From: April Reid <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2024 11:32 AM
To: Megan Garibaldi <[email protected]>; Robert Nisbet <[email protected]>; Anne Wells <[email protected]>; Andy Newkirk <[email protected]>; Matthew Fore <[email protected]>; Deborah Lopez <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Comment on Agenda Item A15
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On Monday, July 15, 2024 at 11:29:20 AM PDT, April Reid <[email protected]> wrote:
Comment on Agenda Item A.15, Number 24-310- Amendment No. 2 to Agreement No. 2022-037 with Impulse Advanced Communications for the Provision of Telephone Service and Hardware at City-Owned Facilities
Dear Ms. Lopez:
I am writing this comment to Agenda Item A.15 because I am confident that if I speak at the July 16, 2024 City Council meeting, that I will be interrupted for the third time just for speaking the truth ON TOPIC about an agenda item. So, in order to make it a little harder for the City Council/staff to pretend I never made certain comments, I am documenting my comments in writing.
According to the ridiculous analysis of Agenda Item A.15, the City staff tries to claim, “[S]taff contacted Mr. Alker who stated that he has a minority ownership interest in Impulse. Impulse, as a separate legal entity, does not have any relationship to Kenwood, beyond Mr. Alker’s ownership interest in each…The City Attorney does not find that a conflict of interest exists based upon Mr. Alker’s involvement in Impulse and his involvement in the Kenwood project. Obviously, this is not true. In fact, Mr. Alker has stated multiple times in his Housing Element Plan public letters that he is building the housing units, in part, for his employees. As one example, in a letter written July 20, 2023, Mr. Alker wrote, “I am a local business owner and employ dozens of employees, but I have found it very difficult to recruit and retain local workers due to the lack of housing in the City of Goleta. I am also dismayed at the fact that my adult children are priced out of the area that they call home - Goleta. My hope for the past 15+ years has been to develop Kenwood Village into homes that my employees, employees of other local companies, and our adult children can afford.” Clearly, Mr. Alker is using the money he is making and the contract with the City Council to build housing for the very employees who are working on the contract with the City Council.
As a result there is clearly a conflict of interest. The entire City Council should recuse themselves from voting on both the Impulse Advanced Communication contract and the Kenwood Village project.
By the way, if the City Council/staff wants to claim they had no idea Mr. Alker was an owner of Impulse Advance Communications and/or “staff did not consider Mr. Alker’s ownership in Kenwood as any part of the City’s decision to award the contract to Impulse in 2013”, then all of you should resign due to incompetence. I was able to look on the internet and I found this information in two minutes for this specific Agenda Item.
Please be advised that I have become aware of how corrupt the City Council is, so I fully expect that this information will be ignored and, somehow, the City Council/staff will find a way to justify voting for both while doing everything possible to try to silence me again.
April Reid- proud resident of Goleta despite the City Council