Good afternoon.

I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 special meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.

This special meeting is called for the purpose of holding a closed session related to the following conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation.

Under California law, public comments at special meetings were limited to subjects on the agenda only.

Therefore, public comments will be received at this time for the item previously mentioned.

I don't see anybody here for public comment, so we will now reconvene in the closed session discussion upstairs.

Two or three.

As some attendees may be participating in their first Walnut Creek City Council meeting, I wanted to welcome everyone and talk briefly about the public comment process.

For each agenda item, there will be an opportunity for public comment on the item.

Thus, if you desire to speak to an item on the agenda this evening, please hold your comments until the city council considers that item.

Additionally, we have a section on the agenda titled Public Communications, which is for public comments for items not on the agenda.

Any comments during public communication should not relate to an item that is on the agenda this evening.

Consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook.

30 minutes will be initially allocated for public communications for items not on the agenda.

Additional time for public communications for items not on the agenda will be provided at the end of the open session portion of the meeting if necessary.

If you desire to provide a public comment, please complete a speaker identification card and line up behind the lectern at the appropriate time.

Wait your turn, and then when you approach the lector, please state your name and city of residence for the record.

You will have two minutes to address the city council.

Please keep in mind that this is a city business meeting.

The city council has adopted rules of decorum to ensure that meetings are conducted efficiently and effectively, and that all members of the public have a full, fair and equal opportunity to be heard.

The city council handbook outlines decorum expected in the council chamber and can be found on our website.

All remarks should be addressed to the city council.

Please do not use threatening, profane, or abusive language, which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the council meeting.

Again, each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks.

Written comments submitted and received up to two hours before the meeting have been posted to the city's website for public review and are included in the meeting record, but will not be separately read into the record.

I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, and welcome to the Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 regular meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.

And if you'd all please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Councilmember Darling.

Sure.

Councilmember DeVinny?

Here.

Council Member Silva.

Here.

Mayor Protein Francois?

Mayor Wilk.

Here.

All right.

So before we start off, I just want to make a quick uh housekeeping note here that agenda item 6A is the assessment report and intend to levy assessments for the Walnut Creek Tourism Business Improvement District, and that's being pulled from the agenda tonight and will return at a later date.

So if anybody is here for that item, you won't be here, but you can actually talk on it during public comment if you would like.

Anyway, and I'll mention that again prior to that uh item coming up.

So first on the agenda though is our proclamation for gun violence awareness day.

And I want to, well, actually, we'll invite Kathy up in a minute from um from Mom Demand Action.

I want just to uh first mention that people wear orange on Gun Violence Awareness Day, as I have my orange kerchief here, to raise awareness about gun violence to honor Hadia Pendleton, who was a 15-year old girl who was shot and killed in 2013, just days after performing at the 2013 presidential inaugural parade.

Her friends wore orange to honor at her because it's the color that hunters wear to signal safety and protect themselves and others in the woods.

And the movement grew to a national campaign with the first wear orange weekend in 2015.

And the proclamation states that whereas each year in the United States, nearly 46,000 individuals are killed, and nearly 97,000 individuals are wounded by gunfire.

More than 19,000 individuals are killed by in homicides involving guns.

Nearly 26,000 individuals die by suicide using a gun, and 500 individuals are killed in unintentional shootings.

And it's the highest responsibility of our elected leaders to protect public safety and cities across the nation, including Walnut Creek, are which are working to end gun violence with evidence-based solutions.

Local elected officials and law enforcement officers in partnership with local violence intervention activists and resources know that their communities best, know their communities best, are the most familiar with local criminal activity and how to address it and are best positioned to understand how to keep their communities safe.

Whereas we support the support for the second amendment rights of law-abiding citizens goes hand in hand with keeping guns away from people with dangerous histories.

Gun violence prevention is more important than ever as we see an increase in firearm homicides and non-fatal shootings, increased calls to domestic violence and suicide hotlines, and an increase in city gun violence, and we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the hands of people who should not have access to them and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our families and communities safe, and therefore I, Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek, on behalf of the Walnut Creek City Council, do hereby declare the day of June 6, 2026, as National Gun Violence Awareness Day, and I encourage all citizens to support their local community's efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence to honor and value human lives.

And with that, I would like to invite up Kathy to uh Kathy Maloney with Mom's Demand Action and uh the end guy gun violence groups of Ross more forward to accept the proclamation and if you have a few words to say.

Thank you.

When I looked up the data as you instructed me to do before I came up, um I found something a little different than what you're saying.

So I'll just leave what you say.

So I'm the president of the um gun violence club of Rossmore, and I'm also a member of Mom's Demand Action, and they kind of fostered our club.

So I'm very, very grateful that you're doing this for us.

And I wore gr orange today.

You say this?