventive maintenance and inspections across the citywide fleet in fiscal year 2023.

We found that only 20% of preventive maintenance services were completed on time.

According to government fleet and industry resource, a 10% grace period is acceptable before most fleets consider maintenance late.

As shown in exhibit four on this slide, even when allowing for a grace period, only 39% of services were completed on time.

Both the 20 and 39% are less than the industry's standard goal for timely maintenance compliance, which is 90%.

We also looked into the compliance of inspections, which are required by law to ensure driver and public safety and environmental protections.

While 96% of smog checks and diesel opacity inspections were completed on time, only 35% of bit inspections, which are safety inspections on heavier vehicles, were on time.

One factor could be that bit inspections are required every 90 days, while smog and diesel inspections are required annually or once every two years.

The exhibits on this slide show that hundreds of safety inspections were overdue by months and could have been unsafe to operate.

Overdue maintenance can have negative consequences on vehicle performance, such as unsafe vehicle conditions, lengthier and more costly repairs, and reduced productivity.

For example, a previous audit found an 11% reduction in productivity for pothole repairs when one truck was out of service for maintenance.

Thus, even having a single important vehicle offline can have a product productivity impact worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Finally, when safety inspections are late, issues may persist that can lead to increased costs and breakdowns.

Missing safety inspections on larger trucks and equipment means letting potential safety issues go unaddressed while vehicles are still driving around.

We found that bit inspections identified safety issues that needed to be repaired more than half of the time.

And additionally, overdue safety inspections were even more likely at 68% to identify needed repairs such as broken backup alarms and NEARs and brake axle fluid leaks.

Even if most vehicles had a current safety inspection, there could be 200 or more big vehicles on roads with an increased likelihood of an unaddressed safety issue.

When we looked into the reasons why behind low compliance rates, we found that fleet sends out monthly notifications to departments with upcoming due preventive maintenance and inspections.

However, at the time the audit was conducted, contact lists were out of date.

Then, even when notified, city departments were still not bringing in their vehicles on time.

Further, not all major departments were having regular check-ins with fleet or specific fleet coordinators to handle maintenance issues.

And finally, as shown on the slide, fleet removed its preventive maintenance KPI for the fiscal year 2025 budget and reported on it only once historically.

To improve the city's preventive maintenance and inspection compliance, we made five recommendations in this finding.

We recommend fleet work with departments to update contact lists for maintenance notifications, lead regular quarterly meetings to discuss fleet maintenance needs, and report compliance to the deputy chief operating officers.

We recommend the chief operating officer ensure each relevant department designates a fleet coordinator, and that the chief operating officer work with fleet and city departments to develop and communicate a set of workable and appropriate incentives, disincentives, and/or monitoring capabilities to improve compliance.

Since we issued the report, Fleet appears to have worked with departments to update and designate fleet coordinators for the major departments and have started having regular check-ins.

According to Fleet, this has helped increase maintenance and fit compliance.

I will now hand it over to Alberto to present our second finding.

Thanks, Nikki.

I am Alberto Murillo, a performance auditor in this project.

In finding two, we investigated how timely vehicles are being returned to city departments after preventive maintenance.

We found that more than half of maintenance work orders that we looked at were completed in less than 24 hours.

However, there are some steps that the city can take to further streamline services.

According to the National Association of Fleet Administrators, turnaround time is a key metric for fleet maintenance operations.

Many fleet agencies have turnaround time goals for maintenance services and inspections.

However, Fleet does not.

This can make it hard for departments to plan their day-to-day operations.

The lack of visibility may also lead to reluctance to bring vehicles in for maintenance.

Shown on the slide, we found that longer turnaround times appear to correspond with lower rates of preventive maintenance compliance.

In other words, departments accustomed to delays are less likely to bring their vehicles in on time.

The city uses Fleet Focus, a central database for fleet's information about maintenance and inspection due dates, equipment, labor, and parts inventory.

To help with uncertainty, there is a self-service mechanism in Fleet Focus for city departments to review upcoming due preventive maintenance.

However, not all departments are aware of it or how to use it.

The average turnaround time within the city of San Diego was three calendar days.

Though Fleet completes most maintenance within 24 hours, some lengthy turnaround times bring the citywide average up to three days.

However, on average, fleet staff completed the actual servicing of vehicles in just two hours.

When we looked into the cause, we found that 77% of maintenance services had a delay of some kind.

The last the vast majority of these delays were caused by waiting for labor.

For example, a vector truck from the Stormwater Department was brought in for preventive maintenance services on a Tuesday and waited for three days for available staff.

On Friday, the maintenance services took just over three hours in total.

Although Fleet Focus can schedule appointments, according to Fleet, it has not set this up due to resource constraints.

As a result, according to Fleet, departments also commonly drop off their vehicles unannounced, often before weekends or holidays, which can lead to backlogs because departments bring their vehicles in when labor is not available instead of scheduling an appointment.

When we look further into labor delays, we found that the city's fleet has grown by almost 1,000 vehicles since fiscal year 2021, but the number of fleet technicians to service the fleet has not kept pace with that growth.

Furthermore, Fleet has an assistant fleet technician position but heavily utilizes the fleet technician role instead.

The assistant fleet technician position could help fleet technicians focus on complex diagnostics and advanced repairs.

Identifying the optimal share of assistant fleet technicians to supplement current staffing may help fleet achieve its maintenance goals in a cost-effective manner while attracting talent that can grow and develop from within.

To help streamline services, increase vehicle availability, and improve maintenance timeliness and compliance, we made five recommendations to Fleet in this finding.

The key recommendations include establishing, monitoring, and reporting turnaround time goals and performance, ensuring city departments are aware of the self-service mechanism for reviewing work order status, setting up a scheduling appointment, setting up a scheduling process and prioritizing vehicles that have scheduled their maintenance appointments in advance and analyzing optimal staffing levels of assistant fleet technician positions.

Fleet and city management agreed to all 10 recommendations, and we're more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council President Pro Timley and members of the Council.

I am Michira Little, Director of the Department of General Services.

Thank you for the opportunity to briefly provide an update on our progress.

As noted by the auditors team, there were 10 recommendations.

Of those 10, we have completed two.

1.1 designation of fleet coordinators and 1.3 leading routine meetings with relevant city departments.

We also anticipate anticipate closing two recommendations within the next few weeks.

And I'd like to take a brief time to update you on our progress on a few of the remaining recommendations as well as other items noted in the auditor's report.

As noted by the audit team, the growth of fleet staff has not kept pace with the growth of the vehicles in the fleet.

We currently have over 5,000 active vehicles and equipment in the fleet, with over 1,700 vehicles assigned to our largest repair facility located at Choyas Operations Yard.

Though staff growth rate has lagged fleet growth, we remain committed to finding innovative solutions within our existing resources to address these challenges.

Since completion of the audit, we have made remarkable progress in our basic inspection of terminal compliance rate.

For those departments with more than 100 vehicles subject to bid inspection, our current compliance rate is 91%.

This progress is attributed to improvements in work order assignment, internal process improvements, and our technicians who have been willing to work periodically on weekends.

I want to take this time to thank their entire team for their commitment to keeping our vehicles operating safely and in compliance.

In addition to improvements and bid inspection completion, fleet has continued to lead routine meetings with most city departments, including public utilities departments, stormwater, transportation, parks, and rec to discuss current fleet issues and concerns holistically.

The fleet operations dashboard created by PANDA is used to facilitate most of the meeting.

During our departmental meetings, all aspects of the fleet operations from upcoming bid inspections, repair and maintenance, and vehicle acquisition and delivery timelines are discussed with our customer departments.

High priority concerns are addressed on the spot and often resolved during the meeting.

All departments also have access to the dashboard and can view the status of all of their vehicles at any time.

We have received positive feedback from the departments on this initiative.

We are continuing to work with PANDA to further develop the dashboard to include preventive maintenance as well as vehicle acquisitions.

In addition to the auditor's recommendation 2.5 to conduct an analysis of fleet staff required to complete PMs timely for choice operations yard, we are currently in discussion with our REOs to shift our operating days and hours, allowing us to service vehicles when they are not in use.

This model increases access to customer vehicles and reduces downtime.

Lastly, we're currently conducting a base-based analysis to determine additional spaces required to keep up with our growing fleet.

After both the staff analysis and base-based analysis are completed, we may request an allocation of resources to properly manage our fleet and perform PMs more timely, thereby decreasing repairs and ensuring the departments is meeting the needs of all city departments.

I'd like to end my comments by thanking Andy and his team for their professionalism throughout the process.

We appreciate the auditors' insights and look forward to working through the remainder of the recommendations presented here to stay today.

My staff and I are available to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Clerk.

Can we proceed with any public comment?

Yes.

This time it is.

Paul.

And you have time seated to you by Tim Douglas.

So you will have uh four minutes.

No one else.

Good afternoon.

Paul Garvey, Vice President of ASPE Local 127 and the Fleet Technician within the Fleet Operations Division.

Within the Fleet Operations Division of the Department of General Services, we have approximately 150 bargaining unit members.

The job classification, fleet technicians, master fleet technicians, and fleet team leaders.

Those classifications perform essential work, including making repairs, parts replacement, adjustments, performing diagnostic, preventative and corrective maintenance on city vehicles, generating and maintaining vehicle equipment maintenance records.

In short, our members know the city vehicles inside and out.

The number of fleet technicians has not kept pace with the growth of the city's fleet.

Require implementing all agreed recommendations before meeting and conferring over the schedule change at Choice Operations Yard.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, the five-minute timer going to those participating remotely, starting with the original.

If you can please unmute, you will have two minutes.

Yeah, this is sad because this is showing you know more of your negligence as far as contracting goes.

I mean, you know, it's it's kind of a you know, two-way street as far as things happening, but when you guys increase the amount of, you know, um vehicles that you have in your fleet and the company that is supposed to be maintaining it, you know, can't keep up with it because that wasn't even in the contract in the first place.

So, you know, you can't put the blame on them as though you know it's their fault that you know all of this is taking place and they can't keep up.

I'm sure there's things that they could do to mitigate, but if you also have city employees who are not, you know, put bringing in their vehicles on time to be maintained, especially for things that um are going to keep them from needing maintenance in the future.

Um it defeats the purpose of them, you know, even being contracted to do it because you guys are always gonna make it so that they're not able to complete their job.

But again, just with this amount of people that you guys have or amount of vehicles that you have increased, it's just I mean, you should have made sure when you were going to increase that amount that this um fleet management was going to be able to take care of it, that they were gonna be able to maintain the vehicles you got, otherwise you're you're wasting money by buying these vehicles, and then when they can't be maintained for whatever reason, you know, it's like there's just it costs more and more money.

So I mean, it's just ridiculous the things that take place and you know how much I don't know if it's just that there's so many silos and nobody's communicating, and so all of this stuff can take place and intentionally so, you know, or you know, what's going on?

And I it's good that you guys are looking at it, but this has got to stop because this happens on a regular basis, and it's the people that pay the price because you always come after us to make up for your negligence because you need more money.

Your time has concluded.

Uh Blair Beekman and after Blair Binkman 7499.

Please proceed.

Hi, uh Blair Beekman.

Thanks for this item.

Thanks for the previous words by um DRA.

Um yeah, um, I'm curious with this sort of item.

Is it related to that was spoken on the on the previous item all together from this one?

Uh uh the uh uh projects about um six million dollars in additional funding for rental things.

Is that is that related to this item at all?

Um and uh because it's curious.

This item comes up recently a lot, and I'm I'm I'm wondering why it has been coming up, what is relation to the budget is and and such.

So um be real cautious with this item.

I hope we can do some good important things with it.

It could be a good sign of how to be building our good future, a more energy efficient future, but uh we have to do it in good terms.

And uh I hope we're learning how to do more accountable good terms together openly and clearly.

Um, for as much as the city council needed to comment on what past recent practices have been, and over the past 10 years, you know, city staff wants to make changes, and I want to, I don't want to uh I want to compliment them on wanting to try to make changes, and I hope they can be open to those changes.

Uh what DRA was just saying, what council von Wolper was saying, you know, you guys uh city staff has to report to city council when they make changes to budgeting to to project planning.

Um so we're learning those better levels of communication at this time that I felt were a serious problem when I first moved here in 2022.

I feel we're working on it.

We are trying to improve those things.

We're trying to get out of an era of war, basically, where you know, money and secrecy and budgeting was just all private and and internal.

We're trying to open that up and be more accountable with each other.

Good luck on our efforts to do that.

I think we are trying.

Good luck with deciding if we're doing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Your time has concluded as well.

7499, if you can please unmute Bob Kazuski here.

Now I can say that both of these last two items further highlight the mismanagement that is endemic throughout the city.

Years ago, I said that the Tory Pines glider port was just a tiny sample, tiny sample of the gross mismanagement throughout this city.

Today's issues have proven me correct.

I'll again assert that advisory boards are a cost-effective way for citizens to help out with the with the very difficult job of managing a huge city as you do.

And I see no reason why advisory boards shouldn't be used in all areas of the city, so that citizens who are experts in those areas can come and participate and contribute their knowledge and their background and their independence to overseeing what goes on in this city.

Shame on you, Joe LaCaba, for not doing that with the Tory Pine City Park Advisory Board.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes all the public comment for this item.

Thank you to the public for their comments.

Uh, we'll turn next to the council members for questions, comments.

Uh, this is again an informational item only, so no motion is required.

We'll start with uh the chair of our audit committee, Councilmember Moreno.

Uh thank you for the presentation and also thank you to the auditor's office for your excellent work on this audit.

Uh we did have a lengthy discussion on this audit um at committee back in February, leading up to what was gonna be, I think a very difficult budget.

Um I was very concerned about the inefficiencies found by the auditor that ended up needlessly costing taxpayers more than it should to maintain the city's fleet.

Uh, when the city invests in buying or leasing a vehicle of some type, um, it's critical that it's receiving regular preventative maintenance.

Now, if we don't do that, we're decreasing the value of the life of the vehicle.

This increases the repair costs and waste time for the employee who's driving the vehicle as well as the employees who repair the vehicles because instead of simply having preventative repairs, they have to spend much more time doing major repairs.

In addition, um, this results in a greater need for rental cars, which is an additional cost, and ultimately lowers the level of service provided to the public.

In fiscal year 23, it cost the city 2.2 million dollars to prevent to perform preventative maintenance on 3,918 vehicles, and 19.3 million to do repairs on 3,897 vehicles.

Um what were the costs in fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25 related to preventative maintenance versus repair costs that were not proactive repairs?

Thank you for the question, Councilmember.

In fiscal year 2024, we had uh 2.5 million spent on PMs and 23.2 million spent on repairs.

25, it was 3.3 million on PMs and 26.2 million on repairs.

And that's with that, I just also like to highlight by nature PMs uh are less cost expensive, right, than repairs.

Also, from that, as our fleet increases and parts increases, uh, you will see that costs increase as well as we're doing more PMs and finding more repairs and adding to the fleet that costs does increase over the years.

Can you explain to the public what PM?

Oh, that's preventative maintenance, sorry.

Thank you.

Um thank you for the for that answer.

Uh now, although costs fluctuate year to year, um, it does appear we could save a significant amount per year in repair costs if we simply brought our vehicles in for regular maintenance instead of waiting for a problem to happen.

Uh does the department have an estimate on how much of the $19 million in repairs in fiscal year 23 could have been reduced if preventative maintenance had been performed?

Thank you again.

For the question, Councilmember, no, that is not a data point that we provide uh that we track for PMs.

Okay, thank you.

Well, um, conservatively, even if repairs costs were only reduced by one million dollars, that is another million that could be used for other purposes in the budget.

Uh it was mentioned libraries and um I'll throw in park and rec programming.

I saw in the management's response that proactive repairs increased in fiscal year 25.

Did the department see a decrease in the need for vehicle repairs directly related to lack of preventative maintenance?

Or do you see this trend continuing for fiscal year 26?

So, Councilmember, what happened?

Uh, we have been conducting more, as you heard earlier in my comments, inspections, bit or safety inspections as well as preventative maintenance.

So that has led to being able to complete more of those predictive, proactive repairs that the management was alluding to in our response.

So it's it's just to um just to reiterate, it's the ongoing work that you guys are doing proactively that there was a why there was an uptick.

Yes, completing more uh bid inspections as well as more preventative maintenance uh leading to the increase.

Do you see this trend continuing?

Are you guys continuing to uh provide more inspections than have been done in the past?

Yes, the work we've done with uh coordinating with our customer departments and in our monthly and quarterly meetings, departments are now bringing in their P their vehicles uh timely, and we are working to complete those uh sometimes over the weekends as we can within our overtime budget, but those uh meetings as well as the dashboard uh with more visibility on the status of the vehicles is also uh attributing to that increase that you're seeing.

So you do see the trend continuing.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, does the department management get notified when a monitor goes off in a vehicle indicating the need for repair like we have in our oil uh car oil change um or check engine?

If so, is there a procedure in place that would also notify fleet?

Management does not get uh notified of that, but the operator of that vehicle is required uh for pre-trip inspections, and if there's a light or gauge or something that's out of compliance and they're required to bring that vehicle in for us immediately so we can diagnose and repair the vehicle.

So this is something the individual department needs to follow up on their own.

That's correct.

Wonderful, thank you.

Recommendation 2.4 says that fleet should prioritize schedule scheduled appointments over unscheduled appointments.

However, the audit found that while the fleet focused system has the capacity to set up an appointment system, it has not been set up for departments to schedule maintenance in advance.

Uh, can fleet management clarify what process you have, what what you've done since at least February to allow departments to be able to schedule an appointment in advance?

What we are doing uh is through our routine meetings as well as visibility of the dashboard.

We are coordinating with the city departments on which vehicles are due for PMs and and bit inspections and coordinating with them which vehicles are required to be brought in so such that we can complete those within compliance.

We're not using that functionaling, that scheduling function within the fleet focus yet because there are some requirements that we have to uh complete to be able to fully turn on that uh feature, but we are through our routine meetings having the discussion and scheduling either by phone or by email for the departments to bring in the vehicles.

We are on track uh for I think at by the end of the calendar year to implement that uh recommendation with the scheduling feature in fleet focus.

Okay.

This is a question I had.

Is there a list of all the vehicles we have?

There is a list.

Okay.

And departments on the fleet dashboard can drill down to where they can see only their vehicles as well as the status of those vehicles, whether there's a work open work order, whether it's due for bid inspections, where there's overdue for uh bid inspections for each of those vehicles, they can see that.

And you have a master copy of everybody's vehicle.

Yes, my myself and my fleet team can see all of the vehicles uh in the fleet.

Okay, so right now you're relying on the department director to bring in the vehicle based on my my fleet manager is coordinating with the department's fleet coordinators on which uh vehicles are due for PMs as well as bid inspections, and then we're making appointments outside of that.

They're bringing it in based upon the conversations with the fleet managers using a dashboard on what's due and what's uh coming due within the fleet.

Now I will recognize I am not on the operation side of the city of San Diego, but that look sounds like a whole lot of work, and it sounds like work that tech we have technology right now, we have a system.

Um it just it seems like a lot of work, but thank you for answering that.

Um recommendation 2.5 says fleet should conduct an analysis to determine the optimal share of the assistant fleet technician position, out of service professional position, and or their ability to more strategically target their time to help achieve preventative maintenance goals timely and efficiently.

Uh the audit also found that fleet completes most preventative maintenance services in less than a day.

Um I believe this.

I know that the personnel we have in place are very good at their job.

Uh but when the process is not streamlined as the recommendation in the audit would accomplish, leads to delays where a vehicle sits on the lot for days if it can't be replaced.

Think of having to order a part.

We've all been, you know, to the mechanic.

Um this is obviously not the fault of our technician who performs the repairs.

Uh, this is the failure of management to have an issue efficient system in place.

What is the current timeline to conduct the cost analysis uh to conduct the cost benefit analysis recommended in recommendation 2.5.

Uh, is this still expected by the end of the year?

Yes, we are still on track with that recommendation.

Thank you.

If I may have my three more minutes, um it's clear to me that one of the things we likely need to do is hire more technicians because the number of staff has not kept up with the growth of the city's fleet.

Um, if we do that, more vehicles would get repaired faster.

Uh, the cost of hiring more technicians would probably be offset by the avoided cost of having to do less major repairs on vehicles.

Hiring additional technicians should be the main way the management addresses this staffing the staffing issues.

Thank you again, Councilmember, for the question.

I think Alia, I mean Claudia, excuse me, alluded to this in her uh previous uh comments regarding her rental contracts.

There are improvements that through the new process for her rental approvement and uh process that the uh the city is uh undertaking.

Um right now for the two-year period of the contract, we project that there will be three percent of vehicles that will be rented due to vehicles being down in the shop.

Uh, but as currently we do not have that calls for FY25.

Okay, thank you for that.

And I don't Andy, if you have an answer to that.

Sure.

Um we we do not have an answer to that this time, but as you know, uh we have an audit on our work plan this year of vehicle rental contracts, so HERC and any others that we have, and so that's you know, certainly something we'll consider looking into.

Wonderful, thank you.

Um, this is another cost that could be decreased by implementing the recommendations in this audit, and I would request that staff follow up um with my office on that number.

What you gave us the three percent um just to be clear.

Um I do look forward to all the recommendations being implemented.

Truly believe there could be some significant cost savings if we can get buy-in from the department to take preventative maintenance uh maintenance seriously over the long term.

Uh we also need to make sure that management is working cooperatively with our uh represented employees to ensure that the department is properly staffed.

Um I think it's been my second year as the audit chair.

Um three years in total.

Uh and I just I want to bring up the fact that um I truly appreciate um audits that let us at let at least the council know what's going on on the operation side.

Um I think the audit presents recommendations, which you guys did.

You guys are not in operations, right?

You're not management.

Um, and so if we were if management was doing uh things um in a productive manner, then the audit would show that there's nothing wrong and we can move right along.

When we see something wrong, we have to do something about it.

And I think it's um I think it is very uh it's an opportunity to do better.

Feels really weird to say this, but it's an opportunity to do better.

We should not shy away from being told that the way that we're doing it doesn't work or that it's costing taxpayer dollars more money.

This is a way I think that we can move forward, and um, I appreciated this audit.

It was very enlightening.

It's it's a lot of money, and it's not my money, it's not our money, it's taxpayers' money.

So with that, thank you for allowing me to go a little over.

But uh thank you guys for this audit.

Thank you.

We'll turn next to Councilmember Ila Rivera.

All right, uh, thank you, Council President Pro Tem, Andy, as always, thank you to you and the team for your work.

I always appreciate it.

Um Councilmember Moreno dove in um deeba she always does as the audit committee chair.

Um start with this question and then I'll I'll um circle back to another um from the recommendations that have and this is for staff, whoever um would like to answer it.

The recommendations um that are agreed upon but not yet implemented.

Uh, can we walk through timeline and uh any barriers the council needs to be aware of in the implementation of those changes?

I'll start with this question and then I'll I'll um circle back to another um from the recommendations that have and this is for staff whoever um would like to answer it the recommendations um that are agreed upon but not yet implemented uh can we walk through timeline and uh any barriers the council needs to be aware of in the implementation of those changes thank you council member for the question we have completed two of those recommendations uh there are two that uh since the time that the auditor uh reported our status that we are in the process of completing that is audit uh recommendations 1.3 and 2.2 um and i'll just read those really quickly one point three is uh again regular regularly schedule meetings um and one point one which we've completed is related to fleet coordinators one point two we estimate that we will complete within the next few weeks and this is uh just updating our fleet coordinators and contact lists within all the city departments so they can receive notifications um and then recommendation 2.2 we're also scheduled to complete within the next few weeks that is also related to actually um updating the the departments in the fleet dashboard ensuring they have visibility of all of their vehicles within the fleet um the rest of the remaining recommendations we are on track to complete either by end of the calendar year or by June 2026 which is the latest that we uh have an audit recommendation that will be implemented and due got it thank thank you for that um so understanding is that APSME is being asked to meet and confer in response to this audit um that's not one of the recommendations necessarily can you explain to us why that's happening prior to the implementation of all the recommendations being complete well uh council member one of the issues uh I think that was noted in the auditors report was that departments hesitation to bring vehicles in uh as they are needed for use um so we wanted to be we wanted to take a look at what it were would require to have those vehicles brought in when there's not an operational impact to the the departments we know that all city departments do not have a bench of vehicles such that if you're taking a patch truck out of uh of the fleet for PMs or inspection then that that's operational impact so we were looking at ways that we could service vehicles when they're not in use by the city departments and that it was not a audit recommendation but it was something that internally through the department we thought that based upon what we're seeing and hearing from the departments that we would work with our uh unions to pursue got it okay um councilmember Moreno made the point about ensuring that we are able to maintain the workforce that we have it's taken a lot to um get those folks as you know get those folks hired to retain them uh we don't want to lose them um unnecessarily so I think bringing them into the fold for problem solving um prior to um formally requesting a meet and confer uh session strongly recommended for me um you all are on the operation side so you can do with that what you will um to that point Andy I and I know we we uh talked about this a little bit during the the briefing but I I think this audit maybe more than any other that I've seen I think really could have benefited from conversation with APSME and and um and perhaps MEA as well um to have a 360 degree thorough analysis not just of of problems but potential solutions I think getting the voice of the workers who are doing that work would be incredibly valuable and so um I do I do hope that um in the future when there are items like this that are so operational in nature that we have conversations with the folks who are doing doing that work to the greatest extent possible and I I certainly hope that management would make those um those workers and uh available to the extent possible and then certainly we've got representatives um uh by way of the the REOs um and that's that's what they're they're there to do um we just heard from an expert uh who is who's doing some of this work um about uh there's just a very important important vantage point there and I I want to make sure that's included uh in the conversation to the greatest extent possible uh but as always thank you again for all of your work uh to the audit team we appreciate you thank you Council President Protect thank you we'll turn next to council member von Wilbert um thank you um to the audit dean for your work and your presentation on this my colleagues asked a lot of the questions um you know and I I'm particularly concerned of course about making sure that our workers

Um we just heard from an expert uh who is who's doing some of this work um about uh there's just a very important important vantage point there, and I I want to make sure that's included uh in the conversation to the greatest extent possible.

Uh but as always, thank you again for all of your work uh to the audit team.

We appreciate you.

Uh thank you, Council President Protect.

Thank you.

We'll turn next to Councilmember von Wolpert.

Um thank you to the audit dean for your work and your presentation on this.

Um my colleagues asked a lot of the questions.

Um, you know, and I I'm particularly concerned, of course, about making sure that our workers are included in these discussions.

And so they're the ones actually doing the maintenance work.

And I'm wondering, you know, how much involvement did AFSME 127 or MEA have in the audit.

So this audit was was, you know, we used a lot of the data to identify the causes of the delays, right?

Like 88%, and that's why we point out 88% of the time there's a delay once the vehicle's been brought in.

Um, it's due to lack of labor, and that's why we make recommendations on um, you know, taking a look at their staffing levels, especially for assistant fleet technician.

Um we didn't engage them directly.

We have um before when we do audits that look at um, you know, kind of on the ground work conditions, like you may recall uh the strategic human capital audit from a few years ago where we recommended um uh compensation philosophy for the city, workforce reports, things like that.

Um but definitely happy to you know consider that as a checkpoint on audits going forward, um, you know, when it seems like it's relevant to those groups.

Yeah, I I to I think you should honestly.

I mean, is the workers are the ones who also might be seeing it day in, day out and have ideas or thoughts or problems that management doesn't know about, or are they reported to management, they may not report it to you.

Um, and so I wouldn't engage the workers because you guys are the ones who see every day what you're struggling with, and um before this audit comes out and suddenly ideas are handed to them, it'd be better if they could be participating in it before a meet and confer is triggered because I think you know, morale is hard right now.

The city doesn't pay as much as we should to these workers, and they're working very hard, and so I think it'd be a huge morale boost if people would engage them before these things are published about them.

Council member, I know you'd ask me a question, but I just wanted to clarify that.

So we we did have conversations with our staff uh in our routine meetings, but because of the meet and confer process, we could not devolve the details of what we're considering.

What we did have conversations with all of our fleet technicians just at choice repair facility because that's the only place we're looking to implement this change.

Um, but because of that process, we could not provide all of the details of them, but we did let them know we solicited feedback from them as well as, but we could not follow once we got closer to that process and actually issued the notice.

Uh, we can could not devote all of the details of that until we actually go into meet and confer.

Okay, I mean understood, you know, I was a labor lawyer before this, and I was on the DCA's negotiating team when I was a deputy city attorney, and there could have been a waste where you didn't even need to get to meet and confer.

You know, if you had more open conversation with the workers, then you wouldn't need to necessarily go to the foral meet and confer process.

Um, so I just uh I just communicate with the folks actually doing this work, and I like to see that in the audits going forward because you know we have a lot of uh different ideas.

I used to work uh for uh a congress member who used to bring in you know UAW and Ford, for example, to the office, and they'd talk together, they have a joint management employee task force and they talk about issues as they came up.

Eventually things would happen where they'd have to go to the National Relations Board or others, but I just I see this on so many levels, and I don't see the city doing it.

I never really have, and so I think asking the workers more what they think before problems go to meet and confer would be a really beneficial idea.

Um I also have a question about our public safety fleet.

Uh so is Othello now the operational area where we're gonna fix fire trucks and other things.

We had so many problems with that real estate transaction, but as far as I know, it's up and running.

It is up and running.

It is up there okay.

Because we can't have fire apparatus not responding to 911 calls.

Um, it's very different than uh and same thing with police cars.

Um are we prioritizing our public safety fleet when things need to get fixed?

Yes, we are.

I invite our deputy director to talk a little bit more about that if you like to hear more about Colonel Mason, how we're uh repairing our fleet there.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council members.

Mike Simon's a deputy director for fleet operations.

So, yes, the the fleet operations department is divided between police, fire, ESD, and then the remaining fleet, which would be transportation PUD.

Each repair facility has its own staff, their own people that work on it, and their own priorities.

So yes, and bless you.

So as you can imagine, it is a lot of it is seasonal when it's warm, um, resources are diverted to fire, any help that they need.

Um you also have uh transportation, things like that, their number one priority all the time.

So every day is basically a dance between what's the priority for the day.

But yes, all of those repair facilities have their own staff and they are focused on just that one fleet.

Okay, all right, thank you.

I appreciate that very much.

Um and I think I two more questions.

Why did fleet management take meeting preventative maintenance goals out of your key performance indicators in the city budget this year?

Thank you for the question.

So in previous years, the KPIs were included in the budget, but not reported on because of the maintenance schedules were not accurate.

Uh so we thought that we would take the time to we would take it out of this year's budget and allow time for us to complete those schedules so that we can report it and not simply have it in the budget and not report on it.

Because I think that was one of the things noted that it was in the budget, but it was not actually being reported on it, reported being reported because of the maintenance schedules were not properly aligned to, and so we didn't want to inaccurate reporting or where we were with preventative maintenance.

Okay, so what's the plan for the next budget cycle?

So we are currently working on aligning all of our PMs and vehicles and schedules within our fleet uh management information system, and then we will be adding that to the dashboard that I spoke to earlier, so all the departments can see where we are, and we will be able to report on the status uh instead of annually.

You can near there'll be near uh real-time reporting on that.

So any departments, our DCOs, which we are preparing a quarterly report up to DCOs on everything from PMs to inspection uh and and our compliance.

So once we have that complete, it'll be more in a real-time uh time frame.

Okay, so do you anticipate that being back in the budget on 2026?

Or sorry, we are in FY26, 2027.

In 2027, uh I can I get back with you on that.

I don't know the due date for the KPIs, and I want to make sure we are our work is done for that before we I commit to putting in it back in the budget because it is a lot for us to do to go through all the 5,000 vehicles and then one by one making sure we have the accurate PM schedule in there and for it, but it is something that we're currently working on and adding it to our dashboard.

Excuse me.

Okay.

Have you tried talking to the rental car companies?

Because they have to maintain thousands of cars as well and give them oil changes and tire rotations and we have not reached out to rent a car companies, but that's a thank you for the input.

We could certainly do that.

Yeah, and we have 5,000 of them at the airport.

I said in the airport authority, so I'm happy to make a connection for you there because they have to maintain their fleets too.

So we did have uh routine conversations with the county and as far as how they're managing their fleet, um, but we have not reached out to rent a car companies.

Okay.

So I appreciate the connection.

Okay, thank you.

My last question is about um one of the key the um recommendations.

It was recommendation 1.2 that the auditor made to update the fleet coordinator contact list for maintenance notification, and apparently it's been 248 days, and we still don't have a notification list, like just contacts and names.

So is that happening?

So our first step to that was recommendation one point one identifying fleet coordinators.

Um but with for those departments that are large like public utilities department, we recognize that it's probably not gonna be one person.

So we were getting the contact list of all of those folks uh essentially contacts, additional contacts who would be added to the system, and then uh would receive those notifications.

Again, we are it's just a matter of us closing out the odd the recommendation with the audit team, but that is something that we anticipate closely within the next few weeks.

Okay.

Well, hopefully, I don't know who the deputy chief operating officer is over this, but they should be able to tell the departments to give you the list of people in charge of maintenance of their fleets.

Yes, we we do have the list, it's just the audit us putting it in the system and then closing the recommendation out with the auditors.

Okay, yeah.

All right, well, thank you, and thank you for the audit.

Next up is Councilmember Foster.

Um just a quick question, and um I guess first thank you for the conversations that we're having today.

But you know, as I look at this and we we're doing an audit and isolating fleet per se, right?

Um are we are we able to work?

Well, let me tell you what my concern is.

My concern is everything that I see, I a lot of what I see identified has cost implications, right?

Um, as we talk about vehicle maintenance said impacts.

I'd like to think that as we are talking about inefficiencies, cost impacts, that these are directly or things that are being identified are directly impacting cost of service studies when we talk about enterprise departments, trash and vehicles, as we talk about public utilities and vehicles and equipment.

Is that accurate or am I missing the connection?

I'm I'm not I'm not really following your question, Councilmember.

I'm sorry.

So we are looking at the city's fleet maintenance.

Is this only for general fund vehicles, or does this impact vehicles in our enterprise departments?

Uh, correct, citywide, citywide, not just citywide, right?

Yes.

So as we go through and we are having conversations about cost of service studies, rates increasing, so on and so forth.

Are the inefficiencies that we are seeing here?

Is it safe to assume that those are directly impacting, as we say, costs are escalating, which is why we are increasing rates and doing certain things.

Is it safe to say that this does impact those conversations and discussions?

I don't know what percent of those enterprise funds are related to vehicle costs alone.

Um, and we weren't able to put an exact number on, hey, because we're not doing preventive maintenance on time, that's likely increasing our long-term maintenance cost 25%.

But it's safe to say, yes, by not doing preventive maintenance on time, it is increasing total vehicle costs, including for more significant maintenance that would need to be done because the the preventive maintenance wasn't done, could be also driving increased use of the rental contract that we've already talked about today.

Um so I don't have an exact number for you and what percent of those departments' budgets that would add up to.

But it's safe to say that it would have some kind of an impact, yes.

Okay.

And so my next question will be as we are looking ahead and we are looking at what our rental is we're going through an audit you mentioned it earlier, as we are looking at her.

Are we taking those things into account to where we can start looking and isolating enterprise departments and impacts as we are continuing to have these very challenging and difficult conversations?

You're talking about on the on the upcoming HERC audit, right?

Yes.

Yeah, those are all things that we will take into consideration.

Sometimes there may not be data on certain things for us to look into, but I think looking at an enterprise versus general fund makes sense.

Okay.

Okay.

Um thank you for that.

And I just I I guess I just cannot stress the importance enough is as I've said on this day on numerous occasions, departments understanding their book of business and importance thereof, um, to where as we have these isolated conversations to keep in mind that they do go back and impact our rates, cost of service studies, and what we are going back to our ratepayers and so forth and and having these challenging conversations.

So I just want to stress the importance of as we do these identifying the issues, implementing um the per se um resolutions to those issues, or however we are going to proceed.

Um and just make sure that the mayor and uh his team is prioritizing and uh making sure that we are um doing what's in the best interest of our ratepayers, right?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

Uh I see no other speakers on the lights.

Um maybe to bring this home a little bit.

Uh I I think seeing the report actually helped me identify something that we see each year when we talk about the fleet.

Uh typically in our budget is the 4900 vehicles and a total replacement value of 437 million dollars, I think is what was identified.

That is a significant amount.

I mean, that's almost closing on a half a billion dollars of vehicles that we were responsible for.

And so when we talk about maintenance and the cost, uh that's a that's that's a degree in which I think Councilmember Moreno mentioned early on, even saving a million dollars or two here or there when it comes to repairs is a huge amount that in a year when we were struggling to fight over small things, what we think are might be small things, and our budget has a tremendous impact.

Um we get asked by residents a lot in the city about different things that we're facing.

I was at the Mara Mesa Street Fair this last um weekend, and I just want to be open.

I mean, one of the questions that I was asked about was the city's decision to implement the collection of trash and collecting a fee for that.

And I think this actually ties a little bit into what council member Foster just pointed out, which is for example, as the city is setting up a new fee and system when it comes to collecting trash.

I'd like to think that what we were setting up is also a system that will not encounter the same degree of maintenance backlogs to its fleet as we see across our general sort of funded fleet services today.

I know the audit doesn't point that out, but when we are setting case rates for water, for trash, for other services that are in these um enterprise departments, we are telling voters and we are telling residents that the fees that they are being charged are to help uphold a service at the level at which we believe is necessary for us to deliver to the public.

And so I'd point this out because one of the examples of my discussions with residents is about trash trucks.

We've discussed that trash trucks in the city of San Diego are running in some cases 12 years when they really have an eight-year life cycle, that many of our vehicles are underfunded, our current maintenance of our vehicles is underfunded and understaffed, and that has a significant impact on our ability to deliver service.

These are things that I frankly think that every single day our residents are actually not, they're not hearing, they don't know is an actual challenge in the city because that connects directly to the services that they are concerned about.

Um, so to Councilmember Foster's point, I I do think that separation between general fund and enterprise is really important because for those enterprise departments, I would like to think that we are sufficiently staffed when it comes to technicians.

But and again, I don't know that the audit necessarily points that out.

Um but I'm gonna guess that if that is still a problem even in those enterprise funded departments, then we have a we have a pretty severe issue.

And if in enterprise funded departments we are not seeing the same backlogs, then that means that we are currently masking the degree at which our general fleet is underfunded.

Um I appreciate Councilmember Von Wilbert calling out the KPIs, and sure, I I just want to thank you for just being honest about that because I think when we saw the in the audit report, the fact that we've included these APIs for a number of years but never reported on them.

Um yes, I I will agree that report um having the KPIs in the budget and then never hearing the results of it is not that helpful.

Um but at the same point, I I do think we would do want to see those return back into the budget because they serve a purpose in actually tracking our progress moving forward.

Um I look at this audit, the main problem that I see behind all of this is on the slide that talks about the shortage of fleet technicians.

I don't think there's anything other than that one single line that defines the entire challenge the city faces.

When you look at the change from 2021 to 2025, when our fleet technicians went uh from overseeing 34 vehicles on average to 39, I think that tells that the entire story that we know.

So you look at every other backlog that we've got, other improvement opportunities, that's all wonderful.

Um I think we you saw some questions or heard some questions about where we are in terms of fleet coordinators to this point since the recommendations were adopted.

I I think it's important for us to get an update as to where they actually are.

I'll admit it sounds like it's taking much longer than it should be just to collect contact information to update folks on where things are.

But behind all of this, I think is the true challenge, which is that the city is severely short on fleet technician fleet technicians, and that is leading directly into our shortfall uh in terms of maintaining the schedule that we need for vehicles.

Uh the only way I see us truly turning the corner on that is to actually add additional technicians and to consider the trade-off in our budgets when we talk about short-term needs versus long-term cost of the city.

And again, I think when we look at enterprise funded departments, that gives us an example.

There should not be a single enterprise funded department that is not fully funded for its fleet needs because the shortfall that we see there translates directly into the next cost for ratepayers for water for trash or anything else.

So if we're making those long-term decisions, they should be fully funded to the necessity that they have to provide those services.

And I'm not going to opine on whether that might add any ability from a schedule standpoint.

I think the auditor pointed out that there are actually a lot of other challenges as they exist already in terms of when vehicles are brought in that contribute to the timeline.

But I will say that I am not a believer that adding weekends into the schedule would actually change anything if there are no actual people that are being added with it.

If we're just shifting the time frames in which people are working to the weekends, frankly, I'm not sure how other employees are going to drop off vehicles on weekends unless they're a department that is consistently working then.

I I'm not sure that's actually I don't see where the resolution to that is if it doesn't actually add hours for the work to actually take place.

So appreciate the audit.

I just think beyond the the simple recommendations that we see here, that certainly makes sense to all of us is this deeper rooted issue of building up the number of technicians that we need to do the job appropriately.

And I say this because I think as a reminder, as we go out talking to the public and we talk about the shortfalls that the city has, when it comes to potholes, repairing streets, why the trash isn't getting picked up, it actually all comes back to having people.

It's not just the people doing those jobs, but it's the people ensuring that the vehicles that the city is purchasing and spending tons of money on can actually stay out on the street to do the job.

So that's a message we got to get across because again, if we want to change that, we're gonna need an investment from those very people and the trust from them that will complete that job.

So thank you, Andy again to you and just to clarify, Councilmember, I I think you I think you already know this, but we didn't recommend changing the schedule.

We recommended scheduling appointments to kind of smooth out their workload and also looking at adding certain classifications of employees to help with the with the workload as well.

Yeah, I I certainly understood that.

I think because we heard from the department that there was a consideration that that might be something that is being discussed.

I mean, I'll say very upfront that I don't see that being resolved without actually having more people.

Sure.

I would just like to provide a comment on the weekends.

So what we have going on right now is I have volunteers that will work over time on a Saturday at choice.

Uh averaging 44 p.m.

on a Saturday, just at Choice Division.

If I have a Sunday as well, that's almost a hundred p.m.

that I can get on a weekend because if transportation is out paving a street and they have eight vehicles, they need to do it, they're not gonna turn in the one if they need all eight.

So what we tried to do would come up with a way that it's one weekend day, they get a 410 plan that will get three days off.

I have other departments or other repair facilities where they work five days a week.

The other technicians would love to have a 410 schedule.

And it was just trying to figure a way to get more labor hours that wouldn't.

I have departments that work five days a week.

That's all we were trying to do with that.

Well, certainly look forward to, I'm sure you'll be talking to folks about what the potential for implementation is.

Um, I think for me it does again just come down to beyond just having those hours having the actual capacity to to do the work.

And I imagine there are a lot of complications to looking at both adding Saturdays and Sundays if we're already looking at overtime for one of them or I'm gonna imagine it's even more challenging uh to shift that from overtime to requiring that those are the actual days that people work.

So um seeing no other comments from colleagues, um, that does bring us to the end of this item as well.

Thank you to the Office of the City Auditor for both presentations.

And with that, uh, we will now take up non-agenda public comment.

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

Clerk, will you please proceed with non-agenda public comment?

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Per rule 2.7 non-agenda public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to comment on items that are not on the agenda, but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council, each speaker will have two minutes.

Please note if there are more than eight speakers on a single topic.

The time will be 16 minutes.

If you are in chambers, please submit your speaker slip.

If you are joining us virtually, please raise your hand by tapping the raise your hand icon, or if you're a call-in participant star nine hearing chambers, we have Suzanne Till.

If you'd please come up to the podium, you will have two minutes when you're ready.

Good afternoon.

My name is Suzanne Chill.

I'm director for Division II, Padre Dam Municipal Water District.

Today, though, I am speaking as a private citizen of San Diego County.

Last week, the City of San Diego displayed a bar graph itemizing average monthly water bills for the San Diego County Water Agency.

The City of San Diego did not contact Padre Dam MWD for data for this graph.

I request the City of San Diego to release the data and the methods used to create this bar graph.

Last week's proposed 63% water and 31% sewer rate increases are unnecessary.

Why?

In my opinion, the rate hikes are due primarily to failed business transactions produced by the San Diego County Water Authority.

For example, the San Diego County Water Authority, take or pay contract for desalinated water, guarantees each year more profit for private investors in Europe.

Consequently, the City of San Diego's proposed double digit water rate hikes will provide more profit for foreign investors at the expense of San Diego residents and voters.

There are affordable alternatives to these rate hikes.

Padre Dam Municipal Water District five-year business plan guarantees a zero, I repeat, zero percent water and sewer rate increase for 2023 to 2027.

I encourage the San Diego City Council to meet with Padre Dam MWB, Padre Dam MWD, and City of San Diego can, in the spirit of bipartisanship, examine and discuss the range of alternatives to ever increasing water and sewer rate hikes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I sorry the five-minute timer going to those participating remotely.

We currently have seven people in the queue.

Francine Maxwell, if you can please unmute.

Good afternoon.

Francine Maxwell, Southeastern San Diego resident.

I'm concerned with the lack of attention given by the City of San Diego for the adjournments, especially the public safety committee, when the CPP were excited to see our new commissioners that are being unboarded.

But the fact that the annual report is still in draft form.

The fact that the interim executive director council decides not to follow the city council, and when there's an informational item, allow the public comment to speak on it.

He has decided to use Robert's rules of order incorrectly.

And this is being allowed.

Why doesn't the chair of public safety bring in the community and hold a hearing?

Um is trust going to be on everybody's re-election materials?

Because I'm sure hearing trust come from the diocese more than ever.

You want us to trust you.

You want the community to trust this and that when you know that we literally can do a PRA.

See who you're meeting with, where you're going, and pretty much within two to three phone calls, find out what was done.

And so trust is far, far away from those of you that are sitting on this diocese for the city of San Diego and what you are costing us.

You've done some things that you need to atone to.

Once you begin to apologize and ask for forgiveness, then people can then begin to build trust in our elected officials within the city of San Diego.

CPP is absolutely independent.

And the more the city council continues to say that you can call the mayor's officer, you can't.

It's the city council responsibility to make sure that our CPP is everything that it needs to be.

Thank you.

Next is Blair Beekman.

After that, Megan Stewart and the Million Mile Man.

Blair, please proceed.

Hi, thank you.

Thank you for the previous public comments.

Good luck on the continued work of the commission.

Um, I I wanted to comment that um council has a lot of complaining to do about uh previous practices of contract use issues.

And uh real kudos to all the efforts that council person Bon Wilford has been trying to do for the past few years to bring this to light.

It's now brought to light.

Thank you.

Um you have a lot of work to continue to do.

Good luck in those efforts.

And from that, I'm trying to say we need to acknowledge what we're doing well, and that we are doing some of this new accounting practice as well.

And it's sorely needed.

How we can be addressing the future of our um these are issues of strong mare.

It can drift into that I hope we can keep steady with.

And so I hope the words are taking seriously how we build the future of these practices.

And 9-11 in this country.

So these practices, what we're doing is incredibly important to myself.

Tech accountability is totally a part of that.

The work we do here at the local level asks what they're doing at the national and international level who keep hoistering war.

We have some promises of peace talks, but countries are gearing up to build their economies towards war.

What does that mean for us on the local level?

We're building accountability and peace.

That's what we share with the world, man.

And the world's better listen to what we're doing well right now.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Megan Stewart, if you can please unmute.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Megan Stewart, and I work with youth in the world of public health prevention.

October 10th is World Mental Health Day, which serves to remind us that mental health must be a priority in every policy decision.

I want to draw your attention today to the effects of substance use, particularly marijuana, on youth mental health and to urge stronger protections in how we regulate and promote it.

Dr.

Daniel Aman, psychiatrist and brain imaging specialist reports that in studies comparing about 1,000 marijuana users to over 25,000 non-users using spectr brain imaging, marijuana users showed lower cerebral blood flow across nearly every brain region.

The hippocampus, critical for memory and learning, was especially affected.

These findings challenge the portrayal of marijuana as a harmless substance.

What's especially dangerous is that young adult brains are still under development.

Dr.

Alman warns that when someone begins using marijuana before age 25, it can arrest normal brain maturation.

If you heard it early, he says, it might not ever catch up.

There's also evidence that consistent marijuana use may accelerate brain aging by an estimated three years on average in people with marijuana use disorder.

These harms are not theoretical.

Local surveys show that only 32% of youth believe marijuana is extremely bad or very bad for them, compared to 75% who feel that way about tobacco.

These perceptions matter because when youth see normalizing messages and ads, billboards, or permissive public policy, it weakens prevention efforts.

Not only during this month, but every month, I would like to urge the council to act with courage in protecting the mental health of San Diego youth.

Please strive to adopt strong limits on marijuana advertising, enforce clear restrictions around access for youth, strengthen protections against normalization in public spaces, including promoting smoke-free spaces.

Your time has concluded.

Next is Million Mile Man, if you can please unmute.

Okay, uh I promise I'll keep my composure.

If she's still in the room, she can call me.

We'll talk about it.

But I also agree with Mr.

Foster made a very, very intelligent question, and I completely agree on what he was talking about.

But I'd like to talk about something that you will you'll never believe this, and I have to get it off my chest.

A lady in my neighborhood came over to my house about a year and a half ago, and um I told her, I said, you know, I ride my Peloton bike on my driveway in my thong bikini, and I get a lot of abuse from people, and she said, Don't worry about it, Danny.

I I'm with the Pride Parade, and and I agree with you, and you did pride and you ran in pride, and we're all for you, and don't worry about it.

You can well, anyway, uh a couple days ago on nextdoor.com, the same lady commented on my thong bikini, and she said, no one will vote for you because you you wear that thong bikini on your driveway.

Well, the lady is the partner of Jen Campbell, and my opponent is work for Jen Campbell and is gay and is on the Pride Committee.

And if you don't think that's oh my God.

You know, I've I've seen it all and I've heard it all until until now, but but nothing could be more blatantly disgustingly hypocritical than what I just told you.

And my friends, everything is fair in love and war, and I'll add politics.

Your time has concluded, Madison.

If you can please unmute.

Hi.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Madison, and I'm here tonight to speak in support of Youth Drug Prevention Month and to draw your attention to an important emerging public health concern, which is secondhand exposure to e-cigarette and tobacco smoke among youth.

According to a newly released study from the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey, over 64% of U.S.

students in grades 6 through 12, which amounts to an estimated 18 million children, reported exposure to secondhand e-cigarette or tobacco smoke within the past 30 days.

That means most of our youth are routinely breathing in harmful substances, even if they don't personally use these products.

The study found that secondhand exposure, especially to e-cigarettes, is strongly associated with the early stages of youth e-cigarette use, including increased susceptibility and experimentation.

For example, students exposed to e-cigarette vapor were more than twice as likely to try e-cigarettes compared to those with no exposure.

Though the study didn't find a direct link between secondhand exposure and daily use or quit attempts, the findings are clear.

Exposure drives initiation.

As we recognize October as Youth Prevention Month and prepare for Red Ribbon Week, I urge this council to consider strategies to reduce youth exposure in public spaces, especially parks, schools, and multifamily housing.

We must ensure our local environments protect and not endanger our young people.

By limiting secondhand exposure, we don't just protect lungs, we protect futures.

Thank you for your time and continued commitment to public health.

Thank you.

Next is Barbara Gordon.

After that will be Kathleen Lippett.

This month provides an opportunity to remember the value of prevention.

Prevention, preventing substance use like vaping or marijuana before it starts is a crucial part of a comprehensive approach to addressing our addiction crisis.

Substance use trends in the U.S.

have changed in recent years, especially with the landscape of marijuana, which is the most common substance among our 12 to 25-year-olds, and that is being treated for substance abuse disorder, outpatient or inpatient.

It says in 2024, ER visits linked to marijuana surpassed those driven by opiates, and those related only to marijuana use rose 37% in 2021 to 58% in 2024.

Marijuana use has played a significant role in the overall substance abuse in America.

Vastly more than opiate, cocaine, or meth.

The city must not prioritize marijuana businesses while ignoring the risk factors.

Thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you.

Next is Kathleen Lippett, if you can please unmute after that is the original, and then 7499.

Please proceed.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Lee and committee members.

Those of us who follow public health research celebrated the governor's signing of AB 455, a law requiring sellers of single family residential properties to disclose in writing previous smoking or vaping on the property.

The Department of Toxic Substance Control will update the homeowner's guide to environmental hazards to include information on the dangers of the chemical residue left by smoking.

AD 455 would not have been necessary if a cost benefit analysis of the unintended harmful impacts on the public and the environment had been undertaken.

Public electives and the public would have recognized that the harms from agreeing to a Faustian bargain of trading public health safety and the environment for promised drug revenues were predictable.

The adverse health impacts on the public and the environment will take generations and hundreds of millions of dollars to uncover and even longer to mitigate.

But much of the damage to the lives, the users, their families, communities, and the environmental damage to public parks, state, county, and federal lands may never be remediated.

In accordance with the state's decision to protect the public from the harms of third hand smoke, could be furthered if the city would take similar steps to adopt an ordinance requiring all low-income public and private properties be smoke free.

Thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you, Nexus.

The original, if you can please unmute, then 7499 and 1384 is our final speaker.

The original, I can't unmute for you.

There you go.

Um I wanted to know when you guys are going to audit 10 city.

Um I want to know how many more people are going to need to um die before, like I said earlier today, Shannon Amelia Ball has passed away a couple of weeks ago on Thursday.

She died of a fentanyl overdose.

And she was 49 years old.

And just before that, Sammy Jackson, who's 37, as well died in her tent.

And again, people are being sexually assaulted.

They um, you know, and then and when Shannon died, like the employees are sitting there saying, Don't give her anything, like don't give her Narcan.

She her life could have been saved if they weren't getting instructions that were deadly to the people.

And you guys sit here and you say that you know you're helping homeless people and they're literally dying on your watch, and you're not doing anything about it but laughing.

And I just don't understand that.

It's like, you know, I mean, even the food that they're contracted to give, none of you guys would eat that.

Yet you sit up on that dais and you gloat like you're helping people, and people I mean, seriously, like who else has to die?

Like, how many times do I have to say it and then come back and report that someone else has died?

And it shouldn't be that you know, Stephen is sitting there laughing about it.

These are people's lives who go into those centers thinking that they're going to get help, and they don't, they get stuck there.

And then when something happens, like they're being told to go into a um bathroom and you know give oral sex to an employee because he gave someone drugs and alcohol, and then they're told not to report it.

And then just because they fire someone, that person is roaming the streets.

And this is all because of you guys.

Your time has concluded.

Next 7499, if you can please unmute Bob Kazuski here.

I want to start by saying good job to Councilmember Von Wilpert for holding staff accountable here in council chambers and for not accepting a quote.

We'll get back to you.

Answer.

Councilmember Von Wilpert, if you use that level of passion to dig into the Tory Pine Slider port issue, you will find some surprises.

We've never had a meeting, and I'm hereby requesting a meeting with you, Councilmember Von Wilpert.

The city clerk has my contact information if you should decide to honor that request.

As I mentioned in my earlier comments, today's meeting highlights the gross mismanagement that is endemic throughout this city.

We are seeing it everywhere.

It's in the finance department, it's in the operations department, it's in the contracting department, it's everywhere throughout the city government.

This city needs independent oversight from the top to the bottom.

Former city leaders have recognized this need, and that's why both citizens' committees and advisory boards are provided in the city charter.

The auditor's office has uncovered some shocking things that they've looked into, but the auditor's office can't constantly review and inspect all of the contracts and departments and operations throughout this city.

Furthermore, even the city auditors don't have the expertise to recognize all of the problems that might exist in this city.

Council Member Moreno got it right.

The city does not have that broad expertise.

Also, good job to all public speakers, especially Francine Maxwell.

Very well said.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our final speaker is 1384.

If you can please unmute Ernie Casco, La Jolla resident senior pilot.

$400 annually to use the glider port by threat of violence or else is completely unacceptable under any terms.

In retaliation, I've been assaulted given the deadly wing that collapsed in mid-flight.

My home was invaded, threatened with meth sales, poisoned with a deadly virus, and a biohazard.

Is the city committing genocide?

Because I'm dying with stage four cancer.

It's time to compensate those who have been damaged, falsely accused, and arrested.

The San Diego recreational waiver stops the crime, secures city liabilities, restores our constitutional recreational rights and freedoms back to the original agreement.

I have a petition on ChangeOrg with nearly with over 600, 700 signatures demanding authorities take answers.

Black speech recreational scandal to stop the commercialization and privatization of the San Diego Park.

It's time to end the dispute and implement the San Diego recreational waiver as a solution for Tory Gliderport.

Thank you, Ernie Casco.

Thank you.

And that does conclude non-agenda public comment for today's meeting.

Thank you to the public for their comments.

And I believe that brings us to the end of today's agenda.

So we will now conclude today's meeting and oh yes.

Looking forward first to the city attorney.

Do you have anything to report up?

From closed session.

Yes.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Today in a closed session meeting, the City Council took the following action.

The City Council voted on closed session item number one, Lisa Castro versus City of San Diego, San Diego Superior Court Case number 37, 2023, 55625 C U P O C T L to accept a signed settlement offer in the amount of 115,000.

The motion passed seven to zero with council members Lacava and Moreno absent.

That concludes my report.

Thank you to the city attorney's office.

We'll now adjourn council to the next regularly scheduled council meeting on Tuesday, October 7th, 2025 at 10 o'clock A.M.