City Council Meeting — October 5, 2022

Let's see.

I called me to order, so we're now going to proceed to a flag salute. If I can ask everyone, the audience, please rise.

Okay, right, right, okay. Please face the flag. All right. Put your right hand over your heart.

Ready to begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag. of the United States of America, and to the Republic of which it stands, one nation, under

God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all.

You may be seated.

Kirk, please call the roll.

All right. Thank you. Council Member Yvonne Yu.

Here.

Council Member Peter Chan. Here.

Council Member Hans Liang. Here. And Mayor Henry Lo. Present. Thank you. Thank you all. Okay. Agenda additions, deletions, changes in adoption.

Staff, do we have any?

Okay. Hearing none. Oh, yes. Okay. Then let's see. Let me proceed to public communications.

While all comments are welcome, the Brown Act does not allow the City Council to take action on any item not on the agenda. The council may briefly respond to comments after public communications is closed. For instance, may, in addition to any other matter within the city council's 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 time the agenda item is considered. Clerk, do we have any requests at this time? Yes, we do. First speaker is Sarkis Antonian.

Welcome.

Hello again, Mayor, Council Members, staff, audience. All right, so lately, I guess it was last month in the Cascades,

we're going to be watching these people drive. So on Hammer Avenue in Graves, I called the police department last month So they trimmed a little bit of those trees around there. Now, if you don't know the area, you won't know if there's two stop signs on graves to go up the hill or to go down the hill. Now, today, and this happened many a times, they won't stop right there at the hill. And then going down the hill where you can make the right turn to go in the city yard. So in other words, three stops, they do not stop. and that's been going on that's been on an ongoing basis so when I go up to that O'Hambra Avenue and I stop at O'Hambra Avenue and Graves I wait around make sure they stop so I'm not making a turn where I get I get I get nailed like that and that's been going off and then I believe that that area there you would need like at marketplace where they have to stop sign flashing red because it is bunch of trees and have a bunch of cars there. And if you don't pay attention, you won't know what it is. But yet, if a vehicle is stopped there, what's the big deal? You have to stop. So it looks like I have to go into AAA and get a handbook and see what's the definition of stop is. And then another thing is I'll be walking the dog. And just because there's nobody around or nobody walking, they still don't stop. Stop sign is a stop sign. I'm pretty sure that's how they got their driver license. Or maybe they're scared. They might get hijacked, robbed, shot at or something. Maybe that's the deal. But you still got to stop. And then you also have the Cascade is mentioned about, okay, certain areas of Garvey, when it crosses the street, I'm a fast walker. By the time I walk halfway across, the light is already changing. So you have a lot of senior citizens with walkers, canes. They're not getting by. And then another thing, I've said this for a long time. These crossing guards, when they're not working, they could go down to the major intersections and help these people walk. Because they'll walk when the hand is up red. and they're walking and the light changes for us to go. They're not paying attention to what's going on.

And some streets you've got to wait almost two minutes to cross the street and then by the time you cross the street, when you're crossing the street, they should give you at least a minute and a half to walk as long as you're waiting to cross it. So that should be updated. And then also, again, when you're crossing the street, pedestrians right away, drivers right away to know how to cross the street. And then I notice when they're crossing the street, and then instead of stopping and letting the vehicle go, they're still crossing, like the vehicle doesn't exist. And that's what causes people to get hit.

So you're waiting for a person to walk one way, and then all of a sudden, boom, I'm finished my one way. Now I'm going to keep going the other way. That'll make it. And then you got a bunch of cars waiting to make the turn and everything to make the traffic flow.

That's not happening, especially on the busy streets too. And then now that it's getting darker earlier, I see a lot more walkers walking around, not paying attention. And it should be in a cascade. They'd wear some white colors when you walk in so people can see you.

And that's not going on either. So what does it say? Responsibility of the pedestrian and the responsibility of the driver. And it's been like that for years. And these trees that need to be cut, they should be cut when they have low stop signs where people cannot see what's going on, especially a dark area where these new lights, streetlights, they're very dark.

They're not bright enough. And we didn't even come over here even getting a notification. As far as I don't, we didn't even get any notification from Edison

that they're going to change out those streetlights. And when they were changing out the poles and the streetlights,

for four days we didn't have no streetlights.

That was, what, two months ago? and that's wrong right to. So you do a street at a time, not take all the poles out all of a sudden and then come back and put those poles back in. And thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is City Treasurer Joseph Leon.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, and of course residents of Monterey Park. Joseph Leon, City Treasurer. I just want to make a quick report.

Recently, the investment committee, consisting of myself, the director of management services,

and our assistant city manager, met with Michael Bush, who's a financial consultant hired by the city, to discuss possible new investments and finance management options to bring to the council for consideration. I think we have discussed this earlier. That's why we got together.

After discussing the various suggestions by Mr. Bush, I asked Mr. Bush to go back and get the best estimates for some of the suggestions which would cost the city some money. For example, one suggestion was retaining a part-time investment advisor. Another was conducting a detailed monthly cash flow analysis by an outside independent third party. And another one was using automated reporting technology to perform oversight and provide effective and efficient accounting and financial reporting.

Those are great suggestions, but they do cost money. So ask them to go back and let us know how much those costs would be to the city of Monarch Park. Okay. I had hoped to bring these items to counsel at this meeting,

but at this time, Mr. Bush has not been able to provide the final estimate cost.

That's why I can't bring it to the agenda. It wasn't on the agenda today. It's just informative.

As I only have approximately one month left as a city treasurer, I suggest that this matter continue with the new Monterey Park City Treasurer that will be elected next month. The new Treasurer will continue to be responsible for the overall investments in Monterey Park.

And finally, I want to thank the Council for their support and direction in this matter, and I want to thank the Investment Committee for the help, and of course, Mr. Michael Bush for his expertise. And I know this is probably the last time I bring this issue up here, because I'll be gone in about a month. as the City Treasurer of Monterey Park. I would recommend highly that the City continue to consult and retain Mr. Bush on this matter.

He's very knowledgeable, and I know Mr. Ron Bow is also, he's the one that hired him with this, I believe, and he's very knowledgeable. And we should continue, even though I won't be any longer with the City of Monterey Park as the City Treasurer, but I highly recommend continuing using Mr. Bush

for other matters also. Thank you. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Michelle Yee.

Hi, neighbors.

It's good to see you all.

What the F?

How much more of this crap are we going to take before we finally decide to do something about it? The election's coming up.

We have our chance. It's time. So I'm going to talk about item 4A.

somebody do the math i'm going to read my post from next door because i know not all of you are

on there but you need to hear this our city council they don't know how to use a calculator

they don't know how to do math they need help somebody needs to tell them i'm going to give

you some stats the property on garbia nabajo is appraised at 6.4 million the city is spending more than $12 million in our taxpayer money to shore up private property. The City Council now wants to buy the property through eminent domain. Item number 4A.

Spending more than $12 million on a property that's worth $6.4 million and taking on the liability of a failing hillside so that people can sue us, the city, instead and take our tax

dollars to pay for that? That makes sense? I think you all know the answer. It's stupid.

And where is all the money coming from? Where? We already sit here next to a pool that they

refuse to fix because they don't have the money. So what are they doing? Council Member Hans Leong, Yvonne Yu and Henry Lo, Peter Chan, probably Vincent as well, are trying to increase our sales

tax conveniently, which will raise another six million dollars, the money that will be needed for this property. How convenient and how interesting, right? Shh, Vincent, don't say anything.

You better keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, your friends will think you're ratting the mouth. so don't do anything about it.

If you don't like the smell of BS, you need to speak up

because this crap is non-stop.

We need to do something about it. So please,

help us stop this nonsense.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Delario Robinson.

Good evening, City Council. So happy to be here. I just wanted to say a few things. Of course, you know, my main thrust is finance. And anything we do here in the city is financial. If we want things, if we want infrastructure, we need a new pool, we need our streets paved. we need things so that's I'm pretty financial so I'm proud of the the City

Council for approving the 50 million dollars point six million dollars to continue the excellent service that we need here in Monterey Park measure MP We need Measure MP.

This is a middle-class, affluent, kind of affluent community. Our citizens can afford a small, a very minute tax increase for sure.

I really appreciate it all the time that I spend here in Monterey Park as far as the Democratic Club, the different commissions that we have. Of course, I chaired the Planning Commission, was a commissioner, Economic Development Commissioner, Community Participation Commissioner. So I know the inside of the city. And I really, people like Stephen Lamb, who appointed me and helped me towards business consulting. I really appreciate a lot of the friends that I've made. You know, I've recently been verbally asked to be an executive in a company. So, Ronbo, you don't really have to worry about me taking the job.

But anyway, if I do make a multi-million dollar salary or whatever it's going to come of it, I will come back and donate some things, some money to Monterey Park, the efforts that we need here in the city. The swimming pool, me and Peter and a few people, we swim at Elder Park. And so even Elder Park, it has cracks in it, there's a potential for that swimming pool even not to be there anymore

because of the disarray and decay.

So as far as, you know, the overall community is Asian, and the Asian community is a great community. But we also have to remember that the Chinese Exclusion Act has been in the past. And we have to be more adoptable to the overall American society. And when you have somebody like me come to town and you can utilize some of my talents,

oh, we ought to do it.

so I know we just had a speaker that came and said this and they said that

but you know that's not really the political way

the political way is to interface with people wherever they are we're not going to be antagonistic

we're not going to we're going to be engaging no matter what our personal thoughts are we're going to be in the middle of the road and we're going to try to work the middle to find the best solution for the problems that we have.

God bless America.

Okay. Any other speakers? Okay. Looks like that's all the speakers for tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Clerk. Okay. Moving on to staff communications. First communications from the City Clerk's Office.

Thank you. So we have a slide show for you tonight.

And as you probably gathered, we're going to have a general election on November 8th.

It's actually both a general and a special election. So we, with the City Clerk's Office, would just like to cover some information for you.

So again, to start off with, my name is Vincent Chang and I'm your city clerk. And again, November 8th will be our election. The question is, what are we electing or who are we electing? So this time around, the city council positions to be elected are District 1, 3, and 5.

we will have a new city clerk a new city treasurer and we also have a ballot

measure called ballot measure MP that's a general tax proposition so those will

be on the November ballot I know there would be many other items that will be

on that ballot as well however with specific to our city those are what our

residents will be voting on. Again, City Council positions 1, 3, and 5, a City Clerk, City Treasurer, and Ballot Measure MP.

With respect to important dates to remember,

September 29th, the mailing of sample ballot books. I actually got one in the mail already, so that should be coming out If you haven't received it, you shall be receiving it soon. October 10th is the mailing of the vote-by-mail ballot.

So October 10th, or maybe a day or two afterwards, you'll start getting your vote-by-mail ballot. On October 24th, that's the last day to register to vote. Now, with respect to the details on that, if you moved, if you recently moved into the city and you haven't registered since the last time that you voted, you'll need to register again. And, of course, there are certain other reasons to register as well.

And, of course, for our first-time voters, you could preregister to vote as, I think, 16. is you can pre-register to vote so that you can get involved in our election process.

And then October 29th, the vote centers, the L.A. County vote centers,

will open so that you can actually go in and go to a ballot machine and vote.

Those are the big yellow things that you probably have experienced with.

If not, one of our ballot workers at the facilities will be more than happy to help you. So, all right. So if you want more information, L.A. County does have a website now.

That is www.laidvote.gov. Again, www.lavote.gov. And you'll see a lot of information on that.

Please visit the site and just go around, explore it, and just play around with it. Next.

So, let me see. So, as you can see, those are some of the details setting out. the ballot boxes, how to work your ballot, locate your districts, et cetera, et cetera. So I see we moved on to the next slide, which is actually talking about locating your district. And for those of you who are not familiar where you live, you can type in your street address to locate your voting district.

Again, that helps a lot of people. I know a lot of questions on that.

And then next slide, please. All right. Now, if you have further questions, both myself as well as the rest of the city clerk staff will be out at these outreach events. Our first one is actually coming up this weekend. October 8th is the Electric Park Music People Community.

I understand it's a very exciting event. I've never been to one myself, but it's going to be taking place at Barnes Park. I think starting at 2 o'clock, if I'm not mistaken. So that should be a fun event, but also we'll be out there to give out information. On October 12th is the State of the Cities address. That will take place here at City Hall in this very chamber, and we will have a table. on October 13th that will be the regular farmers market at George Elder Park on Wilcox and we will be out there as well and on October 22nd there will be a health fair at the Langley Senior Center so we'll be tabling that as well and providing you with all sorts of good information about the voting back to the farmer's market again on October 27th. So there'll be plenty of opportunities to get your questions answered. If you like a QR code, there's a QR code for you to click on. Or if you like to do it the traditional way, it's calling our office. We'd love to talk to you. Our number is 626-307-1359. Or if you want to call the LA County Registrar Recorder's Office at 800-815-2666 and pick option four with any other questions. So anything you have, go ahead. Please ask us or council if you have questions. We'd be more than happy to answer that for you. Thank you.

Thank you. Colleagues, Councillor Chan, you have the mic.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. And just a simple question to our city clerk that after we receive the ballot from the county, and I think people, the voters can fill it up and drop it. We don't need to wait until the election time, but we can drop it off. I know there's a drop box outside the city hall and into any other boxes that's available or mailed in. Isn't that true?

That is exactly correct. We do have a ballot box that's outside that, you know, anybody who has their ballot are more than welcome to drop off at. It's very safe. It will be picked up on a regular basis. And you can go on the website and check to see if they receive your ballot or not. Also, in our city, in Monterey Park, there's one over at Sierra Vista Park as well that's, you know, been there since the last election. So those are permanent boxes that they can drop off. or they can drop it off at any other location where they see that within L.A. County where they see those kind of boxes.

Okay, thank you. And then say if a voter, if they misplaced the actual ballot they received or somehow got messed up with it, how can they get a replacement?

Well, they can contact the clerk's office.

That means your office or the county? County.

County. County. Yes. Unfortunately, we can't print one. So, yeah.

So they can contact the county office, go to the website.

That's one way to do that as well.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? We're hearing none. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next presentation, fire department.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and Monterey Park residents. My name is Chris Thompson. I'm a battalion chief with the Monterey Park Fire Department, and I'm here on behalf of the Fire Department to invite all residents to participate in a great earthquake event called the American Grace Shakeout.

This is a ShakeOut event that has all residents and businesses, private sector, local government, all preparing for the big earthquake.

If you go on ShakeOut.org, you can get more information on how to register.

Just in California alone, it's 8.5 million that participate in this event. Just like all the other residents and businesses, Monterey Park also practices how we're going to respond as a city during an earthquake, and we prepare just like anyone else operating our emergency operations center.

Today, this event this year will be on October 20th at 1020 a.m.

a mock shake of an earthquake will happen and everyone practices their routine of how they're going to operate during an earthquake event.

We also have some great information on our preparedness guide that the city of Monterey Park offers. You can pick up this at any of our local fire stations, city hall, or even go on our website for some great information. If you have any questions, feel free to come to any of the fire stations and ask what you can do during an earthquake and we'd be happy to help you.

Thank you. Questions? Thank you so much. Thank you.

Next presentation, library services.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Diana Garcia, City Librarian. The library has a couple announcements this evening.

the first item that we wanted to talk about was the upcoming Library Foundation fundraiser.

That's coming up at the end of the month.

It's going to be Friday, October 28th at Luminaria's Restaurant.

This is an annual fundraiser that the Library Foundation puts on.

The Library Foundation raises money.

They're a 501c3 nonprofit to help support library programs and events.

And this year they're partnering with council members Liang and Chan to stage a farewell celebration for them.

So tickets for that event are $85.

You can make your checks and RSVP and send those into the Library Foundation. We've got the address, sorry, P.O. box right up here on the screen.

We hope everybody can join us. It's been a couple years since we've been able to do this fundraiser event because of COVID.

so we're really, really excited this year to be able to do that. We also are going to talk a little bit about our library literacy program.

We are doing a call for volunteers right now,

and to present that is going to be Victor Castellanos. He is our adult literacy coordinator.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, and Marnet Park residents. My name is Victor Gostianos, and I am the Adult Literacy Coordinator at the Monterey Park Bruggemeier Library. I'm here tonight to formally invite our residents and community members to join our dedicated team of volunteer tutors. The Literacy for All of Monterey Park Literacy Program has been a leader in adult education since 1984, and it continues to change the lives of hundreds of adult learners, thanks in part to all of our volunteers.

You don't need a teaching credential to volunteer.

sales out of our literacy program, but students are slowly returning. You can go to the next page. We have a growing wait list of one-on-one instruction, and we have more enrolled learners in our fall semester this year than last year's fall and spring semesters combined. However, what has stayed the same are the amount of literacy tutors and teachers, so we're definitely looking to grow. This program offers an exciting opportunity to help someone improve their English skills and job skills and become a U.S. citizen, and it helps English language learners feel more confident in their daily lives. If that's not enticing enough, I'd like to end this presentation by giving you a sneak peek into our program and introduce you to some of our classes. So this is our beginning low class by teacher Stephanie Chen.

This is our intermediate high class led by teacher Nancy Gilmore. This is our literacy learner book club led by teacher Daisy Liu. And this is our beginning high ESL class also led by teacher Daisy Liu.

To join our team or to find out about our next online tutor orientation, please call me at 626-307-1492. Thank you so much for your time and helping get the word out about this fantastic volunteer opportunity.

Thank you. Councilman, have any questions? Thank you very much.

Next presentation, Public Works.

Mayor, council members, public audience, I would like to introduce our newly appointed public works director.

His name is Sean Igo. He has over 20 years of municipal and public experience with various different cities, Monrovia, Manhattan Beach, and the city of Laverne. Majority of the experience has been in water and other areas within the Public Works Department, operations streets, parks, facilities, and fleet operations. Also development management and oversight of various CIPs including new reservoirs, water treatment facilities, water meters, replacements, resurfacing streets, and rehabilitation projects. he has a bs bachelor of science degree in business administration from southern new hampshire university is a state certified water distribution grade four operator a state certified water treatment grade three operator american waterworks water use efficiency practitioner grade one and also specialized training in emergency management through Cal OES. I would like to present Director of Public Works, Sean Igoe. Sean Igoe Good evening. Thank you, Ron.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council and Monterey Park residents. As Ron stated, I have 20 years of experience in public service. I truly enjoyed what I've done for the past 20 years and it's an honor and a privilege to be part of this team and this community

and offer my services to the extent that I can. I will add that this,

we do have a significant amount of projects here

in Monterey Park that are on the books.

I'm excited to see what we've accomplished this far and excited to see what's in store moving forward. But again, thank you for the opportunity and looking forward to serving this community.

Thank you very much. Councilman Chan, you have the mic.

Yeah, welcome, Son. Thank you. Yeah, we'd like to work with you, but the problem is that we have only two more months to go.

But still, we would like to know more about you and see what we can do to work together because Public Works Department is the biggest department in the city, so a lot of work for you. So you attended University of New Hampshire? Yes, online, yes. I didn't actually go there. You grew up in that area? No, I grew up in this area.

I've been in San Gabriel Valley my entire life.

Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I've been to New Hampshire, and I like Cape Cod.

All right. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much, Governor Chan.

Catherine Liang, you have the mic? Yes, welcome, Sean. As Peter said, the two of us will be gone, but you'll still have the mayor and Council Member Yu here. Welcome to the City of Modern Park. I just have a quick question. How do you spell your last name? I-G-O-E. That's I-Go. I-G-O-E. Okay, great. Thank you and welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Yu?

Yeah, welcome, Sean. And I'm looking forward to working closely with you. This is a very important position. And I will be here longer than them. So thank you and welcome.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

And I want to also share those sentiments. Yes, my colleague, Councillor U of Nyssa, will still be here on the dais after two months. And, of course, we'll be joined by three new members from the community. And so we're all looking forward to working together with you. And let's see, did you say you were from Hampshire?

No, San Diego Valley. I attended the university online.

Ah, got it. Okay, great.

Okay, well, thank you very much. Thank you.

Appreciate it.

All right, with that, we'll get into our presentation of events. So we do have a cleanup that's coming up this weekend.

It's on Saturday.

It will be for large bulky item pickups, and that's from 8 to 12 at Sierra Vista Park. bulky items such as TV or such as washers dryers refrigerators things like that can be dropped off we do ask that you avoid bringing in electronics and also hazardous materials so again we're here to you know provide an opportunity for

residents to drop off bulky items next slide thank you as a reminder we have our

spirit bus community workshops that are coming up October 13th is a virtual meeting from at 630 you can sign up online so you can visit the link that's It's on our website October 17th is an in-person at 12 p.m. At the Langley senior center and then we have another booth that's going to be at monster mash on October 20th also our original survey that was part of this was supposed to close

at the end of last month we've extended that to get additional feedback from residents so that will close at the end of October so with that any questions all right thank you appreciate

Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Next presentation, Recreation and Community Services Department.

So I know it's the same suit but it's a different guy.

Robert Aguirre, good evening Mayor, City Council members and residents of Monterey Park. Robert Aguirre, Director of Recreation and Community Services. here to share with you some of our exciting events that we have coming up in October.

So I know I've been up here a few times and been hyping it up,

and we're really excited to have our first-ever Electric Park event this Saturday, October the 8th, in Barnes Park. That event is completely free. It's open to all ages. We intend this to be a family-friendly event. It's going to be electronic music from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.

There's going to be food trucks. There's also going to be some free activities.

and I will share that there are two DJs to highlight. There's also going to be some local talent that will be DJing, but we also have Anton Tomas, who's the producer of the Love Long Beach Festival.

That's down in Long Beach.

It's one of a large festival that's going on over 10 years. And then just recently we booked a DJ.

It goes by Dr. Noche.

He's also a professor at USC.

He teaches creative writing, critical writing, and channel studies at USC.

And he's a DJ under the Insomniac brand.

And so we're very excited to have him. Those that are familiar with Insomniac is one of the biggest companies in this genre.

And so we're very excited to add him to the lineup.

Next slide, please.

So also in October, our very, very popular Monster Mash on October 20th.

Now, this event is in collaboration with the Bergamari Library. It's going to be October 20th from 4 to 7 p.m. here in Barnes Park.

Lots of free games, candies, giveaways.

We're going to have more boots than we did have last year. And so we're definitely excited to have all the little kiddos come out. Costumes are highly encouraged.

I plan to be dressed up. Hopefully I'll see some of you folks all come out and dressed up.

And so we're looking forward to another exciting evening.

We do have some entertainment.

We have magician Dave Skell who will be performing that night. So we're excited to see everyone out at Barnes Park on October the 20th.

Next slide, please.

Community Health Fair. So we've been doing the Community Health Fair with the Asian Pacific Health Corps for now, I believe, over 15 years.

This year's Health Fair will be at the Langley Senior Center on October the 22nd from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Even though it's at the Langley Senior Center, it is not exclusive to seniors.

We are open to all ages. There is no insurance requirement for this and there will be translators available Some of the screenings that will be available will be blood pressure vision

Chinatown Service Center will also be assisting us with flu shots

You can also get your body mass index and body fat percentage checked

There's me mammograms blood blood glucose cholesterol and more hope to see you there and then lastly

Langley Center is going to be hosting a HalLoen party.

Of course, costumes are encouraged for this activity.

And we will be having a costume contest. I encourage folks to come out.

If you're 50 and over, there is a preregistration of only $5. But we will have music, games, prizes, and refreshments.

And we're excited to see all the seniors dressed up. They have already expressed how excited they are to enjoy a party at the Senior Center for HalLoen.

Next slide, please.

And then finally, to keep up to date with all the fun, interesting, and wacky activities that the Recreation Department has going on,

make sure to follow us on social media at Monterey Park Rec, both on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Thank you. Thank you. Questions?

Are you still going to have a little haunted house for the Monster Mash like you did last year?

uh i've so the parks division did a wonderful job doing a haunted house last year and it is their

intent from my understanding that they intend to go bigger and better this year so if they're

listening that's even a challenge for them to even do it better yeah a lot of the little kids enjoyed that no they had a great and and the kids had a good time but i i can assure you the uh employees had an even better time uh with those guys had a great time yeah i had to uh i had some

nephews that were with me that were scared, right? So I said, okay, I'll go in with you. So I got to go through it.

I won't tell people how you came out. But it was

fun, and I'm looking forward to that again. Thanks, Robert.

Thank you very much. Any other colleagues want to speak? Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. That concludes staff communications. Now we proceed on to presentation.

The only presentation we have tonight

is 1A, the United States Navy 2 June 47th birthday celebration.

Well, good afternoon or good evening. My name is Commander Yuji and I'm here on behalf of Navy Talent Acquisition

Group Pacific, that's the local recruiting command, and the rest of the United States Navy. And I would like to thank you, Mr. Mayor, for hosting us this evening to help us celebrate our 247th birthday. I'm proud to be part of the United States Navy. I know my sailors over here are as well. You know, you think about it, 247 years of service, that's 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And it's something that I think all Americans can be proud of our organization.

and I'd say that one of the things that makes our Navy great is our most enduring advantage is not just our ships but our strong, diverse group of sailors that we have serving in there. Our trained, educated, and resilient American sailors remain our asymmetric advantage and they're the true source of strength for our United States Navy. So I'm proud to report that for the city of Monterey Park and some of the surrounding communities, We've shipped off 37 residents to boot camp over this last year. And these sailors that we have recruited from the area are in some of our most advanced high-tech programs,

some of our most challenging programs like nuclear propulsion, Navy SEAL training.

And that speaks a lot to the quality of the services that are in this city, this municipality. and I'd add that I'd like to thank the public servants here in this room

whether you're elected official, appointed officials we would not be the great Navy that we are

overseas and abroad if we didn't have that strength here at home

so for the events today we've got a kick-cutting ceremony similar kick-cutting ceremonies are happening all over the country different municipalities, different ships, aircraft squadrons And we thought we'd share this ceremony with the residents here and the elected officials and appointed officials here We've got a video and we have a cake cutting ceremony. So without any further delay. We'll bring bring forth the cake

And so as part of this ceremony, we've got the oldest here in the room. That's commander Fong here who is fortunately is older than me so I don't have to be the old sailor in the room. So he's going to help with the

cutting. We've got our young sailor in the room.

Our brand new future sailor from a community. Just

swore a nose. new future sailor from a community just swore an oath to support and defend the constitution and

! process through our military intruders processing facility

! So part of this ceremony we're going to cut the kick and ! Mayor Lill I ask you to come down and help us cut this kick as our guest of honor.

! Colleagues, can we go down and assist?

It is customary at navy birthday celebrations worldwide to cut a traditional cake in celebration

It is customary at Navy birthday celebrations worldwide to cut a traditional cake in celebration of the birth of our Navy.

The first piece of cake is given to our guest of honor, Mayor Henry Lo. The second cake to the oldest sailor present, Commander Fong.

Commander Fong was born in 1963 and commissioned in the Navy in 1997.

Upon receiving the second piece of cake, the oldest sailor will in turn pass it on to the youngest sailor present,

signifying the passing of experience and knowledge from the old to the young in our Navy. Future sailor Erica Garcia was born in 2004 and enlisted in the Navy in September of this year.

I'm going to get on the edge and we get a lot of people.

All right.

That's a really big piece. That's a piece. Oh, my goodness. I have a share of them.

Cool.

Just like you're kind of kicking on. Just don't knock the table. There we go. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. There's a napkin there for you, sir.

Is that for you first or for my? Yeah, just for now and then please join me in.

Does that handle that one? Okay, I can use it.

Okay, we're good. Okay. I want to see other people, get some other perspectives, see what else is out there. I want to see other people, get some other perspectives, see what else is out there.

I have got sailors from all around the world, different backgrounds, different beliefs and religions and race, but also different upbringings.

We take people in the Navy from around the world. And I think that's important because you get ideas from all over. I'm from New York. I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. I am from Vermont.

I came from Cuba. I had never been on the ocean before I joined the Navy. I'm a first-generation sailor.

We're all given the same test. They're just simply looking at how well do you do your job.

If you're diligent and hardworking and you study the references, you can do anything in this Navy.

You get to a certain level of leadership where you can actually affect culture.

There should be no reason why it matters whether you're a man or a woman or black or white or what your gender identity is.

Everybody has equal rights and equal opportunities.

The Navy has given me more opportunities than I ever could have imagined coming from a small town.

I've been to Bahrain. I've been to Italy.

Australia, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand.

I've been to so many places, I'm trying to keep them separate.

I've been to four or five different countries in the last year.

Being in the Navy and being to another country, to another culture, it teaches you how to find yourself. How to actually be an adult and be responsible.

No matter where you go, you're going to meet people from places you've never been before, and they're going to have experiences you've never had before. So learning from those people is one of the biggest advantages, I'll say, from being in the Navy.

The people that I work with, they immediately become like a group of family. Anytime you've got a team that's able to get something complex accomplished, right, do something hard together and do it well, that builds you around. You can't learn this level of teamwork or hardship or flexibility anywhere else.

You will not find an organization or a business in the world with the diversity that the Navy has,

or more importantly, a business that uses its diversity the way the Navy does to win wars.

Thank you so much for that, President-Nation Commander, and thank you, Arthur, for bringing this to us. We're really honored, as a city of Monterey Park, to be able to celebrate the 247th birthday celebration of the United States Navy.

Colleagues, would you like to say anything?

Councilor Lange, you have the mic. Just quickly, thank you for taking the time to share this with us. It's very interesting. I didn't know, you know, with the cutting of the cake and to the mayor, to the oldest, to the youngest, the passing of that tradition. Thanks for sharing that with us. I know that, as you said, on many ships around the world they're doing that. But to do it here with us is really a treat. So thank you.

Thank you, Congressman Liang. Congressman Chan, you have the mic.

Yes, thank you. Thank you, Navy, for, you know, doing this in the city of Monterey Park. It's an honor. And the video is good. but when I see it, I thought you're showing Top Gun. But, well, seems like we have to go to the theater to see it. But anyway, thank you, Commander Yujit and Commander Fong and your colleagues coming to Monterey Park. It's a great honor. And thank you for inviting me to Chicago to attend that ceremony, the graduation of the recruits, and that was really amazing and impressive. And I did a report a few times in the council before. So I just want to say if any one of us would like to join the celebration, Commander Yujit is the person to go to ask to join that event, which is good. And the most important thing is it's all paid for by the Navy. But for us, we have to file the Form 700. And I want to introduce another gentleman. It's Mr. Bob Arthur. He's the former mayor and council member of Norwalk. So thank you for coming to Monterey Park. And he's one of the persons who's invited to Chicago to attend the graduation. So we had a good time. And we'll continue to help the Navy and the military to make us stronger and better. So thank you for coming to Monterey Park.

Thank you, Councillor Chen. Councillor Yu, give the mic.

Yes, happy birthday. United States Navy 247th birthday is a very long birthday. But thank you so much, and we're proud of you. And thanks for all the sacrifices and contributions you have done for the country. And thank you so much for taking time to come out and celebrate with us. And hopefully we'll still get the cake outside. I'll sigh. Thank you.

Thank you. In fact, Councilman, you... Oh, sorry, Councilman,

I would like to suggest that we take five or ten minutes.

Okay, sure. Well, again, in the spirit of, again, thank you so much for sharing with us today's presentation and ceremony. And again, thank you for bringing that lovely cake. And so, yes, I would like to take a recess. It's now 725, 726 actually. And why don't we reconvene at 7.35?

Thank you very much.

No.

Thank you. ! Thank you. !

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello.

Thank you.

I just didn't know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, but there will be a problem. I don't know.

and you're thinking all right.

I can do whatever you want to do. Yeah.

You're a little more vibrant than mine.

Okay.

Okay. Okay.

In time, if we could have our council members, please, return to the dais, please.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, not really, yeah.

Anyway, we'll bring it back to this, right?

Okay. Okay. Are we all back?

Okay.

Okay. Clerk, are we ready to go?

Are we ready? You guys ready? Ready to go?

Okay. Then I'm going to reconvene

council meetings at 7.30 p.m. Okay.

Okay.

Good evening, folks. Thank you very much.

I hope everyone had a piece of cake. Now we will proceed on to the rest of the agenda.

Okay. Continuing on, we have

consent calendar items

number 3A through 3G.

Staff,

manager, anything that we wish to pull?

Okay. Council members, anything to pull? 3E, please. I'm sorry, what?

3E. 3E.

Okay.

Mayor? Yes? We also have a speaker for 3A.

3A? Yes, sir.

Okay.

3A, 3E, anything else?

Then I would like to make the motion to approve.

I'm sorry, yes. Mr. Mayor, members of the council,

council member, you need to make an announcement with regard to item 3C.

Okay.

Yeah, I actually just wanted to get people aware that if the 3C item being picked, I do have a conflict of interest that I have to recuse myself. So it depends if depending on the item 3C will be picked. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. I would like to make the motion to approve 3B, C, and is without Councilmember Yvonne Yu, 3D, F, and G.

Okay. Thank you. Second. Moved by Councilman Chan. Second by Councilman Yu. Hearing no other comments or questions, members, please vote.

vote's unanimous motion carries thank you clerk okay first item 3a monthly investment report august 2022 clerk um you said that there is a request to speak on the item yes sir uh city

treasurer joseph leon okay thank you good evening mayor council members and of course residents of minor park uh again joseph leon city treasurer just very briefly as you can see in your agenda usually the Monument Park Investment Report is generally presented on the second council meeting of the month for the previous month's investments. Since last month's council meeting was cancelled, the last council meeting was cancelled, the investment report couldn't be presented. So today, before you, is the August Investment Report. Just an explanation why it's on today instead of next. Because there will be another one again for September Investment Report in two weeks to get back on schedule. That's basically what I was here for. Also, as you can see on the investment report, we have currently slightly more funds in the county pool, which has a higher return. And again, I want to stand at the council for allowing me to move funds from late to the county, which we're getting a better return. And since rates continue to fluctuate, we haven't purchased any CDs in a little while.

As a councilman said, we're waiting to see how rates go. And short-term rates are still pretty low for CDs, so I haven't purchased any.

And then also I have asked our Director of Management Services, Martha Garcia, to please look into investing in treasury notes, short-term bonds, and U.S.-sponsored enterprise securities.

And just looking into those now, and hopefully before I depart as a city treasurer, we may have some investments in those, and I'll bring it up to the council. I think my last investment report will be at the next council meeting. Because then there will be a new city treasurer starting after that.

And that's all. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay. Let's see. Do we have a staff report for the item? If none, okay. Colleagues, questions?

I would like to bring the motion to approve for CF3A, the monthly investment report. Moved by Councillor Chan.

Second. Second. I'm sorry, who seconded? Second. Second by Councillor Liang. Thank you. Hearing no further comments or questions, members, please vote.

Votes unanimous. Motion carries. Thank you.

Next item for discussion, 3E, a resolution declaring the month of October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Staff report. Yeah, I wanted our interim chief, Scott Weiss, to give us a report. I know he's donning the patches on his shoulders, but I wanted him to have an opportunity to share that with us.

Well, thank you very much for inviting me up, Mr. Mayor and Councilmembers. I'm here to present a resolution declaring October Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The National Breast Cancer Awareness Month takes place every year during the month of October.

It's an annual health care campaign organized by major breast cancer awareness charities to increase the awareness of the disease and to raise funds for research into cause prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure. Specifically, the Pink Patch Project.

The Pink Patch Project was developed in 2013 by the Los Angeles County Chiefs of Police Association. And what it does is it encourages police departments to develop a unique shoulder patch or a badge with a pink motif, and it generates conversation with the community about breast cancer, breast cancer awareness. The police departments then sell those items to the public, and the sales of those items goes to breast cancer research. We've been involved in the project since its inception back in 2013. Most of our officers you'll see over the next month will be wearing the pink shoulder patches like I am tonight. And last year we also developed a pink motif badge that has pink letters on it. So we'll continue to wear those throughout the month of October. And I welcome any questions.

Thank you, Interim Chief Weiss. I just, it's always great that we continue this tradition. and I admit I have not bought any of those things, but I see some items that I definitely want to get. And I did see out front you have kind of a display when you walk into City Hall about those items and where to get it. So I encourage our residents to come support or whether you're a resident or not, to support this worthy pink patch project that we have here in Monterey Park. So thank you, Interim Chief Weiss, and I'm always happy to support this.

Thank you. Catherine Schein, you have the mic.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Interim Chief Wills, for bringing this up. The awareness of cancer is important because the earlier you detect the symptom, then it's easier to cure. So this awareness is great. And just like previous years before, every year I kind of buy a T-shirt, so save one for you. I'll bring in the money to you next time when I see you in your office. Thank you.

Thank you, Catherine Chan. Thank you. Catherine, you go to the mic. Just a quick question. Do you have those online for online purchase?

No. We have them at the police front counter, and we are going to staff the State of the City event, and we'll have a table set up that has all the items you see up on the screen, which are T-shirts. We have a challenge coin, and we have our patches, the same patches the officers wear, and this year we've added a sticker, which is a white with a pink background and pink with a white background of our patch. So we've added that this year, and all those items will be available to the public. Anybody who wants them can come into the police station when we're open and buy them through the front counter.

Thank you.

Thank you very much,

and I'm very glad to hear that they will be for sale at the city of the city, and so hopefully people will support and buy them for a good cause. Yes. Thank you very much. So if there are no speakers on the item, I'd like to make a motion approving Item 3E, Resolution Declaring the Month of October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

We would second that.

Moved by Council Member Lang. Second by Council Member Chan. Hearing no further discussion, members please vote. Votes unanimous. Motion carries.

Thank you. Okay, thank you very much.

Okay, moving on to public hearing. Item 4A, consideration and possible action to adopt a resolution finding a public necessity to acquire real property through eminent domain and authorizing the city attorney or...

Assessor parcel number 5254-002-031 located on Garvey Avenue for the purposes of completing and maintaining the Goodville Abbatement Project,

or known as the GAP.

Do we have a presentation before we go into public hearing? Yes, Mayor.

Okay.

Mayor, Council Members, our City Attorney and I will be tag-teaming this presentation. Do we have the PowerPoint? Yes.

Yeah.

So I'll take the first half of the PowerPoint presentation, and then I will pass it over to our city attorney, Berger. The property location is 1688 West Garvey. The Cessler's parcel number is 5254-002-031.

The size of the property is 6.22 acres in size. and there are multiple owners that have owned this property over the years the location as you can see it borders garvey avenue it might be a little hard for some of you

to see but it is near luminaris property and also by the sombrero street that is above this property Next slide, please.

The City Council originally approved a 31 residential dwelling unit project in 1978

to 1979.

The project was developed by the Good Views Land Development Company and is known to this

day as the Good Views Project.

In Newson's history, the Good Views hillside is geologically unstable. The city undertook various enforcement actions in 1983, 1986, 87, 88, 91, 1997, 2000, and 2002. It is estimated that the city expanded upwards of $200,000 to $300,000 on improvements to the hillside for temporary stabilization before 2022. Those of you that are in the area, you know that there are soldier piles, there are railroad ties, and concrete piers that had supported that hillside for quite some time over the years. Next slide, please. 2013 nuisance abatement beginning in 2013 the city again undertook nuisance abatement actions against the new property owners of center interline international investments incorporated or known throughout this report as cii the city issued six different administrative citations between 2013 to 2015.

The nuisance abatement is considered to be the property that is, as I spoke about,

below Sombrero in the Highlands area and also just, I guess you would say, west of Abajo.

As you can see, when I talked about with this slide, I talked about the soldier piles and also the timber. This is a side picture of the area that we're talking about. Next slide, please.

again behind the pier wall there are plastic sheeting sandbags holding down the sheeting to allow any type of rainfall or nuisance water to run off the hillside into the vegetation onto

Garvey Avenue next slide please again another picture of the plastic sheeting covering the hillside as part of prevention from eroding the hillside using plastic before the runoff. 2015 the civil suit. In 2015 the City Council at that

time authorized the city attorney to file a nuisance abatement action against CII.

The City Council was concerned that the predicted El Nino storms that year would result in further hillside instability.

In 2017, the City entered into a settlement agreement with CII, which includes a long-term solution to the hillside. This settlement agreement was subsequently amended in 2019 and 2020. Collectively, this is considered to be the settlement agreement.

Settlement agreement key points. The settlement agreement requires CII to install geotechnical stabilization infrastructure into the hillside at its cost. These improvements were to be installed by 2022. There were two means by which this could be accomplished, Plan A and Plan B. Plan A was approved by City Council in 2021 and would have alLod the infrastructure to be installed as part of an overall residential project. plan b is just the hillside stabilization infrastructure this is this was required to be constructed regardless of whether the city approved plan b i'm sorry planning thank you in 2021 the city council adopted a resolution declaring an emergency and authorized the city manager and city attorney to select a contractor to perform Plan B if CII failed to undertake abatement activity by August 2021. After CII failed to perform, CII was informed on October 13, 2021, that the city was assuming control over the nuisance abatement project. After selecting a contractor, work began on the Good Views abatement project, also known as GAP, on or about January 24, 2022. Construction is ongoing and is expected to be completed by the end of this year. here. Property conditions we show here in a picture of what it looked like in June of 2021.

The gap picture as of today is a picture of the structures that are put in to stabilize

the hillside and hold back any type of slumping off that may occur after the project is completed.

Again, additional pictures. As you can see, there's still driving piles in there.

There's the pile machine up on the top left.

We show the wall up top and then a closer up front picture of the wall itself.

I am going to pass this over to our city attorney to speak about the eminent domain and offers from the city. Attorney Berger.

Thank you kindly. So the reason that we're here tonight with regard to eminent domain is, as explained in the staff report,

we've come to a point where the abatement costs have exceeded the value of the actual property. So this particular property was originally assessed in 2019, and then we updated the appraisal this year in January. It comes out to an appraised value of $6.4 million. Next month, we will be moving forward with putting a new abatement lien onto the property, which will then make the total liens on the property exceed $7.5 million. We expect to have, at the end of the year, an additional abatement lien going onto the property, which will bring the total price well over $10 million. The construction contract by itself is $12 million. When the City Council approved, originally approved the settlement agreement in 2017, it required a security to secure the obligations of the contract of the property owner, a million-dollar bond in 2017. Based upon engineers estimates for the plan B in 2019 2020 the city council approved an increase of that amount to 6.8 million dollars and that was secured by leaning two properties one was in South El Monte and the other is this present property with performance deeds of trust which required the property owner to perform and to repay the city for any abatement costs that would be incurred as a result of the city. of this nuisance abatement we are currently proceeding to foreclose on the south el monte property with the deed of trust the abatement liens on this particular property we believe we can foreclose upon but the other question for the city council and really for the property owner was whether or not to negotiate a takeover of of the property by the city via eminent domain

We opened up informal negotiations with property owners, attorneys, as noted in this PowerPoint, on August 4th.

We tried again on August 23rd. We tried again on August 25th. And we tried again on September 9th.

The City Special Counsel, who is Alan Sozio, he's an eminent domain specialist on the Zoom call tonight, also sent an offer letter dated August 22nd which included the appraisal that was updated in January of 2022 and he also spoke to CII's attorneys on August 25th. I also note that the original public hearing that was scheduled for September 21st 2022 was postponed until tonight's meeting. That gave CII more than six weeks to negotiate a transfer of the property to the city and CII

has refused to do so. Next slide. As noted on September 9th, my office, my assistant city attorney,

reached out to CII's attorneys to see if we could negotiate a transfer of the property, and he was

told that CII was not interested in negotiations. To our knowledge, CII has never obtained its own appraisal for the property. CII's first written response to the city's notices was dated October

4th that is part of the administrative record and was sent to the City Council.

Our office actually Allen's office has responded to that letter by letter dated October 5th that also is part of the administrative record and I believe you have both a hard copy and

electronic copy.

As mentioned Mr. Sozio is available for any questions he's on Zoom.

As set forth in staff report in the draft resolution the city must secure the GAP site

to protect public health and safety. It's obvious that the private property owner is either incapable or unwilling to do that,

and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Do you want to proceed public hearing then? Okay.

Thank you much for that presentation. Then I'm now going to then open the public hearing to this item.

Okay, Mr. Clerk.

Thank you.

First speaker is Kerry On, O-N.

Good evening, Mayor Lo, Council members. I'm Carrie On. I represent Center International, or CII, property located on 1688 West Garvey Avenue.

Well, CII's Council submitted a letter yesterday, dated October 4th, to subject the proposed adoption of the resolution in finding a public necessity to acquire CII's property through eminent domain.

the city could have just issued a grading permit to CII

allow CII to stabilize the slope

unless CII proceed with its residential development that the city approved in 2021

but instead the city seeks to take over

stabilization of the slope providing the same public good

that CII would have.

But for the cities, the city is illegally sabotaging CII's efforts

and with maximal private injury to CII.

This violates the requirement

that the taking of the private property caused the least private injury. This hearing is a sham. As the city has already took control of the site.

What's more, based on the city's pre-condemnation offer, the city essentially seeks to acquire title to the property for free.

May I ask, how is this different or any different from stealing? eminent domain is a direct response to CII's litigation

publicly available documents. The city has spent millions of taxpayers' dollars to take over control

of the site at CII's detriment to implement a slope remediation plan that

violates the settlement agreement between CII and the city.

As well as the entitlements previously granted to CII for the much needed housing.

While the city implements a slope stabilization plan that exceeds the bounds of what is required for winterization, the work is resulting in property that is undevelopable.

This is an express violation of CII's vested rights under the entitlements.

CII wanted to remediate the slope and protect the community and provide housing in the area.

CII spent substantial amount of money and time to prepare and obtain the requisite approvals.

CII was in the middle of pulling the necessary grading permit

when the city unilaterally and without CII's consent took over the work and the site.

Again, I ask City Council to reject the proposed resolution before you tonight

and instead thoroughly investigate the city's work, conduct to date on the site, and determine whether it has been done legally and safely.

The community needs to be aware. The truth has to be told. Thank you.

Next speaker, James Bradshaw.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council Members, Mr. Bowe, Mr. Berger. I'm James Bradshaw.

I live up on Sombrero, where the pursuit ended on Friday night, which was quite entertaining, I might add.

eminent domain is probably the most aggressive and extreme use of seizing property. It's probably one of the most pernicious ways of taking someone's property.

In order to do so, you need to meet two elements.

One is there needs to be a justified public use.

And by the Fifth Amendment takings clause, just compensation must be provided. I'd like to know what the public use you intend.

What's the justified public use for this project, for eminent domain?

There's no answers.

I mean, normally it's to build a freeway, a bridge. Yes.

No, I'm just, after you make all your comments, certainly we will respond. All right, listen. My grandfather was mayor here, longest tenured mayor in the city. He served an additional 17 years.

It pains me to take an adversarial position here, but I live right above it.

you've undercut, you've taken this project over, undercut my slope. By the way, you do owe me to provide sub-adjacent lateral support

with the rains coming. It's very possible that my hillside will slide as a result of the excavation that has been done.

So I'd like to know if the one, if it's going to be packed in, filled, continued.

You started to, and then you stopped.

I don't know why, but you do owe that to me,

subadjacent lateral support.

Furthermore, I do want to know what the intended,

justified public use you have for this property,

and also whether or not $6.4 million is just compensation.

for purchasing said property.

Again, it pains me to take this position

because I grew up here.

My father grew up here.

My grandfather grew up here. This has been home to me for a long time.

Seizing the property by precedent cannot be based solely on economic value obtained.

So I don't, I'd like to know what the proposed public use is, for one.

I'd like to know if you're going to repack the area that you've excavated underneath my home.

So can any of these questions be answered, or do I have to sit down and wait for an answer?

Again, after we do all the public hearing, we will have a response to the questions.

Okay. So those are the issues.

The Fifth Amendment does require that just compensation be provided and that a significant public use.

So with that, again, my family has contributed to the city its whole generations.

17 years on city council, 12 years as mayor.

and my family, my grandfather was the one responsible for putting in the water district here.

So please, just hear me out and consider what I'm asking for.

Just that the slope underneath my hill be packed at a 2-1 ratio, which it should be,

so that I don't suffer significant loss.

And I would like to know what the intended use is. Thank you very much.

Next speaker, Teresa Rial-Sebastian.

Good evening, everyone.

I just wanted to disclose that when I read this agenda item, of course, I had a lot of questions like many people do.

And so the first thing I did, because I always tell people, if you have questions on an agenda item, call staff.

Make sure you get those questions answered so that there is no discrepancy.

And so I have to point out that I did call the city manager's office twice,

and I was hoping you or somebody else would call me back, and no one did, which is quite unfortunate.

So on May 18, 2022, our city attorney and city manager, let me refresh memory,

brought this item to you, and they said that the projected total cost would exceed $14 million.

Now we fast forward it today, it's saying projected total cost is going to exceed $12 million. So which one is it? I'm confused on that.

They also had mentioned in the previous agenda item that the appraised value on two properties was 8.6.

So today they're saying it's 6.4.

Is that on both properties? Just one? Not sure. I also would like to know, what is the public use? There has been no mention about public use. What does the city plan on doing with this?

But more importantly, the thing I've been hearing from watching council meetings here and there is that we don't have money, we don't have money, we don't have money. And by the way, we don't have money. And so there's been this urgency about the sales tax measure. I understand we don't have money to fix our Barnes Park pool, which I understand now is going to cost more than $12 million.

We don't have money to fix the potholes that we keep driving over every day that are getting bigger and bigger. We don't have money to pay our employees who are going right now through union negotiations. We don't have money.

So my question to you, and I look through the staff reports, I'm trying to figure this out. where are you getting this money from? Where? Because it's not just going to be the cost to acquire and the cost to abate. There's going to be other costs added on there. My guesstimate, having served on this council, and by the way, for the record, I am no longer on council, despite what some people are saying. I am here, resident. It's going to be more like 20 million.

So where are we getting that funding from? When we're telling our residents we don't have money. I know we got ARPA funds, which were the federal funds that the city received to aid them in the recovery of revenue lost during COVID.

Is there money there? Are we going to use it for this?

I understand that the city issued bonds to help with capital improvement projects, public capital improvement projects, including rehabilitation or rehabbing to the tune of $17 million. Are you going to use it from there? So where is this magic money coming from? And who decided that this was more important than all those other issues? But more so, what public use are you going to use? You know, I have always pushed that your agenda items need to be transparent. Pretend it's somebody that's reading it brand new and doesn't have the information. That's what transparency means. That means I haven't been to a city council meeting. I read the staff report, and now I understand exactly what's going on.

You all have all the background information. But the public, the agenda, I'm sorry, the staff report is not for you.

It is for the public, for the residents, so that they know where this money is coming from.

And the obvious question is, is this coming from the sales tax measure?

So I'm here to say I supported the sales tax measure. I no longer support it, neither my husband nor I. Because I need answers. I need transparency. I need to know what exactly is going on.

And this staff report is missing so many answers to so many of our questions.

This is a big project. Let me remind you, our total budget for the city is $150 million.

10%, if I just look at that, 10% will be allocated to this project.

10%.

That's a lot of money for a city like Monterey Park.

So please, I implore you to continue this and get the questions answered so that you can have the support you need. Thank you.

Next speaker is Cindy Yee.

Mayor, Council. I thought I was in retirement. It's been a while since I've been here. But when I heard about this, I had to speak up. I urge that agenda item 4A be tabled until there is a new city council in spring, well, actually in winter of 2023. Presently, you have a vacant seat to council persons who are termed out, thankfully. and one city council person who has abstained herself in the past from good view. This council approved a tentative track map of 16 homes to be built over a Zoom meeting during the lockdown. This same council, and possibly Mr. Cernoso, approved spending $8 million of our tax revenues to clean up the property because the owner failed to meet its deadline, and the council claimed it was a safety hazard. It's been a safety hazard for 50 years.

I would like to know what happens with the lien.

It's just unimaginable what is going on when you hear a CII talking

and you hear Mr. Bradshaw talking about the history of this property.

Why did you not secure the cleanup by the owners

before approving a tentative track map?

Very simple.

It's a hillside. You need to get that thing cleaned up.

What if when they start cleaning up and they go,

oh, wait, we can't even build 16 homes on there?

you guys just look make yourselves look like fools at the first open door meeting in early

april or may of this year the owners came before this council filing a

trying to just do it under eminent domain? Sure, I understand this property needs to be cleaned up

because it's been an eyesore.

Because of Highlands, property values have been hurt by it for 50 years.

Something smells fishy. Why are we throwing away tax revenues, you know, feverishly,

when we can't even develop decent shopping for residents like at the intersections of Garvey and Garfield and ISERs on Atlantic and Garvey. Why don't you eminent domain those properties?

Good question, isn't it? What is the long-term plans for this property? You don't even tell us.

hopefully some people hope it's a park and a dog park

that would be really good we can walk around there we need answers

we need a full new city council

to study this and we might need to clean up some of the city people along the way what is the rush you have two people that are gone you cannot do this tonight

This is too important of a decision.

Dipping into our limited tax reserves, liability issues,

owning the property to its history of geological instability,

you can't rush this. Thank you.

Next speaker is Jason Ding.

Good evening, City Councilman.

I just want to come up here. Didn't have a choice now to speak about Agenda 4A. Back in the beginning of the year, when the City Council undertook the gigantic embankment project, on the Good View project. I told everybody who asked me about the project that the hill has been a nuisance for decades, and I'm glad that the city is doing something about it.

But what about the $8 million price tag on the project? My friends, neighbors, and voters would ask me. The city will put a lien on the property to get the money back. That's what I told them. I believe in what you told me. $8 million. But tonight on the agenda, what the heck just happened? You just made me a liar to my friends, my neighbors, my voters. We're not getting the $8 million back, are we? In the staff report, you said that the property was appraised at $6.4 million back in January 23, 2022. It really paints me like what James said. It really paints me I do want to support this project but suddenly this thing is turning around you know you've got 6.4 million dollars yet you undertook an embankment project estimated 8 million dollars and put a lien on a property a 6.4 million property and told us we're getting the taxpayers money back how are you going to get 8 million dollars from a price value of 6.4 million dollars did the city council or Monterey Park resident knows about this appraisal I've never seen this appraisal before. I just saw it in the report tonight. Has any of the city council member or any of the residents see this appraisal before? It's $6.4 million. And now you are asking the city council to approve the acquisition of this property to eminent domain. So we just spent $7.3 million on the payment, which is in the report. and you want to buy out the property for $6.4 million for a total cost of $13.7 million or more because this amendment project is not done yet until the end of the year or maybe early 2023.

I went and searched this. Moray Park, 2022-2023 physical year operations, debt, and capital budget is $151.6 million,

of which of that $95.7 million of that budget is reserved, so we can't touch that. $50.5 million is in the general fund, which we can use. $5.4 million from the one-time American Rescue Plan Act. So we're going to spend $13.7 million on one property, and our general fund budget is $50.5 million. Everybody knows I'm a numbers person. I've mentioned this so many times. Let's do a little simple calculation. That's 27% of the city general fund. Okay, this project is in District 1. That's my district. I keep hearing everybody asking me about it. How am I going to answer when my friends, neighbors, residents, voters ask me what I think of the project now? It really pains me, like what James said. How am I going to justify to them why the city is spending 27% of the city general fund for one gigantic embedment, eminent domain project, when the residents are pointing to the broken pavement and the door right outside, the streets right outside the door, or the firemen working with our contract, or the police department not having enough police officers to patrol our streets. How are we going to get that $13.7 million and counting money back? Thank you.

Any other speakers?

Those are all the speakers. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Clerk. Okay.

Colleagues, any questions or if staff has any comments or questions? Yes, Mr. Burger.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, maybe I can jump in with a couple things.

Okay.

Then I'm going to tag in Mr. Sozio also with regard to some of the questions.

And he's online? I'm sorry? Mr. Sozio is online?

He is. Okay. He's on Zoom. Great.

I don't know if we can pop his picture up.

so first of all let me let me address the money issue the city is not paying 6.4 million dollars

the staff report and the attachments to the staff report make it plain that the acquisition of the

property is dependent upon the property owner paying off all the liens on the property and all

the unrecorded liens on the property as i mentioned at the beginning of of this presentation

the city is has already leaned the property for more than approximately six million dollars

next month in november it will be bringing forth another lien for about 1.8 million dollars

which will be leaned against the property so all of those liens have to be paid off before the city

would pay the 6.4 million dollars with regard to the question on the secured property the city has

as I mentioned also during the presentation

and it has been mentioned

repeatedly in other presentations before the city council. The city council

has authorized pursuant to the settlement agreement secure performance deeds of trust on two separate

pieces of property. One is in

South Almonte and that property was appraised at approximately $1.2 million.

As I mentioned we're already started foreclosure proceedings on that property.

That's non-judicial foreclosure which means

that we don't go to court for it.

somebody takes care of that for us and unless that debt is paid the city will simply foreclose on the property and sell it.

That is a partial recovery of the city's funds.

With regard to the eminent domain one of the other questions so I hope that's clear about the finances. That doesn't mean that the total amount and value of the two properties is going to pay for the entirety of the abatement process. One of the ideas behind eminent domain, one of the things that we were trying to negotiate with the property owner was, the property owner actually gets a tax benefit if it either donates the property or agrees to transfer the property under the threat of eminent domain. And under those circumstances, the idea was, well, we could take care of next four or five years of being in litigation if we were able to achieve that particular transfer. In the absence of that type of transfer and the city moving forward with an eminent domain action,

we will also separately be moving forward to pierce the corporate veil of a corporation

to go after the personal assets of anybody that was invested in that corporation in order to recover the city's money. So the notion that the city is simply giving away the taxpayers' money is misguided. Mr. Sozio, are you there and available?

Okay.

so one of the questions that arose was what is the public purpose behind the project and the staff report explains it but mr sozia perhaps you can explain it in in greater detail exactly what

the public project and the public purpose is behind the eminent domain action sure um the legally speaking um statutorily the city may acquire any property that's necessary to carry OUT ITS POWERS AND FUNCTIONS OR ANY OTHER PURPOSE THAT'S AUTHORIZED BY LAW. AND WE CITED SECTIONS OF THE CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION AS WELL AS THE CITY'S MUNICIPAL CODE THAT STATE THE OBVIOUS, WHICH IS THAT ONE OF THE CITY'S PUBLIC, EXCUSE ME, POWERS AND FUNCTIONS IS TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY. AND HERE, AS THIS COUNCIL WELL KNOWS AND AS YOU'VE ALL BEEN LIVING, IT IS THE BELIEF OF STAFF THAT IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY, THAT THE FEE INTEREST OF THE PROPERTY ITSELF NEEDS TO BE ACQUIRED IN ORDER TO HAVE THE CONTROL to be able to do what's necessary to stabilize the hill and that under the eminent domain law is a sufficient public purpose so in layperson's terms alan would it be sufficient to say that the

city's investment of the 12 million dollars in the hillside stabilization which includes not just the

grading the removal of all of the previously previous attempts to abate the public nuisance

the regrading of the hillside and what have you that itself is the public purpose to operate maintain and construct those items which is one of the reasons that the city created the geologic hazard abatement district last year and the intent is if the city council moves forward with eminent domain action to obtain this in fee title that the fee title would be transferred to the geologic hazard abatement district in order for it to maintain all of the the investments and the infrastructure that the city has already invested in with regard to this hillside mr bradshaw mentioned or had questions with regard to the grading yes the grading continues the walls need to go in first then the grading will continue the fill will will occur it will be a two to one ratio in terms of hill slippage we installed i believe four in kilometers there has

been no movement of the hillside since the city's project began so that aspect of things should be resolved from or that question should be resolved with

that information I think I've hit every any of the main points but I'm sure mr.

bow will fill in anything that I've forgotten

Thank you, City Attorney Berger.

As someone like you that lives in the community, I think we tend to wait for something to happen. And then we end up yelling bloody murder that it happened because we never took care of the issue. When we look at Goodviews, we all know, those of you that have lived here a long time, know that the Goodviews slope has always been an issue for a long time. As we stated in the presentation, the reason why there's the railroad ties and the soldier peers that are up there is because we did have problems. The city had a grant, I can't tell you exactly what year it was, to actually put in those walls. And so it is well known that there is an issue on that hillside. City Council, prior to the City Council, also understood that we had to deal with this problem. We've had numerous nuisance abatement enforcement issues with the property, from drainage to erosion. And those of you that lived up on Sombrero, you can remember that you lost power for quite some time.

It was because that hillside slipped and it took out two to three power poles. They couldn't put those power poles back in permanently until they fixed that hillside. It was a long process.

We had the road basically closed off in one direction and we had single lanes going in opposite directions on the other side. I'm bringing this up because even when there wasn't any rain, when you looked up at those concrete piers that were up there, they were starting to slip. They weren't intact the way they were supposed to be when they were.

to be closed off for quite some time many many years there was and still is at one point in time a safety issue for the public city council realized that and they did something about it now whether you agree or not previous council or this council um that's definitely your opinion but they did what was right to try to protect the rest of the community by doing this. I still believe that we are doing the right thing by trying to take care of that slope. We will definitely, it's engineered to stabilize that slope. And when we talk about properties up in Sombrero, I can't tell you what it looks like up in the upper area, but I'd be more than willing to have a conversation with any of the residents that are up there and let you know what we're doing up there I know it's a concern I do have friends that live up there I'm perfect picture I mean some barrel and they have voiced their own same opinion my comments probably doesn't answer any questions that you may have but it's really about the safety of that hillside and protecting the public. And it was a problem, and we're going to fix it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bo and Mr. Berger,

for your comments and questions.

Colleagues.

Mr. Chan, you have the mic.

And there was a question also,

the usage of the poverty eventually. so and I did mention I mean just just for me my own thing is I can see it may not be housing because of the hillside and it may be a park but of course that's just my opinion and it will still have to come and what kind of purpose what kind of usage in the future, it really depends on the end product, how they finished the whole thing and how this lawsuit or this element domain is going, which direction. And I can foresee that there may be lawsuits coming regardless of what happened. And so the usage will be talked about in the future.

but I have one idea is to convert it to the park as well if we cannot do any housing up there. So that's my opinion.

And then I would like to ask the city attorney

all the procedures, all the steps that we have done for the last few years, and we went through the court proceedings, and we have the court orders to go through the procedures that we have done to stabilize the hillside.

So I would like you to elaborate on that, that we have done this legitimately and under the order of the court. It's not just the city that wants to do whatever and then we just go ahead and do it. And so I would like you to elaborate and explain the procedure.

Yes, of course, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council.

So from a procedural standpoint from involving the courts, this began in 2015, at the end of 2015.

At that point, the City Council authorized the filing of the civil nuisance abatement action against CII. City Attorney's Office actually went in and got a temporary restraining order in order to get onto the property to secure the property because of the concern over the El Nino reins. So that was at the end of December of 2015, right before the new year in 2016. I remember because I was on vacation signing the complaint.

So it is, from a legal standpoint, it goes back to that standpoint.

Between the beginning of 2016 and 2017, there were various negotiations with CII representatives with regard to their desire to develop that hillside into residential homes.

The City Council at the time was willing to discuss that and negotiate it.

I will say that any time that we achieved progress required us coming right up to the wire and going back to court to get additional orders from the court.

But eventually we did enter into a voluntary settlement agreement with CII where it voluntarily waived all of its rights with regard to hearings, court cases, etc.

that settlement agreement was still subject to court oversight. The only real thing that happened with the 2017 agreement is that the project schedule was updated over the course of the next few years. So as mentioned in the staff report and many times before, there was an amendment in 2019 and then there was another amendment in 2020. The amendment in 2019 alLod CII to come to the City Council and ask for approvals for the residential project.

And for a while, CII had been contemplating putting in multifamily homes there,

but eventually went back to 16 multimillion-dollar homes that would be placed upon that project. The City Council in 2019 agreed to that concept, also approved the $1 million bond to secure those obligations by CII to rehabilitate the hillside and approve the schedule for completing the nuisance abatement and the residential development.

as you well know we had some events in 2020 which necessitated an update to the project schedule

which was some of the updates that were done in 2020 even that project schedule though was never

adhered to nevertheless the cii representatives did put together a development team that

and seemed for a while to be able to move forward with with their obligations with regard to the

hillside based upon that the city council approved the 16 home development it but also separately

gave direction to the city manager and the city attorney to move forward with nuisance abatement

on the so-called plan b if cii didn't adhere to certain dates cii didn't adhere to those dates

city pursuant to city council direction city contracted with a contractor to first winterize

the project or the project site and then enter into a larger agreement which is a not-to-exceed

amount of 12 million dollars to completely rehabilitate the hillside. There's been lots of talk about, well, why is it so much money?

Well, everything's so much more money.

The original engineer's estimate for this was in 2019, and it was implemented, the basis

The basis for securing the 8.6 in property was based upon the original engineer's estimate.

And quite frankly, when the bids came in, they were much higher than originally thought. Our project manager was surprised about it, but that is the cost of doing business with regard to public projects at the moment.

And that's what we're left with.

So at the moment, as has been explained, getting back to your point, yes, we've folLod all the procedure, and in fact, we've gone above the procedure.

The eminent domain action, really from the standpoint of the city being able to recover its money,

we could foreclose on the existing abatement liens that are on the property right now. That would be a little bit more cumbersome and would also require the city to decide at some point whether or not they wanted to sell to another private property owner,

go through a sheriff's sale, various other things.

This is an additional option for the City Council to consider

in terms of acquiring the property.

But ultimately, the reality is, based upon the amount of money that the city has expended to abate this nuisance,

it's going to acquire the property either through foreclosure or through eminent domain. I hope that answers your questions.

Yes, of course. And also, the point I want to make is that CII said they did not know what's going on,

or the city did not tell them, so that's not true.

Is it that the city or the court has already notified CII every step of the way

on what is happening or what's going on? I think that's what you are talking about, right?

I think the written record demonstrates that the city went above and beyond what its obligations were

with regard to notifying CII of what its obligations were,

what the city would do if CII did not fulfill its legal obligations, and if CII failed to adhere to the terms of the settlement agreement or the written requirements of the city council.

Okay. And then my following-up question is that with this procedure,

for the element domain, and we have the legal grounds to proceed on this method,

and we can, you know, well, that means we have legal grounds to proceed on this element domain. Yes.

We have attempted to negotiate with the property owners.

They refused to negotiate. We have made an offer letter, and the offer letter has not been responded to until yesterday. We have tried to have informal discussions by two different law firms, my law firm and Mr. Sozia's law firm, also to new avail. So I'm not sure what more we can do.

Okay. Thank you for that.

And then the next question I would like to direct to the city manager is that I remember in a year and a half at least,

I don't remember the time that this project came to the City Council, and this Council approved the Plan A and B, which is approved to build 16 units of housing. And before it was like 30-something units, but they scaled down by CII, not by the Council or the Department of Public Works that did not specify that we reduce it to 16. I think it's from CII. They proposed the 16 units. Is that true?

Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, if I may jump in to help Mr. Bill on this.

We have written requests from CII to not only change the general plan to reduce the density on that property

from what it was, which would have alLod high-density housing, they specifically asked in writing for that to be reduced in the land use element

approved by voters to reduce that density from R3 down to R1.

We have a written record demonstrating that originally,

while CII played with the idea of wanting to have 30 multifamily units on that property,

It specifically asked in writing that the city council approve 16.

I can't speak for CII. I can only tell you what I have in writing.

Okay, I just want to confirm that my memory is correct, that the 16 units proposed by CII to bill on that poverty.

And then also on top of the city council,

other than approve their 16 units to be billed, the condition is that they have to fix the slope.

because it's a danger to the public because he makes much lie and which happened before.

So what happened after the year and a half that the City Council approved the Plan A and Plan B approved that they can proceed with the 16 units and to fix the slip. So what happened after that? Did they do anything?

no and that is the reason why we went to plan b so i'll um i'll talk about plan a a little bit plan a was to build the homes and stabilize the hillside we are building plan b stabilizing the hillside so this is for people that ask what would the use be right now the use can't be anything other than a lot because if you were to build any other type of structures you would have to

probably build much a much better foundation for buildings there and it will not happen with plan b so i'll be very clear with that plan b is only about stabilizing the hillside period

it okay if I can just tag team on mr. Bo's comments it it is developable one can put a structure on there after this after the gap is complete at the end of this year it is possible with some engineering to build the build onto the lot it is not undevelopable it could have something on there I think what mr. Bo is explaining is that that was not the primary goal of the city. The primary goal of the city is to stabilize the hillside to prevent it from, quite frankly, killing somebody. We have senior citizen housing right around the corner. We have had multiple faults across the highway. As Mr. Bo mentioned, we've had power outages. We had the most recent thing that prompted the code enforcement action starting in 2013 was the sloughing off of the hillside that caused a

tree to go across

safety is number one for the city and safety of the people poverty and everything is the primary goal of this city and council of course and I would like to ask a city manager also because a year and a half after the council approved plan a did we ever contact CII on what what is going on

and what's the response and how many times did we contact them and what's the response, you know, after we contact them?

There are numerous correspondents from various different departments, also including the city attorney's department, regarding their plans, regarding what's the requirement for them to be able to build on it, their action to be prompt in submittals because they have a specific deadline that they needed to meet. And it was clear in writing, if you didn't meet the deadline, that the city would take action. And it's not because we didn't try to work with CII. I know the city attorney's office has had many conversations and letters going back and forth. during that period. And I would say that we have, like our city attorney has said, went above and beyond with this property owner. Okay. So that means the city has done all we can to notify CII,

but there's no action from their part.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council,

if I can just, to answer your question,

we've already started taking deposition testimony

from persons that were involved

since 2015 in this entire process, and those are pursuant to the legislative subpoenas

that were issued by the city,

pursuant to the city council's direction to make a determination whether or not to terminate the development agreement. So we already have deposition testimony indicating that CII had no intent on moving forward,

that from CII's perspective,

their project didn't quote-unquote pencil out.

And these individuals specifically told CII what the consequences would be

if they didn't adhere to the promises that they made voluntarily in writing. So the notion that somehow CII didn't know what was going to happen and that the city was the big bad guy that came down and is swooping down and taking their property,

it just defies the written record and the written acknowledgement by people that were involved with the process.

So I wouldn't say that the representatives that have shown up in front of you talking to you about how bad we are, that's certainly perhaps their perspective.

But the written record shows that the truth is contrary to what they're telling you.

Okay, thank you for that.

Because as city council, as an elected official representing the city, we have a tough job to do.

But we have to balance everything. We have to hear from both sides.

As you can see, all those things that I ask, actually I know most of them, but I just want to make it public, to make it public so that everyone knows what's going on. And those are the things that's happening.

So please, don't just listen to one side, but listen to both sides and make the decision. And I think the decision from the city has been made is we are kind of forced into action because of the inaction of CII.

And every step of the way, we have been talking to their counterparts, the attorneys, the management,

and also we have the court orders that we can do, you know, the steps that we have been taken. is under the scrutiny of the court, I think,

because eventually I suppose that this may end in a lawsuit.

But the thing is, for the city is concerned, safety is number one. We have to protect people's lives and properties, especially those houses on the hilltop. So by doing all those measures that we have done to the slope, and yes of course it's an inconvenience because I use Gavi kind of like every day

I have to go to work and go back to work on Gavi most of the time and so yes it's a traffic jams and snow down and everything but for the safety I think it's a necessity for the city to take this kind of action thank you for that Thank you, Council Member Chan.

Council Member Liang, give the mic. Sure, thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Council Member Chan, for your thorough comments and questions. I think that it's very revealing, at least in the way you asked the questions and the answers that we got. You know, it's a very frustrating situation. I'm always trying to be the optimist. I think that when we first came up with that meeting where they agreed to the Plan A and the development of the homes, I was very excited. You know, we negotiated with them in good faith. You know, we sat down with them. And I don't think that there's any misunderstanding on what the agreement was for them to move forward on this project. So, you know, the city has done its best to work with the CII to come up with solutions to find some kind of pathway through this. but you know and as I'm narrating this a city manager and city attorney if I'm going off on something please correct me right so it's not I'm sure if anyone wanted to look at the documents the legal documents they would see clearly that CII agreed and signed off on these agreements and it made sense at the time like okay I want to build houses there I want to make money building these million-dollar houses. Oh, but I have to stabilize the hillside first. Okay, I'll agree to that, stabilize the hillside, but you're going to let me build houses there. Yeah, that's the agreement. And then as time progressed, I know that in the agreement there were times specific, there were dates, deadlines. And when those deadlines came and went and we got no action or anything, it becomes a concern. And we have gone out of our way to extend the time for them to respond, to give them an opportunity to come up with another plan. And at the end of the day, we get no response, no work, no collaboration. And it troubles me that when someone signs a contract to say, I agree with this, we sat down and we came through the terms, and I signed this contract. what I'm saying is that I agree to this, and I'm putting my name down here saying that I'm going to follow the rules of this contract. Or, if I don't, there are consequences, and those consequences were clearly outlined in those agreements. If you didn't reach this by a certain day, this would happen, and I'm sure we even extended those dates a few times to give them the opportunity. But at what point in time are we going to say we've exhausted all of our efforts, and are we supposed to say well you know we we should negotiate in good faith we should put down on paper have everyone all the terms very clear and have everyone sign off on it and you know what if they don't fulfill their end of the bargain well we'll be sad about that but we won't do anything to address the enforcement of an agreement that we had with somebody in our city about doing something to maintain either develop or maintain the hillsides now a question i had which maybe when i went to the restroom i don't know if it was answered uh the representative from cii said that we denied them a grading permit and that if that grading permit were granted it would be all fixed and done already what is that if i can ask thank you mr mayor members of the council the cii was supposed to have obtained a grading permit from the city to commence the nuisance abatement

provisions under the settlement agreement in pursuing to the direction of the city council

by august 1st 2021 on about july 30th after the project manager alerted me that there was no

grading permit because there hadn't even been an application for a grading permit yet i reached

out to cii's attorney and said where are we on the grading permits because you've got 30 days left

in order to do anything and without going into great detail they missed the august 1st deadline

Then they missed an August 31st deadline.

Then they missed a September 1st deadline.

And to your point, when is enough enough?

And on October 13th, the city manager informed them that they were in default,

pursuant to the city council's direction in June 2021, and we went forward from there. So the notion that we didn't issue a grading permit that was ready and pending,

and there was no grading permit that was ready and pending.

The earliest time that there was sufficient information to actually issue a grading permit was October 5th, so 2021. That's more than two months after they were supposed to have obtained the grading permit,

and the council gave direction in June.

So it makes it—I just want to be clear because based on some of the statements that were made,

It gives the appearance that a grading permit was withheld from them and thus the city used that withholding of the permit as a technicality to force them into a situation where they couldn't meet the requirement.

There was a clear direction from Council that you wanted this project to succeed underneath Plan A. Myself and the rest of the staff understood that.

we do not deny grading permits. We make comments on grading permits, and we give them back.

Eventually, the grading permits are approved. But I've never seen a grading permit be denied,

at least in my tenure as your city manager nearly almost seven years.

So did they eventually submit one request for the plan?

They submitted an application for a grading permit. that application failed to have several things that aren't required by the city Monterey Park they're actually required by the state of California including a stormwater pollution prevention plan which is called a SWIP that SWIP was never updated until after the deadlines that were established there were various other things in there and I wasn't the project manager to tell you exactly all the things that there were but by the time the deadline came and went there was no grading permit issued because they didn't have the information that was needed to issue a grading permit. What we found subsequently is indeed the contractor that they had proposed to do the

grading is not licensed to do grading. So I'm not sure exactly, to your point, how long does the

city allow someone to get chance after chance? And just from a legal lawsuit standpoint,

with this property owner by 2021, it was already six years into a lawsuit where they were supposed to have had things done by the end of 2019. So I hope that answers your question. Yes, it does. Thank you for that clarity. I'm not going to go too much into it more.

I think Peter really covered those questions about the legalities. I think some of the questions I asked also revealed some things about the claims they made about not giving a permit.

You know, at some point in time, you know, people may be upset, thinking, oh, eminent domain this, but why don't they take a moment to look and say, well, don't you think the city's upset that we negotiated in good faith?

We worked with you to figure out a plan that we could all agree on. took months and hours of our staff for you to sign. I mean, if you weren't going to do it, why would you even sign it? Why don't you just figure some other plan? Did you sign it to buy more time? Like, it makes no sense why you would sign an agreement to do something where it's explicitly clear what the penalties are if you don't, and that we extended those penalties, and then they still didn't do anything. So as kind of what Peter said, it's like we've done what we can,

and now you give us no choice. you know we have to we still have to mitigate the slope right and it's it's like what Peter said or was it Peter you know people come you know they don't want anything done and then when it collapses they ask us why didn't you do something about it right it's always the case right well not always but oftentimes you know and in large bureaucracies you know I work for the county you know and a county can be more reactionary than proactive and I think here in the city I believe that we're doing the right thing as the city manager said we're being proactive and you know I've only lived in the city 20 years but that hill slide has been there for 20 years and I do even myself see those concrete Lego block things that we're holding up starting to sag so it's the responsibility of us here no matter how unhappy it makes may make some other of people, especially in the case where people, it's one thing if we blindsided them and did something and then they're like, what the heck happened? But as the city attorney said, we have documents, we have the written record on what they agreed on, what they negotiated, and now they're going to just not do it and we're supposed to say, okay, you know, like, sorry you were inconvenienced and sorry that you signed that agreement and we signed it and that you couldn't perform on that, but have a nice day and we'll pay for the 12 million that we used to stabilize it.

are in the 2020s and it hasn't been dealt with and what we have seen over the years is that it's been getting worse we have the evidence you know like Ron our city manager shared with us some of the issues that had the powers lines the trees that this the you know all of those issues and then you know throughout

the years the abatement where you put up the plastic but it's not done regularly and then over time it just the sunlight and it turns into like a raggedy you You know, it's not doing what it's supposed to do in terms of protecting the slope, and then it becomes even more of an eyesore. Now, for me, generally, I'm always trying to work it out, but when it comes to the point where we've done everything that we can,

we've exhausted all the avenues, and it's very clear, as in the written record, that we had these discussions with them. We had understandings with them to the point they say, okay, we're going to sign on this line. I don't believe any of our staff put a gun to their head, you know, like, what's that godfather thing, right, and said, sign this thing, right? I don't think that occurred, you know. And, you know, given all of the evidence, the records,

I think that the city is well in its right to move in this direction. It's unfortunate. You know, I support Peter's position as well. It's unfortunate that we have to do this. But as Peter said, we're talking about safety here, and the evidence shows that this is not a safe slope.

It is slowly deteriorating. It must be dealt with. And it's unfortunate that CIA would agree to it and not do it and just kind of slough it off as, you know, we don't want to negotiate, we don't want to talk. You know, all the while, the city is paying for this mitigation for the hillside. So at some point, we have to say that's it. I believe that we've extended our most good faith efforts with CIA. and looking at the written record and seeing what we're getting. I can't get no other message from them in that we don't care, we're not going to adhere, and we're not going to talk to you anymore.

So as Peter said, it's forcing our hand. Thank you. Councilor Liu, you have the mic. Hi. This project is not new. The owner took over since 2013, almost 10 years ago. We have communicated with the owners many, many times. Seems like the property owner has a lot of miscommunications when working with our city. We are all very frustrated. It is not just a simple development project. It involves a potential landslide, which will affect many of our residents' lives. According to the public comments, it sounds like a stupid idea to use taxpayer money to purchase a land which worth about $6 million, which will come with a large repair cost of $12 million and huge liabilities afterwards. As you know, I'm a money lady, and I do know how to calculate risk and rewards. If we are a private entity, then I may say it is a bad idea. But we are a public entity. Our responsibility is to protect our public health and safety. If the private developer cannot do enough to protect a potential landslide and have no way to afford huge liabilities, then the city should take over and resume those responsibilities. We have no choice. To me, element domain is the best decision for both parties. It can give the current landowner a good tax credit, avoid long and costly lawsuits, and transfer the huge liability of the owner and let the city take over it. Similar of having our police and fire, we spend so much to support and maintain our public safety team We don't expect any return because we want to protect our residents. This is our city responsibility. I hope the public can understand. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman, yes? Okay. Mr. Bell, would you like to make a comment?

Mayor, Councilmembers, I realize that there were some other points that were made by the public, and I just wanted to circle back. Sorry. I'm a little older, so sometimes I forget things. but the sales tax there was a point made you know are we having the sales tax measure on the ballot so that way we can pay for this project what I will say is we've we've tried for the sales tax two years ago and it was extremely important for us to be able to keep our operations of the city because we know that the escalating cost to run a city continues to rise. And I think we all can realize that as residents here in Monterey Park, when you look at your bills, whether it's Edison, Gas, or whatever it may be, it is increasing. And even if you're getting somebody to come and repair your house, what used to cost X amount of dollars has risen by 9%, 10%. And that's factual numbers. we are experiencing the same thing in the city. So we decided, council decided, that this would be a good time for us to do this. So that way it's not competing against any other type of measure that the city would be employing. So I just want to make sure that we're clear on this. That sales tax measure was never brought forward to support this project. It was about everything to run a full-service city. Now, that could be everything. That could be employee salaries. That could be buying widgets. That could be doing CIP projects, graffiti removal. Everything that you want and expect as residents of Monterey Park, that is what the sales tax measure is supposed to help us with, keeping services alive and allowing us to be able to provide for the future. I just wanted to be clear with that.

Thank you, Mr. Vo. You know, I actually, again, want to thank my colleagues

for really asking some very pointed and very good questions, and hopefully it answers a lot of the questions that were brought forward during the public hearing. But, you know, it's interesting because when I first became aware of this project and the history, I was, like, floored that we have been dealing with this issue since the 70s for nearly half a century. And, you know, again, I know it's been already answered, but again, just for my edification. So the record is replete with us trying to work with CII,

Central International Investments,

and they have continued to refuse to make these repairs, correct?

That's correct.

I mean, again, this is an issue that even transcends before people like Yvonne, myself, and then Fred run a city council. I mean, we just include other people who are on the city council who are no longer on the council. And I think everyone is aware about how this has now taken, I still can't believe, nearly half a century. And frankly, you know, I don't want this to continue another half a century because, you know, we've been told what are we going to do about that slope? What are we going to do about the safety of the community, especially during the rains? And I think that, you know, the record has shown that we have made effort upon effort upon effort to try and impress and prevail upon CII. And meanwhile, you know, rightly so, like those in the community, some who came and spoke for us tonight, you know, have complained, well, what are you going to do about that eyesore? It has been decades, and again, I don't want 50 years from now, if I'm still alive, for someone to say, well, when are we going to fix that slope? And I think that, frankly, this is about the future. This is about the future, and I think that we need to take action. I think the public expects that of us.

And those are my remarks on this item.

Okay. I beg your pardon? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, yes.

Actually, the hearing is still on right now. So before I close.

Okay.

Do we have, Mr. Clerk, do we have another request?

Yes. Okay. Also, for the record, I just wanted to note that we've received three written communications. Mm-hmm.

Let's see. One was from the attorney for CII. Mm-hmm. And the second one was actually, oh, actually it's from the same, but the mentioning that the director was going to speak, and she did speak.

And the third one is communication from the city's council on responding to these communications. And finally, we do have a late speaker request that was just brought in.

Okay. let the person come forward please okay Benjamin Bente okay

good evening council members thank you for allowing me to speak I know I got five minutes it probably won't take that long but I was watching tonight and I noticed that the city attorney said something like, it's a buildable lot. That lot that I, by the way, I'm the developer of Monterey Views. I built several homes up in the hillside. I consider myself kind of a specialist at it, although I didn't retire for a long time. That property was offered to us many, many years ago. And Willie Lockman, that previous city engineer, told us that that property was a prehistoric landslide and it will never be built on and I want that put on here I don't know why the city manager who I understand also was a city engineer here doesn't know that and if he does know it it's kind of strange I'm concerned about that because how they tried to develop it on it two times as I can remember how did you guys even go forward with it that will even allow them to give them a tentative track map on it. Who was the geologist? Who was the soils analysis person? What companies were there? I'm just kind of concerned because that is an unbuildable slope. And I heard the city attorney say it's buildable. I don't believe that. I'm sorry. And Carl, I don't, Mr. Berger, you should not have made that statement as a city attorney. You are not an engineer. But you ran the engineering department. You should know the history of that land up there and how these people got that tentative track out of you.

I'm flabbergasted. I'm a former mayor of Monterey Park three times. I've sat up there. I know what you guys go through. I've tried to stay away from the political portion of Monterey Park for many years. I retired in 2011.

But this brought me out of my house tonight because this is ridiculous. You're even where you are with this.

Now, I don't know the strength of the developers, but more I'd go after them if they got the money to develop that. And if they don't, why did you give them the right to do it in the first place? That's what I don't understand. If they're not financially capable of doing it, why did they even get the right to do it? What do you guys do when you vet them out? I mean, if you thought that that property was buildable, who told you that? Who gave you that report? You said you read a report, Mr. Berger, that says it's a developable plan. Those are the people that are in trouble. Those are the people you should be looking at. Everybody that told you it was buildable are the ones that have liabilities on that. And now you want to give the liabilities to us, the taxpayers here, by buying the immutable domain of something. It's not going to be buildable. I'm very concerned about it. I'm going to keep my eye on what's going on here. But something's not right.

And I'm very upset about it. I still live in this town.

I still feel that the residents of this city should be protected by your decisions,

not putting a bind like this, and they should know about it,

and I'll make sure they know about it. Thank you very much for your time.

Okay.

Are there any other comments or requests?

No more comments? Okay.

Guess not.

Okay. Well, we're good.

then I shall then officially close the hearing.

Okay. Let's see.

After considering the report and any other relevant evidence from the entire administrative record, the recommendations to adopt resolution number 22XX, authorizing the city attorney or designee to commence on the eminent domain action for acquiring real property located at Assessor Parcel Number 5254-002-031 and requires an affirmative two-thirds vote of the City Council or taking such additional action related that may be desirable. Colleagues, any other?

Yeah. I move to adopt resolution number 22-XX authorizing the City Attorney or Designees to commence an eminent domain action for acquiring real property located at Assessor Parcel number 5254-002-031. Okay. Thank you. Moved by Councilor Lang. Second. Seconded by Councilor Chan. Any further comments or questions on the floor? Hearing any? Okay. Members please vote. The votes unanimous. Motion carries.

Okay, let's see. Item five, new business, none. Item six, city communications. I'll start with Councilman Ryu.

Last week I attended the Contract City Educational Summit in Lake Arrowhead. They have an interesting attempt to do all sessions in one day and all sessions in one topic, all about emergency operation centers. I did learn quite a lot, especially most contract cities are using L.A. County Sheriff. It is good to learn the protocol. One thing I heard them keep reminding the council members that do not go to the accident and disaster site to direct traffic or give instructions. Because we are not trained to give comment, to be commended. And it can be very dangerous. Our job is to communicate to the public. and the education sessions even show us what to speak and what not to speak in front of the media. It was quite entertaining to see someone can do and say everything's wrong

and so that we can all learn by role model as well as bad example. So I had a very interesting and rewarding session.

So that's all for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Yu. Councillor Chan.

Thank you. And most of the council members, I think all of us attended the League of California City's seminars conference. That was in September 7th through the 9th. And this is our last meeting with the League of California City before we turned out. So we enjoyed the sessions and learned about a lot of things in the future, the trends and everything, the housing, homelessness, you know, that kind of things. And so it's good to see a lot of other colleagues. And then right after that, on September 10th, I think all of us did attend the API elected officials summit, and it was held in the Kuchang Marriott. and all of us have a jacket that they gave us with the logo and the name sewed it on the jackets which was very good and then on September 18th which I should never agree to but I did it anyway is I did referee a game on soccer and because it's the Wontai Sands of birthday this is a temple in the city and to celebrate the birthday of Wang Tai San, they held a soccer game and I was asked to referee the game. And after so many years of not on the field, so I have to start practicing and get myself in shape. And after half a year of practice, well less than half a year, I did slim down to what I am now. I lost like around six, seven pounds in good condition, which at first I was saying that I don't know if I should do it or not. But I think this is a good that I did it. And it's good for my health. And I just wish everyone a good health. Do exercise. That's important. And on September 28th, I attended the Chinese American Museum banquet, which is their annual banquet. But, of course, during pandemics, they did not hold it. But there was a very nice event. So I was there and enjoyed the companies, and it was great. So I just want to thank you for the audience, speakers that are coming tonight and speak on all the different issues, and have a good night. Thank you.

Councilman O'Leary? Thank you, Mayor. I have just a couple of things. On the 16th of September, I attended the Monterey Park Police Department's youth services golf tournament.

I didn't get to stay the whole time, but I went there. We contributed, but I wanted to make sure to have a chance to say goodbye to our former chief, Kelly Gordon. I know she was busy preparing for her move to Santa Barbara, but fortunately she was at the golf tournament. and I was able to give her a farewell.

I just want to add one more thing. You know, the other day, obviously, you've seen on the news, we had this chase that ended up in our city on Sombrero. And, you know, I want to just, you know, I know CHP was the one that was initiating that pursuit, and our officers came in. Thank you guys for your support. But something that I saw that I would want to just make a comment on

is that when the helicopter was filming what was going on, as you may know, it was not a simple pull them over, get out of the car, they get out.

This person didn't come out of the car, tried to put it in reverse and get away, got stuck, the wheels burned out. It was not an easy arrest. And then as the helicopter was going around, I could see that down the street there are a number of residents that are standing there with their phones like videotaping this incident. And, you know, from the law enforcement side, you know, I saw that there were officers positioning themselves in certain positions with their weapons in case this was not going to be an easy arrest. And it's very difficult when residents – and I know people are, what's going on? Oh, I want to film it, right? But it creates, you know, problems in terms of line of fire and things like that. So, you know, I would recommend it was on TV, on the helicopter cameras. If you want to watch it, watch it in the safety of your home. and I would recommend don't, I think the police would support that as well. Don't go to the scene of the crime. Don't bring your camera out or your phone and try to get footage in the midst of an incident that you don't know, does this guy have a gun? What's going to happen, right? You need to be cognizant of that. And in the moment, it's easy to be drawn in. But think about your health. Think about your family members. Think about the consequences of not adhering to that and something bad happens. So commend our police officers on that, and for the residents, watch it on TV and be safe. You know, that's my final words for tonight.

Thank you. Thank you, Congressman Liang.

And then I will be brief, but I attended last week, I believe last Friday, or maybe, I'm sorry, a week ago, AYC's 33rd Gala Dinner. and for those of you who are not familiar with AYC,

AYC is a youth organization.

They provide after school programming, tutorials. They are located in San Gabriel,

but they are a regional organization

and they serve students all over the Singapore Valley

and Los Angeles. And I bring up that I attend the gala

because they, every year, recognize unsung heroes and one of their honorees was actually one of our residents of Monterey Park,

Ms. Daisy Ma.

And so I want to just acknowledge and congratulate Ms. Daisy Ma, who lives here in Monterey Park with her family. And we also congratulate that she was recognized for her work in the community. And lastly, I would love to make an announcement that, although it was already mentioned earlier in the beginning of the council meeting, but I would like to announce again for the public that the City of Monterey Park will be having its state of the city next Wednesday, 7 p.m. here in the Council Chambers, and again, that's Wednesday, October 12th, 7 p.m., in the Council Chambers, in which I have the privilege with my colleagues to end the city staff to present our state of the city. And I think it's important because I know before I got elected to the City Council, I was often asked like, you know, why our state of the city is only done by, you know, organizations that charge a ticket. And I agree that, you know, I think that everyone should have an interest in the state of our city, and so I'm very pleased that we will be holding our state of the city next Wednesday to the public for free here in the council chambers. And of course it will be also streamed as well and televised for those who cannot come. But please, I hope that you'll spread the word and come or tune in from home.

Thank you very much and have a good evening. Is there anything else? Oh, okay.

All right, then future agenda items, none.

closed session none and we are adjourned at 9 26 p.m. thank you