Councilmember Foster, Councilmember Von Wilpert.

Councilmember Pro Tem Lee.

Here.

Councilmember Campillo.

Councilmember Moreno.

President.

Councilmember Ela Rivera.

And Council President Lacava.

President.

Also attending the meeting are Chief Deputy City Attorney, Brett Bartelata, Independent Budget Analyst Charles Monica, Council Affairs Advisor in the Mayor's Office, Matt Yagagin, as well as the Mayor.

And myself, your city clerk, Deanna Fuentes.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, City Clerk.

A quorum is now present.

I see a lot of faces of people that may be here for the first time.

And I know there's gonna be a lot of excitement, passion, anger, frustration, and probably every emotion in between.

So before we start today's meeting, I want to remind everyone about the city's practices and procedures for public comment at city council meetings.

The city welcomes public participation at our meetings.

Speakers may address the council during public comment and also in connection with the specific item of business on the agenda.

However, the city must make sure that no one person or group of people disrupt the meeting in a way that prohibits other speakers from expressing their ideas and opinions.

So to make sure that everyone here has the opportunity to address the council, I will alert an individual or individuals if I think their conduct becomes disruptive.

If the disruption continues, I will rule the individual out of order.

And if the disruption continues further, I will declare a 15-minute recess so that we can restore order.

At that point, I will direct the individual to leave the room.

And if the individual refuses, police will escort the individual out of the building.

If we have to repeat this process of warning and recessing, all members of the public will be excused from the council chamber.

Credential media will be allowed to remain.

Once again, we have these practices and procedures to protect the rights of other speakers who wish to address the council and to allow the council to conduct the public's business.

So with that, City Clerk, please go over how the public can offer their testimony.

Thank you, Council President.

I'd like to highlight the slide on the screen that reviews how the public can offer their public testimony during this evening's meeting.

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

There's only one item, so the order is that.

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

Council ambassadors are available near the entrance of chambers as well as in the committee room and can assist you with questions and speaker slips.

If you are in the committee room overflow, please give your speaker slip to one of the council ambassadors within the room, and they will be sure to get it to me.

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

I will note that due to the amount of speakers, it will be one minute per person.

So please begin to plan accordingly.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, City Clerk.

Um, a couple of other notes before we proceed again.

This is a special city council meeting, so there'll be no non-agenda public comment after the initial testimony uh by excuse me after the initial presentation uh by staff.

Um we will then turn to the public for your uh comments.

Um we also do have six people here.

If we hold six, we're gonna be in good shape.

Uh if we drop down to five, I may call short recesses if somebody wants to step out and use the restroom or take a momentary break, but we are not going away.

We will make and keep those briefs.

So um, I do appreciate my colleagues.

This is legislative recess, and you're showing up tonight.

Uh very much appreciated City 24 uh who uh will be televising this as always appreciated.

City clerk staff, I want to do some thank yous early on while we're all here.

And then just as a brief reminder, this is a rescheduled item that was originally gonna be heard last Monday evening, and I think it's still seared into our memory why we canceled that meeting for because of the horrific events of that day, uh, and the three individuals that lost their life uh in defense of children and teachers uh at the school.

Uh so please keep them in mind, family members, friends, and colleagues, community are still grieving uh from that that horrific event and uh our thoughts uh and prayers go out to them, and I appreciate everybody that came together for the various vigils and funerals, etc.

that happened.

So with that, clerk, please introduce item 600.

Thank you, Council President.

Item 600 is an informational item.

It's the May revision to the fiscal year 2027 draft budget and public hearing on the 2027 draft budget.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you.

With that, I'd like to welcome Mayor Todd Gloria to Council Chambers and to get the presentation started.

So, Mayor Gloria, turn it over to you.

Thank you, Council President.

Good evening, Council President, members of the City Council and the San Diegans who are gathered here this evening.

We'll need approximately 15 minutes for our presentation, Council President.

Last month I released a draft budget that directly confronted the city's 118 million dollar structural budget deficit and reflected the difficult financial realities facing our city.

I said then that this would be the beginning of a serious public conversation.

And over the last several weeks, we have heard from residents, labor partners, city employees, community organizations, and members of the city council about how these difficult decisions would affect neighborhoods and services across our city.

The May revise today before you this evening reflects that feedback while maintaining the fiscal discipline that is necessary to put the city on a more stable financial footing.

As you well know, for too long, difficult decisions have been deferred here at the city, and avoiding those hard choices may have been politically easier in the short term, but it is not responsible governing.

This budget continues the work of confronting these challenges directly and honestly while protecting core services that reside residents rely on the most.

I want to acknowledge that since the publication of the May revise, Council President Lakava, Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, and Michael Zuquette for their work in negotiating a legal settlement on the solid waste disposal fee and Balboa Park Parking Program.

The council's support of that settlement helped to avoid an even worse financial outlook for the city, even as it added to the deficit that we must solve for today.

Since releasing the draft budget, modest improvements in our tourism revenue, as well as new legal guidance on regarding the Gulf Enterprise Fund has created limited opportunities for targeted restorations, including restoring rec center hours and library hours in historically underserved communities, supporting youth drop-in centers and violence prevention programs, restoring shoreline park maintenance and December nights operations, and partially restoring the library matching program and the funding and funding traffic safety improvements tied to the city's speed management plan.

These are focused investments in neighborhood services that residents depend on every day.

But difficult trade-offs do remain, and every department has taken reductions, including workforce reductions, and those decisions will undoubtedly impact services across our city.

Wherever possible, we have prioritized reductions away from neighborhood frontline services.

Our responsibility, Council members, is to deliver the best possible services with the resources that we have available to us while continuing to meet our obligations toward public safety, emergency response, and neighborhood services.

This May revise reflects what governing through difficult times require, honesty about trade-offs, fiscal responsibility, and a continued focus on core services.

And the decisions that we will make today will shape not only this year's proposed budget, but San Diego's financial future.

San Diego's expect us to govern responsibly, prioritize core services, and keep this city moving forward.

That remains my focus with this May revise.

With that, I'll turn it over to our chief financial officer, Rolandro Chaval, and the Department of Finance Director Ben Batalia to continue our presentation.

Thank you, Mayor Gloria.

Good evening, Council President La Cava and members of the City Council.

We are here to resent the May revision through the fiscal year 2027 draft budget.

With me is Ben Patalli, the Department of Finance Director, and in the audience or members of the city's leadership team.

By way of overview, the May revise reflects feedback received throughout the budget process from residents, community organizations, advocates, and members of the city council.

The revised budget proposal identifies newly approved funding sources to support targeted restorations while maintaining a balanced budget and stable long-term financial footing for the city.

It also continues to focus on public safety, infrastructure, homelessness solutions, and housing, which we believe are also the overall budget has increased by most San Diego residents.9 million, including $13.5 million in our capital improvement program.

Ben will cover the details of the general fund increase later in the presentation.

So let me focus on some of the other increases.

Enterprise funds are increasing by about $18.29, 18.2 million dollars due to increased electricity needs in the water utility operating fund due to pure water projects that are anticipated to come online in FY27.

And then also additional water purchases from the San Diego County Water Authority based on updated water sales assumptions.

For special revenue funds, they're decreasing by about 20.5 million dollars.

That's mostly due to a reduction in operational appropriations to allow for future budgeting of capital improvement projects in the TOT Convention Center Fund.

Internal service funds are increasing of about 6.1 million, mostly due to increases in the fleet operations and replacement funds for the acquisition of new vehicles and updated fuel costs based on current market conditions.

And finally, there's a $35.6 million dollar increase in the capital improvement program associated mostly with increasing fundings from park restricted sources.

This table shows changes to the general fund revenues comparing the May revision to the draft budget.

Property tax reflects a net decrease of about 1.1 million.

This is primarily due to redevelopment property tax trust fund dollars after we received estimates from the county in April.

Sales tax remains unchanged.

Our transient occupancy tax reflects an increase of about 3.8 million.

This is due to higher than anticipated TOT receipts in both March and April in 2026.

SS 26 serves as the basis for our FY27 projections.

There's a corresponding increase in FY 27.

For franchise fees, revenues reflect an increase of about $700,000.

This is related to increase in anticipated tonnage collected in the sycamore landfill in FY26, which in turn also increases the FY27 revenue base.

Other major revenues reflect the increase in the Gulf Fund land use fee offset by decreased projected investment earnings on pooled cash.

And departmental revenues are increasing by about $7 million, and this is primarily due to increased reimbursements from special promotional TOT and other special funds.

Now focusing on the Gulf Fund revenue, the May revision includes approximately $4.3 million in ongoing general fund revenue through an increase in the rent paid by the Gulf Enterprise Fund for its use of city golf properties.

This is grounded in the fund's strong performance.

Over the last three fiscal years, operating income has totaled more than $14 million annually, and we project a fund balance of approximately $65 million by the end of fiscal year 2026.

At the same time, the golf fund has significant capital needs.

With additional anticipated needs on existing projects, such as completing the Torrey Pines Clubhouse and the Gulf Maintenance Master Plan.

Total medium-term needs reach approximately $216.4 million.

Historically, the fund has relied almost entirely on cash, which means projects wait until cash accumulates.

The May revision proposes incorporating financing so we can accelerate delivery of these CIP projects.

After accounting for new ongoing payment to the general fund, the Gulf fund is projected to retain capacity for about $123 million in bond financing, which combined with $96.4 million in projected cash.

That gives us roughly about $220 million in total funding capacity, enough to deliver the identified near to medium term projects while at the same time maintaining operations, reserves, and debt service.

Because this strategy depends on continued performance of the fund.

The city will monitor revenues, expenditures, reserves, and project timing over the next five years and reassess the ongoing general fund payment on actual results.

With that, I'll hand it over to Ben and he'll cover the rest of the presentation.

Thank you, Rolando.

The May revision includes a consolidation of two programs.

Citywide brush management responsibilities within the right of way will be consolidated within the parks and Recreation department.

Citywide tree maintenance responsibilities will be consolidated within the Transportation department.

And the consolidation of these programs would provide efficiencies in budgeting, planning, and scheduling of work.

Some notable additions in the general fund include $4 million to support potential impacts from ongoing labor negotiations, a million supported by a vegetation management grant in the fire rescue department.

Support for an opioid intervention services team in the police department, funded by opioid settlement funds, and an increase of 100,000 for the No Shots Fired program and 500,000 to support youth drop-in centers.

The increased land use fee payment from the Gulf Enterprise Fund allowed for the partial restoration of library and recreation center hours, preserving service hours in historically underserved communities.

The revised budget includes reduced service hours at nine libraries with no change in service hours at 26 libraries.

There will be a reduction of service hours to 40 hours per week at 24 rec centers and current service hours will be preserved at 39 recreation centers.

The May revision includes a list of all libraries and recreation centers, including current service level hours as well as proposed service hours for fiscal year 2027.

For homelessness programs and services, an addition of $4.9 million will fund the housing instability prevention program, the connections interim shelter and the Bishop Maher Interim Shelter, which were supported by one-time permanent local housing allocation funding in fiscal year 2026, and that funding is no longer available next year.

As a result, in order to maintain these services, additional general fund support is needed.

Additionally, the draft budget included a reduction of $3.8 million for general homelessness services.

The May revision details which services are proposed to be reduced, including central elementary safe parking, 16th and Newton homeless shelter, aerial drive safe parking, and security for the old central library.

Some notable non-general fund adjustments include the addition of 10 positions in the Development Services Fund to support inspections and IT needs.

The road maintenance and rehabilitation fund will support the implementation of the Speed Management Plan, which was recently approved by the City Council, as well as the next street condition assessment.

Finally, we wanted to provide details for the planned use of opioid settlement funding next year.

Approximately $5 million will support homeless shelters, including the Emergency Harm Reduction Shelter and Community Harm Reduction Safe Haven Shelter.

1.1 million will support the continued contract with UCSD's transition support team.

700,000 will support the police department's neighborhood policing divisions intervention services teams training and operations, which will strengthen the city's ability to identify, engage, and connect people struggling with opioid use to life-saving care.

500,000 will provide ongoing support for the prosecution and law enforcement assisted diversion services or PLEDS program, and this is a partnership between the San Diego Police Department, City Attorney's Office, as well as the County of San Diego, and they provide individuals with under the influence of a controlled substance the opportunity to obtain supportive services.

And then finally, 300,000 will support the continued contract with the San Diego LGBT Community Center for substance use disorder treatment services.

The fiscal year 2027 May revision increases the total capital improvements program budget by 35.6 million.

And this brings the total CIP budget for fiscal year 27 to 857.3 million.

This increases largely for parks and rec as well as public utilities projects, and they're primarily supported by restricted funding sources.

The May revision includes 30.8 million allocation for parks and recreation projects from three main funding groups, and this includes the Mission Bay Park Improvements Fund, the San Diego Regional Parks Improvements Fund, as well as impact fees.

A variety of projects were funded from these allocations, and the details are included in the CIP section of the May revision.

The decreases in the transportation department are mainly due to changes in project schedules for utilities undergrounding projects.

There were project schedule updates for two stormwater projects, and these budgets were reallocated to other urgent transportation projects to support construction activities.

The fiscal year 27 May revision maintains a balanced general fund budget with limited restorations as well as investments in the CIP.

We look forward to the City Council's updated budget priorities, which will be summarized in the IBA's report, including budget modification recommendations, which are scheduled to be released on June 2nd and discussed at the budget review committee on June 5th.

The City Council will then consider the adoption of the budget on June 9th.

That concludes our presentation, and we're happy to answer any questions you might have.

Alright, thank you for the presentation.

We'll turn it over now to the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst, Charles Monaco.

Thank you, Council President and Council members, and thank you to Orlando and Ben for the presentation.

I will keep my comments tonight relatively brief because the main purpose of tonight's meeting is to hear directly from the public.

To summarize the May revise at a high level, it identifies additional resources above what was included in the proposed budget, the largest of which are an increase in projected hotel tax revenue was a $4.4 million general fund impact, and $4.3 million in additional ongoing general fund revenue from increased land use fees paid by the golf course fund for the use of general fund owned property.

Those additional resources help support several restorations from the proposed budget.

Most notably, the May revise includes the partial restoration of recreation center hours, restoring $2.9 million and 33 positions from cuts proposed in April.

Under the revised proposal, current hours would be preserved at rec centers in council districts three, four, eight, and nine, along with certain facilities in districts two, five, six, and seven.

Other rec centers would still see reduced hours, but no full recenter closures are being proposed.

The May revise also includes the partial restoration of library hours, as you heard, restoring $941,000 and seven positions.

That restoration would, among other things, preserve North Claremont from full closure and prevent Carmel Valley from receiving a full day service reduction.

It's a worse note that that reduction or this restoration is still partial, however, and a number of branches will continue to see reduced operating schedules.

In addition, the May revise adds approximately 4.9 million dollars in support to maintain existing homelessness programs that were previously assumed to be funded with state housing funds that ultimately were not available.

It is worth acknowledging that initial proposed reductions in the budget still remain in a number of areas.

I know that we will hear from the public tonight about several of those, particularly around arts and culture funding, which is not proposed for restoration of the May revise.

My office will release our final report and recommended budget modifications next week.

That report will provide a more comprehensive review of the May revise, remaining reductions, available resources, and options for council as you move towards final budget adoption on June 9th.

But stepping back, it is worth emphasizing the city's broader fiscal context because it shapes how we should listen to testimony tonight and how we should move forward as a city over the next several years.

The restorations in the May revise are meaningful, but they do not mean that the city's budget problem has been solved.

The city's structural deficit remains, and while progress is being made towards closing it, the underlying mismatch between ongoing revenues and ongoing expenditures continues.

This matters because the service reductions before council are not simply the result of one budget proposal or one difficult budget year, but instead they reflect a problem that has grown over decades.

The city's existing resources are not sufficient to maintain current service levels across all areas, and even after we go through the work needed to balance the operating budget for the upcoming year, the city's infrastructure backlog with a nearly $8 billion funding gap over just the next five years remains far beyond what existing revenues can address.

The public we will hear from tonight cares deeply about their parks and their libraries and their arts programs and their streets and their neighborhoods, and that care reflects genuine and real expectations for what a city should provide.

Being honest about what it actually costs to run a city and to meet those expectations, and about the gap between those costs and the revenues that are currently coming into the city is one of the most important things that this council can do as it moves towards final decisions.

The city can and should continue working to preserve core services where possible, but given our fiscal reality, difficult conversations about service levels will continue next year, and without significant new revenue, the city will be unable to address its infrastructure needs at anything close to the scale that is actually required.

With that, we look forward to hearing from the public tonight, and my office will continue to be available to support this council with analysis and recommendations as you move towards your final budget decisions over the next two weeks.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Charles.

We always appreciate the IBA's participation.

Okay.

Your turn now.

Uh I'm now essentially going to be turning the meeting over to our city clerk and her amazing staff.

She gives excellent instructions.

You follow them, and we'll get through it evening.

You all get that chance to speak.

So Deanna, please begin.

Thank you, Council President.

We do have a little over 200 speakers here in council chambers and in the online queue.

So it will be one minute each, as I had noted uh previously.

I would like to note for the record that this item did receive 24 comments in favor and 214 comments in opposition via e comment form, which have been distributed to the council.

We will be starting this evening with Christopher Chalubsky, and then after that, we have Julia Cardenas, who will be speaking along with Alison Pepner and Jared Harrison.

If you can all please come up to the yellow reserve seats.

After that, we'll have Victor Ponce and Melissa Hernandez.

If you can all please come up to those yellow reserve seats.

Christopher, you can come up to the microphone, and you'll have Devorah Maximova.

Thank you.

Seating you time, so you'll have two minutes.

Please proceed.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Chris Chelopsky.

I'm on the Commission for Arts and Culture representing District 2.

I moved here from Chicago, where I worked for the Mayor's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

And then I manage the arts program here at our international airport from 2016 to 2023.

I'm also on the Ocean Beach Planning Board.

I'm here in support of restoring funding for arts and culture for the city of San Diego.

I want to provide context for my vantage point and my experience.

Seven months ago, the city lost the tenured executive director of the Department of Cultural Affairs.

Uh oh.

About 10 years of institutional knowledge gone on top of decades of prior past experience.

Three months ago, the city then lost its second in command for the Department of Cultural Affairs.

This person had 14 years of institutional experience right here in City Hall.

Her position will not be backfilled as a result of this budget.

More uh-oh.

Now almost 90% of the cultural affairs budget has been wiped out.

No more uh-oh, is now it's bye-bye.

And the reason for that is because staffing and funding are on a path to extinction.

The message is clear: no importance is placed on arts and culture for San Diego from the mayor's office.

Going further, I wish that I could say we, as the appointed commission on arts and culture, have been engaged in this budget process as we ought to be, and as the process is meant to work, but we have not.

Even worse, we still have not been communicated with regarding the budget, despite significant outreach to the mayor's office.

We as a commission should have been involved, and we still can be.

It was said well by two council members at the May 4th budget hearing that the city is flying in the dark because it is using no economic impact study for the elimination of this funding.

There is a complete lack of methodology right now and lack of collaboration with the city's own appointed body of professional advisors, the Commission for Arts and Culture.

If it's one thing creative folks know how to do, it's problem solved.

Constraints are part of our practice.

This situation is solvable, so let's do better.

Let's act like other grown-up municipalities with regard to arts and culture and the role it plays.

Put the money back, let us your appointed commission help you with that.

Thank you.

Julia Cardenas.

Julia, you have time people seating you time.

If they can please raise their hand, Ali Farah.

Thank you.

Daniel Milan.

Thank you.

Rosemary Rankin.

Beatrice Torres.

Sarah Powell.

Thank you.

You'll have six minutes.

Please proceed when ready.

Good evening, Mayor Gloria, and City Council.

My name is Julia Cardenas.

I am the president of the San Ego chapter of the National Federation of the Blind.

I am here to voice our full support for the Accessibility Advisory Board's proposal to allocate 18 million over a five year span to clear the current backlog in ADA projects.

We are facing a staggering 70 to 90 million backlog in ADA projects for a law that was passed 36 years ago this level of neglect is not just a budget oversight it is a civil rights issue.

Last year the accessibility advisory board sent their proposal to City Council and I want to take a moment and thank council members Whitburn and Foster for addressing this item as a priority in the budget.

Thank you gentlemen the city says that it wants to create a safe San Diego for all its residents.

I'm here to tell you that blind San Diegans do not feel safe.

The reality is that we navigate this city we call home daily in a landscape of many safety hazards.

We're talking about malfunctioning to non-existent accessible pedestrian signals also known as APS low level face obstructions that include overhanging umbrellas untrimmed trees A-frames and uncovered tree holes that act as traps for white canes and feet when an accessible pedestrian signal fails or tactile curve ramp is not properly placed blind people are at greater risk of serious injury or death just crossing the street blind pedestrians do their best to judge when it's safe to cross if an APS malfunctions at a busy intersection but from firsthand experience I can say facing down an unexpected vehicle is terrifying.

Our members have repeatedly reported broken signals unsafe facilities and have even requested new APS installations at high risk intersections.

Yet often these repairs do not happen because the city says the funding is unavailable earlier this month we met with the city engineering department to understand how APS related issues specifically are prioritized and we learned that the city uses a scoring system it is unclear where in the scoring system these issues rank but we believe that these life-saving signals should carry more weight the city has allowed vital accessibility issues to drift for far too long the time to act is now the blind should not be an afterthought reliable and accessible pedestrian infrastructure is essential in order for the blind to fully and equally participate in public life.

So we're asking the city council to provide the funding and accountability necessary so that all blind San Diegans can travel safely and independently in their own communities.

Thank you.

That was worth a round of applause, so thank you for acknowledging her.

But normally let's not do the applause because it just slows everything down.

Many of you already knew the shaking of hands or snapping your fingers communicates your uh agreement with the speaker, then thumbs down says you don't agree with the speakers.

So thank you for that.

Umison Peppner.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm gonna make this quick because I only have one minute.

My name is Alison Deppner.

I'm also a member of the National Federation of the Blind San Diego chapter.

I want to speak about making our finest city fine for everyone, blind and other disabilities as well.

We all want what everyone else wants.

We need to be independent.

We want to be employed, and many of us are.

That was the thing.

I thank you for your concluding comment.

Thank you.

Jared Harrison.

Jared, you have people seeding you time.

Janet Rogers, if you can please raise your hand.

Thank you.

Becky Vesterfeld, if you can please raise your hand.

Becky.

And Mike Romo.

Okay, great.

You'll have four minutes, please proceed.

Thank you very much.

Uh, members of the council, Your Honor the Mayor, Council President, thank you very much.

My name is Jared Harrison, and I'm a proud San Diegan.

Uh, I've been here for 10 years now, and it's just an honor to live in this city.

Uh, I lost my vision about two years ago.

And since that time, I've found a wonderful community of people to support, and I've gained the tools necessary to maneuver around my area.

I'm here to kind of give a personal face to this issue and let you know what it's really about.

So, this process of accessible pedestrian signals, those are the signals at this at this the traffic stops that tell us when it's safe to cross.

Now, when we don't have those, we do our best.

We judge the traffic.

They teach us in mobility uh classes that we're to listen for that oncoming traffic that's parallel to us, that's traffic that lets us know that it's safe to cross.

And for that parallel, that perpendicular traffic that comes right next right in front of you.

That's the traffic that's gonna put your life in mortal danger.

So there's a lot hanging on it when we're crossing a street, and so it's very important that it particularly dangerous intersections.

Those are intersections that produce that's very high traffic, where there's not a lot of uh parallel traffic, that we have those types of tools to help us uh get to our work, get to the areas where we recreate, and to visit the wonderful businesses around the city.

I'll tell you a little bit of my own experience with uh the APS signals here.

I live close to 10th and J.

My work is about two blocks from there, so I walk there every day and across 10th and J.

That traffic intersection is particularly dangerous.

It comes the traffic from 10th Avenue comes right directly off the interstate.

There is very little traffic parallel on J Street, and remember that's a traffic that tells me it's safe to cross.

And I had a one of my instructors assessed this, and together we put together a request for uh access for the city to install an APS at that crossing.

Folks, that was in December of 2024.

I learned that there was another request in 2021 for that same crossing, and still it's not been fixed.

Over on 10th and Park, there's an APS signal there.

That's a big T junction, and it's also where all of that traffic from 10th Avenue comes off.

And at that intersection, there's the APS is there, but it doesn't function.

Now that's very dangerous for someone who's there to rely upon that crossing to help them safely cross.

So I live there on that block of Tenth Avenue, and with no APS, no functional APS at 10th and Park, and no functional APS at 10th and J, I'm in an island of inaccessibility.

Folks, we go to the we go to the department, we file, we file issues with um with the department of engineering, and the response that we get is yeah, this is on our list, and it's competing for funding.

And then I haven't heard from them since.

Folks, that should bother you.

And we're here to bring some light to this issue.

You know, when you're crossing the street, and as Julie mentioned, and you're uh faced with an unexpected vehicle, it can it your entire life flashes before your eyes.

So folks, this is a core issue, a core city function.

We think that our safety should be prioritized, and we're here to talk about this issue.

Now, vision loss is something that many millions of Americans face, and statistically, you know, you or some folks that you love will probably face some vision loss in their lives.

Now, one of the fundamental things that we teach our children when they're crossing the street is look both ways.

Keep your eyes open, pay attention.

Well, imagine if you had to cross the street with your eyes closed, and imagine that child that you raise crossing the street on their own with no guidance.

That can be a terrifying thing, folks.

Thank you for that concluding argument.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

I hope this gives you pause.

We're here to raise some cane.

Thank you.

Um next we have Victor Ponce.

Victor Ponce, if you can please come up to the microphone.

You have several people seeding you time, but I can also ask Melissa Hernandez to please come up to the yellow reserve seats along with Nicole Lilly, Kevin Veno, Travis, Bashard, Susan Griffin, Lynel Brown.

If you can all please come forward to the yellow reserve seats in the front row.

And Victor Ponce, you have the following people seating you time.

Can you please raise your hand?

Thank you.

Mustafa Aladada.

Can we clear the aisles to let these good people exit the room?

Thank you.

And just to be clear, it'll be a good presentation.

I'll keep we'll take a pause right now and then we'll go forward.

Maybe the individuals in the aisle can come over here to behind the microphones to make room in the aisle.

You can stand behind your speaker.

Please clear the aisle.

Just uh calling for people to raise their hands.

Mostafa Aladan.

Thank you, Alexander Moncada.

Janine Malaboule.

Sevenson Normalists.

Thank you.

Belén Hernandez, Alton Lewis, Ron Sanchez, Margarita Hernandez, Van Hong.

Joshua Aguila.

Haley Seraphim.

Oh, I have two Haley seraphins, so let me just you are ceding your time to this organized presentation, correct?

You're not speaking on your own, Haley?

Okay, because I have one going each way.

So it is 13 minutes.

Please proceed when ready.

Good evening, Council.

I am Belen Senior Policy Advocate at Mid City Canon.

This is our youth council.

We are not architects or engineers, but we wanted our park fixed.

So we learned to speak the language, design faces, city codes, and procurement processes.

At least enough to get around the block and get our park fixed.

After four years working on Henwood Park, we asked ourselves, how can we make the process easier for everyone?

We had an idea and we brought it to you.

Fund one engineer to streamline the process.

People would ask us, how did you arrive at this idea?

It is so technical in nature.

Well, we found it.

Well, we were digging deep in the trenches of city bureaucracy.

Our vision is that we can carve a clear path for other parks that need repair.

Our vision is a city with green, clean, enriching parks for families and people of all ages.

I sent here today to ask for two things.

First, restorations to the parks and rec department, restore maintenance staff, rangers and the asset management team.

You need maintenance staff and rangers to keep daily operations running, and you need the asset team to keep repairs flowing.

Second, streamline the repair process.

Parks and rec and the engineering department are signing an agreement to tackle the problem.

The agreement must include direct access to a deputized engineer for project approvals, permission for parks and rec to work on repairs costing up to five million dollars in the process for the parks department to put out the bids for small repairs.

If these items require reallocation between departments, we ask you to please make it happen.

I know you want the parks repaired too.

Thank you.

I'm here because we like the new budget proposal, but there's still more to go.

So I'm here to speak out and advocate for this parks that are suffering and need to be well maintained as it fosters a sense of commun community in our society.

Parks need to be updated frequently because neglect can cause bigger problems that can carry damage or beautiful parks, becoming harder to regulate and fix.

Time is passing and costs continue to rise, leading to longer frustration to community members who value and count parks as an important part of their identity.

Safety can be defined differently.

Different people feel safe in various ways.

In our case, people feel safe in parks and green areas, thus taking care of parks is an important factor of safety.

I hear that you're concerned about safety and investing in parks is a part of investing in safety.

I ask you to to find a duplicate city engineer.

The agreement between parks and rec and capital engineering must include direct access to debitized engineer for project approvals.

People who can take care of parks, such as maintenance staff and park rangers, rangers.

We're here to present this community who might not be seen or heard or recognized by others, and to show that these funding cuts are extremely impactful and hurtful.

This is important to take a deep look at because there's a big misunderstand misunderstanding about parks creating inequality.

Invest in youth and thank you.

Hello, good afternoon, city council members and community members.

My name is Moncada.

I'm currently a junior at high school.

I'm part of Mid City Can Youth Council.

I've been living in City High since I was little.

I love living here and going to a park de la Cruz, Officer and Jeremy Hannibal Park.

Currently every Friday, my friends and I, or officer Jeremy, Hammer Memorial Park as part of our soccer team to play and have fun.

Doing this allows me to release stress from school and other words that are in my mind.

I was happy to hear about the reservations that were made in hours of libraries, parks, and recerners and district four, eight, and nine.

Wow, I know this isn't included all districts.

These are the most impacted.

I'm asking you to please protect these restorations.

I'm also asking that you restore your maintenance stuff.

The soccer fit is currently not in good shape.

There's more dirt and grass.

If you cut the maintenance stuff, what do you think will happen to our parks?

I rely on libraries to help with my vacation and and again, please protect these restorations, stop increasing the budget for police.

Why is it they're gaining more money when they already have enough?

And so I see this money to continue to invest in youth service, please take asking to crucifixion and continue supporting our community.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Janine.

I'm a junior at Hoover High School and from City Heights.

I'll be reading a public comment on the behalf of our youth organizer, Paloma, who couldn't make it today.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Paloma, and I'm a youth.

I'm the youth organizer for Mid City Cannes Youth Council.

I'm here because we are counting on you to fight for us.

We are grateful that we were able to restore the cuts to ribrary and recreation hours in D4, D8, and D9, but is it is not enough.

The budget is cutting the asset management team under the park and rec department.

This includes two park designers, one budget and analyst, and the assistant deputy director leading the team.

This are these are the people that partner with nonprofits to minor projects done.

They are the people that bring bring the phenon.

Phenotype dollars towards towards the city park.

The city engineer Renna Amman has told you that they are working on an uh MOU between the departments, but we don't know what that MOU is.

Does it allow minors minor projects to be done in a shorter timeline and a cheaper and cheaper cost?

How can these projects be put completed at a reasonable time if the park department will soon be left without an asset management team?

You must restore the asset management team management positions.

We are glad the department will sign an agreement to streamline the repair process.

We ask for the MOU to include to include three things.

Direct access, access to a deputized engineer for project approval, permission for parks and rec to work on repair costing up to five million dollars, and a process for park departments to put out the bids for smaller repairs.

These elements will determine the effectiveness for of the I'm MOU.

Good afternoon, City Council members.

My name is Gabrielle Gis.

I'm going into the um into my junior year at Patrick Henry High School, and I'm a resident of district nine.

I first began advocacy when I was around 13 years old in the seventh grade.

This is the same project I've been working on since that time period.

This project has yet to be done.

And the current timeline would be by the time I am in my senior year or even a freshman in college that the project will be began.

Is this acceptable to you?

This is a whole lifetime.

I haven't been able to go to this park since I was a child.

Because it was already not up to date, not up to code.

And it's still like that for the children today.

This is generations where this has been happening in the same park.

It still has yet to be repaired.

It is only two play structures that we are asking to re to be repaired.

Currently, we have other projects that are building, that are halting many of our businesses and our community trust.

Continuing to take this long on the project shows something.

Underserves communities continue to be underserved.

Is this really something you want for the youth and for our future?

To not have parks, something that are essential to children.

It's a key part of our development.

And it's something that is not given to our communities.

And I think it's something that should be a part of our.

Should be a part because it builds motor skills and much more.

It's something that every kid should have.

But when these playgrounds are not up to date and are not kept up to code, these skills are lost.

And we are seeing it right now in our education system.

We are asking for the possibility of this to be changed.

If we are given a deputized senior engineer, we are able to not only streamline our own parks, but parks for other youth in all regions.

There are so many parks that are not kept up to date in San Diego.

It shouldn't be this way.

Hi.

And I graduated tomorrow, so happy graduation to you too.

Just to reiterate, I have been doing this for two years, and by the time I leave, I will see a little bit of a little success in it.

And when I go to Henwood Park, I go to the bathroom, there will be still no lights.

The stall will still be too big, and you can see like my fee under it.

And yeah.

Ish, I don't know if you see this as a long time.

It is to me.

And while we're waiting, a lot of other parts is also waiting.

And I think we're deserved better.

We deserve a place.

We deserve where community go together and just speaking your ears out now, but that is what I'm trying to tell you.

Please speed up the process.

Try to make it costless and try to help our youth succeed.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Victor Ponte.

I will be reading a comment from a youth council member uh Derek who couldn't be here today.

Um, so good evening, City Council and community members.

My name is Derek, and I'm a junior at Dead North High.

I have visited and spent countless hours in San Diego Parks and recreation spaces.

I have seen valuable areas like Henry Park are to the community.

I've seen families gathering together, kids playing soccer, basketball tennis, and classmates spending time relaxing together after school.

Parks are truly integral to communities to bridge connections between individuals and foster a sense of community, especially for the youth like us.

More than just parks, recreation centers and libraries offer the same uh community benefit to even more people.

I myself go to libraries to study and last time maybe volunteered at my local library because I felt that these community spaces deserve more attention and care.

That is why I ask you to continue to protect funding for parks, libraries, and recreation centers, including the maintenance stats, the park rangers who help keep these spaces safe and operational because we've seen how dangerous and how hostile neglected parks can become.

I also support funding at the site engineer to allow for a quicker repair and involvement projects so that San Diego does not need to wait years for park equity.

Um my behalf, as you've heard from our youth, they've been at this for a long time.

We appreciate and thank for the money that has been allocated, but it shouldn't take this long, right?

I have folks that are pretty soon about to graduate college.

They're gonna go into their senior year, and we've still been at this for them to be able to like come back to San Diego and ask for the progress and like what it's like, and we still have nothing.

Not even the shovel on the ground.

I think it's disappointing.

I think we want to see this fix.

I think it's not only for our community, right?

It'll benefit everybody within the city.

I know that there's parks all over that we want to see build um quicker and faster.

We saw during the presentation, 30 point something million goes to parks and break through CIPs.

We believe that we have a solution to help reduce that.

So we want to see it fixed.

Uh thank y'all for your time.

That would be it.

Thank you very much.

Melissa Hernandez.

Melissa, you have time seated to you by Monica Hill.

If you can please raise your hand, Monica.

Thank you.

And then um Cheryl, if you can please raise your hand.

So Monik Melissa, you'll have uh three minutes.

Please proceed.

Hello, council members.

Um, hope you guys are having an amazing evening.

As we can see, the whole community is out here.

Um, I want to thank first and foremost everything to the offices for putting the budget back where it needs.

However, we really need you guys to be considerate of what's going on, as you can see behind me, the youth that we work with daily, um, got them out, got them out here so that you guys can see why these programs are needed, why these parks are needed, why these libraries are needed, um, and why we are needing you to understand that we got behind the youth with a little bit of money after so much was promised to us and cut, and we were able to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish within one week of times, even knowing that we're under the stress and under the pressure.

Um, when we were supposed to come up here um on the 18th, obviously a tragic happened, and this just proves now why companies like the flock and companies like uh well, let's just say the flock shouldn't be receiving any type of funding.

I'm not gonna speak on the tragedy that just happened because that's not my part or my place as that I'm not a family member, but I am gonna speak for my community, and when I speak for my community, I say put the money in the right places because the more you continue to invest in these robotic places, they're not saving our youth's lives.

We, the community leaders, we the people are the ones that are saving lives.

We are the ones that get in on the front line.

We are the ones that are putting you in that chair.

We are the ones that are making sure, okay, that you can do what you do right now, and that is make the right decision.

Because if not, y'all know my favorite, my favorite word hunger games, hunger games, hunger games.

And Todd, I see you.

You know what I'm saying?

You did the right thing by putting the money back.

But now I need for everybody to do what they need to do for our community, okay?

I don't really got too much.

We're seeing a seat right here.

Go ahead, but you can go ahead.

We want to freestyle.

Hey, it's her birthday today, too.

And shout out to my mom's birthday, so Mimi gives me patience with my mother.

But um, I think more importantly, we these programming that are getting cut, Mayor Gloria.

Um, these are all the programs that generate revenue and bring in funding to our city non-stop.

Like it's part of your guys' the city's own strategic plan to make this a cultural destination.

What kind of a cultural destination are we gonna be with no culture?

We're no programming, we're no arts.

Um, on top of that, like Mimi said, the people that you see, we're the people doing the work, doing the job.

And I will say this if it takes not just the people but the right people in the right positions, and I know Mayor Gloria can contest this.

You know, working personally directly with Luceto, you know, in your in your office, um, that made all the difference.

And if it wasn't for me working at these drop centers and having another connection to our other co-worker, Mr.

Ricky Weaver, who's not here today, I'm gonna finish.

Um, he was able to support us with security for this past Chicago Park Day.

Thank you for that.

And you guys saw how many people there was.

No, I'm gonna finish.

There's somebody else that would like to see your time.

Okay, yeah, somebody want to see me raise your hand.

I'm gonna take a minute.

You're like you're taking time by this gonna be on.

But I I'm gonna make a good point here is that we're all intertwined and connected, all of us.

But we come from the two most underserved communities, district eight and district four.

Historically marginalized communities that exist because the systems have redlining.

And what all of this is, I'll say it again is a form of cultural genocide.

And when you talk about taking away culture, that's truly a form of cultural genocide.

So let's just think about that right now with everything else going on in the world.

San Diego has the opportunity here to make an example, but not out of our out of the residents, out of the citizens.

Make an example for other cities to follow.

We don't have to keep doing this to our communities at what at some point in time, we're not gonna exist anymore.

Is that the goal?

I think not.

So we just need to just do a better job at working together and dismantle these systems that have that are broken that are not successful.

Thank you.

Let's jump these dogs.

Thank you.

I'm doing that.

Uh Nicole Lilly, if you can please come to the microphone.

After Nicole, it will be Kevin Veno, Travis Bashard, Susan Griffin, and Lynnell Brown.

That's our whole thing.

Sorry to interrupt Layla.

No, you're fine.

Hello, continue.

My name is Nicole Lilly.

I'm a renter and resident of District 3 and the executive director of Our Time to Act.

I'm here again today because despite the outpouring of community over the past month, the mayor has still not deigned to listen to his constituents.

And now the ball is in your court.

You've been told, and some of you have said yourselves that the budget is a moral document.

It is literally putting the money where your morals are.

The decision you have now ahead of you is deciding what you believe your communities deserve.

Do we deserve to be surveilled and over policed under the guise of safety?

Or do we deserve instead to thrive with the partnership of OCYS and protection of well-funded libraries, parks, shelters, and stormwater infrastructure?

It is not enough to pay us lip service.

We deserve real dollars invested in a better future for all San Diegans.

Will you do the work to divest from Flock and invest in thriving communities?

That work, our future, is in your hands, and we will be watching.

Thank you.

Kevin Venno.

Good evening, council members.

I just wanted to say that as someone who's a part of a youth-led nonprofit, our time to act, I would really encourage you guys to continue funding for OCYS.

They only take $350,000 away from the city budget, but they've gained $3.5 million in grant-specific funding that the city would not be able to get otherwise.

So you're not just saving, you're not uh saving $350,000, you're losing $3.5 million that you would not be able to get otherwise.

Um I think that the city, it's I don't know why the city is not looking at its largest apartments.

Uh SDPD is the largest department, and every year we do not cut their budget while cutting every other budget along the city.

Um so if we were to adequately be looking into this budget, we should also consider our largest budget expenditure.

There's a lot of budget waste.

On January 7th on La Jolla Cove, there was uh homeless man who locked himself in the bathroom.

Uh SDPD responded with 26 cop cars, a swap vehicle, and a helicopter.

Travis Bashard.

Thank you guys.

After that, we have Susan Griffin, Lynel Brown, Leila Aziz, uh Sina Sanchez, Richard Caitlin.

If those aren't you, if you can take a seat in the front row or back at your chair, and then we'll make sure to get to you.

Please proceed.

How's it going?

Travis, uh District 7.

Fear is the path to the dark side.

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

Many of you lead with fear when speaking of the police budget.

Marnie was quoted by MBC 7 in an interview on Flock.

In her words, they prevent very serious crime, homicides, rapes, kidnapping.

Give us data, Mayor.

Because what we see is SDPD that got a two-hour head start last week and failed miserably at capturing two terrorists.

There are nine plot cameras within one mile of the Islamic Center.

Nine.

Nine.

STPD failed.

Failed.

Stop quoting anecdotal bullshit.

Show us data, cancel Flock, cap police OT at 29 million, restore 2005-25 funding to Office Will Use Services, Libraries, Arts, and Rec Centers.

And fire Daniel Gold.

Susan?

Susan Griffin.

District 7.

Mayor Gloria, you claim that you are prioritizing public safety for San Diego.

If public safety is really your priority, then why eliminate or cut arts, recreation, literary services?

These are the vital elements of our social infrastructure, that which connects us to one another in all of our communities with empathy and care for one another.

Please reconsider your significant proposed increases for law enforcement, including the flock system.

I ask you to reallocate some of those increases toward the protective services that help prevent the need for law enforcement interventions in the first place, arts, literacy, recreation, youth services.

Thank you.

Lynnell Brown.

Lynnell Brown, you have time seated to you by Matthew Carr.

If you can please raise your hand.

Receiving these funds will not only help ensure that our centers remain open through the next fiscal year, but it will also help restore our community's faith in this system and in the leadership that represents us.

We will continue to show up, speak out, and fight for our communities until we have truly equitable services and equitable funding for all youth and families.

We support the Office of Child and Youth Success because we believe in this mission.

These programs provide critical opportunities, resources, mentorships, arts, recreation, and hope for young people and their families.

When we invest in youth, we invest in safety, healthier, and stronger communities.

If this office is cut, that means more children without programs, with our arts, without libraries, without recreational centers.

Few safe places where they can learn, grow and thrive.

Our communities do not need more surveillance.

They need more support.

These need opportunities.

We need investments despite these challenges.

We remain proactive and committed to providing services, programs, and hope to the people who depend on them the most.

We ask that you continue standing with us and prioritize long-term success and well-being for our youth.

And surveillance, surveillance cameras, will not catch a criminal.

It would only show you the dead body.

That's right.

You know what I'm saying?

We are protecting our communities with our lives.

And we are not computers and oral robots.

We are real people.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Layla?

Whoa.

Okay.

Mayor, Todd Gloria, City Council, those of you, Sean Elo Rivera, Henry Foster III, who advocated for us in the drop-in centers.

You're greatly appreciated.

Something historic happened since the police department has been keeping reports since 2003.

The Mountain View neighborhood, which had has in that time 20 more homicides than any other neighborhood, has had two consecutive years with zero homicides.

Come down and talk to this guy.

Talk to Mimi on how they're doing it.

It's an evidence-based best practice.

We all know, and I know hindsight is 2020, or is it 440?

My eyesight's been gone for a long time.

But um, if there were one million flock cameras out there, nothing would have changed because of the attitude of the San Diego police department of looking at these young men who have guns, a stolen car, and are on a suicide mission as not being a threat.

That's the problem.

Thank you for that concluding remark.

Cena Sanchez.

In the world.

C I A M A.

Go ahead, Gina.

Okay, go ahead.

Oh, you had spoken before under the seating time, and you had seated her time, but if you can have you can use Ma.

Yes, you can have your time over here.

I'll make it one minute, please proceed.

Hey, my name is Reginald Lewis, and I'm from the Mountain Stockton area.

And I feel it's so important for the uh funding is the rehabilitation addresses, root causes of crime.

Many people who enter the justice system struggle with issues like substance abuse, trauma, mental health challenges, homelessness, or lack of employment opportunity.

Investing more city funding into the rehabilitative rehabilitation program, counseling, job training, and youth services can help prevent crime before it happens instead of only responding after harms occur.

Rehabilitation reduce repeat offenders and lower long-term costs.

Studies have shown that people who receive effective rehabilitation service are less likely to re-offend compared to those who only experience incarceration or cumitive policing.

Expanding programs focused on re-entry support, addiction treatment, education, and restorative justice, more reduced jail populations and taxpayers' money.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Richard Caitlin.

She hadn't put her seating time, so now you get your time.

Well, today I'm here, you know.

I appreciate y'all for restoring the uh budget and the uh money to the youth center, but uh I still got a problem with the city treasure.

Keep letting y'all overspend on the budget, and then y'all keep taking away from the youth first.

Like every year, like the youth programs get taken.

I'll be like, I thought this is for the kids.

We're supposed to live for the kids, and then first thing y'all do is take away from the kids.

Now, how's we supposed to prosper as people if the kids keep getting disrespected?

I mean, do what's right for us as people.

Kids need to go first.

We don't never need to take from them.

I mean, we get free money every year now for Texas for marijuana dispecies.

That money needed to go to the kids.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

My shanders.

My sha Landers, um Kayana Price.

Kana Price.

You're gonna kill me.

No, I'm supposed to be seating time.

Sorry.

Okay.

Um, Courtney Balte.

I'm a apologies.

Belchiski.

I'm Aisha.

I'll talk about I work at the youth center.

Um, with the youth centers, I work with both of them on Mount in Mountain View and Stockton Memorial, and I am here to say thank you for giving the money back for redirecting it back.

We'll be back to say thank you when we actually get the money, so only because we kind of been there before.

So I, you know, I am very grateful, but it it's kind of shaky.

So we will be back when we get it to thank you guys for it and to show you the programs that we have already put through and the kids that we have already succeeded, you know.

We've already succeeded in helping.

Uh, we want to go further, but we also need the focus to be on the youth, as Rich said, with the Office of Youth Success.

That's a wonderful program.

It needs to be focused on and kept instead of these other programs that I've been spoken about.

I'm not even gonna give them any light because they don't need any more light because it doesn't make sense.

The kids are what matters.

My kids, everybody's kids.

It's the future.

They're gonna be sitting up here one day.

If we don't invest in them now, what are what decisions are they gonna be making for our city?

Save the youth, please.

I'm sorry, did Courtney want to speak or no?

Oh, okay, sorry.

Courtney, please come up to the microphone, and then after that we have Richard Martindell, please come up to the yellow reserve seats, Lori Saldania, Lori Lipsman, Barry Edelstein, uh Becky Goodman, and Christine Martinez.

If you can all please come up to the yellow reserve seats and please proceed.

Good evening, honorable council members, mayor, gloria, and staff.

My name is Courtney Baltiski with the YMCA and Children First Collective.

San Diego has witnessed a lot since this process began.

Let's take a breath.

Let's recommit together.

We're grateful for the progress in the revise.

But let's go even further for kids, for youth.

A recruitment, a recommitment to thriving communities being safe communities, a recommitment to your child and youth plan with the Office of Child and Youth Success.

This means at least a dedicated higher level position, skilled in policy, community engagement, and interdepartmental collaboration.

Dozens of other organizations, countless youth advocates, and San Diego families are looking to you all to prioritize this critical position.

Thank you.

Richard.

Good evening.

I'm here to join those who have a who think you have a spending problem rather than a revenue problem.

We all want to help others, but we have to do it within our budget, and you're not hacking it.

I ask you to take a look at your personal finances to see what percentage you spend on necessities, what percentage you spend on discretionary spending, and what percent you give to charity, and apply those same percentages to the city budget.

City necessities are police, fire and interstructure, infrastructure.

Discretionary spending includes libraries, parks, and cultural institutions.

Welfare is charity.

Thank you.

Lori Saldania.

I know you have a uh some images to project, so staff will get those up.

And then you can proceed when ready.

Thank you.

As many of the speakers have expressed tonight, a city is judged by its culture, including who leaders choose to name in our parks and public places.

And that's why I'm here tonight for proposing a change to a name of a park that honors Charles Lindbergh, a man who expressed anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic beliefs, and whose name is next to the Claremont, the San Diego Islamic Center, where three men were killed last week by two young men expressing the same rhetoric that Charles Lindbergh has expressed in the past.

It's time, I'm supposed to give a cue.

It's time for the city of San Diego to follow the lead of the unified school district.

Remove Lindbergh's name from this park.

As the families voted to do, go ahead to the next one, please.

Five years ago.

Five years ago, this name was removed from this school near the Islamic Center.

And last year, if we can go to the next slide, Mayor Todd Gloria saw fit to honor a fallen police officer.

We need to honor people in our parks.

And Lindbergh is not worthy of that honor.

Lori Lipsman.

You also have a slideshow that you'll show, and staff will get that up, and then you can proceed, or an image.

Hello, Council members.

I'm Lori Lipsman.

I'm pausing your time.

If you can bring the microphone down a little bit, just so those in the Zoom can also hear you.

I'm sure.

Me too.

Thank you so much.

Hello, council members.

I'm Lori Lipsman, pronoun she, her, a constituent of District 3.

Please do the right thing.

We need to fundamentally reframe what safety means in San Diego.

With this city, will the city continue down a path of policing, surveillance, and incarceration, an increasingly unsustainable burden on taxpayers with a very poor ROI.

Or will we invest in inclusion, education, health care, housing, parks, libraries, arts and culture, and equitable resources for all, a more humane and sustainable vision of public safety.

Racism and hate are learned behaviors rooted in systemic inequality.

They are not solved through militarization and incarceration.

Thank you.

Barry Edelstein.

You have time ceded to you by James Lawson.

You'll have two minutes, please proceed.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Mayor, City Council.

Thanks for being here this evening.

I was downstairs screaming on the plaza.

I'm the head of the old globe, and I'm here to ask you to restore arts funding.

I was in here screaming about two weeks ago.

I'm not here to scream tonight.

First, I want to thank all of you who've spoken out passionately about the need to restore this funding.

We see what you're doing.

We're grateful for you putting it in your budget memos.

I'm here to urge you to stand up for full restoration and not partial restoration.

The other reason I don't want to scream is because overall, over this period, what I am mostly is sad.

I represent 30,000 San Diegans in every single council district who are served by the Old Globe's community-based programming free of charge.

That funding is what this city funding, that those programs is what the city funding supports.

City funding does not put fancy costumes on actors on our stage.

City funding does not make tickets available at a discount for wealthy uh San Diegans.

City funding makes it possible for the old globe to go into neighborhoods in every district and make work available to senior centers, homeless shelters, veterans organizations, active duty military organizations, centers for at-risk youth, the largest program of theater with incarcerated populations in the United States of America run by the Old Globe.

That's what the city money supports.

So I'm not screaming because I'm sad.

And I am bummed out and deeply disappointed.

You can turn it around.

There is money available in the budget to turn this around.

And then we're going to come back to you when all this is over and start talking about a plan for the future that makes more sense.

Thank you very much.

Becky Goodman.

You have time seated to you by Dylan Service.

Thank you so much.

You'll have two minutes, please proceed.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Becky Goodman.

I work at La Jolla Playhouse in District One, and I was born and raised in district five.

I'm a mother of three, including the privilege of being legal guardian to two fostered children.

I'm frustrated with the fact that I am here again tonight, that we as a city are here again tonight.

A portion of TOT funds are supposed to go to arts and cultural institutions because we are a large part of the reason why those funds even exist as a source of revenue to the city.

According to the most recent arts and economic prosperity study by Americans for the arts, in the city of San Diego, nonprofit arts and cultural institutions are responsible for generating nearly $35 million in local tax revenue based on expenditures paid paid by our organizations and our attendees.

So that's number one.

My second point is that the reinvestment of those TOT funds to arts and culture organizations go toward providing free programming to our most vulnerable and underserved populations.

So removing this funding source from these organizations is akin to removing it from veterans and military families, from incarcerated youth, from low-income children in schools, from our unhoused neighbors, and from our friends who live with mental health issues, isolation and social and developmental disorders.

Arts and culture is preventative medicine for society.

Reinvesting TOT funds into arts and culture organizations which offer free programs for vulnerable populations, saves in policing costs, saves in emergency room visits, and saves lives.

Art is health, culture is healing, creativity is hope.

I urge you to review the research on the economic and social impact of the nonprofit arts and culture sector and make the right choice for your city, for your neighbors, and for your families.

Thank you.

Christina Martinez.

If I can have Bob Lehman, Peter Kamiski, Jessica, Hansen, York, Michael, or Bertho.

Bennett, Tony Bennett, or last name, Bennett, Ben Paul, and Karina Pew.

Please come up to the yellow reserve seats.

Please proceed.

Good evening.

I'm Christine Martinez from Arts and Culture San Diego.

As you could probably tell from the snaps and the hands, we had hundreds of people at a rally downstairs earlier today.

Can you all raise your hands?

We're asking what we've asked for this entire budget season.

We understand what you're going through with the budget deficit.

We are simply asking to remain flat, which I know is difficult in these times.

You've been able to work really hard and identify money in other places.

Please do so again.

There's an entire community and ecosystem here that if you cut our funding, they will not come back for generations.

These are employers, this is an economic engine.

Please consider restoring our funding.

Thanks so much.

Bob Lehman.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members.

My name is Bob Lehman, Executive Director, San Diego Art Matters, and Vice Chair of the San Diego County Arts and Culture Commission.

We're standing here today, not because of just one budget line item.

This is about who we are as a city.

San Diego has spent years telling the world that creativity, culture, innovation, design are centered to our identity.

We proudly market ourselves as a global tourism destination.

The city of museums, theaters, festivals, music, storytelling, and vibrant neighborhoods.

And now the same city is proposing complete elimination of nearly all direct public arts funding.

Because this is not a simple reduction.

This is not a trimming around the edges.

This is a dismantling of a 35-year public investment in infrastructure that supports nearly 200 nonprofit arts and culture organizations.

And let's be honest is what is being labeled as not essential.

Our free museums day is essential, our neighborhood festivals essential.

We ask the city to support something extra.

Keep our city protect our part of civic instruction.

Thank you.

Thank you for that concluding remark.

Peter Kaminski.

Peter Kamiski, you may be coming from the back room.

Give you some time to come in from the back room.

Jessica Hansen, York.

You have time seated too by Carolyn.

Can you please raise your hand?

Thank you.

You'll have two minutes, please proceed.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, City Council members.

Thank you very much for hearing from all of us this evening, and thank you to many of you for speaking up for arts and culture and the restoration of our funding in your budget memos.

I am here to implore you for a full restoration of arts funding.

I'm the executive director of Mingay International Museum, chair of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership.

I'm on the board of Malishac Dance.

I really care about arts and culture in this city.

Um, I really want to remind you that for years, for decades, every arts and culture organization in this city has been doing exactly what we're supposed to do.

In exchange for city funding, one of the things we do is file a very long report every year on the success that we have achieved.

And we always hit the marks that the city puts out there for us as a sector.

We are driving tourism, helping to raise the very dollars that you turn around and fund us with.

We are serving this city in every single council council district.

We are delivering on artistic success, on community engagement, on arts education.

We're checking every box.

You have a whole sector of arts and culture organizations here who have built and developed and maintained a really critical civic infrastructure.

We partner across sectors with healthcare, with social service, with education from all over the city.

And you know what?

We're really, really good at our jobs.

Cutting funding will set us back and it will impact almost everyone in this city.

We implore you to keep that funding in place.

Thank you.

My apologies.

No, no, Michael.

That is you.

You have time seated to you by um Desha Crownover.

Thank you so much.

You'll have two minutes, please proceed.

Hello, folks.

So, song remains the same.

Um, you know, we're told focused on core services.

But when I looked at the revised budget, I'm pretty sure I saw a new dog park in there for a million bucks.

Right?

So, so it just seems like there's still something out of whack when it comes to choices being made on the spending.

Nine million dollars for decarbonization, which is basically replacing gas uh appliances in city buildings for electric ones.

If it's they're not at the end of the service life, don't replace them, right?

There are things that we can do that can save us some money.

But I want to change gears just to show how sometimes there's a little bit of a lack of forethought in some of the decision making.

Money was put back for planning for December nights.

Cool.

What makes December night special?

Musicians, dancers, artists, museums, all of these people, thousands of people, over a hundred organizations that donate their time and talent to make that event special.

If those folks aren't there, you have an overpriced hot dog and a Ferris wheel.

So ultimately, you know, if the city's not showing up with a budget for arts and culture, why should arts and culture show up for December nights?

Thank you.

My apologies.

The D looked a little fun.

Um, you have time seated to you by Lowellyn Crane, and uh oh, there's both our her, so that's just two minutes.

Yep.

Thank you.

Uh good evening, council members.

I am David Bennett.

I'm general director and CEO of San Diego Opera, and I live and work in council, I'm sorry in district three.

I'm here to express, I'm gonna use this word my outrage actually at the continued elimination of arts and culture funding in the mayor's revised budget.

In the revised budget, he somehow found 13.5 million in new TOT funding.

That is fabulous.

But since this is the source of arts and cultural funding, this would lead one to believe that restoration of the eliminated support would be in the revised budget.

Wrong, wrong.

What is included?

Restored support for recs, rec centers and libraries, restoration of December nights, both very good things, but also additional administrative positions, additional cars for the city fleet, uh a clubhouse for a golf course, and not a single cent, not a single cent in support for arts and culture.

And last week you came together and let us know that you support repealing Balboa Park Park uh parking fees and also reducing trash fees.

Lots of movement, but not a single word about arts and culture.

In a year with a tough budget to balance, I would be somewhat understanding if the mayor asked for cuts to arts and culture that are proportional, cuts, not elimination, cuts that are proportional to cuts in other departments.

Arts and culture are instead zeroed out.

This is outrageous.

The Kansas Governor Brownback moved to cut all arts funding in the state of Kansas.

He was met throughout the state with booze and demonstrations, and he left his office as one of the most least popular govern uh governors in the country.

This is now his legacy forever.

If this budget is passed, balancing the budget will not be Mayor Glore's glorious legacy legacy.

Eliminating arts and culture will be.

A budget lays out a leader's vision and values, and it's abundantly clear the mayor's vision and values do not support arts and culture.

And if you do not move to restore funding, it will be your legacy too.

I assume most of you have future political aspirations.

I hope that bravery and political will will be your legacy, not eliminating arts and culture.

Thank you.

Ben Paul.

After Ben Paul, we have Karina Pugh.

And then after Karina, we have Shane Harris, Julio Rodriguez, Melody Corvolon, Kishalin Elliott, and Esmi Quintero, if you can all please come up to the yellow reserve seats.

Please proceed.

Yes, I'm Ben Paul, member of the PB Toastmasters, and we meet at the PB Recreation Center every other uh Tuesday night from 6 30 to 8 o'clock.

I know safety is one of your major concerns, and that's my main concern too.

We have a large number of our young men that play basketball at night till nine o'clock, the indoor basketball.

If you reduce our hours, uh they won't be able to do that.

My concern is we're gonna find someplace negative, not positive.

Uh, we have a lot of places to get in trouble in PV.

We have a lot of bars.

My concern is these guys could be out uh hitting the bars, drinking, driving.

We have we have a lot of fighting already, assaults, those type of things.

We need less crime, not more crime.

Please don't reduce the hours.

The other thing is our Toastmaster Club, we pay rent to the city, which helps pay our way, and also all the other organizations that meet there at night.

They also pay rent that help pay their way.

We have a large number of kids next door in the in the next door room that pay a lot of money.

Thank you for that concluding sentence, Karina Pew.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Karina Pugh.

My pronouns are she, her, and I am here tonight on behalf of the San Diego LGBT community center.

We were really grateful to see that $300,000 allocation to our substance use disorder treatment services through opioid settlement funds included in this in the May Revise, and we're requesting this allocation remains in the final budget.

Investments in community organizations who are the experts in serving our communities and meeting them where they are is essential.

This is public safety.

When our communities have access to the resources they need to overcome the odds and thrive.

That's why we are also here tonight to ask for a full restoration to arts and culture funding.

These programs are lifelines to our LGBTQ plus community.

Arts and culture not only provides employment to folks across the city, but allows folks to foster connections and find community.

Investing in arts and culture is an investment in all of San Diego.

Please restore full funding to arts and culture and invest in our youth as well by funding the Office of Child and Youth Success in the final budget.

Thank you.

San Diego Public Advocate Shane Harris.

Good evening, Council President and Council members.

My name is Shane.

I'm a district three resident, business owner, creator, and San Diego public advocate.

I want to acknowledge Mayor Gloria's willingness to make difficult decisions in a serious budget crisis.

I support proportions of his proposal that prioritize what absolutely cannot fail: police, fire, infrastructure, streets, emergency response, and services.

I also appreciate the restress restoration of no shots by our funding, and thank Council Member Foster, Elo Rivera, and Mayor Gloria for recognizing violence prevention as part of public safety.

But tonight, I'm asking this council and the mayor to meet our arts community halfway.

The arts may not get full restoration, but we can and should restore at least 50% of the funding that reduces harm while respecting fiscal reality.

And if we need savings, let's examine consolidating the city's communications department.

We're roughly somewhere between four and eight million are allocated annually.

Yes, we need police fire and infrastructure, but we need art.

Let's protect public safety without killing San Diego's spirit.

Thank you for that.

Julio Rodriguez, after that will be Melody.

Please proceed.

Hi, everybody.

Uh good afternoon, Mayor and members of the city council.

Um, my name is Julio Rodriguez.

I'm a newer resident to the city of San Diego, and I live in Steven Council Member Steven Whitburn's district, and I've been there for a year and a half.

I think one of the curious things for me is that why does it take uh all of these budget meetings to be happening with the majority of you was elected on these platforms that's supporting our communities and actually wanting to engage in our communities and um and understanding the priorities and having your ears in the communities and the truth is is the majority are not walking the streets that we all live on and seeing what the majority of us is living through and going through.

And I think it's because you've all forgotten where you've come from and where you actually grew up and for a lot of you.

Um not all of you, right, but the majority of you, and it sucks that you forget where you came from and you're stuck in these bubbles of influence, and you pretend like the reality is not really happening out there that kids actually go to the park, and it's always these free services that you want to get rid of.

And so it's unfortunate and disappointing uh thing to listen to all of you because it it always feels like you aren't listening.

This is just kind of a dog and pony show that we all can.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Melody.

Good evening.

My name is Melody Corban, I'm a proud queer Mexican woman, a native San Diegan and a resident of District 5.

I'm the daughter and a mother of a musician, which is why I'm named Melody, and currently I serve as treasurer for San Diego Pride and on the board of directors of diversionary theater.

What pays my bills uh is a 20-plus year career in hotels, attractions, and in San Diego's tourism.

And I've seen firsthand how art is not just life, but it is what pays the bills.

It brings San Diego County so much light and so much money, and cutting this would cut more than we even can begin to understand right now.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Keisha Keisha Lynn Elliott.

And then Esme Quintero, I would um really ask if you guys can please come to the yellow reserve seats.

Esme Quintero, Aidan, Hughes, Leila, Al, Kashfaji, Clemente, Magna, Estrada, Diego, Sandoval, Carmen, Penaloza, Valdez, Tristan, Barry.

If you can all please come to the yellow reserve seats.

And if you guys, if there are any people in the committee overflow, we do have about 20 seats here in council chambers.

If you can hear me, you can make your way into council chambers.

There's about 20 seats.

Please proceed.

Good evening, Council and Community Members and Mayor Gloria.

My name is Keishlin Elliott, and tonight I again speak to you as an artist, as the executive director of San Diego Pride, and this time as the proud mommy of a 10 year old rising artist.

Several weeks ago, I learned that almost 12 million dollars of arts and culture funding, which includes funding for San Diego Pride was being eliminated that same day.

I came home from work to see heartbreak on my son's face.

He told me the funding for his dance program was being eliminated as well.

My son asked, Mommy, are you going to do something?

Well, yes, son, I am.

I'm going to show up and to tell our city council and mayor what they are really eliminating when they balance the budget on the fragile backs of arts and cultural organizations.

You are tearing the heart out of San Diego.

It is art.

You are eliminating programs that keep young people safe, creative, and connected to college and careers, and you are putting San Diego Pride, which returns more to the city than it costs at risk.

I urge you, I urge you to restore these funds.

Thank you.

Esme Quintero.

And their seats over here on the right side.

Please present.

Howdy, council members.

My name is Esmequintero Cubian.

I'm a rent-turn resident of D freeze, so howdy, Stephen.

During the last budget hearing, I shared about the mayor's wholesale cuts for arts, threatens my livelihood, and today it remains the same.

We shouldn't allow broken windows theory to govern our city when it is proven not to work.

What is proven to work is funding prevention through arts and services.

It's in our city's interest to fund what keeps us safe, not to just inflict systemic violence once it's too late.

The mayor's revise is not fiscal discipline.

Not when the council and president, the council and the mayor refuse to acknowledge during the last budget hearing the continuous demands to end the ceaseless SDPD budget increases, and the ask to cut the flock contract.

I'm asking the council again to reject the mayor's revised, insist on funding the arts and OCYS, and cancel the flock contract.

Thank you.

Aidan Hughes, Aidan.

Good evening, City Council and Assembled Members of the Public.

My name is Ian Hughes, and I'm speaking tonight as a member of the City of San Diego's Youth Commission representing District 7.

I'm only an incoming college student, but I understand the political challenge in balancing sound fiscal policy with the importance of government services in our communities.

Thank you for considering the recent public input on the 26-27 budget proposal.

The restorations contained in the mayor's May revision are minor but a step in the right direction.

As a youth commissioner, my interest lie primarily in the complete restitution of the Office of Child and Youth Success.

Only a couple of years ago, the city pledged grant programs and investments for youth development, and now we are being written off.

It is disappointing to me to see that spending on youth should be treated so frivolously.

OCYS, despite being starved for resources and personnel, has managed to lay the groundwork for long-term projects promoting civic engagement, career preparation, child care access, and more for young people and families with children.

The youth commission depends on OCYS for information and coordination, eliminate it, and you will nullify an official advisory organ of the city that you created.

OCYS does not deserve to be cut, but to be given a coordinating position in the mayor's office itself.

Thank you.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Layla?

Layla Al Kafaji.

Clemente Magna Estrada.

Hello, my name is Jesus Clemente Magañestrada.

I'm part of District One.

I originally have something written down, but I'm gonna speak from my heart.

Being part of District One and a UCSZ student, it's a shame that the city of San Diego is using LPR systems.

This robotic systems are targeting immigrant families, families, hard working individuals trying to save our city, protect our city, but instead of targeting terrorists, actual rapists, and child molesters, they're targeting this individuals.

As a Mexican Hispanic first generation student, OCAYS has given me the opportunity to be here today, and you guys are defining that program.

I have the opportunity to partner with OCOYS and as a youth Will Fellow, we're able to give many students the opportunity and resources to get internships, job opportunities, and furthermore, a lot of more things.

OCYS is a great resource for students and for the youth, and defunding that program is a shame.

So I urge you guys to please save the youth, because we are the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Diego Sandoval.

Carmen Benalosa Valdez.

Okay.

Let me fix this.

It's a little short.

Okay.

Good evening, Council members.

I'm here again.

My name is Carmen.

I'm the policy and research intern at Youth Will, and I'm also a resident of District 9.

A variety of you are the voices and representatives to youth and young adults who are currently entering higher education or already are, such as like UCSD, SDSU like myself, community colleges, etc.

That is why it's even more important for you to commit to saving the Office of Child and Youth Success in doing so via the elimination of the Flock contract.

Flock is costing the city two million dollars, which can very easily be redispersed to OCYS, which would actually help marginalized youth and marginalized youth in your very own communities.

Stop the over policing, stop the over-criminalized criminalization of our communities and the watching and like excusing as like public safety.

It's like creepy.

And stop targeting us and fund OCYS so that our children and families can actually prosper and contribute to San Diego long term, the way that you guys all want us to.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Tristan Barry.

Hello, Council.

My name is Tristan Beerie and I'm the youth organizer at Youth Will.

You guys have already heard from me a lot, so given OCYS's efforts to try to bring child care to local youth parks and recreation centers.

I asked one of our youth who is a mother and SDSU student to write on the importance of child care, and here's what she had to say.

As a college student, quality child care was of the highest importance to me to continue in higher education and even work.

Without it, I would not have had the opportunity to continue my education, especially when my child was not old enough to be in school.

Now that she is in school, it is still imperative that she has continued child care throughout through after school programs so I can have access to classes and work opportunities.

Reliable child care and after-school programs allow student parents like me to pursue education, work toward financial stability, and create better opportunities for our families while knowing our children are in a safe and supportive environment.

So with that youth voice in mind, please defund Flock and use the funds to save OCYS so they can continue advocating for child care and open pro child care and programs which allow San Diego's youth to thrive and better themselves.

Thank you.

Liliana Soriano.

Hi budget committee.

I am here with Youth Will.

We're a youth advocacy organization who is also a member of the Community Budget Alliance.

We urge you all to fund the Office of Child and Youth Success, including yourself, Mayor Todd Gloria.

Budgets are not just numbers, they're a reflection of values and needs of our community.

Many, including myself, have told you all the importance of this office, covering all the way from covering accessible child care to ensuring young people get the necessary workforce development that is needed in this city.

I also have some postcards that mothers in districts eight and nine um wanted all the council members to read on the importance of OCYS and investing in youth.

We deserve a San Diego, in which every young person reaches their full potential.

But that cannot happen if we keep pouring millions of dollars into wealthy corporations like Flock.

So here are the postcards.

Thank you, my staff will get them.

Next is Alex Castillo.

All right.

Uh good evening, council members.

My name is Alex Castillo, a District eight constituent with Youth Will.

I'm here to urge you to fully fund uh the Office of Child and Youth Success.

This is a moment in time where youth, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are left behind by our governments.

I want to share insights from my baby sister, Berkeley Grad, with a psych degree and experience in child education.

She's seen low literacy and test scores, youth falling behind in this post-pandemic environment, and schools that can't afford after school programs.

My insights, friends are starting families and struggling to afford child care amidst rising rent costs.

Youth need mental health support as suicide is a leading cause of death amongst youth.

Now is the time to invest in OCYS, which provides child care resources, provides education enrichment opportunities, and provides community to our youth to improve mental health in the long term.

So eliminate flock, save money, and help our youth in the long term.

Hello, council.

First off, I just want to reiterate basically what everyone's been saying is that we need to be investing into the community, and especially in the youth, and especially that's OCYS.

This is an office that doesn't take in that much money.

It's not that much of a burden on the budget, but it gets money for the community.

On top of that, the best way to do that is gonna be through canceling Flock.

We already know that this is what needs to happen.

There's gonna be problems nationally with this.

And to quote our chief of police, he said, it is a very simple situation, but you have to understand when we were looking at this piece of technology, it was before Flock was recognized nationally as a vendor of concern.

So this is the chief of police saying that Flock is a technology that is recognized nationally as a concern to the public.

So we need to take the chief seriously and act now before it becomes a bigger problem.

Thank you.

All right, I'll just try and say this real quick.

Um significant new revenues, those are gonna come from uh innovative creative economy.

Am I right?

That's right.

History major.

Um, and so the future is that that juice for that economy comes from innovators, creators.

Um where that's grown, the vine that grows those are these arts organizations out here.

Um the seeds of that are these kids.

Those are the seeds.

And my question would be: what happens when you turn off the water in a farm?

What happens when you stop the growth?

They don't come back.

So that's all I'm gonna say.

Um, are you even paying attention to how many cities are canceling flock?

How many cities are canceling FLOS because of serious privacy and other abuses?

Alex.

Alright, that's the first and last shout out.

Let's keep it civil.

You're making great points here, just keep it going.

Alex Bezek, if you can please come forward.

You have time seated to you by Christian Frank.

Thank you.

Y'all have two minutes.

Good evening.

My name is Alex Bezdeca.

I'm a theater kid and I live in District 3.

I'm a teaching artist with the La Jolla Playhouse, and I also work with multiple institutions with schools around San Diego County.

The Playhouse provides programs that bring professional theater expenses to students.

Special student matinee performances not only include tickets for students to come to the theater, but also involve pre and post-show workshops exploring themes and aspects from what they experienced.

We uh were able to invite over 1400 students to attend last session alone, a program that stuck with me when I got to attend as a child.

Uh Pop Tour is a world premier commission product uh production that brings the magic of theater into San Diego classrooms.

My personal favorite was 2023's Gin vs.

The Beach that helped uh fifth grader Jin who worried about the unknown, find new adventures with the help of his classmates and imagination, something that I think us as an adults can learn from right now.

Um, one of the most rewarding projects is partnering with uh San Diego Unified for the Jumpstart program.

As a mentor, we work with the teachers at the schools to help run student-led musical theater productions.

Three weeks ago, we had our end of the year um celebration where over eleven schools got to bring their students to perform at UCSD to celebrate their work.

The cheers that they had for each other was deafening.

During breaks, the schools would intermingle with each other and talk about how amazing their performance was and if they could show them their choreography.

Some students gave speeches about how they found their voice, confidence, or a safe place where they could be themselves.

They returned back to the schools excited and inspired to pick the musical they'll perform next year.

As a teaching artist living in San Diego, I work multiple jobs in order to financially survive.

I often work six or seven days a week on different projects in schools or theaters, where these productions require government funds to supplement the costs.

Arts culture are not luxury, they're vital public good.

Thank you.

Sean.

Someone seated time to get this time.

Yes.

I'll have them raise their hand at the well here.

Greg Frank, if you can please raise your hand.

Please proceed.

Good evening.

My name is Sean Foote, and I live in District 3.

I am a teaching artist with La Jolla Playhouse as well as a theater artist working with other organizations and schools in San Diego County.

It feels absurd to be here tonight giving testimony on whether the arts are worth funding or not.

Because for me as a teaching artist, I get to see firsthand all of the time how essential arts education is to both the intellectual growth of our students as well as their personal development.

With La Jolla Playhouse, I often travel to San Diego Unified Schools all throughout the county.

I've supported educational programming that brings theater into these schools as well as programming that invites unified students to the playhouse.

Programs like this offer exposure, accessibility, and representation to our communities and our children.

Programs that primarily reach underserved communities.

And these are programs that will either be eliminated or significantly curtailed in the absence of city funding.

City Council, you cannot allow this to happen.

Arts education encourages empathy, creativity, community.

It offers a safe space for students and offers self-expression for our students.

And for many of us here today, it is our entire livelihood.

I hope you are listening.

Thank you.

Sabrina.

Sabrina Marie.

Good evening.

I'm Sabrina Marie.

I live in District 8, and I'm a teaching artist at La Jolla Playhouse, alumna from SDSU's School of Art and Design, and previously a teaching artist with the Department of Veterans Affairs for six years, working with veterans living with PTSD.

I'm here tonight because these cuts are not just numbers on a page.

My future, your community's future.

La Jolla Playhouse has served more than 13,000 people across all nine of your districts last year.

Title I schools, military families, young people who'd never set foot in the theater otherwise.

And it's not only what happens on stage, the Playhouse brings hands-on free programming directly to our neighborhoods, including mobile technical theater, showing what the different careers are in theater.

But I want to talk to you about something even harder to measure.

I've watched art give people their confidence.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Julia.

My name is Julia Poutz, and I'm a violinist with the San Diego Symphony, and I live in district one.

And your wife taught my child when he went to Bird Rock.

I am urging you all to reject the proposed arts funding cuts.

Like many of my colleagues, I moved to San Diego after winning a national audition to perform for our world class orchestra.

I know that the council appreciates our nearly hundred performances we put on per year because I see many of you and greet many of you at those concerts.

But what you don't see are the most meaningful concerts to me, which are our music connects concerts.

We go into hospitals, we go into schools, and we go into correctional facilities and bring concerts to people who cannot purchase a ticket.

I have seen people become calm and connected and content when live music fills the room.

And I urge you, don't cut this lifeline.

Thank you.

Baruch Isaias?

Baruch Isaias, please come up to the podium.

After that, we have Kevin Gobbit, Lena Shait, Denis Lopez or Denise Lopez, sorry.

Julia Dembe, Steve Snyder, Nicole Verdes, and Sophia Tata.

If you can all please come up to the yellow reserve seats.

Baruch, please proceed.

Hi, my name is Brooke Saias, and I'm a student at UCI.

I've driven all the way down here because this is an issue that's extremely meaningful to me.

In third grade, I attended free piano lessons hosted by my elementary school.

After the first lessons, I was so enthralled, so captivated by music.

I begged my parents to buy me a keyboard.

Surprised they fulfilled my request, beginning a lifelong love of music that continues to this day.

Later, I joined my middle school orchestra, expanding into viola.

In high school, my enjoyment deepened as I honed my skills.

I was accepted in the 2025 district honor orchestra, performing at Symphony Hall with students from across San Diego.

In the Symphony Ambassador program, I learned the inner workings of the organization and even spoke at opening nine.

Each experience stems from the free lessons eight-year-old me attended.

They served as a catalyst for the life a lifetime of musical involvement.

Yet it's these exact programs these budget cuts threaten.

Instead of discarding them, we must recognize their transformative nature and preserve arts funding.

Without them, we risk depriving generations of the invaluable opportunity to discover and cherish the arts.

Thank you.

Kevin.

Good evening.

My name is Kevin Goebbitz.

I'm a musician with the San Diego Symphony.

I won't stand here and deny that life is getting more expensive.

I commend the council here today for taking on the monumental task of dealing with this budget in such a tumultuous economy.

I believe the example we set in the areas we choose to nurture to find the city that we live in.

A cut to arts funding would be painful, but elimination is unfathomable.

Aside from the effect that this has on organizations that rely on this funding, it sends a message that arts has no place in San Diego, despite generating 1.8 billion in annual tourism.

Any person would tell you that 11.8 million for 1.8 billion is a sound investment.

I find the most egregious part of this arts defunding to be the audacity to attend a concert, art exhibit, play, high school musical, a child's piano recital one day, and vote to abolish the very funding.

Art like this relies on the next is utterly disgraceful.

The message we send to our youth and successors lies in the example we choose to set.

On behalf of the musicians of the San Diego Symphony, I hope you reconsider your decision to eliminate the small fraction of this budget.

If not for artists like us here today, for our youth and for the sake of the fiber, thank you for that concluding comment.

Finding the right words to convey why the arts are worth much more than an 85% budget cut in one minute is extremely difficult.

I'm a senior heading to Harvard this fall, and growing up in this great city has meant San Diego Youth Symphony rehearsals in the beautiful Balboa Park every Sunday.

Summers at the Ray Shell that's turned into internships, which is how you, Mayor Gloria, once shook my hand at the opening of the Jacobs Music Center.

I am who I am today because of every music note and tune that's passed through my ears.

So while this might have been one minute of your life, one summary on your meeting notes, just one policy past, this, the arts, is also the one thing that the most disagreeable people agree on.

Art centers us.

It creates connection, compassion, and community.

Doesn't that sound like a future San Diego ought to invest in?

Thank you.

Denise Lopez.

Hello, honorable council members, Mayor Gloria.

My name is Denise Lopez, and I'm here to ask you to restore funding to the arts and culture budget for the coming year.

As a lifelong resident of San Isidro in District 8, I'm living testimony of the impact of arts and culture programs in this city.

My first professional play I saw was at the Old Globe Theater through the free Student Matinee program.

This program provided me access to a world I didn't know existed for people like me.

It ignited my passion for creating art as a means to uplift communities like mine.

I am now an administrative theater professional at the Old Globe.

This institution has cultivated and shaped my artistic and professional career from the roots.

The same department that gave me a chance to see this world now employs me in it.

I get to give other students in my city the opportunity to see a world in the future that belongs to them, and I hope we get to continue to do so.

While we know this is a tough budget, I implore you to preserve the access and opportunity these funds provide and work with us to create a more sustainable path going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Julia Denby.

Good evening, Council members, Maya Gloria.

My name is Jamila Denby.

I am the director of equity diversity inclusion in access at the old globe, and I am respectfully requesting that you restore the funding to arts and culture.

Hearing about the proposed cuts nearly 12 of 12 million dollars takes me to a very specific place in a recent history, which I'll get to in a second.

I respect that you have a difficult budgetary, have difficult budgetary decisions to make as a person whose position is charged with prioritizing financial resources to our EDIA commitment.

I empathize.

That being said, removing almost 12 million dollars cannot be the choice.

The specific place in our recent history that this brings me to is actually the pandemic, the lockdown, the isolation of the pandemic brought to light how arts and culture are a light.

I think we would all agree that it is the light.

The art serves us then and now and always with restore the art.

Thank you.

Steve Snyder.

Steve Snyder, if you can please come up to the microphone.

After that is Nicole Verdes, Sophia Tadah, Michelle Woodson.

I would ask, um, we do still have about two and a half hours worth of comment.

When I do call your name, if you can please come up to the yellow reserve seat, so we'll make this go seamlessly and a little bit faster.

So Steve Snyder again to the microphone, Nicole Verdes, Sophia Tada, Mitchell Woodson, Judy Voz, Lynel Brown, Mitchell Woodson again.

Um Shaheed Price.

What's your name now?

Please come up to the microphone.

Sophia, Sophia, are you here?

Okay, then please come up to the microphone.

We'll go with you and then we'll please come up to the yellow reserve seats.

You'll have one minute, please proceed.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Michelle Woodson, and I'm the legal director of Pillars of the Community.

In the wake of the terrorist attack at ICSD, our community is mourning, traumatized, and demanding real safety, not the illusion of safety.

We need to be honest about the difference between prevention and enforcement.

Prevention means investing in the conditions that stop crime before it even starts.

Safe parks, libraries, and recreation centers, youth programs, mental health services, housing and community support.

Enforcement only happens after the harm has already occurred.

Year after year, this city pours millions into police budgets and surveillance technology, cameras, monitoring systems, data collection, yet none of it prevented this tragedy.

Surveillance did not protect the people who were harmed.

And more policing after violence has already occurred is not the same as preventing violence in the first place.

If we truly want safer communities, we must invest in the root causes that determine true public safety.

It's opportunity, stability, care, and connection.

Thank you for that.

The budget is a statement of values.

And we ask that you invest in our communities.

Thank you.

Steve Snyder, last call for Steve Snyder.

Last call for Steve Snyder.

Nicole Verdes, last call for Nicole Verdes.

No Nicole Verdes coming up to the mic.

Sophia Tada.

And you have several people seating time.

I can please have you as a group presentation raise your hands.

Martin Biel.

Oh, he's not with the CJ Mendoza.

Kelly Day.

Shaheed Price.

Miguel.

No Miguel?

I see No Miguel raising your hand.

Claire Snyder.

If he comes in, you can raise his hand.

Claire Snyder.

Okay, sorry.

Abiha Hussein.

Dan Nayamaya.

Dan?

Thank you.

Nellie Gomez Amaya.

Noah Yiick.

Rutros Haget.

Petros.

Oh, Petros.

My apologies.

It looked like an R.

Sorry.

Norisa Rosales.

Okay, and then that's Miguel.

I will look for those speaker slips, but you are already at 12 minutes.

So please proceed.

Good evening, Council members, Mayor.

My name is Sophia, and I'm a high school senior, a volunteer with Center on Policy Initiatives.

We want to begin by sharing our vision for the city of San Diego, the kind of city we want to be and believe that we can be.

I'll be reading a short haiku of mine.

Parks, streets, and young lives, a city where all may thrive, budget of us all.

That said, that is the San Diego we all deserve, and that is why we are here today as members of the Community Budget Alliance, a coalition of San Diegans of young people, workers, families, community-based organizations, and labor unions who come together every year to fight for a people's budget and are committed to building a city where everyone has what they need to thrive.

Council members, this budget is in your hands.

Budgets are moral documents.

They are statements of values, they reflect who and what the city chooses to invest in.

Right now, working people are being told to accept less, less support, less access, less stability, and less care.

We reject that logic.

Austerity is a choice.

Cuts to libraries, parks, arts, housing, youth services, stormwater infrastructure, and climate justice are not fiscal responsibility.

They are choices.

And we need to stop acting like investing in working people is unaffordable while hundreds of millions continue to flow, while hundreds of millions continue flowing toward policing, surveillance, and corporations.

When families are stable, when young people are supported, when neighborhoods are well resourced, our city is stronger.

I'll now pass it to Noah.

Hello, my name is Noah Gold.

I'm a student volunteer with a student center on policy initiatives and a freshman at Lincoln High School.

I'm followed by Dino here, who is a junior going on to senior.

We appreciate the partial restorations made in the May Reserved Libraries, Parks, Rec centers, and Youth Drop-in centers, but partial restoration is not enough.

We deserve libraries that stay open, parks that are maintained and safe, arts and culture programs that bring communities together in streets where people can move safely from through their neighborhoods, these are not extras.

These are things that make communities livable.

If these investments are what help communities thrive, why are they always the first thing on the shopping block?

How can we not?

How can we afford not to invest in the very things that prevent harm and create opportunities and strengthen our neighborhoods?

Today we stand here to urge you, the council, and mayor Gloria to fully fund libraries, parks, and rec centers, fund the pedestrian beacon near Rosa Parks Elementary.

Ensure the agreement between Parks and Rec and ECP allow parks and rec direct access to a deputized engineer, permission to work on repairs that cost up to five million, and a process to put out small bids for repairs.

Thank you.

Uh now I'll hand it over to CJ.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm CJ Mendoza.

I'm an outreach and Organizing and Turn at Youth Well.

I am standing here today to voice that young people's futures deserve to be funded.

Other community members here and advocates are here for the same reason and to keep their efforts in showing up even stronger.

And we're going to hold you all accountable for what this budget and your decisions are saying to young people.

We envision a city where every young person is supported, valued, and set up for success, where families can access child care, youth programs, mentorship, and opportunities.

This generation and the next will inherit a San Diego framed by the budget decisions.

We've given you plenty of achievable visions of a San Diego that young people deserve.

And those include OCYS and arts and culture.

The Office of Child and Youth Success exists to ensure young people are treated as a real citywide priority.

OCYS ensures that there is someone in the city who is always looking out for young people and is coordinating with the rest of the community.

Someone that is letting young people know that they are dedicated to making youth lives better, making them feel loved from their city by ensuring that there's a chance for them to succeed.

OCYS provides access to resources, services, and high-quality programs to keep young people thriving.

While arts and culture gives them the colors, the different mediums and opportunities to create.

So if we truly care about a young people, we cannot continue seeing youth investment as optional.

Why while pouring hundreds of millions into policing and heavy surveillance?

So we urge you to fully fund the Office of Child and Youth Success, restore arts and culture grants, and get flock out of San Diego.

Now I'll hand it to Kelly.

Thank you so much, CJ.

Good evening.

My name is Kelly Day.

I'm a parent and I'm a volunteer with San Diego 350.

We envision a city where people are housed, protected, and able to live with dignity.

But this budget is leaving people behind.

Communities in districts 4, 8, and 9 are still recovering from devastating floods.

Yet the stormwater department continues to cut while thousands of infrastructure cases remain backlogged.

My hope is that one day my kids can live in San Diego with families of their own.

But our community cannot thrive if we're constantly vulnerable to environmental disasters, which are becoming a bigger concern every year.

We urge you to restore stormwater cuts, invest in proactive infrastructure, and restore the city's $7 million contribution to climate equity fund, which not only protects some of our most vulnerable communities, but also mitigates the effects of climate change.

I also urge you to invest in solutions that solve homelessness by addressing root causes.

Homelessness is not solved through punishment, and safety does not come by keeping people out of sight.

Safety in real solutions come from housing, dignity, and support.

We urge you to restore the Neil Good Day Center, reopen downtown public restrooms, and expand shelter options by reallocating the 4.6 million dollars currently spent on criminalizing unhoused residents.

Thank you.

And now I will pass it to Shaheed.

Um I am a black Muslim from Southeast San Diego.

Being black Muslim and living in Southeast San Diego makes me a triple target.

A target of what?

Over policing and underfunding.

Let's take a few moments of silence for the three community members we lost on the front lines to hate.

Let's remember the three community members that lost their lives or who prevented the atrocity at the Islamic Center of San Diego from being even worse.

It wasn't the smart street lights.

It wasn't the AOPRs with all the money the police department takes from the city budget.

And all the money being handed over to flock systems, the police should have prevented this.

I don't want the police or the mayor using the atrocity that happened to our community for their political gain to have more money for their already ballooning budget.

My community needs resources.

My community is Southeast San Diego District 4.

Give my community the resources to thrive, fund and and fund the Southeast drop in centers.

So my name is Miguel.

I'm a junior at Morris High School in Scotland Hills, and I'm a volunteer with CPI.

In addition, in addition to canceling for flock contracts, ending subsides for police, uh PECO Park events, and reclaiming funding from the police budget.

We urge you to further down, further reform how golf revenue is collected and invested.

The golf division's practice of paying for capital projects entirely in cash hordes, resources that should be invested equitably across the city.

Additionally, revenue generated from restaurants and breweries on public golf course lands should benefit the entire public, not a single enterprise fund.

By making these two additional reforms to golf revenue, we can generate revenue that helps our city work for all San Diegans.

We've made clear what people need to survive.

Food, water, shelter, love, areas to learn and play.

Fear isn't something any person in my community deserves, but it's all that has been given to us since we've been have since we've had so much taken away.

Now, while these decisions belong to you and your votes, we urge you to give back to the community that you keep taking from.

While admitting mistakes isn't considered professional, it is human, which is something that the device people, the diverse people in this room all have in common.

Thank you.

And I hope what we have shared today has been has given a better insight on what the city needs and what it needs for everybody in San Diego.

Love.

Thank you so much.

Judy Voz.

Judy Voz, are you here?

Going once.

It's for my own public comment, though, not for the group.

But you're Judy Boss.

That's me.

Yes.

Thank you.

Please proceed.

Okay.

Good evening.

My name is Judy Voz.

I'm the public affairs manager for Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest and the Action Fund.

At Plan Parenthood, we recognize the importance of storytelling and how it encourages people to make healthy choices and inspires policy change.

And we encourage people to share their stories when it's difficult and to create art and be in community.

We don't always remember statistics, but we do remember stories.

And even just being in this room this past two, three hours, 10th and J needs to get fixed so that the blind can leave without getting hit by a car.

And black folks, when they come together, can prevent crime and can prevent murders from happening in the same neighborhood for two consecutive years in a row.

Music gets us out of bed.

Youth Rec Centers and the Office of Child Need Success deserve all the funding, not some funding.

And going back to the arts, arts and theater are a lifeline for queer youth.

Don't cut it now.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Lynelle Brown, Lynnell Brown, Melissa Hernandez, Melissa Hernandez.

Rebecca Hookheld.

Rebecca Hookheld.

Edwin Rendon.

Thank you.

Audrey Bullet.

B O U L L apostrophe T.

Please go to the yellow reserve seats.

Sean Boyd, Elizabeth Washburn, and Sarah Anderson.

Please proceed.

People elected Council, people elected mayor.

Good evening.

My name is Edwin Rendon, and I have a poem for you.

It's called Arts Witness.

Late poet Jim Moreno, Dallas' Heavy, Writers Inc.

Appalled, Meditating.

San Diego sabotaging a cultural sinking.

Painter in Ocente Succar holds Oscar Gold.

Splashes, monstrous rainbows, as a reason to survive.

Crown shores, La Bodega, Chicano Art Gallery, and more.

Uplifted alleys and streets.

Would still be present.

Surrendering.

Void rent controls.

The Grinch cannot survive on philanthropic on philanthropy alone, alone selling balloons, to stay green on part boulevards, faint December nights, warned by his.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Warn by his goodwill, calming your time.

Funny children wanting inflated colors galore.

Thank you.

Audrey.

Hello.

My name is Audrey Boulet, and this budget impacts my ability to gain workforce experience now and acquire a job later.

I want to pursue a career in technical theater and directing and or lighting, which I found a passion for through free programs I've been privileged to have at Trinity Theater Company, which are now at risk of being cut.

By decimating arts funding to near nothing, you are restricting access to the arts not only for me, but for other kids across San Diego, for current theater professionals, and for the future of American theater.

And you are restricting access for tourists who build our city's revenue by staying for shows, museums, and exhibits.

San Diego prides itself on being a strong community, and it's sad to see it turning on itself, knowing that long term this will hurt the city.

This is what happens when important decisions about the working class are made during work hours.

We are coming here to urge you that this budget will not work.

We are lending you help, so take it now before we have to make the decision of what to cut next year, and you can't fall back on the arts anymore.

Thank you for listening.

Sean Boyd.

Sean, you have time seated to you by Kathy Parks.

If you can please raise your hand by Blaise Narcisi.

He's left.

Oh, he's on.

Um, Joe Chung.

And Candon Reed.

Thank you so much.

You will have four minutes.

Please proceed.

Thank you.

Council members, Mr.

Mayor.

It's unfortunate to be back again having the exact same conversation we've had for a month.

Mr.

Mayor, I find this to be a pathetic excuse of a may revised budget.

There is no progress, and it is not fiscally solvent.

I have talked time and time again about the economic impacts that this budget will have on this city, and it is devastating.

A little bit about myself.

I don't share this often, but I am a born and raised District 9.

I went to San Diego High School, where I co-founded Trinity Theater with Kendon Reed.

Thank you for the minute.

We co-founded Trinity Theater Company together as seniors at that high school.

We stayed local.

We believe that the arts matters in this city.

I went to state.

I taught for five years.

I taught English, I taught theater, and I taught student government ASB.

This is an embarrassment to them that we the people have to continue to hold our elected officials accountable to do what's best for their people.

Beyond the economic impacts, there are real lives that are going to be impacted by this decision.

I myself am trilingual.

I speak English, French, and Spanish.

None of them well, but I do speak them.

And the reality is that that influence that I have supports our students, supports our children, and supports our vulnerable adults as well.

I'm going to talk about four programs that Trinity offers that is very much on the chopping block because the mayor doesn't believe in the arts.

In every single district.

I think every library in District 9, as well as Central Library.

We serve 3200 children year round with 13 staff members.

All of them will be cut.

Those children will lose their access.

We read stories to them.

My background in education shows us the compare and contrast analysis of reading a story and seeing it live in that moment is better for the kids than sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture.

We are taking away education when we do this.

Our young children deserve better than that, but so do our vulnerable adults, senior citizens, and military families.

Our other program is the Living Room Readers, which meets once a week and is led not by an artist by trade, but by a licensed clinical social worker who has studied and committed her life to mental health and well-being.

These individuals meet weekly, not for the art.

Of course, for the art.

Let's be honest.

Stories are awesome.

But they meet weekly because of the community that it comes with.

70, 80, 90, 92 years old, once a week to read a story together as a group.

We have veterans that cannot commit to the full scale of a production, but they come so that they can be together.

You just heard my succession plan.

Audrey is an incredible example of our teen leadership program, which is a free program for teen students throughout the city to get involved in arts administration and technical skills, skills that are not always accessible.

And lastly, our New Works Festival, which has grown so much over the past four years.

We received a thousand submissions from playwrights across the world.

And when we select our ten plays, those playwrights come and stay in this city in hotels for a week.

That's revenue, Mr.

Mayor.

Do better.

Thank you.

Elizabeth Washburn.

And if I can ask Sarah Anderson, Monica Hernandez, Caitlin, Corrigi, Blair Beekman, Inez Nefes Nefsi, Rudy Lombaria, Sebastian Ruby, Davin Gaiden Gaydani.

Thank you.

And Morley Bauer, to all please come up to the front row.

Please proceed when ready.

Okay.

Hello, my name is Elizabeth Washburn.

I'm an artist and founder of Combat Arts San Diego, a therapeutic arts nonprofit that serves veterans and system engaged youth.

Mayor Gloria, you came to one of our unveilings uh 10 years ago at the Adams Avenue Car Wash, and we were real grateful.

Uh I began this work in response to veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan carrying unimaginable trauma for years.

I volunteered my time and auctioned my own artwork to fund free arts programming because veterans told me art was one of the only tools they could access on their own to manage PTSD and traumatic brain injuries.

In 2012, I expanded this work to incarcerated youth.

I go inside juvenile detention facilities to provide art classes and workshops.

The young people I work with face staggering socioeconomic realities, violence, instability, and helplessness.

Art gives them relief, connection, self-expression, and a reason to imagine a future.

To do this work, I rely on contracts with museums like the Timkin Museum of Art, which Luis is 189,000.

Thank you for your time.

If you have in comments, we can definitely submit them the arts.

I'm sorry.

If you have them or in down, we can pass them around to the council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sarah Anderson.

Sarah Anderson.

Monica Hernandez.

Monica, you have time seated to you by Anna Hernandez.

She can please raise your hand.

Thank you.

You'll have two minutes.

I am a resident of Sanny Cidro.

I am the executive director of Ticano Park Museum and Cultural Center.

And I am a commissioner on the County Cultural Arts Commission.

And I have a poem for you.

In the year 1970, in the city of San Diego, under the Coronado Bridge, light a little piece of land.

A piece of land that the community of Logan Heights wanted to make into a park.

But the city of San Diego said Chale, much like the mayor is saying today.

They said we are going to make a highway patrol station here, man, on April 22nd, 1970.

But fast forward to now, the year 2026, May 27, Chicano Poetry Revice.

The communities of Logan Heights, San Isidro, Balboa Park, and all the communities in San Diego just want to get together on a Sunday afternoon and celebrate the spirit of life itself through art and culture.

But the city of San Diego is saying chale.

The mayor is saying we're not going to invest in funds, we're not going to invest in the arts today, man.

So the people of San Diego got together and we organized and we showed up and we are here.

We are asking you to fight for us, to fight with us for the art, for the cultura, for the youth, for the comunidad, for all of us.

Restore full restoration to the arts.

Thank you.

Caitlin Corrage?

Hi, my name is Caitlin Kuroji, and I live in District 8.

Um, I've spent my life and career in creative youth development and arts education here in this region.

Um, when we expand uh surveillance and policing while cutting arts, youth services, and public libraries and parks, we undermine the very foundation of community safety.

Connection, creativity, and radical acceptance are what make us safer.

Cameras don't do that.

We do.

A people who are invested in and cared for, become exactly who we need to keep us safe.

We use creativity to process grief, celebrate together, make meaning and name and justice.

Young people must be entrusted with the tools for bringing their hearts and minds to us.

They are our partners and making the best future possible.

And when we divest from them, we stomp on the very imagination that we need to make a better community and a better world.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Blair Beekman.

After Blair Beekman, we have Ines Nefesi, Nefsi, Rudy, Lambaria, Sebastian, Ruby, Davin, David, Gaitner, Morley, or Marley Bauer, and then Alicia Leon, Sofia Blanco, Michael, Venus, and Sheila James.

If you can all please come up to the front row.

Please proceed when ready.

Hi, uh Blair Beekman.

Some of my regular words of the past few months to budget concerns.

As Oakland is the only major California city with a larger deficit problem than San Diego, I hope San Diego can be committed to learn from Oakland's love life philosophy that includes ideas of do no harm and that social services and quality of life comes before the coldness of budget austerity.

I hope San Diego can also really note at this time how everyone of Oakland neighborhoods can help to develop a current 12 to 18 month community dialogue and compromise to find an agreeable middle ground of more responsible community tech use, public safety, and more peacefully minded surveillance tech companies.

Let's hope the sad, fearful events of the Claremont Mesa Islamic Center last Monday can be brought into accountability and given a hug by our ever continuing hopes of best practices.

And from this, I hope Oakland's recent efforts can be a good reminder in how we can all continue our better ideals, better reasoning, best practices, social services, quality of life, and ideas of peace, not war or harm is how to address our San Diego community issues.

Thank you for that.

And years.

Thank you.

Inez.

Art is a human right.

My name is Inez.

I am a San Diego resident of District 7, an artist, arts advocate, an independent single mother.

I have multiple jobs in the art sector.

This is how I sustain my household, my family, and my community.

I urge you to follow the lead of the artists, think creatively, be bold, be courageous, and protect and preserve our humanity.

We the people demand full restoration of arts and culture, parks, libraries, and youth services.

These services are essential, the very heartbeat of San Diego.

Our thriving arts community should be celebrated and supported, for it is these services that have put San Diego on the map as America's finest city.

The creative economy contributes significantly to this city's revenue on top of servicing tourists, residents, and the people's morale and well-being.

What kind of society are we creating when you willfully sponsor our oppressors while simultaneously slashing the very services that sustain our communities?

San Diego art matters.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Rudy.

My name's Rudy Lombardi, resident of District 3 and business agent with Ayatsi Local 122, and I stand before you today representing the workers who build power and support San Diego's arts and cultural events.

The proposed elimination of arts culture funding is not just a budget cut on paper, it's a direct blow to working people, local families, and the economic engine that helps make San Diego thrive.

Arts and culture in our city support thousands of jobs, generate 1.8 billion in annual tourism activity, activate neighborhoods across every district, and create opportunities for education, creativity, and connection for our communities.

When we invest in the arts, we invest in workers.

We invest in local businesses, we invest in the identity of San Diego as a world class city.

I urge you to restore these funds.

Stand with the workers, artists, educators, and organizations that make San Diego vibrant.

This is not just about preserving grants.

This is about protecting jobs, protect an opportunity.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Sebastian.

Sebastian Ruby.

Hi everybody, I'm back.

I was here last month and I said the same thing.

So today.

With the amount of time that has passed since last time I was up here, I have to say I am incredibly disappointed.

How many more speakers do we need for you to listen?

How many more rallies do you need to see in the streets?

And how much more outcry do you need to hear before you realize how terrible of an idea this is?

During the last meeting, and even in this one, our glorious mayor decided to spend most of it on his phone.

He didn't feel like giving us his attention despite his grand claims won't help us.

So I want to ask something of everyone here.

If you work in the arts, whether it be on stage or backstage on a canvas or a notepad, if you are creative of any type, please stand up.

Ooh, I see a lot more people that I recognize than I thought.

Todd, I want you to look these people in the face and tell them why you want to kill their careers.

I really want to know why you want to kill the livelihood of what makes San Diego great.

These human beings are a small percentage of the real lives that you are trying to destroy so you can spy on your own people.

Do better.

David.

Hello, my name is Davin Gaidano.

Uh I am an audio engineer.

I'm a member of IATSI Local 122.

I am not here as a representative of the union.

I am here as a committee, as a member of the community.

I work right here, and shout out to the kids in my neighborhood from Mountain View that showed up on a weekday.

So we live in a very divisive time where people, our leaders in Washington, are doing things vindictively, meanly, petty, and I'm gonna give you all the benefit of the doubt that that's not what you're doing.

I urge you and your budget analysts and your proposals to go back and look at the numbers.

Because the arts is not charity.

The arts makes money.

The art makes billions of dollars for the community, for the tax base, for the hotels.

It is not charity.

So if all of the good work that helping the children isn't gonna move the needle for you, then maybe the economic will.

You are the guest of honor at our critical.

For that concluding comment, Marley.

Uh good evening, everyone.

My name is Marley, and I uh should start by saying that I am not a native San Diegan.

I'm originally from Sacramento, but I live and work in San Diego because of the arts.

In 2021, fresh out of college, I moved here to begin my career in the arts, namely in the theater.

And in subsequent years, I've been lucky enough to be a part of this vibrant culture and community in many ways, and been even luckier to meet some of the many incredible people who make San Diego's arts and culture happen.

Arts and culture are not incidental to this city, they are this city.

Uh people come to visit San Diego for any number of reasons, but the chief reason, the reason that people build lives here is the city's culture, a culture we have because we've invested in our community.

I feel like I'm a significant example of this.

Significance a hard word.

Sorry, I'm one such example.

Um, if we don't value the arts, we don't value San Diego, and we don't definitely don't value the people who make it what it is.

I realize there are many harsh realities about balancing the budget, but the council has a responsibility to the city and the constituents to both present and future to make the right decision here, and I sincerely hope they will because right now it doesn't value San Diego.

Thank you.

Good evening, I'm Alicia Leon, I teach at San Diego State University, and I'm speaking on behalf of my students who reside in all districts across the city, who are studying sleepless nights for potential careers in various industries, including the arts, and we seek refuge and many of the resources that are at stake with the proposed budget cuts.

I urge you to work towards defending our communities by protecting what is culturally healing for the constituents you serve, the arts.

Even within the last 20 years of financial hardship, even through a pandemic, cuts like these have never been made.

And when the preliminary budget was released, not one of the reasons listed for why the 118 million dollar deficit exists was the arts.

Yet the arts is what you're choosing to defund.

It's what you're choosing to take away from my students from their futures.

Please continue working with our communities so that a more informed decision can be made, so that a truly balanced and responsible budget that protects our cultural infrastructure and my students can be drafted.

Thank you.

Sophia Blanco.

Mr.

Todd Gloria.

I spoke to you at the first public hearing for this budget, and I speak to you again to tell you to fully restore funding to the arts.

Many of you have agreed to restore partial funding, but I am here to tell you that is not enough to pay the thousands of people, including myself, who will lose their jobs as a result of this budget.

I can cite numbers, but instead, I really ask you to look and listen to everybody who's spoken here today, who will speak, and I ask you for your support and full restoration of our funding.

Fund the arts, fight for your communities.

We respect you.

We are in all of your jobs and your responsibilities.

And I'm here again.

I've been here twice already.

I've waited at least four hours to speak to you.

And we are asking, please fund us.

Please let us keep our jobs and during these trying times.

Thank you.

Michael, Michael Venus.

Good evening, Council members.

This budget treats community care as disposable and police surveillance as untouchable.

President Pro Tem Lee on May 6th vowed to protect core services, yet approve budget defunding on essential third spaces.

Self-proclaimed chief operating officer Todd Gloria, you are leaving us just $2 per resident on library investments while miraculously finding millions for flock cameras and ballooning the police budget to over $700 million.

When terrorist struck the Islamic center right across the highway from where I work in District 6, your cameras did nothing to prevent the loss of three American lives.

Community bravery did.

Amin Abdullah did.

Monsorka Zihad didn't de Awad did prioritizing reactive technology over care makes you all complicit in a fear-mongering surveillance state.

Council Member Foster, you represent my home in District 4.

You post surveillance, but slash these libraries and facilities that keep our youth and gays.

Divest from surveillance.

Reinvest in art.

Thank you.

Sheila James.

Bless you.

Sheila James is at times seated by Nick Rock.

Please raise your hand.

Sarah Wilson Wilsoniska.

I think they both left, but I have another.

Oh, okay.

You can give it to Kevin.

Can you get the speakers up?

And uh Valentina Haramillo.

I think she left as well.

Yes.

Okay.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Sheila James, and I'm the director of the San Diego Creative Youth Development Network.

I love CYD.

I'm also a musician, teaching artist, and creative entrepreneur.

I come to you disappointed, frustrated, and tired by this evening.

And by this proposed budget, cutting arts, libraries, and parks funding.

I'm also quite frankly embarrassed to live in a city that would even propose a budget like this.

Thank you to the council members who have supported the arts and know the positive impact of arts, culture, and creativity they have on our San Diego communities.

And for those of us who live and breathe the arts, we know the power that the art and creativity can do.

The arts cultivate healing, belonging, empathy, safety, and promote solidarity across our San Diego communities.

We are an ecosystem and our futures are tied to one another.

Aid Mavarak to our sisters and brothers observing the holiday and who may not be able to be here this evening, and for those who are grieving the loss of the three lives from last week.

I teach music classes and operate Heart Space, a community-focused creative space for artists, educators, practitioners in District 9.

I am the again the director of Creative Youth Development Network, and we span throughout San Diego County with our partners and members located in districts one, three, four, six, and eight.

Our partners are at the intersections of arts, culture, education, youth, and social services.

Some of our partners include, and I'm gonna name them because they are doing the good work out here, and they can't be here today.

Media Arts Center San Diego, Disco Riot, Aja Project, Fern Street Community Arts, Transcendence, High Separate San Diego, Iscali, Outside the Lens, a Reason to Survive, just to name a few.

Art and creativity are central to these organizations, but so is youth voice, access to housing, safe and brave spaces, free and public spaces, academic support, mentorship, mental health services, career pathways.

The list goes on.

Arts funding does not live alone and is linked to access of libraries, parks, and recreation, and youth and family services.

This proposed budget does not reflect the needs and the wants of the San Diego community, our youth, guardians, and elders, our most underinvested, underrepresented, underserved, and vulnerable in our community.

And I, and I dare say we, we want a full restoration of arts and culture funding and continued funding for the Office of Child and Youth Success, an office that we fought hard for to come into fruition along with the San Diego Child and Youth Plan.

Even amidst the potential dismantling of this um OCYS, the office is planning a youth summit for next week, June 3rd.

We were literally meeting like 12 hours ago to plan this youth summit.

Our youth network is an arts partner, and we are trying to convene at least 150, 200 plus youth for this summit next week.

The other partners, again, I'm going to include them, Game Face, Davis Hart, and please invest in the arts, our communities, and then if I are waiting for you.

Can I ask Desiree Clark Miller to raise your hand?

Thank you so much.

Um, I do believe these are dupes, but I'm just gonna read them into the record.

Alex Bazdeca, I believe you already spoke.

Alex Bazeka with Time Seated by Christy and Frank.

Don't see anybody here.

Sean Foote.

I also believe Sean Foote is a dupe, a duplicate.

Uh, Marshella Marshall Salgado.

If you can please come up to the microphone, Marshal Sargado.

After that, we have Teresa Mill, Carrie Catrial, Sarah Large, Ramel Wallace, Danny Arizo.

If you can please all come up to the front row, as well as Jesse Marchess and Doug Oliphant, Oliphant.

Please proceed.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I'm the Momager to two professional theater kids here in San Diego.

Arts funding is not a luxury, it's a lifeline.

When our son Danny was struggling in third grade with a speech impediment and anxiety, the San Diego opera gave him a chance to perform at the civic theater.

That experience transformed his confidence and sparked a love of creativity that school never could.

Since then, the old globe, San Diego Musical Theater, and Signet Theater have been safe havens for him, places where he learns empathy and hope, even during frightening times.

Research shows that communities investing in arts see stronger civic engagement, better mental health, and economic vitality.

Cutting arts budgets remove spaces that help children like my son discover their worth.

I ask that you please restore full funding to the arts so every child like my child can experience full life-changing power of theater.

It is life saving.

Please, Mayor Gloria, please.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Teresa, Teresa Mill, are you here?

Teresa Mill.

Carrie?

Carrie, are you here?

Country Alex, C-O-T-T-R-I-A-L-L.

No.

Sarah Large.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Sarah Large.

I live in District 7 and I work at District 9 at Moxie Theater.

I'm here today to address concerns in the proposed budget regarding public safety.

Research indicates that arts rich neighborhoods are the top 25% in terms of public safety and have the lowest rates of juvenile delinquency.

Arts rich communities have 18% less serious crime.

Social cohesion, key in reducing violence, is built by arts and culture participation.

The proposed funding cuts are a public health and public safety issue, directly opposed to the priorities laid out by the mayor.

This lack of understanding is frankly baffling.

If we want safer streets and stronger neighborhoods, then funding arts and culture is smart, responsible public policy decision, grounded in evidence that puts the well-being of our community first.

Thank you.

That was Sarah Large, Romel Wallace.

Danny Airosa.

Danny Rosa.

No?

Jesse Marchie.

Jesse, you have time seated to you by Jenny Case.

Thank you so much.

You'll have two minutes.

Please proceed.

Good evening.

My name is Jesse Marcese.

This is Jenny Case.

We're residents, cultural workers, and we represent diversionary theater, the nation's third oldest LGBTQIA plus theater, one of very few in the nation.

We operate out of University Heights in Council District 3.

I stand here today because the arts saved my life and gave me purpose.

I became an arts administrator to serve my community in the exact same way.

The proposed devastating obliteration of arts and culture funding, slashing grants that sustain vital programs will have catastrophic impacts on our communities.

Take our work at Diversionary, where we serve thousands of at-risk LGBTQIA plus youth and elders with completely free programming.

In our current national political climate, where LGBTQIA plus issues are being aggressively erased from school curriculums.

Our free programs are a literal lifeline for queer youth.

For our LGBTQ seniors, many who live alone.

All of these partners are facing devastating service rollbacks, and the arts are a crucial thread in the fabric of this social support.

By cutting this funding, you are cutting the very soul of San Diego.

Meanwhile, raising the police budget and surveillance budget by millions in the name of public safety is a severe misstep.

More police on the streets do not create safety.

What creates public safety?

Accessible arts and culture, libraries, parks, and community centers operating at full capacity, well-funded programs for our youth, our elders, and our unhoused neighbors create public safety.

I urge you to reject these short-sighted cuts and pursue progressive revenue strategies.

Other cities have figured it out.

Realign this budget with true community values and restore full funding for arts and culture in the final fiscal year 27 budget.

Thank you.

Doug Olifant?

Doug?

Hi everyone.

My name is Doug Olafont, and I speak on behalf of more than 10 San Diego-based arts and culture organizations that our firm, Coastal Nonprofit Consulting, partners with to find funding.

Across the sector, funding has already been stretched thin.

Federal support has vanished.

Corporate giving has softened, and our annual donors, the middle class of philanthropy, continue to shrink.

And the one source of funding that arts organizations have been able to rely on each year is the city of San Diego through programs like OSP and CCSD.

And these programs are the backbone of a healthy funding ecosystem for a nonprofit.

If eliminated, the funding won't be replaced by private foundations or major donors.

Instead, we're going to see programs cut, staff laid off, and communities, especially those with the least access left behind.

And worse, we risk reshaping nonprofit missions to serve a narrow set of funders instead of the people of San Diego.

Arts and culture are not a line item to zero out.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Lauren?

Lauren Lockhart?

Lauren Lockhart?

Katrina Bruins.

Katrina, as you make your way up.

Just a reminder, Tim D, Jennifer Wallace, Rose Lombardo, Kevin Gobbitz, Roel Salamanca, Carol Stevenson, and I believe this is a dupe, Julia Pouts, if you can all please come up to the yellow reserve seats.

Please proceed.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Katrina, and I am a resident and employee of District 2, and I'm happy to serve in the Arts and Culture District through my role at Visions Museum of Textile Art and Liberty Station.

And I have seen a lot of progress over the last couple of years in arts and culture for San Diego, first in being a leader through the World Design Capital, and then creating the Creative Cities Plan.

And it would be such a miss to use the momentum from those opportunities as the world is looking at us as we gain attention because of the arts and culture from this city to turn around and cut off funding for those programs.

We are implementation partners, all of those that are in this room of that Creative City plan.

It's really something that we believe in as well, and it's something that the city has already invested time and energy and resources into creating.

So we're just asking you to continue to restore the funding for arts and culture so we can continue to implement what the city has already promised to the community through that plan.

So please help us doing that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Tim D.

San Diego is not a sanctuary city as long as we contract with companies that don't value our data or data.

It's bad enough that we have mass surveillance.

It's worse that we're contracting with companies that have poor records.

I am sick and tired of losing students in my classroom because their parents are afraid to bring them to my classroom.

I am sick and tired of students in my classroom not being able to pay attention because they're worried about what's going to happen to their parents.

It is unacceptable.

It's costing us two million dollars.

And you've seen all the better things that we can be spending it on.

It does nothing to address poverty, nihilism, or isolation, which are your causes of crime.

Let's do better.

Jennifer Wallace.

Good evening.

My name is Jennifer Wallace.

After a four-decade career as an opera singer in California, including with San Diego Opera, I now serve as Assistant Regional Director for the American Guild of Musical Artists, the Union of Opera, Concerts, and Dance Workers in the United States.

These cuts will hurt San Diego far beyond the arts community.

People attending performances and other events eat at local restaurants, shop at nearby businesses, pay for parking, and stay in local hotels.

The arts help keep local businesses and neighborhoods alive.

A cut of this magnitude is not something the arts community can absorb.

The creative city plan, adopted just last year, committed to growing San Diego as quote, an international hub for arts, culture, and creativity.

That vision cannot become reality while eliminating funding that supports you remark.

Rose Lombardo.

Rose, you have time seated to you by Annela Chilcott.

Thank you.

Two minutes, please proceed.

Good evening.

My name is Rose Lombardo.

I am the principal flutist of the San Diego Symphony.

I moved here from across the country 15 years ago in 2012 to be a part of this world-class arts community in San Diego.

The proposed cut to arts funding would harm a sector that supports thousands of local jobs, drives 1.8 billion dollars in tourism, and provides vital education and community programs, as you've heard tonight.

At the symphony alone, our learning community and engagement programs reached over 51,000 individuals during this past season through free school programs, free ticket programs, free community concerts, family programming, public park activations, and more.

I recently also performed at the Moore's Cancer Center, where we saw patients and doctors come together for an hour of free music.

The arts do not just entertain, they heal, they connect, and they strengthen our community.

Arts funding is a vital investment with measurable returns and human impact.

I urge you to restore in full the funding for arts and culture in order to sustain the arts that makes San Diego a place that we are all proud to call home.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Kevin.

Kevin Govitz, I think that's a dupe as well.

Raul Salamanco.

I also have some time that was just given to me by Elizabeth Santin Dennis.

I have her speaker slip, so I will make sure to cede it to you.

You'll have two minutes.

Thank you for raising your hand.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Raul Salamanca.

I am the founder, CEO, and artistic director of Golden State Ballet and Golden State Ballet Academy, and I'm a resident of District 9.

The last time I stood before you, I warned that cuts to the arts and culture funding would have a real economic consequence to our city.

Today I'm here to tell you that those consequences already are happening.

After that meeting, our board and leadership team had to make a difficult financial decisions.

Of the four productions that we plan on performing next season, only one will be able to remain in the city of San Diego.

There are three other productions will move to other cities because we simply cannot risk the uncertainty surrounding future funding.

That means three full weeks, three full weeks, where our dancers, audiences, patrons will not be here supporting our local restaurants paying for parking, filling theaters, and contributing to the economy that the arts support.

And I know that we're not the only organization making those really tough decisions.

If we continue trying to solve this budget crisis by cutting the arts, we risk deepening the very economic problems that we are trying to solve.

San Diego deserves to be known as the city that invests in its future, not one that settles for only the bare minimum, or as I heard recently, essentials, just bare essentials.

Please reconsider these cuts to the arts and culture.

Please do so.

It could be a wild idea if you could invest in us.

If you would take that money that you would give to the to this to the city or the cops and flock, invested in us, we'll pay it back tenfold.

We're gonna be here next year talking about how we have a 400 million deficit, not 120.

I've spent my whole life doing this.

Please believe in us.

I have 35 years of experience.

We can do better.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council members.

Thank you, Carol Stevenson.

Good evening.

My name is Carol Stevenson.

I live in District 1 and I'm a member of Showing Up Provacial Justice in San Diego.

Real safety is being around people you trust.

A safe community prioritizes the places and activities that help us build that trust with one another.

So places like parks and libraries, activities like youth services and the arts, do all that.

So knowing our neighbors and our neighborhoods goes much farther than tracking people anonymously from surveillance cameras.

And investments in people are the actual proven foundations of safety.

So I urge you to defund the FOC ALPR infrastructure contract, fully restore allocations for arts and culture, and fully restore the library budget.

Protect our communities by funding community care.

Thank you.

Carol, Julia Putz.

I believe that's a dupe.

Julia.

Hannah Park.

If you can please come up to the microphone, Hannah Park after that.

Daniel Gutierrez, Yina Shait, Richard Provincio, Mystaffi Alhoham.

Mostafa, please come forward to the yellow reserve seats.

John Lott and Divia.

Divia de Vautapu and Karina Vega, as well as Lily Kinn.

Please come up to the yellow reserve seats.

Please proceed.

Hello, City Council Member and maybe Mayor Todd Gloria, thank you so much for your time tonight.

My name is Hannah Park.

I'm a resident of District 7 and also a member of the local arts community.

I'm not gonna say anything new here, but I just want to bring your attention to the matter of public trust here.

Um it's been highlighted that the city has major structural issues with the budget that date back many years.

Um, and it struggles to generate new revenue sources, and a large port of part of that is due to a lack of public trust.

Um I want you to consider the decisions that you're making with this upcoming budget and the people that are listening and looking at you to see if we actually can trust you.

So please consider that.

Please consider your constituents and please restore arts and culture funding.

Thank you.

Thank you, Daniel Gutierrez.

In a challenging fiscal year, the city prioritized core services residents rely on every day.

When was the last year that was not fiscally challenging?

I I don't know how this how is this an acceptable reason?

This has been the state of all since I can remember.

I don't know how many more people have to tell you.

47.2 million for SDPD's overtime budget.

Three libraries are moving from Tuesday to Saturday.

Thank you.

Yina?

Argyna, why and Y-I-N-A?

Richard Provencio.

You have people seeding you time.

If they can please raise their hand, Chelsea Owen.

She left.

Okay, and Jimmy Lovett.

Thank you.

You'll have two minutes.

Please proceed.

What's up, Council?

What's up, everybody?

Uh, thanks for sticking it out here.

Uh, want to shout out the youth that are making out here and getting involved in local politics, it's never been more important than it is today.

Uh I want to say that I'm not here to uh push for a restoration of the arts and library and parks and rec budget.

I'm here for saying it's already way too low.

Um, so just just let me give you uh so a little bit of background on me.

I'm a veteran, I struggle with PTSD, but I also am a CPA and uh I did that for uh better part of a decade, so I have a little bit of uh expertise in the area.

So just uh some quick numbers for you.

Um, the arts budget uh was around $13 million, and the general fund itself is 2.251 billion dollars.

So uh quick math.

That's not even a full percent.

That's a.59% of the general fund is the arts budget.

Now, if we go back to the police budget, that is 725 million.

Uh that is that is 32% of the general fund there.

So uh a third of the budget.

So I don't understand why we're consider we're we're even having this conversation.

Like if we need money, let's go to the biggest slice and cut it from there.

Um, also I think it's interesting that we're not allowed to see the details of the police budget.

There's uh regularly, there are multi-million dollar settlements for um negligence, wrongful deaths, uh is that is that baked into the budget, and if so, why why is that okay?

You know, the budget for the police in 2021 was 580 million dollars, and now we're already 145 million dollars increase in just seven years.

Why are we talking about thirteen million dollars for the arts right now?

Why aren't we talking about why why is the police budget so big?

And we can't even look at the details.

Thank you for that concluding sentence.

Mestoffe?

If you can come up to the microphone, and you have people seating you time, Aisha Blackwell.

Yes, ma'am.

You'll have two minutes, please proceed.

I first want to start off with saying, thank you for having me here.

All right.

Good evening, Council members.

Mayor Gloria.

My name is Mostafa Alga.

And I am 20 years old.

Coming here.

I was born in Iraq, Baghdad.

I am an American citizen.

The bombs, the chaos, the fear, no kut should ever know.

I came to America for safety, but just nine days ago, on May 18th, the safety was shattered when three innocent men, Amin Abdullah, Mazul Khazia, Nadir Awad were murdered in a hate terrorist shooting.

And the Islamic censor of San Diego.

This isn't just a Muslim issue.

This is a San Diego issue.

Black, Latino, Asian, white, Arab, Indigenous, every ethnicity in the city is watching Veritab Glory.

How can we even trust you?

How can I, as a Muslim American, I'm actually male?

Trust you.

As a 20-year-old who's already survived the war, I'm tired of the same old priorities that we've working families exposed.

Every ethnicity is San Diego, the black mother in the Southeast, the Latino family in Barrio Logan, the Asian elders and Kearney Mesa, the Muslim youth in city heights.

We all pay taxes, and we all deserve real protection.

How can we even trust you with our safety?

When this budget still doesn't prioritize the prevention of the next tragedy.

Christian, Jewish, and Muslim and Buddhist, every religion.

Thank you for that concluding.

This is a 20-year-old putting it for you slightly.

And I am not mad at you because you are our mayor.

Thank you for that concluding sentence.

John Lott.

Good evening, Council members.

Uh my name is John Lott, and I work at UC San Diego Health, and I've seen how recent disruptions and research funding have had repercussions that will take years to recover from.

Researchers once laid off can't so easily be conjured to return.

Medical studies can't be placed on pause.

Similarly, our arts and culture, our arts, culture, and youth programs are living institutions.

They must be fed and cared for.

They are not light switches that can just be flicked off and back on.

Even if the idea is to cut funding for only a year or so to get the budget back on track, programs will end and institutions will decay.

And yet these cuts, severe as they are, will not address the underlying economic conditions that created this deficit.

Deficit spending to invest in our culture and economy is not catastrophic.

It's not a fringe idea, it's mainstream economics.

The federal deficit spending is 6% of GDP.

Here in San Diego, it is 0.04% of our regional.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Devia?

Good evening, Council members.

I'm Divya Deva Guptapu, founder of a music and dance nonprofit, Niantri, and our mission is to enable an inner awakening and inspire a collective shift in human consciousness through the transformative power of art.

I'm here today to speak as a human whose life was transformed only because art was a part of my life since I was four.

I also happen to have a degree in electrical engineering from USC and spent a few years working in Sorrento Valley and tech, but honestly, none of that made sense because my heart was always in art, which is why I gave it all up.

Art made me a sensitive and loving human being and gave me something so intangible that no degree or hyping salary in tech could ever give.

I worked with UCSD Dance department as a teaching and as a teaching artist with several other nonprofits in the city, including arts education connect Indian finance, and the only words that have consistently heard was budget cuts, budget cuts, and budget cuts.

And nothing has changed it's 2026 today.

Thank you for that concluding statement.

Karina Vega.

Karina Vega, District 8, Code Pink, D Flock as D and Ote Mesa Collective.

I would hope that as council members and representatives of your constituents here in San Diego that you would want to uphold our safety and well-being.

Flock surveillance does not make nor keep us safe.

Flock being used by a terrorist entity like ICE who are being trained by Israel using the same intimidating churching raping and murdering tactics that the IOF uses on Palestinians in their own homeland does not make us safe.

This week in Delaney Hall IC injured peaceful protesters and arrested medics providing aid to them for exercising the rights and advocating for the rights of humans inside these concentration camps.

We have one of those concentration camps here called the Ote Mesa detention center contributing more money to the SDPD and ICE would encourage that same brutality for us who have been visiting these brothers and sisters being detained at Otai.

Again flock surveillance that does not keep us safe flock being made possible through AI data data centers that encourage heat waste and generate more pollution thermal energy equivalent to multiple atomic bombs daily does not make us safe.

Invest in the arts the flock is the no cultural concluding statement Lily Lily Quinn.

You have time seated or maybe speaking with you by Jing Hong Kwin.

Thank you.

You'll have two minutes on the clock please proceed.

Good evening council members my name is Lily Quinn and I'm the president and founder of the Point Circle a youth a youth led nonprofit.

I'm also a sophomore at the Bishop School and a 15 year old dancer.

I am here tonight in favor of restoring the arts and culture budget.

I've been training in dance since I was four years old and the arts have shaped my entire life they have given me confidence discipline and an irreplaceable community I'm so grateful to have.

Even the San Diego Civic Theater just down the street holds some of my dearest memories in 2023 I performed as Clara in the knot cracker with the Golden State Ballet Academy there.

Maybe some of you've even watched me it felt so exhilarating to finally be fulfilling my dream since I was a little girl one that I know is shared amongst many other young girls as well.

Because the arts have given me so much I wanted to give something back.

That's why I founded the point circle.

Through dance music and other art forms we are able to contribute back to our community.

We've performed for seniors with Alzheimer's and dementia organized annual holiday performances for families at the Rady Children's Hospital and established our own ballerina story time programs at public libraries in Carmel Valley PHR Carmel Mountain and so many more.

Through our library events our goal is to share that joy the arts brings to us with kids who might never otherwise see a live dance performance or hear a live concert.

By bringing the performing arts to these spaces we make it accessible to families who cannot afford expensive tickets.

By cutting this 11.8 million dollars you are closing doors to thousands of kids you are telling our future generation and leaders that creativity culture and community programs do not matter arts funding is not a luxury it's essential to our community's well-being and further development thank you so much.

Thank you Adriana Adrian Paulson Adrian Paulson please come up to the microphone after that will be Rowan Knowles Adrielle Olvera Paul Supa Valentina Rodriguez and Renee Rios if you can all please come up to the yellow reserve seats as well as John Badry John Brady and Audra Morgan.

Please proceed just two hours ago I graduated from one of as one of the most accomplished students in my program from the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts I've spent the last eight years attending art schools and being as immersed in educational theater as possible.

Pretty soon I plan to enter the technical theater theater industry or for a lifelong career in the industry.

But what am I supposed to do if those theaters are to fund it?

I intend to use that money I earn from those jobs to pay for college, but what do you want me to do if they can't employ me?

Most jobs will take one look at my disability and turn me away.

But I've committed myself to the one path or to the path out of very few employees that will actually that are actually willing to look past that, considering I am an incredibly good at what I do, and I have years of experience to prove years of hard work to prove that.

Arts is my only reliable option for success.

I've worked immensely hard to build strong foundation for my future in a way I simply would not be able to in any other industry.

And these budget cuts feel akin to the city jackhammering that foundation while I stand on it because it does not care if I slip through the cracks.

Is it is it true for that continue to put the likelihood of myself and so many others like me in decorative time?

Or should I just drive back to my school and inform all of my graduating?

I do have to be fair.

You can definitely email in your comments.

Rowan Knowles.

Hi, my name is Rowan Knowles.

The art in San Diego has always been the heart and culture of our city.

I myself danced for six years with San Diego Civic Youth Palais, and during that time, I learned the importance of dance, perseverance, and the importance of having freedom and creative self-expression, which some of you might need as well.

Cutting art funding will harm nonprofit organizations like SDCYB and the families they serve.

It is a bad luck for the city to be cutting something that actively helps our city instead of focusing on the issues that we need to solve.

Homelessness.

Why are we spending all of our money on the police department?

I'm a high schooler telling you this.

It feels stupid for me to be here so late at night when you guys can't do your jobs.

You need to start taking action, responsibility for yourselves.

It's embarrassing.

Do better for your city.

Adriel Overa.

Adriel Overa, are you here?

Paul Supa.

Good evening, City Council.

Mayor Todd Gloria.

Overwhelmingly, citizens have stood before you tonight with a mandate to restore the arts and culture budget.

You can do so simply by rescinding the 15 million dollar police budget increase for 2027.

The people have overwhelmingly spoken.

We do not want a surveillance state.

Flock has cost 12.5 million over five years.

It has been sued recently, March 2026, for privacy violations in the Javorski class action lawsuit.

It is illegal.

We need to do better.

We respectfully, in conclusion, we need to get the flock out of here.

We don't give a flock, restore the arts.

We don't give a flock, restore the arts.

We don't give a flock, restore the arts.

Thank you.

Valentina Rodriguez.

Good evening, Council members, and mayor Gloria.

Good evening, everyone of us.

My name is Valentina.

I am a Navy veteran with over 16 years of service and continued service as the outreach coordinator for BBSD, Veterans Village of San Diego.

When out in the community with other community partners like PAF and law enforcement heart teams, when I come across an unhoused veteran, I provide them with the resources and housing options we have at our campus.

Veterans are provided with employment, medical, mental health resources, three meals daily, just to name a few.

That said, I oppose Mayor Gloria's plan to use millions of dollars to take over spaces designated to house our veterans to get the treatment that they need to find the stability that they so seek.

Your time has concluded.

Oh, veterans.

Currently, you'll keep I'm sorry, ma'am.

Your time has concluded.

You can definitely email your comments to City Clerk at San Diego.gov, and they will be distributed out.

Renee Rios.

Good evening, council members.

Mayor Gloria.

My name is Renee Rios, and I served in the United States Navy for 24 years.

I currently serve as the program manager at Veterans Village of San Diego.

I work directly with veterans and their families, helping them move towards stable permanent housing and rebuilding their lives with dignity and support.

I respectfully oppose the mayor's proposed $2.3 million allocation to take over Veterans Village of San Diego campus.

We don't need your help.

Over veteran, our veteran community comes to us seeking stability, structure, and hope.

This sudden disruption threatens VVSD's 45 year mission of serving those who served our country and can result in the displacement of veterans currently occupying our beds and participating in life-changing programs.

Thank you for that complete concluding sentence.

John Brady.

Are you here?

John Brady.

Audra Morgan.

You put Audra Morgan on their speakers.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Allegedly, Audrey, please come forward.

After that, we'll have Stella Kissinger, Katherine Pollett, Noah Gold, Dino Starbucks Smith, Rebecca Nolan, and Josh Clark.

Please start making your way to the front row.

Please proceed.

Find it ironic, Todd, that you're cutting the arts when you spend money of hours on your nice little music videos.

Like Ta Gloria is back.

Ta Gloria is back.

Right?

And all the single ladies, right?

Those are good ones.

So I'm wondering if you're starting to think about your next music video, and it's going to be called something about ALPR.

Maybe I don't give a flock, right?

Because you're going to potentially bring in more of this surveillance, which this whole mosque shooting should be telltale signs that your ALPR doesn't work.

Had you followed some people supposedly to Mission Valley while they were shooting up a mosque.

Okay, so that should be proof that it should actually be cut, but you're going to use it as an opportunity to say, well, there were gaps.

We weren't able to follow them completely.

So we're gonna need to put this all over the place.

So you guys better buckle up because things are gonna get real really quick, and it's great to see people coming in and filling the house like this because eventually the people are gonna do it because you're gonna start to see that they're not good stewards of our money and that they're trying to put us in a digital prison.

Time has concluded.

Stella Kissinger.

Hi.

I just graduated from the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts.

That school gets funding from the VAPA Foundation, which is being cut.

I would not be here today in a very real sense without these programs.

I am a member of the La Jolla Playhouse Team Council.

I was a San Diego Symphony student ambassador.

I did internships with the Old Globe.

I am so linked with theater in San Diego, and I would not be here today without them.

You guys talked earlier about trade-offs, about what you needed to get rid of so that you could balance the budget.

I am here asking you today, would you trade my life that I would have given up without these programs so that you can balance your budget?

I want you to answer that question.

It is absolutely, I am the daughter of a librarian.

It is absolutely irredeemable that you would cut these programs that people rely on that kids rely on.

It is insane to me that I have to stand here today and tell you that art saves lives, that library save lives.

Catherine.

Please come forward to the mic.

Pat Katherine Pollett, Noah Gold, Dino Starbucks Smith, Rebecca Noland, Josh Clark, Mike Miller, Kenny Klitch.

Sorry, let's go back a couple names.

I'm Josh Clark.

Please proceed.

I'm a district three resident who represented that district on the city's bicycle advisory committee from 2014 to 2018, where we worked with the Modi Mold team as they implemented the first protected bikeways in the city.

They've installed many more since all extremely quickly, cheaply, and efficiently during repaving projects citywide from Park Village Drive in PQ to Del Sol Boulevard and Ozai Nestor.

That infrastructure has increased ridership and saved lives.

There are more than 300, there are more than 600 miles of planned bikeways in the city.

These are currently substandard and on dangerous streets used daily by our kids and parents and neighbors, people who are choosing to ride and people who don't have another choice.

I'm asking you all to prioritize retaining the multimodal team with just three million dollars in the FY27 budget so that they may continue their expert redesigns of our roadways, making them safer for all roadway users.

We have a climate action plan target of six percent for all residents trips by bike by 2030.

Portland is the only major metro who has achieved that, and they did it with a multimodal team.

If we fund ours too, we can meet that target with high gas prices, e-bikes, more protected bikeways, and 350 days of sunshine.

Please, thank you for that transportation fund.

Catherine, last call for Catherine Pollett.

Noah Gold, last call for Noah Gold.

Dino Starbucks, last call.

Rebecca Nolan, Rebecca Monolan, last call.

Mike Miller.

Please come forward.

Let's talk numbers.

In order to restore the arts grants, the Office of Child and Youth Success and Libraries, not just their hours, but their services and programs as well.

That would cost the same amount of money that the police budget is increasing this year.

Restoring rec center hours would cost the same amount of money as the flock contract.

The thing with the police budget is that as it has increased year over year, the crime clearance rate has decreased.

At the same time, unlawful use of force, arrests, and discrimination has increased.

Those are numbers from Mayor Gloria's own budget document.

So don't tell me that this has anything to do with community safety.

And if you don't believe me, believe the police officer union president who called this budget prioritizing politics over public safety and an unacceptable way to run a police department.

Thank you.

Kenny?

Please come forward.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Kenny Kliddich.

I'm a resident in District 3.

Council members, you must take this opportunity to cancel the city's contract with Flock.

The system is costly, ineffective, and a threat to vulnerable communities and frankly everyone.

We've seen reports of these systems being abused by police, data leaked, data shared intentionally with federal agencies, unlawfully, and now the FBI in a recent story wants full access to ALPRs across the entire country.

This level of surveillance is outrageous and would make George Orwell blush.

And by canceling this, you get two million dollars in the budget to allocate towards more worthy causes.

Please join at least 68 other cities, as well as your constituents, in rejecting flock and ALPRs.

Our residents deserve to be supported, not surveilled.

Thank you.

Alison Miller.

Alison Miller.

Please come forward the microphone.

After that will be Maya, Maya Sconian, Phoenix Wing, David Pierce, Colin Kimsey, Andrea Lopez Rivera.

Please proceed.

Good evening.

I'm a resident of district three, and I'm here to speak in opposition to the proposed budget revisions, which are insufficient for the needs of our city.

The proposed budget includes a multi-million dollar flock contract.

I work in a local emergency department, and I've seen repeatedly firsthand how quickly excessive surveillance and police presence can escalate a situation and lead to avoidable violence.

This over surveillance and violence disproportionately affects the most vulnerable San Diegans, which includes racial minorities, queer folks, and homeless folks.

Furthermore, insufficient evidence exists that mass surveillance systems like Flock improve the safety of communities that employ them, with the police reporting a less than point two percent success rate, according to the privacy advisory board.

By contrast, evidence-based practices to improve public safety.

They include a robust network of community support resources, including fully funded libraries, rec centers, and homeless services, in addition to the arts and cultural institutions like the San Diego Symphony and Pride that gives San Diego its character.

If the council is serious about closing the budget deficit, it is both disingenuous and unethical to commit to the flock contract and increase police budget while simultaneously cutting the arts and other panelists.

Maya?

Maya, are you still here?

Maya was seated time by Kevin.

Kevin Dominado.

Did you still want to speak?

Okay.

Phoenix Wing.

Is anyone willing to feed one minute of time for me?

We'll go over there and get the speakers though.

Please proceed.

I am here again because the numbers didn't change and I'm really disappointed, so I made the graph bigger for you guys.

This revision was a complete failure.

That's my first point.

I have three points.

This vision was a complete failure.

If someone stabs you and sticks a knife six inches into your chest and then pulls it halfway out, do we thank them for the progress they are making?

Do we thank them for the knife heading in the right direction?

No, you do not get a thank you.

This was a failed revision.

The knife is still in for the arts and cultures.

I am sick of hearing Mr.

Matica and the mayor talk about how this addresses the budget deficit when it does not.

I am a math tutor.

Let me teach you some math.

I did this to scale to the nearest one-tenth of an inch for you guys based on your own numbers.

I have it to scale where six inches represents 50 million dollars and one inch is about eight million dollars of our budget.

Do you guys see this little 2.5 millimeters?

That is the Neil Good Center.

That is 2.5 millimeters.

Arts and culture is before the cuts is one inch, one and two-thirds of an inch.

After the cuts, it is less than a quarter of an inch.

Less than a quarter of an inch.

I had to measure that out with a special type of ruler.

What's the police budget?

I wonder.

Here's this for the cameras.

You guys see this?

Do you guys think this is it?

Is this it?

No.

It's this.

The police budget to scale is seven foot one inch.

And you will increase it to seven foot three inches.

Todd Gloria, would you like to do the favor of cutting off what's left of the arts and cultures program so you can tape it to the end of the police budget and tell us how you're solving the deficit?

I have the one right here.

You've been doing really good.

Let's keep it up.

We got we still got how much more left?

We have about an hour.

Another hour.

Let's get through it.

David Pierce.

David Pierce, are you here?

Colin Kimsey.

Wow.

Doesn't real art just make you feel alive?

That was fantastic.

Um, if they're cutting the things that prevent crime, and things are getting more expensive, but they're investing in surveillance cameras and cops.

It sounds like you guys just want to lock us up.

Is that the plan?

Because I think that's the plan coming from Washington, and maybe you guys are just going with the path of least resistance, but that's what's been taking us to fascism.

Now, each of us gets one minute to speak, and we've been very conscious of this time, but I think time is running out for this system that proposes cameras and police as our solutions.

Art gives us the ability to imagine otherwise.

But this system, I think time is about to run out.

Andrea Lopez Rivera.

Good evening.

My name is Andrea.

I'm hungry, I'm pregnant, and I'm up past my bedtime to strongly oppose the gutting to arts and culture.

The reduction and staff to libraries around the county and the reduction of funding to parks from the fiscal year 2027 budget.

This budget is so egregious, you all have succeeded in having hundreds of working people sacrifice their workday evening to sit here and say what should be obvious to you all.

A reduction to arts, culture, libraries, and parks will not only affect the lives of San Diego's today, but reverberate into the future.

You are setting the precedent that this city can function without funding to the parts of our community that are explicitly dedicated to making us human.

You must fully restore funding to arts and culture.

As a writer and artist, the last few years have been devastating.

Again and again, private sector tech companies have pushed to remove people from the arts and humanities, offloading the labor of creating art to generative AI technologies.

With a city, what a city funds highlights what they believe matters, and this budget has spat in the face of what the people of San Diego needs.

We need to tax the extreme wealth in the city and demonstrate that the people who matter are the ones who live here, not the ones who vacation here.

Thank you.

Rafael.

Rafael A.

And then if Roger Ralphs could please come forward to speak to my staff.

Roger Ralphs, if you're still here, please come forward to the thing.

Please proceed.

I stand here in solidarity with the artists and creators of our community.

I love living here.

But this city's representatives continue to push for surveillance cameras on every corner, reduce library hours, and cut library jobs and services.

Continue to increase the funding of their police department and completely cut all funding for its arts and culture.

Those representatives are telling the community that they don't matter.

I just want to make sure to remind the members, the members of the council and the mayor that without us, the people, you don't matter.

Thank you.

Sabrina Anderson, if you can please come up to the microphone.

After Sabrina, we have Letty Soto, Gaby Chen, Kendra Jones, Laura Cleving Clevingat, Jim Whalen, and Seth Hall.

If you can all please come forward to the yellow reserve seats.

Sabrina, if you're here, please come up to the microphone.

No Sabrina at the microphone.

Sabrina Anderson.

Leti Soto.

Uh-huh.

Please come up to the microphone.

Good evening, City Council and Mayor Gloria.

Before coming here tonight, I ask God to give me the strength to bear the sorrows of what has become of San Diego under this administration.

My name is Letty Soto.

I'm the CEO of Brooklyn Dogs, and I come upon you humble and full of faith of a Christian soul looking for your mercy in a desperate situation.

So please do not forsake in me.

Downtown has always been a dangerous playground, but it has gotten worse.

But because of mishandled money, the budget shortfall again and again.

All the departments are suffering.

And this disturbs my soul.

Budget cuts mean department cuts, means police cuts means no enforcement to us again and again.

The public is in danger.

Please.

If you think about it and you get the legal vendors to pay fines and fees, the city won't be tremendously under budget.

Thank you.

Gabby Chen.

Good evening.

My name is Gabby Chen, and I am a resident of District 3.

I moved here to San Diego to pursue a career in the arts.

I've been fortunate enough to work in with many local San Diego theater groups, such as Trinity Theater Company, Diversionary Theater, and La Jolla Playhouse.

I also work as an educator at the Fleet Science Center, whose youth education programs are now in danger.

Many of our workshops take place in libraries.

If those libraries are not open, we cannot do our jobs.

If we don't have free museum days, we will lose attendance from lower income families.

You are robbing your constituents and citizens of a vital educational opportunities.

More pressing than the threat to the livelihoods of us artists and educators is the threat facing San Diego youth.

Should this budget be adopted?

Arts and culture funding is essential.

It not only enriches citizens but provides community belonging and education to many traditionally underserved communities.

It is abhorrent that two million million of the dollars that could go to arts and culture funding is proposed to go to the city surveillance that will uh ultimately be used to harm them.

This money that could be used to improve our community is being put towards flock cameras and bloating police budget would be a grave mistake.

I urge the city not to not to make it.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Kendra Jones.

Good evening, my name is Kendra Jones.

I'm here to ask you to fully restore our city library budget.

My wife and I have lived and voted in District 5 for almost 30 years and have been avid users of the San Diego City Library system over this time.

We visit our local branch weekly.

We access materials, both digital and print, that we check out on a daily basis.

As a retired public school teacher and a parent, I have personally seen the positive effects of kids and families that utilize our public libraries.

In addition to checking out books, our libraries offer young people the chance to socialize with others in a safe and welcoming environment, learn to love books and stories, receive tutoring and homework help, and through programs like the summer reading program, kids are motivated to become educated lifelong learners who are productive citizens of our community.

Adults in our community are bolstered by our libraries too.

We have personally, we have visited over 20 of their 37 branch libraries, and we've seen firsthand the varied programs and spaces that our library staff have curated.

Keeping all of them open as many hours as possible, allow diverse groups and individuals to actually use the community gatherings meeting spaces that our city has built.

Good evening.

My name is Laura Klebinga, and I'm a native San Diegan who has lived here my entire life.

First, I'd like to thank Mr.

Whitburn for being one of the three who listened to his constituents and voted against the parking fees of Balboa Park.

I spend a lot of time there and take advantage of the free museums at uh the free Tuesdays at the museums.

I'm afraid that your budget cuts will impact the accessibility of these resources for my three and a half year old child to learn from.

I brought my mom here with me tonight and my son because my husband is a union stagehand at work, and I'm also speaking on his behalf since now he's off work at home with my son.

So I don't know if you saw me earlier.

Uh I had my son.

As a longtime member of the House of Ukraine as part of the House of Pacific Relations, I worry that your budget cuts will affect how the cottages will be able to provide their cultural services to the public.

At a time when there is great strife in the world, as some of you have witnessed firsthand, um, the House of Pacific Relations provides free educational opportunities for the general public and a sense of community for its various member countries.

Thank you, Jim Whalen.

Jim Whalen, are you here?

Seth Hall.

Thank you, Council Seth Hall with the Trust SD coalition.

Uh, tonight I've heard several ideas that are good for redirecting funding back to OCYS to arts and culture and other community needs.

First, for example, the millions of increase to the police budget should absolutely be redirected to these community needs.

The police department should contribute to the public safety needs of our city.

Money that funds the mayor's communications staff, a team that does not serve the public, and uh which this council has already agreed should have its funding cut, could provide millions to the needs of the community.

And finally, lastly, cutting funding for ineffective luxury mass surveillance would send millions back to the budget.

It would protect the budget from even more surveillance that they want to buy, but that they are not telling you about.

It is the people of San Diego that make us great.

We will be great.

We were great before mass surveillance.

We will be great after you get ready.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Lily Arani.

Lily Arani, please come forward.

Vincent Stalkup, please come forward to the yellow reserve seats.

Andy Jose Lopez, please come forward.

Dr.

Jason Breslowski, thank you for the comment, the note.

Apollo Accino and Tammy Williams, as well as Anthony Ross.

If you can all please come forward to the yellow reserve uh seats.

Lily, you have time seated to you by Tama Becker or Verano.

I know you guys are going to manage your time.

Okay, please proceed.

All right, hi.

I'm a district district three Muslim and a professor at UCSC.

Our San Diego community faced immense tragedy this last week.

Two shooters who found belonging in white supremacist forums murdered three pillars of the community, brothers Amin, Mansour, and Nader.

I call on the city to fund spaces of belonging like we've been hearing about here as diversions from those spaces of hate.

ALPR not only failed but made things worse.

When the parent warned PD that their Islamophobic anti-Semitic child was on the run with guns, the police used high-tech toys to quote chase the bad guys.

This is a Hollywood fantasy of chase apprehension and saving the day.

But the police arrived too late at every turn.

Rather than chasing a license plate, the police could have been calling each community center to warn them of heightened threat.

Gates could have been shut.

PD could have sent protective patrols.

Instead, they gave chase with ALPR and neglected the real source of safety, relationships, rapid response information, and community controlled protection.

The police will always be late compared to communities themselves.

AI doesn't overcome the laws of physics.

Pull flock funding, fund prevention, no police increase, and gross fines to stop Islamophobia, actual anti-Semitism and hate wherever it comes.

Thank you, Lily.

My name is Tamma Becker Verana, resident of District 6 and lead organizer of Change Begins with Me, and also a member of the Trust Coalition.

I wanted to make sure that Lily had enough time to speak tonight.

I echo the critical points that she made.

The communities across the country are realizing the fact that surveillance technology does not prevent crises.

It misdirects funding.

And right now we're seeking funding wherever we can find it, and flock contracts require extensive, expensive, recurring drains on our municipal funds.

By canceling these contracts, we can redirect them to address the real needs of our community.

Thank you for that concluding statement.

Vincent Stackup.

Good evening.

And I grew up in District 3 and District 4.

I graduated from San Diego City College and San Diego State University, where I'm a current graduate student, and I'm here to speak on the inaccessibility of public restrooms in the city of San Diego, and I want to specifically speak on District 3.

I don't know if you walked around downtown.

I believe it's supposed to be a restroom every five minutes, but especially in the East Village area, it's definitely not happening.

We're talking about uh cutting funding from the umil good day center.

Um, and then I don't there's just no bathrooms out there.

So I mean, unless you want more uh outbreaks, more people dying, I suggest you do something.

There's been decades and decades and reports, grand jury reports.

It's so much this is a persistent problem.

Please do something about it before more people die.

Thank you.

Andy Jose Lopez.

Good evening.

My name is Andy Jose Lopez, and I'm part of Sanitation Justice.

I'm a research student and San Diego State University.

I come today to ask you to not cut the budget for the bathroom, the libraries, because those are where the public bathrooms are at.

So you closing public bathroom, but you also cutting the access that they already have.

Um I also want to let you know that um it's not a luxury to have these places for something necessary.

Um, the research that we have done, we see that the bathroom gets closed at 2 30 to 5 o'clock when they are around near school, so the access is already being cut for these students.

But most of all, what I want to bring to your attention is that these kids are gonna go into places.

I was a victim of things getting cut in New York City when I was growing up, and we found ways to get in trouble because we didn't have no other places to go.

So this is what you want to create for San Diego, the city that saved me.

Thank you for that concluding comment.

Dr.

Jason Breslowski.

Hi, my name is Jason.

I'm a resident of D3.

I'm here to urge you to please keep the multimodal traffic safety team funded, at least partially.

This wouldn't take money from other services because the transportation department is already funded in this budget.

This is just about priorities within transportation.

I was here when the council declared safety as transportation's highest priority.

The traffic safety team is only two percent of the transportation budget.

If safety is truly the highest priority, I think we can dedicate two percent of the transportation budget to safety.

Even if that means slightly fewer potholes filled or less graffiti removed.

Two months ago, we also had a presentation here in chambers about children and e-bike safety.

Without the multimodal team, there will be no safe place for kids to ride e-bikes.

The bicycle master plan won't get implemented, and kids on bikes will be stuck either on the road in front of high-speed cars or on the sidewalks with pedestrians.

Neither is acceptable.

So please fund the multimodal team.

Thank you.

Apollo Achino?

Apollo?

Tammy Williams.

Tammy Williams.

Thank you.

Alrighty, let's all take a breath.

I understand it's late.

I am Tammy Williams.

I'm the AFT Guild 1931 intern and an audio graduate.

Uh my official position is chief of advocacy of urban league professionals.

I'm asking you guys to maintain funding in San Diego Arts and Culture instead of Flocked and urge you to pursue, urge you to pause on the funding of Flock until an independent audit is being done on this private company as we suggested two meetings ago.

Um considering the terrorist attack that occurred last week, I do not believe Flock would have prevented that, changed that.

It's events like December nights, programs like OCYS, these meetings here that let us know that meant meant that we can maintain mental health, that we could foster community and unity.

Foster community should not be up for discussion in San Diego.

Not now and not ever.

We can be the example for United States, or we can be an example.

Thank you.

Anthony Ralphs?

Anthony Ralphs, are you here?

People that ceded time to him if they would like to speak, Gwendolyn Garcia or Roger Ralphs.

Joy Sonia, if you can please come forward.

After Joy, we have Karen Alleluia, Evan Burke.

Bo Box, Gillian Quint.

Nicolas Lindlar.

Lungia, who?

Casey O'Leary Montezuma, and Mary Soriano.

If you can all please come up to the yellow reserve seats, please proceed.

This is my second reading.

I am inspired by these words of President John F.

Kennedy.

Ask not what your country can do for you, as what you can do for your country.

End of quote.

All of you are at the very top of our city's organization chart.

Here are my inspired words to all of you.

Ask not what your city can do for you, as what you can do for your city.

That's the end of my second reading.

Now I support this budget.

And all of you.

That's why I'm here.

Thank you and love to all.

Thank you, Karen.

My name is Karen Aleluya.

I'm an illustrator from District 7 who grew up in District 4.

The very possibility of this drastic cut tells me that you don't see us, that you don't understand who artists are and what we do.

But we are economic drivers.

We encourage spending, draw audiences from all over the world and create jobs.

If you go through with this cut, you irreversibly damage our entire creative ecosystem and not just nonprofits, but individual artists like me, my accessible art communities, small business, and more, because all of us are connected.

Invest in us though, and we will always give back.

Artists also teach people how to think critically, empathize with others, and imagine better systems.

In an AI-driven future in a divided political climate, we need these human skills.

Artists are investments for the future.

Listening to all these people speak, what more do you need to hear?

We're tired of being treated like an afterthought and having to fight for our sustainability year after year, despite how much we contribute to the good health of our city.

Please show us that you see your storing full funding.

Thank you for that concluding sentence.

Evan Burke.

Hi, my name is Evan Burke.

I'm in district three.

Despite having two hours advanced notice and a multi-million dollar flock surveillance system, police completely failed to reduce casualties nine days ago.

Yet the mayor chose to praise the police for bringing this threat to an end.

To be clear, despite receiving one-third of our budget, look at me, Todd, they did not.

Time after time, we watch our money go towards punishment instead of prevention.

We suffer in a vicious cycle where police failures are always an excuse to raise their budget while the successes of our parks, libraries, and programs are never enough to save them.

But what keeps us safe are our libraries where people can learn instead of being indoctrinated into neo-Nazi cults or the arts where they can learn to express emotions without violence.

And yet that is what is cut in the name of austerity.

Thank you.

Those of you who force this Orwellian surveillance system upon us will never be able to refund our money.

In some of you are not even here.

But you can restore our privacy and stop the bleed.

Kill two birds with one stone and flock.

Bo box.

Hi.

Good evening, uh, council members and mayor.

Uh my name is Bo, and I'm the deputy director at the San Diego Youth Symphony.

I live and work uh in District 3.

Um, my colleagues Kate and Samir were here just weeks ago accepting a proclamation for our 80th anniversary.

Uh, that longevity is only possible with sustained support um from public investment.

San Diego is home to many talented, uh dedicated and inspiring young musicians uh with limitless potential.

Cuts to arts and culture funding will impact them negatively now and for many years to come.

The students in our programs are not just the city's future musicians.

They will be teachers, they'll be researchers, they'll be doctors, administrative professionals, they will be civic leaders in this very chamber.

Arts and culture is an investment in the future of San Diego, and I ask you to restore our funding common to 26 levels.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and council.

Um I'm with the San Diego River Park Foundation.

Thank you, Council President, for leading discussions on the West Valley River crossing.

This month, over 120 community members have submitted letters urging you to reopen the CIP using developer impact fees.

Because this project expands alternative transportation capacities across districts two, three, seven, and nine, it does align with the core intent of these funds.

Using non-general fund dollars, ensure we do not compete with, but rather connect libraries and parks and work centers and transit.

Allocating this targeted seed money of 750,000 for the 30% design engineering study is the key needed to draw down millions in federal matching dollars and state.

Advancing this project into design is a high leverage move the city can make this year towards reaching climate action goals and turning a safety gap into a continuous safe line for our communities.