To reconvene this meeting. Call to order. The may 26th, 2026, regular meeting of the city of
cypress city council. City clerk, please call the roll. Council member. Strong.
carnahan here. Council member. Burke here. Council member. Pete here. Mayor pro tem chang
here. Mayor medrano present. All present. Thank you very much. Next on the agenda is
invocation. The invocation will be provided by pastor mandy gonzalez, cypress neighborhood
church. Please join us at the podium. And everyone else, can you please stand as you are
able to. Very thankful for being here tonight. And thank you for allowing me to share
our prayer for you tonight. Gracious lord in heaven, we thank you for the blessing upon
us. Thank you, lord, for giving us this great country, this beautiful state and wonderful
city. Lord, we honor you for who you are and the power you offer. Everything and everyone.
almighty god, we have promised that you have people humble themselves and recognize you.
your great mercy and love. You will hear them and bless them abundantly. I thank you, lord,
for all these men and women who they have devoted their life to serve you and work for the sake
of our safe, prosperous and dynamic community. Grant them wisdom, love, justice and
integrity as they perform their duties and responsibilities upon us and these wonderful
city that you have placed them to be a public servant. Lord, I ask you to lead them, guide
them, and give them a cheerful heart as they serve this community every day. Thank you
for their willingness to give their time, their effort, and their ability to carry such a
responsibility for the sake of the other lord jesus, may your blessing be upon each of them
and their families. Give them the health and the strength they need every day to make our
community better and prosperous. And so every us enjoy living and work and safely send our
kids to school, parks and places of entertainment. We also thank you for protecting
us and watching over everyone who was affected by this evacuation that we recently
happened, that the safe. And thank you for all the authorities and people who work
during this dangerous situation that has been happening to us now. Lord, I pray that you
blessing upon each member of this council. Reward the service with your peace and
goodness every day as they serve their fellow citizens in this beautiful city. Bendito
dios damos gracias por bendiciones sobre nosotros. Gracias, senor. Este pais.
estamos o estado de esta maravillosa ciudad de cyprus, senor ramos. Por cuanto si por
el poder sobre todo sobre todos te glorificamus, senor. Si tu pueblo reconoce to gran
misericordia de los cielos los. More abondante sous vidas. Gracias, senor. Por todos estos
hombres y mujeres a trabajar en beneficio de nuestra comunidad para ser la segura dinamica.
entonces senor sabiduria amor justicia integridad mientras responsabilidades sobre
nosotros y esta maravillosa ciudad llamado servir esfuerzos y su tiempo para el beneficio
de los demas bendiga cada uno de ellos familias desde la salud, la fuerza necesitan cada
dia para ser de nuestra comunidad mejor para para cada ciudadano de la ciudad
disfrutar de la vida, el trabajo y sus hijos de forma segura, el colegio a los parks
a los lugares de entretenimiento. Cuidado y protegido todas las personas.
peligro de intoxication. Gracias a dios por todo el trabajo para seguridad en esta
situacion peligrosa ahora senor sobre cada uno de los miembros del consiglio compensada con to
pass amor y bendicion. We pray this in the lord jesus christ. Amen. Thank you. Can you please
remain standing? Face the flag. Put your hand over your heart. Ready? Begin. I pledge
allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it
stands. One nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next on the
agenda. Report of closed session, mr. Weiner. Thank you, mr. Mayor. And members of the
city council, ladies and gentlemen, participating with us in person or remotely. The
city council met in closed session tonight to talk about one matter of pending litigation, to which the city is a party. The title of that litigation is marquez versus
city of cyprus federal district court. Case number eight colon two four dash cv dash 01835-0.
d w. The mayor and council member peat voluntarily recused themselves from this
participation. Council member peat recused herself on the advice of legal counsel. There
was a privileged and confidential briefing on the status of ongoing negotiations
to potentially settle this litigation. The city and miss marquez have reached a
settlement in principle, subject to formal documentation of the same, and the city will
be bringing back a formal settlement agreement for authorization at a future
council meeting in a public agenda item. Thank you, mr. Mayor. Thank you. Next on the
agenda, oral communications. This portion of the meeting is set aside for public comments
regarding any matter within the jurisdiction of the city council. Comments on non-agenda
items will be heard at this time. Comments related to a specific agenda item will be
heard following the staff report for that item and prior to the city council action,
unless the speaker prefers to make the comment during the general public comment period, the city council cannot discuss nor take action on matters not on the agenda for this meeting,
but council members may provide brief responses. Please complete a speaker's card to
address the city council in person. Please follow the instructions at the end of the agenda and wait for the mayor or city clerk to call on you to address the city council
virtually. Speakers providing in-person comments will be called. First time allotted for
public comment is three minutes now. I will call speakers up one at a time. Thank you, thank
you. First is brooke, followed by ann mallory.
good evening, mayor and city council. I just wanted to, first of all, thank
everybody that helped with the incident. And I know I'm going to leave some agencies or
people out, but our wonderful cypress police department ocfa the cert team, and I'm not sure
if people are aware, but we have residents that are also on the cert team that were
evacuated working, and some of those in district five were also employees, such as randi
harper for orange county social services department. And I'm going to apologize. Oh, orange
county sheriff's, it could go on and on, but obviously I was impacted and had to evacuate as
well as my father, who's on hospice in a long term care facility in the city of
staunton, and he remains evacuated at this time. And I also wanted to acknowledge that
at the community center on friday, I saw mayor medrano handing out food to residents,
and I saw council member pete handing out food, and her and her husband, former council
member john pete, got over 100 and my numbers are off. It was a lot. Over 100 meals delivered
to the community center. And to me, I just. Council member pete goes above and beyond. Some
people are natural born leaders in emergency situations, and I saw that. I saw it at the
incident command center multiple times. I happened to be staying in a hotel next to
that command center. I saw leo there. I saw bonnie there. I saw david briefly, I think, at
the community center, but I unfortunately didn't see mayor pro tem chang, and I didn't see
rachel, but I think rachel was at the command center from what I heard. So I just wanted to
acknowledge specifically, mayor medrano and council member pete. I know council member pete, you
went. I'm speechless. Above and beyond. I think it's important for residents to know in times
like this, in emergencies, leadership counts. It's very important that you have elected
leaders that can handle emergencies. I have 20 years with the american red cross,
and I served a six week stint during katrina, which is to this day, I think, the largest
natural disaster. I served in nola. And then I served in houston, and I was there when
we evacuated for rita. I worked at the houston astrodome, reliant city. We had over
50,000 evacuees there. And I got to see it this time from the other side as somebody that
had to evacuate. So now I got to see the other side of the coin. I hope in the future,
when after action briefing or whatever action after action report, I think might be the
name of it. The ocfa and the other agencies do that. The city of cypress will spin back
around and look at, you know, a larger event. Are we equipped? There's new technologies and
things out there. Maybe that could be on next year's strategic plan to step back and
look. And I'd like to see a citizens ad hoc somehow participate in that. But thank
you, everybody, and thanks. If I left out any group of people. Thank you. Next is anne mallari,
followed by randi harper. Good evening and thank you. I'm here to congratulate the city of
cypress, particularly the city staff, for their quick and effective response to the need
to evacuate ocfa and our wonderful police department. We're very visible. And jeff, I
really wanted to call out your department. You guys stood up the cypress community center in,
you know, just moments on a holiday weekend and really provided that safe haven while
things were unfolding. So special congratulations to you and your team. As you know, we
still have more than 16,000 people in orange county that are still evacuated.
fortunately, the cypress residents have returned home. But I do want to highlight the
fact that we have residents who work in the areas that were evacuated and that continue to
be evacuated. And for many people, losing a day's work is a significant impact on their
ability to meet their financial obligations. So in my capacity as ceo, we care, orange county,
I just want to remind you that we care stands ready to help. The we care website is we care.
orange county.org. And if you know somebody or perhaps you yourself are in need, you can
go to our website. You can send an email with a request for help. And we will do everything
we can to ensure that you have the assistance that you need to see you through a difficult
time. One of our mottos is we never want a crisis to become a catastrophe. And we saw the
community pull together to ensure that our residents were safe and, and the ripple
effects of being pulled out of the houses and perhaps being unable to work are going to
continue to affect people for a while. So we're here and, and I know cypress residents are here.
so just a reminder to knock on your neighbor's door and see how they're doing. That's the
thing that makes cypress particularly wonderful place to live, work and play. Thank you.
randi harper. Hello, members of city council, how are you? I just wanted to tell you. So
again, as a firefighter and emergency manager for like 40 years, I've been to lots of
calls where evacuations took place. But this was the first time where I was actually in
the zone that was being evacuated. And I got to say, it's a it's an odd feeling. You
know, fortunately, my wife was well planned. And that's what I would advise everybody to do is
make sure you have a plan, make sure you have a place to go, have the car packed up ready to
go, take care of the animals and all that kind of stuff. So during this event, I was one of
the 71 emergency managers that the governor arranged to have active during this call. What
my position was, I worked for ssa, orange county social services agency, and we're
charged with mass care and shelter for for the county during these times. So I was a
field liaison. We got a chance to set up seven shelters where last night, I believe the
highest total was about 1300 people. So just a really great effort. I really do applaud the
staff of cypress coming from a small city originally. You know, it's, it's a challenge to, to
get folks together and get things in place and really did stand up and support not only
yourselves, but the citizens of staunton as well. I did want to also comment on I'm not sure I
would imagine that the city is aware of it, but there is an sb, a program that is going to be
set up. I have documents I can give to the clerk. Yeah. And if you go to the website oc,
gov.com, you can get copies of it. And it not only helps those businesses that were affected,
both brick and mortar, but also potentially folks in homes, you know, home businesses, but the
county, the operational area, actually needs to have a certain number of claims so
that it can be considered for approval. There's also a dollar amount that needs to be reached.
so I encourage folks to go to that site, fill out the paperwork and hopefully get
some additional assistance. And then just finally, a reminder tomorrow at 230, the board of
supervisors is having a special meeting. And, you know, it's a really interesting thing to
watch. There'll be hopefully approving the, the proclamation that they posted for this
emergency. And with that, I just want to say thanks to all the staff and and personnel for
helping out during this time. Thank you. Next, marilyn reames, item number ten. Followed by
brooke, item number 11. Hi, council. Marilyn reames here, cypress resident and I had item
ten I absolutely yes on that. Which leads me to my next statement, which is the reason
I really wanted to get up here was to echo what these gals have said, I. I can't I can't
tell you how proud I am of this city and the people that run it. I can't tell you how hard it
was for me because I'm like a rescuer by nature. I rescue dogs off the street or whatever
it is, and it was the hardest thing on the face of the planet for me not to be here and
helping. It was so hard and I was so proud when I watched the videos that I got to see of
these wonderful people, these people that are struggling so much, being fed and then
learned later, thank you. You know, bonnie, putting out that message that that they'd been
taken to other shelters where they were going to be able to sleep for the night. And I, our
police department, I just what do you say? It's like we are the luckiest city on the face
of the planet to have such an amazing police department. And I thank you. I thank you, chief.
you I mean, it's just like it just ripples down all of it. Every officer, every staff
person. It's it's from the top down. And it is so beautiful and heartwarming for me. I am
going to do whatever it takes to, you know, I may be too old to do some of the things, but,
you know, I want to be prepared. I want to be prepared to help in more significant ways. I'm
certainly going to help with an. And because that's something tangible, I can do that. And I
can take my friends who are still in the evacuation zone and have been out and had, you
know, didn't have enough clothes. And the things we don't think about nightgowns
and undergarments and all of the things that you need to survive. And how is she going
to go to work? She still works part time, all of these things. So those are things I can do.
those are tangible things, and I'm thankful for that. But I just wanted to thank everyone.
jeff, you are freaking amazing. And anyway, I just, I love this city and I'm so proud to be a
resident here. Next is brooke item number 11, followed by glenn button, item number 11.
so mine's ten and 11. I just I made a boo boo, but my first one. So I wanted to thank our
new city manager. She was there every day and I didn't do that. And same for jeff and the staff
as well. And in regards to the proclamation that you signed, if maybe that could be posted
somehow on social media, because people will need that for insurance claims. They may
have benefits that will pay when there is those proclamations. So that kind of
goes for that item. And then in regards to number 11, I just wanted to say that in regards
to the land acknowledgment, we shouldn't forget about other people in cyprus that own land
in and around our city. What about the mexican spanish landowners whose land was taken
under the command for fremont and kit carson on orders of president polk? What about
japanese americans who had their land taken at the outset of world war two? What about
the portuguese who established the area as dairy land and cyprus as dairy city 70 years
ago? And what about the area's sugar beet farmers? Shouldn't they be recognized? How many
cypress residents are requesting recognition of cypress being on land
previously owned or occupied by indigenous peoples? How many cypress residents are concerned
about this? How is this proposal related to the city's three primary areas of focus,
which are public safety, community and recreation services and fiscal management?
city council and staff should remain focused on the city's strategic plan and not on
unrelated feel good or self interest actions that don't benefit a significant number of
residents. Any regular meeting opening statements, such as recognition of indigenous
people's land, should not come before god invocations or country, which is a pledge of
allegiance. Thank you for your time. Glen. Item number 11. Good evening, city council,
city staff, everyone present? I'm glen button, 30 year resident. But somebody lived in
my house before I did. How many of you care? Yeah, I don't either. Legally, I have clear
title. So that's the legal position. I have clear title. It doesn't matter who lived
there before. And what's also interesting is our city has clear title. Our county has
clear title, our state has clear title. Our country, the united states of america has
clear title. So what's the point if we're even going to consider a recurring tribute to
those who no longer hold title, but did have a claim at one point? Let's include the
conservatives who shepherded our city to the strong position that it currently enjoys, the
cattle ranchers who incorporated our city 70 years ago, the spaniards and mexicans.
as was previously mentioned, the indigenous people we know, some of them, I'm sure we don't
know all of them. And the original owner and creator of not only this parcel of land,
but the entire world, our creator, almighty god, that's where this comes from. And, you
know, without acknowledging all of the historical claims, you know, it's silly. Secondly,
what action could possibly result from this recitation of history? Will we give back
anything that we legally own? I don't think so. Will we expand to other recitations of history?
as much as everyone loved history in school? The bottom line what is possibly the point
of this assumption of city resources? This is, in my humble opinion, a distraction.
city clerk is there anyone online who wishes to speak? I show no one with their hand
raised, mr. Mayor. And you have no more cards and no more speaker cards. Okay. Thank you.
the public comment period is now closed. We will move to the next item on the agenda. The
consent calendar. All matters listed on the consent calendar are to be approved with one
motion, unless a council member requests separate action on a specific item. Council members
voting no or abstaining on consent calendar item may do so without removing the item from
the consent calendar. Does anyone want to remove anything? No. No? Okay. Do I have a
motion to consider approval of the consent calendar? Okay. Okay. So. Council member burke
has requested to speak. You have the floor. Thank you. Mayor, I just have a couple of
questions about consent. Calendar item number nine regarding the public engagement
award for the sycamore expansion. So it looks like the contract were potentially
approving is for up to $2,000 for both outreach and design services. And so one of my
concerns was what if we do outreach and then what it seems like the residents want, or
what council wants to move forward with is a minimalist design or something along those
lines. Is there a way to separate it so that we're not committed to paying the entire
$200,000? Or how does that work? The contract is phased by outreach, design, final plans
and specifications. So again, if we do the outreach and we return to council with a
summary of the results and council decides not to move forward with it, we could just
cancel the rest of the remainder of the contract and only pay the contractor or the
consultant for all work incurred to date. Okay, so then we can pay for the outreach
phase, but it would come back to council before committing to, I guess, pay the rest of the
money for any design. Is that accurate? So the current plan was to or is to conduct the
outreach based on the input received. Prepare three conceptual plans to bring back
to the to the commission and council. If there is consensus among. Council. Council can
direct staff to return to council with the summary of the results prior to moving on to
the three conceptual designs. Yeah. Personally, I guess I'd like to know where we stand
before spending the entire $200,000 and get a sense of what the the outreach yielded.
and so what I need to make a motion to alter the consent calendar item, or how would
that work? So is the contract going to be implemented in a phase that before final. The
final three plans are recommended. The council that there will be additional council feedback? Yes. This would be one additional council meeting prior to receiving the.
three conceptual design. And at what point how much would be expended as of the time of that
council meeting. In theory. Half. The phase for the outreach and the conceptual
design plans is roughly $32,000, so roughly half of that. So. Okay, so it looks like it looks
like you could pull the plug if you needed to after phase one or phase two, without spending
the full $199,000. And so do I have to make. No, I don't think so. I, I think the contract
envisions that process. Okay. Well, then yeah, it doesn't sound like I'll need to make
any sort of motion on that. And then the other question I have is, I know we've been utilizing
analytics data and we've gotten some more information about visitors to our parks at some
point in the near future, before we were to move forward with committing to spend on the
design phase, can the council have the information on visits to the sycamore park and the
number of visitors in a given amount of time, and maybe even what portion of those are
cypress residents? Yeah. So we'll look through and we'll provide all that information to
the city council. I know before we print it out, or we've given information on all the other
parks, so we can just update the dates and give you that information back. Okay, great.
well, yeah, if we can have that info and you said there's sort of opt outs, then I think I'm
okay moving forward with it. Thank you for the clarifications. Okay. Is there anything else further, council member burke. Okay. Councilmember peach, you have
the floor. Thank you, mr. Mayor. I just have a question on the technology plan, and I got some
of it clarified this morning from our chief. So I'm okay with that. But I see that we
have, if I see it correctly, about $57,000 for some chamber audio visual plus broadcast
improvement. And I guess maybe I'd like to understand what that is, because we have we've
had a number of connectivity from people trying to watch from home, and then we've had
internal within the dais here. We've had problems pulling up presentations and things like
that. So are we spending it on that type of thing? It's going to give us an improved system
so that we don't have we have more modern and people have greater accessibility. That's
my question. I don't know who to ask it to. You could just yell. My apologies on the
technology. So that particular thing is to upgrade our spectrum broadcast, because
right now it is an older version of the channel, right? So it would be to upgrade the
channel. And then we have an ongoing cost with doing that, which is why the city hasn't
done that before, because right now we're not paying for it. So the channel doesn't cost us
anything but to upgrade it to actually make it viewable by everyone in a better format,
the channel would need itself, would need to be upgraded. So that's that component. And then
there's the other component of the a v, which I'm sorry, my computer is over there, which
makes up the other half of that 57,000, which is more upgrades to make us compliant with the
new requirements for our meeting, right? Online meetings. So just to be clear, so people
that have spectrum today are going to continue to be able to watch on spectrum. And it's
hopefully just an improved experience. Correct. It would be upgrading the channel. Okay. Does it improve the experience on any of the avenues? Not everybody has spectrum spectrum
to watch. Will it improve it on all the other avenues that people watch, either through
our website or things like that? So that particular component of it is just with the channel
that you watch. Okay. Through cable. Okay. All right. Well, I was hoping at least within the
dais, because we've had a number of issues that we were, we've been able to do certain
things. And your you had a good example. Right now, I'm sure it has nothing to do with that.
but. No, but our fellow council members had the same issue. So. Okay. Thank you for answering
my question. Thank you. You seeing no other speaker requests? Can I entertain a
motion to consider approval of the consent calendar? I'll make a motion to approve consent
calendar items one through nine. I second that motion. Please vote.
that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll move to the next item on the
agenda. New business item number ten is a resolution ratifying a proclamation of a
local emergency in regard to the garden grove chemical leak. City manager, please introduce
this item. Thank you, mayor medrano, after the posting of the original agenda, we began
to receive reports that there was a hazardous chemical incident in garden grove.
initially, it was not expected to impact the city of cypress. However, early friday morning
we did receive word that a number of cypress residents were being evacuated as the
emergency responders assessed the situation and the potential impact to our community. The
evacuation zone was expanded to include a larger portion of southeast cypress. At that
point, we were also informed that incident command for the issue would be moved over to
the city of cypress at the racetrack, and we were also asked to open our community
center as an evacuation center, not only for cypress residents impacted by the expanded
evacuation zone, but also for residents of cypress and other areas under evacuation. Their
initial evacuation center in cypress likewise had to be evacuated. As the day wore on.
a number of resources were brought in from across the county. A number of residents
arrived at our community center needing assistance. Community center, volunteers and
employees reported, even though they themselves were evacuated and provided meals and water
and assistance to members of the community. While our police resources assisted with
evacuation and security and coordination with unified command that was at incident
command. A unified command was with orange county fire authority garden grove police.
since the initial incident arose there, and orange county sheriff's department as they
cover the city of staunton. When it became clear that the city resources would be
insufficient to address the full scope of the incident, I consulted with the city
attorney and our staff and also worked with our city clerk to develop your proclamation of
local emergency, as is provided for under the government code and your own city charter. So
on the amended agenda that was reposted on friday is a request to ratify this proclamation of
emergency. It is available on our agenda packet, but online. But we can make that available
on the city's website more easily. Ratification of this proclamation affirms the city ae
was a local emergency, and positions their application for reimbursement for the costs
incurred should that become available. That has not been guaranteed at this point, but
we are aware that all of the other cities involved in this local emergency have proclaimed
an emergency. The county proclaimed a local emergency, the state proclaimed this a
local emergency, and that was also ratified by the federal administration. So we're simply
at this point gathering costs and documenting what the city resources were that were used
throughout this last five days now, and we will provide that to the office of emergency
services and fema and see how all this shakes out. At this point, we would like for you to
ratify the existence of the emergency, and we can do one of two things either allow it to
lapse should incident command and the rest of the emergency. Sort of. Demobilize in the next
couple of days. Or if we do need some ongoing resources to address the the residual
impacts of this emergency, we can re agendize it for you for an extension of that local
emergency. But at the moment, we would like you to ratify the initial proclamation that
occurred on friday at 7 p.m. Okay. Thank you. At this time, are there any comments,
questions from city council? Okay. Seeing no hands raised this emotion. Right. Okay.
would someone like to offer a motion? I'll move to adopt the resolution ratifying the
proclamation of local emergency in regard to the garden grove chemical leak. I will second
that. Please vote. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next item on the agenda. Items
from city council members. Item number 11 is brought forth by council member strongheart and
a discussion of indigenous people land acknowledgment by the cypress city council
council member. Strong. You have the floor. Thank you very much. I appreciate everybody
coming this evening to share your comments and your thoughts. I wanted to recognize we didn't
have it in our packet, but I also received an email from robin m itzler stating that she
was not in agreement with the acknowledgment as well, and I just wanted to make sure that
was read into the record and that her opinion was noted. For myself, I just want to state a
really brief case for why I think this is important and valuable for our city and for
our country. Cypress sits on traditional homeland of the tongva-gabrieleno and people
who have stewarded our land for generations, and whose communities are still present
today. Recognizing that history is a simple and meaningful way to acknowledge the full story
of the place that we serve. This is not a new or unusual practice. Our local schools,
school district and cypress college already include land acknowledgments at the beginning of meetings where official business is conducted, and they include one on the
footer of all of their websites. In that sense, we would not be introducing something
unfamiliar, simply aligning the city with our what our own educational institutions are already doing. We already begin our meetings with shared moments of reflection. We say
the pledge of allegiance. We listen to an invocation. A land acknowledgment fits very
naturally. Alongside these, it offers a brief, civic minded opportunity to reflect on the
history of this land itself, something that connects all of us, regardless of our backgrounds or our beliefs. Importantly, this is a small step. It requires no funding,
no staffing, and no structural changes. But it does demonstrate something meaningful that we are city that values awareness, inclusion, and respect for all
communities, both past and present. Los angeles county has already taken this step,
formally adopting a land acknowledgment recognizing the indigenous peoples of this region. Cypress has the opportunity to show similar leadership at the very local
level in a way that reflects our own community values. At its core, this is about unity,
not division. It is about taking a moment to recognize where we are together, to do so
with respect and with thoughtfulness. This is a small, no cost, respectful addition
that aligns with what our schools already do. It reflects our shared civic values, and it
helps us better understand the place that we call home. A simple step towards unity,
awareness, and respect. If we would like to include other members of the community who we
feel have been wronged or treated unjustly in the past, I'm completely open to that.
council member chang, you have the floor. I'm sorry. Mayor pro tem chang. Thank you. See, I
think there are two main options for if we want to have a land acknowledgment at our
council meetings. One is that we could have a land acknowledgment given at every
meeting, or we could also have the option of inviting speakers to give an acknowledgment at
our meeting. And if there are two people that that on this council that do want to have a
land acknowledgment at every meeting, I would support them. But I lean toward having
inviting speakers to give land at a land acknowledgment for two main reasons. The first is
that I think a land acknowledgment should be optional, as is our invocation
and our pledge of allegiance. If someone doesn't want to participate in our invocation,
they don't have to. If someone doesn't want to participate in our pledge of allegiance, they
have every right to not participate. And so it I think it should be the same with our
land. Acknowledgments. I wouldn't want the mayor or the city manager or whoever was in
charge of giving that land acknowledgment to feel like they would have to give a land
acknowledgment if they didn't want to. And also this, this, this current council might be
okay with it. And the current city manager might be okay with it, but I'm not sure about
future council members or future city managers to. The second is actually because of a
email that I received from a resident. They sent an email of their land acknowledgment that
they asked chatgpt to give them. And I realized that one of my assumptions was wrong. I
erroneously believed that while the invocation is religious, that a land acknowledgment was
not. But I realized after that that a land acknowledgment could be religious, too. And so
that line between what secular and what's not, and between what a land acknowledgment is
and an invocation became a little bit more blurry for me. And so because of that, I, I'm,
I'm actually in favor of inviting someone who would be knowledgeable about the culture,
who would be sensitive about the experiences of the people here before us, and to give
them a land acknowledgment, either, you know, as part of the invocation or just a
separate piece. And then people would have the option of participating if they want to,
and the land acknowledgments. And then there are also other good options that we could have.
I talking to the city manager, we could increase our information available on our
websites about the original people here, or we could also include a land acknowledgment
that would accompany our 70 year anniversary or our proclamation next year. And
because I do think that it's important that people know about the the people that were
originally here. Thank you. Council member strong. You have the floor. Thank you, mr. Mayor.
additionally, I just wanted to offer especially for the remarks about whether or not these people lived here and whether or not anyone cares. The reality in this city is
that the current building, that is the boys and girls club on moody, was originally the
cypress public library, and when the excavation was conducted for that building to
be built, the remains of an over 400 year old chumash skeleton were on the premises.
so I don't think we can have any doubt as to whether or not, you know, this isn't some sort
of nebulous idea where these people here, who are these ghosts? These were actual people. They lived here on this actual land. And I get the problematic, you know, then
what do we do? Do we give all of our land back? That's absolutely valid, if that's
what you want to say. What we're acknowledging here is that there were people here stewarding this land before us. And in keeping with good government, we want to make
sound and thoughtful, careful decisions that don't exclude anyone. That is the spirit
that's intended here. Councilmember pete, you have the floor. Thank you, mr. Mayor.
I'm kind of on the side of many of our residents that came up and spoke this evening. I, I
look at what we went through this past weekend, and I look at the community that pulled
together, and I look at the residents that pushed us and voted us in place. And from my
opinion, it is not to do land. Acknowledgments and ownership. It is to figure out how to make
their lives better is to figure out, to make sure that they are safe and to implement our
strategic plans. I don't see this as one of our specific agenda items. I appreciate
special interests and people wanting to bring it up to our attention, but I don't believe
that's in the best interest of all of our residents, all 50,000 of our residents. So
with that, I'm going to vote no. Councilmember burke, you have the floor. Thank you. So I've
said this previously in regards to sort of resolutions that have come forward before the
council, and I know this is a bit different to me, the idea of sort of resolutions and
proclamations fall under a similar umbrella as what a land acknowledgment. And regardless
of what the specific issue is, my position is typically been that I previously served in a
another elected role. And I saw that the the group or the council became, in my opinion,
too focused on those types of issues outside resolutions that were a little bit outside their
jurisdiction or, or proclamations. And I want to keep our focus primarily on, on
city business. And so we're this brought forward. I'd probably abstain just in the to
try and be consistent with the principle principle that I've applied in the past. I do want
to say I, I certainly don't think it's a bad thing in any way to acknowledge history and
be more cognizant of local history, the history that council member strong carnahan
shared about the old library site, and to step back and gain perspective, I think along with
something mayor pro tem chang said, I do think that's more of a personal choice in terms of
how you do that. And so I'm I'm inclined to think it's not something that I'd vote for in
my capacity as a council member. I view it as sort of every individual council member and
residents decision to how they want to interact with history, our local history and be
cognizant of that and embrace that. And then I also mayor pro tem mayor pro tem chang also
made a good point. I thought, which is I know we have our invocation policy, but of
course, if we want it to be as inclusive as possible. And so, of course, if there's a member
of the native american community that would like to participate, I encourage them
to please feel free to to reach out because you may not be on the sort of list of houses of
worship in cyprus that we proactively reach out to. But as I said, we want we want that
to be as inclusive as possible. So thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a comment. I
believe resolutions, proclamations are outside of our jurisdiction. This has us
going outside of our assigned jurisdiction and what we agreed upon at the strategic plan. So
I will be voting to abstain on this matter. Councilmember strong, you have the floor.
thank you, mr. Mayor. I just have one last point I'd like to make. And there seems to be a
lot of discussion about the representation within the community and the percentage of people that that this applies to or that we should care about. And there were some other
really wonderful arguments brought up, glenn, I want to say specifically noting the japanese americans and the other commenter, I believe, also mentioned the japanese
americans. Excuse me if I'm speaking incorrectly. Yes. I think that that's an incredibly valid point. As we know, they were taken from their land and placed in internment camps,
which is horrific. There have been lots of different dark moments in our history as a nation. There's no doubt about that. The reality is this is a group of people who are not as
present in the community of cyprus because they, like the japanese who were sent to those
camps, were forcibly removed in many cases from their land. And so when you are stripped from
your land, stripped, stripped of your rights, you lose the ability to remain visible for the community, even if it was a community you once populated. So I just want that to be noted
for everyone. This is not something that, you know, we shouldn't care because they're not here. If history had unfolded differently, of course our community would look
differently. City attorney, you have the floor. So while I enjoyed this robust discussion,
the issue before you is, is there a second to put this on a future council agenda? That's
the only issue before you. I thought the issue I thought the issue was first, there needs to
be a clear motion and there is no motion yet. I think the council member has made a
request to add this to the future agenda. So let me clarify, is the request to add
it to a future agenda, or is a request to have a motion put forth? Well, it would have to
come back as a separate agenda item. All it's it is an agenda item tonight. I don't think so.
it is okay. My I stand corrected. Okay. Okay. So then I would like to make a motion
that we include a direct staff to include a land acknowledgment at the beginning
of our city council meetings, along with our pledge of allegiance and our invocation
council. Is there a second? Very well. We'll move on to the next item, number 12. Item
number 12. Discussion of changes to the city council meeting. Agenda structure proposed by council member burke. Councilmember burke, you have the floor. Thank you. I
don't have a lot to say about this. I just thought that these proposed changes would improve
the linear flow of our meetings a bit. The first change is to move items removed from the
consent calendar up in the meeting to right after the consent calendar, as it is now,
if we go through the consent calendar but an item is pulled, it might be 90 minutes before
we got back to that item. I think it would make more sense to just have items pulled from
the consent calendar discussed right after the consent calendar. And then the second
proposed change was to move the council member items for future consideration to right in front
of, rather than after council member reports from city affiliated boards and
committees and remarks, I just. I felt like the council member. Reports and remarks are more
intended to end the meeting on a positive, more communal note, and sometimes the items for
future consideration can be surprising or potentially controversial. So I just
thought it made sense to move those up. So those are the two suggestions that I had and open
to hearing from my colleagues if they have any thoughts. Doctor chang, you have the
floor. Thank you both. These make sense to me. I've been in favor of these. I think I might
have talked about it in a previous council council meeting, but I did want to make another comment. I think today went well in terms of our public comment, but it feels
like in the past that sometimes we have multiple public comments on items. Sometimes
it's the beginning of the meeting. Sometimes it was like right before our items that are
discussed. But I like how it flowed today. It felt like there was a a discrete section
for the general comment and then a discrete section for comments for our items. And
then we didn't have another comment period right before like these items. 1112 that
we're doing right now. So I like when there's only kind of, we try to limit the comment
periods instead of having different periods, just just one, one comment period. Thank
you. Thank you, councilmember pete, you have the floor. Thank you. The second one, I second
comment I have no issue with and that makes sense. I just wanted to bring up the reason
as to why I believe the items removed after from the consent calendar were moved further
down the agenda. When we remove items from the consent calendar, it becomes kind of a new
business item because we it wasn't intended to be talked about individually. It was
intended to be part of a consent. So if we move it, we're now adding a potentially
new business item. If you want to say that we're moving out of consent and moving it into new
business, because we're going to ask to be separately talked about. Now, that may be the way
we want it to be, but the reason it got moved below public hearings in new business
is because we looked at what our our folks here in the audience are, are here for, and
they may specifically want to talk about public hearings or new business and not
necessarily here further discussion on a consent item. So I just want to make sure
people understand why sequentially it was put in that way. If we want to do it
differently, we can do that. I'm just I'm just bringing up why it was put in that way when
we originally did this. So. Thank you. Seeing no more speaker requests, I'm going to
close the discussion. And would someone like to offer a motion. I'll make a motion to approve
the changes. Recommended. And mr. City attorney, do you need me to spell them out in detail
or I would do it just in case? Sure. And this is going to require an ordinance amendment.
all we can do it by. We'll have to bring back a future resolution that will make this
change. So you're just going to make a motion to direct the staff to make these changes.
okay. Then I'll make a motion to direct the staff to make two changes to the ordering of the
agenda. The first is to move items removed from the consent calendar to immediately
following the consent calendar. And the second is to move council member items for future
consideration to immediately preceding council member reports from city affiliated
boards and committees and remarks. Now second, the motion. Thank you. Please vote.
that motion passes with four yes votes and one dissenting vote from council member strong carnahan. Thank you. Next item on the agenda. Council member
reports from city affiliated boards and committees and remarks. Council member strong.
karen, you have the floor. Thank you. I attended the police open house, which is a
wonderful event. That's such a fantastic building. And I think that the mark of the chief's
wonderful leadership is very evident on it. That was a really fun time, so thank you
for that. I also attended the luncheon where we were able to celebrate some of our service
members here in the community. That was a great event as well. It was also my first time
seeing the drone. Pretty exciting. I attended quite a few briefings with this recent
emergency situation, and I'll say more about that in a minute. I also attended the celebration
of the sort of modified lexington commencement celebration for eighth graders
going into high school next year. And interestingly enough, the principal of lexington will
be moving on. And so the anaheim union school district created a wonderful town hall
event where parents and students alike could come and give some feedback on some
great qualifications and leadership skills they'd like to see in whoever they hire as
the next principal. And I really appreciated giving an opinion and getting an opportunity to address that. Let's see. I also went to, like I said, many briefings. I want
to express my very sincere gratitude for the emergency response in the city of cyprus
for police, local police and fire of the oc fire authority, all of the different officials
that came tirelessly to these meetings, city staff, the wonderful job everybody did at
the shelters. It was just a really inspiring moment to see the community pull together. I
think everybody up here will echo that as well, but it was nice to see people come in, you
know, various days to come to this briefing. It was an honor to get to be at the command
center and hear sort of the strategy unfolding, see how much science was behind what was going on. I really appreciated that. I also appreciated the transparency
and the amount of communication and the trust that was placed in us as city officials to help
manage that communication. I think everybody did a great job of having consistent messaging
and consistent voice for myself, my own part of it. As you know, I have a dance studio. We have
a large community that was impacted by the evacuation, so it was nice to be able to pass
on some resources, even though that was still available on different city websites. People come to you with questions. You want to be able to provide answers. So I think that was
amazing. And yeah, other than that, I spent the weekend caring for my mom who was also
impacted by the evacuation of the stanton elder care facility. So around the clock, 24 hour
care has been exciting, but we are really thrilled to be able to provide, you know, a home
for not just my mom, but anybody else that needed to come by and just get a rest,
get a break. So it was a great holiday weekend for lots of different reasons. Celebrating
togetherness in a sort of unorthodox way was was wonderful. So thank you. Thank
you, councilmember pete, you have the floor. Thank you, mr. Mayor. I'm going to work
backwards. The most defining time that I've had on city council was this past weekend.
so I've lived I've been on the council now for, what, three and a half years or so. And
this weekend brought it all to light. And I, I can't thank everybody individually, but
when you see people in action, when you see how. And I'll start with here. When I was
over at the command center on friday morning hearing some of the stories, they said cypress
community center had been opened up and I was by there earlier. There were probably 50
people, give or take. So I decided, okay, I'm on my way home. I'll I'll swing by there.
there wasn't one parking space, and there were hundreds of people from sitting out in
front to sitting in the in the conference rooms, etcetera. Jeff, I can't tell you enough.
you are a superstar. It was it was handled so well by he and his team. And he had a smaller
team because it was a friday before a three day holiday. And and jeff, you you knew what to
do, who to pull, how to how to get people to come out. Okay. For those that may or may not
be aware, but costco again, another superstar came in with water, food, you know, you name
it, okay. They just dropped things off. Kiwanis came in. They they did what they always
do and and provide hot dogs. We had katarina's club from anaheim that called us because
they couldn't deliver the meals that they normally do to kids in need. So they gave us 180
premade meals. We had a church that came by and said, hey, my church is my my thing has been
canceled. Can you use the food? I it was the most blessed experience I have had in
watching people who have just evacuated from their home have a look of being just grateful
for having a place to be and a place to eat. It took us a while to get there. Okay. But
everybody that stepped up, I. I can't say enough. I appreciate everybody that also volunteered
okay, or wants to volunteer. And it was kind of like, you know what? There's plenty of
people that are out right now. And mister mayor, thank you. You know, I know you were there
as well when we got some of the kiwanis activity, etcetera. At the command centers, the police,
the sheriff's ocfa oc health, I, you know, again, blah, blah, blah, and very well coordinated.
the command center worked extremely well. And the updates, I agree completely with my
fellow council member that it was coordinated where there was messaging for public officials
so we could make sure that we had the information we needed for our cities. But as well as
what do we say publicly to our residents? So I, I heroes, that's all I've got to say. I
absolutely lessons learned. I agree with someone here that said, we probably need to do a
reflection when it's appropriate time and do a reflection as to what went
really well. And there's a lot of things that went really well. And then how do we make sure
the next time when there will be a next time of something? How do we make sure that we
have everything that we need and engaged in the right things and things like that? So again,
thanks to everybody. And if I, if I forgot somebody, I apologize. So prior to that,
since our last meeting, I went to a league of cities roundtable for elected
officials. I'm just going to pass this on because this is something we're struggling with as well. The big topic was reno, and the big topic for cities was the cost to implement the
housing requirements that had been put on us by the state, and specifically the cost of
putting low, low income and how the city supplement have to supplement to get it done. And
there was a lot of discussion about what can we do as cities to get more help. Okay. Because
there's millions of dollars that we ourselves have already spent, and it's going to
continue as we implement our plan. So more to come on that tonight in the budget workshop.
stephanie. Thank you. Nice job. The police open house. Outstanding job. Greatly
attended and great to see the community out and and our business population as well.
police foundation. Congratulations to all the award recipients. Recipients.
great time. And I was a little worried the the drone was going to hit my head. But you know
you know it's his hair up here that kind of sticks up. I went to the west comm board meeting
that meets every six months and probably the longest meeting I've been to. But it was good.
and and the chief was there as well as our, our city manager. I had an eagle scout board
review of a cypress young man and exciting to see just the the things that they're doing
to make their community better, as well as where they're going to be in the future. So it's
just outstanding. I had a neighborhood meeting about two weeks ago where a lot of my
residents were complaining about illegal fireworks, and so we pulled everybody together to
really understand what the issue is, how big is it? And I have talked to the police
department as well about how big is it across cypress and and things like that. So thank
you for your input. I've been able to pass a lot of that on. I met with meaning with frank
sharon. This is regarding the lasalle racetrack. Good summary. And then of course, most
recently the thing. So I I've had a lot of discussions with our city manager and who would
ever say, hey, you know, in your first 90 days, let's have a disaster. And let's see,
that's your test to see how you do. And, and again, I talked about jeff, but everybody and
then shannon, just an outstanding job communications. We were never left in the dark.
so if you passed the 90 day test. So just fyi, that ends my my statements. Thank you. Thank
you councilmember. Thank you. As our city's representative with the orange county fire
authority, I attended a couple of subcommittee meetings recently, the budget subcommittee and the legislative and public affairs subcommittee on the legislative
subcommittee. We decide what bills we're going to support at the state level or oppose. And
we had our budget subcommittee meeting, which is much like our city's budget workshop, and
they happen to fall on the same day. So I got to do over four hours of budget discussions,
but it was actually good to be in that mindset and happy to report that the orange county
fire authority is in a strong financial position, and we're certainly grateful for their
efforts recently and with the good stewardship over, they're optimistic that that will
continue unabated. I served as our representative on the city selection committee meeting,
and that's where representatives from cities vote to elect various
individuals to serve on sort of outside larger boards or subcommittees. I also attended
the cypress pd open house. And so thank you to our police department for their
hospitality, to our local firefighters, for our hospitality, to the community partners who came out. And a special thank you to bmx bike rider jeremy, who jumped his
bike over my head without injuring me. So thanks a lot, jeremy. I attended the police
foundation luncheon as well and was impressed by the drone demonstration and then, along
with mayor pro tem chang, I attended the cypress school district ad hoc subcommittee
committee, and that's where we meet with representatives from the cypress school district.
and we talked about their financial situation, which you may have heard. They've
experienced some challenges recently, and we had a good discussion about that. Interim
superintendent mcclellan told us that he's optimistic that there will be financial
stability, and that they're going to be able to take steps to avoid similar kinds of
layoffs in the future. And largely, what happened is that a lot of a lot of personnel
were hired during and post covid at the district. And so staff kind of increased in size
and then didn't decrease afterwards. And so they're adjusting to that. But we had a
very good discussion. And we also talked about strengthening the partnership to the extent
that we can with the city and the school district. You know, to me, we have we have our city
city council, we have our parks district, which is technically separate, but we're the same
governing board. We have the school districts. But honestly, it's all they're all cypress
and they all impact our quality of life. And we want to make sure that each one is thriving.
and so it's a pleasure to serve on that committee. And then regarding the the chemical tank
incident, yeah, just a lot of appreciation. So, you know, I want to thank the members of
the orange county fire authority, chief interim chief mcgovern. Really everybody I
interacted with over there, I was so grateful that, you know, chief mcgovern called me
directly, told me what was going on. And I think this was a new situation for all of us
council members. And I tried to figure out, okay, what's what's our role here? And I thought
that for me, I landed on just trying to hear from residents and voice their concerns to try
and get answers, and then also try and put factual information out there in the community and
make sure that rumors didn't take hold. And so, you know, I was I was getting texts and
calls. I was looking at the facebook community groups. And then I appreciate the fire authority staff members, because I would come up to them directly at the command center
and ask them the questions that residents had. Hey, how confident are you about this
evacuation zone? Is it going to get bigger? Should we should we be worried? And as far as I
could tell, you know, nobody ever gave me a bs answer. Everyone gave me honest answers.
and I was able to to respond to comments online or talk to residents. And I think that
that helped put some people's minds at ease in what was a difficult situation. You know,
obviously a huge thank you to our our local police and our city staff members. You know,
jeff, your praises have been sung. We could go on for a long time. We had employees who
weren't scheduled to come in that day, go to the community center and help out. We had so
many residents who stepped up, whether it was volunteering, bringing food. I talked to
residents in the evacuation zone who were knocking on doors one by one to check in on their
elderly residents and make sure they knew what was going on. And I also want to thank our
city manager, delong, for her leadership throughout the throughout the crisis in that,
you know, as it continues, but hopefully continues to deescalate. But, you know, as
council member pete said, this is relatively relatively new into your term here, but I
think everybody was very grateful for your leadership. And I certainly appreciated
your your clear, honest communication with us and always trying to keep us fully
informed. And you answer it every text and call promptly. And so thank you very much for
that. And then one thing I was going to say, maybe this isn't very smart. I haven't thought
it through all that thoroughly. But, you know, I couldn't help when I was at the community
center and I was hearing about everything people were doing. Well, you know, politics and
government and all that can be so nasty sometimes. And, well, it hasn't been very long ago
that here in cyprus, a lot of these meetings have just been, frankly, like so divisive and
embarrassing. And sometimes my friends will ask me or residents will ask me, they'll
say, why are you sure you want to keep doing this? Or how? Or I would never want to run for
that office because I've seen what happens. And I tell them, I say, most people are not like
that. I say, I've knocked on so many doors. I've met so many cyprus residents. The
overwhelming majority of people in the city are so good and decent, and you can't let a few
obnoxious or divisive people bring down your view of our city or our residents or
humanity or anything like that. And I think that was so, so clearly on full display
throughout the city during the the crisis in the evacuation zones and at the community
center. And that's, that's the cyprus that we know and love. And, and I hope we can just
hang on to that mentality, you know, where people's where someone's political affiliation
doesn't matter where some of these minor issues don't matter. And where we're just, we're
just there. We're just here to live in the same community, help each other out when we
need it. And, and, you know, try and work together to, to make our community the best
city we can and be there for each other. And so thanks for everybody from resident level
to staff level for pulling together. I really thought cyprus is true colors came
through. Thank you. Mayor pro tem chang, you have the floor. Thank you. Mayor. I attended
the cyprus police department open house with my two kids and also went to the cyprus po
lunch. I also went to the orange county mosquito vector control subcommittee and also
their main meeting. And also I got a chance to tour the korean american special education
center. It's actually a brand new center that they're opening up next month. They provide
special education services, mostly working with people with autism throughout the life
there. Again, their grand opening is next month, june 20th, and they're located next
to costco. Just a just a beautiful new center that that's going to be open up
right here in cyprus. I went to the a presentation on demographics and trends, which
included the loss of medi-cal for many of our residents right here in cyprus too. And on next
sunday, I just want to let you guys know that that's world no tobacco day on sunday. And I'll
I'll be at oak knoll park on sunday at 10 a.m. Picking up trash with the clean air
coalition and lgbtq center oak. And I want to take this time to thank the city manager, city
staff, cyprus police departments, and also the orange county fire authority
for for doing a phenomenal job. I'm. I'm actually glad that we were able to examine our
communication policy prior to this event. So for you all that aren't familiar, we we have a
new communication policy we adopted a few months ago. We defer to the city for important
messages, but in emergencies, the orange county fire authority, as you all saw, or
the cyprus police department, they'll take over and provide messaging to the to the
community. As elected officials, we're actually privy to information before others,
before you all. And it's often tempting for us to share this information with you all before
it gets released to the public. But I think it's important that for many of the reasons stated
that we only have one point of contact, you know, especially when it comes to getting
misinformation or wrong information or information that might be retracted later.
listening to all the heart wrenching stories coming from those who were evacuated,
trying to find shelter in the middle of the night. Not sure where to go, especially for
those who were older or might be vulnerable. I read online about a 95 year old woman who
was trying to find a place, and they were stuck outside in the cold, trying to get into the
shelter. And those who who might not have family or friends with whom we can stay
with, it's a reminder of how close we all are to homelessness, how any small
thing can make you homeless and set you back no matter what station you are in life. And I
saw the outpouring of support from the community and sympathy from the community. So I'm I'm
hoping that, you know, we can how everybody came together in that time of need to, you know,
rise up and and get together and help lift these people up. And I'm hoping also that, you
know, we can keep that going forward. And, and, you know, whatever we need to provide,
get all that goodwill together so we can help those struggling with homelessness or in danger
of being homeless, you know, in that similar situation, but already affected by
homelessness. Thank you. Thank you for me on 513, obviously, we had the special meeting, a
budget workshop. I want to say thank you very much to all the staff members who put together
very informative information on that budget workshop. 516 I attended the police department,
open house and served drinks as part of kiwanis and and a great, great open house to all the
police officers on 516. Later on that day, I attended hope concert and a neighborhood
education project. I handed out certificates at new praise church and I was very impressed
by the performers there. On 519 attended the cypress police foundation luncheon on. I was
two equally impressed by the drones being able to fly in such close proximity and all
the functionality they're able to do. 522 attended cypress college foundation scholarship
awards and saw a numerous number of students receive a. A university students receive
awards and was very impressed by the amount of good that's happening at cypress college
and how much the community goes out to support cypress college with all the different. Whether
it's technical or always looking for new degrees and so forth. So I was surprised at
the breadth of offerings at cypress college. 526 I met with frank sharon today, owner of
cypress town center and common specific plan 2.0 area. I say owner as in the fact that he's
really the I believe the administrator because the owner is doctor aldridge. So he he
gave an update to me and the director of planning of what's going on really nothing new.
and then this afternoon I attended a representative trans town hall, an update of what's
going on with respect to what he's doing with respect to what happened this weekend. And I'm
going to go through a list of thank you to people who I think made a huge difference. And I
know at the beginning, right now, I'm going to apologize because there were so many people involved, but I just I'm going to go through a list very quickly of some of the people
that I just first, I want to thank lori. She got volunteer of the year a couple years ago,
and once again, she did a great job volunteering. I want to thank costco for and all the
other vendors, including in and out people that brought stuff to help the people. I want to
thank the red cross. I want to thank all the volunteers. Needless to say, I want to
thank cypress police department. I've heard stories of people working 910 days straight and
still you could not tell. It seems like someone. Some person. Yeah, I was up working since 3
a.m. I could not tell at the 10 a.m. Meeting. That person looks a lot sharper than me. I want
to thank the ocfa. I could go on and on for all the stuff they did. I want to thank the
directors and staff here. I want to thank the city manager and city attorney for working continuously to go ahead and make sure that communications happened. I want to thank my
fellow council members for following the chain of command. Like doctor chang said, we're
privy to information, and sometimes it's very tempting to give out that information ahead
of time. But they didn't. And also, following the chain of command, all the communications
went through the city manager. And so it made things look very professional from with respect
to information outflow and also following the chain of command for ocfa. To my knowledge, we
didn't release anything without first getting clearance from ocfa. So we were putting out
good information following the procedures. And and it's tempting. I see a lot of
emergencies where people bypass the chain of command and it comes back to bite them. So I
want to thank everyone here who did that. I also want to thank the orange county board of
supervisors. Janet nguyen's office did a lot of work also. So did many of the other board
of supervisors and making sure that we got the emergency. Approvals so we can go ahead
and move forward. Also tree to strickland. They went forward and also worked hard to get
that those approvals so we can get the funding in the future. Representative tran and
representative correa also worked on that. Senator adam schiff and the governor's office. Office and the president approved the funding so that we can go and get that
emergency funding. I talked about in and out. I want to thank there's a lot of things
going on as, as you probably know, director of planning and and business manager, but chris
wong, I was at the meeting earlier with representative tran. There's a small business development center office there, and I got the person's card and he said, yeah, we're already
working with your people in cyprus to go and figure out, for example, how to get
unemployment checks for those people that miss work. So there's a special way to go ahead and get that. Even though they missed one, two, three days of work, maybe they can
apply for that. I want to thank all the various police departments and sheriffs and other police departments, all their patrols that happened when we were asleep. The
patrols didn't stop and it kept looting to a minimum. I believe it was seven, seven people that
were arrested. It could have been much worse. But the stuff that they did that no one
really saw because they were patrolling the evacuation area and they were patrolling in
harm's way because something bad happened. They could have been literally part of that
explosion. Same thing with ocfa. People went into harm's way. I was there at the 10:00
briefings, and they made it very clear how dangerous the actions that were being taken
in order to gather the information, in order to do the assessment, in order to read the gauges, in order to make sure that things are set up so that if something did go south,
things wouldn't wind up in. If there was a leak, things wouldn't wind up in the
waterways. I want to thank lee racetrack, frank sharon. He was able to go ahead and give us
all that land and to use it temporarily so that we could staff. If you walk by there,
you could see it was many, many command vehicles. Oak health utility companies, o.c. Medical
staff, epa, other council members reaching out and saying, hey, how can we help? And I
also want to take and I can go on and on and on, but I also want to thank the conservative
approach that both the city attorney, city manager, ocfa cypress pd, it's tough to say,
hey, let's do the right thing. Let's go ahead and follow procedure. Let's go ahead and be conservative and not put people back into the evacuation area until we check and double
check. Always measure twice, cut once. So I really want to thank everyone there who did
all this. Like I said, I'm missing a ton of people, but I want to thank all the
dedication and professionalism that was exhibited over the past few days, and it's still being exhibited today. And I guarantee you tomorrow morning when I go out there, there'll
be more professionalism. Thank you. Next item on the agenda. Council member items for future
consideration. Have any items they'd like to request for future consideration? Council
member jennifer. Thank you, mr. Mayor. I mentioned earlier about neighborhood meeting I
had on fireworks. And specifically, as everybody knows, fireworks is not allowed
in cyprus, not even the safe and sane. However, I'm specifically want to put an
item, if I may, on the agenda to talk about illegal fireworks. One of the things I found out
as I was doing the research, talking to the neighbors, talking with police, is we've
kind of tied police's hands because we don't we don't give them the ability to put out any
fines. We don't, you know, like other cities, if you've read some recent articles, they've
allowed their their police to fine. So if a individual or a home even has illegal fireworks
or, or puts out fireworks, they're able to place a fine on them. And it starts at 1000 and
goes up from there. And it really does deter the use. And as I talked to police, it's not
just limited in my neighborhood. It appears to be a much broader thing because of access to
fireworks. So I would like to and especially with 4th of july coming up, I would like to see
and put it on the agenda to have a discussion about doing an ordinance, specifically
providing a broader ability for police to issue fines and things like that. In a case
where someone is using illegal fireworks. Doctor chang, and I think specifically you're
talking about social host ordinance when it comes to. Yes, possibly. Okay. Yeah. Well,
there's a there's a, I like to, I want to, I believe because of the 4th of july coming, that we
probably need to do like an emergency one in the near term because our ordinances won't be
approved until july. Okay. But then in addition to that, do a as you said, a social host,
which means that it's not just an individual, it's the home, it's the it's the owner of the
property. Because in some cases, it could be an apartment, it could be other. And just
providing the ability to put something in place like other cities to issue fines and give
the police some teeth behind rather than just knocking on the door and nobody answering
the door. So yes, thank you for that. Okay. Is there anything else, councilmember pete? Okay.
is there anything else? Because the reason is I don't want to cut you off, but I want to
bring in the city manager and the city attorney on this. The reason is I'm I'm not trying to
be. Can if you can help me clarify the timeline because in order for this to go into
effect, obviously 4th of july is coming up. People are going to buy their fireworks ahead of time and we have council meetings. We have only. So if this gets put on the next
council meeting, which will be june, june 9th, then right. It needs to go ahead and have
essentially two, even if we're able to get it approved on the next one, then it has to have
right 60 days after the reading. And I understand there's now an emergency. So I want to
understand how, how pragmatic or, or is this even feasible without having to create an
additional. I want to be mindful because I think you have a great idea. Council member pete. But at the same time, I want to be mindful of city city resources so that
we're not having to necessarily do emergency things. Because I would say, I would say this is
a good idea. Let's put it on the strategic plan and really talk about it. But that
strategic plan is august 23rd, I believe. So your thoughts, city manager. The the the legal
answer to your question is it is feasible to have an ordinance in place before july
4th. State law allows the adoption of an urgency ordinance that takes effect
immediately. It would require a 4/5 vote of the council of the entire council. It will require
us to prepare findings to demonstrate that there is an urgency and given the fact that
the proliferation of illegal fireworks in many communities is, I would say, rampant, I
think it will be relatively easy to make that finding. We'll have to. If you give us
permission to do that, we'll we'll do our best to put it together. But we could have
something in place by the fourth. And then after that, we would do a more detailed study
and follow the. The traditional track of drafting an ordinance with a first reading and a
second reading. It's a 30 day delay for implementation. So it is possible to accomplish both
what councilmember pete's would like and what you're concerned about as well. Mayor. And then
my other concern would be the resources involved. I know sometimes we said in the past,
we want to introduce new laws or ordinances and so forth. People then question, well, how
are we going to have the resources to do that? Because I remember there were questions
about some of the stuff you introduced. How are we going to have the resources to introduce
the smoking? So we're obviously introducing something that's going to be, I think, difficult to enforce. And it's easy for me to run my mouth here all day, but I'm not the guy doing the
enforcing. So I want to be fair to law enforcement to make sure that they're able to weigh in
on this and give their assessment on that. So, councilmember burke, for. Yeah,
I don't know, mayor, I, I mean, I agree, I think I think everybody's probably open to
solutions to address illegal fireworks. Should I, I don't know if anybody knows the
answer to this, if it's chief or city attorney or city manager, but is it are we do we
know that we need additional penalties and to strengthen an ordinance? And that would.
because we're coming at it from the perspective of. Come back to us with an ordinance that
strengthens it, but we're not we haven't yet discussed the state of the current ordinance
and what would need strengthening. What we do know is that we have no enforcement
mechanism. Currently, we have a prohibition, but we have no way of enforcing a prohibition
other than the general misdemeanor provisions of the municipal code. Every violation
of the municipal code is a misdemeanor. You go to jail for a year, but no court would ever
enforce that. The administrative fine process has had some success in curtailing
illegal fireworks. There are enforcement issues. There are personnel issues. That's also
true of code enforcement. You know, to some extent, this can be complaint driven. To some
extent it will it will involve identifying properties where illegal activities are
occurring. I think the one element of this that that would help that process is you don't
have to be the person who's. We don't have to catch the person setting the fireworks off. We
just have to find the property that is allowing the fireworks to occur. And that makes
enforcement somewhat easy. Which is not to say that it will be easy. I grant you that.
okay, so okay, so I'll sort of leave it. Yes, I'll leave it to you to, to suss out whether
it's feasible and necessary. And we don't want to discuss it too much. Okay. I want to say I
have to be mindful of what's the actual rule where you can't actually discuss an item too
much when it's introduced. Otherwise, it bypasses the what's that rule called? It's,
it's you can't discuss items that aren't on the agenda, but this discussion is whether to
put an item on the agenda. So is that is that a way to bypass that within reason? That's a
way to bypass. So okay. Yeah. So so I don't want to bypass the rule. I don't want to be
we're not quite there yet. Okay. We don't want to talk about the details of the ordinance. We
just want to know, do you want us to try to craft something? Yeah, I guess I'm asking for
let's have it on the agenda. Let's discuss it. And if it seems like it's going to be
intense from a implementation, we'll have time to talk about that as well as we'll look to
the experts like the, the police. But but what I will say is when I, when I went to the
police and they said, yes, they've received several calls about implementation. They've
gone down there and it's hard to catch somebody in action. In the one case, though, they,
they found a place that did have illegal fireworks. They were putting it off when they
were in front of the home. However, no one answered the door. No one. They could. They
were unable. Well would you. Okay. And so the they had their hands tied because they weren't
weren't able to take any action. So I'm just asking saying let's put an ordinance together.
let's say what that might look like. Let's have the discussion of what that might look like.
and if it becomes too intensive for our our police, then we can say, you know what? It doesn't
make sense to do it here. But I, I just asked for it to be a discussion item and ask for an
ordinance of what that might look like, which is similar to what other cities have done.
okay, city attorney, you have the floor. So the city manager and I were just chatting about
this. This process gets a little more complicated because all we can really do tonight is
to put on the agenda a discussion about whether to be directed to draft an ordinance.
so we need to get after this if it's going to happen. Councilmember. Councilmember,
yeah. Can you just tell us directly what. I don't think any I don't think any of us
want to rush something that's not going to actually go into effect before july 4th. If if
we're going to discuss it at the next meeting, and then we have you come back with an
ordinance, I guess, is it realistic that this would be in effect by july 4th or not? If
we can make the urgency findings? And the answer is yes, it could be in effect before
july 4th, but we have to make special findings as well. And it will take four votes of the
council to do it. Okay. And we I don't okay. But again, what we want to know is, is there a
second? Is there additional one of you that would like us to talk about that process at the
next council meeting? Yeah, yeah. And that's and that's the that's what I was going to get
to. We've had a discussion and kind of has gone back and forth quite some time. So I have to
kind of hit pause here and say, okay, we understand council member pete has put something
she wants to put on the agenda for future consideration, obviously, at the six nine
meeting. So I have to hit pause here, and I'm going to shut down the discussion and go
ahead and say, is there another council member that would like to see it on the agenda? Yeah,
I'll go ahead and and second, bonnie, bonnie. Councilmember. Pete, I this is something I was
actually saving for the, the six month strategic plan. But, but I, I'm pretty sure we can
find special calls for this. There was a little girl that died in buena park last july
4th. And so because of illegal fireworks. So I'm sure we would get that qualified. And I, and
I, I think we can also discuss next time when this is on the, the agenda, whether we want to
decide instead to move it to a, a back to the strategic plan. So I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll go
ahead and second it for now. So, so let me sorry. Give me one moment here. Instead of. So six
nine we put it on the agenda to create an ordinance. 623 we have an ordinance vote, right.
then 4th of july happens and our next city council meeting is when you would not have
another city council meeting until the july 21st. I'm sorry, july 28th meeting. That should
be your notification that evacuation orders have been lifted. So if I'm understanding
council's direction at this point, according to council policy, there are two council
members interested in a discussion item on the june 9th meeting as to whether an
ordinance should staff, whether staff should be directed to create an ordinance, and
certainly at that time, we can share more on the parameters of urgency versus regular
ordinance. But the mechanics would work should city council be able to make the findings
and provide us direction? A draft of the ordinance could be on your june 23rd meeting, and
you could decide at that point, if you want to do regular urgency or both or none. Okay.
and I, I know we can continue to talk talking on this, and I'm going to clear the speaker
queue because we got the you have enough information to put on the agenda. I know there are
some concerns and questions and so forth. So I would like to ask the council members to hold
off on that until the june 9th meeting, unless the council member feels that they need to
speak about it immediately. Right now, I want to make sure that I'm not cutting anyone off,
but I also want to make sure that we're not violating the the state laws and so forth by
trying to bypass discussion of an item by discussing the item. So I see council member chang,
I'm sorry, doctor chang, and thank you. Just a quick suggestion, council member pete,
if you want to make this direct the city to actually make this a city ordinance instead of
just a discussion, I would back you on that too. In terms of social host ordinance, we on
the books, we do have $1,000 fine for firework. And that's not just total. That would be
per firework if I'm remembering correctly. And so I would back you on that. Yeah. I would like
to do the ordinance. And just in just to be clear, july 4th means nothing to me. It is not
about july 4th. It's about 12 months a year that we're having a legal fireworks go off. So I
appreciate the urgency for july 4th. It's really in the neighborhoods in general. So
yes, I would like to the ordinance and I would second all support. Okay.
councilmember pete and city manager. I have enough information to go forward with that city manager. I know because we've been going back and forth. So just just one
moment here. I'm not sure that you can direct us tonight to bring an ordinance back at the
next council meeting. You can bring you can direct us to bring back a discussion of
creating an ordinance at the future council meeting. That's just the two step policy you
all have. So yeah, yeah, yeah. And for, and for those people listening and so forth and
watching this, you may say, why is he so pedantic about all these ordinance discussions,
agendas? Why it just because, because you're a man after a lawyer's heart. Yeah, I, I, we
have to follow the process. We have to follow the procedures. And if not, then we can go and
get the city of cyprus in trouble. So that is why I'm being so. And I need you to go
ahead and cut us off. City manager's city attorney. When you see us. Hey, you're doing
more than just what's in the agenda. You're actually talking about something outside of the agenda. And you can get the city in trouble or get us in trouble. Okay, so I'm now going
to ask a second time, do my colleagues have any other items they'd like to request for
future consideration? Okay. Seeing no hands raised and speaker queue city manager
remarks, do you have any closing remarks for us tonight? City manager, mayor and members
of the city council. I'd like to echo all of the prior remarks from public speakers and and from yourselves with regard to the tremendous efforts of our city staff. You
are right. There are a number of our city staff who have been working for more than a week
straight without a day off, and that is commendable. They will never let you see them sweat.
so I do want to lift them up and and say thank you so much to all of those efforts. I also
want to recognize our partners at anaheim union high school district and cipher school district for their communication and their efforts to make sure we had all the
resources that we needed. This truly was a regional endeavor. There were busses from other
cities transporting our our evacuation center folks at almost midnight on friday night.
and certainly there's been a sharing of resources from public works to all of the
institutional knowledge in our finance departments across the cities. And I do want to
express appreciation. Also, he's already left. But to captain rich. Who was here in
case there were some additional questions. But to reiterate that message that you did receive just a minute ago, evacuation orders have been lifted with the exception of
three specific properties, and western will still remain closed between chapman and garden grove. That I have no more. No further comments. And and we'll adjourn this meeting
in the next regular meeting will be in. Adjourned. Regular meeting to be held on tuesday, june 9th, 2026, at the beginning at