Okay, that's fine. We
will see how it goes in an hour. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the oklahoma city council
meeting. The meeting is now called to order, and I'd like to ask our city clerk to please call
the roll. Mr. Mayor, we need to formally adjourn from the two o'clock special meeting.
oh, you're right. Okay. Sorry. And we can move to the three. You bear with
me. We've gotta, I've gotta read this statement.
uh, first off, um, I ask our city attorney to
report on the closed session.
thank you, mayor city councilman. Closed session at the end of the special meeting this, this
afternoon on conference with legal counsel on anticipated litigation, uh,
significant exposure litigation, and, uh, it gave
direction, direction to the city's legal counsel. Thank
you. Um, this brings us to adjournment, the joint special meeting of the oklahoma city council
and el cajon housing authority held. This 11th day of
february, 2025 is adjourned. And welcome
to the elcon city council meeting. This meeting is called to order and I'd like to ask our city clerk
to please call the roll. All council members are present. Thank
you very much. Alright.
would you please stand with me for the pledge of allegiance and then remain standing afterwards.
for a brief moment of silence,
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under god, invis, and liberty and justice for
all.
thank you.
the city clerk posted orders of adjournment of the january 28th, 2025 meeting
and the agenda of the february 11th, 2025 meeting in accordance with state law,
city council and housing authority policy. Once again, I'd like to invite members
of the public to attend the 2025 state of the city address. The event will
be held on tuesday, february 18th, 2025 at 6:00 pm at the ronald reagan
community center, located at 1 95 east douglas avenue. Join
us as we reflect on the accomplishments of the past year and share what
is coming into your ahead. We have
no presentations on today's agenda. Staff, do you have any agenda changes
mr. Mayor? No changes. Counsel, any agenda changes?
I see none. That brings us to consent items, consent items and routine
matters and enacted by one motion according to the recommendation listed below
with the concurrence of the city council, council member or person in attendance may
request discussion of a consent item at this time. Council members, do you wish to
pull any of the consent items? Seeing none, staff?
no, sir. Are there any speaker cards for consent items? Sir? We have one
speaker card from truth.
you have to tell him. Hi. Truth. Hi there. I didn't want you guys to
yep. I saw. No, I want, I want, um, I wanna hear everything
you have to say. Go ahead. I'll give you a few more seconds. Okay. Mike is on and no one is distracted.
that means we can begin. So the minutes claim. I spoke in opposition
to item nine and maybe it sounded that way to some people.
I think it did. Uh, but I was actually in support and I do want the record
to reflect that I could even accept neutral if you wanna compromise.
I was only in opposition to racism and lies not toward
that item. Also, amy riker's name ends in
the letter t not a d. Also important. Thank you, . Thank you very much.
amy. We apologize . Okay then. Um,
I'd like to make a motion then to approve the consent items. Second, please vote.
motion carries by unanimous vote.
alright, that brings us to public comment. We're
now at public comment. At this time, any person may address a matter within the jurisdiction
of the city council housing authority successor agency to the el cajon redevelopment
agency that is not on the agenda. Comments ran into items on today's
agenda already be taken at the time that the item is heard. State law prohibits discussion
or action on items not on the agenda. However, city council and housing authority members
may briefly respond to statements or questions, and an item may be
placed on a future agenda. Andrew, do we have any speaker cards for public comment? Yes,
sir. We have three of them. The first one is from truth.
okay. First, I wanna thank the police for keeping everyone safe. During the last meeting, there
were stationed all around the premises, so I didn't have to worry about, uh, my way
out. Every, every city needs this protocol and my ideas for meeting improvements.
bill, I appreciate how questions are often answered, but please end the back and
forth discussion during people's comment. Time it's unproductive and causes conflicts. Save
your guys' comments for after another issue. During the last meeting,
so many people had to fight to be heard, and that is not okay. The individual consistent
disruptor should have been removed from the chamber to keep order and deter further misbehaviors.
I encourage removal for those who refuse to be respectful while people speak. I don't care what
your belief is. Also, please always call three speakers names
at a time so people know to be ready. And again, the racial
stereotypes by steve and gary need to end. There was even a ridiculous
lie about so-called brown people feeling scared to shop in el
cajon. So I brought my back. I'm not scared today and I'm not gonna be scared no
matter who the president is. So cease and desist on the fear-mongering hateful
rhetoric in the city's code of ethics and or conduct, there needs to be a
specific policy against racial stereotyping. Now I'm gonna talk about a
few activist groups that have attended recent council meetings. The national
day labor network who had a member threaten the city with lawsuits is a well-funded
la based organization that works with the political union, a-f-l-c-I-o,
and have an organizing method based on communist palo uh,
fires ideas. The national daily labor network praises sanctuary
policies on their website. And they have a workforce initiative, which includes the partner
catholic charities, who many would deem to be a big time profiteer off the
illegal immigration industrial complex. There was the sand diego organizing
project who pushed for every tax paying resident of the county, a foot, a $5 million
annual lawyer bill only for those facing deportations. Ironically,
under the county government accountability part of their website, they featured disgraced
former county supervisors, nathan fletcher and nora vargas. And there was the partnership
for new americans. Panna, who in 2021 had members
actively advocating for carving el cajon out of district two, as well as
segregating the chaldean community and rancho san diego away from el cajon
and latinos and axion, who organized the mexican senate president's visit to el
cajon of all cities in america, yet according to a, b, c
10, a, b, c, 10 news, latinos and acumen's. Very first meeting was after the
last council meeting. Many of these people also spotted in downtown san diego.
at the protest there did they carpool magically, clockwork
protest and riots also popped up in national city, escondido, oceanside,
vista, and outside of san diego, such as in la riverside, dallas,
arkansas, missouri, and georgia. But somebody paid for that switch to be turned
on. The question is who? Because no movement suddenly gets a nationwide
flyer title and plan of operation without being planned well in advance with
a lot of money, and it's all been based and disinformation. Thank
you. Thank you.
brenda hammond,
you're getting brenda, can you ask the next person? Oh, I'll come up. Brenda.
can't do it.
come.
I'm missing a blue one. Well, blue is not that important to me anyway. Oh,
sorry. . Hi, brenda. Go ahead. Um, hi.
hi, graham. Mr. Mitchell. Um, I, I wanna say
I grew up with all kinds of people in east county and yes, that includes el cajon.
I learned my teenage life lessons in el cajon. I
I knew a lesbian couple that grew to love each other since they were
teenagers. Um, they started a house cleaning business.
and as adults over the years became very successful. They later
married when I went, when I went through my divorce, they
asked me to come to their new year's eve party and I, and, um, at their house in
la mesa. I was hesitant but curious. So I showed
up and I stood at the open door and I peered in their festive house.
everyone was having fun talking, dancing, a little drinking. They weren't having an
orgy. Um, I smiled and turned to leave. Well, one of my
girls, as I called them all these years, as I, as I,
um, as I turned to go away, as I
turned to leave, they turned off the music and said, everybody, this is brenda.
she likes the oscar meyer. So show her some respect.
I was handed a blue margarita, which was really good, and I stayed about an hour
and I had a great time. My point is, we all need to be to stop judging
each other for whatever sexual preference, religion, um,
especially race. Thank you. Thank you,
berta. The last speaker is allegedly
audra. Hi ara. Welcome.
hey, bill, how you doing? Having fun. All right. It's always fun, right?
life is interesting. So I wanted to bring up some things that happened at the last meeting,
and this has to do with you, michelle. I don't think that you handled,
uh, the aftermath of the meeting very well.
I think that you were very outrageous, um, absurd. And you
should have been more composed when talking to your own constituents. I
actually had to stand in between you because it got so, um,
seemingly aggressive and out of control. And it's very sad
to see that you can make excuses. Like, you know, you're tired, you're hungry, you're on
menopause, you're having menopause issues. Um, I think that
if you can't handle some, those are her own words. Those
are her own words. So if that's something that you can't handle
any kind of questioning by somebody who is very calm,
and you said that, that's why you are not running again, that's exactly why you
shouldn't be in that seat, is because you can't handle the pressure of
being a public official and being able to talk to your own constituents in a calm
manner. And it's sad because you didn't like that I,
I had to put my arm in because it was like, to the point where I wasn't sure
if there was gonna be some kind of physical altercation, not just verbal.
and if you can't take a moment and collect and
compose yourself, then it's concerning to see that you are up in
a seat that you're gonna make, be making decisions on behalf of people.
if you can't calmly think about what you're doing, take a step back and say,
you know what? I'm a public official. I need to maybe calm myself down
instead of making excuses as to why that was happening, because
it doesn't reflect well on the board. And it's very scary to
think about that. You make excuses as opposed to owning your own actions
and saying, you know what? I, I probably should have been more calm, because
we can all do that. But if you, if that is, is something that
you're not capable of, then if you can't run again, you
may as well resign from being in that seat, because that would show that you're not
capable of being able to take the pressures of the job.
you should be the ones calming others down, not people having to come and
calm you down. And granted, yes, it's a very intense and
high, uh, energy subject, but your job
isn't to attack the public and attack your own constituents.
so I would hope that you can reflect on that and make better
decisions moving forward, especially tonight that we're about to experience
the same type of pressures. I would hope that you
can be calm, collected, and composed, and not use excuses as to
why you can't do that. And that will show the people why they
should have trust in you and not prove to them why they shouldn't.
so, I'm coming to you from a place of love. I'm not coming to you from a place of hate.
okay? Thank you very much. So, just understand that
I, ladies and gentlemen, listen, I'm, I'm looking forward
to spirit of the debate tonight, but I'm gonna tell you something, I'm not gonna, I'm
not gonna allow the disruptions that you brought last time to be brought again this time.
this could be a real long night. If, if, if you can't behave, I'll, I'll
call time outs. We'll go away for a while. We'll come back. If you wanna
stay here until two or three in the morning, we can do that. Why don't we just act like adults
and be respectful of all people? Alright.
uh, we have no written communications and no public hearings on today's agenda.
we have two administrative reports on today's agenda. Item 10 is the interviews for
city commissions. We have the incumbents for the personnel commission and the planning
commission here this afternoon. Gentlemen, each of you have three minutes to share with us. The
council may ask follow up questions if necessary before we continue. Angela, do we have any
speaker cards for this item? We do not have any speaker cards. Okay. Who's
our first applicant? Uh, for the personnel commission, we have mr.
kurt brower, who's our incumbent.
mr. Brower, thank
you for coming today. Thank you, sir. Um, hello mayor.
uh, city council staff. Um, I'm here this evening, uh, looking
for reappointment, uh, personnel commission for another four years.
um, I know, I believe you have my application, I have a copy of it. Also,
I know that you have a very busy agenda tonight, so I'm willing to make it
as short as possible, but I'll ask, uh, answer all your questions.
thank you, mr. Breer. Any questions for mr. Breer? Um, you've
done a great job. I really appreciate all that you've done. I will make this,
uh, quick. He's our only applicant. Uh, I'd like to, um,
I'd like to appoint him to the post. I make that a motion. If somebody would second,
second, please vote.
motion carries by unanimous vote. Thanks a lot. And mr. Brown, I wanna thank you
for serving your community. I, I, there's no pay involved in this and there's
a lot of hours involved in preparing for your, your meetings and,
um, it's very selfless and I appreciate what you do for us. Thank
you, sir, for your comments. I appreciate it. It's been a good experience. Good. I'm glad it has been. Thank
you. Thank you
mayor. The applicant for the planning commission is mr. Darren
ross. He is not in attendance, but again, he submitted his application
for reappointment. Okay. And he's our, he's our only
applicant, right? Yeah. Um, is there any,
uh, speaker cards for mr. Moroz?
uh, pardon. Could, could you repeat that please? Any speaker cards in his appointment?
uh, no speaker cards. Alright. I, since he's our only applicant and darren has
been a excellent, hardworking member of the planning commission for
some 15 years now, uh, I'd like to appoint him again.
I'd like to make that a motion. If second, please vote.
motion carries by a unanimous vote. Okay.
um, you're not gonna, you're not gonna give the oath of office?
no, no, sir. They're incumbents. We don't need to do that again. Fantastic, thank you. The last administrative
report, item 11 is an update on homeless programs and services. And
I'd like our ask to ask our staff to tell us about this. Thank you, mr. Mayor, members of the
council, if we can get the, the presentation up. Um, for the last
five years, uh, the city has been presenting a semi-annual report about
where we're at on the homelessness. Uh, all of our different programs. As you know, we run
many different programs and, uh, uh, yani brito will provide the
majority of the report, but I just wanted to kind of start out with giving a little bit of preface of, of where
we're at today. So this report will really, it
includes data going back several years, but it really focuses on the last six
months of time. There
we go. Go to the next slide. Um, but I just, I'm gonna cut to the chase
and just kind of, uh, tell you the, the data, the data points,
and then you'll hear them again too. So we just go to the last, just go all the way through this one.
so, in the last six months, we've served 1600 individuals. Uh,
we have gotten almost 500 individuals into emergency shelter. A hundred five eighty five
people into transitional housing or bridge housing, and 61
individuals permanently off the street into permanent housing. Uh, we're really proud
of that and we rely on a lot of support, not only our staff, but
also a lot of individuals, um, in different companies that help us with that.
even go to the next slide. Um, just for some context, I was at the city manager conferences
passed, uh, uh, weekend. And, uh,
I went to a session about homelessness and there was 125 city managers in that room.
and the question was asked, how many of you, how many of your cities
experience homelessness? And all 125 hands went up and they said, how
many cities have figured it all out? And not one hand went
up and we had the chance to hear from three different cities. We heard from
sacramento, we heard from long beach, and we heard from whittier. I just wanna share a
couple kind of high level thoughts. I think they're useful to have that for some perspective.
the city of long beach spends about $13 million of its
general fund to combat homelessness. Um,
if you were to apply a a per capita rate for us, that would be about $3 million
for the city of el cajon. We do not spend $3 million out of our general fund. We're able to
leverage a lot of other funds for the programs that we do. I'm really proud of that. Um,
but one of the things that long beach found is some things that aren't working in
their community happen to be working in our community. The tiny cabins work really well
in our community. They've abandoned the tiny cabin solution because it just doesn't
work in long beach. And so it's, it was a good reminder that there's
not this one size fits all, that every community is a little bit different and needs
to be tailored a little bit different. Yet at the same time, there's a real need
to have some uniform measuring of how, or the metrics of
how we measure success. We, and we lack that in this county.
um, and we, we lack that throughout the state of california. It's the reason why we spend billions
of dollars and see almost zero results. 'cause we're not measuring the appropriate
way. The second, uh, city that I heard from is from city of whittier.
they actually adopted a three quarter cent sales tax, um, about
four years ago. And they allocated about a quarter of that sales
tax. So about a a quarter or 20.25% of their sales tax
measure goes specifically to homelessness, about $3 million for
that community. And they've actually stood up their own homeless shelter. I thought that was kind of interesting,
which gives them a little bit more authority and control to do some certain things. And then
the last city was sacramento, as you know, sacramento. If you've been to sacramento, homeless is
rampant there. They've, they've struggled for years. Um, there's
been a lot of pointed fingers between them and the county,
sacramento city and their county are actually working together.
it's, it's a great model and uh, that's something that
I envy 'cause we do not get support from the county of san diego. Our
county has an opportunity to be real leaders in this area and they fail to
do so. And so we, we will continue to work with them and try to strive
for some regional planning because we know that if we're all pulling together at the
same time, we'll be much more successful. So there's a little bit of context. I'm gonna turn
the time over to yani brito, our senior management analyst, to give a report
for the last six months and where we're at, and then seek any direction that you'd like us to shift
in the next six months. Thank you.
I will go ahead and, um, briefly go over three categories that
the city is using to address homelessness. Uh, that's going to include
outreach efforts, housing and shelter and enforcement and encampments. Uh,
the city, along with service providers conducts street outreach. During
outreach. Homeless individuals are offered connections to wraparound services. The
providers include a-c-t-l-c, homestar and crisis house.
during the last six months, from july to december, 2024,
a total of a bit over 161,000 was expended.
and this was using cdbg and plha funding.
this resulted in being able to contact 625
individuals out of those 20 were able to move into some sort of housing.
some of the challenges identified during this process, uh, do include building trust
with clients over time. This does delay the attempts needed for engagement.
additionally, some individuals experience mental health and substance abuse. So the outreach workers
do try and match them with those who, um, do offer that service for them.
under the housing and shelter category programs include
reunification, emergency placement, emergency shelter, rapid
rehousing, and rental assistance. The
providers for these programs are the salvation army crisis house, e-c-t-l-c,
homestar and interfaith shelter network. For this category, a total
of about 192,000 was expended. And this was using
c-d-b-g-p-l-h-a-a low mod income housing asset funds.
the results were 498 sheltered individuals and 51
placed into permanently, um, or 51 were permanently housed.
some challenges that seem to fall with, uh, with this category
are different barriers to permanent housing. This includes, but it's not limited to,
uh, rental history, credit history, or not enough income per household.
this is where cage ma case management plays a huge role in order to prepare individuals
to become housing ready. The last
category is enforcement and encampments for these. Oh
yeah. And this is including, um, again, enforcement and coordinating
encampment cleanups. The providers are, uh, city
department's urban corp, which is a contractor and homestart. The cost
of this for the last six months was about $105,000, and it includes
plha and some general fund. This
resulted in 482 contacts with a total of 25 events
in the last six months, 55 cleanups and about 419
tons of debris, uh, removed from the city.
the challenge we continue to see during these services is transient population, often
returning to the same areas. So to
summarize some highlights, uh, from july to december, we have a total expenditure of about
443,000. Again, this resulted in about 1600,
served 477 in emergency shelter, 185
in transitional housing, and 61 in permanent housing. And the funding
sources are c-d-b-g-p-l-h-a low mod housing asset fund and
some general fund. As a result of the data provided,
city, uh, staff recommends that city council continue funding all the active
homeless services programs, uh, continue seeking new funding opportunities,
continue support for the east county homeless task force and the
emergency sleeping cabinets, as well as continue receiving the six month report.
uh, we do like to thank our program providers for all their hard work.
this concludes my presentation. Staff is available chance for questions or comments. Thank you.
thank you very much. Can you speaker cards on
this, sir? Yes, we have one from truth.
hi, truth. Hi testing.
does it sound all? No. Yeah. Okay. Yes,
I'm speaking again in, in case anyone has an issue with it because
I have a very important point and that is, I was inspired by graham, so I'm also gonna cut
to the chase. Very, very transparent breakdowns of the spendings.
so the city spending on homelessness, I wish every city reported
like that, especially the city of san diego. And
the county is also not transparent with our money. They have an $8.5 billion
budget. And despite what supervisor monica montgomery step has claimed,
we got pretty much nothing to show for it. Um, so this is the city's
work. This has nothing to do with the county, and it's just amazing. Can you imagine if
elon had billions to play with? Like, that could actually make a real difference
for the entire county? Because I can see el alcohol and services, I'm very familiar with
crisis house. I won't get into that, but I'm very familiar. I'm grateful for,
for things that exist like that. And so thank everybody. I thank everybody
involved for this work that went into a very transparent account. Thank you.
thank you. No more cards,
sir. That's it. Alright, we'll bring it back to the council for discussion.
yes, carrie, a question for the city attorney. We get
a substantial amount of money from, uh, c community development
block grant funds. Has that been cut off by the
federal government? Not to my knowledge. I know that there
was, uh, a stay issued that, uh, um, one, one or
more courts have issued stay saying it's, uh, likely unconstitutional. The,
uh, but, uh, it'll be a temporary order. But for now, I
think the, the money's continuing to flow. Okay. That, that's good. Because
we give, uh, east county transitional living center a substantial amount
of money. In fact, they're between 150 and 200 children. Li
formerly homeless children living there right now. Uh,
I was coming out a council meeting one time about 22 years ago,
and there was a, a mom with her little
redheaded 10-year-old son who reminded me of my son, who was 10 at the time.
and we said, you know, what are you doing here? He said, well, you know, my husband,
we fell through the cracks. You know, my husband's a druggie. He took off,
and this is where we sleep under the wings of the, uh,
city council meeting, right about 10 feet outside that door. And
so, uh, the council, that time, we approved, uh, east county transitional
living center and has been a spectacular success.
in fact, I have three of the graduates living at my house right now.
so that's, uh, you know, one of the bright
spots. And, uh, it's like a part of it is like a
church-based bootcamp, which I don't think any of us would like to
be there. They, they have a facility out in the east county where they run a
ranch and, you know, raise cattle. And, uh,
so they, the idea is they get 'em so tired, they don't want any drugs,
and, and it seems to be working. So, uh,
I think it's important that we keep, uh,
supporting them. Thank you. Thanks, gary. Anybody
else? No, I would just say I, I agree with staff's recommendation.
continue, uh, everything we're doing. Yeah. Steve,
uh, for those of you that, that don't know about the tiny cabins, there are six of 'em on the
property of meridian baptist church out in the eastern part of el cajon.
they have put through 47 women with a 78% success rate
into permanent housing. The, this is a four-way partnership between
the city of el cajon, radium baptist church crisis house, and
amicus the builder four-way partnership. That's why it works
at a cost of less than $10,000 per cabin, built by over
120 volunteers who continue to pour into
the lives of these women to make sure that, that they have the right tools and
the, and the support they need to, to get back into a, a better place.
there have been zero calls for police, zero calls,
uh, from the neighbor's complaints, zero complaints from the elementary school across
the street. Why does it work? Screening? They only take women
who want to get off the street. There are rules. You have to
meet with a social service counselor approximately once a week.
and some of these women bring kids with them and they fit, uh,
a, a woman and her two kids in an eight by 12 space
inside that cabin. And it works. It can work. It
doesn't need to be always a thousand person shelter. Sometimes
you can do them six at a time. Thank you steve. Um,
michelle and then gary. So I think we need to come up
with some safe parking. I know the county has safe parking. They have closed it right
now. Um, when I was doing the, uh, homeless point in time count,
I've done it for the last few years now. Um, the county did not know that it
was closed. Joel anderson did not know it was closed, but right now they've got it closed,
uh, to put in electricity and water so they can put in showers.
when I did the point in time count this year, we found a lot our
census track that we were working off. We found a lot of people living in their cars
and they were going to work. So I think that there's a need for
people that are just kind of in between. They're not,
they have a job. They just are trying to get in between,
you know, trying to save up the money to get into housing because housing is
an issue. And housing find, being able to afford that apartment,
uh, afford a room. Rooms are going from anywhere from 1200
to $1,500 just for an a room. So I think that we
need to come up with some new ideas. Um, churches, I know that there
was one church who was interested in doing rv parking, and I think we
need to look into some new ideas. We've got some great programs already, but
I'd like the council to maybe look into some, uh, safe parking.
uh, if churches are, have the capacity, like our, our tiny homes, they
have the showers, they have, uh, capabilities of feeding
people. If good shepherd ministries wanted to do
rv parking, we need to look into that and get some of these rvs
off the street. Or maybe a truck if someone wants to park their truck or their
car. So this is something I'd like the council to look into. Can, can we, um,
can we check with the county to see a timeline as to when their
safe parking is gonna reopen? Because it sounds like they're doing public improvements.
they're, they're doing public improvements. But the problem is,
is that it, the, the minute that closed down, the homeless moved
back in. Now I contacted the director of homeless solutions, uh, deanna
beck and I was reporting and sending her pictures
like every week they just moved in. They were moving back into the canals
right there. Right. And it's been at least a couple of months, the
county's really slow and revitalizing that safe parking.
could we have staff just check in to see when, when we anticipate
that coming back in? We, we can do that. It's been closed for quite a while. And, and if you look at the cost
that the, the ro the return on investments,
I, I, I question if they're having to bring water and electricity over, if that
makes a lot of sense. Yeah. But, but we'll find out. I mean, that safe parking, you
know, it's only open from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am it seemed like it served a good purpose.
so we'll find out and we'll send a memo to the city council. Gary did .
yes. Uh, I wanted to point out that councilman gobel
spent countless hours volunteering to build those
tiny houses with his own two hands. And not
only does he talk the talk, but he walks the walk.
um, my 2 cents on, uh, going forward,
I, I think we're gonna have, have to find a way to work closer with the county.
I, I'd love to find out how the county, how the county is allocating
its resources to homelessness where, where they're spending their money, specifically in regard
to each city, each municipality, you know,
I know we're not getting any money from the county, but our other municipality is getting money from
the county. If so, what's the disparagement? And, uh,
but you know, I, I think that we're gonna have to, um, find a way to sit down
together because this problem is
probably bigger than we can, we can do on our own. Since all the money comes to the county, it
seems like they should have a seat at that table. There is new leadership at
the cao level at the county. There's new leadership at hhsa. There's new leadership
at the, the homeless, uh, department. So maybe there's an opportunity to,
uh, men some fences. Yeah. I have no doubt that joel anderson's office would
be willing to help us in that regard. Yeah. Okay. Two,
two things really quickly is one, there is the county does offer safe parking right now in
spring valley. There's a site in spring valley where there's safe parking and that's good to know. We can help direct
people there. The second thing is, one of the council priorities from your
workshop last month was to beef up the, uh,
dashboard on our city website. Which again, is very transparent,
but it can be better. One of the things that ms. Diaz is doing is actually having all
of her staff that will be involved with the dashboard do ride alongs with the
outreach team. So they're not sitting in an office thinking what they know is
happening. They're actually gonna be on the street. They're going to touch it, feel it, smell it,
all that, and they'll have a better sense of really what will help
our residents know what should be on the dashboard. So I thought I'd share that info with you.
alright, carrie, a question for the city manager. Is the
county still, uh,
collecting homeless people from all around the county, north
county and south county and putting them into el cajon hotels? Yeah, I can
check. Actually, yani, if you go to the next slide. So this, this slide actually
shows, uh, voucher program only offered by ewis. There's,
there are three or four other county voucher programs in the, in this city.
um, this is just equis portion that really de sharp
decline in usage of our motels was when the city council
adopted your policy where we start requiring some accountability. It's interesting, when you
ask for accountability, you get certain results. So you can see there's been a little bit of an
ebb and flow, but there has been a significant drop right now where I think at, uh, last week at
84, um, individuals in motels, um, based
on our data that we've asked for, we still believe that the
majority, uh, not the majority, but a, a a large percentage
are not from the city of el cajon. Um, but there's nothing we can do about that.
but it's good to know that at least why don't you have the, um, data from the other
ngos? Because the county only shares this with us
and we rely on them self-reporting and
to get this level of detail. We don't get that level of detail from them. Okay.
bill. It should be a goal, I think. Yeah. Is the county still
paying double the normal rate for those motel rooms? We
believe that they're paying between a hundred and forty six, a hundred fifty $6 a night,
uh, for a hotel stay. Okay. At, at a rate where most of these
motels are, are going for 80 to $90 a night.
okay. Uh, and are they, I know before we had some child
molesters with that were convicted with the ankle
bracelets and they weren't being vetted and we have a problem with them.
'cause they were, they were in motels that were near elementary
schools and some girls were assaulted. Uh, has, have they
addressed that problem? Your, your policy has addressed that problem because,
because state law gives them a pretty long period of
time before they have to report under your new regulations. They have to report within hours
of being placed in el cajon. So we will know if that's the case. It has not been the case
thus far since the policy went into effect. Thank you.
mr. City manager. Um,
the county motel voucher program, the funding, it was
arpa is it is are have, has the county allocated
funds, um, outside of arpa for voucher programs?
they may be still using some arpa funds or some residual, um,
covid money. Okay. Uh, I, at some point that will dry up, like ours
is dried up, so I'm not quite sure how they're gonna fund this program after. Oh, so they you not to
your knowledge that they've don't know how they're gonna continue to fund it. Got it. Thank you.
okay. Anybody else? Alright, thanks. Do you have enough direction? That's
very helpful. Thank you so much. Well, thank you.
okay. There are no commission reports on today's agenda.
item 12 is my activity report, which is as reported.
and then where activities reports for council members. Gobel, uh,
as reported with one comment about an mts meeting, executive meeting, uh,
last week, the mts is facing a hundred million dollars budget
shortfall to make up even if they discontinue
the entire trolley system, but it'll only save half of that. So there is no
discussion of discontinuing the trolley. I'm just giving you a sense of how
big the problem is. There were two, uh, items
that were put forth on the staff recommendation. One was an operational analysis
of all the buses and the trolleys that rind and how many people are on the buses
and things like that. See if there's any efficiency. The other was a
potential sales tax coming in next year of a half a
cent, uh, to, to take over that, uh,
my comment was I would like to see a third option and that is,
I think the public would expect a shared participation of everybody
in trying to close that gap. And so I put on the,
um, agenda a fair increase for those riding
the bus and trolley because that seems fair, no pun intended, uh,
that everyone should participate in the solution. That would take
one year to do that would be done by sandag. And those three items will be voted on
at the mts board meeting this thursday. Thank you. Okay.
thank you steve. Um, mr. Kendrick? Okay. Uh,
I'd like to add that I went to a metro, uh, joint
powers agreement meeting last thursday.
mr. Ortiz, uh, as reported ms. Mitchell as
reported. Okay. Then
there is one joint council member report on today's agenda is from council member gobel and
myself. This is what we're all here for tonight. This I, since I'm the one who
brought it last time, I'm gonna get, leave it to, uh, mr. Gobel to
explain and we'll go from there. Thank you, mr. Mayor. The
day after the last meeting, uh, we had three resolutions before us
and none of the three got passed, but I think the entire council agreed
on at least, at least two things. Number one, we're not a sanctuary city.
and number two, we would not block, obstruct, hinder, otherwise interfere with the federal government
coming into remove violent criminals from our city.
so I think we were really close. Uh, we just kind of ran out
of time. And so the next day I reached out to the mayor. I said, uh,
I think we can find a common ground for all of us. And my particular
concern was once we started talking about police officers, then I said, well,
I want indemnification or protection or defense from
the federal government for our police officers if they're doing something
lawful in the course of their duties. I'll talk about that situation
in a little bit. Uh, my position on this issue has not changed.
it is still about public safety for me, the city of el cajon is
not a sanctuary, never has been. And I will continue to fight
to make sure that we are never a sanctuary city. I
support president trump's position to enforce federal immigration law to red our city
of the most serious and violent criminals living
here illegally. I welcome tom holman trump's borders
are to do this. And speaking of mr. Holman, I recently had the opportunity
to meet with him in mid-november. Her friends said to
meet, tom and I worked together here in the city of el cajon in the early nineties, and we're
still in touch. Would you like to meet him? I said, of course, I'd like to hear what he has to
say, but we should invite the mayor as well. And so that's what I did. I invited
mayor wells to that meeting a few days before christmas. We all
met and we listened to tom's plan to get 647,000
people living illegally in the city who had been convicted or wanted for serious
and violent crimes. He also talked about the urgency to find
300,000 missing minors. The mayor and I
both told him we are not a sanctuary city and
welcomed him to come get the violent criminals out of our city
and we wouldn't be satisfied until they're all gone. I can assure
you mr. Holman is committed to making our city safe from the criminal aliens
who are harmful to our residents. Further, I welcome any and
all law enforcement agencies who will remove violent
criminals from our city. At the same time, I
believe our officers are not, cannot and should not be immigration
agents today when you call for help, our police officers
don't ask any one of their citizenship status. They won't even know in their systems
their job is to serve and protect. In
the meeting with tom harmon, even he said he doesn't want local
law enforcement to do immigration enforcement.
the resolution which the mayor and I reached a, an agreement on before estates,
well, actually let's say that 'cause we'll go through the resolution shortly. Uh,
I believe working with ice border patrol or any other agency involving enforcement
of federal immigration law should be for the sole purpose of removing violent
criminals. Now, at the same time, we need to change sb 54
to allow our police the option to contact ice when
there is a known convicted criminal living
in our city or country. Illegally. I believe that legislation is important
and in development. I also recognize there's a
conflict between federal and california law as b 54 on this issue,
I and my colleagues do not have the ability to resolve this conflict. And I
don't want this conflict to boil over and punish our police officers in any
way. That's why I offered an amendment to the resolution before
us to quote, seek assistance from the united states attorney general's
office to indemnify or defend our city and its employees for
any assistance or cooperation with federal integration authorities as
permitted by law, we need to send a strong message,
especially to our police officers that we have their backs.
the amended resolution adding to seek protection for our employees when acting
lawfully in the course of their duties is for the sole purpose
of getting rid of serious and violent criminals and to protect the
people in the city of el cajon. So let's take a look at this
resolution we're talking about today. You can see the title here. I
won't read the whole thing. Let's go on to the next point. Resolve
that the city declares its intent to comply with the enforcement of federal immigration law
to the legal extent permissible, which means according to the
current law for the sole purpose, the only purpose of
removing those that have committed violent criminal offenses as defined by
california penal code, et cetera. Number two, resolved.
we declare we are not a sanctuary city. We will not obstruct, impede,
interfere, or otherwise block any federal law enforcement agency from its
duties. Number three, that we'll seek assistance from the
attorney general's office to indemnify the city and its employees for any assistance
as permitted by law. Number four, that we remain steadfast in
our commitment to protecting the safety and wellbeing of our residents, particularly
those most vulnerable to criminal activities such as human trafficking and drug
distribution. Number five, that we will continue to comply with all
federal and state laws recognizing there are conflicts between federal
and state laws. Number six, we recognize the importance of meeting,
maintaining trust within the community. And we are reaffirm our commitment to treating
all residents with dignity and respect regardless of integration status.
number seven, we will continue to request additional clarification
and guidance from both the us and california ag.
and number eight, uh, the city clerk is elected to send a
copy of this to the people listed. This is essentially the same
resolution, but with my desire to add protection for, for our police officers
if they're going to provide any assistance. Let me give you an example.
if somebody runs the border patrol checkpoint in pine valley
and the border patrol begins a chase and that chase comes down into
el cajon, if that person gets onto our city street,
we are not allowed to join that chase. That is an immigration issue.
however, if that person runs a red light
speeds or does some other violation of california law, we may
join the chase. So at that point,
if we pull over the car and if we hand over that person
to ice, we did so lawfully because we
pulled that pull person over for running a red light and speeding.
we did not pull that per pull. We did not pull that person over
for violating immigration law. If anyone to
were to come after our police officers and say you violated
law by assisting ice or border patrol in this example, that's
not true. We pulled that person over because they ran a red light and they
sped in our city. We need to protect our officers.
we can't make them second guess what they do to keep
us safe. That's the resolution before us. I think
we have come to a, uh, a reasonable, uh, concern
about use protection, compliance with existing law.
and I think, uh, I'd be interested to hear what my colleagues have to say and then
the public, um, you know
what I, what I'm gonna do at this point because
I think when we discuss all this, we're gonna want to discuss the things that the public
has to say about it. So rather than do this twice, I'm going to do
public comment when that's all finished, we will have discussion here. Everybody
okay with that? Yeah. Oh, okay. Great. So we're gonna go to public comment before we
start. Um, I'm gonna limit public comment to two minutes.
I I want you to know that I was under a lot of pressure to limit public comment to one
minute, but I have problems with that. The, I I think the first amendment
gives us everybody the opportunity to speak. And we may be here a long time tonight,
but, but that's okay. So I think two minutes is a good compromise. Um,
I'm hoping everybody will be respectful of everybody else and we can just move through
this and get to the end and come to a conclusion. Um,
having said that, let's start with public comment. Thank
you, sir. We have 46 speakers and as we did last time, we
will call people in in three. When we call your name, if you can please
stand down the middle aisle and be ready to speak so it can move
a little bit quicker. The first three speakers are larry
olds, nicole bacca, and melissa ortiz baldwin.
hello, sir. Welcome. Good afternoon.
sb 54 is the fly in the ointment for I think all of us,
and it's been discussed and talked about and written about. And I found a passage on the
internet that I thought was particularly good. And
what it says is, federal law is unambiguous in its supremacy
over immigration matters. Under the supremacy clause of
the constitution, federal law takes precedence over conflicting states
and locale local policies. The immigration
and nationality act grants the federal government exclusive authority over
immigration enforcement and congress has determined
that cooperation between law, uh, local law enforcement and
federal immigration authorities is essential. Statutes
such as eight usc 1373 explicitly
prohibit state and local governments from enacting policies
that reflect, uh, that restrict communications with federal
immigration agencies. Did you hear what I said?
statutes such as eight usc 1373
explicitly prohibit states and local governments from enacting policies
that restrict communications with federal and immigration
agencies. This status ensures that local officials cannot block or impede
the flow of critical information needed to enforce federal immigration.
moreover, the refusal of the to honor ice detainers undermines
the public safety rationale underlying immigration
enforcement detainers are issued against individuals who have been arrested
for violating state or local laws, meaning these are individuals
already found to pose a threat to the community by refusing
to comply with ice detainer, sanctuary jurisdictions actively
shield criminal aliens from de deportation allowing them to be released
back into the communities. I'm running out of time. Yeah. Thank you,
sir. I appreciate it. But thank you. But I, I'm, I'm, I do like what,
what you're doing there. If you live up to that, I am much better with
your decision. Thank you, sir.
well, welcome. Hi. Can I pull that down? Yeah. Hi.
good afternoon. I urge you to reject this proposal. My
name's nicole and I spoke at the last city council meeting, and I'm also a lifelong
resident of el cajon. Much like everyone here today, I feel strongly about
this resolution put in front of us. I'm opposed to this not because
I'm opposed to law and consequence, but I'm opposed to it because immigration
is not the job of the elcon police department. Remove politics
from this for a second. What is the job of local law enforcement
to police the community and be a responsible and trusted entity in society?
this resolution does not accomplish that. Furthermore, our primary
crime issues in el cajon are related to homelessness and drugs, which this
resolution does not address to the naked eye. Immigration is not the cause of
those problems, hence, the reason I feel the way that I do this
resolution, in my opinion, is a misuse of our already limited resources.
I understand that there are different political leanings on this, and no amount of time
or number of speeches are going to change the way that people feel. So
that tells us that there might be value in understanding perspective. This
resolution does not accomplish building community trust or tackle our primary
policing concerns. After the last city council meeting, mayor wells said that our
community was less safe as a result of it not passing. But what
has changed in the last two weeks? Nothing. So if nothing has changed,
how did things become more dangerous for the residents of el cajon?
go on whatever social media you choose, and there's video documentation in real
time of these kinds of policies going awry, we have to ask ourselves,
who does this resolution benefit the community by removing the father
of visiting his five-year-old daughter in their home,
or bill wells, who has tv cameras here today who can get his sound bites
in to go on newsmax or kusi later today? It
is a waste of time and a waste of our resources. I urge you to vote no thank
you. Please prioritize policies that foster safety and trust
rather than division and fear. Thank you.
after ms. Ortiz, uh, we have mayors ryan, ms.
strange, and mary maureen braham.
uh, good afternoon. My name's melissa ortiz baldwin, no relation to phil.
um, first this resolution continues the fear mon
monering tactics to persuade the public to allow police collaboration with
ice. Uh, the resolution on page one of the resolution
states our claims there are over 647,000
non undocumented individuals convicted of violent crimes.
this is false according to the counsel's own exhibit, specifically
a letter from ice pages seven and nine of the resolution.
the actual number of un violent criminals
is 271,917 nationwide.
the resolution, however, falsely implies that this number is more than twice
as high. My second issue with this
is that it seeks to bypass state government oversight, censure, and potential
repercussions by appealing to trump and his allies for federal protection.
this is page two, item three of the resolution. This sets a dangerous
precedent and appears to be a political move by bill wells
to align with the trump administration. Something he himself admitted to
at the last council meeting when he stated his intent to plant a flag for
trump. Now, there was a person earlier this said that
she was speaking out of a place of love as she proceeded to excoriate.
council member mitchell speaking, passionate about something
important to you and your constituents is actually proof that you care about
your constituents. Please,
please, council member michelle, do not let people who don't
like where you stand just like you.
hello everybody. I'm gonna just go ahead and echo as she just said, because
this morning steve gobel, you got an email from patricia monon from
the alliance san diego for immigration. And she also agrees that those numbers
are wrong. So I urge you to look at that email. She's urging you to vote no.
but I also wanna point out that on thursday, january 31st, two days after
this proposition was struck down on the corner of gustavo and hamshaw, we
got our first report at 7:20 am of a checkpoint in which
a resident was asked for his, uh, driver's license and
for his registration like normal. Once it was handed over to him, he
was then asked for his legal status. Guess the color of his skin? Everybody.
it was brown. When he, uh, invoked his right to
decline to answer, that officer threw the, uh, license
and registration back at his chest and told him to go.
okay, so now let's get to it. Okay, because let's get to number three
because I'm here to challenge you on line number three of this
proposition. Specifically the word indemnify. Okay.
this council didn't choose that word by accident. Indemnify means
to shield from liability to preemptively excuse wrongdoing.
instead, this word serves as a free pass for
law enforcement or city officials who violate sb 54.
you cannot claim neutrality on this issue either
you stand with your community, your neighbors, your constituents,
or you stand against us. If this council truly
believes in fairness and the rule of law, then I demand that you provide a clear
margin of protection for the people with no violent record
in this proposition at all costs. Amended last part
of line number three. Instead of the vague phrase permitted by law,
it must explicitly state compliance with the california penal code
already referenced in this proposition. That is all I have to say. Thanks steve.
could could you please state your name? Oh, I will. Yes.
good afternoon. My name is mayors ryan. I appreciate this opportunity to
speak with this council. Um, I am asking this council
to vote no on this resolution. I've been a teacher at the college and middle school
level for 20 years, and I am presently teaching in
el cajon. During all of this time, I have taught students of all colors.
I have a stake in el cajon issues as well. I owned a home
for 35 years up in crest. All three of my
children went to granite hills and three of my grandchildren attend
local schools here. My son and daughter live and work here as
well. So I understand being protective
of where your loved ones live and attend school.
and I can see that you might project that this resolution
will keep you safer. But what I do not understand
is the hate and the disinformation associated with
dumping all of the responsibility for all of the city's
crime on a group of people because of the color of their skin.
like mr. Gobel and mr. Kendrick have both said today,
this council is here to protect all kids. Please vote
no on this resolution.
taxpayers oversight for parents and students want to inform you that
since the last time we were here, the lake and riley act passed
the very next day. Steve, you got almost
a million views on libs of tiktok. The headlines read, and I quote,
el cajon wants their city to be overrun by criminal
immigrants. The laken act mandates
the federal detention of illegal immigrants who are accused
of theft, burglary, assault, law enforcement officers,
and any crime that causes death or serious bodily
injury, of course we must welcome immigrants.
but since the cartels have taken over by trafficking fentanyl
and tens of thousands of women and children,
you'll have more homeless and death if you don't pass this
resolution. Did I mention you'll lose your federal funding too?
I sincerely hope you can reform arc immigration laws
to expedite processing qualified individuals because
we do need legal immigration for their safety
as well as ours. I love immigrants. They're two of them in my
family. I'm married to one my sister-in-law. We need immigrants, but
it took them five years to get naturalized
citizens. I think we can do better. Thank you. An advance board for being
here today and passing this common sense resolution. Thank you
ara. Dr. Joanna rose, uh, bermuda
and adriana hassel right
now. Any, any order, just state your name please. Okay. Hi. I am dr. Joanna
rose bez. Here again, how to schedule nine
patients rescheduled. Nine patients in my clinic. Sp 54
prohibits local police from working with ice, except in some circumstances passing
a resolution not identical to s sp 54 to cooperate with ice violates
this law courts ruled that holding someone on a ice detainer without proper
legal authority violates the fourth amendment. The police department risk lawsuits
if they cooperate with ice with no judicial warrant. Cities that ignore immigration
laws will face legal action from the state. The california attorney general's
office has stated they're monitoring compliance and will take action against
non-compliance deportations. Take members from your local workforce,
which will tank your town's economy. This means a higher
cost of living in el cajon. Your town will face
costly lawsuits as the police work with ice in violation of state law. California
will withhold funding from this town due to non-compliance. Cooperating
with ice will strain local ems resulting in public safety risk.
since what you're doing is highly unethical and legally questionable.
I have reported you to the san diego county da, the san diego or the state
attorney general. The state auditor, the department of justice, and to congresswoman sara jacobs
who was unaware that you are trying to pass this again, another history lesson
for you. California used to be mexico. Those of us who are mexican
have indigenous blood. Okay? Our connection to
this land isn't just historical, it's ancestral. And we're not talking about borders
drawn on math. So talking about birthrights and I challenge you look down
at where your feet rest. This is indigenous land.
it has always been, and it's time. We all recognize that undeniable
truth. And I heard the voicemails you got steve, I know you were chastised,
threatened and harassed. And I'm sorry, I'm very sorry that happened to you 'cause I
know you probably have kids and you're probably scared. And I'm sorry. And that's all I
have to say.
the next, the next three speakers, and if you could please, once you hear your name, come
and stand in the middle aisle, please. Audra adriana hassel
and amy reker.
hi. Hello again. Oh my gosh. Imagine the
misguidance and misunderstanding going on in this room. It's
interesting 'cause you guys are seemingly trying to protect against violent
criminals. It's weird that it's a problem and that people
are like against that. And then when I call out somebody being violent,
they say that I am just by asking you to be calm and collected.
so now I get why there's so much misguidance in this room and people
don't want to actually protect against violence.
and they're misunderstanding what's actually going on and saying
it's something that it isn't. Because sometimes when
people want to hear something, that's what they hear instead of actually listening
to what's going on and understanding what you guys are trying to do.
so to me, what I'm understanding is that a lot of people want violent
criminals to run rampant and have nothing be done about it 'cause of the color of their skin,
even though they're white, black, asian, you name it, they're all colors.
so it's very sad to see that there's so many people that would prefer a
child to be raped or, you know, whatever. But like, why should we go after them and
remove them from our country, especially if they came here illegally.
but you guys will lose your federal funding if you go and try and obstruct the
federal government from being able to do their job, which would actually
impede this city and hinder its ability to do the things that
it needs to do. So it's a surprise and a wonder why people that want
more money to come in don't wanna actually get in the way of that
happening. So good for you guys for doing and trying to stand up for what's
right and actually protect the people. But I guarantee you there's
two of you on here that don't wanna protect the people because you are confused
about what this means and, and that if anything happens to anybody,
it's your guys' fault and you're complicit and culpable in it.
so god's speed. Thank you to all of you guys.
alright, ladies and gentlemen, I'm, I'm watching the time. Three
minutes won. Wasn't over. Go ahead. My name's amy rechart and
I'm with restore san diego. And everybody that's here that we
ask to be here is for one reason and one reason only.
we don't want violent criminals in our community.
period. End of story. This should not be a debate.
we should not be called anti-christian or racist.
there was an earlier speaker who referenced that actually the, the number of violent
criminals president in the united states that have, uh, come
here illegally is only 270,000. Well,
that's 270,000 too many.
so I wanna say thank you so much, steve.
in particular, I wanna say thank you so much for reconsidering
this and bringing this again because the community supports you
and, and regardless of the rhetoric on each side
and the accusations of of racism, and you're not being a christian,
I think we can all come together and say we don't want
violent criminals in el cajon. So thank you.
next speakers, mary davis, ben good,
and carlos gomez perez.
hi, uh, good afternoon mary davis. So, uh, first of all, I
do have to touch on what audra mentioned and um, I do try to always speak, uh,
in public with a gentle answer. But, um, councilwoman
mitchell, I was very disturbed. Uh, I know you had your viral moment and you talked
about the fear of being made to look like a racist. But enforcing
our laws and keeping residents safe isn't racist.
it's called upholding your oath of office. Um, yes.
and so I also, uh, have to touch on legal immigration
and I would say everybody in this room is absolutely for legal immigration.
I was just down at san ysidro the other day. I saw a bus. So there was a line of what
you call military age men, 18 to 40. And I was kind of concerned
at first, and they're all lined up for this bus. Well, it turns out when I did my research, they're
here for a legal visa immigration under h two. Um, it's
a recruiting for agriculture though. That's the type of legal immigration
that almost everybody, I would say in this room is absolutely for. We want people
that are gonna come here, work hard, obey the law. That said, um,
lastly, I do wanna touch on, uh, one of my seatmates next to me kept talking
about kids in cages. And, um, and I get that that's
a thing because it actually ha happened under obama also. But I'm going to,
uh, call your kids in cages trope and I'm going to
raise you kids in coffins. These are the three girls that were
killed in sacramento directly because of sb 54.
the father was arrested for a violent offense, resisting arrest,
and that they let him go. A week later, he killed
these three girls in a church I might add, where one of the signs says
no ice in church. And so there is collateral damage.
it's a matter of who pays the price. These girls should be alive. Anybody
that honors sb 54 is complicit and has gras losano.
thank you so much.
welcome sir. Good afternoon, ms. Carlos. Go.
nice to you again, mayor. So ultimately
your job is to, you're claiming public safety, correct? At the
end of the day, you want to keep el cajon safe. That
means the constituents and the same manner your, um, your, um,
your members right there. So that being said, I stand for
you today to address the crucial concernt regarding the upcoming re traditional bill that
could be profoundly affect our community. 'cause it will affect our community in not in a positive
manner. So this last council meeting, that the people that voted against it
have been harassed because of pe because
they know they oppose your bill. However, it's important to recognize that con the context of
this decision were being made, if the bills were introduced and passes, we must
consider the possibility that those voters, those votes were not entirely made by free will. Instead,
they have been influenced by harassment, intimidation. These council members have
endured a decision made under the rest 'cause it is under dures. 'cause
you're fearful for your life. You're being threatened. They know where you live that is not,
does not reflect genuine support or their form. It's product of external pressure
that is towards the integrity of the decision making process. The council's
rule that your council rule is to serve the public, make informed decisions, and uphold
justice and law. Like I said last time, I didn't think I was gonna
have to be doing this back here stateside. So if you're
changed your mind on after two weeks of talking
to each other, it is not out of the woo goodness of your heart.
it is not because you care about public safety. It's because mayor, you're trying to get your
career steps going. And two, it's at the rest. And please
wait, wait till we finish speaking so we can hear each other. I get it. We
support each other, but let's wait till the finish speaking so we can go ahead and clap as loud as
we want. That being said, do not pass a reform. It will not be good for the city.
it will not be good for constituents. It won't be good for anyone. And no, we don't
want criminals in this, in the city. Thank you. Thank you.
after mr. Goode, we have kaylee, uh, jarad,
kirsten jarad and lucas jarad
gentlemen, ma'am, uh, two weeks ago, we got it wrong.
um, and I, I wanna thank mr. Gobel. I know you took
a lot of emails. I know you took some from a really smart lady named trina goode. And,
um, we're both in over our skis on her. Uh, that's gonna be a completely intellectual,
uh, intelligent, precise thing that's gonna come out of her out of
love. Uh, she teaches at a very hispanic school, has for over
20 years. She drives one hour every day to teach those kids. And she
loves those kids and she'll protect them against anything. And that's really
what we're getting into right now is a protection situation. And so I thank you for,
for, for filling those emails. And she seriously respects the fact that you took the
time outta your day to thoughtfully respond to her. And it wasn't harassment,
it was just a process that you participated in. And thank you mr. Kendrick.
earlier today, I sat there and I was, my, my jaw kind of dropped a little bit because
I'm gonna quote you, the primarily purpose of local government is to protect
the citizens. And that's all we're asking you to do right now is protect
the citizens. We got it wrong last time. I've literally watched
hundreds of thousands of people come from all over the world. It, it, it's not our
hispanic people who were born here who have a birthright. As we were heard earlier today,
I have personally seen thousands of people from all over the world
introduced into our system in the last three and a half years. I've watched the buses
go by my house, by numbers. I can't count in a day. We're talking about hundreds
of buses in a week, 24 hours a day, seven days
a week, three years. We do not know who those people are, and we need to protect those
students that you're talking about, those kids. I agree with you completely. I think we have the same heart.
the problem is we have to stand up to it now and we have to fix something that
somebody else caused this. And it's a really uncomfortable place for everybody, but we still have to
fix it. I beg you to follow through on what you said earlier today and protect the
citizens. Thank you.
hi, I'm lucas. Um, I want you to vote no on the resolution.
um, I think we, we have really serious due process concerns, um, in, in light of the,
uh, lake and riley act that was passed two weeks ago. Um, so basically, um,
I think there's a lot of misconceptions about how this resolution works. Like, uh, if you vote no on
this resolution, it doesn't mean that ice isn't able to operate in el cajon. Um, it doesn't
take away the ability to, uh, of ice to arrest people who, or to, to,
uh, yeah, to, to arrest people who they know have committed crimes. Um,
but, uh, um, based on the lake and riley, uh,
act, uh, which was passed by congress, um, the ice, when people,
if our police collaborate with ice, um, and they turn people over who haven't been arrested or
who have, sorry, who have not been convicted of crimes, um, uh, ice
is required just based on an accusation and not based on a conviction to detain, detain
people indefinitely. And they have the ability to, uh, deport people to,
uh, the guantanamo bay prison facility based on just, uh, accusations
of, um, of having committed violent crimes. Like they don't actually require any proof
or any trial. And so we think this is a really serious due process issue. Um,
we think that it's the obligation of all government, but of local government to
respect the, the basic principle of due process and, uh, not allow
elon residents to, um, uh, to be, uh, captured by
ice or to be captured by police on, on for like, uh, as gobel
said, um, for just, uh, uh, speeding for something that
is nonviolent, for running through a red light. Um, then be
turned over to ice and, uh, on that basis, be punished as though you had committed
a murder or a violent crime because indefinite detention. Um,
uh, uh, yeah, I think, uh, sorry.
uh, yeah, we, I I think we, we think this is a, a
real problem for due process. And I, I think you guys are obligated to vote no on
this resolution, uh, to prevent this sort of, uh, abuse.
um, yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
hi. Hi. Um, please don't pass this resolution
that will allow the police to capture el cajon residents and turn them over to ice.
who, with merely an accusation and no trial can detain them indefinitely, including
sending them to guantanamo bay, the infamous black site where the
constitutional protections are not applied under the horrifyingly unconstitutional lake
and riley act. Any undocumented migrant accused not convicted can
be permanently held in a foreign labor camp over a low level crime like shoplifting.
make no mistake, this is already happening. Not a single migrant. Recently, andris
in gitmo was convicted in the us court. If you wanna deport, the handful of
people tried and found guilty of nonviolent crimes, fine, but that's not what
we're talking about. We're talking about sending alcohol residents to foreign concentration camps
without trial. Trump recently gave the okay on sending migrants to prisons in
el salvador where people worked 15 hours a day and often die from lack of water
and disease. Uh, dhs secretary christian refuses
to even pretend that these camps were, were only contained violent criminals. This
is just the start of the warrior. Is this what we wanna do to our neighbors? To the people down the
street who have been living peacefully for decades and who under any other administration would've
continued to do so? The stake are so much higher now that the lake and riley,
no due process for migrants bureau has been passed. They want to punish people as
severely as though they've committed a murder, but without any trial, any investigation,
any ability to confront their accuser in court. Um, they don't get their
day in court. They get held indefinitely in camps, in service of a racial goal to make this
country more white. The trump administration wants to board 20 million people.
um, but we won't have 20 million convictions. There're gonna be 20 million people grabbed at
churches and schools and rounded up on their way to work. We're not going to forget what you do
here. We'll be grateful if you protect our community, and we'll be furious if you destroy it
after, after ms uh, uh, jarad, we
have julianne gustafson, clifton quinn, and
kristen broker. My name is,
my name is kirsten jarad. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
each of you took an oath to support the us constitution. So do it,
do your job. Mayor wells wants to collude with the trump administration's efforts
to deport 20 million people through the lake and riley act, which mandates
that undocumented individuals be deported or transferred to foreign prisons
and work camps where they'll be denied the protection of the fifth amendment. The
right to be free from self-incrimination. The sixth amendment, the right to the right
to counsel a speedy trial, an impartial jury, the right to be charged with
the crime and the right to confront witnesses. The eighth amendment, the right to
be free from cruel and unusual punishment. And the 14th amendment, the right to due process,
equal protection, and the presumption of innocence. The lake and riley act only
requires that someone be accused of a crime. There's no burden of proof, there's
no trial. That's why we have the 14th amendment. Due process
requires the, sorry. The 14th amendment requires due process and equal
protection before someone's rights are removed. The constitution applies equally
to citizens and non-citizens in the us, which is why trump wants to
move people to foreign soil so they have no rights. Mayor
wells has fabricated legal issue claiming that cajon must cooperate
with the feds to deport people using local police. But that's not how our government
works. We have a system called federalism under the 10th amendment
and the supreme court precedent, police powers belong solely to the states.
immigration belongs to the federal government. It's false that
the el ca police are obligated to cooperate with the feds. Sb 54
states that no california state or local resources can be used to assist
federal immigration enforcement. California has an absolute right
to make and enforce this law as elected officials sworn to uphold the
constitution. It would be a dereliction of your duty to vote for this
resolution. If you ever wonder what you would do in a country that was sliding into fascism,
ask yourself, what are you doing right now? Much history will judge you.
hi, my name's clifton quinn, and I am so impressed by the passion I'm seeing
in this room on both sides. Seriously, this is the american
way, and I appreciate your attention. I've spoke at the county board of supervisors
when they were busy on their email, so thank you for doing this. So I
appreciate the passion. And my mom is an immigrant. My wife is an
immigrant, and I've never heard one person here speak anything against immigrants. Okay?
that's not what this is about, right? I I truly wonder if
we are talking about the same resolution. I read a simple resolution, which
to me, well, I've learned not to necessarily
trust big government, but I have learned to trust bill wells. I've met him several
times and has heard him speak on many occasions. And I trust, I trust
where bill's coming from. So I believe this, if we do not pass
this, if you do not pass this resolution, I've heard from tom ham and
heard of the guys at ice, and they're gonna be airing in and narrowing
in on places that, that say they want to be a sanctuary city
or want to grow up against ice. I don't think that's a battle we wanna fight.
so to me, it's an absolute no brainer to do what it says. Sole purpose
of removing violent criminals, not immigrants, violent
criminals. Please pass this resolution. Thank you.
after ms. Broker, we have chris ford, debbie claude
cod, and sherry finn.
well, good afternoon board. Um, my name is kristen broker.
uh, I am the spouse of a navy veteran of
30 years. And, um, we started our
service to the military here in
san diego. Traveled the world four corners of the united states
and, and finalized here and came back to a
wonderful city, um, several years ago after my husband's
retirement of 30 years. Um,
mr. Wells, I wanna tell you, you are, uh, quite a celebrity
from our peers in the military who are living elsewhere
when they, you made national news and made the
bold stance to bring this resolution to your city
to protect your citizens. Um, for that, I commend you
and your board for entertaining it and letting us as citizens
come and be a part of the process. Um,
I speak from, uh, only experience as
a former federal corrections employee.
and so my experience is
when a violent criminal comes into the custody
of any facility, penal system,
a background check that is nationalized is done on
that individual. If there is a detainer placed on that
individual, it would be derelict of my duty as a federal
employee of a correctional system to release them
without checking with the agency to see if they wanna come and
get that individual for further process. We're talking
about criminals that are violent, whether
their status is legal or illegal. Doesn't
matter if I release them into the community.
I'm sorry. Your time's up. Thank you. Okay, thanks.
hello, my name is chris ford, district one. Good afternoon, counsel. I have some
simple questions. Why are we all here again? Why are
you wasting our time? And most importantly, did you take any notes from the last session
regarding this topic? This and every version of this resolution has been opposed by
a vocal majority of the community. Not only is it wholly unpopular and dangerous, it
doesn't even make sense. You have spent nearly two months corresponding with
the california attorney general because of the legal question. At the core of this resolution,
you've spent five hours with the rest of us last time going back and forth on it, and you
spent no who knows how much time talking behind closed doors, discussing amongst yourselves.
and still, you don't have an answer as to the potential legal conflicts between state and federal
law. Yet still, you want to put this weird statement of pseudo action on the
books while seemingly admitting it could land the city in legal hot water. The next four
years is going to be nothing but potential conflicts between the adversarial trump administration
and the state of california. Are you going to put out a resolution
every time that happens? How often do you plan to risk our city becoming
publicly liable when instead, you could just be focusing on your job? Your job
is not to embroil us in legal conflicts. Your job is to be stewards
of the people of this city, both resident and non-resident alike. You say
this is about public safety. While there's nothing stopping our police from dealing with allegedly violent
criminals, both documented and undocumented, additionally, sb 54 already
allows them at their discretion to transfer violent offenders if a judicial warrant
is presented by ice. So where does your confusion lie?
I don't think you're confused. I sorry. I don't think you're confused. I think this resolution
just hates sanctuary cities. You shouldn't be worried about sanctuary cities. You should be worried
about the federal government since the trump administration issued quotas to ice there, having reports
of questioning or detainment of american citizens, veterans, indigenous people,
and human beings whose only crime has been crossing the border, who wants that in their community?
stop putting my neighbors at risk. Stop wasting our time. Kill this
resolution and leave it dead. Thank you.
uh, hello counsel. Thank you for being here. And thank you for letting us
come. Um, I want to, oh, my name's debbie connell and I've been a
resident for over 45 years raising my children here. I'm a great grandma.
uh, I wanna support mayor bill wells, steve gobel, fill authorities, anybody else
that really wants to be behind this recommendation
in declaring the city's commitment to ensure public safety
for all residents, not just different colors, but all residents.
asserting the city's intent to comply with federal and immigration
law complying I'm all for complying
extent, permissible of the sole purpose of removing violent criminals from
our community. Violent criminals. That's all we we ask for, to remove the violent
criminals. Um, even less than 10 illegals
would not be acceptable and should not be tolerated because
of safety life or more important showing one's id legal
status. I mean, that's the least we can do. Just show our
id, show our legal status to make sure that there's some safety in our
community. Please pass this resolution and
uphold your oath of office. And thank you so much.
after ms. Finn, we have truth. Brenda hammond and tony sat.
good afternoon. My name is shari finn. Unlike many people in this room,
I highly doubt there's one person in this room that can raise their hand and say that their
child was raped and trafficked by an illegal immigrant who is
sitting in the comfort of one of our prisons right now. He was not
deported. I am asking you
to pass this resolution because, well, there's many reasons.
but rather than going out and spewing hate,
what my husband and I did in an attempt to heal was create an organization
that recovers missing and exploited children. And many of you up there
know that we are
often faced with lay persons,
ourselves and our volunteers pulling children out of tents
from sex offenders and traffickers, and having law
enforcement showed up with their hands tied. Not, but four
months ago, maybe four and a half months ago, my husband and I pulled a foster youth
who had been pulled out of trafficking six separate times. My
husband and I pulled her out of that tent down on eighth and e
while san diego pd stood by to support just to make sure we
didn't get hurt. The trafficker was not arrested, but the foster youth
was taken away in handcuffs. Granted
it was for her protection. They say our system is so broken,
excuse me, on so many levels, there's a lot more work to be done.
but right now, this is one step to help our officers
when it comes to violent criminals and getting them off of our streets,
period. It's a safety issue. And our officers
need to be empowered to do their job.
and this is just the beginning. This is just one issue where they need to be empowered.
this is just one. Traffickers are still remaining on the streets because
officers can't arrest them because they didn't see a physical exchange of money. Thank
you. Yeah.
all right. I agree that the city should declare itself not a sanctuary city, and that
it will not obstruct, impede, interfere or block any federal law enforcement agency from its
duties. There's nothing wrong with the city asking the united states attorney general to indemnify
the city for following a federal immigration law by aiding in the removal
of violent criminals. And I actually already heard the perspective argument
today at the county meeting, that there's other issues to be concerned about in the
city. But I ask, is there a more important issue than safety? I don't think so.
but if this resolution were to pass, it must also be sent to the county since
they actively pushed for a sanctuary city. And I know some people didn't
understand when phil brought that fact up, but that's actually part of how we got here.
supervisors, nora vargas, monica montgomery spp, and tara lawson reamer
all voted yes to allow violent criminals to walk free among us, which is
actually against state law. Sb 54. Last meeting, some
speakers went as low ball and argument as to refer to the resolution as
nazim. Well, I actually found steve and gary's narrow-minded view of immigrants
as mere chief labor to also be a nazi like argument with the jews in
the camps. All not also mere chief labor to their dictators.
michelle's past argument included, we don't need this attention yet. The circus
is something that you actually personally brought. And everybody saw it on the news. It
was embarrassing bill said on nbc seven that he met with
tom holman. So what was tom's or trump's statement on legal permissibility
of following federal immigration law? Uh, please share with the class because
sb 54 may not even be lawful under the national constitution. The federal government
may actually openly challenge it. That would be the alleged federalism and
action. Careful what you wish for. If el cajon or any city goes
against federal law, then it's fair to ask if we can all pick and choose the federal laws we don't
like. But in the end, none of this matters because nobody in
the state is gonna make the final decision on immigration law. The federal government's
gonna do whatever the federal government wants to do with our lives like they've been doing
for decades. That's the reality we're all gonna have to deal with in the end. Thank you.
do we have, uh, the next five? Uh, brenda hammond,
tony sole, lisa gonzalez. Three. Okay.
. Hello,
brenda hammond. Um, some people think that just because I
attend and speak up for public comment at lemon grove la mesa in el cajon and
sometimes santee city council meetings that I agree with and
stick up for all mayors and council members. I don't ask
any of them. Um, today I listened to the concerns
of this resolution at the noon media circus in front of city hall.
I understand their concerns, but I also understand that they are
being misinformed and instigated.
one in particular is a doctor of psychology. Oh,
I had to walk away when she claims she knew more about homeless people than the mayor.
. Uh, I know more
about homelessness than both of you put together .
I'm just kidding with you. That's okay. And I will not
repeat why. And you know why as I left that hot mess,
I mentioned that the doctor needs to go back to school or be
homeless for 15 years herself. She was saying some
horrible things. Um, a phd is not,
is a doctrine. It isn't, does not make you a doctor. It's
a label and nothing more. In my experience, I have
seen phd doctorates, especially in psychology,
mess with people, even groups of people at a time for their
own job security, especially those pop-up
church ministers that call themselves doctors,
mayors, mayor, city council and staff. I like
the, I like the way this is worded. Um, this resolution is
worded, it is clear and it protects the residents
homeless or not. And the city I recommend it passes
after ms. Gonzalez. We have maureen cruz, patty hannon,
and emelda barranco. Good afternoon
mayor, city council and fellow residents of el cajon.
my name's lisa gonzalez and I'm a tax legal, tax paying resident of our city. Unlike
thousands of others, voted to renew measure j to ensure funding for vital
public safety services. I stand here today in support of
the simple but essential principle that the interest and safety of our legal
and tax paying citizens must come first. I strongly support
allowing our el cajon police department to cooperate with federal law enforcement,
specifically for the purpose of removing serious and violent offenders of our community.
and this is simply common sense. Public safety is not
a political issue. It's a fundamental responsibility of government. And yet, across
california, misguided principles and policies are allowing
violent criminals to remain in our communities, putting innocent people at risk.
cities have been pressured to ignore laws designed to protect the public,
creating an environment where lawlessness thrives and accountability is abandoned.
and we see the result rising crime, shattered trust, and a sense of
fear in residents who simply wanna live in safe neighborhoods.
by passing this, it affirms our commitment to protecting law abiding taxpaying
citizens, and ensuring that violent criminals are held accountable to the fullest
extent of the law. So I urge the city council to support this resolution
unequivocally. By doing so, you will send a clear message that el cajon will always
prioritize the safety of its residents and lead the way for other cities
that are ready to do the same. Thank you.
hi, my name is patty hanan. I'd like to begin by thanking
mayor wells and the city council members for all your
hard work on to keep el cajon a vibrant
and growing city. Thank you. Uh,
I think that this resolution is very narrowly worded,
so that it is to help police officers by
removing the confusion that they can comply with
federal officers, uh, for re
removing violent criminals that helps our most
vulnerable citizens. Right now we have fentanyl
and human trafficking problems here in el
cajon. Uh, we need safety for our residents
and we need violent criminals, uh, to be removed,
uh, with without, uh, any, any confusion
as to, uh, whether they're allowed to be removed or not.
uh, jesus and matthew 1225 said,
a house divided against itself cannot stand.
abraham lincoln also said that, uh,
quoting jesus, uh, we can't be divided against
the federal government when it wants to provide protection
for our citizens. Uh, also the only
thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to
do nothing that was attributed to edmund burke, but it was actually
john locke that said it. Looking the other way and not
removing violent, violent criminals is evil.
I'd like to give you the example of huntington beach, which in
january voted seven to zero to comply with
federal law. And they said the reason that they
did that was for the safety of their citizens.
so thank you. Huntington beach. Oh, sorry.
thank you. Your time's finished. Thank you. And thank you,
uh, city council.
yes, ma'am.
uh, good afternoon. Uh, thank you mayor wells
and company bill ortiz. Graham
mitchell, the city manager. Okay. I called,
no, I called your office. Okay. I heard, um,
two nights ago, pam bondy was on the news saying
those that our sanctuary cities
will not get any federal aid. I thought that was alarming.
that's a lot of money. And I called your office and I asked, you know,
about how much are we looking at? And they said, six or $7 million.
and I'm thinking, okay, well
I think that, um, what are they gonna cut
out? Fire department, police protection,
medical, you know, they're gonna have to cut. And I called
my brother, who's a former, um, city manager because he
has a good head and he said they're gonna take away,
um, very important programs that people rely on.
and I thought, that's not good. That is not good at all. So this sanctuary
city issue is huge. It's bigger than any of us in
here, I'm sure. And I, for one,
you know, I want to see violent criminals go away. I don't want them
in our city. And I also would like to see
a crisis, a crisis line put in
that people that are here that might be targeted would be able to call
and get help. If they feel like there's bad cops
and there's good cops. If they feel like the bad ones are harassing
them, then they got, you know, they can talk to a spa, uh, spanish
speaker or whatever and get some help and
get some attention that they're not gonna just be thrown to the wind. And that
was just my idea. I hope you've had the same idea. , thank
you very much. Thank you.
good afternoon. My name is barranco, and this, um, email
I sent you, mr. Goble. Um, I don't know if you received it,
but I'm gonna read it to you. Um, first
of all, um, this, this is a little bit different. I got into the mind
of mr. Bill wells. It's like kind of saying he wrote this email
to you and this is how it goes. Hello, dear friend and colleague steve. Once
again. I want to propose a solution to keep illegal criminals off the
streets. My main concern is the safety of our residents.
my resolution will allow ice to cooperate with local law en
enforcement to help remove dangerous criminals off the streets. Ice can
and has been targeting individuals that have dark skin. But that is not a concern for
me. I don't mind that this resolution will build fear and distress among
illegals rather than safety for all individuals of different ethnicities. After
all, 57% of alcohol voted for trump. I care more,
I care more about trump than the safety and wellbeing of alcohol residents who come
from all walks of life. Please, please,
let's help police remove illegals whose so legal status is no
danger or threat to our communities. Police help the city of el cajon abide
by a fa administration that is currently being protested in all
50 states. We do have a bigger problem in the city of el cajon like homelessness,
but that is not a concern right now. Our country is being led by a greedy but
successful businessman whom I fully support.
so my question is just ask yourself if this is the
solution, why you have so many people against it.
that is it. Thank you for having me speak.
mayor. Mayor, we have 19 more speakers. The next three
are violet, patricia reon, and bob collins.
good afternoon. Patricia monon, regional policy manager for alliance san diego.
trump promised that ice would start by only removing violent criminals. That
was a lie. And we have seen this lie play out in city after city
where non offenders are being arrested and detained and fear and living
in fear. Similarly, while mayor wells wants everyone to believe that this
is about violent criminals, the data point of 647,000
is mischaracterized by making people fearful, um, that
there are high numbers of undocumented violent criminals in american cities.
this is, this again, is simply not true. Dhs, which oversees
ice has clarified that this number spans decades. And those not in ice custody
may currently be incarcerated by federal, state, or local law enforcement, and
includes immigrants with lawful status. Additionally,
the single biggest category in this data point includes over 77,000 traffic
related offenses. State law, sb 54, already allows
for not removal of violent offenders. A position that governor
newsom and ag bonta have affirmed. You do not have to go
on record as being anti sanctuary as much as anti-immigrants
would like to paint it. So the city of san diego, nor the county of san diego are sanctuary
regions. So then what is the purpose of this? It's a political stunt.
mayor wells told you two weeks ago that tom holman wants the city of el cajon
in the trump column. It's also setting up the city of el cajon as a litigant
to challenge state law. Requesting indemnification to the us
attorney general is asking permission to violate state law and setting the city up for
a long, costly battle on a federal issue. Resources and funds that are desperately
needed for local issues. I urge you to think about the political
waters you are wading into. In the example council member goebbels
gave, that would be a violation of sb 54 as would asking ice to translate
for police officer, police officers, which el cajon pd has done
in the past. We urge a no vote and
not to put the city of el cajon as a political pot. Thank you.
um, after violet, we have bob collins, dr.
se conti and jose cruz.
boy, you guys had me studying.
okay, whenever I'm ready. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Okay.
hi city council. I'm not addressing the mayor who has been investigated
by fp I'm good on that. I wanna address my city council,
who means a lot to me because I live in the city and we have worked
together. Um, and you guys said that we're not a sanctuary
city, but yet in front of you, we see 400 plus
violent sex offenders that reside here in el
cajon. If nobody has seen it, this is the picture. This is only
here in downtown. You guys need to make your research and see that
we have violent criminals already here in el cajon that
are not immigrants. Second of all,
I spoke to the sheriffs today and they, um, communicated to me that we
have a website where all the police departments,
um, it's called crime watch. And on there we could
see the statistics of our city and the crime that is being committed
in our city on present time. It is right in
front of you. As you could see, a lot of crimes are not violent. They
are in-house, for example, a homeless problem that we
as people have been working on. I could say that I have, because I've been to your
town hall meetings plenty of times. My question is to you,
why are we still considered the dump of san diego? Why are
we still allowing this? Why are we entertaining this false lawless
proposal that really is gonna get us into some deep s**t
legal s**t that we're not gonna be able to get? You can help first that appreciate,
sorry, mr. Gobel, you're
an educator. Please educate yourself first,
do not pass the proposal yet. Talk to your insurance
carrier. Talk to people like, for example, the
board of directors, the board of supervisors. Your time is up.
how are we gonna wait, ma'am, you need to stop.
I'll have removed from the chambers.
yes, sir. All right. Ready to go? Yeah. Hello. Go
ahead. Well, that's good seeing y'all. And michelle, I wanted to
single you out for being as passionate as you were on
this issue. And the same to you, gary. Um,
I sort of got an idea what race discrimination was like as a kid.
I grew up in a predominantly spanish american catholic church.
the white population was only 10% of that church. And
I carried around a target on my head and that image is
not going away. So I can only imagine what the
immigrant community is doing now. I was here at
the last meeting. I heard about what you did at the first meeting, I guess third time's
the charm. But the action you're gonna take today
is divisive. It's not inclusive. And to the immigrant
community, perception is reality. It's open season on them. Again,
if they don't have their papers, they must be doing something wrong.
do I carry papers? No, I don't have to. I'm white.
and have you seen the films have been taken to these ice raids in
other cities in the united states? I mean, it looks like the
paratroopers have been dropped in and
in this one raid they came up with a total of one. Now that
ain't gonna make trump happy. He wants the quotas raised.
and that's what my concern is. Although though this resolution
be well may be well-meaning eventually it's gonna get to
the point. Well, if you're not in the right, you know, uh,
makeup and it looks like you might be not doing something right,
we're gonna pull you over. But what I would say is, I know this thing's
gonna pass, but why don't you do what you did with the homeless
situations. You had forums where people could talk
and if there's forums, you should be able to say going forward,
just how effective is this policy and what impact is this having?
am I up to two minutes? All right. Yeah, you are. Oh, I'm sorry. I had a lot more to say.
I understand.
after mr. Conti, we have jose cruz,
paris ortiz, and fabiola conti. If you guys can please stand in the middle aisle.
thank you.
okay. Uh, my name is dr. Sergio conti. I am
a resident cajon for district four .
sorry. Okay. And, uh, let me start saying that
undocumented people are human too. Okay?
I want you understand that my life in
cajon is, I like it. This is like a small war. You know, every monday
I go to main street and I buy, uh, for my favorite middle
eastern restaurant, the lamb czi delicious. On, on
wednesday, I go to my, uh, market restaurant
and main street too. And I like to buy iberia. And uh,
this is el cajon. There are 70 communities, I believe gary
say that living here. And I never saw a drug dealer. I
don't know if I'm lucky or you know, I go to renet park every, uh,
evening with my wife and little dog. And, uh, the arabs is,
are, um, saluting us. You know, the rest, a lot children,
children playing cricket, they came for afghanistan. You know, they play cricket. I don't know if you know that.
and we didn't have it. We never have this problem until mr.
uh, the mayor divide us. Now we are white again,
brown people. And you know why this is happening. El cajon has
113 years, and in 113 years, we
never have one council member who represent our community. We
are the 25% of the voters of el cajon are spanish.
everybody vote for mr. Ortiz. In the last election, I ask
my neighbor, he's from mexico, I said, why you vote for mr. Ortiz? Oh, he's
from mexico. He's not from mexico. He hate mexican people. And
we are going to recall you in 90 days on march 10, we have
the, the, the signature. You can't be there because you was elected
for the latino community and you hate us. And the people
are here. We just wanna work hard. We're
not criminal, mr. We're not criminal.
hello everyone. I'm here again. And I'm sad to say that I'm here again because
we thought we had settled this two weeks ago, but apparently not.
uh, I guess mr. Wells is getting a lot of pressure from upstairs, you
know, the new, uh, president and, uh, he's caving in. And then,
uh, and I feel for you, steve, I know I'm, I'm, I'm pretty sure you're getting a lot of nasty emails from
a lot of our friends on this side of the aisle here. But, uh,
I wanna say that this resolution is,
you know, you claim it's all about criminals and this and that.
why didn't you introduce this one, two or three years ago? You know, not until now, until
we have a new precedent, which with a different agenda and everything else
I have, I grew up, I grew up here in el cajon. And like I told
you my story before as a 14-year-old, I, you know,
we used to have a law here in el cajon exactly like what we wanna pass right now,
where they would just pull you over 'cause you're brown. They would, the cops,
the city police would pull you over and then they would call the border patrol,
wait, wait couple hours until they show up or whenever they wanted to show up to
ask you for your papers. And then just, you know, I know
that's gonna happen. Again, I know the law that you wanna pass
has good intentions. The, we already have a law where the police
can turn over criminals of any kind, legal, illegal,
whatever you wanna call them to the border patrol. So we, we already have something
in place. So I don't see the need for this to happen. I know I'm gonna get
discriminated again. Our community is not gonna be happy about it.
if any cop pulls me over, ask me for my papers, I'm gonna tell 'em to go f themselves. And
that's pretty much what I'm want to do. I don't wanna, I'm honestly don't wanna
be put in that situation just because I'm a brown person. I'm a law abiding,
uh, citizen of the united states, and I know my white friends
don't understand it. 'cause they have never been discriminated in that sense. So I,
so we, we have, we have paris ortiz,
fale conti and tom galloway.
and could you please state your name? Huh? Could you please state your name?
paris ortiz , uh, hello.
michelle tiz. Um, steve,
I'm sorry, I don't know how to say your name. Kendrick bill weathers.
um, vines. Vines vanes.
um, I'm, I'm so sorry. Graham. Graham, okay.
morgan, morgan, el and cortez. Yes.
okay. Hi. First time. Never done this before.
I'm a little scared. I only got, I only got one thing to say.
I don't wanna take anybody's time.
I had rather die on my knees than live on my knees.
emilio, if you know what
that means. . Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah,
I'm here.
hi mayor. My name is faa conti. I'm a hospice nurse
and a proud mexican. I care for patient of
all races though 80% of my patients are on goza home
and only 20% are latino. This is because
my latino prefer to spend their time last, their last days with their families
and do not sit hospice care her.
I'm deeply proud of my work. Helping someone in the final days
is a role that requires special training and compassion,
which not too many possess here. It hurts me a lot
to see the fear that has great latino families.
and since president trump immigration, what is a crime?
working hard to do the jobs that others want. The
ones who repair the streets serves as a gardeners
and serving the restaurant is often not mexicans
streaming to provide for their families. They're working hard
may walls. How can you sleep at
night knowing the harm you are causing to the latino
sinon? This is not what
you elected, what we elected you for. A
has the power to july for dubai and you have chosen
division driving by head toward those with broken skin,
sorry, with bone skin. Mr. Ortiz
latino population elected you to be in this seat.
yes. And you already saw division and I'm sorry, michelle. I'm sorry steve.
and I'm sorry gary, because the last two weeks you received got hate that
we always receive. It's what we are here and speaking out
after, after mr. Galloway, we have linda,
alicia, and sarah thought I lost
my speech. Have you heard of 2 87
g I've heard of 54 something, but
2 87 g sir, can you state in front of the microphone please?
two eighty seven g is, is what you should be,
as should, should be. Where you're, you're looking in the ins
uh, rule books or laws actually. And mr. Foley has
the actual section of the law. So
2 87 and this, how much of this do you have
to pursue mass deportations?
and it isn't just the money.
some counties for their first year, and I think most
of the county problems here spent 6.4
to $4.8 million
on their portion of, uh, 2 87
g. They only thing that the federal government gives you
is the training, the transportation to the training
and the, uh, the equipment, the
computer programming for that. Otherwise, it's all
on the backs of the taxpayers in
this city. Are these
people gonna want you anymore? You know, I,
I don't believe in, in a san sanctuary city. Um,
I really believe in where the law ends, tyranny begins
and if you follow the law, 2 2 87 g and
whatever laws you have to look for, uh, what you're gonna be doing is
doing regular pe police work and not
sweeping, uh, areas and looking 'em
up. Uh, you'll be deputized by the federal government
and you can only do that. Uh,
mr. Foley will probably have hundreds
of, I'm sorry sir, your time. Okay. I hope,
I hope you can hire him. Uh, some help in the future,
sir. Thank you.
could you please state, state your name for us? Miss?
hi, I'm linda . Go ahead
linda. Um, first of all, I'd like to address, uh, their bill wells
publicly. Um, thank you for voting against the
sanctuary city. I oppose sanctuary cities and I know there's a few other of
your colleagues that opposed it. Thank you. Anybody else up here
on city council that would like to have it? A sanctuary city should be
arrested for defying president donald trump's orders. I'm mexican
american, third generation from hearing. As you can see, I brought old glory
'cause she's been through a lot. My whole family has fought in,
uh, world war I, world war ii, korea, vietnam,
and my son's in the army. And um, you know, I just wanna say that
I as a mexican here, I don't feel any hate. I
don't feel anybody's against me. You know, I thank you for making
us safe. And, um,
I have a few more minutes. Let me see my notes.
let see. I see, I see.
oh, all my family came here legally and it took a long time and
everybody should come here legally. Anybody that comes here illegally is a criminal
and should be set back.
and I'm not racist. I'm a mexican, but I'm american by blood.
yes, me hang, glory on
me,
lays and gentlemen. Let her speak. It's her time. Anybody
that wants to protest and burn our flag should be
arrested also.
and last but not least, this, uh, this is american soil
and will always be american soil. Thank you. Your time's up, ma'am. Thank you.
thank you.
hello mayor in city councils. Um, good evening.
I just wanted, my name is alicia. I'm a chicana,
born and raised here, a third generation born from a legal immigrant
mom. My grandparents came from mexico with my mother when
she was five years old. And all her 14 brothers and sisters
entered the usa legally. I have uncles
and and nephews who served in the military for this country,
but those who are rioting destroying property and burning the
american flag do not represent me. Such disrespect to our
military men and women, my family who served, and especially
the ones who their lives protecting the american people.
I agree with president trump, you the american flag. You should go to jail for one
year. And what's embarrassing is
those waving mexican flags. Can someone explain?
everybody yelling mexico, but still crying and
fighting not to go back and wanna be american citizens. Make
it make sense? Ladies and gentlemen,
come in the legal way and get in line. I love my god first, but I also love
this nation, this country that has given me so much. I can only be thankful
for all the opportunities and blessings, but we need
help to get all violent, illegal criminals out of our city and nation. We are
tired, our families are not safe. Human trafficking and crimes are all
time high. I agree and support our mayor bill wells on no
sanctuary cities. If police encount, illegal, violent
criminals, police should be able to notify ice immediately.
please, everyone here in the city council, do your job.
protect the american people. You got, you got voted in
for, to protect the american people and do what the american people
are asking you to do. You see the violence going on? I see
it through mike. I see it through my, okay, ladies and gentlemen, stop.
ladies and gentlemen. Alright,
we're gonna take a, a three minute break until you guys can get, get it
together and not interrupt this. And I'll, I'll continue to break all night long till
six in the morning if that's what we have to do. But I am not going to put up with you disrupting
these proceedings. Thank you. And god bless america.
I think it's gonna go longer.
ladies, I would like to attempt to continue meeting
if you could all take your seats and
be silent.
the next speakers are sarah, uh,
rado and eva pacheco, if you can please come down the aisle.
yeah,
good evening. Ready?
okay. Too bad some of the people are out of here that can't hear what's really
needs to go on. I was here. This is my second visit here
for the, this is my second visit here. Last time I
did not speak, I thought it was very important and I
wanted to, um, touch on some things that I've learned in just this two weeks.
but at first I would like to address my situation I had with
ms. Michelle. And if I hear any remarks,
you can leave . No, mr. Wells,
this is when the, they need to keep control because it's between me and her, and
actually her. Let's, let's go ahead and get started. Yeah.
anyways, I will look and I will say whatever, 'cause that's who I am.
bottom line is ms. Michelle, 'cause I can't pronounce her last name. Mitchell,
how do you pronounce your last name? Mitchell. Mitchell. I'm
sure you're aware of what happened and you don't want it to be known, but when
I spoke with you after this meeting, I just want the counsel to know I'm, I have to speed it up 'cause I have a
lot to say. Your per unprofessionalism and your
inability to protect me. After asking a question and hearing
people laugh about the first speaker that spoke on you, it's all true.
what happened? You did complain about being tired. You
needed to eat, you wanted to go home, you have menopause.
and too many people are talking and asking questions. And I personally said
it is, it does have everything to do with her being coherent. Ma'am. Enough to be,
ma'am, you just, just address the counsel. Ladies and gentlemen, I need you to have
the attention dropped. Hold on one second. Okay? Stop it. I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you some more time.
ladies and gentlemen, you have got to control yourself or you are not gonna get through this meeting until
tomorrow. I ma'am
it's not your time to speak except for business lines. Everybody gets a chance to
speak so we can do, we can do this however y'all
wanna do it, but I am not gonna let you run the meeting.
so why don't we just let everybody have their chance to speak? Sometimes people
are gonna say things you don't like. Sometimes people are gonna say things
they don't like. It's, it's just the way it goes. So let's
continue and I'll I'll give you 10 more seconds or so at the end.
I'll wait. Go ahead. Can you correct it? Wait, she can't,
she doesn't have the ability to do that. So I'll, I like to address that as a board member and any
council, you should be able to be aware of what's gonna be happening and not take favoritism.
I see a lot of favoritism. I see a lot of people signing to you and to the
board. Not this board, but last board. I see a lot of unprofessional
behavior. And if the job for you is to protect all of us,
not just certain people. That's what I'm addressing today. I had more to say
and maybe I'll come back and speak about it. Period. No, she gets a few more minutes,
few more seconds because you interrupted her. So you can take 15 more seconds if you'd like.
I have a lot to say. Maybe I'll come back. But as far as this, this whole
thing goes, I think that everybody should know that their vote today, or what
it is about today means the future for our children, for all
the criminals that are out there. We need to be safe no matter what color we are.
no matter where you come from, period. And not have favoritism to a group.
I be back in five minutes. We can calm down.
oh, . Um, gary's,
I continue meeting.
the good news is that we're down to the last, hey,
it's the hyundai speakers. We have left, sir, we have nine more speakers. Okay,
we have nine more speakers. That's 18 minutes of speaking.
and the, the meeting could be done pretty quickly and we could, uh, go about our lives.
but we have, we have have to have the quorum.
so I'm gonna continue again. Who's our next speaker? Um,
and I'm sorry, I know I'm saying this name wrong. Rado
eva pacheco and jesus pacheco.
councilman city members. I am here
today. My name's rado. I skipped school. I called
off work. I came down here, drove an hour with my friends.
I want to challenge the hateful rhetoric that has been spread throughout
this meeting and throughout the wording of the,
um, constellation in may, 2021.
my father, an illegal immigrant died due to complications
relating to diabetes. He died of a heart attack. And the reason
I bring this up was because I was not able to spend time with him.
and he was not able to get proper healthcare because he was afraid of
the, of getting profiled as a violent criminal. That
these individuals throughout this meeting have been calling
immigrants. The truth of the matter is we are not
criminals. And the biggest part, and something that really just
hurt me was in this text you called us illegal aliens. You
are telling us to calm down and to to be respectful in the very
writing you are calling us dehumanizing language
aliens. Aliens, not some things of, not of
this world. It's so
heartbreaking as a youth. And a lot of the people,
a lot of the youth that have came here today have spoken out about this consolation
and I I'm just how trying
to reach you as a human being. How could you treat us? Kids like me
who are separated from their fathers and their mothers as aliens,
treating their, their fathers and mothers as violent criminals. I'm
not a criminal, I'm a human. I have flesh and blood like you
viza.
here we go again for the third time.
and I would like mr. Gobel to be there because I really want
to talk to him. It's okay. He he needs to do something. So,
oh, he's coming back. Okay, he's coming. He needs to be because
I, I, I really, ladies and gentlemen, I'm time over
ladies and gentlemen. I do not wanna hear you calling out from the gallery.
we will stop again. I can do this all night.
if you can't behave, I'm gonna take the meeting up to the fifth floor. We'll invite the
press and we'll leave you out of it. 'cause you can't behave.
so this, this is the warning. I'm not, I'm not kidding around with
you. I'm happy to let you speak, but you gotta be respectful
now. Everybody's here. Please start our time over. Let's let her have the whole time.
do you know council members? Um, I've been praying for you. I really
do because we are here again
for this. The same situation.
there is no need for a resolution. Mr.
wills no need.
you very proud said I am.
I'm doing this because I need to respond to the people
who voted it for me. But you are the mayor
of el cajon. You represent, you represent
us. Even I didn't vote for you.
the only thing that I can say in my community,
what you have created is hate,
despair, division. That's what you have created
with this resolution that is nothing else
but your political career because you really
said that you met with to tom hoas. You
have to keep your commitment to him to
cooperate with eyes. That's what it is. And
who's and who you are targeting the latino
community. And we are already seeing mr.
gobel, I'm sorry that you change your
mind and you change your position, but I can tell you
this is not good for you. And everyone
here came to this country illegally.
everyone but the native, native
american, we are in a land of indigenous people.
and that's what we are sitting right now.
this land belongs to everyone. Thanks ma'am. Your time is up. Thank you.
hi all city council. Um, uh,
obviously, you know, uh, many of
us believe that the resolution, uh, there is
no purpose of the resolution because there is rule regulations and laws they addressed
that concerns all of us. Um,
but secondly is not good this resolution because
brings, uh, division and tension
among us as evidently I witnessed
that last, uh, at the last council meeting outside.
but I cannot assure, uh, michelle, that
we respect you because you are
taking a position of to serve the
entire community no matter what. Maybe
there is some disagreements, but
eh, justice will prevail and we stand
behind you a hundred percent. Thank
you for represent us that community. Thank you.
yes.
the next three speakers, the next three speakers are gambler,
matthew gordon and patrick hartley.
let's go to the next one.
I don't think mr. Gambler's here. He's
go ahead sir. And if you can please state your name. Oh, there, go, go ahead
sir. Yeah. Good evening. Mayor wells,
uh, council members. Uh, my name is matthew gordon. I'm district director
here on behalf of state assembly member dr. Lashay sharp
collins. Um, I'm here to read,
start the time. Oh, I'm here to read a couple of, uh, brief,
uh, remarks. And I'll be speaking, uh, against the
resolution. Uh, as the assembly member
representing our diverse communities, I commend your willingness to revisit this matter
and appreciate the opportunity to share my perspective. California
has a long tradition of standing for dignity and wellbeing of every
individual, regardless, regardless of their place of birth.
sb 54 continues that tradition by clarifying the role of local law
enforcement, cultivating trust, and remaining committed to inclusion
in el cajon. Many families, immigrant and non-immigrant
alike work hard each and every day to build better lives
by promoting policies that respect and protect all residents.
we send a message that every person in our community has worth
and is deserving of security and opportunity. I recognize
that issues related to immigration can spark strong emotions,
yet at their core, these are human stories about families determined to
provide for their children. Young people striving to contribute to
the city that they call home. And neighbors whose cultures and experience enrich
the very fabric of our neighborhoods. When we foster trust and
security among all residents, we build safer, stronger neighborhoods.
it is only through empathy and the collaboration rather than fear
that we can truly harness the pot, the potential of this city's
diversity. By moving forward with an inclusive perspective, el cajon has
the opportunity to shine as a community that welcomes every individual
and offers a fair chance for all to succeed. Thank you for your
consideration and for your commitment to serving all residents of
el cajon. I stand ready to work with you to
foster a future that reflects our shared values of dignity, dignity,
respect, and opportunity for every person in our community.
um, thank you, honorable mayor and, uh, city council.
um, unfortunately, voting no on this proposal does not
get ice out of our community. Ice is already in this community.
ice can and will continue to operate in el cajon, but we don't need our
police officers collaborating with ice to terrorize our residents.
state and local police still enforce state and local law
criminal laws against anyone. Even in california, local law enforcement is
directed to notify ice. If the defendant is convicted of a violent crime.
officials still send fingerprints of anyone arrested to the fbi, which
the fbi can choose to share with ice. Nearly all of california cities
and counties are complying with state law, which makes it illegal
for them to assist ice. I urge you to
vote no on this xenophobic resolution.
immigrants contribute a hundred billion to the american economy in 2022.
that's from bloomberg, 8.7 billion in california.
the lady early, earlier claimed that she saw a bus full of military age
men. That's fear-mongering. Did they do do anything to her?
did they say anything? Did you talk to them? Did did they make you feel
fear or did they just make you feel uncomfortable? You have the right,
you don't have the right to intellectual safety. The first amendment doesn't protect
from being uncomfortable just because people of a different color or different
religion or different nationality or have different opinions make you uncomfortable,
does not violate any laws. People out here are talking
about they need protection. Protect you from what people who just want to go
to school protect you from going to work to jobs. That, let's be honest, most
white people won't do themselves. Everyone is complaining about people
coming here from certain countries because america
destabilizes and assassinates leaders in most, in those countries, we're
not willing to omi. But we don't want to have that conversation. We'd rather it's
easier to blame americans. Problems on. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
thank you
gambler here. I understand our elections have been screwed
up for a very long time, which allowed you guys to go ahead and fight with the federal government.
I actually don't care if you guys go ahead and tell
all the police officers not to communicate with life because actually that
will help out in deporting people because we won't
be deporting them from the prison. We'll be deporting them from houses.
and this is exactly what everyone here that is protesting wants.
they want the cops to go to a household and make
a scene so that we could go ahead and further divide our
nation. And that is what you guys have been doing for the past, what, four
years until suddenly donald trump becomes president. And then you have
a moral epiphany that you guys all of a sudden
have ball to go ahead and say something. Well, I've
been saying s**t to the point that the county has thrown me in jail because I want to talk
about election fraud and they don't want to talk about it. I've asked you to go ahead and look
into the election fraud that is coming from homeless facilities that you
ran around and grabbed from all over the county in 2020.
I know you did that. You told all of san diego that bring you the
homeless. So why did you do that? So that you can make sure that you keep your seat
by registration voter fraud so that you could go ahead and push these,
this division that we have. Is that the reason? Because
you're just phony right now. You
recognize that, right? You recognize that we could look back in the past three, four or four years and
see the fact that you supported most of this s**t, that you went ahead and went
along with these ideas, that you went ahead and tried to go ahead and
make a friendly bike lane in front of a frigging hell's angels bar so that
you could have fights out in front of that, shortening out the speed
so that we could go ahead and have traffic p**s off people so that we start getting angry at
each other. These are actions that you thanks mr. Gammar, appreciate it.
um, before I called the last three speakers, we did receive seven
emails, which I did forward to you. Six were against, and one
in support of the post. Thank, thank you. I appreciate it. And the last three speakers
are elena clemente, jose una, and
jim uribe
will not be speaking. Elena. Okay. Elena will not be speaking. So
if mr. Jose kuna and jim uribe could please come down.
hi, my name is jose. I'm a proud us citizen. I'm a proud immigrant.
I came to this country at three years old and it's been a journey defined by hard work, but also luck.
I was lucky my father was giving a visa to enter and I was lucky he was sponsored over his green card.
but it was hard work that admitted me to great schools and hard work that enables me to write code
shipped to billions of people more. I mo most immigrants love this
country and would love to come here legally, but many are not so fortunate.
without said luck, I could easily be seen as an enemy, as an illegal who didn't
do things the right way. Had I not secured citizenship before this administration
and the resolution being proposed today, a single call to ice a single accusation
would've been disastrous. We all know that detention camps abroad are not meant to
empower due process. The law is already written to hold undocumented
immigrants accountable. If they break the law, they can be arrested, prosecuted
and deported. Strengthening law, law enforcement, local law enforcement, ties to
ice will not improve safety, which is something we all want, but will not be
achieved through the resolution. Your intent is to target violent criminals. And the
reality is a yes vote will only hurt innocent lives, spread fear
and divide communities. We need policies that foster unity and not suspicion
the proposed changes would needlessly hurt and already marginalized community of law
abiding immigrants who simply haven't had the chance to be, uh, chance
to be on a given pathway to legal status. Yet, because us immigrants
documents or undocumented are not the enemy, statistically we commit crimes
at a lower rate to the non-immigrants. We are hard workers who just want to give
our children the opportunities we didn't have ourselves. And I asked the council,
how is that so different than how you guys live your lives? I urge you to vote no on the
resolution. Thank you.
well, sir, council members, uh, first of all, I
do support the, uh, proposed resolutions. However, I do wish that
there had been a change and that change would've been in that first section,
which reads, uh, city intends to follow,
uh, federal law. It should have said the city
will make an effort in following the law, the federal
law. Now, I was brought up where the, uh,
federal law supersedes, uh, state and local laws.
and this was brought up in our constitution in article
six, uh, paragraph to where the, uh, federal
law supersedes the other laws in the land.
um,
now I'm not an attorney, but I know how to read the law. Uh, senate
bill, uh, 54th, I believe needs to
be tested in the courts, uh, system.
um, I believe that this is not a legal issue. We,
we all know the law. It's not a legal issue, but
it's a social issue. Now, I've been, I've lived in the
city of el cajon for over 50 years. I know there's a lot of, uh,
turmoil and social issues, but this is not a
legal issue. Thank you. Thank you. Questions.
thank you, sir. Mayor,
mayor, with your permission, if we could call one speaker who was called before, um,
but she missed her opportunity to speak. Okay. And that's the last one though. Okay. This is the last
one. Julianne gustafson. Hi. Thank you
very much for allowing me to speak. My name is julianne gustafson
lira. Uh, in 1931,
uh, mexicans were rounded up from hospitals,
cities, homes. They, they went out
to the fields, they picked the people up, they
summarily put them in in box cart,
in, in trucks, and they trucked them summarily to
mexico primarily. Those were the ones that were, uh,
uh, pointed at as, uh, having being
too many here or having problems, or giving problems to the
people. Anyway, uh, one of 'em was my grandfather.
he was, uh, taken out of the hospital, sent to mexico
city. He wasn't from mexico city. Um, my grandmother,
uh, despairing, she went after him with my mother
and my aunt. Both of them were born in the united states. One
of 'em was in 1923, the other one was in 1926.
they have been here. They had been here since 1915. What
I'm trying to say is that, uh, uh, people that
do not learn history and do not remember history,
it will be, it will be, uh, as we can see,
it'll be done again. And we need to learn from that. Uh, it's
kind of interesting to, um, say that
federal law trumps, uh, state laws
when it is, uh, to our convenience and when we wanna pass something.
we returned back to this country in 1954
and we have prospered. That's all I have to say. Thank
you.
was there any more? No more, sir. Okay.
back to the city council. Um, open to discussion,
mr. Garrett. Uh, question for the city attorney.
uh, sb 54 was challenged in
federal court, uh, back in 2017,
I think. Uh, and could you
tell us a little bit about that? I will
try the ss yes. Sb 54 was challenged, um, by
the federal government and in a federal court here in,
um, california. And I got
a lot of feedback apparently. But, um, the case ended
up through district court, uh, being ruled, um,
constitutional, uh, with certain limitations. There were, there was
a portion of, lemme take it back. There were three laws that were challenged at the same time,
all related to similar immigration issues. Um,
after the district court made its decision that the, uh, ninth circuit court
panel, uh, affirmed the, uh,
constitutionality of sb 54 in the light of the challenge by the us government
and the us government petition for, um, review by the
us supreme court. And that was denied. So
the, the ninth circuit law for us
is at sb 54 is legal. So
the federal court said it is legal and that's
the law of the land in california. Yeah, they said
that the, um, there were a lot of arguments made by the us government.
uh, one was a supremacy clause of the us constitution.
we've heard that, uh, being used in this, these proceedings.
the court found that, um, that that did not apply.
it applied to immigration law itself, but does not apply
to state laws that aren't in conflict with that, uh,
that, uh, federal law and went to great,
a great amount of detail to describe how that did not apply in
this case. And, uh, that helped to affirm,
um, the, uh, validity of sb 54.
there was, there was a, there was a description of violations of
the constitution of, of, um, if, if it, if
the us government could, could
place its, well if the uf us government could take its position that the supremacy
clause allowed them to seek the cooperation and assistance of
law enforcement agencies, which sb 54 said, no, that's
not what's gonna happen. Uh, and the,
um, the court found that the 10th amendment against come, uh,
commandeering. In other words, the separation of powers between the
state and federal governments, uh, provides that the, the feds
can't step into the state's business, the local government
and the state's businesses and, uh, that are reserved to the states under
the constitution. Okay. Um,
but again, that's the law of the land. What sb 54
and, uh, question
for the city manager, if this resolution passes,
what would be different in that, what we would do in, uh, ordering
the police procedures and policy?
so, so as, you know, in a council manager form of government, the city council establishes
policy and the city manager and staff then, um, administer
that policy or, or implement that policy. The, on
a day-to-day function, our operations wouldn't change with or without the
resolution. But with a lot of resolutions, there's some value in at least staff
understanding the policy description of the, or the policy direction
of the council, especially 'cause we can foresee some parts of
sb 54 being challenged. We can see that this conflict between the state and federal government
becoming more embroiled and more complicated. So having an understanding of where the
council feels about it has some value to us. But
on a day-to-day operation, uh, we don't change the way we operate
tomorrow if this passes today. Okay. And, uh,
question for the city attorney. Uh, there was some mis misinformation
to distributed saying that we were a sanctuary city.
are we a sanctuary city? No, we have
never. In the 25 years I've been the ladies
and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, please. In the nearly 25 years that I have been
city attorney, not once has the council adopted a resolution
ordinance or anything else policy that says that the city is a
sanctuary city. Okay, thank you.
oh, I I do have one more question, uh,
for either the city manager or uh, city attorney,
which whichever one of you feel is most appropriate to answer
it. Our police are certified by the state,
aren't they? Through post they
receive a post cer certification. Yes. So
if a police officer, uh,
violate sb uh, 54, uh,
is it possible that their certification could be removed and
they can't be a police officer in the state of california anymore?
as I recall, the state has the ability to prosecute police officers.
I don't recall what that potential punishment includes. Does it
include decertify de certifying them with their post certificate?
there may be a provision in there. I know some council members spend a lot of time looking at
sb 54 2. Um, so I don't know if the answer to that, but I could find it by the end of
the meeting. Okay, thank you. Anybody
else? Oh, I do have, I'll say one other thing.
and this is in defense of michelle mitchell, who I've been talking to a lot
about this. I just want to tell you some of
the messages that were left on
michelle, I can only talk to one other council member about this issue. So
I don't know if steve got these or not, but I'm just gonna
read some excerpts from this, from some of the phone messages
I got on my city, uh, phone line.
I'm not gonna read it all 'cause it is so profane.
uh, it's, it just disgusting. So I'm gonna just take some excerpts.
hi gary. You're a retarded fat piece of s and I'm gonna make sure
that everyone knows about that vote you made. Uh,
why did you vote? Here's another one. Why did you vote no to get
rid of all the dirty stinking illegal aliens?
they cause problems.
the majority. Here's another one. The majority of you are traitors to this
country and all your information is public.
uh, you are a retarded people who causing permanent damage
to everybody around you through your ignorant retardation.
you fing idiot. Here's another one.
gda you to fing hell. And your mother
is a fing w***e. So,
uh, if someone, I, I've been in public office
for 25 years, so I have a pretty thick skin.
michelle's been here four years and she's a kind, compassionate person.
and these kind of comments can
really get to somebody. And this is only a few of them.
we got lots of comments and emails like this. And I
am disgusted that as such of an attack on the democratic
process through, through
this, these attempts at intimidation and the
threats that completely against
american democracy. So, uh,
if any of you know any of these people, why don't you have a word with them?
thank you,
mr. Well, I have the answer to mr. Kendrick's question. Sure. So, sb 54
does not expressly, um, dd
certify a police officer. But under the post requirements
under sb two, there are some provisions that say if you violate
state law, um, and there's another provision you
have, you can't, the state can take or demonstrate bias.
that's another, the state can take away your post certification.
yeah, I don't wanna put our police officers
in jeopardy or make it
difficult for them to do their job. 'cause they really
need the trust of all the people
in this community. And we, we've got
about 30% of our
population that are hispanic and probably pretty close
to another 30% that are from the middle east.
and they, our police officers really need
their cooperation when it comes to being witnesses, reporting
crimes. If people
that are not white have to go to the
hospital, but they're afraid to go to the hospital and then, and they got, they have kids
that are afraid to go to school and, uh,
a child that can't go to the hospital
or to church or to sunday school
or ana's, uh, I, I, I think that's
really bad. And what this is gonna do,
if they can't go to the clinics
or hospitals, someone that has, uh, strep throat,
it, it turns into scarlet fever and they're incredibly
infectious and they'll be infecting a lot of people.
and, uh, people won't be getting their vaccinations for measles
and mumps and chickenpox and, and even worse things
'cause they're afraid to go in for a medical help. That's not
helping our community at all. I represent everybody in this
city, and I have to, I have to look out for
everyone. And sb 54
allows for the police to cooperate
with ice for violent criminals. And
I think that's a good thing. 'cause we want to get, all of us, I think wanna
get the violent criminals outta here.
but you can see from all the trouble that
this resolution has caused all the people, it's gotten
really upset. This is hurting our
community. This isn't helping our community.
and this is a true christian. Okay? Please, please be quiet. Okay. So
when I was, uh, in charge of the play-doh table
at sunday school when my son was five years old, I was thinking
about the other day, what would I do
if el cajon police officers came in there and drug out
some of those kids? Or if they asked me for a list
of the names of all the kids. 'cause they're trying to find
a person that's undocumented or the
the child of an undocumented person.
so, uh, I think this is just a, a
bad, uh, resolution. And why
is it that el cajon has to be the second city
out of the 482 cities in california
that, uh, that
go along with sb 54? I mean, la
mesa, santi and all the other cities
in san diego county aren't addressing
this. Let's see how this all works out through the courts. And
I think there's, there've been some comments made about the expense.
we could end up with lawsuits, you know, going on and on and
on. We need to have more police officers,
not fewer, because they're, they're gonna go to another city
where they're not under the stress of having to figure out, okay,
what, what law are we gonna comply with? And
it's, we have a really great police department and we vet
our police officers probably better than
most cities in san diego county. 'cause only two outta
65 police officers. Uh, only two
out of 65 police officer applicants
passed the background check. So the, our police officers
have been very well vetted, and
that's what makes a good police department. I wanna keep every police officer
that we have, and I don't wanna put any more undue stress upon them.
so thank you.
well, first of all, um, I'd like to thank, um,
audra and marcy. She's not here. And
the young woman in the front row, I, I'm sorry I didn't catch her name.
I'd like to thank you for bringing up, uh, my bad behavior
for the last, uh, two weeks ago. It was inexcusable.
I did try to apologize, but I failed.
and between marcy and ara, they so
graciously made sure the email that I had between marcy and
I I tried to be human
and vulnerable was spread on the internet. So thank you
for spreading that email on the internet and making sure that the public knew
that an elected official was being human and
not jaded. So you got an elected official being
human. And I wanna thank you for that. At
the second thing is that yes, amy, we have the screenshot
of you on instagram saying that. Can I speak?
no, I, no, no. Amy, I no,
amy, I'm sorry. Amy. I'm sorry. I can't. Amy, amy.
no, we can't. Ladies and gentlemen. Okay, well
take a break. Come back where, where you can control yourself.
alright, ladies and gentlemen, I know everybody's upset. I know everybody's heated, but we're
gonna try to finish this meeting. Okay? So at this point it's still michelle's microphone
and let her finish. I'm done. I'm done. Alright,
fan, did you wanna say anything? Yeah, I'll be brief. Uh, this has been two meetings that we've
discussed this. And, uh, you
know, my, my I'm clear on this. I want violent criminals removed
and I have big problems with sb 54. Um, I don't believe
they make our community safe. And everyone's glossing over all the other crimes that
sb 54 does not. Um, take into account,
nonviolent offenses include duis, arson,
street, uh, robbery, shoplifting, vandalism, theft,
burglary, battery, uh, disorderly
conduct, vandalism, shoplifting, forgery,
receiving stolen property, knowing it, fraud, drug
offenses. These are all nonviolent crimes
that sb 54 does not address. And it's
a gap in the safety and security of our community.
and I don't understand people leaning on sb 54,
like it's the know all, be all to make our our community safe.
and I I I, I'm not gonna be pressured into,
um, I'm not gonna be pressured or bullied or shouted into
saying that this resolution is something that it's not. This
resolution is to get violent criminals off the street and it's nothing else.
and if people want to project fabricate,
they, they, they can do that all they want. But that's the intention, that's the
direction that I want our police officers to, uh,
to, to move forward with. Um, and the
generalizations here are, are crazy. Uh, the, the generalizations
of every immigrant is a criminal. That's not true. That's 100%
not true. Um, the generalization that I hate mexicans, again,
not true. And so I'm not convinced of the arguments that I've heard.
'cause a lot of them are just conjecture and dis uh, intellectually dishonest.
um, so, uh, I it's,
it's, it's saddening that, that and the division that I'm feeling, um,
is from both sides. And I'm gary, I'm sorry you got those voicemails. You, that's
unacceptable. I'm sorry you got those. You know, um,
I I think some of 'em were in the general email box or voicemail box. I'm sorry
you had to get those. Um, but I'm, I'm, I, and then
my last comment is I appreciate steve being thoughtful, um,
and his commitment to, uh, balancing
both sides of what we've been hearing. Um,
so those are my comments and that's it. Thank you.
uh, there was one thing that, uh, I think had a hint of
our police acting wrong, and I'm gonna clear that up. This is the gustavo
and hamshaw incident on february 6th, seven 20 in which it was reported there
was a checkpoint. And that, uh, it inferred that we were asking
people for their credentials. Uh, I checked with our police department,
we had no details at that place, at that date and time.
we issued no citations. We made no stops. Our
police were not involved in that situation. It could have
been some other agency, but it was not our police department. So
let's be truthful about, uh, about our police.
I, I said what I said about the beginning, my position hasn't changed. It's about public
safety and, and really what, what
I want. Sb 54 changed right
now. If there's any one of these 647,000,
uh, on the us immigration to
customer enforcement letter dated september 25th, and it lists
on here 425,000 convicted criminals not
detained, 222,000 pending criminal charges for a total of 647,000.
if they are living liz gemma, please, if they are living
in our community, we need them out. And we
need sb 54 changed so that we can get them out. We
can't just wait for them to run a red light or do something
if you are a known convicted criminal. Ladies and gentlemen, I can stop the meeting again.
do we need to stop the meeting again? This is about, I'm letting you decide
this is about public safety for me. It always has been. So you've heard
my thoughts in the beginning. Uh, I will support the resolution because I,
uh, found an amendment to make sure that we cover the backs of our police officers who
have our backs.
I was really surprised that this resolution was even, uh, controversial.
this should have been a, a no brainer. We arrest somebody
for doing something bad that does not belong into this country. We
should be able to do everything we can to get them outta this country. Because you know what?
if we book them downtown, even if they commit a pretty serious crime, they're
probably back on the street in two hours. It is my job to do everything
I can to protect the people of el cajon. It's also my job to represent the people
of el cajon, 57% of which said that they want to change.
america is in the process of change. America is in, in the process of
putting america first again. Some people are not gonna like that. Some people
are gonna lose money. Some people are gonna lose status. Some people who, whose
etiology is going to be challenged by it. But lemme tell you something. Those of
you who came and were completely intellectually dishonest, completely
disingenuous, made things up at a whole cloth, you are not
doing your cause. Any good people just tune you out because they know you're
liars. At this point, I'd
like to make a motion. I'd like to
make a motion to approve.
I'd like to make the motion to prove the resolution. You're not second,
move the second please vote.
motion passes. Motion passes
by a three to vote with council member kendrick and mitchell
voting no. Okay. Yes.
you
okay. We're gonna continue. Tell your wife not
to take pictures of us
wife taking. Okay.
I want people who this brings us to
your ladies. Gentlemen, we're almost done.
give me two seconds. There are no general information items of today's agenda.
no first or second meeting ordinances and no closed session. This brings us to the adjournment
of the regular joint meeting of the oklahoma city council. Oklahoma housing authority successor
agency to the oklahoma redevelopment agency. Agency held this 11th, february, 2025
is ajour until tuesday, february 25th, 2025 at 3:00 pm.