City Council — August 11, 2026

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Welcome to the Elkhorn City Council meeting. The meeting is called to order. I'd like to ask our city clerk to please call the roll.

Council Member Kendrick is absent. All others are present.

Thank you. The city clerk posted orders of adjournment of the July 28th, 2026 meeting and the agenda of the August 11th, 2026 meeting in accordance to state law and City Council Housing Authority successor agency to the redevelopment agency policy. We have a presentation on today's agenda for the Alley Cat Art Fest. Senior Management Analyst Nate Prescott will tell us all about this. Hello Nate.

One second. I don't think we have him on speaker doing

I'm Nate Prescott. I'm a senior management analyst in the city manager's office and I represent the city on the board of the downtown El Cajon business partners, and today we are here to present about the Alley Cat Art Fest. We have Chris here who is going to give his presentation all about it, give you all the details, answer any questions that you might have but we just wanted to help spread

Good afternoon, excuse me. Hot mic. Good afternoon council members mayor city leadership My name is Chris Gomez I'm the brand communication and public affairs manager for the downtown El Cajon business partners We are currently managing the pivot operations as well as most operations from maintenance and special events in the downtown area Today, I wanted to take a moment to highlight what we're working on that's coming up in September 12th is Alley Cat Art Fest. And to kind of go into this, I want to give you a little bit about the history of what the organizations that collaborated to create this new brand and new event moving forward.

In 2011, St. Madeleine's Sophie Center launched Alley Cat Art Walk to celebrate downtown Occoquan's art community and local businesses through a free family-friendly event featuring live music artists vendors and interactive activities. Last year, downtown El Cajon business partners collaborated with the city or partnered with the city to put on Art of All. Art of All was a celebration of fine arts in the downtown El Cajon area but also highlighted creativity music and culture of East County in the heart of our community.

This year, the association has partnered with St. Madeline Sophie Center and local galleries to unite both of the events. Both loved events creating Alley Cat Art Fest, a celebration that honors downtown El Cajon It's rich history and the inspired, vibrant future we have ahold of us. Some of the features of the event that we wanted to highlight are the branding components. We want to eventually brand this event as East County's premier art festival.

There are several art festivals that happen throughout the county of San Diego including Art Walk San Diego and various others. We want to make sure that this is the premiere art festival of East County. We also wanted to become a downtown up home gallery and business open house where we highlight and celebrate not only the galleries of our community, but also the businesses that are there. The event is slated for Saturday September 12th with street closure starting at 5am.

The event will go from 10am to 6pm with streets reopening at 10pm The event will draw over 80 fine artists from hand weavers, painters, photographers, sculptors. We will also have info exhibitors as well as food vendors that will be selling food for those people that are attending the event. Our features of the event include vendors, live music, activations, food and more.

Here we have a site plan of our proposed request for closures. We were looking to close East Main Street to activate the corridor. Last year it was closed with a stage located at Main and Salzfeld. Our focus is to use the current city assets that are already existing, including Prescott Promenade as well as Centennial Park With three additional ancillary vignettes of music, as you can see on those small blue dots or blue squares. One at Olaf, one at Maine and Magnolia, and the other one at Claydell in Magnolia.

But again, the idea behind this event is to celebrate the music, to celebrate the arts and to celebrate the community. You can see these green tent or green boxes that is actually where we were looking to house our food court which will be able to draw additional people off of Main Street into Arts Alley as well as REA. It's really again to showcase the Arts District and what it has brought to downtown.

Entertainment and live performances include activation of Prescott Promenade Stage with various genres of performers. Centennial Plaza, which will be our community stage highlighting local school and rec musical and dance groups similar to Park & Rec's TNT Dance Troupe. Main Street Musical Vignettes again including various DJ performances and then Olof Museum Patio Musical Vignette which will be a country band that has been selected by Olof Museum Some of the event activations that we're looking at doing is a temporary chalk murals. This is something that you've seen probably throughout the United States and world where chalk artists come out and create these beautiful temporary masterpieces in chalk on the asphalt, which once they are installed for the day of the event for showing, that evening our pressure washing crew will come out and remove it with water reclamation systems to ensure that we are capturing that soiled water.

The other item we are looking at doing is temporary community art projects, which will allow the community to help create art in our neighborhoods. The idea is to create these 4x8 panels of whether they're temporary murals or additional activations and renderings that the kids can be a part of that we can use to showcase as photo opportunities for the coming years. We are looking at doing several kid activities throughout the day for the kids where they can create pieces of art for themselves to take back, as well as some photo ops that will be throughout the community that people will be able to stop and enjoy and take photos with that will be able to be shared on social media.

And finally live music and performances. One of the key features that we're really looking at as we do the revitalization and we're in the renaissance period of downtown El Cajon, we're looking at doing restoration of our current assets. One of the key elements of this event was establishing a mural restoration and additional mural project program. The new Downtown El Cajon Association, which is the Greater Downtown Improvement Association, is a 501c3 nonprofit corporation that has been established to support the redevelopment and revitalization of downtown El Cajon under the new CBD.

Here we have...we've created a landing page on our website if you scan the QR code it'll take you directly to it but it highlights one, the art that we have in the downtown area both in Arts Alley as well as those throughout downtown El Cajon But one of the key features of that is we recognize that there are opportunities for us to revitalize those murals, but also add to them. So Arts Alley will continue to expand with additional murals and restoration projects will be done as has already been proved as a prime example in Arts Alley and over by Olaf. We just worked with St. Madeline's as well as Attention Getters to refurbish the Bird of Paradise mural in Arts Alley, as well as worked with the Olaf Museum and their private donors revitalized the Navajo at Castle Creek mural.

Here is an example of the Bird of Paradise, the before that showed it was one of the original murals that went up in Arts Alley. The progress of the mural being repainted and the finished product now on display today. This was done I believe about two weeks ago and following that immediately was the Olaf renovation of that mural so we're excited to see both of those pieces come back to life.

Collaborations and partnerships that we have not only with the City of El Cajon, but we also have our Alley Cat Art Fest Task Force which is made up of St. Madeline Sophie's Gallery who is a sponsor of the event by underwriting $5,000. East County Arts Association which brings a very large portfolio of artists to our community in downtown area. They are also partnering with us on this. Olaf Wakehurst Museum and Downtown El Cajon Businesses. Some of the other partners that we're collaborating with as well are East County High School Performance Groups, East County Recreation Performance Groups, as well as East County Community Arts Groups similar to those at the La Mesa Commission of Arts and Culture and some of the other agencies out there.

At this time I'd like to open the floor up to any questions otherwise if you scan the QR code it'll take you directly to our website where you can enjoy more information.

Good thanks nice presentation any questions? I think you answer those questions. I really appreciate that.

Just a quick comment, if

I may? Oh.

I loved the Art Walk event. It was fantastic. Thank you very much for putting it on. It's a new element and dynamic for the downtown area. And yeah, thank you very much for all the work you put in.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, sir. Appreciate it very much. Staff, do you have any agenda changes?

No, sir.

Council members? We're now at consent items. Consent items are routine matters enacted by one motion according to the recommendation listed below with the concurrence of the City Council, a 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? Staff, do you wish to pull any of the consent items? No Mr.. Mayor. Angela, do we have any speaker cards for consent?

No speaker card sir.

I make a motion then to approve the consent items. Moved and seconded, please vote.

Motion carries by unanimous vote of those present.

We're at public comment right now. I do want to acknowledge that our colleague Gary Kendrick is not with us today, he's been not feeling well and just wanted him to know that our prayers are with him. We're now at public comment. At this time any person may address a matter within the jurisdiction of the City Council Housing

Yes, sir. We have a total of 12 right now the last one would be a remote speaker The first though in person is Daryl Cotton

Oh Sir how are you great

okay? Well, my name is Darrell Cotton. I own a commercial property at 6176 Federal Boulevard in San Diego. My neighbor is United Rentals there at 6144 Federal Boulevard since December of 2022. El Cajon has received millions of gallons of trucked-in raw human waste. This is called septage from San Diego to your pump station on 1050 Vernon Way. United Rentals pulls this septage from its extensive port-a-potty rental fleet, and it stores it in a massive aboveground holding tank. They're called frack tanks.

And that's when this accumulated storage is left—septage, that is—is left to bake in the sun and then ultimately trucked here into El Cajon. So why El Cajon? It's because San Diego won't take it. And the county's Department of Environmental Health and Quality, DEHQ which oversees bulk waste hauling has for whatever their reasons chosen to ignore it. In terms of El Cajon's own records they show that United Rentals has discharged more than 5.4 million gallons here over 43 months and the city was paid more than $536,000 to accept it but it was never allowed here.

United Rentals County's DEHQ hauler permit authorizes only two destinations, San Diego's Pump Station 1 and the OCSD Fountain Valley locations. El Cajon is not listed on that permit. So where does it end up? Well none of it stays here. The untested unverified bulk waste flows into the regional metro system and out of San Diego's Point Loma Ocean Outfall. It is hauled past San Diego Pump Station One roughly half the distance to El Cajon only to reach the ocean anyway. If nothing else, I say here today registered with you this has to be the one thing you consider when factoring the why. This operation model makes no sense.

Under what authority, El Cajon's own records show that earliest discharges permits for this operation is dated April of 2025. That's the first permit but the disposals began in December of 2022. That's roughly 28 months and about 3 million gallons accepted here before any El Cajon permit existed. City staff tells me that the council doesn't approve out-of-city septage, so who did? Under what authority was this accepted?

The agency should have caught it. The county's DEHQ found the company quote in compliance end quote after visiting their yard but they never checked where that bulk waste goes. To date the DEHQ supervisors have not responded to my request to reconcile these DEH Q records with homes. This is also a hazmat danger These tanks sit above four feet off my property line, but they vent hydrogen sulfide around the clock and that's a deadly explosive condition. Nearly 90 neighbors have signed up petition to shut it down and that petition is in the records I will be distributing here today.

My request is that the city's acceptance confirm whether it was permitted and tested and pause further acceptance until those questions are answered. To the citizens of El Cajon, your city has been used to discharge sewage that otherwise would not have been sected anywhere else. Armed with this knowledge, the question now becomes what will you do about it? I have a very well-documented case and I'm ready to provide not only the print versions but the electronic versions upon your request. Thank you very much.

Before you leave, ask our City Manager Graham Mitchell if he wants to comment on – this is kind of a technical question

I know Mr. Cotton's been in contact with our staff, we're looking into it so I'll provide council with an update once we learn more information.

Okay hopefully we get it cleared up for you and please feel free to come back and talk to us again as we get involved in this process.

Thank you, I look forward to helping any way I can.

Next speaker is Marco Espinosa.

Hello welcome. You can give it to the clerk.

First off, beautiful mural. Very beautiful mural. Not a resident of El Cajon, never have been. Growing up only spent a handful of time in the city. Would come with my grandfather. He was a trucker all across the country. He would park his truck here I believe at 777 Gabble Streetway or something like that. Anyways I'm just local hometown boy and a nerd for politics and government. So I decided that I wanted to go to all the city council meetings in the county and El Cajon was next on the list so I'm just happy to be here just to be here really.

I don't have really anything else of strong substance but thank you very much.

Thanks for being interested. Okay, you got to come back and let us know sometime how we stack up against the other cities

Brenda Hammond

I can't forget the balloons. Everybody loves the balloons. First of all, I wanted to ask you if you thanked your office staff lately they've been what's with this? They're excellent. You know they have your back there was a rumor last week that I got On my phone personally and I didn't. I needed to find out if it was true and the staff was awesome about it also speaking of staff Graham I got a new car with that cop night out so I repurpose this one for you just in case you get any more guff about your awesome police department. Thank you. Thanks Brenda.

Carol Lewis.

Hello, welcome.

Hi! Good to see you all again Mayor, Councilmembers, staff. Do you have some flyers? And we're here because as you know there's an increase in need of food and insecurity in San Diego as well as in East County. So I wanted to share a project that El Cajon Collaborative has been working on this summer, and we're really excited about it. This was a group that we started during COVID when kids were not going to school and families were being laid off of their jobs and we saw a need for food at that time. We brought together all of the food pantries in East County And we formed a food network together.

And as we see things happening these days with families losing their EBT and also the high cost of food right now, we're seeing more and more families again. So we brought back our food network. They were really excited. It's been a few years since they've been together. And we created a Food Access Network with all of them combined, so they all have access to this website. And of course I brought in my son. This is Craig Lewis and we created this food website where people can go to access all of the food pantries in East County. We're really excited about it. We have San Diego Food Bank and Feeding San Diego signed in on it as well too. So I just wanted Craig to show it to you and share some information on it.

I don't know how to share the screen, unfortunately. Is there a possibility? I'm plugged into HDMI. No, okay. Okay well essentially the East County Food Network is if you just navigate to eastcountyfoodnetwork.org it is one of the most useful websites for anyone that's seeking food resources in El Cajon and in East County recently with the EBT changes a lot more people are dependent on food pantries and food distribution sites as opposed to their EBT card So I highly recommend it. Anyone can sign up if they're hosting a food pantry, but the primary use out of it is that chronologically lists feeding San Diego and San Diego Food Bank's pantries by date so you could go on to it and see what pantries are happening today which ones are happening tomorrow which ones are happening Friday As opposed to navigating their websites, having to go through the individual list.

We partnered up with them so it's kind of a nice way to chronologically go through and see which ones are closest. So when you need food you can get it quickly.

We also on that website created a calendar of events so they can go to the calendar and see the events. They can post flyers so if they have any special events coming up. If they're distributing food or diapers or clothing on a special day they can post that as well too But the nice thing about this is that all of the food pantries have administrative access to this site. So whenever information changes, they can update the information in real time. So this is always going to be current which is wonderful because we know as in websites, they become very stagnant.

Thank you so much. Thanks for coming. I appreciate it. One more time, eastcountyfoodnetwork.org.

It's okay. Say it again please. Nice and slow. What was the website again?

Eastcountyfoodnetwork.org Okay great.

Mr Mayor, I have a comment. Carol thank you so much for putting this together. I have been part of food distribution recently and trying to find places to take the excess food that I've been picking up through ECTLC and distributing it out. There are a lot of people who are hungry. Thank you. Rancho and El Cajon, of course. So thank you for what you're doing. Your organization as well as ECE Assist through East County Homeless Task Force is really helping a lot of residents.

I see people struggling all the time and so I am very much appreciative of your work and what you're doing Hopefully, we can get this food out to people more than just canned vegetables and mac and cheese. A little bit more out there. So thank you very much for what you're doing.

Thank you. We did see that the second and fourth Tuesday and the first and third Wednesday was getting awfully confusing for people so this way it's just right there day by day. Any other questions?

Looks like you did it all. Thanks.

Great to see you all. Thank you so much.

Good luck with all that.

Next speaker is Alan Nordholm.

Hello sir, welcome.

Good afternoon and I'm here to talk a little bit about Parkway Plaza and the exciting things that are going on as a result of Al Cajon thinking about this.

Excuse me, sir. I'm just having a little trouble hearing you if you can just speak up a little bit or speaking to the microphone.

Can you hear me now? I said I'm here to speak a little bit about Parkway Plaza and the exciting things that are going on there Mr. Goble had a very nice note that he sent people regarding some of the food services that are moving in that direction And there's a genuine excitement about the possibility of El Cajon looking at this. I know you have talked about it in the past and I think that's a good thing for El Cajon. As you know, it is an anchor complex for the El Cajón area and I know you've asked your staff to put courses of action together related to the Parkway Plaza maybe? And I would just encourage you to consider Graham Any course of action might include something like a citizen, business owner group to sort of chat about how that could move forward.

But I would say you're going to run into resistance because people will say what's the government doing in this area? And I would argue that we wouldn't have an internet without ARPANET. That was the first internet and that was a government entity And so sometimes bold moves are needed and can only be facilitated by government intervention. So that's what I'm here to talk about, Mr. Wells.

Well thanks, I appreciate it. We're excited about the prospects.

And so are some of the business owners. They are not familiar as I am because I watch what's going on around here but I encourage...I'm looking forward to the courses of action that are developed by your staff.

That's good. All right thank you sir, I appreciate it.

Next speaker is Will Kopuk.

Hello Bill, welcome.

Hello Mayor Wells and El Cajon City Council it's been a long time since I last spoke on this podium anyway I would like to give some thank yous in this room. Like first of all, I want to thank Councilman Gary Kendrick who's not here. I wish him well that he gets better but I want to thank him for his long years of service. I also want to thank him for his courage and conviction to protect communities in El Cajon and East County from of belligerent ICE agents. He's done his job to protect vulnerable people, unlike the majority of this city council.

I would also like to thank him for leaving his more former morally bankrupt political party, even if it means getting myriads of threats from GOP and MAGA constituents. I don't want my side to threaten you and the city council members. It's wrong to physically threaten or harm people regardless of political affiliation. And I would also like to thank him for abdicating his re-election bid and letting a new generation of leadership take over.

You deserve a well earned retirement, please get better. I also want to thank El Cajon residents and other residents of East County and San Diego County showing up to see council meetings Okay home. You're doing your city duty by attending these meetings and making their voice heard. I would also like to think Mayor Wells and the majority of the City Council for showing us who you really are.

The last several months or so, and what you really are morally grotesque and incompetent people who deserve to lose your seats via election loss or resignation list law or letter. So we are coming for you Hello, welcome.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon city councilors good afternoon Mr Mayor and El Cajon residents my name is Alexander craft. I'm a resident, long time resident of El Cajon homeowner and candidate for mayor in 2026. Today I'd like to speak on the proposition being brought forward by the Majdal Center to recognize Middle Eastern and North African as its own distinct ethnic group in statistical and demographic calculations.

You know, I just met today actually with an Arab community leader and actually our mayoral opponent Ali Mahmoud. And one of the topics that we spoke about today was he pointed out that as the MENA community grows, the Middle Eastern and North African community grows here in El Cajon not only does it continue to build our economy and our population and the vibrancy of our culture, but it's also become a destination for visitors. People are actually coming here as a tourist destination you know that brings money into our city.

Appropriate recognition of this group does not only make people feel welcome to move here and start businesses but also to come as tourists they feel comfortable they feel recognized they feel welcomed And adopting the resolution that's been put forward, there would be no cost to the city. In fact, there wouldn't even be nominal costs involved in drafting the legislation because that work has already been done by the Majdal Center.

At this point all City staff needs to do is move forward on considering and adopting that. These groups are, they're clearly separate groups. One of the things those of you who may not be familiar with this issue is that these groups are being lumped into the white category and yet these groups are clearly separate groups. They're clearly separate from quote-unquote white Americans in their In, in their material and economic and cultural interests. So the question has to be asked why? Why not recognize this fact? Why not have more granular data in order to be able to do your job better as a governance? Are you hiding something? Obscuring inequalities can only serve white supremacy. And let's not- let's be clear race and white supremacy has cast their shadow over East County politics for far too long.

It's the first thing people in the county talk about when the region comes up. Let's not pretend otherwise. Refusing to acknowledge the truth of our city's demographics only perpetuates this problem. Why wouldn't you let Majal and their coalition improve our community, our economy and our reputation at no cost to taxpayers? Thank you.

We have five more speakers. Next speaker is Rich Ryle.

All right, I'm on. I bet you all saw the San Diego Union-Tribune. You made the front page. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Six years ago, I sued the downtown Elk Island Business Partners for Brown Act violation and won. Today I filed a San Diego County District Attorney public integrity report concerning the illegal RFP that you are all aware of. This $150,000 PBID management contract awarded to New City America was the product of an RFP issued by city employee Mitchell. It was done without any authorization.

It is an undisputed fact that no elected official ever authorizes RFP or this contract in an open, properly noticed meeting. The Union Tribune reported that Marco LaMandri told the paper there are no public records supporting how his own company selection was decided. Your own Assistant City Manager says the city has no oversight capacity over this spending. Your city manager said it wasn't my area of authority. Meanwhile, this council is now being asked to approve a successor district, the Community Benefit District CBD that will run for 20 years and collect at least $16 million managed under the same relationships that produced this contract. I'm asking this council to do Two specific things. First of all, under the law and that's what I just don't get this.

The PBID law says if you're sunsetted out of existence the last year of your operation is closing down the PBID. No there is no action at the PBID to close down the PBID. And the second thing is it specifically says in the Pbid a law you cannot use PBID money to create a new tax area. Doesn't that make a lot of sense? We don't want to have mushroom taxes, and that's exactly what you've done. You've eliminated the PBID, and now you substitute a super-PBID. In this case, you're increasing the taxes by 200% or 400%. You're putting more people in, and you're using funds that you shouldn't have used It should be used to be closing the P bid. So I'm asking you, first direct the city attorney or retain independent counsel to render a written opinion on whether the February and March 25th meetings complied with the Brown Act and whether this RFP and contract violate government GOAT section 1090 Conflict of interest prohibition, which would make the contract void by operation of law.

Second, suspend further involvement in and urge the downtown partners to suspend further payments under the New City America Management Service Agreement until that opinion is complete. Be part of the solution. Before this council locks the taxpayer into a 20-year contract with Lemandry, before you expose yourself to millions of dollars in litigation costs about what's going on, please consult an attorney. Thank you for your time.

Dr. Ryan Phan?

Good afternoon again, Honorable Council Members and Mayor. I'm Dr. Ryan Fan here representing Majdal, the community center and thousands of residents that we serve. This is our fifth time speaking at City Council specifically about this issue and we again respectfully urge you to recognize more than 25,000 of your Middle Eastern and North African constituents.

We're asking you to agendize the MENA resolution that we've already drafted with city staff. As a reminder, El Cajon has the highest concentration of Arab Americans of any city in the entire state of California. Other cities with large MENA populations such as Anaheim and Glendale have already passed similar resolutions. Despite delays in implementing the state and federal policies that have already been passed, these city resolutions send a clear message that local officials are committed to ensuring representation and respect for thousands of their constituents. So why is El Cajon City Council hesitating?

In our last public comment we shared testimony from students who are asking to be accurately recognized and effectively served by the public education system Today, I'm going to focus on public health to reflect the endorsements we've received from Grossmont Healthcare District, Family Health Care Centers of San Diego and United Domestic Workers among many others.

According to reports published by the American Medical Association and the American Journal of Public Health, the absorption of Middle Eastern and North African data under the white category masks disparities between and within categories While also undermining rigorous scientific research. In particular, conflating these categories negatively impacts external validity which means the extent that you can actually generalize scientific findings. Why aren't we able to properly generalize and analyze public health outcomes within these large categories?

When we see changes in health data, do they actually reflect changes in the whole group's health or are they due to changes within subgroups that are invisible because of our current accounting? For example if we see an increase in the rates of hypertension and diabetes in the larger white category who is actually being impacted. Maybe it's hypertension on the rise in the MENA population. Maybe it's diabetes increasing in the Western European white population. Maybe it is the opposite. Without having these detailed data categories, you cannot tell. The establishment of a distinct MENA category will promote healthy communities by enabling health agencies to track disparities, design targeted interventions and provide linguistically and culturally appropriate care.

The improved health outcomes will also help to prevent avoidable drains on public health systems. Once again, I respectfully urge the City Council to agendize our MENA resolution that we've already drafted that will cost you nothing. Thank you for your consideration and we look forward to seeing you at the next city council meeting in September. Thank you. Graham,

I have a question for you. This issue really has to do with the census. Am I right about this?

For the most part, however, the resolution that they've drafted is beyond that. I have concerns with the resolution that they've drafted so if the council were to direct us to bring something forward we would bring forward an alternative resolution that did not commit funding from the city as the current resolution does.

I guess my question is we have no jurisdiction over how the United States Conducts their censuses. That is correct, and we... Would this resolution be binding upon the United States of America in any way?

No it wouldn't. And the other thing is that we have in the past written letters of support for this cause to the U.S. Census in the past so but this is not an agenda item so probably shouldn't have some back-and-forth between us and speaker.

Yeah I wouldn't mind a little bit of information so I can fully and deeply understand this issue

Can I clarify one thing? Sure. I'll be quick. At the federal level, the federal government has actually delayed the census update so it might not be in place by 2030. There's a state bill AB91 that was already passed and signed into law but they've delayed implementation to 2029. Local resolutions show commitment and also as we're in conversation with like the Department of Finance who are trying to delay further, it helps us make an argument that this is important. So again coming from a city where there's an extremely high population is very significant for them.

I just have one

comment. I've talked to Dr. Phan a few times, and I would really encourage

one of my colleagues to please join me in

agendizing this. Combining maybe taking Dr. Phan's resolution, taking Mr. Mitchell's recommendations and maybe we can come to an agreement on that but I think this is definitely something that we need. We've done it for other groups and I've stood up for the Hispanic community. I've stood up you know and agreed with the Jewish The resolution identifying antisemitism, I don't see why we can't do this one as well.

Appreciate that. Thank you for coming.

Next speaker is Rima Al-Khatib.

Hello everyone. Can you hear me? My name is Rima Al-Kateeb, and I'm a youth organizer at the Majdal Center. So I basically interact with youth every day. And part of my work is basically just interacting with youth programming and just see what's your experience like? Me and my family have lived in El Cajon and I've been...I still live in El Cajon. Me and my family live here and I've been through this school public education system and I know how it's like. One challenge for me was, and I've been seeing as a pattern within the youth that I work with is that our MENA students and families are not being fully seen and they're not being represented, not just in the school but also within the community. They don't have that sense of belonging, also they don't have funding access, they don't have funding for them specifically That also affects our healthcare system, as Dr.

Phan also mentioned that and most importantly for them language access and in addition to that there is no data so what's the point of all that? And myself we might graduate from a university so how will they be able to track that I graduated from the background of being a Middle Eastern MENA? So today I want to ask you to pass the MENA resolution and because it will be an important step forward to recognize not just our communities, but also making sure our students cultures and experiences are being valued and also reflected within our school system and the communities that live here in El Cajon. So I'm asking you again to agendize the MENA resolution. Thank you.

Thank You

Ana Laura

Martinez

Good afternoon, El Cajon City Council members and staff. My name is Ana Laura Martinez. I have lived in El Cajon for over 35 years. I am here as an El Cajon resident, also a community worker to ask you to please agendize and pass the resolution in support of the inclusion of the Middle East and North African MENA category and also as a supporter of the Majdel Community Center as well.

My community work is as a library worker at one of the best libraries in our county, just down the street. Having the MENA category is important for more accurate simpler data that touches every aspect of life as both Dr. Phan and Rima have mentioned from language access to education to health These metrics all tell us how unique and diverse El Cajon community is.

Language access is an important resource I see our community needing more of, and this can change with the inclusion of MENA moving forward. I formerly worked at the County of San Diego Board of Supervisors as a legislative assistant, and our office received requests for resolutions Well, some may think they're not important. They absolutely are our office approach resolutions as a way to show our support our commitment to be for the community we understood that there is a power at the local level.

to shape and reinforce what already may be at work both at the state and the federal level. You passing a resolution would let us, El Cajon residents know that you won recognizing importance of our brilliant Middle Eastern and North African communities And two, are ready for whenever the state and federal levels move forward as Dr. Phan has mentioned. Thank you so much for your time and I'm looking forward to the El Cajon Council members doing right by our community, specifically our Middle Eastern and North African communities. Thank you.

Thank you.

Last speaker is a remote speaker and it's from Truth Tonics. And please truth remember to press star six so you may join the meeting. I apologize we just lost internet access. We do need to take a recess to allow for this to be continued. Sure thank

you.

Oh she's back.

Okay there we go okay I'll begin so you know it's true it's your favorite remote speaker who sometimes comes in sometimes doesn't So for the record, your live stream via the phone was 12 minutes late. And it turns out that the YouTube live stream is streaming via the Planning Commission page not the Council YouTube page so somebody needs to go fix that because I miss Brenda's balloons.

You've got to make this up somehow. So I have an opinion on how Ocahon stacks up against other cities. I would say pretty good. It's one of my favorite cities in San Diego County and I don't care what detractors have to say about that Yes the city needs cleaning up but for a big city it's doing okay and has the unique character I have yet to find anywhere else in California. But specifically about council I would say you guys are generally very friendly meeting room is pleasant and the seats are comfortable enough so hey you're doing you're doing okay and how's the deficit not too bad so there you go. But I want to talk about public records requests.

I looked into the allegation that a gentleman brought up about the sheriff dumping homeless people into alcohol at the trolley station MTS denied that such footage exists. They are serial liars though so don't take that at face value but here's how you resolve that in the future for anyone comes across that is just get it on video and post it publicly because that happened in Imperial Beach by the Coronado Police Department but the difference is video they got caught. So there you go. I love telling people from other cities about the failed incubator program And why it continues to be propped up despite the fact that there's pretty much zero local businesses that are still in existence since its creation. This is El Cajon's one big issue I see.