This regular meeting of the West Sacramento City Council, Redevelopment Agency, and Finance Authority featured routine approvals, a significant workshop on the long-awaited Bright Park Master Plan, and updates on employee compensation. Public comments raised concerns about school safety, unlicensed food vendors, dangerous road conditions, and past decisions regarding a community center.
Is it dark in here? Is it just being a little broken? All right. Now that the council members are present, we have one council member who's not going to be with us tonight, Councilmember Gerina Orozco, will not be in tonight. And our four council members that are here, I'll call the meeting. Can you hear me? Is the mic it is? It is working. I think it was just a lot of talking. So now that everybody is quiet, I will speak a little louder too. Um, I call the to order the August 6th meeting of the City of West Sacramento City Council, West Sacramento Redevelopment Agency, and Finance Authority. We will begin with the land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge that the land on which we live, work, learn, and commune is the original homelands of the indigenous people of West Sacramento who have stewarded this land throughout the generations. We acknowledge and we thank the original inhabitants who have occupied, maintained, and secured this place, and who still exist on this land. We respect and celebrate the many diverse indigenous people still connected to this land on which we gather. The council did not meet in closed session this evening, and we would like to invite our guests to join council and staff in the pledge, which will be led by Washington Unified School District Trustee Vanessa Castro, if she could come up to the mic and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please. As is noted in our agenda, City Council is prohibited by state law from discussing or taking any action on items that are brought up under item one for public comment, but it provides an important opportunity for a public forum. The public is given an opportunity at this time to address City Council on issues not listed on the agenda. So we do ask that anyone wishing to address the council on this or any other item this evening, please fill out a request to speak card and to return it to the clerk. We ask that the request to speak card also include the item that you are asking to speak under, whether it's public comment or if there's a particular agenda item. And once the staff report has been read and we open the item up for public comment, the clerk will announce your name for you to walk to the podium and to speak. Now, in front of the clerk, there is an analog, uh, there is a timer to ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard, and we ask that all comments be limited to the specified number of minutes. And also in front of the clerk is an analog flip chart, which indicates which agenda item the council is currently considering. We also recognize that for some speaking in public can cause anxiety. So we request that there be no applause or booze, cat calls, or other demonstrations. Furthermore, so that we maintain a civil discourse here in the chambers. We ask that those in attendance and those who address the city council abide by the code of conduct, post it and not speak in loud threatening, offensive, abusive, or other disrespectful language that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the meeting. Now this brings us to item one presentations by the public on matters not on the agenda within the jurisdiction of the council. And each person has three minutes to speak. Madam Clerk, are there any requests to speak? Yes, ma'am. Guy Stevenson. I have an issue with this high school down here. And I've had numerous people tell me this, not just one or two, but numerous. Vaping in the high school, sex in the bathrooms, drug usage in the school. Do you guys have a like uh school police officers at work over there or what? Fights. That was the other one. And you know, I told him, I said, you people need to come here and you need to address this because people getting bullied, vaping in the bathroom, sex in the bathroom, drug usage in the bathroom. And then I was told that there was you know police officers at work there, and I said, Well, they're not these police officers because they would do something about it, so they have to be like resource officers, maybe security, but they need to do something because one of my friends took his kid out of school and put her in a private school on the other side of the bridge because of it. And I know that you probably are not gonna do anything about it, so but it needs to be brought up. The other thing I was gonna say is I've had a conversation with environmental health, and they always turn around and send it over here, and then you people send it over there about people doing business over here selling food without licenses, without permits, without their service stations being examined and looked at. And like I've told you before, because of the industry that I'm in, food poisoning can kill you. A lot of people say, Oh no, you just get a stomach ache. No, you can die from it if you have a compromised immune system or you got kids. So I do have an issue with that. And if you don't mind if you could address those two issues, uh two issues, I would very much appreciate it. Thank you very much, and God bless you. And keep the people, families in your prayers about the two young ladies that got killed. That really devastated me, but they're in my prayers, and that's sad.