City Council Meeting — February 16, 2022

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Note that all public meetings will be recorded. So I will now call the meeting in order and also proceed to flag salute. Clerk, please pull up the flag.

Thank you. Please stand. Put your right hand over your heart. Please begin. I pledge your allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation of God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. Okay. Roll call. Clerk, please proceed for roll call. Thank you. Council member Yvonne Yu? Here. Okay. Council member Peter Chan? Here. Council member Hans Leung? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Fretzernoso? Here. And Mayor Henry Lo? Here. Thank you, Clerk. Thank you. Okay. Okay, before we proceed, we had previously closed session and there is no reportable action item. Is that correct? That is correct, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Okay, on to the agenda. Addition, relations, changes and adoptions. Colleagues, I would like to make a suggestion that given the presentations and the topic discussion if for one of the presentations 1a commissions committees and board overview if that can be tabled to the next meeting okay do i hear any objections

uh mayor from from the mayor city council from the staffs pro point uh that can be move to the May 2nd meeting to give you sufficient enough time for questions and answers. This was an item that council requested to go through protocols and what each commission and committee will actually be doing during their term. So staff would suggest that due to the lengthy discussion items on 2A. And for the sake of time, if council is okay with that, staff has a recommendation that we would move that to the May 2nd meeting 1A. And 1B will be presented by our assistant city manager. And that is information only for the public. And that will be fairly quick. So we will get to 2A pretty darn quick. Okay. Thank you, city manager, for elaborating.

Okay, well, can we table item 1A to the next meeting?

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I believe that the city manager meant March 2nd, not May 2nd.

I'm sorry, March 2nd, okay. My apologies. Thank you for correcting Mr. Berger.

Okay, can we table that item to the meeting on March 2nd? Yes. Yes. Okay, I hear a yes. Okay, then. Yes.

Okay, thank you. That item is 1A will be table 2. Okay, let's continue on. Actually, let's see.

Okay, yeah, let me just continue. Okay, public communications.

Subject matter jurisdiction comment on agenda items at this time. If you provide public comment on a specific agenda item at this time, however, you cannot later provide comments at the same time the agenda item is considered. Okay, next, staff communications. I understand we have the communications from our fire department.

Mayor Lo? Yes.

Would you like me to check with the audience to see if there are any speakers for public

communications which are not the agenda items?

Of course. Of course. Thank you for the reminder. Please proceed.

Thank you. Audience, if you want to speak during public communications, this is the time to do so.

So if you want to speak on item 2A, if you speak now, you're not going to be able to speak when the item comes up.

You can speak now or you can speak later.

If you're not going to speak, if you don't want to speak now,

then please Lor your hand so I'll know who to call for the public communications portion.

I'll give you a second.

Phone number 655.

State your name.

phone number ending 655

I will come back to you Dora

Hofer

Hi Hi. My name is Topher Mathers. This is regarding agenda item 2A. I am the Organizing Policy Specialist with Active SGUV. Dear Mayor Lo and members of the Monarch Park City Council,

as a place-based community organization dedicated to realizing a more sustainable, equitable, and livable San Diego Valley, Active SGUV urges the Monarch Park City Council to vote NO ON AGENDA ITEM 2A REGARDING THE SR710 NORTH MOBILITY IMPROVEMENT PROJECT FUNDING AGREEMENT SPECIFICALLY THE PROPOSED GARVEY AVENUE CAPACITY IMPROVEMENTS ACTUALLY STANDS IN SOLIDARY WITH LOCAL RESIDENTS WHO WANT A SAFER LESS POLLUTED MORE ACCESSIBLE AND ECONOMICALLY PROSPEROUS GARVEY AVENUE THE PROPOSED PLAN TO WIDEN GARVEY AVENUE BY ELIMINATING STREET PARKING WILL CREATE A SIX LANE SPEEDWAY THROUGH THE DOWNTOWN THE RESULT WILL BE A MORE DANGEROUS MORE POLLUTED

less accessible and less desirable garvey avenue to shop dine or visit monterey park already has

a well-documented traffic safety problem a wider faster garvey avenue will be more dangerous street

for monterey park residents especially for children and older adults who walk to local shops

schools and public places according to the california office of traffic safety ots 2019 crash rankings among 105 similar size california cities monterey park rank third for the highest highest number of injuries and fatalities for pedestrians 65 years and older. In 2018, Monterey Park was ranked first in that same category. Increasing capacity will not reduce congestion. The science is clear on this. Increased vehicle mice traveled and related congestion as a result of roadway widening and expansion is well documented and acknowledged in the academic world. In 2017, the Governor's Office of Planning and Research advised agencies that each percent increase in lane miles result in a 1.03% increase in vehicle travel. More cut-through traffic and

vehicle trips will increase air pollution in Monterey Park. Vehicle trips are the main source of local air pollution in Monterey Park and in Southern California, one of the most polluted regions in the United States. The effects of poor air quality are devastating, especially for the most vulnerable members of our community. High rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses,

cognitive impairments, some cancers, and even obesity have all been linked to exposure to high levels of air pollution.

Increasing traffic capacity on Garvey Avenue will reduce the quality of life and economic vibrancy of a key business district.

Successful downtown districts are designed to make walking safe, comfortable, and enjoyable.

More traffic, higher vehicle speeds, increased air pollution, and additional road noise will make the district hostile for people, hurting businesses along Garvey Avenue.

We urge the Monterey Park City Council to support a safer, less polluted, more accessible, and economically prosperous Garvey Avenue

for Monterey Park residents. This can be achieved by utilizing modern engineering strategies. Active SGV urges you to vote no on Agenda Item 2A, Garvey Avenue Capacity Improvements. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Audience, just want to remind you again,

If you want to speak on item 2A, if you speak now, you will not be able to speak again when the item comes up.

If you want to Lor your hand, you can Lor your hand now, and we'll call you later.

Speaker, Caleb Kwok.

Hi, my name is Caleb Kwok. I just wanted to express my support for the NOAAF Mobility Improvement Project. I think for the Monterey Park downtown area, the proposed project will benefit the business there. The two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon of no street parking will help smooth the traffic. I mean, we all want to get home early, and so by eliminating the parking there will help residents come home early. And with the potential parking arrangement or parking structure will help bring more shoppers to the area. The street parking only benefits a handful of people. Once the parking space is occupied, other shoppers won't be able to park on the street anyway. so having parking structures there will help the overall areas to attract more shoppers there so i'm in favor of adopting the improvement project that's it thank you thank you very much next speaker

I'll come back to you.

Next speaker, Linda.

Lynn, are you ready? I'm here.

I'm sorry about that. Okay. Please proceed. Thank you. My name is Vinh Gough. I am a community leader in the St. Gabriel Valley and I'm also a 40 year plus resident of Monterey Park. I'm calling tonight to provide my support for agenda two item two a three points. First point is that I'm fully supportive of providing and creating infrastructure spending to improve the city of Monterey Park. The second point is that I believe it is a smart thing to take county

state, and federal money to help pay for our city's improvements.

In this case, it is the MTA funds.

And then the last point is that whether you build a parking structure or you improve roads, it ultimately will improve the value of our city for our citizens.

So thank you, council members, for providing a better position for the city in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Audience, I just want to remind you, please unmute yourself until you call upon to speak.

Next speaker, J. Show. Hi. Is right now item 2A?

Oh, you want to wait until 2A? You can speak on it now, but you're not going to be able to speak on it again when the item comes up.

Okay. So I'll just wait until item 2A then.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker, I have Andrew Yip. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Andrew Yip. I am calling on behalf of my aunt and our business, Samjang Barbecue in Monterey Park on Garvey.

I would like to say a lot of the businesses in Monterey Park,

especially those on Garvey or Mom and Pop, their small shops, many of them do not have large parking lots.

And yes, there are plans for parking garages, but they are not spread around Garvey.

And they're inside the neighborhoods where a lot of these restaurants rely on pick up, stop and go pickups,

putting parking garages into the neighborhoods not only add pollution and additional traffic

in residential streets these are not wide streets these are residential streets where you're

encouraging traffic into these parking garages these are around schools around churches around

homes and when you eliminate the street parking on Garvey it eliminates much needed parking for a

lot of the front-facing businesses. Yes, parking garages can benefit businesses as well, but for the businesses that are right next to it. And those with big lots are the hotels, are the big businesses. They can afford these parking lots, but these small businesses cannot. And I've seen posts on Facebook about parking garages in South Pasadena, parking garages, and other examples of six-lane highways. I actually live in Haysina Heights, and we have many six-lane highways, and we constantly get students from our local schools get hit. And looking at the TIMS data, you know, we looked at Garvey as a thoroughfare, right? But turning it into a six-lane highway is not going to make things run smoother. I heard previous comments about making the lanes wider and allowing residents in Monterey Park to get home faster. Monterey Park is not that big of a city, and to create a highway that cuts right through the community, I don't think a majority of the people using potential six-lane Garvey are going to be residents. They're going to be people that are going to use it as a bypass to get out of the 10 freeway, to get out of the 60 freeway. I know I would. So I would highly recommend the city, please reconsider, do not vote yes on this. It's going to bring traffic, it's going to bring additional congestion, and you're going to choke the small businesses that are on Garvey. And not only has there been enough suffering through this pandemic, we really need that parking so that these businesses can continue to get customers. And one more thing I want to know about those parking garages, maybe if the parking garages are right on Garvey, but we can't put parking garages on every block. And if I were to take my grandparents to any of these mom and pop shops and restaurants, which I do, it's going to be hard to find parking on whichever level of the parking garage, then pushing two wheelchairs down these residential streets to get to Garvey. While traffic, mind you, now that there's no more parking, there's going to be traffic speeding right up to the sidewalk because there is no longer parking, no longer a buffer so i implore the city council to reconsider vote no do whatever you can to reach out to community and actually see what they need what how they feel about this project and not just decide on this on a super bowl weekend and try to get this through please thank you

thank you next speaker josey

Josie? Yes, I'm here. I just unmailed it. Okay. My name is Josephine Lui and I'm one of the members of Business Improvement and Development Advisory Committee members for the Downtown Monterey Park. I'm saying to support the 2A is for the point of view of the merchants. The reason I'm saying that is we see El Hember have a very good parking structure. City of El Hember, all the people going there for the restaurant and everything for the movie because of convenience of the parking. and on the merchant side at downtown Montreux Park if we don't have enough parking space who wants to come down to Montreux Park and who wants to do business at Montreux Park downtown promoting the business for the Montreux Park and also for the future the growth of the Montreux Park Please consider to support 2A. That is my point. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker. I have a Galaxy A well.

Hi, yes. Can you hear me? Yes, please state your name. Hi, yes. Good evening. Jaime Rodriguez. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak on this matter. I am a lifelong

resident, 35 years, born at Garfield Medical Center. I went to Inez, Repeto, Marquepo,

Elac, Cal State Allee, and my daughter attends Inez. All my life I've walked along Garvey. I've walked along Atlantic.

And as elected officials, I understand there is a balance between taking in the concerns of residents and businesses. You are elected by the residents of this city, of this community. Their concerns, their opinions should far outweigh any concerns, considerations that businesses have. I understand, once again, there is a balance. Obviously, in order for our city to thrive, we need business. We need investors. We need people who are not just citizens of this great city, but others who believe in investing their money in this city to make it better, to ensure that our schools are better. Our police department, our fire department, all our city services improve. Taking all that into account, increasing the lanes on Garvey and Atlantic has no benefit either to the businesses or to the residents. It will make traffic even worse. I drive from Torrance every morning.

I drive from Torrance to Monterey Park every evening. And I do my best to take as many side streets as possible to avoid the freeway. Because I understand that traffic on the freeway is bad. As you all know, as one of the previous commenters mentioned, you jump off of the 10 and you take the streets to avoid the 10.

People will do that. People do do that already.

They get off on Atlantic to cut through. to not take the 710, to not take the 605. People cut through, get off of the 710 and cut through Monterey Pass Road through Garvey to avoid the 710 and the 10 interchange. This will increase pollution. Our air quality is already bad.

We're merged in between three freeways, the 10, the 710, and the 60. This will only make it worse. I have been hit by a vehicle I'm sure there's other people on this call in this meeting who have been struck by vehicles walking I was walking, I was not in the car we know somebody at least one person if we ourselves have not been struck

or been in a car accident we know someone that has so more cars

more pollution more traffic

increases the likelihood of accidents. On Garvey, we have Inez Elementary. We have St. Stephen's.

Two schools, elementary schools. And what we're saying is those children,

their safety, their quality of life is not valued as much

as increasing the lanes for traffic flow, to put parking structures, which potentially could increase businesses. When we look at Pasadena and when we look at Alhambra, it wasn't the parking structures that drew the people, it was the businesses. If we're looking at increasing revenue for the businesses, we should be looking at how can we further support

these small businesses, Not how can we bring more cars and more parking lots. Often the streets are empty on Garvey.

It's not lack of parking. It's lack of people coming to the businesses.

As a parent, as a husband, as a lifelong resident, I implore you, do not expand these lanes. We don't need the money.

It's only more pollution and more traffic, less safety. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Laura.

Good evening.

My name is Chris Horn, and I'm the owner of Divine's Furniture on East Barbie. We are the oldest business in the city. We've been there four generations now. and there's a lot of points I'd like to contest. First of all, I've been there long enough my whole life to know that the traffic on Garvey is actually lighter than what it was 30 years ago. When they put in the diamond lanes and the commuter lanes and everything on the 10 freeway and improved the 10 freeway, it took a lot of traffic off of Garvey.

uh also one guy was talking about the fatalities of pedestrians i must point out that they're so worried about pedestrians that about 35 years ago the city of monterey park removed i say removed

all the crosswalks where people would have to go two blocks three blocks to a light to cross the

street. All that did was increase jaywalking. That's a problem. If you walk from

Atlantic to New Avenue, which I have many times, you will see that the majority of businesses are small mom and pop businesses. A lot of them built in the 20s and 30s. I know for our business, we depend on street parking. If we, if our street parking was eliminated, I don't see us being able to stay in business. I don't see where all the small mom and pop businesses along Garvey could even exist. Nobody could get to our business. And as far as building parking garages, who are they going to benefit? Where are they going to be? Knowing the city of Monterey park, They're going to all be in the downtown area. And all it will do will be hurt, hurting the outlying areas like ours.

I oppose this very stringently because all you got to do is walk up and down the street. We don't need more parking. We need parking enforcement. Our police department does not even enforce the laws that are on the books right now for parking on the street. It might help if the police department would actually do their job.

um like i said you you gotta walk i just um i don't know how many of the council members have

actually walked garvey and seen how many businesses could exist without street parking

very very few um and i think the only people that would benefit would be in a very isolated area People are not going to come to our store and buy a piece of furniture if they have to carry it four blocks. It's not going to happen. And all this would do would be putting extra parking on the side streets where the neighbors want to use their own parking. I just don't see this to be a benefit either. I don't think the city should be so obsessed with spending money just because they have it. I think this would have a lot of negative effects on the city. Widening the street would bring more cars, not less cars. And like I said, Garvey right now, if you look at the traffic at Rush Drive, it's much lighter than it was years ago, not heavier.

And I just like to say that as the oldest business in the city, I'm shocked at this because it just defies common sense if you're actually familiar with the businesses that are on Garvey.

And I just like I said, again, I stringently oppose this. It would be a death sentence for our business. And I hope it does not go through. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Audience, just a reminder, if you're speaking on item 2A during public communications, you will not be able to speak again when the item comes up.

Next speaker, I have Kathy Baum.

Good evening. Yes, hi. At a long time resident, I just learned about the 2A a few days ago. We didn't have any information at the residence. My concern a lot about the expanding land, but we don't have a lot of traffic that much because I told by evening, the traffic hour, they're not that really bad traffic. Also, we don't know why you expanding it, then taking the parking lot away. Even you plan to build a new one when they already assisted. People get parked there. and most of the people here is senior. They just work straight to the store where they need to be going. The business, if you want to make a better business for the business people in Montreux Park, that's not the way to be expanding the traffic. The traffic is for people from another city to go through with it. If you do something of benefit for the Montreux Park residents, do you actually ask what really residents want? expanding land because I lived in Mall Street Park for a long time. 20 years ago, we had no problem with the parking lot in front of our house. Now it's like 10 o'clock, anybody parking on my street park. Now, if you're taking the parking lot away, they're going to move more further to residential and they're parking in their mall, they're blocking our driveway. That happens every day now before you even expanding the land. So how you ensure that our quiet enjoyment being the resident of the Monterey Park, how we're going to enjoy our just regular daylight that nobody lock in our driveway if we need to go get something. That you need to concern about more about Monterey Park and open the plan so that anyone from all the city just go through home. because Monterey Park, I believe they go home, they're surrounded by the fieldway, they go home either way and they still get home not long like you expected or you're thinking they would be. I live here a long time and I know either when I exit from 60, take me about 10 or 15 minutes to get home. If I go to fieldway 10, take me about five minutes or less to get home. So as a resident that I live between those fieldways, I don't see the need to spend the land for Gavi at all. The only thing that drop will come in, if more people come in, Christ is going to come up because anyone, any city, anyone can go in there and get away with it for fast. Safety of the kids, safety of others. We have a lot of hit and run lately also, a few areas in there. We have it surrounding where the city hall before. So that's not a good idea that I don't know if you're thinking about that or did you actually let the residents speak on their own, voting on it before you actually come to a conclusion that you should say, yes, I want that to be open. Tomorrow then, planning, include the residents. Because if you say that it benefits the residents of Monterey Park, less of Monterey Park residents making that decision, vote for that decision, not you. When we vote for you, we count on you. You're working for us, making life better, Monterey Park better, not that we have to sit in here now because you're begging you not to vote yes on the 2A. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, phone number ending 231. Please press star six to unmute yourself.

Phone number ending 231.

The speaker with the phone number ending 231.

Last call. Phone number 231.

No response for phone number 231. Phone number NM-655.

Phone number NM-231, Lascaux.

Hello, that concludes the public communication for...

All right. Thank you very much, Clerk. Okay, then let me proceed then with the next part. I'm sorry, yes, Congressman?

Mayor? Yes. Can I suggest, since so many speakers are talking on item 2A, can we switch into 2A and then go back to the presentation of 1B? Do you think that will be...

Well, I think you bring that up. Well, actually, I believe, I do not believe that we have a presentation by the fire department, which I don't think will take very long. And then there's a presentation for 1B, which actually I think might be enlightening and educational because it actually probably has a relation to item 2A.

So I would say let's get to the presentation, then we'll proceed to 2A, if that is okay.

I wasn't asked to speak. Hello, I wasn't asked to speak. Can I get a chance to speak?

Hello? Hello, did you want to speak on item 2A? Yes, ma'am. Yes, please.

Okay, that item will come up and I'll call you at that time.

Oh, can I speak on it right now instead of then?

Item's coming up right now. Public communications has ended. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, sir, for your patience. And we will get to the item, I promise. Okay, continue with the agenda. Let's see, we have staff communications from the fire department. Are we ready, fire department?

Yes. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. The Monterey Park Fire Department would just like to remind the community about the COVID-19 testing sites that are still available here in the city. And as the winter surge in COVID cases diminishes, testing sites are less crowded and residents are experiencing quicker times for testing. And as a friendly reminder to the community, the city of Monterey Park has partnered with two community groups to provide COVID testing. and these sites are currently located at Langley Center, which is at 400 East Emerson, and this site is open Wednesday through Monday. It's closed on Tuesdays, and the second site is located at Barnes Park behind City Hall on Saturdays. If you need a COVID-19 test, we highly recommend that you utilize one of these test sites, and if you need additional information about these test sites, please contact the fire department. End of report. Thank you so much for a very important public health announcement. Thank you. Okay. Let's see. Continuing on to presentations. As we stated earlier, we will be tailing item 1A into the next meeting in March. Item 1B, San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, Trans-Feasibility Study, Human Engagement. Who would like to present on that?

That will be our Assistant City Manager, Inez Alvarez, Mayor. Thank you. Inez, the show is yours.

Thank you, City Manager, and thank you, Mayor Lo.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council. Tonight, this item is about the San Gabriel Valley Cog Transit Study. Next slide.

So the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments actually contacted the city to request assistance

with disseminating information about an upcoming workshops to receive input regarding public transportation service

in the San Gabriel Valley region.

The San Gabriel Valley COG has partnered with LA Metro to conduct this survey and the study will evaluate short and long-term transit options to improve mobility in San Gabriel Valley. Next slide.

The community workshops. So members are encouraged to share their thoughts for transportation options that are being proposed that will benefit, that will potentially benefit the San Gabriel Valley area. Next slide.

So the community workshops are scheduled actually on Wednesday, February 23rd.

The first one will be from noon to one

and the second one will be from five to six.

The workshops will be held virtually via Zoom.

And more information about the study and also how to access and log in can be found.

And I apologize, there is a hyperlink, but it's not showing for some reason, but I'm going to read it out.

So the website is www.sgvcog.org backslash transit-study-community-input. And thank you, Deputy City Clerk. I see that it's there now. So that's where you would get the login information for these meetings and additional information about this transit. study. Next slide. So the city did disseminate information using our social media accounts on our city website and our cable channel. That concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Inaz. Council members, any questions, please. Okay, I'm hearing none. Okay. Actually, I have a question, Inez.

Yes. So can you elaborate right now the transit feasibility studies? Doesn't that feasibility study and the public comment portion include several concepts that are right now being proposed?

I'm sorry. So the transportation study, I missed it. I missed the... Aren't there several concepts that are being proposed that is part of the study? Several concepts? Yeah. Well, the information that we received is, yes, there is some potential enhancements.

We don't have much more detail than that. The website definitely has some additional information.

and at the workshops, I think they're going to explain some of the potential adjustments or modifications that may be considered.

Okay. Because I think at least, and again, thank you for pointing out to a webpage, but I think the reason also why, for the audience that's listening, why I think it's important that the Reds are aware of what's being proposed is because, if I'm not mistaken, there are several concepts, I think maybe 15 concepts, but two of those concepts actually would include enhanced bus services through Garvey Avenue. Is that correct? I'm actually unfamiliar with the actual

proposed modifications and to what streets, but definitely we understand that they're taking

um san gabriel e-cog and the la metro are taking a regional approach

to definitely make sure that if there's um you know a first mile last mile

details in that, but that's our understanding. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, it is my understanding

that actually I believe there are at least two concepts that would propose linkage from

the East Side Gold Line, where it ends now, the term is Atlantic, and would actually enhance bus services, uplanding access to Garvey. And that is why I thought it was important that we have this conversation because I think it does actually relate to item 2a and I think for residents um who care about mobility issues um your participation is important um as I've said study the concepts and I will read it I believe there are some concepts that actually are related to enhancing mobility bus public transit services along Garvey so what we can do um Mayor Lo is um

We could actually, we have the transportation, the community workshops information on our webpage.

What we can do is make sure that if there's specific routes that are in Monterey Park that are being proposed to be discussed,

we could link those there too so that residents are more aware of that information.

Okay. Then that would be at least my direction. Yes, thank you, I know, for making the offer.

But I would suggest that our staff study the concepts that are being proposed. As I said, I think there's at least up to 15.

And I believe several of them actually might be of benefit to our community.

Yes. So please do so. Okay. Mayor, for Tim, for this one also, I know you had your screen off. I'm sorry, screen on. Did you wish to make a comment or had a question? No, not at this time.

Okay, let's see. Are there any other comments or questions from Council regarding this presentation?

Okay, I'm hearing none. All right.

Then I guess that comes with this presentation. Okay, moving on to old business item 2A, a SR 710 North mobility improvements project funding agreements and authorized task order for 710 mobility improvement project and program management staff or wishes to present on this please proceed hi good evening mayor mayor pro tem council members uh frank lopez director of public works city engineer uh the item before you tonight is consideration of the SR 710 north mobility improvement projects funding agreements, and authorization of a task order for project and program management. I would like to clarify that we are still finalizing the details of the funding agreements with Metro, but they have expressed support in moving forward with the proposed changes. So the presentation tonight will cover some of the history of the Interstate 710 and State Route 710 and the 710 mobility improvement projects. We'll cover public comments that came out of the March 17, 2021 Council meetings. The efforts we've made since that meeting, results of those efforts, and discuss the re-scoping of the Garvey project. We'll provide facts and clarification of the updated Garvey project, the addition of a new project, and project benefits, and then we'll give you a timeline and next steps. And finally, I'll be able to answer any questions you may have. Next slide, please.

So some of the history, the 710 dates back to 1958-59 when it was known as Route 7. Obviously today it's known as State Route 710 and Interstate 710. And this was included in the California Master Plan of Freeways and Expressways. In about 1964-65, a 23-mile stretch of the 710 was completed. This portion was known as Interstate 710 from Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach to Valley Boulevard in Alhambra. However, a 4.3 mile gap remained to be completed, and that is between the I-10 and the 210. And this section was known as the State Route 710. So just to be clear, this gap was always intended to be completed and closed. During the 60s, property acquisition occurred. Caltrans purchased around 976 houses. They might still own a few hundred. In the first decade of the new millennia, 2000-2010, there was studies for the feasibility of completing the state route portion, that gap. They had at one point concluded that a tunnel was feasible. Ultimately, it was too expensive.

Also, the next decade saw Metro trying to move the project forward, which they completed an environmental impact report, 2011, that included an alternate analysis. There was public review and comment of that environmental report in 2015, alternate projects selected, and then in 2016, the final environmental impact report. In 2017, however, due to different issues, the expense of the tunnel, feedback from the

community, Metro voted to reallocate funds already dedicated to the 710 to new mobility improvement projects within the San Diego Valley region. These are known as the 710

mobility improvement projects. Most of that funding, again, this was already allocated, came from 780 million set aside in measure R, which is a half cent sales tax adopted

by Los Angeles County voters in 2008. And again, that earmarked money for this 4.3 mile gap that

remained of the 710. Next slide. So a little bit of the history of how the mobility improvement projects have been moving forward. Metro began after the reallocation, Metro began working with San Gabriel Valley cities along the 710 alignment between interstates 10 to 10 to implement

projects that would be consistent with the purpose and need of the gap closure, the completion of that state route 710. And that is to relieve congestion on local streets, improving traffic operations, mobility, traffic circulation on local arterials with the highest priority for projects proximal to the I-10 freeway and local arterials.

So in 2017, Monterey Park submitted a first round of projects.

In 2018, Metro approved that first round, including five of Monterey Park's submitted projects. In 2019, Monterey Park submitted projects for a second call.

And in that same year, Metro approved one project. In December of 2020, we brought forth funding agreements for three other projects, and Council approved those. And in March 17th of 2021, we brought forth three additional funding agreements where only one was approved, And that was a traffic, the traffic project.

And so two remain. Next slide.

So the approved funding agreements include Ramona Road improvement projects, which is 710 Northbound off-ramp at Corporate Center and Ramona. Atlantic Avenue improvement projects between Hellman and Garvey. GARFIELD AVENUE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT BETWEEN HELLMAN AND HILLYARD AND THE ADAPTIVE RESPONSIVE TRAFFIC SINAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECT CURRENTLY SLATED FOR ATLANTIC, GARFIELD AND GARVIE. NEXT SLIDE. SO THE PENDING FUNDING AGREEMENTS, THE PENDING APPROVALS WOULD BE THE GARVIE AVENUE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT WHICH I THINK WE'VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT BETWEEN ATLANTIC AND NEW. The parking structure structures, the construction project, and a new project, which is the Monterey Pass Road Improvement Project between Floral and Garvey. Next slide.

So March 17th council meeting, we received a lot of public comment. We had about 23 speakers, generally against the Garvey improvements. We had about 150 ring communication, also mostly against the project. Some of the comments included some of the speakers, actually. We had representation from Supervisor Salisa's office at the time. Let us know that they were working with Metro to provide flexibility in the use of Measure R. At the time, it was unclear if it was specifically for the mobility improvement projects or generally for the local measure or return funds that the city gets separate from any of the 710. There's also comments about, you know, could the funds be used for other projects? The answer to that is yes and no. Yes, if they meet the purpose and need of the 710 gap, as I mentioned earlier. And then, you know, there was comments regarding that widening and the parking structures would bring more cars and traffic, speeding that might impact pedestrian safety. So those were some of the comments that were brought forth then. I think we've already heard a few comments that are similar. Next slide.

So, since that meeting, we've made efforts to work with Metro, both at the high level and with their technical staff to try to make revisions to the scope. We conducted a parking study. There was some traffic modeling that was completed to help substantiate the new project. ADDITIONALLY SINCE THEN THERE WAS CLARIFICATION FROM METRO AT THE REQUEST OF SUPERVISOR SOLIS CLARIFYING THAT THE PROJECTS THE PURPOSE OF THE MOBILITY PROJECT IS TO RELIEVE CONGESTION. MODIFICATIONS WERE ACCEPTABLE AS LONG AS THEY PROVIDED BENEFITS CONSISTENT WITH THE INTENT AND PURPOSE OF THE 710 GAP. AND THEY CLARIFIED THAT METRO DID SUPPORT ADDING active transportation features and project as long as again they're not the full purpose of the improvement but that the general purpose of the the main focus of the project was to meet that intent which is to relieve congestion next slide on october 28th we had a meeting with metro staff to discuss the status and the next steps. At this meeting we discussed and clarified scope changes and adjustments to the Garvey project. We also discussed potential addition of the Monterey Pass Road project, which I'll be discussing a little bit more in a few slides. Both of these projects will now include more active transportation features, transit investments, pedestrian and bicycle improvements. Again, these are all active transportation. The Metro stated that these are viable options that they're willing to support. And so we did submit revised scopes. Next slide, please. So just to explain the original Garvey Avenue. So as you know, Garvey Avenue currently exists as a two-lane in each direction, so total four-lane minor arterial roadway with 12 foot median that includes parking on both sides. So the original proposal was we were proposing a third lane in each direction by re-striping and using the existing parking lane. So there'd be no physical widening. In other words, we wouldn't be constructing a widening the roadway physically. It would be within the footprint of the road. Additionally, we would be adding, repairing, sorry, we would be repairing bus pads. We would be adding, replacing bus shelters with new bus shelters, improving the sidewalks to comply with ADA. And we would be reconstructing the median, of course, to help fit in the lanes. And the revised scope to help clarify again, the third lane would be displacing the parking lane and only be available during peak traffic hours. An example of this might be like 6am to 9am and 4pm to 7pm. We also added bicycle route signs to make this a bicycle boulevard as recommended by the city's adopted bicycle master plan which several years back we worked with active SGV and several other local cities to adopt this. It's known as the San Gabriel Valley Master Bicycle Plan. We'd also be installing EV charging stations to help promote the use of electric vehicles. Next slide, please.

Here's a sample of a street. It's Beverly Boulevard Montebello that has no temporary,

no parking. Again, this is temporary during their local peak traffic hours.

And in this case, they have different hours based on the direction of

to Los Angeles, and then 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the eastbound side.

So what you see is you see vehicles parked in the parking lane or that third lane

because this is a picture during the morning hours. Next slide.

In this slide, you see Arroyo Parkway. Again, another sample with no parking during their local peak hours.

Oreo Parkways in Pasadena, by the way.

And in this case, they have restrictions from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on both sides.

This is a north-south street I should mention.

Next slide.

So I just want to provide some facts and further clarification about the Garvey Avenue project. Parking will not be removed permanently, only for a few hours each day, Monday through Friday very likely. Businesses will still have the use of street parking available to them. The specific hours of the restrictions would be determined through a traffic study, which would one of the first phases of the projects would be the primary engineering environmental phase where we would conduct that traffic study. No physical widening, no construction for the purpose of widening will take place. Obviously, there will be construction of the roadway repaving the median sidewalks. No widening of the roadway will be done to accommodate a third lane. This will all be done with striping. The third lane, again, the parking lane, will be used to accommodate vehicular traffic during peak hours only. Provided examples just a little bit earlier in previous slides, such as 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. And we could do that again where westbound only has the restriction during the morning hours if that's what's determined through the traffic study, the review of the traffic volumes and what hours they're heavier and in which direction. And for instance, in the evening eastbound, it could be 3 to 6, 3 to 7. So again, those peak out traffic hours will be more clearly defined during and after the traffic study is conducted. Of course, if City Council so chooses to approve the funding agreements. Some common comments, questions, you know, more lanes means more traffic on Garvey. Again, the intent of the mobility improvement projects was to relieve already existing congestion that was also estimated to increase. And so normally this traffic would have gone onto the State Route 710, the completion of that gap. However, it's been coming off of the 710 and the 10 onto our streets for more than the last 50 years. And so this project was, this conceptual project was proposed to address current congestion and the trends of that congestion. Another comment is vehicles that, you know, might drive faster on Garvey. The current speed limit on Garvey in this corridor is 30 miles per hour. The only way that would change would be through a speed survey with a traffic engineer that would concur with that with any kind of recommended increase and the city would concur with that. And so there are when you conduct a speed survey, there are many factors that come into play and specifically, you know, the amount of driveways, the amount of businesses, what's fronting the streets. And so, you know, speed doesn't automatically increase. So, the posted speed limit is 30 miles per hour on Garvey. That is one of the reasons we're also able to recommend the bicycle route signs for this corridor. Next slide.

Monterey Pass Road. I mentioned the new project. This would be Monterey Pass Road. The proposed improvements would include traffic signal system improvements, signal upgrades, interconnects between signals to provide efficient and reliable synchronization, real-time response to actual traffic conditions. And the corridor would be tied to the adaptive traffic control project, which is submitted as a separate project. We're now including Monterey Pass Road. There would be improvements to the pavement. but specifically we wanted to include a separated class four two-way bike lane or a bikeway, also known as a cycle track, where we'd be removing the bike, again, this is separated off of the roadway in this case. So I provided some samples because sometimes cycle four tracks can also be installed along the roadway. So the picture on the right-hand side here, that is one that would be along the roadway. However, there are physical barriers. In this case, it shows delineators, but in many cases, you have a curve median, you have small islands. However, we prefer the photo on the left. That is what we are proposing. There actually was some conceptual design in the past. There are some RFPs that were done. This is what we would be considering. I just wanted to explain that and show you that. Next slide.

So some of the benefits of the 710 Mobility Project.

We think it would improve traffic flow. It would reduce congestion. By reducing congestion, you reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Congestion is the greater cause of greenhouse gases. Cars sitting idling and we have several things to address this. Besides what the Garvey Avenue improvement project is, as you heard before, we have the adaptive traffic project that's also happening. We want to improve sidewalks, improve pedestrian mobility and safety. We want to improve transit. We want to promote mode shift. So while we are temporarily adding a third lane, we are trying to promote mode shift by improving bus flow with that third lane during those hours, providing new bus shelters and benches and amenities for bus riders.

We are not just improving the bus pads, we're adding bus pads, which makes everything better for when the buses pull up to the stops. And we're trying to improve and promote bicycle use, again, by adding the bike route signs

along Garvey and Rio. And these are the recommended, it's considered a class three bicycle route along Garvey, and

And it's the recommended treatment for Garvey from our master bicycle plan.

And we'd be adding the separated bicycle lanes along Watery Pass Road.

We'd also be promoting electric vehicle use by providing EV charging stations for public use, again, in an effort to promote electric vehicle use and, again, reduce greenhouse gases and emissions. Next slide.

Some additional benefits include improving the city's aging infrastructure. I believe someone, one of the speakers mentioned using grant funds, other funds than the city's direct funds. And so this would allow city funds to be redirected for other projects and uses. We would be improving our aging traffic signal systems and traffic cells at many intersections with state of the art technology that includes, again, adaptive traffic control. If you don't know, there's traffic synchronization, which helps the timing, but that's all done with timing and they judge the time that it takes for a car to get from one intersection to another intersection to try to promote, you know, the platoons of cars as they move forward that the lights would go green. I think we've all heard how if you drive at the speed limit, you should get most of the greens. But with adaptive traffic control, it actually changes with the conditions of the roadway. The signals talk to each other. They expect the traffic that's coming. And so that would be what we'd be looking at with that state-of-the-art technology. We'd be improving the pavement condition. Garvey would require rehabilitation, and so that's included in the scope of work. The median improvements would include new drought-tolerant landscape and trees. That comes with the irrigation, drip irrigation. So we would be also conserving water.

The medians, the way they would be set up too, they help with the queuing for the left turns.

We'd be analyzing the left turns.

We'd reduce the repair maintenance costs and staff time that it would take, because those again, those resources can be redirected to other projects for the community's benefit.

And we think with the parking structure, we've improved parking availability for the downtown businesses. Next slide, please. So moving forward, wanted to provide an estimated timeline. Estimated timeline about three to five years.

You know, final approval of the project concepts by Metro if again the council chooses to approve

the moving forward with the funding agreements. The funding agreements would need to be executed by both city and metro. That would be up to a couple months, again, depending on the results of tonight. Project development, about six months. The environmental phase, the project approval and environmental phase, that's a formal abbreviation and a name for that preliminary engineering and environmental section, about 12 months. putting out an RFP for design of the projects would be about three months. Design of the projects would be about 12 months. We'd be reviewing the plans. That might be intermingled

with the design, but about six months. And then putting the projects out to bid, we think about three months. And construction and actual implementation of the projects, about 12 months. Again, this varies a little bit per project, but this is what we're providing. Next slide, please.

So what are we asking? We're recommending that the City Council consider authorizing the City Manager to execute the three funding agreements with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in a form approved by the City Attorney for the SR710 North Mobility improvement projects for Garvey Avenue, capacity improvements, parking structures, construction, and moderate pass road improvements, totaling $86,300,000. Authorizing the city manager to appropriate the project funds for the Garvey Avenue capacity improvements, the parking structures, and the moderate pass road improvement projects per the project funding schedule, including the terms and conditions once the funding agreements are approved and authorize the city manager to sign a task order for transit engineers in the amount not to exceed again 2.5 million and this is just as needed so that's just the maximum overall for project for overall project and program management for the mobility improvement projects this concludes my presentation next slide please

I can answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Lopez for that presentation.

Council members, you have questions now,

or I know we probably have a lot of folks signed up to make comments themselves. Do we want to wait and hear from those comments

or do you prefer to ask your questions now?

I would like to hear the comments first because that will help me with my questioning of the staff report.

Okay, thank you, Councilman Laring. Colleagues, what say you? Yeah, that's fine. I had a question, but it could wait till after the comments.

Okay, okay, okay. Mayor Prochek. Would I hear the speakers?

Yes.

Okay, Councilman Chan. um Catherine uh you oh yeah I would like to hear the opinion yeah a couple of comments

okay okay well thank you colleagues um in that case um clerk can we bring up uh those in the

audience who wish to write comment on this item thank you madam low um yes okay audience a couple a little housekeeping items here. If you already spoke doing public communications

for this item, you will not be able to speak again

for this item.

Please mute yourself until you're called upon to speak. And if you are on a device,

please use the raised hand.

star nine to use the raise hand feature and star six to unmute yourself so let me call the first speaker uh phone number ending in 115 is that martin can you hear me yes thank you good evening Yes. Good evening, Mayor, Law, and Council Members. My name is Martin Reyes, and I am the Transportation Deputy for Supervisor Hilda Solis, who is also the current Chair of the Metro Board of Directors. I very much appreciate the opportunity to provide public comment for your consideration. I would like to inform the City Council that Supervisor Solis intends to file a motion that will be considered at next week's Metro Board meeting on February 24 related to the funding mentioned in this item. This motion was developed after discussion with Metro's Council, and the motion will formally clarify that funding provided through the 710 North Mobility Improvement can be used for the following three categories of standalone infrastructure improvements. One, bus infrastructure improvements, including bus lanes and signal priority. Two, bikeway improvements, including Class 1, 2, 3, and 4 bikeways. And three, pedestrian improvements, including sidewalk widening, safety improvements, and crossing improvements. The motion also directs Metro to formally provide cities with an opportunity to re-scope or reprogram your funds for a different use if the recipient wants to take advantage of these clarified eligible uses. In the past, Metro staff has at times rejected these kinds of improvements in some cities' proposals, citing that they are not consistent with the purpose and need of the 710 North project. I have clarified with Metro's counsel over the last two weeks that the uses I just mentioned are consistent with the purpose and need of the 710 North project and are actually listed as eligible uses in the environmental document and its TSM-CDM alternatives. If the City Council has any doubts about the impacts of the projects before you this evening, I would highly encourage you to delay your vote on Item 2A until the Metro Board has considered and voted on the Supervisor's Motion, which will take place next Thursday. As always, our office is here to assist and collaborate with the City so that we ensure we are providing our residents with the best services possible. I hope this information is helpful for you as you consider action on this item. Thank you so much, and I look forward to working further with you.

Thank you very much. Next speaker, phone number ending in 752.

Please press star 6 to unmute yourself.

Yes. Hello?

Hello? And please state your name. Yes, my name is Thierry Lee, and I'm a former resident of Monterey Park. Sir, sir, sir. Yes. You need to.

Are you with the phone number ending in 752?

872 is the last three number.

752. Oh, I think my number ends in 5752. My number ends in 872. Okay. 8-7-2.

Tierra Lee? Is it Tierra? Yes. Okay. Yes. You need to raise the raise hand feature, and I'll call you as it comes up.

Okay. Thank you. Okay, 7-5-2. Yes, I think that's me.

Good evening, Council. My name is Austin, and my family has been in Marriott Park for over two decades.

and we drive, we take a bus, we walk, and we bike along Garby, Atlantic, and Garfield on a daily basis.

We are opposed to adding travel lanes in our community. These projects would only attract more cars and cut through traffic.

Even before the pandemic, traffic sLod well and our streets were not congested.

Sure, we had to wait at red lights, but our streets should not be used as an alternative to the freeway. There are already way too many cars being down our streets and car crashes happening in our city, and I have not seen anything to address the safety concerns and car crashes that happen weekly.

Can you imagine sitting on one of the many benches on the sidewalk that are two feet away from the curb

with traffic going 30, 40 miles an hour? Would you feel safe sitting with your children and letting your grandparents sit there? Many have pointed out that parking structures in Alhambra and Pasadena work well. But Colorado Street in downtown Pasadena and Main Street in downtown Alhambra all have two lanes with street parking. Garvey Avenue is our downtown. This is where we should be promoting more foot traffic. Also, Rosemead and San Marino also had this debate. They rejected Metro's plan to push more cars onto their streets and to protect their quality of life.

The third lane on Garvey will stretch 1.5 miles and will stop at the border of Rosemead, meaning that the backup will be in the city of Monterey Park. Do we even know how much time 1.5 miles of a third lane will save?

Many traffic studies show that more lanes will result in more traffic.

We should learn from other cities and protect our quality of life and prioritize the safety of our children and seniors.

Mallory Park should also be coordinating with Rosemead and El Monte develop a comprehensive vision for Garvey Avenue.

Rosemead rejected the third lane and El Monte is currently developing a complete streets plan with bike lanes on Garvey Avenue in their city limits.

I would like Monterey Park to prioritize safety first and foremost and widen sidewalks at intersections to slow down cars, add real bike lanes, not bike routes, more medians with trees and crosswalks to create safer and sLor streets in our downtown district. The projects outlined tonight are extremely focused on vehicle throughput and not the safety of the people who actually live and walk in our neighborhood. The Monterey Pass bike lane is nice, but we should really be adding bike lanes on Garvey, Atlantic, and Garfield to build a usable network.

One bike lane on an industrial street does not encourage more biking, and bike route signage doesn't do anything to improve safety. My grandparents currently have to walk and bike because the Spirit bus hasn't operated for almost two years, and the Montevideo bus on Garfield Avenue runs every 75 minutes.

My parents are worried for their safety, but they don't have a choice. It's almost if the city only cares about cars and drivers.

We should be using Metro Funds instead to buy electric buses for our city to reduce pollution and congestion.

I HOPE THAT THE CITY RECONSIDERS THE ADDITIONAL TRAVEL LAINS AND INSTEAD FOCUSES ON SAFETY, ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION AND BRINGING BACK AND EXPANDING THE SPIRIT BUS. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. NEXT SPEAKER, KALIA GARFIELD.

Aaliyah?

Aaliyah, we can't hear you.

I'll come back to you. Next speaker, Teresa Rial Sebastian.

Teresa?

Hi, Cindy, can you hear me? Yes, okay, please. Okay, great, good. Armin will also be speaking, so I'll get five minutes, and then he will get five minutes. So anyhow, I just want to thank staff for this presentation. And I really want to thank our director for our director, Frank Lopez and Council Member Chan for speaking with me and others in the community to obtain clarity on the city proposal. I wanted to let you know that I had the opportunity to speak to Johnny Thompson. and may he rest in peace about this whole project because Johnny used to be the president of that local improvement district. And he told me many of those businesses are suffering financially. They don't have adequate parking to generate foot traffic to feed sales. New businesses are reluctant to locate in the area for the same reason. He said parking structures would help start the transformation and revitalization of that area. And pre-pandemic and even now, that area has always generated extremely low tax revenue, tax sales and sales. So there's so many benefits to it from a business standpoint. Now, if you look from residential point, this is a very different proposal than what staff proposed last year or even the year before with pandemic gone off on my ears. But this now includes a bike corridor. door it includes improvements for bus there is no such thing as six lanes i also wanted to clarify that because on social media there was a lot of conversation um that this the city was going to turn this into six lanes um comments like council to vote on expanding garby from four to six lanes garby will become a six lane mini highway do we want multiple six lane highways dividing up monterey park as you have stated it's not going to be six lanes it's going to be a couple of hours in the morning and a couple hours in the afternoon to move traffic. Why? Because we want to keep this traffic out of our residential areas. And that is something that I heard from many residents saying that they couldn't back out of their driveways because of the type of overspill they were receiving, especially during these heightened peak hours. Now, I do want to talk about peak hours. And speaking to staff and the council member, I was informed that peak hours meant from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. And then from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. And now it says it'll be determined per the traffic study. Is that something that's set in stone or would those peak hours have to be approved by the council? Because I would prefer, obviously, I want to move traffic. but to the extent staff feels that reduced peak hours could benefit or could provide the same service, I would suggest that happen. Now, we received a curveball just recently about the supervisor's new motion, and I would suggest to the council that you approve tonight's agenda item because you can always come back and revise it when and if the supervisor's motion passes. Remember, there's multiple members there on Metro, and many times when a motion is proposed, it gets revised once everybody's input is placed. So I would suggest that the council approve it, and you can always come back and revise it. Plus, we need to approve the funding agreements to protect the funds that were allocated to Monterey Park. So, again, I really want to thank you. This has been going on so long. Remember, marketplace, there was a lot of hesitation about the marketplace. People didn't want it. It would create traffic. It would create congestion. It didn't have bike lanes. It didn't have this. It didn't have that. Now look at it. And that took 50 years. The completion of the 710 took 50 years. Let's plant the seed for the Garvey district area so that that could be something we could be proud of. But we need to do something today and stop kicking the ball down the lane. We need to do something to help the businesses, and we need to do something to help the residents of Monterey Park. So thank you so much, staff, and thank you to you, council members. And now Carmen Sebastian will speak. Hi, Carmen Sebastian. here hi our minister bastion here i recommend that council approve the staff's recommendation and have a long-term plan a strategic plan and vision for the city and i can give you an example of city of pasadena for example uh back in the um 70s the old town pasadena was run down drug-infested skid row. And I know that because when I was a teenager, I used to deliver pizza. My dad had a pizza store, and I used to deliver pizza around there, and I used to get robbed all the time. It was full of crime. But the city council had a long-term vision for that area, and they planned decades ahead of time. And look at what it is now. You have Tiffany's. You have all kinds of high-end stores, nice restaurants. There's parking structure there. So when I go there, I don't have to worry about what I'm going to park. I'm concerned about which store I'm going to visit, not be anxious about my parking situation. So I recommend, I urge the city council to approve the recommendation of the city. Also, I'd like to ask the Economic Development Manager.

area that's a question i have thank you very much

i'm concluding my comments thank you army

um alia

can you hear me now yes please yes okay hi my name is actually macelly and i'm here tonight to let you all know what a bad idea i think this is um seems to me it's just always the same old

tactics by the same old people never plan ahead never discuss because you really don't care what

your constituents think anyway. Always wait until the last minute so you can cry, oh no, we're going to lose the money if we don't spend it, so we're going to have to do whatever my friends and I had

planned to do with it in the first place. You'll see at the end of this meeting. Clearly, someone

in our city has a friend or relative working in the county that they owe a favor to, which is why we're receiving all this funding in the first place. And while, of course, I'm grateful for any extra money that our city can get, we should not allow ourselves to be bought off at the expense

of our city and quality of life. I don't understand why is it our city's responsibility to alleviate congestion in areas outside of our city by moving that traffic to our city? And do you really trust whoever they're going to hire to pay to conduct this traffic study?

Of course they're going to make them write whatever they wanted to say in that report. Remember that other study that they had done that said it was safe for helicopters to land next to children playing at La Loma Park?

That was done by an expert. You can pay them to say anything.

Routing 710 traffic through Garvey is so irresponsible.

If it's such a great idea, why haven't they done it on Valley? The freely ends there. Why not on Huntington Drive? It's already three lanes on either side. Why don't they make it four? You know why?

Because their residents and businesses won't take that crap. Our city knows the majority of the population that lives alongside Garvey are immigrants who speak little English, some with less education, or have to work two jobs to afford their rent.

They know they can't speak up for themselves, so they take advantage of it because they know they're not going to fight back. Bottom line, they think they can get away with it. This is exactly how it happened. Studies show less affluent minority communities suffer greater environmental consequences than communities of higher socioeconomic status.

Let's bring in more cars and increase traffic to Mario Park so these immigrant suckers can carry the burden of increased carbon emissions

because they don't know any better. Let's increase the pollution like it's in China so they can fill at home. Is that what you're trying to do?

This is a really ridiculous idea. Have you even thought about the aptitude of our drivers?

I love my city and I love my neighbors. But you all know a lot of them.

They can't drive.

Our cities are filled. Our city is filled.

Our streets are filled with floss operating motor vehicles. You want to widen the lane so people can drive faster?

not only will we have more accidents now the accidents will be even more deadlier there is

so much more we can do with this money street repairs first and foremost have any of you driven on alhambra it's like i'm off-roading how about crosswalks for our children to get to school or to safeguard our seniors as they try to cross the street not just on garby even better yet

exactly how other people have stated how about improve our own public transportation system You know, we need to get the Spirit Bus back in action. And we need to expand the routes, especially we should expand Route 3 to Markeppel and the Marketplace. We don't even have a route to the Marketplace. And have you even tried to take the Spirit Bus?

Why is it never on time? Why does the bus sound like it's rolling on a bunch of old mattress springs and like it's going to die? There's so much more we can do, and then we can do so much better. Please delay your vote so you can consider other options. There's definitely something else we can do with this money. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker, Tammy Sam.

Hi, can you hear me? Yes, please proceed. Hi, good evening, Mayor Loewen City Council. My name is Tammy Sam. I'm a longtime resident of Monterey Park and a current city planning commissioner. The current proposal perpetuates a car-centric world, and we should want more for our kids. Climate change is real, and we have a moral obligation as a city to help combat it. Single occupancy vehicles are inefficient and create a lot of pollution. They also take up a lot of space on the road. That's why we have congestion. buses carry a lot more people with a lot less volume thereby creating less mass on the road i know we would like to use the 100 million dollars from metro like hilda solis's office has just confirmed we can use it for more than just lane expansion we should wait until after they come back with their motion before the council takes a vote i would love to see more routes to downtown. Many residents work in and around downtown, but there are a number of reasons why ridership is so low. There's no way to complete the first mile of the trip, and there's no safe place for us to park our cars. In order to walk to bus stops, we mostly have to park in small residential streets because commercial areas are timed. Afraid of getting a ticket towed or getting our cars keyed, this keeps ridership low. This can be solved with parking structures. There's also not enough routes and for the existing routes, they are not frequent enough. If the goal of the money is to ease congestion, decreasing single occupancy vehicles and increasing public transit ridership is the best way to do it. Please see my concept layout of Garvey that I emailed the city council. We currently have four travel lanes, two parking lanes, and one median slash left turn lane for a total of seven lanes. My concept actually takes away a lane from Garvey, not add to it, for a total of two travel lanes, one on either side, and angled parking on either side as well. Agile parking is about the width of 1.5 lanes and one median slash turning lane. So for a total of six lane widths, we will net one lane, which can be used for integrated bike infrastructure. This helps create a buffer between pedestrians and cars. Bikes can get their own space away from cars so they are safer and also pedestrians have a separate walkway for themselves. Pair this with the parking structures and we will have a very strong downtown. We can park at the parking structure, grab coffee from the coffee shop and take the bus to work. We can be fed and caffeinated by the time we get to work. On the way back, I can call ahead to order dinner for pickup at one of the many restaurants on Garvey because it will literally be on my way back to my car. Or we can have our family meet us at a restaurant on Garvey, have a nice meal and grab ice cream afterwards. We can go on a nice stroll across the revitalized Garvey and keep all of our sales tax in Monterey Park because expansion of lane, that $100 million will not last forever. However, if you generate businesses that create sales tax that is much longer lasting. In order to revitalize Garvey and make it a walkable, bikeable business district, we must slow it down. You heard it from the businesses themselves. Adding a lane will hurt their businesses, not improve it. Many of the people who claim that it will improve businesses do not own businesses on Garvey and are speaking about issues that they do not understand. Even if it is just part-time, it is a bad idea. We are at a fork in the road. The city council's vote tonight will forever change the business district. Today, do you choose evil? Do you choose to pollute our city by increasing car traffic? Or do you choose good? Do you choose to push Monterey Park forward as a climate change advocate by promoting other modes of transportation? Do you choose to be a hero of Monterey Park? These are your choices tonight. Do you choose to be Captain Pollution or do you choose to be Captain Planet? The power is yours. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker, Thomas Wong. Thank you, Cindy.

I just want to express my appreciation, one, for the city council and the staff for actually doing some outreach. I attended the town hall meeting that was hosted a few weeks ago. And note that there have been a number of changes to what's before the city council to decide on tonight from the original kind of proposal from last year.

but would urge and hope that the council and the city do more outreach. I think there could have been a lot more engagement with the community.

Obviously, there are a lot of folks here tonight that some of which I think were on that town hall meeting,

but I think a lot more outreach could have and probably should have been done since early last year when this item first kind of came up for the city council to take action on.

AND I HOPE GOING FORWARD THERE WILL BE MORE ROBUST ENGAGEMENT WITH THE COMMUNITY ON THESE TYPES OF SOLUTIONS THAT THE COUNCIL IS CONSIDERING.

I UNDERSTAND THAT THE THIRD LANE, ADDING THESE TEMPORARY LANES, IS TEMPORARY, RIGHT, ONLY DURING PEAK HOURS.

I'd urge if the city moves forward on this one to make sure and to make sure that opportunity for dedicated bus lanes or reserving those that third lane for bus traffic to be considered seriously to make sure that bus traffic and public transit is incentivized and invested in and made safer in that way and more efficient.

AND ALSO IT STILL DOESN'T MAKE SURE I EXPRESS THE SKEPTICISM AT THE TOWN HALL MEETING ADDING AN ADDITIONAL TRAFFIC LANE ON GARVEY IN MONTERE RAY PARK IF THOSE PLANS AND THAT ADDITIONAL TRAFFIC ISN'T INTEGRATED INTO THE SURROUNDING CITIES THAT ALSO CONNECT TO GARVEY

um all it'll cause is additional bottleneck in the city of monterey park at the borders um and will not alleviate any traffic if there aren't improvements made also to the connecting uh cities and roads um and so i would urge the city to work with the other cities as well to make sure that we're actually solving congestion problems um and also look at since we are looking at uh POTENTIALLY DEDICATED AND DEDICATED BIKE LANES CLASS FOUR LANES ON MONTERRAY PASS THAT WOULD CONNECT TO GARVEY THAT THAT CLASS FOUR BIKE LANE IF THERE'S OPPORTUNITIES TO CONTINUE THAT ONTO GARVEY AVENUE AND OFFSET CAR TRAFFIC THAT WAY THAT THAT SHOULD ALSO BE HIGHLY CONSIDERED AND TO MAKE SURE THAT BIKERS ARE SAFE IF THEY'RE AND THEY'RE GOING TO BE SAFER AND DEDICATED BIKE LANES AS POSSIBLY JUST STRIPED BIKE LANES. I applaud the city on integrating EV charging and supporting and incentivizing zero-mission transportation through the city. I hope and urge the city to expand that thinking and to do more. And if parking structures are built to include a lot of electric vehicle charging stations, both in the off-street parking structures and also on-street parking, to make sure that that's an easy thing to do for folks that are getting electric vehicles.

and as we move closer and closer to the state's requirement for phasing out of internal combustion engine vehicles

and zero emission vehicle sales only by 2035, I think the need for electric vehicle charging is only going to increase substantially. And so make sure we're planning for future uses in a specific way.

I ALSO URGE THE CITY COUNCIL TO UTILIZE THESE FUNDS AS THE SUPERVISOR'S OFFICE COMMENTED TO LEVERAGE HOPEFULLY APPROVED BY THE METRO BOARD THIS ADDITIONAL FLEXIBILITY TO MAKE SIGNIFICANT

IMPROVEMENTS TO SAFETY ALONG OUR MAIN CORRIDORS ESPECIALLY ALONG BARVEE TO GO ALONG WITH

OTHER TRAFFIC SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS ALONG THE STREET. IT'S CRITICAL THAT PEOPLE THAT ARE SHOPPING AND THAT ARE KIND OF GOING TO OUR STORES ALONG OUR VIEW AND OUR DOWNTOWN AREA ARE ABLE TO WALK AROUND SAFELY AND TO

MAKE THOSE INVESTMENTS BOTH ALONG THE SIDEWALKS AND ALSO ON

CROSSWALKS TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE MAKING THE DOWNTOWN AREA

NOT JUST ONE THAT'S FOR CARS TO MOVE THROUGH BUT FOR PEOPLE

ALSO TO BE ABLE TO SHOP AND MOVE AROUND SAFELY.

AND AGAIN, THANK YOU FOR CITY COUNCIL FOR TAKING THIS UP.

APPRECIATE ALL THE WORK THAT'S GONE INTO THIS. I know this has been a years long effort and hope that the council will continue and the staff will continue to flesh out some of these details and make sure that this project and these funds are used to the best to improve our community for the better.

Monterey Park. Next speaker, Jennifer Tang. Jennifer Love Tang. Hi, can you hear me? Thank you. My name is Jennifer Love Tang and I am a resident of Monterey Park. Many speakers have commented tonight on the negative impacts of adding additional lanes on our city's safety, environment, and business community. However, I understand that the main goal of adding an additional lane during the during rush hour is to reduce traffic. While this may seem like a very logical solution, adding a lane will only increase traffic through our city. Some of us may remember Carmageddon, when the 405 was closed in order to add lanes. The goal was to alleviate congestion through one of the country's busiest freeways. Billions of dollars were spent, and in 2019, studies show that there were more vehicles overall on and near the 405, and making space for more drivers only encouraged more people to drive. In 2015, before Carmageddon, the average speed on the 405 was 28 miles per hour. After adding lanes, it dropped to 19 miles per hour. If we build more space for cars, more cars will come. This is called induced demand. And study after study from across the world have shown that adding lanes only increases traffic. I like to read about these things, and the most optimistic studies show that there is at least a one-to-one correlation between increasing capacity and increasing the number of cars. So let's say you have 100 cars driving east on Garvey at rush hour. Once you go from two lanes to three lanes, that's a 50% increase, those 100 cars will be dispersed amongst those three lanes. And they will be able to get to their destination faster. That's great. But once the drivers on the 10 freeway learn that there is a faster route on Garvey, or once their navigation figures it out, then those 100 cars grows to 110 cars. And then 120. and soon 150 or more cars and the travel time for those original 100 drivers goes back just to what it was before. Speaking of studies, I also want to point out that every major road study shows that when there are more lanes, it encourages speeding. It doesn't matter what the speed limit signs say. More lanes means more speeding. I know the city is eager to spend this money. Residents are eager to see it spent. We are eager to see traffic improved, but adding a rush hour lane will not achieve that goal. Science has proven that. It's been almost a year since the council moved to table this in order to get more community input. And aside from one community meeting a month ago, residents have not been adequately engaged. In fact, several neighbors emailed me after last year's meeting asking to participate in an ad hoc committee. I forwarded those on to city staff. Have those people been contacted? Have Garvey businesses been surveyed? So we are eagerly asking you, please do not make Garvey an attractive bypass for 10 freeway commuters. Please do not approve something that will only make the problem worse. Please really engage with the community and vote no or table this item so that we can consider how to utilize these funds for real traffic solutions based on their proposed expanded guidelines from the county. Thank you very much.

Thank you Jennifer. Next speaker, Johnson Liu. Hi, good evening, Exceeded City Council. My name is Johnson Liu. I am a resident of Monterey Park and a licensed traffic engineer for a nearby city. And I feel that it's helped me when I was studying these plans. And I'm kind of new to the city of Monterey Park, so I wasn't able to participate in earlier rounds of outreach. So I reviewed Metro's presentation from January pretty closely. And first of all, I want to thank city council and city staff for bringing this project forward.

I know it's extremely exciting when you can get this much money

from Metro for any project. I know a big ticket capital project like this doesn't come along very often, so I can definitely see the desire and the want to spend this money. I do want to, I guess, express my hesitancy and consideration for this project because I feel that after reviewing this project, it's not the most ideal project for the type of downtown that Garvey Avenue is compared to,

let's say like a Beverly Boulevard or Firestone Boulevard down in Downey.

It's just a very different type of land use. I would kind of, I want to emphasize from a previous speaker that Rosemead and San Marino have turned down this metro money, which is a considerable amount of money, but really intended to solve congestion issues on freeways. I can definitely

see Google Maps directing people onto Garvey Avenue and jumping back onto the tent at Rosemead or New right after this project is built. I know I did the same when I used to commute from downtown to Hasina Heights, and my GPS told me to take Beverly because it's three lanes during peak hours. So I can appreciate that, you know, the quote-unquote induced demand that would come from expanding the capacity of Garvey at least during peak hours. Some things I think in my experience can kind of show some I guess details that may not be as useful or as beneficial is that

the parking structure in the Metro's plan is only identified as the one at Garvey and Lincoln and there is no promise that there will be more than one parking structure. I think this is a great

idea if our downtown on Garvey was concentrated around one or two blocks, but I can't imagine anyone visiting a business down the street if they have to walk a quarter mile to the parking structure that would be at Garvey and Lincoln. So that would be basically any business on Garvey east of Alhambra would lose on-street parking during peak hours and gain almost no benefit from

the parking structure except for knowing the fact that it's a quarter mile away and that their business competitors enjoy that parking structure while they're left with, I guess, even Lor capacity than they started out with. Another thing that I think needs to be reiterated is that

unlike some of these examples that were shown previously on how a wider peak hour corridor

could be beneficial, the commercial mix of our businesses on Garvey are smaller mom-and-pop businesses that don't have large parking structures or parking lots behind them to handle loading and

unloading, which is often done curbside, especially since this is a restaurant-heavy corridor. Delivery drivers do rely on curbside driving, as do the businesses. I can't imagine that a delivery driver would go into a parking structure, pull a ticket, walk two blocks to pick up food, and then drive off. I think we'd still end up with the same problems or the same issues where they just

park now illegally in a parking lane, which is even more dangerous. With regards to peak hour speeds and increasing capacity. It sounds like having extra lanes is always a good thing,

but it actually isn't, especially the fact that Yanez School and I believe a private school next

to it are both on this corridor and would experience the additional third lane during these peak hours. That would make enforcing or even getting people to drive anywhere near the school limit, school speed limit of 25 miles an hour, very difficult. I do want to speak to that the bike route, I designed bike lanes for a living. I would not say this is a good bike route.

I would say, if anything, it creates more liabilities for the city, because if a bicyclist was in the outside lane during peak hours, during free flow speed, without a shoulder to retreat to, and they're stuck in front of a car, serious crashes could happen. I urge you guys to really reconsider this project and shelve it until Supervisor Solis' motion to re-scope and reallocate these ones for something more appropriate is considered. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Jaime Rodriguez.

Jaime?

I think Jaime spoke earlier.

i'm not sure if it's the same hymie

the back to hymie um claire

hi can you hear me proceed hi um my name is clara i've been a resident of monterey park for almost

all my life and i wanted to say that i oppose item two a the lane expansion will bring pollution to

our city. In order to get to Garvey, commuters will take the residential streets near the 10,

thereby destroying their quality of life. Langley Center is there, and there is a very active

walking community there. This will be destroyed with the volume of cars coming off the 10 to use the Garvey expansion. Please consider

using the money for an alternative modes of

transportation like buses. That's the end of my comment. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, have you spoke already doing public comments?

No, I have not. I just got on right now.

Okay, please

proceed. Okay. Look, thank you for the opportunity and you know what, I was

Well, I've been here a long time. My kids went to school here, and now my grandkids are going to school here. I was also a truck driver for many years.

And as a truck driver, after work and during work, you look for avenues to get your load off your truck or to pick up a load. And then after work, you look for avenues to get home.

and opening up, even if it's temporary, during peak hours, it's an additional lane. So you're looking at a lot of commuters, a lot of truck drivers, a lot of people in different types of industry looking for avenues to get from downtown, from West L.A., from Hollywood, coming east to go to the eastern cities east of Monterey Park,

and vice versa. Some people that work east of Monterey Park during those peak hours will adore that additional lane.

So I urge you strongly not to pass this, not to approve this, and look for other avenues. Hilda Solis' office, thank you very much, is presenting the opportunities to be flexible on funds. And don't fall for the pure tactic that we're going to lose these funds. We are not going to lose those funds. Another thing to consider is Monterey Highlands,

one of the schools of our children. Parents travel on Garvey and the Monterey Pass Road to take their children to school, to Monterey Highlands.

And children also travel on buses. to get to that school there's also ines elementary school my son went there and also

the opportunity presents itself of congestion during those hours if you add on

or you close out those lanes for more traffic the other thing is to consider is also to promote other alternatives

increasing increasing the bus transit sharing uh drive driver sharing diagonal parking uh and also bikes can travel i've seen in other cities that i've gone to bikes traveling between parked cars and pedestrians between the park the park cars and uh and the sidewalk so the the opportunity rests with us today tonight to vote no um you know what um The increased traffic, even temporary during what I call peak hours, is adding another lane. There's no way around it. You are adding another lane, and you're increasing the risk of injury or worse for students, the elderly, joggers, dog walkers, bicyclists, shoppers, tourists, visitors, and even other drivers. So I strongly again urge you to please consider, you know, like in other cities that we visited where they have thriving business districts, they have curbside parking and currently do not have this lane expansion or even temporary lane or during peak hours to increase traffic flow. I thank you for this opportunity. I know there's much more that we want to say, I'd like to say, and I urge you again to listen to the public, give more opportunity in future dialogue or meetings for us to participate in and look for other alternatives. Thank you very much for this opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. And congratulations, Mayor Lo. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, we have Jaiso Yang.

Hi, good evening, Honorable Mayor Lo and City Council members. My name is Jay Sho Young. I am the Senior Policy Coordinator here at the Asia Pacific Islander Forum.

I am the senior policy coordinator here at the Asian Pacific Islander for movement. ! We are a public health and environmental justice nonprofit dedicated to ensure that API communities

! and other communities of power have full power to access good health and a healthy environment. ! ! I'm providing public comment today to oppose ! to remove street parking and add additional lanes on Garvey Avenue. ! I also asked the city council to strongly consider retracting the approval of the lane expansions that have already been passed along Atlantic, Garfield, Ramona, numerous cities in the estuary. Long, Atlantic, Garfield, Ramona. Numerous cities in the SGB have retracted approved projects after facing mounting opposition from their constituents. I would strongly consider the Monterey Park City Council to do the same thing as well due to the overwhelming opposition to these lane expansions in the city. With an upward trend in pedestrian deaths due to vehicle collisions, we don't see this as a time to expand lanes. This project will likely exacerbate the number of pedestrian deaths in the city.

We've seen numerous accidents over the last few years, including an elderly resident who was hit on the intersection of Garvey and Atlantic in 2021. A 14-year-old Mark Kippel High School student who was hit on Atlantic Boulevard in 2019. And an 80-year-old man who was hit also on Atlantic in 2018. And I've personally been hit while riding my bike. After that accident, I was too afraid to ride my bike. I used to bike and take the bus like 80% of the time. But after that accident, I've been very hesitant to bike and bus due to the dangers of terrible vehicle collisions.

In addition, if you were to look at the data in terms of long-term impacts of lane expansions, the lane expansions only provide relief for a brief period of time.

These expansions also certainly increase greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution as more cars will drive through the city.

And the San Diego Valley region has already one of the worst air qualities in the nation.

Los Angeles is the perfect example of where city planners continuously add lanes, and yet we still see serious congestion taking over those lane expansions. Furthermore, lane expansions only benefit those who have access to vehicles. Youth, elderly, low-income folks who can afford vehicles do not benefit from lane expansions.

Right now, we have about 15% of residents who are under 14, 21% who are over 65. that shows about over 34% of Maori Park residents likely cannot drive and have to utilize sidewalks and buses.

And in fact, they're negatively impacted by lane expansions because they would have to use these sidewalks where the expansions are occurring.

We hope you take our public comment into consideration. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is Eddie Sun.

Good evening. members of the city council staff and members of the public. A previous commenter stated that

the late Johnny Thompson supports this project but as leader of the business improvement district advisory committee I believe he actually opposed specifically the lane expansion portion

of the project so I just wanted to clarify that point. I actually want to focus the rest of my

comments on, let's call it misinformation from city officials. So I work as an analyst for climate and transportation policy, and I applaud the commenters who have bravely pointed out that

these lane expansions don't actually alleviate traffic and are likely to worsen our greenhouse

gas emissions. Unfortunately, a number of city officials have repeated a piece of misinformation, suggesting that this project will actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Unfortunately, a number of city officials have repeated a piece of misinformation suggesting that this project will actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This flies in the face of logic, and it has been refuted by a very large number of studies. Postdoctoral researcher Jamie Volker and Professor Susan Handy at UC Davis

conducted a study showing that building additional lane miles actually triggers more people to get into their cars and drive on these new lanes when they otherwise would not have driven. UCLA professor Michael Manville has also published a number of studies substantiating these same findings. Now, Monterey Park City officials are arguing that more lanes will reduce the number of cars that are idling on Monterey Park streets. However, these high quality studies show that if you want to take a full accounting of the project's greenhouse gas impacts, you actually need to consider not just the cars that are no longer idling, but also the additional driving that will occur as a result of the new lanes. And any climate scientist or policy analyst with their head screwed on would tell you

that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the additional driving will

actually outweigh the emissions offsets achieved from the reduced idling. So you're just wrong on that. And every academic, everyone who's actually studied this can tell you that. So let's not act like we're locked into bad decisions that were made months or even years before the public ever got a chance to weigh in.

The owner of Divine's Furniture said it very succinctly earlier.

It seems like the city is just obsessed with spending this money just because it received the money.

You have no evidence whatsoever for your claims that this will improve traffic.

You have not been able to cite any studies. You have not completed any studies to substantiate your claims.

And several of us with direct professional experience in this space have been shouting

ourselves blue, telling you that it will not improve traffic because we have seen other

projects like this and they did not improve traffic. So before you make outlandish claims a fact, I just urge you to please consult experts or

assemble some evidence instead of just talking out of your whatever.

So let's give ourselves the time to really evaluate these proposals and decide whether they're best for the community. Thank you.

Next speaker is Kevin Chang.

Hi, I just have a quick comment. My question is, who is this proposal serving? Who will benefit from widening Garvey and increasing traffic flow in Garvey? Many of the businesses on Garvey have absolutely no parking except for the few spots in front of their businesses. Removing parking will cripple these businesses, even if it's only for a few hours. The mobility improvement project does not actually relieve traffic for residents of Monterey Park. It will only relieve traffic for people heading to cities past Monterey Park. I'm in favor of building parking structures. We could benefit from parking infrastructure. However, removing street parking and inviting more cars onto Garvey will hurt our city. Can we get funding for parking structures without adding more traffic lanes? Congestion on Garvey is actually not that bad right now. If we widen the lanes, Monterey Park will put a big neon sign on itself and says, hey, take Garvey instead of the 10 Freeway. Google Waze and other navigation software will inevitably start routing gridlock drivers from the 10 to come through our city streets to shave off a few minutes from a commute. Lastly, sidewalks on Garvey are already too narrow for pedestrians. Instead of widening the streets for cars, we should be widening the sidewalks for pedestrians to improve safety for actual residents. I don't want a Tiffany's in Monterey Park, and I'm pretty sure 80% of residents in Monterey Park will never step foot into a store like that. City Council, when voting on this proposal, please consider who your constituents are. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Laura.

Hello. Tonight, I'd like to read a letter addressed to Monterey Park Mayor Lo, Council Member Yu, Council Member Cernoso, Council Member Chan, and Council Member Liang. I'd like to preface this letter by stating that businesses who have signed this letter have never been consulted on this proposal. And I myself, along with business owners, are disappointed that the city has not done any community outreach. So this letter is from Monterey Park Garvey Avenue business owners.

It's titled Elimination of Street Parking on Garvey.

We, the undersigned, our business owners and or operators in the city of Monterey Park, We write to oppose the removal of street parking for additional lanes on Garfield Avenue, Atlantic Boulevard, and Garvey Avenue. Our businesses rely heavily on street parking for our customers.

The removal of parking would significantly impact the foot traffic in our region.

Adding an additional lane will make our streets less safe.

Cars will be able to drive faster and there will be no buffer of parked cars between the traffic and people on sidewalks.

It will make our streets more dangerous for everyone, particularly our vulnerable populations of senior citizens and children. Additional lanes on these streets will also harm local businesses by turning them into mini highways where the speed of traffic discourages local trips where patrons visit one or more business.

The loss of parking on these streets further worsened the stress on businesses that have already been hurt by the pandemic.

As brought up by the Business Improvement District Advisory Committee, BIDAC, the creation of three-way lanes on each side of Garvey will create more harm than good.

According to BIDAC, this project would require, quote, elimination of our tree and grass-lined medians.

To do so would only have added one lane on one side of the street.

The rest of the space needed for the other side, third lane, would have to come from an unrealistic reduction of pedestrian and offloading spaces on both sides of the street, including the removal of street lamps, palm trees, large fLor containers, benches, bike racks, seasonal banners and decorations, unquote.

The BID Act further stated, quote, many businesses do not have sufficient property available for rear parking.

We cannot allow elimination of street parking for any amount of time per day, no matter what, unquote.

Street parking is an essential need for our businesses.

Our businesses have been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and cannot afford to lose street parking. Instead, this money should be used to create more walkable corridors so that Monterey Park can become more of a destination for people to shop and dine. We hope you take our comments into consideration. We hope you take our comments into consideration. !

Signed, Sherry Chen of Vita Tiv USA, Ku Wang of Tea Time Inc, ! May of Grace Trading Group Sung Ho Li of 99 Market, Xin Lin of Vapor Times, Ning Li of Fukin Healthy Food, Xiaoling Huang of Shamsen BBQ, Dat Min Doe of Vapor Times, Signed, Sham Sen Barbecue, Dat Min Do of Dat Min Do DDS Family Dentistry, Jesus from Club 21,

Yang Ming Bao of Bao's Enterprise, Ling Ziu Hung of Ling Ziu Hung Healthcare, Kitty Wang

of May's Barber and Beauty Salon, Heidi Lau of New Dream FLor,

Mei of May and Tri Beauty Salon,

Kibo Academy, Gao Yuan Sun of Bubble Crush Inc., Brian Horn of Divines, Kenny Chen of Topline Automotive, and Vinice Lo of Nahang Natrang. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker, Linda.

Good evening, council members. My name is Linda, and I'm a homeowner and was born and raised in Monterey Park. I absolutely love this community, and I'm very excited that there are conversations and opportunities to reshape our community here. However, for today's agenda, I'm very confused over what our future vision is for Monterey Park. I am wholeheartedly against Garvey's widening efforts and I have three recommendations. First of all, I would urge all of you to please, please just take a step back and to not support or vote on this agenda item today. There is really no urgency or deadline to move this project forward, considering it doesn't have the support of the community. Two, the city should create an ad hoc committee comprised of residents and advocates to help create a vision or project alternative that would be more beneficial and reflective of the community's needs. And finally, unless I wasn't looking at the right place, I couldn't find other written comments for this item. For transparency efforts, I think the city should share all the comments that have been submitted to the city for the public to view. I'm also in support of all the speakers' comments today who are against the project. We need to implement a more walkable, pedestrian-friendly community and make downtown Murray Park a central hub or gathering place for eating, shopping, entertainment, and cultural activities. Unfortunately, today's car-centric presentation goes against our community vision. And if you haven't done so already, I really encourage all of you to walk along Garvey Boulevard during rush hour. I mean, I will even do it with you. Try crossing the street at the intersection of Garvey and Garfield. Even during off-peak hours, I can guarantee that you will be stressed out. Dodging those cars or making left and right turns. It's not pedestrian friendly and not inviting to pedestrians. It's important to note that on that corner, Russell, proposed mixed-use development with over 100 units called Celadon is being slated to be built there. Monterey Park is also anticipating a few other mixed-use developments, increasing residential density and bringing more residents along these corridors, which is great, but yet we are not planning on how to accommodate these residents who have an opportunity to get out their cars and take advantage of mixed-use living in a safe and walkable community where they can walk out of the house, eat, shop, and play. We are also not taking into account the aging population in Monterey Park. According to the city's current draft housing element,

Department of Public Affairs. Department of Public Affairs. Department of Public Affairs.

Department of Public Affairs. Department of Public Affairs. Department of Public Affairs.

house near Barnes Park and go shopping at Hong Kong Supermarket. While she loved getting out of the house, it was always daunting and very stressful for her to cross the streets with all the cars zooming by. It felt like she was in the Olympics, right? She's just rushing to get across. We always felt unsafe, and I'm very confident that this proposed widening would make it worse and less inviting for other seniors who want to walk to downtown. I'm also very concerned that we're not discussing and analyzing the negative impacts this project could have on

students who attend Inez and St. Stephen's. Again, I would like to reiterate and urge that you please do not rush this decision. Please take a step back to consider all the negative impacts that you've heard today, especially to those who are living in the city. Let's work together to increase

foot traffic and not cars, BMT, or greenhouse gas emissions in our community. There are successful models in other cities that we can implement in the city. Let's look at them. Let's analyze them.

And, you know, we should not only invest in transformative projects, but we should also ensure that we are creating a transformative community with real beneficial impact. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker, Dora Long. Can you hear me well? Yes, Dora, please proceed. Thank you, Cindy. Good evening, Mayor Long, Council, City Manager, and Staff. My name is Dora Long. I'm the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Greater Monterey Park Chamber of Commerce. Our members are made up of businesses that serve the city of Monterey Park and the surrounding communities.

Tonight, I want to have a little wrap-up. What's the highlight? The Council will consider entering into a funding agreement with the LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

in the amount of $86,300,000 for the construction of one or more parking structures in the city. It will also include installing bike route signs along Garvey, installing bus paths, and installing EV charging stations. The proposal also includes possible use of funding to install a cycle track along Monterey Paths Road. For the structure and related project, the city will impose restricted parking along Gavi Avenue between Atlantic and New York during peak hours. We rise by 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on westbound on 3rd Lane or 4 to 7 eastbound on 3rd Lane. Monday to Friday, we are talking about 3 to 3 and other 6 hours, not 24 by 7. The Chamber supports plans that will improve opportunity for customers to have easier access to local businesses. This includes parking structures that make it convenient to find parking and charging facilities for electric vehicles, bus paths that protect the road from damage we much appreciate. However, we are concerned about a parking restriction, even though it's only during peak hour. Those times, especially in evening hours, may negatively affect those businesses that are far from a parking structure. This includes more eateries that have no parking of their own but depend on sidewalk parking. Monetary parks should encourage other forms of access to other businesses as well. Those include walking, buses, and bicycles. The proposed signage for bicycles do not make it any more comfortable to ride than now. Building parking structures would stimulate economic growth on the short term, but does further encourage people to come to our city via driving instead of public transit. In the long term, it will result in a more congested downtown over the next few decades if other traffic reduction methods are not implemented. The parking structures are good, but there needs to be an emphasis from Council today to also focus on building out our bike and public transit networks beyond the short term. Encouraging public transit and active transportation is important so that we can attract development and people to come into the city via public transit more. The issue at hand is that we don't have any neighboring bike connections and we build active transportation locally without partnering with other cities to implement a stronger bay route. In conclusion, we support parking structures. We are here and ensure seeking a balanced solution to business district traffic problems. We support facilities tied into our environment, such as EV chargers, bike lanes, and buses. And at the same time, we also emphasize strong business and safety implementation in transportation, such as off-street parking and smoother traffic. Proper synchronization of traffic signals will prevent excessive vehicle speed and provide increasing safety for pedestrians. Thank you for the staff clarified today the mobility improvement project timeline. We understand this project has been starting from 2018. Right now, we are talking about another five years. and for implementing this project is another three to five years. How long we can wait? All these businesses are waiting for more business to come. We're not only looking for neighbors, we are looking for as a whole to transform Garvey as a vision for future urbanization. Thank you.

Next speaker, Mark Ruddham.

Yes, hi, can you hear me?

So I'm also a long-time resident. I actually grew up here.

I've lived here for a total of probably about 40 years now.

I disagree with the assertion that the community doesn't support this proposal.

A lot of us do, including myself, especially after hearing staff's presentation, which clarified a lot of things for me. Additionally, it seems to me that the council can actually modify the plan if the county does indeed offer the city that latitude per this new news we got earlier in this meeting from Hilda Solis' office.

So I think it makes sense to secure the funding and work out details if we need to later.

I don't see any reason why not to do that. I do think that a couple of hours of no parking on the north side in the morning and on the south side in the evening on Garvey is not going to be a substantial detriment in terms of traffic. It's not going to be Carmageddon.

Traffic is neither going to be zooming across nor going at a snail's pace,

as one person said. She actually said both of those things were going to happen, which makes no sense to me.

Also, parking is a huge factor for downtown.

I don't shop in downtown Monterey Park because I don't want to deal with the street parking, what there is of it.

I go to Alhambra. I go to Pasadena. And I would love to be able to shop in downtown Monterey Park.

So I think on the whole, this is a very beneficial proposal for the city.

And I'm definitely not the only one. I'll cede the rest of my time. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Phone number ending in 752.

Hi. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Is this Austin? This is Joe. My name is Joe Munoz. Thank you, Joe. Please proceed. Hi. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Councilmen, Councilwomen. My name is Joe Buna. I'm a resident of Monterey Park, and I oppose the project. I believe that the lane expansion would virtually bisect the city into a north and south Monterey Park. good urban planning practice would actually do the opposite it would promote pedestrian friendly areas um this project would actually create a conduit benefiting our neighboring cities to the east and the west um i would recommend that the city council actually hire a specialized consultant to do some real community outreach, do some surveying, speak to the residents, speak to the small businesses, and actually build that into your staff support in addition to the engineering studies such as the traffic study. I'd urge council to deny the project or at least delay it when some of these studies have been, some of the data have been gathered. Thank you.

Thank you, Joe. Next speaker, Emily Horn.

Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Good evening. My name is Brian Horn and I operate Devines Furniture at 802 East Garvey. I heard earlier about the outreach that was done and not myself nor any of my surrounding business owner neighbors, any of them were consulted about any of this and we're all extremely concerned about the idea of losing any street parking because street parking is already a very large issue for us. In fact, some of the businesses, especially small restaurants that have food pickup at dinnertime, to lose even just an hour around dinnertime would be just devastating. and nobody nobody asked us anything about it um i i think that the uh the gentleman earlier johnson the traffic engineer said it said it best that that the plan isn't right for this type of of downtown the idea of building parking garages would be great except for who's it going to benefit? It'll only benefit a handful of businesses in the tight-knit community right where it's located. To cover the entire almost two miles of Garvey, you'd have to build dozens of parking garages for it to make a real impact. And the idea of having more traffic, traffic isn't an issue. I watch traffic every day, have for decades, and we don't have a traffic issue. We have a parking issue and if if we have going at rush hour it's going to end at new avenue which is going to create a huge bottleneck which will then create a big traffic issue especially out on the east end of town where where we're located and it and it kind of feels like uh we're we're lost to everybody thinks of downtowns being garfield and garvey but it goes all the way to new. So I heard earlier, it's the idea of just get the money and figure it out later. None of the studies have been done and nobody can say exactly what times and how many. There's other people giving real information and the plan is to just get the money and we'll figure it out later. that things like the idea of putting a bike lane in in with increased traffic try it's already dangerous enough for pedestrians as it is to to i wouldn't i wouldn't ride a bike in traffic on on garvey let alone during rush hour with add another lane into the mix um the the whole thing just there's nothing good that i can see coming to the city other than to benefit a handful of people located around whatever parking structure would be built um and i think there's plenty of room for improvement i don't think that this is it and i urge you to vote no i thank you for your

time. Thank you. Next speaker, CL. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Please state your name.

Okay, thank you. Hi, my name is Connie. I'm a longtime resident of Monterey Park. I want to express my concerns regarding this project, specifically regarding the lane expansions. Even if the expansion is only for several hours in the morning and several hours in the afternoon, adding the additional lanes during rush hour to quote-unquote alleviate traffic is a short-term solution in exchange for loss of street parking and posing a danger to children and other patrons specifically students who attend I know

short. Thank you, Connie. Next speaker, Brandon. Hello, my name is Brandon. I'm a lifetime Monterey

Park resident. I went to three elementary schools and the high school. So yeah, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the democratic process and people for and against that. I think everyone has some pretty cogent arguments. I would like to say that I would oppose voting on this right now. And

if we can just postpone it to maybe flesh out more in detail. Again, I lived here my whole life. I'm an avid walker and I ran cross country for Markeppel. I've been all over the city on foot, on bike. I'd have to say that I purchased a bike last year to ride with my friends. And two days

after I set up my bike, my friend got hit by a car. So we did not end up riding bikes together anymore. I think that for right now, I don't think that extra mile and a half, you know,

congestion relief is actually going to help much. I think that what, you know, to delay and better flush out the idea is to our advantage. I don't think that securing funds for the sake of securing funds is a good idea. What else is there? Yeah, I think that's about it. I think that we should

definitely have a cogent, well-thought-out argument before pursuing such a major option.

Yeah, that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Thierry Lee. Are you still there?

Yes, I'm here.

Go ahead and proceed.

Hello. Good evening, Mayor Lo, Mayor Potem, City Manager, Clerk, and Council Members.

I just want to say that in listening to other people's concern about stopping this project, I want to ask everyone here to ask your conscience you know like these are real people out there on Garvey trying to do as much as they can to survive in this pandemic and you're going to take business away from them you're going to take revenue away from them so that there's going to be what a mile and a half worth of stretch make them miserable made the children. I went to St. Stephen's and there's a common lesson home right there on Garvey and McFerrin. All these old people. I always see car accidents all the time. And you know, I mean, I want to ask you council members also if there's going to be building a parking structure, what if the parking structure has all these spaces but no cars? it does not make any sense to put one parking structure in one location and, you know, clear out, you know, two miles worth of street parking for these businesses. And in thinking about all this, I just feel that this city is going to let Murray Park become the guinea pig where Alhambra didn't want to do it. San Marino didn't want to do it. Rosemead didn't want to do it. South Pasadena didn't want to do it. But now you guys want to throw away, you know, people's lives, livelihood, and their businesses. You're going to throw away, you know, children's safety. You're going to throw away senior people's, you know, sitting in citizens that are crossing, walking the street because, you know, they don't own a car or they don't have any family members to take them to places. and you know there's so many issues concerning this stuff with the pollution the the the accidents the safety but i want you guys to think to think about your conscience are you okay having someone getting killed because of this you know project or or having someone have to close their business because they didn't have any parking at all that there was just a mom and pop like restaurant with just like, you know, the front. So to me, like, you know, it's a lot of money, but you want to destroy people's lives. You want to, you know, hurt them, even though there's no intent. It's just, I think that what do you guys want to do? I'm completely opposed to this, but whatever you people do tonight, I just want to wish that you contemplated with your conscience And, you know, you're hurting a lot of people out there if this goes through. And I don't know if you've seen Monarch Park as it is today, you know, 2022, February 16th.

It's almost like a ghost town. I'm really ashamed to say it. But, you know, these businesses are very, very, are struggling very, very hard. And to have all this money and this freeway alleviate congestion, causing people to die, causing people to lose their business, I just think it's not for our city.

It might be for another city, but I don't think this should be the future of Monument Park because it's just going to destroy the look.

People would not want to come here anymore. I don't know if you guys have seen what's happened in Chinatown and downtown. It's almost like a ghost town. There's exactly nothing there. You know, so I'm opposed to this project

because I believe that my conscience tells me that it's going to hurt a lot of people. And I just would like you guys to, you know, think about that when you guys make your decision. Thank you.

Thank you. Last speaker, Vincent Chang. Thank you, Cindy. Good evening.

Mayor Lo, members of the city council, all my staff.

You know, I'm really conflicted with this proposal.

You know, I was really excited to have the possibility of a parking structure, possibly more. In fact, I commend the council members who were involved in negotiating with Metro, you know, to get the funds for the structure. Parking structures can be designed different ways. If you go to Old Town Pasadena, you can see how businesses are integrated into the parking structure. So it doesn't look like a parking structure. So also, you know, there's a possibility of building housing on top of parking structures. So those are all possible things that you can do with a parking structure. And the reason why I support a parking structure, because we, you know, we've been looking for the opportunity to have a parking structure for at least 20, 25, possibly more years. And, you know, to have that in the downtown area, you know, will give us the opportunity to bring up businesses that are of quality that businesses that, you know, and I'm talking long term, I'm not talking, you know, even the next 10 years, but we're talking about, you know, long term down the line. So, you know, there's a possibility. You've got to start somewhere. I'm sorry, Old Town Pasadena didn't always look the way it does now. It was like Skid Row at one time, for those of you old enough to remember. But I'm really conflicted, and I find this very onerous demand on the city to take away the parking. um you know even for a couple hours i know this is i i don't blame the city this is part of you know the the desire of metro to do this and i'm very glad that uh supervisor solise uh tonight announced that you know she's uh uh gonna try to uh uh you know give additional opportunities for us to work with. And so I hope the city council will, you know, take that into consideration, as well as the fact that, as it was mentioned earlier, to include additional infrastructure for walking, biking, you know, buses, all that, so that we can bring quality businesses into the city. So again, I don't envy your decision. I've sat here watching you guys, you know, make the decision. And this is a very tough one. So I wish you the best. Okay. What do you want me to do?

Huh? Hello? Was somebody talking? Anyways, just, you know, to conclude, I was also part of the regional bike plan of which the city adopted back in 2014. With, you know, back then it was known as bike SGV, now it's active SGV. I know we talked about having bike lanes, but having a proposal where we just put up signs is really not what is something that any cyclist would feel safe to ride. I mean, I wouldn't, and I don't blame anybody who don't want to ride a Longarvey. You might as well not have to sign, because I think it was mentioned that, you know, there's possible legal concerns. But at that time, it was meant to have like a bike boulevard with paint on the ground so that it make it real obvious to have bike lanes going through Garvey, not just mere bike signs. So anyways, good luck, Council. Thank you. Vincent, so that concludes the speakers for this item. however there were written communications. Okay proceed.

I'm sorry we're going to read those off. We're gonna play the recording for the written communications. Okay.

okay wait i'm sorry wait i'm sorry say it again say it again

they're going to play the recording of the public comments or the written comments okay

One was neutral.

Written communication from Jimmy Lau. Dear Mayor Lo and City Council members,

My name is Jimmy Lau.

As a resident who cares deeply about the safety of my neighbors, the quality of the air we breathe each and every day, and the health of my friends and family, I urge you to stop plans to spend $100 million on funding to widen downtown streets. Removing street parking and adding additional lanes will only hurt our community and local businesses we cherish. The additional 98 communication in opposition

used the same or substantially the same template.

These are the names of the written communications in opposition. Jimmy Lau, Anna Ye, Tammy Sam, Edgar Hogan, Lorenzo Mutia, Olivia Ng, Venise Lo, Evan Lina Fernandez, Victor Lo, Tara Kwan, I.D. Alshuri, Jeremy Gossip, Michael Nog, Leslie Toy, Ross Rivas, Ted Cato, Maria Elena Diaz, Kanika Falk, Nashra Ahmed, Paris Patterson Gardner, Danny Wu, Carmen Goosey, Brandon Yim, Brianna Dow, Leonard Lee, Jimmy Doe, Stephanie Dare, Kevin Chang, Andy Fung, Asena Nakayama Do Jan Lee Jaime Rodriguez Shirley Wu Steve Milo Zewski Yu Yang Yang Nicholas Tran Shereen Cho

Elizabeth Ye Ismael Vargas David Wong Brian Kim Tammy Scorcia Krista Murthy

Barbara Nye Nicole Duong Ed Zhang Phil Tomito I Xie, Charles Buck Stapleton, Jennifer Lee, Amy Hung, Katie Wang, Jennifer Tang, Rose Scobie,

Stanley Chu, Jack Rubensall, Emily Ng, Andrew Yip, Luis Fuanyua, Beverly Dot, Sarah Chang,

Isabel Dominguez, Jaiso Yang, Ron Vasquez, Gregory Moss, Paul Kahn, Hannah Locop, Elizabeth

Duenas, Laura Gallegos, Everett Kurai, Melissa Chia, Shirley Chou, Denise Ng, Stephen Kahn,

and Su Kim. Josephine Tang. Denise Palesteros. Linda Tang. Cindy Yi. Su Wong. Steve Fujita. Noelle. Kathy Baum. T. Hashimoto. Peter Sheck. Russell Ng. Connie Ho. Topher Mathers. Austin Fung. Brian Horn. Maggie Tran. Jason Rogers. Aaron Gillum. Natalie Reyes. Victor Magnano. Amy Gibbett. Bill Lamb. Russell McNeil. Amy Gabbett. Wong and Dania Chalkins. There is one neutral communications from Nancy Okuri and it reads, Monterey Park City Council

and staff.

On your agenda, this meeting dated February 16th is 2A, a major life-changing event for

our residents, our business owners, and local cities located near our hometown. I realize this is 710 Mobility Improvement Project will be discussed at many meetings over the years.

Many residents and business owners have not had a chance to voice their opinions and concerns since the COVID-19 virus and other various viruses caused our City Hall to close to us taxpaying voters. Since this issue is too important for you to decide over Zoom, I strongly request you table this very important matter until we all can attend public meetings at City Hall.

Tonight, this council will be advised to vote on 3C that the Los Angeles County has stated that our city hall will be closed down until March 31, 2022. Nancy O'Curray.

So all written communications are posted to the city's website under the Agenda Center.

The website is www.montereypark.ca.gov forward slash 1406 forward slash written dash communication dash 2022. 22.

And, Mayor, just wanted to let you know also that the City Clerk's office received, like, I think, 34 additional written communications after the submitted period, which is actually 24 hours before the meeting. 33 of those written communications are in opposition and then one neutral written communications so

but you know since they were submitted afterwards they will be posted at the city's website

under the agenda agenda center as well thank you thank you for clarifying and for those who did

submit prior to the 24 hour cutoff that their comments will be posted as well. Thank you for clarifying that. Okay, anything else then, clerk's office?

Okay. Nothing, just be clerk, no. Okay, thank you so much. Okay, well, in that case, well look, I want to thank everyone who has participated in tonight's

public comment period for this item.

Certainly, you know, government always works best when then those who are elected representatives are able to communicate and hear from their constituents. And we do thank you for your comments tonight. Well, why don't then we now have City Council then comments and deliberations on the item? Okay, let's see.

At this point, then, I would like to ask my colleagues.

I know we've heard a lot tonight. If you have your own question or comments to what has been stated and discussed.

I see my colleague. Well, actually, hold on. I see some screens. Okay. Let's see.

okay oh i see oh okay well um i saw mayor uh pro temp for us and also hand up first and then uh comes from peter's chance so we're from fred and then we will uh proceed to peter okay Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, everyone who called in and expressed their concerns. And just wanted to touch on a couple items that resonated with me, the people that spoke. a fellow from Divine Furniture who depends on curbside parking you know selling furniture you can't just pick up the furniture and walk down the street to your car or to a parking structure and I think there was another fellow that mentioned that his family owns a restaurant on Garvey that depends on uh parking on the on the street so i think that's a real ballot concern for um you know the people that own businesses up along garvey avenue they depend on having that parking if you take it away uh even in the morning from seven to nine i guess maybe might not affect them

too much but in the evening that's when people are getting off and that's probably when a lot of

people are out shopping and that's the time that these folks depend on their customers so i thought that was a very valid point uh tammy sam talked about the parking structures and how she would utilize it by parking there and taking the bus or other transportation into downtown or other areas and then coming back and possibly meeting her family and taking advantage of the businesses in downtown so i thought that was really interesting um another person talked about the ad hoc committee where the citizens could come together and form a committee and talk about this

issue and let them take ownership um the only thing i would add to that is not only come up with

a plan but also implement the plan a lot of these folks that spoke were on the younger side and I would just hope that once, if this were to happen and they came up with a plan on how to better the traffic and all the situation downtown, that they would educate the elderly and their families and their neighbors who might not know about this and actually encourage them to take advantage of maybe upgraded safety issues I mean, I've seen people walking in the street and people jaywalking. They tend to be elderly folks. So, you know, I would hope that the younger folks in our city would help the elderly. I mean, you know, we need to look out for each other. And then another thing that I thought was interesting was partnering with Roseman and El Monte. And that's a way for us to show good neighbor being good neighbors by partnering with our fellow cities who also share Garvey Avenue, maybe come up with the general plan for all three of us to follow. I think it's I think their strength in numbers and I think they fell from divine furniture I talked about bottlenecking there at New Avenue and that could be a possibility that might not turn out to be good so I thought those are all valid situations I know

we talked about Hilda Solis talking about this issue this coming week so I think maybe we could hold off and wait to see how that turns out. No one really talked about,

I didn't hear too many comments on the Monterey Pass road project. So I think maybe we could vote on that one. And then I got the parking structure seemed to have a lot of support.

So maybe we could vote on that one and do that one. But I think we should hold off on doing the expansion of Garvey.

So those are my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, for those observations and comments. Okay, Captainor Chan, I know you had your hand up. The floor is yours.

Oops. Hello? Thank you. Oops.

You're coming.

we can't fully hear you can you hear me uh you're coming in and out

i think you might have a connection issue hello him now i yes but you you're you're a little choppy um

hello

Is it better?

I think you're not. Is it okay?

Yes, we can hear you.

Go ahead. You can. Okay. Okay. First of all, we'd like to go out a little bit. Three of.

And then ask questions.

Peter, if we could just. We can't hear you. maybe you mute if you cut your video off to create more bandwidth that might be helpful.

Okay is it better? Oh yes. Okay yes. Cut the video is these but anyway we'd like to talk because grant and then the questions for the staff and then my comments at the end. So first of all, I'd like to talk about this grant coming from Measure R, which is the 710 freeway extension about the tunnel, which is supposed to build, but it was not built. And those are the money that's remaining on the 710 project. And so Metro requests or asked all the cities, surrounding cities, to submit plans to what they want to do in the city. with city staff, I myself and council member Hans Neon and also the previous council member Teresa Rio Sebastian when Metro attended a lot of meetings, spent hours attending those meetings and voice our desire and voice our comments on the 710 Railway, but eventually the 710 fleet was not going to be built, and so there was some money left over, and we have this grant.

And if you utilize this grant, some of the cities or some agencies will be happy to take it from us. I just want to lay the background. That's what's going on.

I would ask some questions to the staff, most likely to Director Frank Nopas. Now, I want to end your presentation.

It's very correct that it is going to widen Garvey.

So is that correct? that Gowdy Avenue is not going to be widened or the buildings will not be

turned down to widen the streets. Isn't it true?

Good evening again, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members.

Council Member Chen, to answer your question, yes, there is no physical widening of the roadway. It is a re-striping, and the third lane would use the parking lane part-time.

And medium will stay as this. Is it correct? I'm sorry, could you repeat that question? Medium, in the middle of the road, on the balcony, and that will... The median. Can you hear me? you're cutting in and out a little bit but i think i understand you're asking about the median the median will be right replaced uh it'll be reconstructed it won't be as wide um however um since you're asking about that you know just to add further clarification the roadway the then the restriped lanes, you know, will not be like full 12 foot wide lanes, which is one of the reasons why sometimes traffic will travel faster when they have the space. This is a narrow right away already. And so we're fitting lanes into there and very likely there'll be 10, 11, and 12. And the 12 foot will only be because it's adjacent to the curb. And then you'll have a 10-foot lane and an 11-foot lane, or we may be able to fit into 11-foot lanes. But again, the reduced width also helps to slow down traffic. And those are strategies, again, that we can look at through the design.

Because the city is the most humble.

And again, I think. I'm sorry, you're cutting in and out again. You're cutting in and out.

well maybe uh please have to turn on my uh ipad uh and the end maybe uh some other council member will uh take this uh instance to uh get to the uh to their comments first and then i'll get back in afterwards how's that sure because i'm sorry you're having technical issues i'm sorry about

that um but yeah okay then try that okay uh okay get back to me okay okay thank you okay thank you okay uh councilman liang thank you uh first of all i want to thank uh

Mayor, Council Member, or former Mayor and Council Member, Real Sebastian, for her comments.

She was definitely with us those years when we were working to get the 710 completed.

And she shares those frustrations with us, I think, as well. Now, I have some questions, first of all, for staff.

In terms of the money and the timeline, is there a deadline?

or I mean, given that there may be this motion by Solis that is approved, like do we have a clock in which we're no longer able to seek this money?

Councilman Leong, again, good evening. We have not been given specifically a deadline, but definitely Metro has been inquiring about our status and moving forward. And so I think they're eager to have these projects in the region move forward. Again, it was intended to relieve congestion. And while the completion of the 710 would have taken several years, obviously, as you may know, freeway projects take some time, you know, the intent, again, I gave a timeline, I think at the end of my presentation, about three to five years, three to seven years, you know, that, you know, I think they're intending that these projects get completed in such a timeline. And in order to do that, we want to get started because, as you heard, it does take time to get through the process. Now, as I'm looking at the agenda, I'm noticing on the staff report that we're really only talking about two funding items right now, the Garvey Avenue capacity improvements, Atlantic to New, and the construction of parking structures. Is that correct? Because in the staff report it shows the other ones, but those have been approved prior. Is that correct? Uh, it actually is asking for approval of three funding agreements. Carvey Avenue, the parking structures, and the new Monterey Pass Road improvements, which we received support from Metro for. Okay. So those three items are the ones that we're seeking approval for now. Now, there was a question that was asked by one of the callers, which is a good question, is that do these three projects have to be approved together? Can they be approved separately? Are there any ties to one or the other?

Are there conditions for any of these specific ones that require some things to be together? Can you explain that, Frank? Sure, absolutely. The Monterey Pass Road is a newly submitted project. There is support from Metro for that, and again, we're working through the scope. The Garvey, and that's a separate project. The Garvey Avenue, however, as well as the parking structures are tied together. part of the reason that metro approved the parking structures the parking structures in and of themselves don't really relieve congestion but in order to build a project that does help relieve congestion the proposal that was put out was to again use the existing parking lanes to restripe and create that third lane in each direction and so where does that parking get displaced. And so that is the reason they alLod and were willing to fund parking structures. We were approved for up to three parking structures and the intent would have been to spread them out. However, it also had to be justified. So how much parking is actually being displaced. And so we are trying for two parking structures. Currently we have one that's

that's pretty well defined. And so we have submitted for one, but we will also submit for another.

That would be a separate funding agreement that would come back to you at a later time if we can justify it. Now, let me ask you, given that there are potential changes with the Metro and that motion that Solis is presenting, is there a way to get the parking structures and utilize them to reduce traffic without the widening of the streets is there other options maybe as a transit hub or maybe to have a certain number of electric vehicle charging stations something that would encourage people to park there and and charge their cars i'm just curious that is there any other PERMUTATION, IF YOU WILL, OF GETTING THE PARKING STRUCTURES WITHOUT WIDENING THE STREETS AND STILL MEETING THE REQUIREMENTS THAT METRO IS SETTING FORTH FOR THIS, YOU KNOW, FOR THE MONTERY PARK 710 FUNDING. I SEE RON POPPED ON. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU WANT TO ADD SOMETHING. Yeah, I WOULD PROBABLY BE SPECULATING. AGAIN, THE TWO PROJECTS WERE TIED TOGETHER AND THAT the parking that would be displaced would then have the parking structures so that those cars would then be able to go there. That is my understanding. You know, would Metro be able

to consider some of the things you just mentioned? We would have to ask, but I couldn't answer that

in any definitive form. Ron, I see that you went on. Did you want to comment as well? I did. Thank you, Council Member Lange. Just to add, because we did not expect Metro to come on board, Martin Reyes, and speak about widening the scope and the criterias for any of the funding that could qualify for this new scope. So the intent was to bring whatever would get approved or if it doesn't get approved, the scope of the work back to Metro and make sure the scope falls within whatever the criteria is. Now that the criteria has changed, we're talking about the funding agreement. This hundred, this 86, whatever the dollar figure is, I have 100 in my mind, but I know we spent some. But the whole idea is that we will go back to Metro and re-scope the project that would qualify for this criteria. But we can't do studies. We can't make sure that it passes all the tests for the public and actually do town hall outreaches without a scope of project that has been approved by Metro. So the whole idea was really is to get the funding agreement, now go back, obviously, with this new criteria that Martin Reyes brought to us tonight, and really start talking to Metro. But it's hard to do that without knowing that we have an agreement in place. now if we are if we approve the funding agreements today are we is that setting it in stone in that we must do those projects or does it just open the door for us to discuss projects and if we do the studies and if we if we approve it tonight and we move forward and do the engagement and studies if through the studies we determine that you know what it was not what we thought it was and it's actually going to be bad for the city can we back out at that time are we obligated to go all the way to the end what's our out clause if things are not good or is there an out clause i'll take this right we do have an out clause if it if the studies show that parking has a huge impact like what the public is saying uh we have the facts to back that up then we have the ability to go back to Metro and say that we can't displace whatever the number of cars are for this parking structure. However, this is what we'd like to do. This is the ongoing conversation that we've been having over the past couple of years. And even when we changed the scope from the last meeting to make some adjustments. So Metro has been very open to that. That's definitely a yes.

The only thing I wanted to add because you mentioned it is we actually dig in pretty deep with Metro in adding the active transportation features.

And there is a little bit of language that adds a little bit more in what you heard from Supervisor Chalisa's office. But we are adding those transit features. Now it's not a dedicated bus lane. that's something we can talk to them about. We are adding bike lanes.

They support a separate project, Monterey Pass Road, with separated bike lanes. And so those three key things, we are doing those in these agreements.

Thank you, Frank. You know, I don't see any problem moving forward on this, at least the approval. where we're not putting ourselves in any risk of forcing the city to engage in any specific type of project. I just wanna add some comments in terms of, my feelings or my thoughts about this project in along Garvey. Now for myself, the widening part I understand is part of the kind of tied together with the parking structures. For me personally, the widening part is not so important to me, but the parking structures are. And the reason for that, you know, there are people saying that it wasn't because of the parking structures that people went to certain areas. It was because of the businesses and the restaurants and the bars, what have you. But the reality of that is that those bars and those businesses that are there in those places are there. One of the reasons why they're there is because there's parking. I mean, if you look on Maine, you know, it took some years, but they've got, you know, Dickie's barbecue. They've got numerous restaurants, bars. I go there regularly and I like the fact that I know I don't have to worry about where I'm going to park. I can park in the structure and I could walk to wherever I want to go. I usually park in the structure and then walk the main street area, even including the side where they have the habit and blaze pizza. So it's great for me to be able to park in one spot. And I think that what some of the speakers said to make a more walkable environment, of course. but how are the people going to get there to walk it's obviously you know Monterey Park is quite a big city for those people that are going to be living in the Celadon project it's going to be awesome for them because they could just walk out of their apartment there's retail at their facility and they could walk very easily to downtown and engage in the activities or to patronize any one of the businesses on Garvey. Seniors, young people, everyone in those areas, right? But now let's talk about seniors that perhaps live closer to the south side of the street, maybe Atlantic and Brightwood. It would be a big task for them to walk from Atlantic and Brightwood all the way to Garvey to go eat at a restaurant. It would be much easier for them to drive from the south part of town park in a parking structure get out and then walk to your your restaurant it's the same for the north part of the city if you were living on you know a further north it's seniors it's a it's probably less of a of a walk from the north to garvey but obviously from the south near the 60 brightwood floral for that them to walk to garvey would not be feasible. I mean, for someone who's young and healthy, perhaps someone who's a healthy senior, I would assume that would be okay. But, you know, I think all of us know that even someone like myself in my 50s would have would be worn out from having to walk all the way from floral to Garvey and then have to walk all the way back. So those are some considerations that needed need to be considered. Now, one of the things, the way I see it, right, we as council members are looking at the situation as it is now, but we're also thinking about what the situation will be in the future. And there's a lot of talk about, you know, car centric, we want to get away from car centric. Now, if I look down in the future, 2035, or whenever the whole thing about the carbon neutral, no more internal combustion cars, all that kind of stuff. And let's project ourselves even further in the future where electric cars become the standard. Batteries are better, range is better. I think that's one of the things that prevents people from buying electric cars, although I see that the ranges are getting better. But when we have advanced to that stage where a majority of the people are driving electric cars, where are they going to park? And where are they going to charge their cars the fact that we're talking car centric i think people are concerned about car centric in the moment gas you know those types of things emissions but what's going to happen as we go down the line and what's going to happen if we look back and say oh you know we have a lot of electric cars now but they don't want to go down to monterey park because there's no parking and they don't have a lot of chargers so it's you know and you could also see in the future if we had a lot of electric cars that they would say oh let's go to Monterey Park because I can park there and charge my car and we get some food over there right which would which would help the businesses right now you think about the comments about oh you know like you got to think of the residents you don't think about the businesses first you got to put the residents first. Now, in these discussions, we are putting the residents first, right? Because with the improvement in terms of capacity for people to park and spend money in our downtown, that means more tax revenue. and more tax revenue means more money for the city to be able to do other things which would improve the quality of life for our residents here in the city. City of Monterey Park. Now, you know, there's a lot of things that we can be afraid of, you know, things are not going to work. You know, if we add more lanes, there's going to be more accidents. People are going to die. You know, then if that's such a concern, you know, then why don't we make it a zero lane.

thoroughfare and that way we would eliminate accidents altogether now that would be unreasonable because it would create a burden for those people that need to travel along that that artery to get where they need to go i agree zero lanes so so the you know we can't we're not going to say zero lane shut down freeways no more cars like that's too extreme the other way right so we move forward and we got to figure out how to set up the infrastructure for that area so that it's ready for the future that's ready for the electric cars it's ready to be able to put in more charging stations and to make monterey park a place that is electric car friendly a place that outside people you know there's a lot of people that come from outside of monterey park to enjoy our restaurants to enjoy our, you know, our community. And they can't walk here. You know, they're going to have to drive here. It would be nice if they could park their electric car, charge it, and then they can walk when they're here. That's what I do in Pasadena. That's what I do in Alhambra. I park and I walk around, right? And I don't stress out on where I'm going to find parking. And in terms of emissions, I'm not driving circles around because I can't find a parking space and making more emissions. When I go to Alhambra, for example, I know exactly where the parking structure is. I drive in there, I park, and I turn off my car. I'm not searching for a parking space. So those are some things that I think we need to consider in terms of thinking about the future. I don't know if the opportunities will come at that time for us to create a parking structure, but I think there's an opportunity now. I'm not too sold or I could do without the gravity widening. I think there may be a way to creatively come up with some solutions that would not require us to have that given the transit options that may be available. So I would say, you know, those are just my comments, but I would say that I could support at this point in time knowing that we are not obligated to do anything we approve the funding we spend the money on the outreach we spend the money on getting the community's input and then we present ideas to metro that the community has vetted and is agreement with and let's see if metro can can work with that if not we can try to modify our approach again if this item were forcing us to do something and not giving us an out i I would definitely vote no, but I'm okay at this point supporting this item because I know it doesn't lock us into anything. And it also gives us an opportunity to continue the discussion and also provide us some resources to do that outreach that so many people are talking about. So I'm okay with it at this point. I want to do the outreach. I want to hear what people have to say. I want to come up with some creative solutions that perhaps would not require that third lane, but we need to approve the funding agreements in order to get the money to move those things forward and we're not obligated to do those things. So with that, I'm okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Liang. I see Councilman Peer-Chan has rejoined us. Can you hear us? Okay, can you hear me better?

better? Yes, but your voice seems to kind of echo, so I don't know if that means you...

Well, you know, why don't, again, I'm sorry that you are in connection. Why don't you start, please? Yes, start. Okay. Well, sorry for the technical...

You know, I'm sorry, but I seem to be choppy again.

Peter, is there maybe you can use your cell phone and use the cell Wi-Fi or cell signal instead of the because you're it's also having problems. Yeah.

What about now? I cut off the video. Is it better?

That's a little better. Okay, I'll try to make it brief because Hans Leon or Andrew said, what's in my mind? Our whole city sometimes tough decisions. This is one of the tough decisions. I know that the parking structure did some air because with the, uh, a lot we have on Godfield and Gavi, it's pretty much fading and it really took me some improvement to go down the, no, to birth. So the opportunity to transform over the vital life area with the parking structure.

I'm sorry

Peter you're breaking up I'm sorry well

let me close and do it again okay alright

maybe you can try calling in Peter I tried calling in

yeah all right whatever oh i'll use another one let me see how it goes okay okay all right

um how's for you i know um you have a camera on so we'll let you speak and also um the other of you who are not speaking um why don't you meet yourself and turn off the camera that might for some bandwidth um just as a reminder so can't for you the floor is yours um hi can you wow interesting how come i don't i don't see me anymore i don't know what did i hear you here we can hear you we can hear you okay can you okay you can see me right we can see you too yes yes okay good so um i wanted to say um honestly i don't expect to have that many people expressing your concern that we have over 100 people voicing your concern and it must be something that our resident of very you know care concern and you know about the issue so i learned one thing that as a public servant said you know my opinion is not that important the resident vote me in to represent you guys and I need to fight for you. People who raise your voice are not just belong to a certain group. I hear from a wide range of residents from different ages and there are almost 90% are opposing to the project. So your voice are powerful. I can say that originally I do agree to the project but after I hear from all of you, a lot of them actually are very sophisticated, professional people and you guys have done intensive research and provide a lot of data. I greatly admire your efforts and insights and stand up to raise your voice. I read a lot of comments, including the ones on social media. There are a lot of debates here. I read a lot of emails. Today, I hear your concern. I know your opinions. Learning a lot of history of our city and even neighboring city, I see that, you know, Some people have different thoughts on how to make our city a lot more walking friendly, maintaining street parking, even more ideally with angle parking, which I liked, and protected the bike lanes on the side. I also hear that people expected that we can obtain the $100 million to do what they want. But other people ask, you know, I mean, we also ask in order to get the money, we have to pass a project which to ease our traffic. So now should we pass it and get the $100 million so we can design how we want to use it? I would like to wait and see how Hilda motions can take us to in order to vote on the issue that we know exactly what we can do. So that's my opinion. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry. Thank you, Kau Kau Kau for those comments. Okay. I see Kau Kau Kau Chan has joined us again. And thank you for your patience. with your technical difficulties. Let's try. Can we hear you? Okay. Is it better now? Yes. Yes. Oh, okay. That's good. That's good. I don't know what happens. Okay. I use another equipment. But anyway, yeah, thank you for all the speakers again. And I try to make it brief. And I think the bottom line is we have to make a decision. And I think I'm ready to go with the decision tonight because knowing that if we accept the money, then all the speakers' concerns about safety, about bike lanes, about parkings, about whatever, we can talk after the studies, after all the issues being resolved. And then we can change it, amend it, you know, as the county supervisor here is at least, you know, that we can amend it if the motion passes later in the county board of meetings. So we can be doing that, but without accepting the grant, nothing we can do. So we know all the issues, all the concerns of the speakers and the residents and the business. But if we don't accept the money now, it will be very difficult to move on. and we don't see what's the future because if we don't have the money, we don't have the grants to do the studies, to do further studies and make more suggestions and make it a better solution for all of us. Without the money, we cannot do that. So if everything is not set in stone and it's a long project, it's a few years, three to five years project, If we accept the money now, then we can do all those things. So that's what I want to say. And no one will get 100% of what we want. We just have to have some compromises for the good of the majority of the people. And I think that's what we are doing tonight, is to move forward and do the best for the city. under all the conditions, under all the concerns of the speakers and the residents. So that's what I want to say. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Kavar Chian. And again, thank you for your patience with your technical issues. Okay, I guess it's my turn now.

Actually, I have some questions that I want to ask. First question I'd like to ask the staff is, I know we've had some town halls because I listened in and I think so did some of the other council members, but I did want to ask, during this process, either from 2017, from inception to even when we table the project initially in March of 2021, what kind of follow-up did we do to reach out to those who are impacted along Garvey between Atlantic and New Avenue? I mean, we have several schools, we have some banks, we have some businesses. I'm just curious, what was the scope of our outreach to those along Garvey Avenue?

Good evening, Mayor. Yes, yes. Councilman Morris.

I wasn't here for part of that period, so I guess I can only answer from the point since being here in Monterey Park in 2019. I don't believe there was outreach until our most recent community informational meeting. There has been some discussion at the Business Improvement District, but I think it is limited.

And I think it's been discussed earlier, obviously, that the thought was that with the funding agreement with the environmental process, there would be much more outreach as we define the scope. Okay. Well, okay, fine. I know we, well, I know since we had a, we did have a town hall and I know that I have given my own feedback to staff. And one of them was, I thought we need to reach out to those businesses. And I'm just curious, since that town hall, did we?

There's been some outreach to the business improvement district. Okay, but that's just the BDAC. And that only is between, I believe, the boundaries of BDAC, but it is not the entirety from Atlantic to New Avenue.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay. So again, my question is,

did we follow up and reach out to those impacted

between Atlantic and New Avenue? We have not reached out to the full corridor. Okay. I see. Okay. That's interesting. Okay. Okay. And also, you know, So one reason why I kind of raised my interest in the Sangria Valley Regional Transit Studies because, and again, that's why I was hoping there would be more, I guess, presentation And again, that's why I was hoping there would be more presentation about the concepts. Two of them actually proposed linking services from the eastern gold line where the terminus is on Atlantic and through And that's also why I asked Doino timeline because I think and I also realized Because, you know, I think, and I also realized, look, I realized that, yes, I mean, when this concept was conceived in 2017, it was based on the guidelines that were established back in 2017. But obviously, a lot of things have changed. And, you know, the fact that there is now also a pot of money to do a study and also to provide enhanced transit services.

I think that's also probably why we should be paying attention to that, because I think that can also have an impact on this part of money that we have before us.

And so that is why I asked about the study, and I still think we need to pay closer attention. um can i also ask um you know so so if i do that correctly so what we have before us i mean the way it's written um we have three different projects but if i'm not mistaken mr lobehead you said that um that they are bifurcated in that you have one

the parking structure and the lane enhancements as one and the other being the Monterey Pass Road

improvement projects is that correct yes Monterey Pass Road can be an independent project however Garvey and the parking structures are tied together but also meaning that we could

actually even tonight bifurcate the projects you know so in other words we could in theory pass the Monterey pass road improvement and not necessarily the other one because given that the supervisor and her staff explained that they are going to be taking to their own board recommendations to expand further what is allowable, the criteria, and also allow cities to re-scope what they originally submitted before. Is that correct? Mayor, I mean, I believe that you and the rest of the council members

could make the decision that you would like, obviously. We make recommendations on the staff report,

but I believe as it states or as you know, otherwise.

And so providing you that information, yes.

If you, if you want to make a decision where you approve one or not another, that that's up to the council. Okay. Well, thank you for mentioning that and saying that because I'm here, just my thought is that, you know, there's a concern that somehow if we don't act tonight we're gonna we're gonna have not have that money but what it but and i think that you know no one wants to see that money go away and and yes i mean other cities um like san marino um have rejected um um metro money um because at the time the city staff in san marino had to use the criteria that was established by metro staff at that time um but again there has been an evolution and you know

if we can we scope you know i i don't think there is anything wrong with that i would even i would even argue that you know maybe we should even change the language of what's before us and you

You know, because if the issue is that we don't, we want to pass a funding agreement, but then can we not just say, well, then let's pass an agreement that just says that, you know, it's whatever that amount was set aside for the lane enhancements and the parking structure.

But then not, we pass it, but not necessarily have an actual project listed there. Instead, we just say we have the intent of spending that money, but we'd like to also look at how we could improve the scope of it, especially based on a lot of the input we've received from our residents. I mean, can we not amend that language? So I think I mentioned this early on in my presentation to clarify that, yeah, we have not finalized the funding agreements.

You'd be authorizing the execution of the agreement once we come to that. We have added language to try to include that. We could definitely approach Metro about adding more.

Again, this is approving a funding agreement. I think this has been stated a few times.

It's approving a funding agreement. We still got to go through the environmental SQL process.

And so, yeah, there's no guarantees anything would be built. But this would provide the opportunity to start those studies and that environmental review.

And again, since the agreements aren't finalized, you know, we'll say Metro does have to agree and approve the scoping, but we still have time to have discussions with them, to have the language with any direction you provide. But then can't we amend the motion so that it's a funding agreement, but it's not one that has specifically the projects that have been caused with such controversies?

I don't know if you could go that far because obviously there's a submitted project.

There was obviously some scoping in some language that was provided to Metro.

So for instance, they understand it's a Garvey project. It's the Garvey Avenue capacity improvements.

And so far, and I believe even in the most recent information from

the Civil Rights Relief Office, it must meet the intent of the 710. So

I don't know that we can approve a blank funding agreement.

Just again, answering that question to the best of my ability, really, I have to go back to Metro

and ask these questions. I mean, then I think that's something that merits some asking. Or if the motion that is being introduced by Supervisuales does allow us to re-scope, then I would even dare say, then why don't we bifurcate the two projects and just move forward with the Monty Path Road improvements and get more guidance about re-scoping the other one?

I have a suggestion.

I'm sorry. Yes, Councilman, in the eye. Yes. Why don't we approve the, or make a motion to approve the Monterey Pass project.

And then on the second one with the parking structures, indicate that we are on that one.

it's pending uh the review of what metro decides um regarding solis and her motion and then to uh

explore the options that are available if that motion passes to pair with our parking structures in order to still get it without having to widen the street i mean um carl carl um well i'll get Can I also have Carl to maybe also help us wordsmith it?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the council.

I, the count, the, as was mentioned during the presentation and is in the staff report, these are funding agreements. So it does not commit the city to any particular project. You can certainly separate them out and vote on one or more or none of the funding agreements, either take the recommended action or not. If you want to bifurcate the vote, you can do that too. one other thing you might want to consider is simply postponing any decision on this until the march 2nd meeting that would allow staff to reach out not only to metro but also see whether or not

the the supervisor is able to provide us any new information between now and then and also allow

staff to do some reach out to to the community but really it's up to the city council what you want to do, staff will of course implement whatever you want to do.

Mayor Lo? Mayor Lo? Good. Sure, sure. Because the thing is, what I'm hearing is that, yes, it doesn't commit us to these projects,

but I think the concerns from the community is that, but it's still listed as a, let's see, Garvey Avenue capacity improvements and parking structure, parking source construction. And I think that's the thing is that although we're being told we're not committed, but yet it's still listed there. And so I think it implied that if we pass it, then somehow this is committing us to these projects. I think a lot of the angst would probably be alleviated, as I said, if there's a way in which we can just pass the scope of that money saying, well, we want to do improvements. But then we also have these other concerns and also because of new developments in terms of the scope of what is alLod now because of action by the Metro Board. So, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Mr. Lopez can correct me if I'm wrong on this. It's a bit of a chicken and egg process. The chicken and egg process is this, which is that the city had to propose various projects to Metro to have Metro consider in order to approve funding agreements. But as was also presented during the staff report, even though those projects have been preliminarily approved and potentially funded by Metro, that doesn't commit the city to do anything. And indeed, the city cannot be committed to actually construct those projects because there has been no CEQA analysis done of any of these projects. So all of the discussion that has occurred tonight and has occurred in other workshops, what have you, these are all legitimate concerns and will certainly be evaluated on an environmental standpoint if the Council decides to move forward with any one of these projects. But it also means that the scope of the projects may change during the examination of the impacts of the projects. And it may also mean that the city council will simply abandon the original projects that were proposed to Metro. So I recognize that you are absolutely correct, Mr. Mayor, that I'm sure it has created some consternation amongst your constituents. the city is faced with the legal conundrum of having to propose projects that actually haven't been thoroughly vetted nor have they been examined from an environmental standpoint and the city had to propose those projects in order to get the funding to thoroughly vet the projects which is why i mentioned that it's a bit of a chicken and egg process but to move forward if the city council wants to move forward again if the council wants to postpone the vote until there's clarification from Metro in terms of revising the scope. That's certainly within your purview. If you simply want to postpone it or take no vote, you can do that too.

Or if you, again, want to vote on a couple of the funding agreements or a couple of the

projects to move forward with those funding and examining those projects, you can do that also.

There is no, I think Mr. Lopez mentioned, there is no actual legal timeline on this.

as with all things where somebody else holds the purse strings there's always a concern on behalf

of city staff regarding whether or not that money goes away for whatever reason and so i think that

that's the only impetus in terms of moving forward tonight but again if if you believe that it's it's

wiser to postpone the vote or take some other type of vote certainly staff will implement whatever you want to do. I hope that clarifies things. I mean, okay, thank you. I know I do appreciate, you know, helping us kind of tease out these things. Because, I mean, look, I mean, just like my colleagues, I mean, there are a few takeaways I've heard tonight is that it seems to be that there is support for parking structure. And again, it because it would help the downtown town area. However, there's also concern that that but removing parking lanes on both sides of Garvey, even if it's for a few hours, but nonetheless, you are two things creating

burdens for those businesses don't have parking, but also that it is potentially can create public safety issues because suddenly you have lost a buffer for pedestrians, you know, during those peak hours when kids are being released or people are picking up dinner or running errands in the afternoon.

And also, you know, I keep going back to that kind of study is because, you know, I think

there's several ways in which you can approach if the goal of this mobility improvement project is to ease congestion.

Well, there's several ways we can do it too.

I mean, it is not necessarily just, you know, making it easier for vehicles,

but also, you know, creating alternatives. I mean, I sometimes take the bus to work because there is a bus. I mean, I sometimes take the bus to work because there is a bus that goes to downtown every seven minutes in the mornings. ! And, you know, if you provide alternatives, that's one way in which you can also get cars off the road, because people have other alternative ways to get from point A to point B. ! I know the comments about the Spirit Bus, and when my place in employment was actually at Corporate Center Drive, when we had Spirit service, I would occasionally take Spirit bus service. at Corporate Center Drive when we had spirit service, I would occasionally take spirit bus service. So I think there's different approaches in which you can adjust the traffic issue. And I think that's all is what a lot of the points that are being brought up tonight. So at least for me, I would say, look,

either we table this item or we bifurcate it because I mean, at the moment,

I am comfortable with the Monterey Pass road improvement projects. I'm not comfortable with the other project.

Mayor, may I add some additional thoughts to the council's process? Okay. It sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like through the comments and some of the discussions that council has had, that Monterey Pass and the parking structure is somewhat needed for us here in Monterey Park. The issue is the widening or using the parking lanes for that third traffic lane during peak hours. So my suggestion would be, why not move forward with the two funding agreements for the parking structure and the Monterey Pass Road? I know we told you that they're tied together, the widening and the parking structure. we will go back with staff hold back the widening we will go back as staff to metro and start having discussions on what else could we do to uh to justify the parking structure uh with other alternatives uh other than winding street okay okay let me just give us that opportunity to discuss that okay wait hold on so let me just see if i understand correctly so you're saying actually we can bifurcate all three projects actually yes is that what i'm hearing i'm not saying if metro

will buy off on it but it's your decision okay and understanding the comments that we've had through public and also conversations you've had um my suggestion let's do that okay and then we'll go back to uh metro and start talking to staff if they tell us that you need to do something else or re-scope the projects, then we'll do that. But at least we're going somewhere and not just standing still. We understand that there will be a decision that will be made next week by the Metro Board that will also add some additional thoughts to the scope. So at least we're moving forward on trying to get something done for the City of Monterey Park.

Okay. Well, then how about this then? And however we wish to do it. But then can we then, as I said, maybe make a motion where it's kind of three motions, where again, also bifurcated, or we just do one sweep of motion where it says we approve the parking structures and the Myra Path Road project.

and also ask metro our staff to confer with metro on how to meet how to meet the condition of the

parking structure i know i'm not i'm not being i know i'm not being articulate i apologize i'm not being articulate but but again so so i guess how do we then how do we bifurcate history i guess I'm saying how do we bicycate to three okay because right now um you have you have three funding agreements correct Mr. Lopez yes that's correct okay so we will approve the two that are talking about the parking structure and the Monterey paths okay the other you will not do anything with you will give us direction to go back to metro okay have discussions on how we can you know, work with Metro to justify the parking structure. If that makes sense. Carl, if you need to clean up what I'm trying to say, I think it's pretty clear, at least in my eyes.

And then the rest of it. I can make the motion if you would like, Mayor.

Okay. I appreciate it. But also, if you don't mind, maybe I'll just help us articulate this, please.

you know well i would say uh i move that we approve uh the of the three funding agreements on this item that we approve the monterey pass uh project uh forward and the parking structure forward okay that uh we direct staff uh to contact metro uh to seek any other alternatives other than the widening of the lane that would facilitate the parking structure along with what other option we choose. Okay. Carl, how's that sound? Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I think the only other thing would be the task order approved for the transtack. It's two and a half million dollars. It's, I believe, the amount for that. So the clear message to staff, and I think that's unequivocal is that council's fine while based upon the motion makers motion council would be okay with two of the projects the third one is still in flux the rest of them can be funded and appropriate and appropriated for and the trans tech task order can be issued and if that's all part of the motion makers motion then i think it's as clear as it's going to get at the moment

at the moment okay um colleagues what say you all i will second the motion okay

ready yep okay okay uh council member you yes point uh point of information i'm not sure if

that's a proper term but could excuse me uh can we cut that uh caller off they shouldn't be speaking during council's vote thank you thank you in fact that's the second time that that caller has done that so can we take them out of the room please that's a galaxy a12 thank you thank you

okay thank you let's start again police would have scored them out of the chamber Okay. Council member Yvonne Yu?

Yes.

Council member Peter Chan? Yes. Council member Hans Liang?

Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Fred Cernoso? Yes. And Mayor Henry Lo? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. Okay, well, that was a robust and vigorous conversation. And again, I thank everyone who has commented tonight. Let's see, why don't we move on to consent calendar item number 3A through 3F. Do we have any items that we wish to be pulled?

Hello? If there are no items to be pulled, I would motion to approve the consent calendar items 3A to 3F,

unless there's any speakers that want to speak on that.

I'll second the motion. Okay, I think second by Congressman Chan. Okay.

Mayor, can I check with the audience?

Okay.

Audience, if you want to speak on any consent calendar items, now is the time to do so.

Please use the raise hand feature or be on the phone, press star nine.

Council members, there are no speakers on the consent calendar item. Thank you.

Okay, then clerk, call the roll, please.

Okay. Council member Yvonne Yu.

Yes.

Council member Peter Chan. Yes. Council member Hans Liang. Yes. And Mayor Pro Tem Fresno. So yes. And Mayor Henry Lo. Yes.

Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, let's see. Um, public hearing, none. New business, item five a, uh, consideration of opposing initiative.

21 dash 004 to a one state ballot initiative to limit look over of authority. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes. Anyone? I'm sorry. Mr. Rowe. Yes. Yes. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, council members. Good evening. This is agenda 5A, consideration of opposing initiative 21-0042A1 state ballot initiative to limit local revenue authority. The measure limits the voters input adopts new and stricter rules for raising taxes and fees and makes it more difficult to hold state and local law violators accountable. Some of the highlights of it is it will be limiting voter authority and accountability, restricting local fee authority to provide local services, restricting authority to state and local governments to issue fines and penalties for violations of law, restricting local tax authority to provide local services, and other changes, no fee or charge or exaction are regulating vehicle miles traveled can be imposed on a condition of property development or occupancy. That is an abbreviated report for the sake of time. I'll be happy to answer any questions, but it does have a lot of teeth in it that really takes it out of the hands of local control. Okay. Well, thank you for that presentation. Colleagues, any comments, questions?

Dr. Chan, you have your camera on? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. And I have always been an advocate for local control. And Sacramento has already taken away a lot of local controls from the individual cities. And cities are unique in their own ways.

And I think this initiative will limit further what the independent cities or, you know, all the cities in California has the chance to move forward or make decisions for the South. So I am for this, adopt this resolution that we opposed to this initiative. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. and my colleagues, any other comments, questions?

I hear none. Then I would like to make the motion to approve 5A. Second. Motion made by Council Member Chan and seconded by Council Member Yu. Call the roll, please.

Thank you. Council Member Yvonne Yu? Yes. Council Member Peter Chan? Yes. Council Member Hans De Young. Yes. And Mayor Pro Tempher Sonoso.

Brett?

I saw he left.

I'm sorry, City Clerk Chang. Council Member Sonoso isn't feeling very well, so he had to leave the meeting.

Okay. So he will not be voting.

Okay. I already heard that.

Okay, and Mayor Henry Lo. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, let's see. We are now on to city communications and future agenda items.

Let's go down the row. Councilman Yu, do you have anything to share with us?

Yeah. Hi, everyone. Actually, I wanted to say there was a measure that comes up a couple of weeks ago about the reproductive freedom in Monterey Park that caused some confusions and did not pass. You know, as someone who strongly supported reproductive freedom, I know this topic is too important to, you know, to not keep working on it. So Mayor Henry Lo, I would like to publicly ask to work with you to bring back new resolutions to the council that clearly outlined the ways in which a city can support, you know, access to sexual and reproductive health care, inclusive of reproductive needs and different needs. needs um even in our great city too many people lack access to health care and while this is mostly a county issue there are things that the city can still do and as a strong supporter of reproductive choice i want to work with our mayor on something that we can bring back and support okay well thank

you for that offer okay then we will do so okay uh uh i'm sorry uh i'm sorry yes do you have anything to report. I'm sorry. It's a long day. Sorry. No, that's okay.

Well, we get used to. But anyway, I will be short. Some of the council members attended the last Saturday's performance and celebration of the New Year by the Greater Church. uh performance and celebration of the new year by the greater chamber of commerce of monterey park in the theater in bunce park and it was uh people are very happy to enjoy the uh the hot afternoon and uh uh ! and see each other and this is this is good thank you the greater chamber of commerce greater monterey park chamber of commerce and on monday i attended the metro meeting uh san gablo valley uh uh uh i mean service council and they have uh I mean, Service Council, and they have talked about the traffic reduction studies. And there will be three meetings coming up, which will be on February 23rd, February 26th, and February 28th. So if anyone wants to join those meetings and talk about the reduction in traffic in the local areas, please join in to those meetings. And also, there's also a few meetings on the Gold Line East Side Phase 2 update meetings. And they will be March 9th, March 10th, March 16th, and March 17th. And I will give those information to the city staff tomorrow. Tonight is too late for all those information. So the staff can post it in the city website. If anyone wants to join those meetings, please feel free to. And the last thing is that Metro created the Young Youth Council to talk about the Metro services. And three students from San Gabriel Valley was chosen to be the board members. So congratulations to those three students who serve in the board now. Thank you and good night and take care. Enjoy. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Chan. Councillor Leung.

Thank you, Mayor.

I, too, attended the Chamber of Commerce's Lunar New Year event at the Barnes Park Amphitheater. I want to express my appreciation and gratitude to them for their hard work.

It was a wonderful day. The weather was great. And it was a great opportunity, especially during COVID, to be able to get out, have an outdoor event, and be able to be around people.

So that was wonderful. I don't have any other comments other than that. It's been a long meeting.

I want to thank Mayor Lo, as this has been a long meeting,

for being a wonderful chair and being able to address all the issues equitably.

So with that, thank you, Mayor Lo, and everyone in the community. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you.

Well, thank you very much, Councilman Liang. I have good role models on the City Council, those who have served mayors before me. So, of course, you know, we all work together. I know Mayor Pro Temponoso had to sign off, and so certainly we hope that if he's not feeling well, that he feels better. And we wish him good health, of course, for his contributions to our city. um let's see for me um yes um we also i'm sorry i also attended the um uh greater

minor park chamber of commerce luna new year concert uh last weekend at the amphitheater

and again thank you for holding that event uh today i as the representative for the lax round table i attended that on behalf of our city um because many of our residents know that um this This is another transportation issue that's been ongoing for decades now, the issue of airplane congestion and the ancillary effects of such as noise.

That's nothing to report.

I think it's because, just like everyone else, because they have to extend meeting remotely, that was all the action we took today, which was to continue, I believe, for at least the next few months to meet remotely.

But I think at some point they probably will resume meetings, if I'm not mistaken, they're at LAX in the evenings.

So that's the only report I have for this month's meeting of the LAX roundtable. I do have two feature agenda items which I would like for staff to wordsmith and bring back, and I am more than happy to work with you. One is a Vision Zero resolution. And for those of you who are wondering what that is, Vision Zero is a public health-based traffic strategy to reduce and eventually eliminate traffic deaths and serious injury using a data-driven, multidisciplinary and safe systems approach that also increases safety, healthy, equitable mobility for all. And many cities have actually, not just in California, but in the United States, passed such measures. And, you know, I think it's a worthy goal for us to strive for. So I'd like for us to come back, for staff to come back with a vision zero resolution. I would also like to ask that the staff come back in the future with a complete streets resolution. And the concept of complete streets described a comprehensive integrated transportation network with infrastructure and design that allows safe and convenient travel along and across streets for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, persons with disabilities, motorists, movers of commercial goods, users and operators of public transportation, emergency responders, seniors, children, youth and family. And pets too, I guess. So I would like a complete street resolution be brought back to the city council at a future date. And that is okay with my colleagues, these two resolution ideas.

I'm okay with that. Okay, okay, okay. Thank you for your thumbs up. Okay, thank you.

okay and with that then um if there is nothing else to discuss then i'd like oh actually i you

know i know i always say one more thing okay one last thing is there was a special election

yesterday in the fortnight district um to uh replace uh ed chow who was our assembly member for nine years and um i'm happy to report that uh la community college board trustee mike fong earned, I believe, 70% of the vote. And although the special election,

I mean, it was very clear that he dominated the election.

So I think he will be our new assembly member. And so I think it's prudent that we congratulate him. And once he's sworn in, perhaps invite him to meet with our community, our city council, discuss how he as our new representative can help us with policy,

funding for our community, not just Monterey Park, but Finghamville Valley.

And on that note, I'd like to enjoy the meeting. Okay, have a good night all.

Bye-bye.