City Council — August 4, 2026

City Attorney Mr. Watson, would you give us the closed session report?

Yes Madam Mayor with respect to items 3a and 3b instructions were provided to the agency negotiators no further report will be necessary

Thank you.

An additional 25 citations were issued after fire investigators reviewed airplane firework footage taken over the weekend. Fireworks complaints began early to mid-June. During the two-week period between June 25th and July 5th, Santa Maria PD dispatch received 287 calls for service regarding fireworks. PD dispatch triaged those calls each night. They weren't able to assign individual calls for service unless an exact address was actually identified.

PD Patrol eventually responded to many of those incidents, but Santa Maria Police Department dispatch was directed to transfer calls to the firework hotline if the caller did not have an exact address or lead that could be investigated. Calls into the firework hotline started mid-June from June 25th to July 5th. 160 voicemails were left on that line. A spreadsheet was created and shared with fire investigators for follow up.

The fire marshal issued 51 warning letters to residents where our teams were unable to address the report immediately. As in past years, there was substantial number of illegal fireworks that were set off throughout the city consistently from about 6 p.m. to 12 a.m on the 4th of July. The use of illegal fireworks within city limits is a problem we're all trying to solve. Significant life-altering injuries were sustained this year by our residents.

The fire department will continue its prevention efforts through education, partnership with Santa Maria Police Department and contract with the third party patrol to patrol the skies on the 4th of July to deter and continue to hopefully reduce the use of illegal fireworks in the years to come. I want to thank Chief Williams and his staff for their support in putting together some of this information that I've been able to share with you this evening.

I also ask for your continued support and welcome any suggestions for consideration for our future enforcement efforts. That concludes my presentation, open for questions.

Thank you Fire Chief Dandridge. Any questions? Thank you,

Madam Mayor. Ms. Flores? Chief, how was it determined for the citations? How did that come about? Can you explain that to us?

Mayor Pro Tem Flores, yes ma'am. What we've determined is we had teams and the teams that were dispatched out with PD officers and fire investigators if they were able to witness visibly witness and record we had recording also Those initiated a citation. Also from the aerial perspective, we have the aerial operations that have GPS capability that will pinpoint exactly where launches are seen to have originated And we correlate those with the corresponding addresses. And then citations are issued, those 25 citations are issued that way.

As with every citation, Mayor Pro Tem Flores that were issued this year as in previous years, the residents have the opportunity to contest. They go to the fire department they'll review and they'll have conversation with our fire marshals actually with us this evening. If he could provide any additional information, but they have the opportunity to contest those citations and we review it and ensure that they're appropriate to be issued.

Okay, so when you show up and you know that they're setting off illegal fireworks are they approached and said and told something or because the last time Chief Williams said no. That they don't do anything they just noted and then you guys issue a citation

Yes ma'am, that would be correct. What Chief Williams and I have determined is safety of our personnel. What we've done is in the fire service, I can't, I don't feel comfortable safety of our fire personnel sending three unarmed individuals into a block party where there may be possible intoxication involved in these block parties, we didn't think it would be safe for our personnel to confront at that time. That would be a law enforcement effort. I didn't think our firefighters were trained to that level.

I don't want to speak for Chief Williams if I may ask him to come to the podium if he'd like to answer why he has elected to choose what he has done

He's already explained that to me. So my other question is to you, is that so we just go and you're talking about the block parties that are going on right? Do they take out a permit for a block party or they can just have a block party?

I will defer Jim do you mind?

Thank you Chief Dandridge, Mayor and Council. So we use the Social Host Ordinance in the Municipal Code and we only have to on view the illegal action on said property It doesn't require us to make contact. And as Chief Dandridge, and I'm sure Chief Williams will state these areas are they have large gatherings. So this year we had three permitted block parties. We witnessed numerous additional unpermitted block parties. So you would see A block or two, multiple individuals gathering and barbecuing and doing the typical Fourth of July thing. But in the middle of that you would have aerial fireworks going off from the sidewalks, from the streets, from the front yards.

And so the direction that I gave to our units in the field, so it would be a police officer paired with a fire investigator is if you can on view and be confident of the violation without putting yourself in harm's way. So we always talk situational awareness. And there's more to just, you know, looking, you know, the moth to the flame kind of thing. Keep an eye on your periphery because it's very active on those blocks and I personally was on a couple of the blocks I don't really need to identify them, but I would see 150 individuals or so up and down the block.

And from safe and sane to dozens of aerial launches from illegal fireworks. So again we on view it if we can confirm the address then we will issue the citation to the property owner or whoever's responsible for the property. So if they rent we can determine that through utility records.

But that's after the show that we get, right?

Yes. After the

fireworks going everywhere

and all hours of the night,

right?

During it, we witness it and we document our address. We do a quick statement what we call probable cause so I saw two male subjects dressed this way in the front yard ignite an illegal firework and it created multiple launches. So that will be our probable statement of cause. And then from there, the following week and it between the lost count but 100 or so are 93 I think she said.

Those are the first ones we do, and so will go we identify the property owner. We go through utility records and determine if someone else is renting the property. And then we have to create cases in the database, each one takes about a half an hour to do but then that will issue, we will issue that administrative citation at that time. The aerial enforcement, it takes about two weeks for them to break down the data into individual parcels for us.

But then once we receive that, we review each one and if we feel there's probable cause and we can determine illegal launches were coming off at this address then process starts all over again. We will issue that property owner or responsible party citation.

All right, thank you. You're welcome.

Any other questions? I do. Thank you. I know that the last time that we briefly touched on fireworks, I think it was before the 4th of July, we were talking about the fines that other cities implement and I think we gave the example of like the city of Oxnard and how they have an increase of fine Their fines are higher than what the city of Santa Maria fines for illegal firework activity. And so I'm curious if there's been any progress on that front?

Thank you, Tom. In order to respond I did have Casey Stone my assistant city attorney do a full memorandum on that there was a change in the Attorney General opinion that said that because of the conjunction of two statutes that are both potentially violated by unlawful fireworks you can increase the fine to $2,000 so we're preparing an ordinance to do that for your review and but we wanted to get the cars from these other jurisdictions and look at them first. But he did do a full evaluation, we believe that it's legally

sound. Great

thank you.

Thank

you. We will now present the business of the quarter and Council Member Soto will be making the presentation along with the Chamber of Commerce.

Thank you so much. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council Members. On behalf of the City of Santa Maria in partnership with the Santa Maria Valley Chamber it's my pleasure to recognize Signs of Success as our Business of the Quarter. Since 1990, Signs of Success has grown from a small local sign shop into a 20-employee company handling architectural and commercial signage across California.

Drive around Santa Maria and you'll see their work City buses, utility fleet, Allan Hancock College, Marion Regional Medical Center and the new Hall of Fame walls at Gragetti and Santa Maria High. The growth didn't happen by accident it came from skilled project management investment in the latest fabrication technology and a real commitment to training and promoting from within Please join me in congratulating Jordan Shepard, president of Signs of Success and the whole team behind him. 36 years in they're still building Santa Maria identity one sign at a time

Good evening Mr. Shepherd, congratulations.

Thank you Mayor. Good evening mayor and council members. On behalf of everyone at Signs of Success thank you to the chamber and to the city for this recognition it really means a great deal to us Signs of Success has had the privilege of serving the community for over 35 years. During that time, we've been fortunate to work with businesses and schools, hospitals, nonprofits and public agencies to help them tell their story and better serve those who are walking through their doors.

This recognition really belongs to our team, their craftsmanship and dedication to doing things the right way is why our business has been a success. Thank you for your support and we're proud to continue serving the Santa Maria Valley.

You know, I do have a question now Fire Chief Dandridge and it may not be for you. It may be for Chief Williams. So we're planning on getting the drones because the drones that we had were just for the day sort of like a date okay? And so I guess my question is once we get the drones that we're expecting because we have these outrageous fireworks going off starting in May And so I guess as soon as we get calls, we would start using them.

Is there any plan on that?

Madam Mayor, thank you for the question. I'm going to defer that answer to Chief Williams who's gonna be in charge of those drones.

Okay.

Good evening Mayor, City Council. Christopher Williams your Police Chief. Yes that is a possibility once we bring the agreement to the city council for approval on the drone first responder program we will outline what the police department's goals and objectives are One of them being to include enforcement for fireworks violations, and it'll be the council's desire if they want to support that or if they want to restrict that to certain higher priority calls such as in progress violent calls. Several jurisdictions, if you recall when I did the presentation on the drone first responder program Agencies like Elk Grove to the north of us do use that and actually use some of the collections of the fines to help support the expense of the Drone First Responder Program.

So short answer, yes as long as it's a desire of the council to allow that as one of the parameters for the response.

Thank you. Our city attorney, could we possibly the fines? So you've got the period of the fireworks say July. Okay so could we possibly when people start setting these off in April or May could the fine be accelerated or is it just I'll probably have some more questions after I go to sleep tonight, so but I won't call you.

I'll wait till tomorrow Thank you

So the next item on the agenda is public comment. Madam Clerk, will you please read the criteria?

Yes, Madam Mayor speakers may provide public comments on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the City Council each speaker will be limited to three minutes maximum 15 minutes for public comment period unless a majority of the council objects the mayor may provide speakers more or less time to speak All comments or queries shall be addressed to the Council as a body and not to any specific member thereof. Pursuant to Government Code Section 54954-2A2, the Ralph M Brown Act no action or discussion by the City Council shall be undertaken on any item not appearing on the posted agenda except to briefly provide information, ask for clarification, provide direction to staff or schedule a matter for a future meeting. For those on Zoom and wishing to speak during public comment please use the raise your hand feature or by pressing star nine on your keypad when it's your turn I will let you know when it is your time to speak and please unmute yourself at that time.

Thank you so I have Gary Hall followed by Addison Sage

Good evening, Madam Mayor. By the way we can't hear hardly anything in the back so if there's a way to turn it

up... I'm sorry.

Council members staff and citizens of Santa Maria my name is Gary Hall. I'm a resident of Rancho Buena Vista Mobile Estates at 2135 North Railroad Avenue here in Santa Maria. I represent the north Santa Barbara County Manufactured Homeowners Team or NISBET Nesbitt's primary goal remains to provide protection to all Santa Maria mobile home residents presently living in an unregulated rental market.

Yes, we continue to ask the City of Santa Maria to stand with us in maintaining affordable housing Affordable mobile home living is vanishing here in Santa Maria and all across the state. I was encouraged at the June 16th City Council meeting when I heard both council members Soto and council member Batalla Voice support for bringing forward a discussion of the mobile home lease and enforcement agreement.

Thank you both. I am hopeful that their action will soon open the door to exposing the flaws that are embedded in the two documents, and also expose how far those documents miss the goal of maintaining affordable mobile home housing which of course was what they were intended to do. I continue to believe that now is the time to take action, to replace the model lease with a uniform mandatory enforceable mobile home rent stabilization program much like those in our neighboring city and county jurisdictions.

Now let me once again acknowledge and thank the Santa Maria Community Development Department personnel for developing the Senior Mobile Home Park Zoning Overlay Ordinance And I'll have additional comments on that later in the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Addison Sage

I can't actually see the time. There's some kind of notification pop up over it.

Yes, we have a technical difficulty on the visual time but there is an audio time and

you'll see

it turn orange there when you have one

minute. Thank you. All right. Greetings and thanks to all present here today for this opportunity to speak. My name is Addison Sage. I've been a teacher here in Santa Maria for seven years I want to address something important to me and probably many here. I'm going to start by naming the problem, giving its relevance and then the possible solutions. The problem is clear and obvious to anyone who's lived here for more than a year.

Theft and vandalization in Santa Maria is stymieing growth and it's preventing deeper investment Although there is no spike in related crimes, the continued flat level of these crimes means the current city's vision for Santa Maria remains clouded and uncertain. New businesses here in the city have faced an average of five acts of burglary and theft in their first year of business.

This applies to the newest businesses here, including Central Coast Collectibles, Sprouts, and multiple new businesses on the Skyway and Orchid Expressway areas that the city I know is deeply invested in. The relevance is that the city very clearly wants us to become more than just a big box stop on your way to Santa Barbara, or a bedroom community for the working class of the beach towns.

But how can we become more than that when business owners and even homeowners feel a lack of security in investing here? I can see in Grant that the City Council here has done impressive things for the growth of the city. And in the early stages of cleaning up downtown. But none of those things will last if we do not attempt to manage security. New businesses may flock here and replace ones that we deem seedy and undesirable, but they're not going to stay if we don't address the problem.

For example, this past Friday a drug-addled man in a mask stole a forklift and drove it into the reinforced barred windows of Central Coast Collectibles and stole thousands of dollars in merchandise. The shop owner comes to us from Lompoc where the owner decided to branch out to our community and offer a safe and clean place for people to enjoy board games and cards together.

It's one of the finest shops of its kind I've ever seen, and yet the owner now considers whether business here is worth their suffering. I know these problems are not easy to solve. We're talking about solving crime right? It's not simple. So I offer solutions that have had solvency in other places. One, help the victims of such crimes. Offer assistance in repairs, protection from further events and even free advertising by the city to recoup lost profits.

Two, reduce the demand on law enforcement for pettier crimes such as loitering, public nuisance and noise ordinance calls. This is called triage.

Go ahead and continue, Mr. Sage.

I'm almost done. That's fine. Three, offer more assistance to distressed areas while your work towards the city center and Skyway is commendable and beautiful we must also help the distressed parts of Santa Maria too so that economic desperation does not drive them to desperate acts thank you for your time.

Thank you very much That concludes public comment. And Madam Clerk, anything on Zoom?

We do not have any hands raised on

Zoom, no. Thank you. Now we'll move onto the consent calendar. Does anyone have Okay move on to the consent calendar and Mister Stephens.

Thank you very much. And I'm sorry that I was late in turning in the form. My name is Craig Stevens, I'm the owner with my son of SM Tire and first of all we'd like to thank you very much for your business. We've done business with the City of Santa Maria for many many years and we sincerely appreciate it. We don't take any business for granted at all. We're excited that we're May 15th with our 80th year in business in Santa Maria, I think I look pretty good for 110 but long story short I've owned the business for 43 years but very fortunate to do business in the Santa Maria and in locations on the Central Coast The only point that we're really trying to make is when there's awarding of professional services, we hope that you consider the things that all of our local employees have done for many years.

We have the only – most people don't know this. They don't even know anything about it but we have the only retread manufacturing plant on the Central Coast. It's unusual we have an actual manufacturing plant in Santa Maria. It's been here since 1962 and we are very blessed to have that, and the closest re-dred plant other than that is in Los Angeles and up in the Bay Area. We do just hope that whenever evaluations are being done on awarding contracts that they look at the total value of ownership of whatever it is.

Sometimes there's just not enough information in the bidding process to go through, other than just the cost of the product. There are services involved also. We do 24-hour services. We never close ever 365 seven days a week we are operating and we do service those vehicles at times whenever it's needed. And also we hope to take the consideration of the time and money, actually more importantly is the money. Excuse me that the time that our associates spend on all kinds of good charitable organizations within the city of Santa Maria. Cameron the president of the company, my son.

We spend hours and hours we have when you're doing community events and giving your time and trying to help organizations. We've both been involved in the Boys & Girls Club combined for 60 years. My kids have been Members of the Boys and Girls Clubs when they were kids, along with all other associations. So that's how we again thank you for your time and hope that you whenever awards are being considered they look at things.

We have bought probably 45 to 50 trucks in the 40 some years that I've owned a business. They are not being purchased out-of-state Like a lot of places nowadays and just want to hopefully all those things are considered. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Stephens. Any other public comment?

I believe

we had one

more

in the room. That's that's on. Is it HC? Oh no, it's C1C11C1. And that's Mike Flores. Good evening, Mr. Flowers. Good

evening Mayor and City Council. I am from the Santa Maria Public Airport District. I'm here with my Board President Steve Brown and we are hoping that you guys approve our Santa Maria Police Department LEO contract. We worked pretty tirelessly with Chief Williams as well as Chief Dandridge to really get our law enforcement and public safety taken care of so hoping you approve it! Thank

Thank you. Okay Now we'll move on to the consent calendar. Does anyone have an item they wish to pull for discussion?

I do.

Yes, Mr

Item 11 C

Item

11 C 2 adoption of a resolution awarding a purchasing agreement to hyper. A Motorola solutions company the hyper non-emergency call agent services. Um. Around what this agreement would entail if we were to move forward with adopting the recommendation that's before us, um I would just like to know more about how this AI enabled non emergency call. System The burden on routine call strings for the call takers.

Good evening Mayor and Council, Councilmember Soto, Krista Williams your Police Chief. To address your question how it would work is kind of two-fold. One it would answer so if a member of the general public was to contact the Santa Maria Police Department We have our general line. And our current system, how it works is you either have to know the extension of the party you're trying to reach or you have to go through a directory of people and manually type in the person's name like if you wanted to contact the chief and you didn't know my extension, you would start with the keypad dial out The name with the AI assistance with hyper.

It would allow you to verbalize who you want wanted to speak to another option that you have is it has similar to a phone tree where if you want to contact the records department You could contact the records department and then it would give you some options. If you wanted to get a copy of a police report, if you wanted to get a citation signed off, if you wanted the hours of the operation and it would allow you to verbalize it instead of trying to push numbers and go through like a constant revolving door as many of us have experienced sometimes trying to contact if we're trying to pay bills or have questions about bills.

The more important function of the system that excites me is the non-emergency call taking function. And what this does is if you have a non-emergency report that you want to make, you can verbalize and it actually will create so when you How we currently work is when you call our non-emergency number and want to report an incident, it's a physical person typing out the information and trying to direct whatever resource it is.

This, and obviously we're limited to the number of open stations Sometimes our staffing level is at two like in the middle of night, maximum of four. So that's a number of lines that we could physically take at one time whether it's emergency or non-emergency without placing people on hold. This system, it allows to take thousands of calls. It could be if every person in the city of Santa Maria called and had a non-emergency call to make they could all call at one time and be handled and be communicating with this AI technology to direct them to whatever the call for service is. And they're able, this system, AI system is able to transcribe that information into our computer aided dispatch which will then get routed to our dispatcher who can dispatch the call.

Another great feature about it is that it can detect if a person is stressed, if it hears commotion or violence in the background. It'll immediately transfer that and give it a priority to a live communications dispatcher. Another key feature that it has is it can translate over 18 foreign languages including Spanish Japanese, Tagalog and many others. So if we have people visiting from out of the area and how we currently have to do is we have to go through a language line which delays the information.

And then another key feature that this technology has is it allows the person to file an online report if they have their cell phone Either they lost or misplaced it, or it was stolen and there's no suspect information. A bicycle is taken from their property. They can actually take that information, this technology and file the report for them which cuts down on our resources from having an officer go out. It cuts down on any delay for the person from having that report information generated so that they could report it to their insurance company or whoever they want to report it too.

So there's many positive features. This technology doesn't get sick, it doesn't get tired, it doesn't take breaks. So it's a great compliment and supplement to our hardworking men and women within our communications center to help supplement them so that they can handle the emergency phone calls and get police and fire services there more quickly and efficiently.

Thank you. So would this system only be for the non-emergency phone number? Or would it be for to detect non-emergency calls?

Correct. It is only for non-emergency calls, so if someone picks up the phone and dials 911 they're getting a 9-1-1 dispatcher. Okay. If someone calls our non-emergency phone line oftentimes especially in the later hours dispatch may get calls for other departments for example or they may get the dispatch center but they really want records This technology is able to basically be the buffer from tying up a communications dispatcher from handling emergency traffic or emergency phone calls and kind of vet out what the situation the person may need for non-emergency.

It is not replacing our emergency situations because like I mentioned, if they accidentally Call the non-emergency number instead of hitting 9-1-1 and there's clearly an emergency. It is able to direct them right to a live dispatcher

Okay, and now I'm assuming that this system has been vetted and that the room for error

correct

is Non-existent awfully

Well, I wouldn't say that it's non-existent because even with humans there is room for error. Because it is computer AI generated there are several other agencies that have tested and currently using it including the Lompoc City Police Department they have used it we have We have tested it out, we have listened. And they have cut down on their emergency dispatchers and communication center by 66%, by actually vetting and funneling those non-emergency calls to allow for people that have true emergencies to get to a live 911 dispatcher.

And the plan here is for this to be supplemental, to be additive to the work of the existing employees?

Correct.

Okay.

It's not used to replace our dispatchers.

And then my last question is where will this information be stored and how long will this company store the data that That it will be collecting from the calls, that it will be receiving, analyzing and dispatching or assigning.

As far as being retrievable for evidentiary purposes?

That or just like I'm assuming it acts also as a data center where it's collecting the data that is being fed. Yeah. I'm assuming that that's how it would work and so I'm just curious like I'm Can be. Yeah, that information will be stored of the callers and what happens next. And so I'm just curious like where is that information being stored? Is it with this company that we're hiring to provide the service and how long will they store the data for?

It's web-based and cloud-based, and these companies have to be vestiges compliant, which means that they have to follow the guidelines of state and federal regulations so that they can't be hacked or corrupted. And they are retained just as long as our current calls are retained and held. And it's not that this data is shared or this company has access to it. It is our data with our logins.

It doesn't belong to anybody else but to us as a city.

That's

correct. Okay, those are all my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Mr. Pattaya?

I would like to pull 11D1. Adoption of resolution approving the award of professional services agreements to both Southern Tire Market LLC and Santa Maria Tire Service.

Okay, and I was thinking as I was coming here tonight a truck came in front of me. Not in front of me didn't pass by. I was stopped at a stoplight and it was Santa Maria Tire 1946. And I thought that is really timely anyway I did

I have a question. Why wouldn't we go with the local company and split it with another company that's out of the state?

Sure yeah thanks for your comments or thanks for your question Council Member Battaia. This was released as an RFP to essentially procure services as we would procure any other service for the city and so as a result of that there were submitted prices and that pricing was provided by both Santa Maria Tire and Southern Tire Mart Our team reviewed that and in fact there was a cost competitive advantage that Southern Tire Mart had.

And we, in accordance with our purchasing policies you know we try to make sure that we're spending City money wisely. And so as part of this there was also a recognition that there are a local company and they do good business, they do good work and so the decision was made to have $375,000 award to both Santa Maria Tire and a $370,000 award to Southern Tire Mart So that we have two companies that are able to provide us services at relatively competitive prices, even though that we have a local company. That's a little bit more it's not substantial enough to where we didn't feel that it wouldn't meet our policies.

But in the past, we've only used our rear tires?

So we've used Santa Maria Tire as like a discretionary. We didn't really have a contract with them, we would call them up and have them provide our services. We were approached by Southern Tire Mart of like hey how come we don't get an opportunity to provide our prices on that business? And we were doing a 1Z2Z sort of bid every time and we said okay you know what we're gonna do is put this out to RFP, we're gonna go ahead and allow everybody to bid on it, we're gonna give them the same scope of work So they have equal opportunity to show us their best, and this is a result of that.