City Council Meeting — November 17, 2021

Recording in Progress.

Okay. Hello, everyone. This is Yvonne Yu, Mayor of Monterey Park and City Council of Monterey Park and the City Council acting on behalf of the successor agency of the former redevelopment agency, the housing authority, the Monterey Park Financing Authority and the Monterey Park Geologic Hazard Abitment District. Um, regular City Council meeting is now called to order. Today's Wednesday, November 17 2021.

is now at 6 31 and um okay there's a public hearing item 4a will begin promptly at 7 p.m so this meeting will be conducted pursuant to government code sections 54953-premacy e as implemented by city council resolutions accordingly council members will be provided with electronic meeting locking information and they will not be physically present at council chambers

pursuant to city council resolutions. The public may provide public comments utilizing the method set forth below. Notice that the city hall is currently closed to the public. It will not be admitted to city hall.

General information, documents related to agenda item are available to the public in a city clerk's office located at 320 West Newmar Avenue,

Monterey Park, California, 91754 during normal business hour and the city website at www.montereypark.ca.gov. The public may watch the meeting live

on City's cable channel MPKTV, AT&T U-verse channel 99, or Charter Communication channel 182,

or by visiting the City's website at www.moneratepark.ca.gov. The agenda may include

items considered by the City Council acting on behalf of the Successful Agency of the former Monterey Park Redevelopment Agency, which we saw February 1, 2012. Successful Agency matter will include in the notation of Premacy S-A next to the agenda item number. Public participation In accordance with government code section 54953, Pemba City, and the City Council resolutions, remote public participation is alLod in the following ways. Via emailed written communications, public comments will be accepted up to 24 hours before the meeting via email to mpclerk at monarchpark.ca.gov. Written communications, if any, will be briefly summarized and include the name of each individual that submit a comment. Summary will be read via pre-recorded video and played during the public comment sessions of the City's Council meeting. To view the full text of written communications, please visit www.modernpark.ca.gov slash agenda center. All written communications are provided to the City Council and FA as part of the City's administrative records.

Via telephones, public comments may be submitted via telephone during the meeting before the close of public comments by calling 888-788-0099 or 877-853-5247 and entering Zoom meeting ID number 289-222-5995 and press pound. When prompted to enter participation ID number, then press pound again. If participants would like to make a public comment, they will enter star 9. Then click office will be notified and you will be in a rotation to make a public comment. Press star 6 to unmute yourself when call bond to speak.

Participants are encouraged to join the meeting 15 minutes before the start of the meeting. You may speak up to five minutes on the agenda item. Speakers will not be alLod to define time. The mayor and the city council may change the amount of time alLod for speakers.

As part of the virtual meeting protocol, an anonymous person will not be alLod to provide public comments. Important disclaimer, when a participant is calling to join the meeting, their name and or phone number will be visible to all participants.

Note that all public meetings will be recorded. So, City Clerk, would you please put the flag and we do the Pledge of Allegiance. Please all stand and put your right hand on your heart.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

Thank you all. Okay, City Clerk, Vincent Pascaro.

Thank you.

Council member Peter Chan. Here. Council member Hans Yang.

You're unmuted.

You're muted. There you go.

Council member Hans Yang.

You disappeared.

Okay. I'll count that as a present. Council Member Fred Ternoso? There. Mayor Pro Tem Henry Lo? There. And Mayor Yvonne Yu? Here.

All present. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so City Manager or City Attorney, do we have any agenda addition, deletion change, and adoption?

Yes, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members. We would like to pull Agenda Item 3D, as in David. we need to have some additional discussions needed with our treasury committee. So we'd like to pull 3D. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, public communications. While all comments are welcome, the Brown Act does not allow the city council to take actions on any item not on the agenda. The council may briefly respond to your comments after public communications is closed. Person may, in addition to any other matter within the city council subject matter jurisdictions, comments on the agenda item at this time. If you provide public comments on a specific agenda item at this time, however, you cannot later provide comments at the time the agenda item is considered. So, Deputy City Clerk, do we have any public communications? Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Speakers, if you would like to speak during public communications, this is the time to do so. Please use the raise hand feature, or if you're on the phone, press star 9 at this time.

And Madam Mayor, we do have City Treasurer Joseph Leon. Okay.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, please.

Thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council members and of course residents of Miner Park, City Treasurer Joseph Leon. I mailed several documents and my concerns to the Munner Park Clerk's Office, the mayor and the council members. Hopefully you have those for reference tonight. My apologies submitting them late. I've been very busy at work the last few days. And please ignore any handwritten notes on the documents. Those were for my reference to speak on an item, but it was pulled. And for the record, I have not provided any of these documents to staff.

I'm here tonight because I'm very concerned what's occurring in our city recently. I've been a resident of Monterey Park approximately 40 years. I've served Monterey Park for more than 20 years as a resident volunteer

in various commissions and committees before serving as an elected official. In all those years, I've never seen so many issues arise so quickly that seem to be aimed at curtailing the resident's voice in our city.

Let's first address the three documents hopefully that you received from the city that, again, please ignore

I'm not going to go into the contents of the documents. That is a discussion for another time. But if the consul will look at the documents, two of the documents had my name on top of the city treasurer and my name at the end for my signature. But the final document that was submitted to the consul and was made public for the residents to see does not have my name anywhere on that document. My name was taken off without my knowledge or consent. In fact, I didn't even know this was done until I went online and read the agenda. I was never told or informed in any way that my name would be deleted from the document. In fact, it was my understanding that this item would not come to the council until I signed. This is very alarming when a city document with an elected official's name is deleted without the knowledge of the official. I'm also very concerned because recently it was suggested by staff that the city clerk no longer read the written communications from our residents at these council meetings. Our city clerk, Misson Chan, who is also an elected official, adamantly argued against that, and the council unanimously agreed that the residents had the right to be heard by written correspondence. Before that, I believe staff wanted to start dissolving the commissions, starting with the traffic commission. Councilman Peter Chan spoke against this as resident volunteers are essential to our city. And the council again unanimously agreed not to resolve the commission. I have been, since I've been part of Bunet Park, I've been involved with many commissions and committees, such as the Cinco de Mayo, Trey Blossom, Library Board, Design Review Board. And I've always been told those commissions are essential to help the city, especially save personnel, time, and expenses. I believe that's what makes Monterey Park a very special city to bring our families. Lastly, with regard to the closed council meetings, it would be great to have live meetings again. As our mayor previously noted, she has been deprived of meeting many of our residents because all the meetings have been on Zoom. I understand other cities are looking for creative ways to have open meetings again. We should do the same.

I know there is concern about COVID and being exposed in close quarters.

But then who can explain why just this week there was an event inside the

Encounter Building that is much smaller than the Council Chambers?

Finally, I have approximately a year left as a Minor Park elected

official. But I will not stand up for the meeting.

I will be here to fight for the rights of our residents.

I urge all elected officials and our residents to help me be diligent.

I know we are all busy but we must help each other. What takes place here in Monterey Park City Hall

affects all our lives. I know I should not get emotional but I am very sad to be here. and heartbroken.

Our water is taking place in our city at this time.

It needs to stop now. Thank you all. And I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving. Thank you. That's all.

I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers for public communications?

Madam Mayor, I DO NOT SEE ANY OTHER SPEAKERS FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS.

AND WE DO NOT HAVE ANY RITTEN COMMUNICATIONS ON FILE AS WELL.

OKAY. THANK YOU. AND DO WE HAVE STAFF COMMUNICATION?

YES, WE DO. OUR FIRST DEPARTMENT WILL BE LIBRARY SERVICES.

THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. GOOD EVENING, MADAM MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL. THIS IS DIANA GARCIA, CITY LIBRARIAN.

THIS EVENING WE WOULD LIKE TO PRESENT A COUPLE OF BRIEF UPDATES ON

upcoming library programs. First we'll have Kristen Oliveras, our children's senior librarian,

presenting on our upcoming preschool fair being held this Saturday at Langley Center.

And then after Kristen speaks, we will have Victor Oliveras, adult literacy coordinator,

who will present on our current volunteer drive for the library's literacy programs. Kristen?

Thank you, Diana. Good evening, Madam Mayor and City Council. My name is Kristen Olivares,

and I am the Senior Children's Librarian at the Monterey Park Broganmire Library.

Tonight, I am here to invite you and the community to join us for the library's third

annual preschool fair, which will be held this Saturday, November 20th from 1130 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Langley Senior Center, which is located at 400 West Emerson Avenue.

The preschool fair provides an opportunity for caregivers to meet with representatives

from local and private preschools to learn about their programs and enrollment.

Parents and caregivers are encouraged to come learn about the many local early education options available to their families.

PARENTS MAY CONTACT THE CHILDREN'S DEPARTMENT AT 626-307-1358 FOR MORE INFORMATION.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, KRISTIN. VICTOR?

HI, GOOD EVENING, MADAM MAYOR, MAYOR PRO TEM AND CITY COUNCIL. My name is Victor Castellanos, and I am the Adult Literacy Coordinator at the Monterey Park-Bergenmeyer Library. I would like to formally invite our residents and community members to join our dedicated team of volunteer tutors. The Literacy for All of Monterey Park program has been a leader in adult education since 1984 in the San Gabriel Valley, and it continues to change the lives of hundreds of adult learners, and we owe it all to the volunteers. Our literacy volunteers teach ESL classes, lead conversation groups and book clubs, and meet one-on-one with adults to help them reach their goals of becoming better community members, citizens, parents, and lifelong learners.

You don't have to be a credentialed teacher to volunteer. You just have to be enthusiastic to help someone learn to read and write and navigate their community by improving their language skills.

We provide the training and the ongoing workshops and support that you will need to help make a difference.

To join our team and to learn more about our program, please visit our library website or call me at 626-307-1492 and attend one of our monthly volunteer tutor orientation meetings.

Thank you so much for your time and for helping get the word out about this fantastic volunteer opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next department is our Recreation and Community Services.

residents that the holidays are almost here and everyone is invited to send a special letter to santa at the north pole so santa has promised to respond to all the letters he receives this year

and so there's a special mailbox that goes to santa at the north pole that's located in front of the laneley senior center and folks can drop off their letters monday through friday from 8 a.m to 5 p.m now you want to be sure and include your return address when you when you sign your letter That way Santa knows where to send his reply to. So those letters all need to be received by December the 3rd.

That's Friday, December the 3rd, before 5 o'clock, into Santa's mailbox, and he'll be sure to respond. If anyone has any questions or would like more information, you can contact the Recreation and Community Services Department at 626-307-1388, and we'll answer any questions.

Thank you, and I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Robert. Next we have economic development.

Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members, this is your economic development manager,

Joseph Torres. With the pandemic taking a huge toll on local shopping and dining, I

want to remind our residents that our city small businesses today face unprecedented

challenges. Our restaurants and shops are among the worst hit sectors during the pandemic,

and many small businesses have been forced to permanently close their doors.

Those that do survive face daunting competition from national chains and e-commerce giants.

To spur recovery for small businesses, the City of Monterey Park is rewarding its residents

and visitors for shopping and dining locally as part of an effort to boost the local economy during the pandemic.

This week, the City of Monterey Park launched a new and innovative mobile app called Monterey Park Rewards.

Users register a credit or debit card and use that link card at participating shopping and dining businesses to earn city points. Each city point is worth $1 that users can use at redeeming businesses on purchases.

In addition, users can track the number of city points they've accumulated and redeem that local businesses through the convenience of their smartphones.

With $1 earned for every $5 spent, we believe that funneling money back to the consumer incentivizes them to continue shopping locally.

In addition, the city pays that $1 earned to keep the participating merchants whole.

With the launch of the Monterey Park Awards app program, the City of Monterey Park has received praises from residents and businesses alike, including commendations from Congresswoman Judy Chu and Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis.

Please allow me to share video messages from both elected officials.

Deputy City Clerk, if you would please show Congresswoman Judy Chu's video message, folLod by Supervisor Hilda Solis.

Hello, everyone. I'm Congressmember Judy Chu, and I have the honor of representing the 27th Congressional District.

I would like to commend the City of Monterey Park for the launch of their new and innovative shop local app, Monterey Park Rewards.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and they need our help to recover from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Monterey Park Rewards is a dynamic program that creatively leverages the community to support local business owners, reward local shoppers, and drive a stronger recovery.

Monterey Park is the first city in the San Gabriel region to introduce a shop local incentive program using an advanced smartphone technology platform.

By using the Monterey Park Rewards app, users earn rewards at participating local businesses across Monterey Park through the convenience of their smartphones.

With the holiday season upon us, we're all eager to connect with one another. Through this innovative program, the City of Monterey Park can drive local spending back into the community instead of e-commerce giants and big box retailers. This will provide critical support to local businesses as they recover and our business communities reopen, while also promoting diversity and equity.

Again, I commend the city of Monterey Park for using digital technology to leverage the awesome power of its local community to meet a convergence of economic challenges facing its small businesses.

Hi, everyone. I'm Hilda Solis, Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

If someone mics on, if you could please shut your mic down.

We're getting some feedback, please. Thank you.

Okay, I'm sorry about that. Let me start the second video.

The great San Gabriel Valley. Hi everyone, I'm Hilda Solis, Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, representing the great San Gabriel Valley, including the City of Monterey Park. The past 20 months have been challenging for all of our communities. In particular, our Asian-owned small businesses and entrepreneurs in Monterey Park, who have been especially impacted due to the scapegoating and racism.

Many had to close during the pandemic and some unfortunately did not or have not been able to reopen.

This is why I wanted to commend the City of Monterey Park for helping create a program to restore some level of economic prosperity to our local communities by connecting its residents to local businesses through an innovative shop local program called Monterey Park Rewards. Monterey Park Rewards program is a simple way to support our local businesses. By using an app on a smartphone, shoppers and diners can earn rewards at participating local businesses across Monterey Park.

This program empowers community members to shop and dine locally and experience their city like never before.

Supporting small businesses is critical to our local economy.

And remember, these small businesses also help to create and sustain jobs and keep the area vibrant with shoppers and tourists. I encourage every local business owner that has a storefront within the city limits of Monterey Park to submit an application form and participate in this new initiative. Together, we can restore our local economy. Thank you and take care.

You're on mute, Joseph.

Okay. The Monterey Park Rewards app is free to users and businesses alike and is now available for download on the Apple Store or Google Play.

I encourage every resident to download the program and start supporting our small businesses.

And like Supervisor Silly said, we encourage local business owners that has a storefront

within the City of Monterey Park to submit your application form and participate in the rewards

program. Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Member, that concludes my staff communication. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you.

And next we have the fire department. Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. Fire Chief Matt Halleck here tonight again to give you an update on our COVID booster and flu shot vaccination clinics. Due to the success of the most recent clinics we held, our Chinatown Service Center was gracious enough to offer to extend the dates into November, through November. So we have two additional dates, November 23rd and November 30th, 830 to 1230. We moved the location from the park to the amphitheater to allow for better control of those that show up because it was very popular. Difference between these coming dates and the previous dates is the state of California, along with two other states, has opened up the booster vaccinations to anyone 18 and over.

So we encourage everyone that is of the age or if you fall into one of those categories to please stop by November 23rd or November 30th between 830 and 1230 to receive your flu shot and or your COVID-19 booster shot. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And so next will be presentations. One is San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District presentations on drought.

Hi, Thomas. The floor is yours.

Thanks. I think there's some slides we sent over.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to present them for City.

Deputy City Clerk, would you be able to help the slide? Give me one second. Okay.

Thank you, Cindy.

Thomas, so at 7 o'clock, we will be going to the public hearing item.

So I don't know if you want to.

I don't know if you're going to complete it in a couple minutes.

Four minutes?

Yeah, maybe we can come back to me.

Okay.

so do we wanted to um do the second item first um so thomas we come back to you then right

all right okay thank you so okay let's do a 1b um a b1276 single use footwear accessory

accessory and standard condiment condiment condiment sorry yes

DEPUTY CITY CLEAR, CAN I HAVE THE PRESENTATION, PLEASE?

THIS AGENDA ITEM WILL BE SLIGHTLY, THIS SHOULDN'T TAKE THAT LONG, AND THEN WE CAN GET TO

THE PUBLIC HEARING. OKAY.

NEW SPEAKERS. GOOD EVENING, MADAM MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL. THIS IS INEZ ALVAREZ, ASSISTANT CITY

MANAGER. NEXT SLIDE. AND THIS PRESENTATION TONIGHT IS

regarding a newly adopted state law, AB 1276. And this was an item requested to bring back by city council just to provide information about what this new state law means.

This new state law regulates single-use foodware accessories and standard condiments.

And it is designed to reduce plastic waste and unnecessary trash. AB 1276 will prohibit restaurants from providing single-use utensils and condiments unless a customer requests the specific item. And enforcement of AB 1276 will begin in June of 2022. Next slide. So here's just the single-use foodware accessories is defined. Gives you examples here.

it's a fancy way to describe utensils, forks, knives, chopsticks, stirs, et cetera. Next slide.

Condiments, of course, are anything that's individually packaged. This can be ketchup.

It could be soy sauce, hot sauce, salt, pepper, sugar, anything that the restaurants potentially

would be given out to accompany food. Next slide. In addition, it also, AB 1276 also

regulates prepackaged or bundled items. So customers will need to be able to ask for

individual items versus just asking for utensils and be given a packet. So these types of bundled utensils will no longer be allowable. Next slide. So businesses utilizing online ordering services or app, third-party apps, they will actually have to have areas where customers could request these

individual items or add them to the order so that the business understands which items, whether that's ketchup to go with your french fries or whatever other items you'd like to request

or customers could request those items when they pick up their food next slide

the enforcement as i mentioned begins in june of 2022 and that would be done by our local health

departments and the first and second violations would be notices and anything after that would

results in potentially a $25 fine, but the fine cannot exceed an annual total cost of

a fine of $300.

Next slide. Of course, the city's efforts, our Economic Development Department will definitely be

working close with our businesses, and the city staff will be working with our community members to make sure that people are aware of the new state law.

We'll put an article in the Cascade newspaper.

we'll do flyers we're definitely going to use social media NPK TV ads and also

And, of course, our new MPK Rewards App to make sure that people understand about the new regulation. Next slide. This concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions that the Council might have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And so, we are on time to move to Item 4A Public Hearing. The Public Hearing to receive testimony regarding rejoining Council

district boundary pursuant to elections code section 21601 and the city clerk was notice of this public hearing given in accordance with california law yes mayor okay and so and the city has created a dedicated website on this subject matter right all information regarding redistricting including the notice are available on the city website at www.monitor.ca.gov slash redistricting 2021. So now I would like to announce the open public hearing. And so staff report, City Clerk Vincent, please proceed with the staff report.

Thank you. So in 2019, the city transitioned to a district-based election in accordance with the Fair Inclusive Redistricting for Municipality and Political Subdivision or Fair Maps Act, Election Code 21601-21609, following the federal decennial census every 10-year, district boundaries must be redrawn so that each district is substantially equal in population. It is important in ensuring that each city council member represents about the same number of constituents. The maps must meet certain requirements and has a total deviation of less than 10% difference. At the second public hearing on October 20th, 2021, the National Demographic Corporations, or NDC, presented the findings from the still balanced analysis using the 2020 census adjusted data and concluded that the existing district maps meet the Fair Maps Act criteria with a deviation of 2.84%. The city council received and filed public comments, took action to move forward with the existing map, which is option A, and scheduled the third public hearing for November 17th today, 2021. The fourth public hearing and introduction of an ordinance to adopt final maps for December 1st, 2021, and scheduled December 15th, 2021 for adoption of the ordinance and the final maps. I just want to note that typographical errors on October 20th, 21st staff report referenced an incorrect date for the adoption of the ordinance on December 22, 2021. The city council held its first public hearing on July 21st, 2021, and the second public hearing on October 20, 2021, and the third public meeting is being held tonight. So a little bit of background. Following each decennial federal census, the city council must adopt boundaries for all council districts so that the districts will be substantially equal in population. According to the Fair Maps Act, distribution must meet certain requirements. well they must comply with federal requirements of equal population and the voting rights acts areas that are geographically contiguous or connected keeping the geographic integrity by minimizing divisions of community of interest and social and economic interest areas easily identifiable, bounded by natural and artificial barriers, streets and boundaries. Encourages geographical compactness where nearby areas of populations are not bypassed in favor of more distant populations and does not favor or discriminate against a particular political party. There must be public hearings. There must be notices given. We have a website. And outreach efforts must be made to ensure, you know, everybody as much as possible get their notice. Also, the information must be translated. And there is a certain timeline for the submittal of the adopted map. We have Dr. Levitt from NBC here tonight. And there is a public hearing that's scheduled for December 1st.

will be held and to introduce the first reading of the ordinance for adoption of the final track

map. Now, I believe the deputy city clerk has more information with regards to what transpired at the hearings, at the previous hearings. So at this time.

that. Thank you, City Clerk. And so before I turn it over to our demographer, Dr. Justin

Levitt, let me just quickly go over some of the outreach efforts that the City Clerk's

Office conducted. Next slide. So the City Clerk's Office, we created a dedicated web

page, the montoreapark.ca.gov backslash redistricting 2021.

On that webpage, we had all the information regarding the redistricting process.

This includes public hearing schedules, staff reports, videos, the existing maps, and general

information regarding the redistricting process. We have published an article in the July-August edition regarding the redistricting

in different languages.

We also hosted two in-person events in August. There was the concert at the Elder Park

and then movie at the Barnes Park.

We mailed a mailer to the 23,500 businesses and residents regarding the redistricting process. And then we also attended most of our commission's meetings

to convey the message

and then to seek the assistant of the commissioners

to spread the word.

We also posted social media information regarding the districting.

And recently we sent letters to nonprofit and community groups of interest to attend this meeting tonight

and also to spread the words.

So the city council meetings, we had one on August the 7th.

That was the general information. July 21st was our first public hearing. October 20th was our second, and then tonight we are holding our third public hearing.

Next slide.

And for the Zoom informational meetings, we held a number of meetings via Zoom from August to November.

Each month we held two meetings, and the last one was actually yesterday.

So that concludes the outreach efforts.

Let me turn this over to our demographer, Dr. Leavitt.

Next slide. All right. Thank you, Mayor Yu, members of the council, and members of the community who are listening tonight. My name is Dr. Justin Leavitt, and it is a pleasure to be back here in Monterey Park. If I go to the next slide,

I know your city clerk has already covered a lot of the key information that I would want to cover as well. And so I won't spend too much time simply restating what Mr. Chang already has covered. This is the third public hearing.

In particular, today's hearing is kind of an opportunity to ask any questions or review any information before the adoption of the final map next month.

If we go to the next slide, really, as your clerk has already gone through a lot of this, but just to reiterate, redistricting is kind of guided by certain rules and principles that change because the state legislature, the courts create new laws throughout the decade. And once every 10 years, we have to revisit a lot of this, or revisit the district map. We have to make sure that the map continues to comply with both federal and state law. Federal law being equal population and the Voting Rights Act. And state law being the Fair Maps Act criteria, contiguity, communities of interest, following easily identifiable boundaries, and compactness. And, of course, in a town as the size of Monterey Park, some of these may look a little bit different than a larger city. A city with a lot of hills where the districts are quite small, following easily identifiable boundaries is going to be a little bit more difficult when most of the roads are not continuous throughout the city. It is prohibited to talk about or focus on or even mention political parties or partisanship as part of this process. In addition, we have other traditional districting principles that might help us pick a final map if the plan already complies with federal and state law. We've gone through the criteria in previous presentations in more detail, and I'm happy to address any of them specifically tonight as well. Looking at the next slide, our analysis of the current map shows that it is well within the deviation. So federal courts set a limit of approximately 10% as the maximum difference between the largest and smallest districts. Currently, Monterey Parks City Council districts are at 2.84% deviation. That means that the difference between the largest and smallest is just about 350 residents. In a city of 61,000, that is very small, the level of deviation. Each district has to contain about 12,250 residents. Looking at our voting rights analysis, if we go to the next slide, we do see that one of the current districts, District 3, is a majority Latino district. It keeps together all of the neighborhoods more or less along the 60 freeway in the south end of the city, including East Los Angeles Community College. And if you go to the next slide, we see that the other four districts all are majority Asian, and they keep together Asian American communities throughout most of the city.

Other than, of course, the area right along the interstate or U.S. 60.

And so the map, as it's currently drawn, certainly meets federal requirements. It is certainly as contiguous as well. and we feel that with the arguments that council has provided, it could meet all the Fair Maps Act requirements and could be looked at as an option or readopted for another 10 years and so I'm happy to answer any questions or talk about this further or whatever you would like to hear about tonight. Go to the next slide or the final slide.

For those of you who are hearing about this or watching this presentation for the first time. The city does have a website and an email address

where you can write in with public comment. We'll look forward to hearing your questions

or answering any questions you have tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy City Clerk, do we have any speakers on this item?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Audience, if you want to speak on this item, this is the time to do so. Please use the raise hand feature,

or if you are on the phone, press star nine at this time.

Madam Mayor, I do not see any speakers for this item, nor do we have any written communications for this item.

Okay, thank you. So now I announced that we closed the public hearing. And so for council actions, do we have motions or any questions or comments from any council members? Okay, Council Member Chen.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I just want to ask a simple question to Justin. So because the last council meeting, the council decided to go with no change. And so with all the criteria and everything, satisfaction to this federal state law and everything, so that remains intact. and there's no issue or any problems against any rules or any regulation if we stay the same. Isn't it true?

Well, we think that it certainly meets all of the objective criteria. We know it meets the 10% deviation standards. We know it meets the Voting Rights Act requirements, which require us to look at those protected class communities like the Latino community within the city and the Asian American communities. We know the districts are contiguous, and we do know that partisanship has not been folLod. And given many of the census blocks and kind of the odd geography of the central part of the city where it gets very hilly, we believe it's reasonably compact in that case. And I think the one issue that we would always raise is just this issue of communities of interest and whether or not we're hearing or you want to or any council member communities of interest is in it's a subjective criterion it's one that we we go to the community and ask for their input we go to the council and ask

criteria. Thank you. That's the answer that I really would like to hear that we comply with

all the regulations. And I would like to ask the city clerk or deputy city clerk and on those

public hearings, do we have any new suggestions or any things that we should know about? Thank you, Council Member Chan.

The Zoom meetings basically is just a general information where we share what is the process

and where to look for information. As far as the participations, it was very low. And so there wasn't too much as far as suggestion. Bill Lam, he had attended a couple of meetings and he also actually submitted written communications regarding his concern about, I think, the North End.

But other than that, there's not much.

I see. Okay. Thank you for that.

And okay, so I just would like to ask or urge the citizens of Monterey Park,

if you have any suggestions or any ideas, please.

We still have public hearings and town hall meetings coming up.

So please participate and voice your opinion. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And then so, Council Member Haslam, you have any questions?

Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I'm just curious I know that the minimum standard in terms of deviation is 10% allowable and Monterey Park is only at a 2.8% deviation so I'm curious just in your you know doing this is that the norm that we have such a small deviation or do most I mean where do we rank in terms of other cities like do we have a smaller number than most cities or average or high? So I would say that it's actually quite rare for

a city to be in balance over a period of 10 years. Even cities that were almost perfectly equal at one census often find themselves 10 years later out of balance. And so it's a testament to growth patterns in Monterey Park that all the districts are currently in balance and actually so close so close to being balanced. I would say that there's certainly a range. You know, for a long time,

the Supreme court was going back and forth between a 5% deviation standard and a 10% deviation standard. The 2015, they clarified that it was a 10% deviation. And so we have seen some slightly larger deviations since 2015 because they clarified that standard. In 2011, most of the deviations were coming in right around 2% to 3%.

All right. Thank you. I was just curious. Thanks for sharing that.

Okay. So Mayor Pro Tem Lo, you have any questions? No? Okay. So

So now do we actually need to make a motion to approve anything?

Maybe city attorney can help me on that.

We want to make a motion to approve item 4A.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council.

I believe this is a receive and file item in terms of public hearing.

No further direction is required at this point.

And so simply making a motion with the understanding that, Justin, I think there's one more public hearing that we need to have.

This is the third of four. And so the next public hearing, at the next public hearing, we'll probably have ordinances in front of you for consideration and possible introduction to adopt the district maps.

Okay. So we don't need to do anything.

It's a simple receive and file.

IF YOU WISH TO DO SOMETHING FOR PURPOSES OF THE RECORD, THEN IT WOULD BE A MOTION TO RECEIVE

AND FILE THE REPORT AND CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING WITH THE NOTIFICATION TO THE PUBLIC THAT A

FOURTH PUBLIC HEARING WILL BE SCHEDULED FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION.

NEW SPEAKERS OKAY. SO MAYBE WE WAIT UNTIL NEXT TIME. NEW SPEAKERS YES.

NEW SPEAKERS ALL RIGHT. SO LET'S MOVE ON TO THANK YOU SO MUCH, JUSTIN. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR INFORMATION. SO OH, I'M SORRY. YEAH, THOMAS, WE NEED TO GO back to you. For item 1A, presentations and Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District presentation

on drought. Madam Mayor, I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but we did have the utensil 1276 presentation, and I think there may have been some questions by council that they wanted to ask and we didn't give that opportunity so maybe there's an opportunity for council to ask some questions about that presentation and then we can come back to the district's presentation

so so just um just a comment there okay yeah thomas if you don't mind sorry and then um all right so for the item 1b ab1276 the single use where it says um is there any questions from any

Council member. Okay, Council member Chen. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And yes, Assistant City Manager, you mentioned that the city is, you know, destined the enforcer. If, you know, someone, breaks the law. Now, it divides into two.

But my thing is we are not a health department. And this is, I don't know if this should be a health department's jurisdiction or what. I'm not sure on that. And then do we penalize the restaurants who gave out or do we penalize the patrons that take too many utensils or, you know, how does it work? Can you clarify that?

So the item that the, this is an informational item. We wanted to clarify definitely what the new state law requires, but as far as enforcement, yes, the local health, the county, the county health department would actually be the ones who would be, you know, they would be the ones who would be enforcing the regulation. And in regards to that, it's just the customer, from my understanding, the business would be fined if they were providing items without them being requested.

so just like this just like um the other the other law about straws you know businesses are not supposed to give out straws unless the customer asks for the straw same same type of

reasoning there that that they're trying to reduce um the state's trying to reduce um you know

unnecessary trash or additional plastic waste but for example just for discussion only sure i don't know if there's a good time to to talk or maybe we should talk later but it's pretty simple if a

customer demand like order one single order, but demand 10 Foxer utensils, then of course, you know, there's excessive. I mean, so if, and then the, the, the restaurant comply.

So does that create any issues? What I read in the, in, in AB 1276, it didn't, it didn't give any specific examples of excessive use. It just indicates that the customer needs to request the item, that the business shouldn't just assume that, you know, the customer wants

or needs the item. I think the understanding also is if you're picking up takeout, you may be consuming your takeout at home. And so you might not need a utensil or, you know,

or ketchup or, you know, some kind of condiment if you're going to take it home and eat it.

So the idea there is not to provide the additional items unless, you know, I mean, maybe you're picking up your takeout and you're going to go eat at the park or you're eating in your car for lunch.

That's where the customer is being asked to request those items because they know that they're going to need those items.

Yeah, but I think when the law comes out, then we will have more clear pictures and the enforcement part of it that I'm kind of concerned because I do buy takeouts for my lunch.

And so so sometimes I was given I just asked like some ketchup and I got a big handful of ketchup.

You know, sometimes that do happen. So I just wondering, you know, what's the detail? So let's wait and find out more when it comes. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. And council member Lam?

Yeah, really quick. Thank you, Inez, for the presentation. There was, I know we were rushing to get to the public hearing, but there was a section that I kind of missed. If you could help me with that. I know that it's basically when you go there, The restaurants are not supposed to give it unless it's asked for, right? And then what was the specifics on the packs that were wrapped together? Sure. Yeah. Sure.

So the understanding with the packs that are wrapped together is sometimes those bundled utensil packets have, you know, like a knife, a fork, and a spoon, and a napkin, and maybe salt and pepper in that packet. um what the ab1276 says is that items need to be available individually not bundled so that way if a customer says i'd like um a fork a spoon and a knife then then of course the restaurant could provide those they're they're just trying to reduce um um unnecessary waste so sometimes if

you're you get that packet but you only need the fork now you're probably going to throw away the spoon and the knife without using it, especially if you're eating it on the go. So the understanding

with the bundle is they want items to be available individual, not by a packet. So if I ask for one of those items, the state wants the business to be able to give just one item or like salt, right? Don't give me the whole packet of bundle if I'm only or if the customer is only requesting salt.

yeah okay and then uh you know i heard council member chan was asking about like numbers uh quantity right so uh let's say i'm doing some takeout and uh you know i'm gonna eat at the park and i've got my family and maybe there's eight or nine people that are there uh there's no penalty if i say can i have nine forks and nine spoons i mean there's no limit on the i mean there's no penalty on those on the number of quantities.

No, in reading that, in reading the description, no, there, there wasn't, it didn't go into that much specific detail about how many, even with condiments, it doesn't say, you know, you can only have one packet of something per item. It doesn't go into that much specific detail. I think in general, it's, you know,

just making the customers more mindful about waste and also the businesses more

mindful about unnecessary plastic, you know, plastic waste and unnecessary trash.

So then basically for our residents and the public, what they should know is that when you go buy food for takeout, make sure to ask for the utensils and condiments that you want. And for the restaurants, they need to stop the habit of throwing those things in the bag automatically and only give it to customers when they ask.

Correct. Exactly correct.

Thank you.

Thank you. Member Liu.

Thank you.

I'm sorry Council Member Council Member Long your mic is very very I'm not sure if your mic is very very low you can check it thank you

how about now

very yeah still very how about now low

we don't hear you now no sound

yeah we're getting a little static and then we

a lot of static yeah oh no sound

no we can't hear you now

no

interesting

we can hear you

Yeah, but still. Hello. Can you turn on the volume?

Let me see. I'll try to navigate that. But in the meantime, you can go ahead with the meeting.

All right. So Mayor Pro Temp, Lo?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. You know, just an observation.

But I think that if we're trying to get a glimpse into the future of what an enforcement

implementation may look like, I might want to suggest, if we haven't already, perhaps

ask our neighbors to North Alhambra, because even before the state passed its own statute,

the state of Alhambra, I believe, earlier this year, in March or April, passed its own ordinance, specifically addressing the same issue that is before us through state legislation. And I'd be curious to just find out what has been their experience in implementation of what is essentially a similar policy when it comes.

Oh, okay.

Thank you. So, no more questions?

Can you hear me now?

Yeah, but very low, Stu. How about now? No?

No, a little. Yeah, we can hear you. I think, yeah.

Okay. I think it'll be good enough for us to navigate through the meeting. We'll just... Okay. turn up our hearing aids

okay

at least mine

all right so next up Thomas and then item 1A San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District presentation on drought the floor is yours Thomas

thank you Mayor again my name is Thomas I'm the board president of the San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District and my privilege to represent most of the city of

MAURE PARK ON THE BOARD AND HERE TO GIVE A QUICK PRESENTATION ON THE DROUGHT AND WATER CONDITIONS

LOCALLY AND ACROSS THE STATE. WE CAN GO TO THE NEXT SLIDE, CINDY.

CINDY, ARE YOU ABLE TO GO TO THE NEXT? OKAY, THERE WE GO.

I TAMIS. GIV ME ONE SECOND. I HAVE A LITTLE TECHNICAL PROBLEM HERE.

ALL GOOD.

SO I'LL JUST KEEP TALKING UNTIL CYDNEY BRINGS THE SLIDES BACK UP.

JUST BY WAY OF QUICK BACKGROUND AND REMINDER, THE WATER DISTRICT, SANGER VALLEY MUSTLE WATER

DISTRICT SERVES FOUR CITIES, MARIN PARK, SIERRA MODERA, AZUZA, AND ALHEMBRA.

THIS IS OUR BOARD RIGHT NOW. MARK PAULSON, DR. PLACIDO, MILES PRINCE AND BRUCE MOLZ,

GENERAL MANAGER, DARREN COSIMOTO. IF YOU GO BACK TO THE LAST SLIDE BEFORE, WE ARE A SOURCE

OF WATER FOR OUR FOUR CITIES INCLUDING MONTEREY PARK. ABOUT 200,000 PEOPLE LIVE IN THE FOUR

CITIES THAT WE SERVE. WE SERVE AS A SOURCE OF WATER, ONE OF THE SOURCE WATER FOR THE CITIES. each of the cities have their own water utility and they pump water from the groundwater basin

that is fed from whatever precipitation we have locally here in the mountains it gets collected goes into the ground the cities pump that out and are alLod to pump a certain amount

and most years just about every year every city including morning park requires additional water

TO BE PUT BECAUSE IT OVERDRAWS THE AMOUNT OF WATER THAT IS AVAILABLE ESSENTIALLY IN THE WATER

DISTRICT, IMPORTS WATER FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA DOWN HERE TO THE SAN NAIRO BASIN TO HELP REPLENISH

OVERDRAFT OF SUPPLY FROM THE GROUNDWATER BASIN HERE. NEXT SLIDE AND THE SLIDE AFTER, CINDY.

JUST REALLY QUICKLY, IT'S BEEN VERY DRY AS ALL OF YOU ARE I THINK VERY MUCH AWARE AND HOPEFULLY RESIDENTS WHO MIGHT BE TUNING IN ARE NOTICING IT AS WELL. WE'VE HAD A VERY, VERY DRY YEAR.

THE GRAPHIC ON THE LEFT, IF YOU'RE LOOKING AT THE SCREEN, LOOKS AT THE STATE DROUGHT CONDITIONS.

CURRENTLY THIS IS FROM THE U.S. DROUGHT MONITOR. THE DARKER RED, THE WORSE DROUGHT CONDITIONS.

AND YOU CAN SEE DROUGHT CONDITIONS ARE SPREADING QUICKLY AND INTENSIFYING THROUGHOUT THE STATE.

We did have some rains, especially harder in northern California the last few weeks. We had a very brief storm here a couple weeks ago in the L.A. area, but they did not do a whole lot to abate kind of drought conditions in the state.

Rainfall is still well below normal.

Our groundwater basin, the key well, is below where we want to have it.

Snowpack is very low, and our reservoirs continue to go down in terms of their levels.

NEXT SLIDE. AS THE DROP CONTINUES TO DEEPEN, THESE ARE JUST A COUPLE OF HEADLINES FROM

THE NEWS. AND JUST I THINK YESTERDAY THE STATE CAME OUT WITH NUMBERS FOR WATER CONSERVATION

IN CITIES ACROSS THE STATE AND REPORTED WELL BELOW THE 15 PERCENT THAT THE GOVERNOR HAS CALLED

FOR VOLUNTARY REDUCTIONS OF WATER USE. I THINK LESS THAN 5% IN THE SEPTEMBER NUMBERS THAT WERE RELEASED YESTERDAY OR EARLIER THIS WEEK ACROSS THE STATE WAS SAVED COMPARED TO A YEAR AGO. AND SO WE ARE NOT MEETING CURRENTLY THIS GOVERNOR'S VOLUNTARY WATER USE CUTBACKS.

THERE IS CURRENTLY A STATEWIDE DROUGHT DECLARATION. THE GOVERNOR EXTENDED THAT

THAT LAST MONTH TO MUCH OF THE REST OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, HE HAD CALLED A DROUGHT DECLARATION

FOR 40 OF THE 58 COUNTIES EARLIER IN THE YEAR AND JUST IN OCTOBER INCLUDED LOS ANGELES

COUNTY AND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA IN THE DROUGHT DECLARATION.

SO WE'RE NOT DOING ENOUGH RIGHT NOW TO REDUCE OUR WATER USE AND DEPENDING ON HOW THIS WINTER

KIND OF OUTCOMING RAINY SEASON WHICH IS TYPICALLY KIND OF DECEMBER JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH TURNS OUT

WILL LIKELY VERY LIKELY SEE AND THE STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD IS ALREADY STARTING TO WORK ON

MANDATORY RESTRICTIONS AND ROLLING THOSE OUT IF WE DON'T SEE VERY MUCH RAIN WHICH MOST KIND OF

WEATHER MODELS ARE NOT EXPECTING NEXT SLIDE THIS IS JUST FROM THE STATE'S 2021 WATER YEAR REPORT

SHOWING KIND OF DROUGHT CONDITIONS INTENSIFYING ACROSS MUCH OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES.

SO NOT JUST CALIFORNIA, BUT THE STATE IMPORTS AND USES WATER FROM THE COLORADO RIVER AS WELL. AND YOU CAN SEE THOSE STATES AS WELL ARE EXPERIENCING EXTRAORDINALLY DRY AND HOT CONDITIONS. WE ARE IN THE SECOND YEAR, KIND OF JUST FINISHED THE SECOND WATER YEAR AT THE END OF SEPTEMBER

of drought conditions. And for those who might remember the 2012 to 2016 or so drought,

we are pretty much right where we were at in 2016 at the end of the drought before it rained in 2017 and kind of ended that drought. We're in very dire conditions only two years into this

drought. And I'll point out that the last year, the last water year that ended in September,

SEPTEMBER 30TH WAS THE SECOND DRIEST YEAR IN CALIFORNIA IN RECORD KEEPING IN OVER 120

YEARS OF RECORD KEEPING. NEXT SLIDE. THESE ARE JUST PICTURES TO HELP PEOPLE UNDERSTAND

THE SEVERITY OF A DROUGHT. LAKE OROVILLE IS ONE OF THE MAJOR RESERVERS ALONG THE STATE

WATER PROJECT AND ONE OF THE LARGEST RESERVERS IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. YOU CAN SEE WE'RE

returning to extraordinary drought conditions. They had to actually shut down the hydroelectric

generator at Oroville because the water levels were so low we couldn't even operate the hydroelectric

generator. And this is Sangaro Reservoir on the left. This is one of the reservoirs in the Sangaro

Mountains of Azusa, which is one of the main kind of collection points of water when it snows and

rains in the mountains that we use here. We use a lot of that water here for Monterey Park and the

OTHER STATIES IN THE MAIN SANGRIBUR VALLEY.

AND YOU CAN SEE CONDITIONS ARE VERY, VERY DIRE.

NEXT SLIDE.

THIS IS A MAP OF OR A GRAPHIC OF OUR MAIN BASIN KEY WELL.

SO THERE'S A WELL IN BALDWIN PARK THAT USES THE MAIN KIND OF

BROADER MEASUREMENT OF THE HEALTH OF OUR MAIN SANGRIBUR BASIN,

which is the underground aquifer that we draw from, including the city of Morrie Park draws from. You can see the blue line and the black line are all trending. We try to keep both of those lines between the green and the red line, so that elevation, but we have been for a little while

now below the operating range that we try to keep our water levels at, and we are quickly going to

APPROACH OUR HISTORIC LOW AGAIN, WHICH WE MET A FEW YEARS AGO IN THE BASIN, PROBABLY IN THE NEXT YEAR OR SO. SO WE ARE TRENDING VERY MUCH IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. AND JUST A LONGER NOTE, IF YOU LOOK AT THE DATA, I DON'T HAVE A GRAPHIC OF IT HERE, BUT IF YOU LOOK AT THE DATA THAT GOES

BACK TO THE 60s AND 70s THAT WE HAVE OF THIS MAIN BASIN AND THE KEY WELL, YOU CAN SEE A VERY

MUCH LONG-TERM DOWNWARD TREND, EVEN DESPITE THESE INCREASES THAT YOU SEE HERE IN THE SPIKES.

WHEN IT DOES RAIN, WE SEE SOME RECOVERY, BUT THE LONG-TERM TREND IS PRETTY CLEAR THAT WE ARE

OVERDRAWING THE BASIN AND WE NEED TO COME INTO MORE SUSTAINABLE KIND OF USE OF OUR GROUNDWATER

RESOURCES AND THAT THE LONG-TERM TRENDS WITH CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE MODELS THERE IN TERMS OF

WHAT IT'S GOING TO DO TO OUR PRECIPITATION AND OUR ABILITY TO COLLECT WATER AND OUR EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE TO COLLECT WATER. WE'RE NOT LOOKING GOOD AND WE NEED TO LOOK

AT MORE AND MORE WAYS TO BUILD A MORE RESILIENT WATER SUPPLY.

ALSO TO CONSERVE AND BE A LOT MORE WATER USE EFFICIENT IN OUR COMMUNITIES.

NEXT SLIDE. THIS IS JUST QUICKLY GIVEN WATER CONDITIONS. YOU CAN SEE THIS IS THE AMOUNT OF WATER

THAT WE ARE ALLOCATED FROM THE STATE WATER PROJECT.

THE WATER DISTRICT IS A MEMBER OF THE STATE WATER PROJECT.

SO WE GET WATER FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AND WE GET CERTAIN

ALLOCATIONS DEPENDING ON HOW PRECIPITATION IS IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

IF IT'S GOOD, WE GET MORE WATER FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, GET CLOSER TO 100% OF OUR ALLOCATION.

WHEN IT'S BAD, WE GET LESS. YOU CAN SEE DURING THE DROUGHT FROM 2012 TO 2016,

ALLOCATION DIP AS PRECIPITATION GOT WORSE AND WORSE,

PARTICULARLY IN 2014, 2015. THOSE WERE HISTORIC LOWS.

WE ARE LOOKING LIKE IT AGAIN IN TERMS OF 2020, 2021. WE'RE VERY BAD YEARS FOR OUR ALLOCATION.

THE AMOUNT OF WATER WE WERE ABLE TO MOVE FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA DOWN HERE. AND THE STATE IS TELLING US TO REPAIR FOR A 0% ALLOCATION FOR THE NEXT YEAR, WHICH IS VERY TROUBLING. IT SHOULD BE TROUBLING. NEXT SLIDE.

WHAT ARE WE DOING TO ADDRESS THE WATER SUPPLY SHORTAGE AND DROUGHT CONDITIONS CURRENTLY?

WE'RE AS A WATER DISTRICT LOOKING FOR PLACES AND OPPORTUNITIES TO PURCHASE ADDITIONAL WATER.

WE'RE PURCHASING THE STATE WATER PROJECT TRANSFER. THERE'S NOT VERY MUCH WATER AVAILABLE FOR ANYONE TO MOVE AROUND.

EVERYONE'S TAKING WHAT THEY CAN.

AND WE'VE GOT A CONSULTANT ON BOARD TO LOOK FOR ADDITIONAL SUPPLY, SEE IF ANYONE HAS additional supplies they can sell or additional sources to to put on the essentially on the market

we don't have to match up water use this year water we have to put in the ground with water

that's used this year so we can go into our rears essentially for a little bit but the main sangria

basin will continue to suffer and you'll start to see the levels drop if if our water is strict and

our neighboring water sticks are not putting water additional water into the ground uh wells

will start to to dry up and we'll have to take actions there to mitigate some of those if this

continues in the same direction uh we've negotiated some agreements as well to offset some some water use uh and our our available reserves uh and in june we adopted a water supply resolution and have

ENCOURAGED AND CONTINUE TO WORK WITH CITY WATER UTILITIES INCLUDING RICHARD GONZALES HERE FOR THE MORNING PARK WATER UTILITY TO IDENTIFY ACTIONS THAT WE CAN START TO TAKE IN PARTNERSHIP AND WHERE WE CAN SUPPORT ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY AROUND REDUCING WATER USE AND HOW WE CAN BE MORE EFFICIENT AND THINGS LIKE THAT.

BOTTOM LINE, WE NEED TO CONSERVE WATER. WE NEED TO CONSERVE A LOT MORE WATER THAN WE HAVE BEEN AND WE NEED TO INCREASE THE LEVEL OF AWARENESS IN OUR COMMUNITY AROUND DROUGHT CONDITIONS AND THE NEED TO CONSERVE.

NEXT SLIDE.

LONGER TERM, WE'RE CONTINUING TO LOOK AT DEVELOPING ADDITIONAL SUPPLIES, PARTICIPATING IN THE DELTA INVANCE STUDY AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWS TO MAKE SURE THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO HAVE A SUSTAINABLE AND MUCH MORE RELIABLE SOURCE OF WATER FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.

But we're also looking locally and developing projects there.

We funded in Arcadia, Sierra Madre, Joint Well in the main San Diego Basin that will help us offset some of our water needs.

And we're participating and looking to see where we can and how much water we can get from the Carson Project,

which is the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's recycled water project that they are in the phase of kind of designing and starting the planning of.

hopeful that with the BIPARs infrastructure package passed by Congress and signed by the

president this Monday, there's money in there for a recycled water project. So there's potential to accelerate this Carson project that could bring water for us to water into the Sanguero Valley

and for us to put into the ground for us to use down the line. So hopefully we'll see that project

sooner than later. We've made some infrastructure financing available to the cities and

appreciate the partnership with Monterey Park on that, and I'll mention that a little bit later as well, and we're looking at bringing additional recycled water capability from Central Basin, municipal water district, which serves the city of Montebello, and looking at, and we've worked with Richard and others at the city to look at extending their purple pipeline into, or their RECYCLED WATER LINE INTO THE CITY OF MARIA PARK AND SEEING HOW FEASIBLE THAT IS AND WHAT STEPS NEED TO BE TAKEN TO DO THAT. NEXT SLIDE. SO LOOKING FORWARD TO CONTINUING PARTNERSHIP

WITH THE CITY AND I THINK THERE'S A LOT WE CAN WORK ON. WE HAVE WORKED REALLY WELL TOGETHER

AND APPRECIATE RON AND FRANK LOPEZ AND RICHARD GONZALES'S ENGAGEMENT WITH US AS THE WATER DISTRICT

AND HAPPY TO CONTINUE TO LOOK FOR ADDITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES TO PARTNER AND TO WORK WITH EACH OTHER, NOT JUST ON ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY, BUT ON INFRASTRUCTURE AND WATER USE ISSUES AS WELL.

NEXT SLIDE. JUST REALLY QUICK, A COUPLE OF RECENT HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR PARTNERSHIP AND FRUITS OF THAT.

Monterey Park. We revised $4 million zero interest loan for expanding treatment facilities at the Delta plant for Monterey Park's water facilities, the treatment facilities. So looking forward to groundbreaking, it's already happened, but looking forward to the completion of that project and getting those treatment facilities online. We also made a $50,000 grant available to the city, which the city used. Just made that available, I think, earlier this year. And the city's using that to report. PLACE APPLIANCE TO INCREASE WATER SUFFICIENCY AND CONSERVE WATER. NEXT SLIDE.

WE ALSO MADE MONEY AVAILABLE FOR RATE ASSISTANCE, ESPECIALLY FOR LOW INCOME AND THOSE WHO

WERE DELINQUENT ON THEIR WATER BILLS. SO WE MADE THE BOARD AT THE DISTRICT MADE HALF

A MILLION DOLLARS AVAILABLE TO OUR FOUR CITIES. FOR THESE PROGRAMS, MORNING PARK RECEIVED

$150,000 TO OFFSET SOME COSTS AND TO HELP SUBSIDIZE BILLS FOR THOSE ON LIFELY WATER ACCOUNTS.

So essentially low-income customers who need the assistance, especially during the pandemic, as people were struggling financially. Next slide.

So we're, again, committed to partnering with the city. I think many of you have seen the street banners and other signage kind of throughout the city. We're looking at expanding that as well.

WE'LL BRING BACK ADDITIONAL SIGNIFICATIONS WITH BUSINESSES, ESPECIALLY RESTAURANTS AS WELL,

TO HELP ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO CONTINUE TO CONSERVE WATER AND TO TAKE ADDITIONAL STEPS TO DO THAT.

WE'VE GOT A LONG WAY TO GO ON THAT AND I ALSO WANT TO TALK THROUGH REALLY QUICKLY THE NEXT

COUPLE OF SLIDES, SOME OF OUR REBATE AND INCENTER PROGRAMS TO HELP RESIDENTS AND BUSINESSES SAVE WATER AND ALSO SAVE MONEY. NEXT SLIDE. SO WE HAVE OUR REBATE PROGRAMS AVAILABLE FOR WATER

appliances, so toilets, irrigation controllers, wrap doors, rotating sprinkler heads,

washing machines, and rain barrels, and cisterns. We've got rebates for all those available. You can visit our website, sgvmwe.com, and just apply the application simple if you're

purchasing any of these. You just need to have proof, and you can do the application. You'll get your rebate within a matter of weeks, and look forward to continuing to partner with the city ON GETTING WORD OUT ABOUT THESE REBATE PROGRAMS. NEXT SLIDE. WE'RE ALSO GOING TO BE LAUNCHING IN

JANUARY A DIRECT INSTALL PROGRAM FOR WEATHER-BASED IRRIGATION CONTROLLER. SO HOMEOWNERS, RESIDENTS WHO HAVE IRRIGATION CONTROL PROGRAMS OR SPRINKLER SYSTEMS AND THINGS LIKE THAT CAN REQUEST THE WATER

DISTRICT, OUR CONSULTANT AND OUR CONTRACTOR TO COME OUT AND TAKE A LOOK AND DO A LANDSCAPE SURVEY

and survey of their watering system, their sprinkler system.

And we will install new irrigation controllers and make some minor repairs as needed to help ensure less

that we're not losing water through leaks and things like that

and make sure irrigation controller systems are efficient

and not watering when it's raining, when it just rained and things like that, when the moisture levels are healthy already.

The value for each of these kind of installations goes to about $1,000 for each property.

So we'll be encouraging and look forward to partner

with the city on encouraging residents to apply

and take part in this program once it's launched in January. And we'll be in touch with additional details about that.

We'll also be adding a flow monitor device rebate.

So if folks who are living in apartment buildings

or other places want to install flow meters,

Most residents and businesses are served by one meter, one meter that goes to their system.

If they want to kind of see it flow in a different portion of that and want to install a flow meter,

we're making a rebate available to help people understand their water use a little better

and see that data in a more disaggregated way. So excited about these programs launching. We'll be in touch with the city on how to promote these in the next few months.

NEXT SLIDE. AND I WANT TO MENTION OUR MINI GRANT PROGRAM, OUR OPPORTUNITIES FOR WATER LEADERSHIP IS AVAILABLE.

WE ARE, HAVE BEEN FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS AND WILL CONTINUE TO MAKE GRANTS AVAILABLE RANGING FROM $200 TO $2,000 FOR COMMUNITY GROUPS.

WE'VE MADE THESE AVAILABLE TO SCHOOL GROUPS, TO TEACHERS, TO PTA GROUPS, TO BOY SCOUT GROUPS AND OTHERS WHO HAVE PROJECTS THAT

result in water savings or help educate and raise awareness about water and environmental issues

locally in our communities. So if you know of anyone who's interested or has an idea and just needs the funding to implement that, that will help get people to understand the need to conserve water or the value of water. Like we funded some community gardens and school garden projects, water bottle filling stations, and replacing kind of water fountains, projects

like that from schools to community groups to service clubs.

We're happy to fund and look at those.

The Boys and Girls Club has applied for funding for projects as well.

We're happy to support those and we'd encourage folks to apply and to submit your ideas for these grants.

You can also find information in the application for that on our website, sgvmw.com.

NEXT SLIDE. I'LL END IT THERE. HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL.

APPRECIATE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PRESENT TO THE CITY TODAY AND LOOK FORWARD TO CONTINUING

OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CITY GOING FORWARD. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, THOMAS.

SO I SEE SOME HANDS GOING ON. COUNCILMEMBER CHEN.

Thank you. Thank you, President Wong, for your presentation. It's good to know there's a lot of programs. But I remember, oh, and I want to urge all the residents to take advantage

of all those programs that you just mentioned, get some grants and do some savings of waters. Now, I remember like five, six years ago when the last drought, big one, and the water district did have some grants for change the lawn instead of grass to convert to native plants or water resist plants.

So do you have this grant this time?

So we don't currently have a turf replacement program. During the last drought, I think around 2013, 2014, the state made money available for turf replacement as well. And then some of our neighboring cities have a different water district that made some money available as well.

so we helped residents who were interested tap into the state funds that were available

the state has not made additional funding available at this time for turf replacement

we are on the outlook for that and as soon as a program like that comes and funding becomes

available we will definitely make that information and share that information with the city to help

get that out to residents and businesses but we are looking and starting to think through what

other programs and funding we can make available to help folks in the city as we start to push more water conservation and awareness, that will definitely be something on the table for us to consider building up a program for.

Yeah, because since the last draft, we understand that the home use of water is pretty limited. And actually, the lawn consumes a lot of water. So it's important to reduce water through, you know, not just conserve yourself. I mean, even if you don't take a bath, you won't use really that much water. But watering the lawn for 10 minutes, there's a lot of water, you know, wasted. So if you can consider some grants or some assistance to do the lawn or some other areas. And I think, and I would like to ask the city manager, if the district is coming up with this kind of grant, can the city do some matching funds for those programs? Is it possible that we can consider? I mean, no commitments, of course, at this time, but can we think about it? Or can we have some means to do some matching programs so that we can provide more incentive for our residents to save more water? So City Manager?

May I have a report? Council Member Chan, we can definitely look into doing some type of incentive. I know when we do something like that where we are providing funding from our enterprise fund, there is some legalities behind that, but we can probably work through that. I know our city attorney is really good on advising us what legally we can and can't do. So I think when the time comes, we can definitely work something out.

Okay, that's good to know.

So let's work on it and let's conserve water and help to make our lives better. And then one more question is that, now I know that the East Coast and South, they have a lot of rains. and so is there any way to divert those water that they have surplus and their floodings and transport those to last I think there's some ideas been talking about for a long time but because it's expensive and you know but we've been doing oil pipelines but can we do water pipelines what do you think is the is it A CRAZY IDEA OR IS IT VISIBLE? WHAT'S YOUR OPENION?

I THINK IT WILL BE VERY UNLIKELY THAT WE WILL SEE ANY OTHER CONVEYANCE OR PIPELINE KIND OF PROJECTS TO MOVE WATER FROM OUTSIDE THE REGION INTO CALIFORNIA AND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. I THINK OUR EXISTING PIPELINES AND CONVEYANCE INFRASTRUCTURE FROM MOVING WATER FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AND EVEN MOVING

water from the Colorado River. Both of those are becoming more and more restrictive in terms of being able to move water. They're not as dependable as they were originally. And

even the Colorado River kind of basin has been in drought conditions for over 15 years now.

And we're seeing some of the Lost levels in the reservoirs along the Colorado River,

or Lake Mead are hitting record lows.

And so going beyond that, I think politically,

beyond kind of those states in the Western US and the wetter states,

from a political perspective, a policy perspective, from a cost perspective,

there are a lot of hurdles there. And I think it's very unlikely, I think, to see those come to fruition.

And the more kind of Lor hanging fruit than those are really, we're looking at recycled water more and more of that and how we can reuse existing kind of water supplies like that. How can we capture more stormwater locally when it does rain instead of letting a lot

of that flush out into the ocean when it rains in the LA basin and being a lot more water efficient. There's a, to your point earlier, there's a lot of water waste in terms of outdoor water issues, especially where we're watering grass and lawns that no one ever steps foot on and would not even notice if we changed out. that landscaping. Those are much easier and steps that we can take and we need to take before we look at those kind of solutions to move water from even further outside the region into our region to solve our water supply problems. I think there are a lot of other options locally that make a lot of sense and that will probably be more cost effective. And then along the coast, they're looking at desalination, of course, as one potential supply

FOR CERTAIN AREAS. YES, OF COURSE. AND I UNDERSTAND ALL THOSE METHODS THAT YOU SAY ARE ALSO EXPENSIVE. BUT OF COURSE YOU'RE WANT TO DO NOTHING'S FREE. YES, THAT'S TRUE. SO, YEAH, THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION. AND LET'S WORK TOGETHER TO CONSERVE WATER. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. AND THEN COUNCIL MEMBER

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? YEAH. YOU CAN HEAR ME NOW, RIGHT? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. So thank you, Thomas, for the presentation. And thank you for your service on the board. You know, I think the message is very clear that we need to really take this drought seriously. Obviously, I know that in years past, when we were on the council, Peter and I, we went through the similar thing. I think I still have my lawn sign about saving water. And, you know, my wife and I, every morning we, you know, fill up a bucket of water before we take the shower so the water gets hot. You know, we use that to flush toilets when necessary. So we've been doing that. But again, I think just the message to the community is that, you know, be aware of your water use and do everything that you can to save water, you know. And again, thank you, Thomas. It was very informative. Oftentimes we don't hear this information enough. And oftentimes we, you know, it's always shocking when we get it, the news when we're in these times of drought. So, you know, we've been through this before, and I think that as long as our city continues to conserve, I remember in terms of the tracking that we were doing very well in our last drought. So, again, we need to encourage the residents to, you know, step up and do what they did before and save water for all of us. So, thank you, Thomas, and I'm glad that you can all hear me now.

Yes, thank you. Mayor Potempo?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Board President Wong. for that very informative presentation. And I also want to acknowledge the very generous support the water district provided during the pandemic in terms of utility support for those who are

answered by public works as well but and you know every little bit helps in terms of conserving water but to what degree are we also um wasting water because of our infrastructure which i imagine there are probably pipes that are very old and may be leaking and i know um i know previously at the city council you know we've allocated funding to uh clear uh uh like over

BRANCHES IN THE PIPES. I'M JUST CURIOUS HOW MUCH OF THAT CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE

IN TERMS OF CONSERVING WATER INFRASTRUCTURE.

YEAH. FRANK AND RICHARD CAN PROBABLY TALK ABOUT THIS AS WELL. ESTIMATES KIND OF NATIONALLY

AND KIND OF REGIONALLY ARE PROBABLY LEAKS IN INFRASTRUCTURE, WATER INFRASTRUCTURE PROBABLY at least five to 10% of a lot of water kind of gets just gets lost through leaks in existing

infrastructure. And replacing infrastructure is extraordinarily important in a critical part of

avoiding water loss. And that's, and I would point out, right, it's not just a loss of water, although in some cases, right, if it's leaking underground in the pipes that are underground, in a sense, right, that just goes back in the water basin, you're going to pump it back out

anyway. So in that sense, I don't know how much of it is truly a loss, but then you're also losing

the amount of energy that you put into treating the water and the cost that goes into that, which is not insignificant if you're just losing water and then you got to bump back out and treat it again. But I don't know if Richard has more specific estimates for water loss in existing

modern park infrastructure. Good evening, Council Member Lo. Yes, it's about 10% right now, and we are working to mitigate that. We have some things going on behind the scenes that we're looking to bring forth and start tackling every type of loss that the city has. As these Senate bills and Assembly bills come to fruition in the next couple of years, there will start becoming fines that will be associated with water waste and water loss. There's going to be an account for everything we pull from the ground and what we sell to our customers and whatever's in between, that's the loss that we will be charged with. So we are definitely working and I think we'll be coming to you here shortly with some ideas and we've been putting some work in for the past five or six months to get to this point. So we are addressing your question and concerns. It's just, everything just takes a little bit of time. Okay. Well, thank you for the update,

Richard. Thank you. Thank you. So thank you, everyone, for your time. Yeah. Thank you, President Wong, yeah, for your presentations. And yeah, thanks for all the good information THAT SHARE WITH OUR RESIDENTS. LET US KNOW IN THE FUTURE HOW WE CAN PARTNER TOGETHER AND KEEP US UPDATED. THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU, MAYOR. IF I CAN JUST SAY ONE LAST THING.

I KNOW THERE IS AN ITEM ON THE AGENDA FOR STAFF RECOMMENDING DECLARING A STAGE 2 DROUGHT

DECLARATION IN THE CITY OF MARIE PARK. I WANT TO ADD MY VOICE IN SUPPORT OF THAT TO HELP ENCOURAGE AND RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT OUR EXISTING DROUGHT AND DRY CONDITIONS AND THE NEED TO CONSERVE.

SO I HOPE THAT HELPS AND HOPE THE COUNCIL WILL PASS THAT STAFF RECOMMENDATION FOR A DECLARATION. WE'LL LOOK FORWARD TO CONTINUE PARTNERING WITH THE CITY AND STAFF IN THAT.

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH. OKAY. SO MOVING DOWN TO OUR AGENDA. So for item presentation, item 1C,

a word of excellence by GFOA.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members. We have a couple slides here.

And before we get to the next slide,

on November 11th, last Thursday, I received an email from the Government Finance Officers Association congratulating the City of Monterey Park for the award of excellence. Next slide, please.

And the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting to the City of Monterey part. And I will highlight this. And normally, our management services director would not bring

this forward. But I thought it was prudent for us to highlight this is we do know that in 2020,

during the pandemic, the peak of the pandemic, we're also in the middle of transferring

our legacy system to a new financial system that would help us be much more efficient in accounting

purposes. Well, with that being said, we were doing that at the same time during the pandemic.

And lo and behold, as of last Thursday, we received this award. So I think, you know,

congratulating that department is something that we can be proud of, especially when we're talking about bringing on a new finance system. So we're excited about this award. This award we've received in the past pretty much consecutively, but this award probably means even more knowing that we have changed our financial reporting system to a munis system. And I just would like to bring this to light to city council and thank you for supporting the change of the system and embracing the new reporting system that we have. So that's the first award that received. Next slide, please. And then the second award that we received, I'm sorry, next slide.

The second award we received was actually directed specifically to our Director of Management Services. This is the Award of Financial Reporting Achievement, has also been awarded specifically to Director of Management Services, Director Martha Garcia. So not only are we proud of what we achieved with our system, but also she was acknowledged by GFOA for her duties during the time that we implemented the system. So that's the gist of my presentation, and I'd just like to bring this to council's attention. And thank you. I don't know if there's any questions you have, but I know Martha's on the line if you want to ask for any questions, but thank you for this time. That's the end of my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, City Manager. Council Member Haslam.

Yeah, I just want to congratulate and thank our staff for all their hard work. I know that, you know, these awards really reflect the high caliber of staff that we have. I know that when we had our previous financial manager, we received awards as well, but I don't recall ever getting any of our staff getting something specific as Martha did. So congratulations on that, Martha. I want to put a shout out to our entire finance team and to thank them for their continued hard work. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. And then any other comments? So I really want to appreciate Martha. I think, yeah, it's a very good addition to a wonder party and especially that she is new. and I still remember that she hosts the whole budget meeting herself. And so imagine that all the information from different departments that she kind of nailed the whole thing and understand inside out. And it's amazing that she just first joined our team and can already host the whole budget meeting. So greatly appreciated and also folLod with a lot of awards. And I know she did really well before, So we kind of stole her from somewhere. And, yeah, really excited to, you know, continue working with her and hopefully with a more award and recognition to come. So I saw some hands. And Councilmember Fred Sunoso.

Yeah, just want to echo my fellow council members in congratulating Martha and her staff for this award. I don't know a whole lot about governmental accounting.

I mean, had a little bit of taste of it in college and advanced accounting, and it's a completely different animal than the type of public accounting that I used to do. So congratulations and continue the good work. Thanks, Martha.

Thank you. And Mayor Protello.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And again, I just want to add to the chorus of accolades. Again, thank you, Martha, and your team.

and then also because you came on board while we were dealing with the once a century pandemic and

helping us get through i mean we're still in the middle of a pandemic but but just to get us through and i think that we're very fortunate to have you as part of our team in the city thank you

so okay thank you so much mata and um yeah continue keep up the oh council member Chen

I just want to echo the sentiment of the council members, but I want to emphasize that it's a team effort.

Everyone in the department deserves the recognition. So just congratulations to the whole management team and keep up the good work and continue to service the city.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Martha. Keep up the good work. Thank you.

Okay, so move down to our agenda.

So we don't have any old business, and we have the consent calendar from 3A to 3I.

Knowing that 3D, we're no longer.

So we only approve 3A, 3B, 3C, except 3D.

So anyone want to pull any item?

Okay. Council Member Freston Nelson?

I'd like item 3C pulled, please.

Okay. Okay. So any other council member? Okay. If not, then may I get a motion to approve 3A, 3B, 3E, 3F, 3G, 3H, and 3I?

I would like to make a motion to approve all the items, all the calendar items except 3C, which I should pull. Right. I'll second.

and 3D. So any second?

I'll second.

Okay. So Vincent City Clark, please follow.

Thank you. Council Member Peter Chan. Yes. Council Member Hans Lam. Yes. Council Member Fretz-Nos. Aye. Mayor Proctum Henry Lo. Aye. And Mayor Yvonne Yu.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Thank you. Thank you. So let's look at 3C, item 3C, resolution to continue to extend the existence of local emergency and authorized public meeting via teleconferencing. Council Member Fresno.

I just wanted to maybe have a discussion, seeing maybe if we want to start meeting live in council chambers for our council meetings. I think I'm open to discussion on that.

Okay. City manager, you have any input?

Not so much input. I thought there was some type of report that you needed. But as you know, that this is required by 361 that we report back every 30 days to reemphasize the teleconferencing. But the discussion that council member Sonosa wants to have is really a discussion that you all will have to do between yourselves.

Okay, so any other questions? Council member Hansen?

Yeah, I'm okay either way personally, but I think maybe, you know, we've only got two meetings left in the year. So, you know, if we do want to move forward with in public meetings, maybe in January, and then hopefully, you know, that people are worried about the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the possible surge with the COVID. So I think in January would be a good time to start after the holidays and after we can be certain that there's no spike because of the holiday gatherings. That's my input, but I'm good either way. But if we do, I think January would be a good starting point.

I agree with that I think last year was a spike after the holidays and the COVID went up so we should kind of wait to see what happens this year but I would like to see a meeting in person because it just seems like it would be a lot smoother of a meeting and more personable and I'd just like to see everybody's smiling face in person right?

that's all I got to say, thank you

Sure. And then Mayor Pro Tem Lo?

I was thinking Madam Mayor and thank you Councilman Stenoso for bringing this up. You know, I would probably also make a suggestion to all of us on the council as well as staff,

you know, to see also what, how some of our neighboring...

represented the city of Monterey Park to accept an award from the Garvey School District, thanking them for their partnership with the city of Monterey Park. It was done in the main auditorium, but they had done a hybrid format where the meeting was still broadcast by Zoom, but the Board of Education and the administration met, well,

in person and what they had established were plastic barriers between everyone, I guess,

for protection.

And because the district had the benefit of having a very cavernous auditorium, you know, they were able to invite the public to sit in.

So, you know, but it would be interesting to perhaps, I think it's important to have

this conversation now and because again, it actually, we have three meetings, I think two more council meetings, and then I think the 28th, where we do the rotation of the

mural pro temp positions. But I think maybe perhaps we should probably start looking at

what are formats that would allow us to be able to

meet in the chambers again and even to the extent it's possible

however it is possible and safely with the audience being able to

participate in our meetings as well.

Okay. Okay, so everyone's okay with

staying with the assume at this point until

maybe after the holiday. Council Member Chen?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And

well, I'm okay with in-person meetings, but I'm also aware of the you know, lately there's some uptick on the

coronavirus

cases.

And so different people have different kind of standards or, you know, level of adaptance to, you know, the exposure.

And so I would suggest to have a hybrid kind of council meetings.

So anyone or the council members or staff members or audience, if they want to come to the council chamber in person, then they have to show proof of vaccination or proof of the negative tests, that kind of precautions and temperature measuring, that kind of things that we can do. But if anyone does not feel safe, then he can stay home and do the meeting on Zoom. So I think it just depends on each person's preference. So I would suggest that. And I want to tell you that I did take my third booster shot Sunday.

And I'm okay. I slept from 9 o'clock to 6.30.

I slept over nine and a half hours, and I feel great on Tuesday.

But Monday, I was, you know, kind of tired and so forth, and that's why I missed the conference under the WhatsApp app because I was not feeling quite well at that time.

But after the sleep, I'm back to normal. And so, yeah, so everyone has their own level of confidence.

And so I have no problem either way. But I think we also have to respect everyone's choice. So that's all I want to say. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So how about first and also, would you like to make a motion to approve item 3C?

Okay. Okay.

So, Madam Mayor, I'm sorry, before we do that though,

I mean, so just so I'm clear, so is it then the desire of the council

to at least start exploring to see how ready we are, we can be to do something in person in January?

I mean, that seems to be-

Yeah, also council member first, and also mentioned about after the holiday season, let's see what the number is, so that we can make decisions from that point on, right?

And I would like to suggest that since Mayor Pro Tem's,

you know, transfer to the mayorship,

it's tentatively set on, what, December 28th?

And maybe we can use that as a starting point. Just my suggestion.

Any other suggestions?

Okay. Okay.

How about Mayor Pro Temlo? What do you think?

I think it's not a bad idea.

I think, well, perhaps this is something that we need to have more conversation with the city staff because again i think it might be a good test run uh uh but perhaps you know we also have to make sure that we have the capacity um to do it in a hybrid format that would be um my thoughts and so i don't know if that means this is a conversation we need to continue for the next

few weeks um um so that uh and and and some ways too um um as i said i mean it may

because the new year will actually be up very soon actually i would say i would imagine so i think that if we really want to like you know if the numbers look reasonable come january then you know we probably should have some type of plan about how do we intend to um transition uh back to using the council chambers so i don't think it's a bad idea uh to use perhaps as a test

run. But I would also say, Mayor Pratt, let's also look at whether or not it is logistically doable in the next few weeks.

And the city manager, do you have any input on that?

Just some additional comments for you all to consider is because of 361, we will have to report back to City Council on the same item at the second meeting in December. At that time, we should have a pretty good measuring stick on what's happening out there in the in the pandemic world in LA County. Also, that will give us the ability to pivot whether we are doing some type of hybrid, you know, outgoing mayor, incoming mayor on the 28th. We can figure that out at that meeting. And then we still have the ability to post a special meeting. Don't forget, usually what ends up happening is the first meeting in January is usually a dark meeting because of all the holidays and us being able to prepare any staff reports for that first meeting in January. So really our first meeting in January would be January 19th, 2022. So just some comments.

Okay. And so in the beginning of December, then we will have a better idea of can we do it at the end of December, right?

I have a question.

Okay, council member Hounsner.

Yeah, just really quick. If we pass this ordinance again, or can adopt this resolution at this time, even if it's before the end of the month, it doesn't force us to have to have meetings by Zoom, right? It's just, if we wanted to pivot within the next month, we could regardless of whether we passed this or not. Is that correct?

You're correct.

Okay, so it seems that what would be a wise thing to do is to adopt the resolution and give some direction to city council to, I'm sorry, for city staff to come up with a plan and have some discussions on whether or not you want to go to city hall on the 28th.

and then also a plan for hybrid style meetings starting January.

And, you know, I don't know if it's even, is it necessary? Well, I think it's probably better to pass it because if we cannot have that prepared in time for in-person meetings, we would still be within the law in terms of being able to conduct the meeting in Zoom if we need to. So those are my comments.

Okay, can we get a motion to approve item 3C then?

I have a comment or a question. So council member Lang talked about December 28th. I know that's the date that Henry is supposed to take office. Are we talking about having like an inaugurational ceremony in council chambers or is that just a, did I misunderstand that?

I think what I'm hearing from our city manager is that as we move into December, we'll have a good idea whether or not we can pivot to it or continue to have it via Zoom.

But I think the conversation which we're having right now is at least to start the process about how do we eventually transition so that we, with the expectation that we will be moving our meetings, you know, have been willing that as trends stay stable and that it is safe to do so in the council chambers.

I guess that's how I see us moving forward.

Okay.

That is what I'm hearing.

All right. So, American, the motions to approve item 3C then? I make a motion to accept item 3C. Okay.

Vincent, would you please call me?

Thank you. Council Member Peter Chan?

Yes.

Council Member Hans Leung? Yes. Council Member Fred Sinoso? Aye. Mayor Proctor Henry Lo. Aye. And Mayor Yvonne Yu. Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. Thanks. Okay, so let's continue item 4B, public hearing 4B, continuation of a public hearing regarding considerations of the resolutions of the City Council of the City of Monterey, California, confirming the 2021 annual report and the nephew of assessment for downtown business improvement district number one for program year 2022. So that is the continuation of the public hearing. May I get the... So should I actually open the... Actually, the hearing is continued, so it's still open. And so do we have any additional staff reports or we just need to file and receive?

Madam Mayor, members of the council,

if you would kindly open the public hearing and then continue to the date certain based upon a vote.

Okay, so let's open the public hearing and any questions or any public speakers?

Deputy City Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Audience, if you want to speak on this public hearing item, this is the time to do so. Please use the raise hand feature or if you're on the phone, press star 9 at this time.

Madam Mayor, I do not see anybody in the audience that wants to speak and I do not have any

running communications on fire.

Okay.

Thank you.

And based upon that, Madam Mayor, if you would just keep the public hearing open and continue

it to that date. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. So can I get the motions to approve the continued public hearing for the actually to December 1st, 2021. Make it a motion to do that. So move. Okay. And so second. I second. So city

clerk, would you please call it? Thank you. Council member Peter Chen. Yes. Council member Hans Liang. Yes. Council member Fred Cernoso. Aye. Mayor Potem Henry Lo. Aye. And Mary

Yvonne Yu? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. And for number 5A, the new business ordinance requiring reductions of organic waste disposal and participations in St. Gabriel Valley Council of Governments Regents Food Recovery Program. So, all right, so the staff report, can we have the staff report? Frank Lopez? The four is yours. Hi, yes, good evening, Mayor, Mayor Patam,

Council members, Frank Lopez, Director of Public Works. Yeah, the item before you tonight, we're recommending to introduce and waive the first reading of an ordinance amending Monterey Park Municipal Code to add Chapter 6.08.290 that mandates reducing organic waste. We're also asking that you authorize the city manager to execute Amendment No. 1 to the agreement with the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments for participation in tasks 5 and 6 of the Regional Food Recovery Program. and also appropriating $110,800 for the cost of the TAS 5 and 6 of the Food Recovery Program from Refuse Enterprise Fund 421. You've probably heard a lot recently about SB 1383. It requires local jurisdictions to adopt an ordinance to implement the short-lived climate pollutants organic waste reduction regulations set forth by the California Department of Resources and Recovery or CalRecycle. This Senate bill requires the state to reduce organic waste, includes food waste, green waste, paper products by 75% by 2025. So the proposed ordinance adds the chapter as mentioned previously to the municipal code so that we have those requirements for collection and recycling of organic waste so we can comply with the law. You know, some of the items that are some of the requirements of SB 1383 include providing organic waste collection to all residents and businesses, establishing an edible food recovery program that recovers edible food from the waste stream, conducting outreach and education, including to those high generators or haulers, food recovery organizations, procuring recycled organic waste products such as compost, mulch, and also participating with LA County's efforts in evaluating the city's readiness and capacity to implement SB 1383. I can answer any questions that you may have tonight. Also, I'd like to note we have our director of government affairs Ed Chen from Athens who can also help answer questions. We've been working with Athens to make sure that we'll be in compliance in addition to this ordinance. So that concludes my report and as I mentioned we can be available for questions.

Thank you. Any questions from any council member? Actually, before I do that, let me open up and see if any public speakers available. Deputy City Clerk, do we have any public speakers?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Deputy City Clerk stepped away. I will be helping with public comment. If there's any public comment on this item, please use the raise your hand feature or press star six to raise your hand if you're using the phone.

THERE'S NO PUBLIC COMMENT ON THIS ITEM, MADAM MAYOR?

OKAY. THANK YOU. OKAY. SO, COUNCIL MEMBER FURSTEN-NUSSEL?

SO, HOW WOULD THIS NEW ORDINANCE IMPACT THE NORMAL RESIDENT?

Ed, can you help us?

Did you want that specifically

to be answered by Ed Chen,

Council Member Snoroslav?

Maybe both of you guys could chime in on this.

How is this going to impact the normal resident? Yes, Councilmember Sornoso. The City of Monterey Park, through its 2017 request for proposal, has done the biggest step in terms of complying with Senate Bill 1383. And that is the ability for residents to put their organics in along with their greenways. So that is usually the most costly of item, but the City of Monterey Park had already taken care of that as the staff report well noted.

So to answer your question, Councilmember Sornoso, there's going to be increased awareness, outreach, education efforts on the part of Athens, as well as all the other haulers, all the other jurisdictions throughout the state, because it is a statewide law with a deadline that we all must comply with.

So the biggest change that residents will see is the increased outreach and education effort when it comes to putting organics in with the greenways.

Okay, so that means that our food waste needs to go into the green barrel instead of the black barrel, correct?

Well, what it means is that, yeah, residents have to – the requirement is to separate out food waste.

As you know, food waste is one of the biggest components in landfills that creates methane,

and that is one of the biggest components that they're trying to resolve the methane from landfills. And so that's why the food waste is now being diverted. So they're trying to divert it away from going into the landfill.

And then as I recall from our tour, I think you guys are doing that at your plant, right? That is, I mean, you guys go and separate everything out. So even if it doesn't go into the green right now, it's still getting separated out. but it's being processed, correct?

Yes, sir. We have made the infrastructure investment in our material recovery facility

through the organics separation press, which will really wring out a lot of the liquid, other organic waste that is currently in the waste stream. But starting January 1st, we're really trying to push all residents and businesses to comply

and to really follow organics out of the landfill and into the green waste container.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Mayor, you may be muted.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay, Council Member Chen, you have any questions?

Thank you. And I know that Athens has been sorting out all the wastes in your plant.

And of course, everything comes with a price.

Now, just with this new ordinance, we need to separate the food waste.

And I know that you've been doing it, but if the residents or the commercial, like restaurants and food plants, if they separate the food waste to the specification that, you know, somehow is corrected to them,

will that reduce the costs to the commercial companies and also to the residents?

Will that be happening? Well, Councillor Frank, Director Lopez, would you like me to take this one?

Well, I guess I think I want to say we're not exactly there yet. You know, we've been in discussions with Athens. At this point, the ordinance is really just making sure we implement the regulations, Councilman Chen. We're doing several different things, like working with the COG, which is part of the reason we included the amendment to the agreement. You mentioned the commercial. We talked about the Tier 1, Tier 2 food generators. And, yeah, that will divert those food wastes away from the landfills. Obviously, there may still be some work involved in getting that separated. And we're still in discussions with Athens on that. But they've been a great help in, you know, helping us understand what it would take to get that done.

Okay, thank you. And then a question will be directed to our city attorney, Carl. Is that with this new ordinance coming in place, eventually we may have to adopt it because it's in the works for some time.

I mean, in previous council meetings, I've been stating that because of the COG, because we are also in cooperation with the COG in implementing this ordinance.

So my question is that with this additional service to Athens, has any impact on the existing contract that we have that we signed, I think, what, four

or five years ago? That we have a seven-year contract with this additional.

So what's the impact to the existing contract?

Councilmember Chen, members of the council, this ordinance is really the only thing that's

on the agenda as Mr. Lopez has already said the issues with the franchise with all of the haulers

is a separate item to answer your question directly Athens certainly believes that it's

going to have an impact on the contract the city council has not yet taken any action with regard to it the proposal from Athens with regard to how it's going to affect customers is still being

reviewed by city staff and by our solid waste consultants.

So I don't have an answer to your question at the moment because it's still being processed,

but it certainly will be on a future agenda item. The reason that this ordinance is on the agenda now is because state law takes effect

January 1st, 2022, and we must have regulations in place in order to address that state law.

So I think the best way I could answer your question is stay tuned.

Okay. All right. Okay. I'll take that. And so, well, actually I have some other questions, but since the city attorney has said that, and so I will keep those questions in the appropriate time.

So thank you, Ed, for coming to the council meetings, and good to see you. So, well, take good care. Thank you.

Thank you. And any other questions from council member? Mayor Potemolo, do you have any questions? No? Okay. So if we don't have any questions, may I get a motion to approve of your 5A?

Yeah, I'll move to. Go ahead. I'll move to approve.

Okay. Okay, I'll second. Okay, sure. Vincent, would you please call me?

Thank you. Council Member Peter Chan? Yes. Council Member Han Seon? Yes. Council Member Fred Cernoso? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Henry Lo? Yes. And Mayor Yvonne Yu? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you. And so, moving right along to item 5B, amendments to Monterey Park Municipal Goal Chapter 2.28 regulating the personnel board. So Christine, the floor is yours.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of the council. I'm Christine Tamikawa, your Director of Human Resources and Risk Management. The item before you is modifying the responsibilities of the personnel board.

As Council is aware, staff has been reviewing and evaluating the different city commissions and boards to determine each group's efficiency, effectiveness, and role.

During COVID-19, some of the daily recruitment tasks typically approved by the personnel board were redirected for the city manager's approval due to the emergency order.

This change streamlined the job duties and tasks performed by city staff for recruitment purposes and assisted the city departments by receiving approval to move forward with

recruitment processes in a more expeditious timeframe, instead of waiting for the next

personnel board meeting to convene and receive approval.

operationally and procedurally the recommended revisions and the municipal code reflect the

more efficient process for daily recruitment tasks performed by city staff. The changes allow the

human resources staff and city departments to focus on recruitment efforts to fill vacancies

in an effective manner. Timeliness and efficiency in recruitment processes are important for keeping being qualified candidates moving forward. There is no change for the personnel board's

role and responsibilities related to the non-sworn association appeal processes, that's employee

grievances or disciplinary items. The sworn associations have different appeal processes

in place that does not involve the personnel board as stated in their respective memorandums

OF UNDERSTANDINGS. STAFF RECOMMENDED COUNCIL TO INTRODUCE AND WAIVE THE FIRST READING OF

THE ORDINANCE, AMENDING THE MUNICIPAL CODE, REGULATING THE PERSONNEL BOARD RESPONSIBILITIES.

STAFF IS AVAILABLE. I'M AVAILABLE FOR ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE RELATED TO THIS ITEM.

THANK YOU. OKAY. THANK YOU. AND ANY QUESTIONS?

Hold on, let me, so Deputy City Clerk, do we have any public speakers?

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Audience, if you want to speak on this item, now is the time to do so. Please use the raise hand feature or if you're on the phone, press star 9 at this time.

Madam Mayor, I do not see any speakers for the audience,

and we do not have any communication for this item as well.

Thank you. Council Member Lam, you have questions?

Yeah, I just want to be clear. I understand that we're talking about a new resolution, but I'm not clear on what the change is. Is it just excluding the sworn staff from the ordinance?

What's the change?

No, the major change is how...

to change a classification. So we are modifying that for the city manager to approve it instead of going to the personnel board for approval.

Okay, and has there been any, was there any input from the personnel board or any comments from them regarding that?

There were no comments from the personnel board. We did talk to them about it over the time

and they didn't have any issues with the change.

Okay, thank you. Okay. May I put down below? You have any questions? No? Okay. And then, so Christine, actually, from my understanding, that personnel board, how many people do they have right now?

Currently, there were four people on the board. The chairperson has recently submitted his resignation, so we are now down to three folks on the personnel board.

Okay, so would that be an issue for three? Is that okay just to keep it?

We modified the municipal code to have three actually be the amount of people that we would need. So we should be okay.

Okay. So they have no questions about it. And so the process will just be simplified and make it approved by the city manager, right? Correct.

And we will still report on a regular basis to the personal board with those changes. Okay.

So right now, how often do they have meetings?

We are supposed to have a meeting once a month. But from my time being here, I think we've only met twice because of the amount of items we needed to take.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. And Council Member Chen?

Thank you.

And have you been consulting with the General Employees Union representative on this item?

Yes.

So all the non-sworn associations, which are three of them, I did talk with each of them,

and they were all okay with keeping the personnel board.

That was their main concern about keeping the personnel board for their appeal processes. but they were okay with the changes for the recruitment items

and they understood the efficiency there. Okay. So long they were notified and they understand exactly what was going on,

then it's okay.

And I see in the staff report that you change from a monthly meeting

to an annual meeting.

That means they only meet once a year. So is there any reason behind that?

Bias removing needing to go get approval for recruitment items, we don't need to meet as regularly with the personnel board.

For appeal processes, we can meet for a special meeting if needed when it does come up. But having the annual meeting would then just kind of be the check-in in terms of what we've done over the past couple of months, few years, to let the personnel board where everything is at.

Now, I always believe in citizens' participation and also openness, transparency, and so forth. So I think one annual meeting is kind of too long. So I would like to, and, you know, according to the records and so forth, And under this pandemic situation, monthly meeting may be too excessive. But I would like to suggest instead of annual meeting, can we do it like quarterly meetings? At least you have some kind of reports, although there may be not much going on. And I hope there won't be any griffins, you know, finding, of course, you know, that I really don't like to see them.

that when you file a Griffin's report, it means something's wrong somewhere. So I don't really hope to see that. But even without that, a regular quarterly meeting, you'll just report the status and everything's fine and meet each other. I think that may be prudent instead of just an annual report. So it's my suggestions.

and I hope if you know you can we can all consider that too so I can see a city attorney or something

to say yes council member Chan and members of the council just for clarification the proposed change

to the municipal code states that the board must hold at least one regular meeting per year but

but it can add additional regular meetings by its own resolution.

So the board itself can make a determination of when additional regular meetings may be held during the year.

So it's not just special meetings. It's not just one regular meeting during the year.

That's the minimum that the board must meet during the year.

So to your point, Council Member Chen,

if the board believes that they should have a regular meeting on a monthly basis, a quarterly basis, or whatever, the board can actually adopt its own resolution to make that determination and then follow its

own board resolution the council of course can add change the municipal code i think staff believe that this was the most efficient way of doing it and so it puts really the power of how

many times that the board would meet on a regular basis in the board's own hands happy to answer any

questions. I have a question, city attorney, to follow about what you just said. So the board actually can decide how often they meet, but then the board, but then we, our staff, can cancel the meeting if there's not much agenda according to the staff, right? Correct. So one of the issues

with all boards and commissions, of course, is that the council sets what the responsibilities

are for those boards and commissions, sets up the rules in it for them in the municipal code and by

city council resolution, and then the boards and commissions are left on their own to determine

how to conduct their meetings to some extent. But the issue becomes one of time and resource management from the staff position, which is simply having a board meet for the purpose of having the board meet obviously costs the city time and money because there needs to be a staff

liaison there and you have to start putting together an agenda for that board to consider.

The additional consideration is that the board members themselves are volunteers. They don't

get compensated for the most part for their participation on these boards and commissions. And so staff wants to be cognizant of their time as well. So to answer your question directly,

if there is nothing for a board or commission to consider, the staff liaison is responsible for

contacting the chairperson of that board or commission, informing that individual that

there's nothing on an agenda. And so it would be the preference of the staff member that the

meeting be canceled because there's nothing to discuss and then work it out with the chairperson.

So I know that there has been discussion in the past about this simply being in staff's hands. That's not really the case. The issue has really to do with the content of what kind of matters are going to be on the agenda for discussing by the board or commission. So that's a very long way of talking about this particular personnel board, but the point I was trying to make only was the municipal code, if amended by the city council, would require one regular meeting per year, but the board could add additional regular meetings pursuant to a board resolution adopted by the board. That doesn't mean that they would have each one of those meetings simply because of the previous discussion that I've laid out. If there's nothing on the agenda, then there's really no sense in having a meeting. But I'm happy to answer any other questions.

What if there's public communications that people wanted to show up and just to speak, you know, to the commissioner? So we actually, if the staff canceled the meeting, then there's no more public communications, you know, for that period of time, right?

I can only speak with my personal experience with the personnel board.

With regard to the personnel board itself, in my experience, there's never been public comment that's been associated with the personnel board.

And that's because it is established for a very specific purpose, and that's to address concerns by public employees.

And so there would be, although there is public comment that's provided on the public agenda, I'm not aware of any individual from the general member of the public coming in and providing public comment. I can't speak to other boards and commissions other than from the Planning Commission. I mean, the Planning Commission obviously has lots of public comment when it has meetings.

But just for the general public comment, ordinarily, in my experience, they come to their elected officials.

And that's the city council. And so the city council meetings are actually the best form for that type of public comment.

I really and I would have to defer to the staff liaisons, the department directors for determination with regard to other boards and commissions.

I have not attended previously a library board meeting, but I can imagine that that would also have public comment.

It is a semi-autonomous board that's substantially similar to the city council with regard to only the library.

So I could certainly see that happening.

But in terms of all the advisory boards and commissions to the city council,

I would think that it's extremely unusual for a member of the public simply to come and provide public comment to that board or commission, unless they had invested interest in something that was being discussed by that board or commission.

So that's a very long explanation of simply my experience. And again, you'd have to ask individual department directors about their experience with their particular boards.

Okay, thank you. Any questions from any other council member?

I got a question.

Council member Preston Nussel. What's the makeup of the personal board who sits on the board?

Currently, all the members are community at large.

I'm sorry, what at large?

Community at large. So they volunteer from the community to participate on the personnel board.

Okay. I thought I heard something about being compensated or not being compensated.

So they're all volunteers. So none of them are compensated.

I thought I heard the city attorney say something about, like

did I understand you incorrectly that you said something that they don't want

maybe possibly having a meeting because there was compensation involved or overtime or something maybe I was

yeah councilmember so perhaps I misspoke the all the boards and commissions except perhaps the planning commission I can't speak off the top of my head

to remember if they receive a

stipend per meeting but all of the other boards and commissions are complete volunteers. They do not receive any

compensation for sitting on those boards and commissions. So they do it out of the interest

of providing public service. All right. So when you say volunteers, volunteers from the community or could that also include city workers? So if you look at

Let's see. Page 167 of 182.

67, 182. I guess like Lister.

It will talk about the creation of the personnel board.

The proposed regulations states that it would be a personnel board created with three members appointed by the city council pursuant to this chapter, subject to Chapter 2.82 of the code.

So Chapter 2.82 of the municipal code establishes the general rules for how boards and commissions operate within the city of Monterey Park. And so what the basic qualifications are that you have to be a resident and you have to be eligible to vote. Those are the two qualifications that are needed for most of the boards and commissions. There are no specialized qualifications required.

167, under Appointment A, it says the city council will appoint the members of the person board in the following manner. one member of the community at large, one member from a list of three persons nominated by the non-sworn employees of the city, and one member proposed by the city manager.

Correct. City employees themselves are not eligible for sitting on boards and commissions.

One member from a list of three persons nominated by the non-sworn employees of the city. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lam, you have a question?

Yeah, I just wanted to add a comment after City Attorney clarified that the one-year meeting standard is a minimum. I think that, you know, we talk about having the community involved and transparency and, you know, supporting community volunteers. I think that I'm okay with the one year minimum and to give the commission or the personnel board some autonomy to work with the city and align their schedules as necessary. So that, you know, it's not going to be four meetings and we have to check whether it's going to be, is it canceled or not? You know, like, is there going to be a meeting on that on the, on the second quarter? you know, I think that, you know, to allow the volunteers, the community members to kind of have some time.

also gives them an opportunity to kind of work and schedule their lives accordingly.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?

Well, actually, I haven't finished my questions.

Okay.

City Attorney, can you explain more? Because I want to be clear on that end of your meeting and with Council Member Hans-Diong saying those things. So what can be the language be more specific and more clear?

Because I would like to have the board members involved in deciding

if an additional meetings are needed, other than that required annual meeting,

instead of the staff saying, okay, we have nothing to do. so we don't need to have a meeting and that kind of thing so uh can the board be also be involved

in setting up new meetings as needed so the the responsibilities of the personnel board are listed in the municipal code so if there are no agenda items with regard to those responsibilities that's what I was getting to is that if there is nothing to discuss along the lines of what the duties are and the duties are start being listed on page 168 of 182 if there is nothing to discuss there is from staff's perspective I know this there's no point in having a meeting for the personnel board because the personnel board has no ability to contribute other than as requested by the city manager or by the city council has no ability to contribute anything to the city council or to the city manager other than is listed on the municipal code so it doesn't take public comment

just for the sake of public comment there's it has very specific purpose and that very specific

purpose is starting to be listed on page 168. to answer your question the board itself just like

the city council or the planning commission can adopt its own protocols for how it conducts its

meetings and so along those lines it can adopt a protocol stating that instead of just having one

regular meeting per year we could have four regular meetings per year but that's separate

and apart from the discussion that we were having about what goes on to an agenda and if and if a

meeting is necessary please remember that these meetings are not like city council meetings these These are not elected individuals.

These are not people that answer to any constituency other than to the city council.

The city council appoints these individuals. The city council nominates the individuals.

The city council leans on the individuals to provide advice and support to the city council and to the city altogether.

So from that perspective, it's very unlike the city council or even the planning commission or the library board.

simply these boards are not created to take public input necessarily just like the personnel board

the personnel board is there to help with city employees as opposed to developing public policy

does that make sense from a differentiation standpoint

I keep on looking at my screen I'm sorry because I usually

So, Council Member Chan, the personnel board plays a very different role than maybe other commissions or boards that the city has.

Like the city attorney was specifying, there is a very narrow list of items that the personnel board actually has input on or ability to comment on.

Usually at most personnel board meetings, if there is public comment, a lot of it is coming actually from employees coming to provide public comment based on items that might be on the agenda because it impacts employees and it doesn't necessarily impact the public. And so that's why a lot of times public members don't actually come to provide any type of comment because there's nothing related to the public at these meetings.

It is all really procedural wise.

It's related to recruitment and like looking at a job description and having input on that job description. But still, we have parameters in terms of what the personnel board actually has the ability to approve or not because we have contracts with associations.

And for the most part, those contracts pretty much dictate the way that we have to maneuver with employees and employee law.

Okay. Then I put it in another way.

Oh, Kyle, you have something to say? I was just going to put tag team on her comments, which is this.

There are many cities that don't have personnel boards.

They use, for example, a third-party administrative hearing officer to hear these items in order to make determinations with regard to public employees and help out with classifications and that type of thing. So Monterey Park is actually unique in having a personnel board, which has been here since the 1940s.

And to reemphasize what she's saying, it was created to assist with public employees and to help with the employment process for the city.

That's the entire reason for it existing within the city of Monterey Park.

And let me ask you another question. Say if the board decided to have a meeting for whatever reason or for whatever item, can the staff overrule them and say, we don't want to have a meeting?

oh no the chairperson if the chairperson makes a determination that they should have a special

meeting that just needs to follow the brown act the chairperson can call a special meeting for

whatever is within this what's called the subject matter jurisdiction of that board and the subject matter jurisdiction simply means all the things that are listed here in the municipal code that the city council has authorized but it's not an staff doesn't but the brown act the municipal code and the city council's direction on this is such that it's not staff that's running the meetings it is the boards that are running the meetings in accordance with the parameters that are established by the city council so that's the legal answer to your question okay okay thank you

thank you so um if that's the case okay if that may I'm pro temlo um thank you madam mayor for um

allowing me to ask questions and and well i know this conversation has been mostly

well it is primarily on the personnel board but i am curious um and maybe i can ask it

at another time but i wanted to maybe um piggyback on what customer chen asked but

is this something that all of our commissions have that authority that if the chair decides

there's a pressing matter that they can ask for a meeting and not be countermanded by staff

and if it's not a great question to ask then maybe i can ask it um um later on in the agenda but i'm

curious um if that applies to all of our commissions i will jump in ahead of the city manager on this

from this perspective, which is this agenda items has specifically to do with changing the

responsibilities of the personnel board. If the council wants to have a general discussion about

how boards and commissions are operated, I'm sure that we can put together a future agenda item for

that. What I've heard though on several instances, which I guess I would take exception to,

is the concept that staff is countermanding things or staff is running boards and commissions.

The boards and commissions are established by the city council. The city council controls those boards and commissions.

The council appoints individuals to those boards and commissions.

So really the legal answer to your question is it's up to the city council how it wishes those boards and commissions to be run.

And so from that perspective, staff is going to implement the city council's will on these things.

and the way that staff understands the city council's will with regard to how boards and commissions are run

is by what's in the municipal code and what's adopted by the city council each time a board or commission is created by resolution.

So that's the very legalistic standpoint to answer your question.

But if you want a more practical discussion, then I suggest we put it on for a future agenda item. All right. Thank you.

Can we put it on the future agenda? So I think me and Henry are up to the new discussion.

Sure. So what I would say is we could deal with this agenda item.

And if there is some direction by council that you would like to have a conversation dealing with protocols of commission,

then we could actually bring that back in the staff report.

But that would be my suggestion. And if I can get consensus of that, if that's what we want to do, then that's fine.

So how about council member Chen and how councilman, what do you think?

Yeah, I was ready to make a motion to approve five B and to direct staff to prepare an agenda item for a future council meeting to give the council members there's a overview of how each of the boards and commissions in the city are run.

Okay, any second?

Second.

Okay, so Vincent City Club, would you please call me?

Thank you. Council member Peter Chan? Yes. Council member Hansen? Yes. Council member Fred Ternoso? Yes. Mayor Potiam Henry Lo? Yes. And Mayor Yvonne Yu?

Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. So go down to item 5C, considerations of safety to drought emergency declaration as described.

Madam Mayor. Yes. I would like to ask the city attorney, we are talking about future. So what about this 5B? Do we need another, do we need to have a motion to approve this or that Hans' motion is good enough?

I believe Hans' motion included both the future agenda item and the introduction and wave of first reading for the ordinance.

Okay. Just wanted to make it clear. Thank you.

Okay. So for item 5C, considerations of state 2 drought emergency declarations as described in the NPMC chapter 14.25. So, okay. We can get the staff report. So Frank can reach it. Thank you so much.

Mayor Patan, Council members, Frank Lopez, Director of Public Works. Tonight's this item will be presented by Richard Gonzalez, the Water Utility Manager. Richard?

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of City Council. My name is Richard Gonzalez and I am your Water Utility Manager. The staff report before you is for your consideration to bring fourth and declare a Stage 2 drought ordinance. City Clerk, can I have the slides? Thank you. Can I have the next slide, please? So to give you some background, the permanent mandatory restrictions that will also coincide with the Stage 2 drought ordinance are residents not watering between 9 and 5 p.m., not watering 48 hours after considerable rain or measurable rain, watering lawn and not having runoff, just making sure that the water stays within the grass or planted area, not using water to wash down sidewalks or driveways or parking areas, and washing vehicles using a bucket or a hose nozzle, not necessarily just letting water run or taking your vehicle to a car wash. Can I have the next slide, please?

Also asking restaurants to only serve water if requested by the patrons. And those restaurants in today's world will be those that actually have indoor seating. not leaving hoses running, also communicating with hotels and asking them to ask the patrons if they want their linens washed or not being able to reuse their linens in the room, and

also fixing leaks as soon as possible. We're asking residents to do that as well. Can I have the next slide, please?

So, stage one is asking residents to reduce demand by 10% or less in water Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So, three days a week of watering. The difference is now in stage two, we're asking residents to reduce demand from 11% to 20% with watering two days a week, which is Mondays and Thursdays. And any new developments, whether commercial or residential, will be required to install drip irrigation or micro spray systems. And also it will be unlawful to irrigate ornamental turf in public medians in the city's boundaries. So that's the, in addition to the mandatory restrictions, these are the...

Any answer, any?

All right, before asking questions,