City Council Meeting — February 15, 2023

agenda we will go ahead and call this meeting to order we'll start with our

flag salute if you can please stand

and if everyone could put their right hand over their heart And if everyone could put their right hand over their heart.

Order, Order, Present, Colors.

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

Order, Order, Colors.

On guard, outward face. On guard, forward march.

On guard, pull, college.

On guard, about

On guard, about face. On guard, dismissed. !

You may sit.

I'd like to call roll call.

Council member Lo? Council member Yu?

Here. Council member Go? Here. Council member Wong?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Wong.

I apologize.

Mayor Sanchez?

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

I would like to ask the council if we could move up our presentations up in our agenda.

If that's okay with you guys.

Yes.

Do you require formal action or just consensus?

Just consensus. Okay.

Thank you so much.

We are here tonight to honor Brandon Say and our first responders.

So any additions or deletions?

Yes. Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members. on our minutes for the December 7th if we could pull that there are some few errors within the minutes that we would like to correct and resubmit it at the next council meeting and then as you mentioned if the presentations could be moved directly behind the public communications public communications and presentation would probably work well together there are quite a bit of here for specific comments of towards the presentation and then also in staff communications if we could add to the staff communication our treasurer Amy Lee to do a presentation also other than that those will be the three changes do

Do we need a consensus for that? Do we need... If council approves?

Okay. Sounds unanimous.

So we will go ahead with presentations.

Oh, public communications. Sorry.

Are there any public communications?

Yes.

First up, we have Sharon Wu, Darren Chung,

Rosen chin and Caitlin Wong from the mark Keppel high school PTSA and mark

Keppel high school Alliance

Hello, thank you for allowing us to speak.

My name is Sharon Wu.

I'm the president of the Mark Kippel High School Alliance.

I'm Darren Chung, an Alliance Ambassador. The Alliance is a non-profit organization that advocates and fundraisers for Mark Keppel High.

We are comprised of couple students, parents, and community members who live in Monterey Park and surrounding areas.

All of us wish to thank our first responders for always being there for us.

We appreciate your bravery, the risking of your lives, your fast response, and more.

Alliance students and publicists Allison Suzuki, Rachel Lee, and Hailey Wu made these posters to show our first responders that they are appreciated.

Please know that children and adults appreciate you. Thank you, first responders.

Our vice presidents Rosalyn Chin, Rachel Lee, and Allison Suzuki would like to say, on behalf On behalf of the MaCouple Alliance, we would like to express our appreciation for the Monterey

Park first responders for all they have done to serve our community. Their urgency to protect the people of Monterey Park following the tragic January 21st mass

shooting. The news of this shooting was a huge shock to all of us.

Amidst the sending of the Happy Lunar New Year and red Zodiac Rabbit stickers all over

social media was the news that a mass shooting had happened in our very own city. Happy New Year's turned into a please stay safe as we anxiously waited in our homes for any updates about the shooting. It was a huge relief to hear that the next day the shooter had been apprehended. Thank you to the first responders that continuously keep our community safe and allow us to peacefully and without fear go about our daily lives. Thank you very much.

We are now going to talk for PTSA. I am the corresponding secretary for the Mark Keppel High School PTSA.

And I am a student member of the Mark Keppel High School PTSA. Our president Helen Chan could not be here tonight because she is leading our PTSA meeting, which happens at the same time as this meeting. The students from Monterey Park Elementary Schools, Brightwood, Monterey Highlands, Inez, and Albert Pato attend Mark Keppel High. Our PTSA promotes and follows the national PTA's motto, which is each child, one voice. We are the one voice for the students, parents, and teachers of Mark Keppel High. And we speak for all of them when we say thank you to our first responders for keeping us safe. You are appreciated and we are thankful that you are our first responders. Again, I'm Darren Chung, a senior from Marcapo High School, and I would like to say thank

you to the police department, fire department, and emergency medical team for constantly risking your lives to keep our city safe. I would also like to say thank you to Brennan Tsai for your acts of heroism in the recent time. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

Next speaker, Andrew Yan from the Garvey School Board.

Andrew, you prefer the mic?

Yeah.

Just a moment. My colleague will be joining me.

Fantastic.

Well, thank you so much, Mayor Sanchez, members of the Monterey Park City Council. Residents and neighbors, thank you so much for the time. My name is Zandi Yam and I currently represent a portion of Monterey Park to the Garvey School District. I'm also joined by my colleague, board member Bobby Bruch. I'm going to present certificates of appreciation and recognition to the Monterey Park Fire, Monterey Park Police, and Brandon Say for the heroism during the senseless tragedy that has personally impacted our Garvey community. As a local school district here in the city of Monterey Park, we work closely with and depend on Monterey Park Fire and Monterey Park Police for keeping the safety within our schools and keeping our staff and keeping our Garvey family safe. And so that is why we are just so thankful to you all, the men and women who keep our schools safe each day, who check in, ask if, you know, our school plan safety sites are all updated and just making sure that we can come to school together and make and are all welcome, essentially. And I also have a certificate of appreciation from the Garvey School District as well to our local hero, Brennan Tsai, who was just recognized by President Biden at the State of the Union. Thank you for your heroism and bravery, which has saved countless, countless lives,

more than we can ever imagine and ever appreciate you for. So thank you.

With that, I'd like to present the certificates probably to the city clerk, who will then happily distribute them as well.

So thank you all so much for your time.

I'd just like to add that we had two families that were affected by this tragedy.

and I'm just very, very, very happy that our community, our community,

and I call it our community,

has come together in support of those families that have experienced this tragedy. I thank you members, and I thank you men and women of the fire department and police department for giving these people a chance to understand that community is more than just a name on a city.

Again, thank you from the Garvey School District.

Next speaker, Adam Moll from the office of Mayor Karen Bass, City of Los Angeles.

Good evening. My name is Adeba and I represent Mayor Karen Bass of the next city over. On behalf of the 3.8 million residents of the city of Los Angeles, we thank you for the heroism of the city of Barnes Park. We want to thank the police department, the fire department, and to Brandon, and to the city council and all city staff for what you've guys done. The protection, the vigilance, and the safety you guys provided to the residents and to the neighboring cities as well.

So on behalf of the mayor, we would like to present a certificate to Brandon, to the city of Barnes Park, and to the fire department, and to the police department. And I don't know what the protocol is here, but we would like to present it to you guys as well. If you don't mind, everybody can come up or?

Okay, if we can head down and take a picture.

And we'd like to invite the police and the fire department, and to Brandon as well.

And our first responders and Brandon.

Okay. And, fire, please? Sure, doesn't matter, I'll beских, George, George,

Good morning. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

Next speakers, we'll get you down here because there's quite a few.

Janet Yam, Jimmy Gans.

Nam. Nam.

Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, Mr. City Manager, and City Staff, my name is Janet. My husband, Charles, and I have lived in the city for well over 33 years. My son later moved in 23 years ago.

Here, I have my neighbors with me, Jimmy On, his wife, Jenny, and their two kids, Jacob, and Jolie. His mom, Jimmy's mom, is in the audience. My family and Aung family are like many families here in Monterey Park. We have our parents and

we have our kids. As residents, we are members of your local clubs and organizations and you know like my son and the students, they attend or are attending local schools or participate in local programs like the Scout

families and many more. Collectively, we want to say a heartfelt thank you to the first responders,

the police and the fire departments who were present at the tragic incident on January 21st, and to every member of the Monterey Park Police and Fire Department

for your incredible service to our community and for being here to protect

our city and residents and businesses 24 hours a day and seven days a week. You guys truly are heroes every single day.

Before I turn the podium to the AAM family so that they can share their message with you,

the council will be discussing the library strategic plan under the agenda item 3C.

And as a former library trustee, I have witnessed firsthand the wonderful programs that Diana

and the library staff puts together and how important this library is to our community.

So I would like to take this opportunity to also state my support for the library strategic plan.

Hello. My name is Jimmy Ann, and I'm with Janet for laborers for 24 years.

I've been living here for 24 years.

This is my home and you never want anything happen like this at all.

As much as I want to write down the speech for this event, I found myself hard to do it.

There's no word to describe what happened.

and if you know about Chinese cultures, Chinese culture is shaping you to highly emotional

very well.

So I could not find a good wording to describe what happened and I could not find a word

to how to appreciate enough to police department, fire department and paramedics.

We are normal families And just like everyone else

We come here for 24 years We build our families We have kids going to school here Just horrific to see what happens

I wanted to say that that heroes didn't come out from the sky. It is people who stood up, who stand up against the evil at the critical moments. So thank you so much for the fire departments. Thank you so much for the police department, every one of them, all the paramedics who who responded to the scene. I know how difficult it was,

and no trainings ever, ever have prepared you

for such tragic moments. I want to let my son and Jolie and my daughter Jolie to say thank you.

Do you want the mic?

Thank you. Thank you, police.

Thank you,

police officer and firefighter and paramedic.

Thank you, police department, fire department, and paramedic.

Thank you.

Next speaker, Jennifer Tang from Assemblymember Mike Fong's office.

I wanted to be able to face all of you to express my gratitude.

My name is Jennifer Tang. I'm the district director for Assemblymember Mike Fong. On behalf of the Assemblymember, I wanted to be here tonight to express our profound gratitude to the brave police officers, firefighters, and paramedics of Monterey Park for everything that you did on January 21st, as well as for everything you've done before and after. I've lived in Monterey Park since the 1990s, and that means I've called you many times over the years. When my grandfather had a medical emergency, when my neighbor's house was broken into, and when someone was hit by a car. And as our city's first responders, you have always fulfilled your duties with utmost professionalism and care.

You have always been there when we needed you, no matter what. No one should ever have to do what you had to do the night of the shooting.

No one should ever have to run into that kind of carnage,

especially in a community as safe as ours. But you folLod your training, and you saved lives. You saved countless lives.

As a community, we know the road to recovery is very long. We know that it's probably very difficult for some of you,

for many of you, to show up for work day after day. But know that this community is deeply and profoundly grateful for your service every single day. Know that we are here to support you in your healing. on behalf of Assemblymember Fong the state is behind you in these efforts as well please let us know how our office can be supportive to Brandon Tsai thank you for being here tonight

I know it must be very challenging to revisit your actions that evening

so my profound gratitude to you for continuing to share your story and inspire all of us you give us hope I hold your words from the Alhambra Lunar New Year Festival very close that we have the rest of the year to spread compassion and build back our community. Thank you for representing this community so well at the State of the Union. Thank you for your bravery and for all the lives that you saved.

Lastly, thank you to the City Council and to city staff

for everything you've done to keep the city running and for everything you've done to remind us how strong we are.

You make us proud. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Next speakers, Larry and Carol Sullivan of the Library Foundation, Lions Club, and Women's

Club.

And Catherine Torres along them along with them from the Monterey Park Women's Club

Mayor City Council members and city staff good evening. I

am my wife and Kathleen who is the president of the Women's Club stand as members of the Lions Club Library trustee library foundation and Monterey Park Women's Club offering our heartfelt sympathy to those killed, their families and friends in the recent tragedy.

We also must remember those that suffered injuries the same evening for they too need our prayers.

Events like this will remain in our minds and thoughts for years to come.

What we must not lose sight of is the mental and emotional impact that this has had on all, directly or indirectly. The city has stepped up to give those affected by the tragedy sources for mental health sites and support. But we cannot forget our first responders, both police officers and firefighters. We know our police officers as those who drive the black and white vehicles and the firefighters by the big red trucks. But really, who are they? They are people, men and women, like you and I, that put their lives every day online on duty.

We today hear more and more about understanding mental health, the importance of recognizing

the signs and helping those in need. The police chief and fire chief also have sought and supplied their respective men and women with mental health support.

They realize and have seen the impact this tragedy has on those men and women. Carol and I personally and Kellyns have seen the firework the men and women in this police department and fire department have provided.

We are known as the trash truck house If you remember a few years back there's a trash truck that caught fires and rolled down the street Well, we are we were the receivers recipients of that trash truck

In closing we ask that you reach out and say thanks to any police officer firemen you see a simple thank you goes a long way I want to just add two things three things but two of them are very important is I we support the Bruggenmeyer library five-year plan. We support the ordinance allowing offices on the first

floor. We think it's very important.

More so, the best thing is on May 30th,

the Lions breakfast will be back. It will be fire service day, station number one, and the Lions will have our big breakfast. It's been three years. Let me tell you, and we've got eggs. We really have eggs. Thank you very much, and thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker, Dennis Gutierrez, Lamp Optimus.

Honorable Mayor Sanchez, members of the City Councils, I'm- Honorable Mayor Sanchez, members of the City Councils, I'm Dennis Gutierrez, I'm President of the Lamp Optimist Club of Monterey Park. On behalf of the Optimist members, we wish to express our sincere appreciation and support

to the men and women who are our first responders. The events of the evening of January 21st left us in total shock and heartbreak. as mass violence came into our city. At 10.22 p.m., a call came in with reports of shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio. Within minutes of the call, our first responders, who have been extensively trained to handle a situation such as this, arrived to assess, render aid, and secure the scene. Although our first responders are well-trained, nothing could prepare them for the carnage they discovered at the ballroom. eventually 11 killed nine injured still our fire and police went beyond the call of duty and handled the situation with skill courage and professionalism to this day some of our police and fire personnel are still recovering from this traumatic event and we support their recovery as the mass shooting unfolded many of us took to our phones and social media to see if our friends family were safe and to find out what happened. We credit our law enforcement for keeping the lines of communication open and keeping us briefed during what was a rapidly changing situation all up until the ultimate conclusion. In the aftermath some have second-guessed what could have been done but it was the skill, experience and experience of our police and fire leadership that proved to be successful and continues to keep our city safe for its citizens. Monterey Park is a diverse city with a small town character and our citizens are fortunate to have the safety and protection provided in no small part by our police and fire departments 24-7. We thank and appreciate the leaders of our first responders, Chief of Police Scott Weiss, Fire Chief Matthew Hallick and their teams for keeping our city and its citizens safe and protected. Thank you very much.

Next speaker, Jaime Rodriguez.

I may repeat. Roderick. .

. . . . . .

. . .

the gratitude expressed here today is really immense. And I too am grateful for the attention, the focus, the leadership, the resilience shown by the men and women of our department.

You know, in the everyday drama of the city,

like for instance, my son's car was broken into a few days ago. They responded. A few days ago, they also broke into my granddaughters. And she has kids. And she asked the officer, could you come back? Because I had to do something with my kids. And believe it or not, Officer Corona came back. She came back, did the police report. Officer Ramirez, another officer that attended to problems regarding car burglaries. so the everyday toil of officers

of the men and women takes its toll but on that day of the tragedy that's something that they should never have to face but they had to face it we read about these things happening in other cities in other states on the news but it happened about three blocks from where I live my kids, my grandkids we live here You know, and it should never have happened, but it did. And who responded?

Men and women are our police department,

along with other departments from other cities. That's the relationship that they nurture, our department.

Also, fire departments and emergency crews responded. Some time ago, I was here to express support for the men and women

because they were going through a turmoil themselves. That was regarding their union contract. That was regarding their raises, their benefits, dental, vision.

And I was here that day to lend support. I'm a former truck driver, former teamster. So I know that kind of takes a toll on you. It costs a lot of stress. We don't need men and women to go through that because we want them to focus on the job of providing safety for our city.

So if it arises again, I and my family and other members like we did last night, we're going to come back and support you guys in your fight for your benefits, for your raises that you deserve. And again, I joined with other members of the community to thank you.

And I want to tell the city council that we should also express continuous support and also to the chief of police, the chief of the fire department, Detroit Grant, to acknowledge, to know that the city is very, very grateful. Our gratitude is mountainous in terms of what we feel for the men and women that serve our city.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Sincerely. Thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker, Elizabeth Yang from the Business Improvement District.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

And first of all, I wanted to personally thank each and every one of you from the police department and the fire department, first responders on the scene. My law office is right across the street from Stahl Ballroom, where I regularly dance as a member of the ballroom with my daughter. And that evening was terrifying for us. My kids could not go to sleep with the helicopters in the air. And I literally had to tell them that, you know, because of the Monterey Park Police Department and Fire Department, we're safe.

And you guys can go to bed.

They've visited the police and the fire department. We've been on the silent auction, and they got to visit and take a tour and have dinner at the department. So they know how you guys work. And I can't even imagine how you guys live day by day, not knowing if you're going to be able to go home that night to see your family again. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for keeping our families safe in this city.

I also wanted to take this time to address two items on the agenda, which are going to be covered by the City Council later this evening. One is item 3C, which is for the Library Cyber Strategic Plan. As a member of the task force, I've personally witnessed Diana Garcia and her team's dedication and efforts on the strategic plan and everything they've done. and it's a great plan for the library, so I wanted to express my support of this plan. The last agenda I wanted to take a minute with is item 4A on the agenda. This is to amend Title 21 of the Monterey Park Municipal Code to clarify and allow additional uses within the downtown district. As a member of, as a chair of BDAC and also a landlord and building owner within BDAC, I've seen how there's been so many vacancies in downtown Monterey Park, and we want to be able to bring more business and more hustle and bustle into downtown Monterey Park to make it look more similar to nearby cities like Alhambra and Pasadena. There's so many vacancies on the street. Every day when I drive by it, there's a lot of empty buildings, and currently Title 21 does not allow any non-retail use of that space.

So by changing the ordinance, it will allow any type of business, it will create flexibility, allow non-retail businesses like real estate agencies, CPAs, law firm, professional services, anything non-retail to come in here to at least fill in the vacancies until other retail stores can come in.

But right now, there's three limitations preventing additional retail openings. One of the reasons it's a pandemic. The second reason is because of competition with online businesses. And the third is a lack of parking.

We had a big parking structure that would allow retail businesses to park in the city of Monterey Park.

I believe that would bring in more retail space.

There's been discussions of possibly having percentages, a certain percentage for professional services or a certain percentage for retail. but that's going to require additional enforcement on behalf of the city, which as the chair of BDAC, I know that code enforcement is already difficult. So having to also enforce percentages is also going to be difficult. So in conclusion, I'm here by supporting 4A, 3C, and again, thank you each and every member of you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker, Caleb Kwok, Kiwanis Club of Monterey Park.

And Isabel Wu of the Kiwanis Club of Monterey Park.

Good evening.

My name is Isabel Wu with the Kiwanis Club of Monterey Park. I'm the president.

I thank the first responders, the fire department, police department, and Brendan Tsai for protecting

us. And here's Caleb.

Mayor, council members, and city staff, I want to thank you for putting this opportunity

together so that we can express our appreciation to the first respondent.

While we are morn with the families of the victims, I think it is also proper to

say a word of thanks to our first responder. So I adopted this letter and I just want to read it to you. But before that, I also want to let you know that I'm a beneficiary of your service. My dad had been taken by the fire department

or paramedic to the hospital a few times. My brother, when he had kidney stone, it was the fire department took him to the hospital. And my church, home of Christians, we have break-in. It is the police who came here. And we have false alarm. Police also came. Fire department also came to make sure things were okay. We also helped police my pastor who was trapped in an elevator. It is the fire department, firefighter, to get him out of the elevator.

So, again, I feel the service. I appreciate your service. So here's the letter that I prepared. I adapted this one.

You are our heroes.

When we call, they are there and their jobs are far from easy. Your work, long hours around the clock and rush the scenes helping complete strangers without thinking twice. In situations where first responders are called, we forget that they are taking time away from their families to help others. When they go out on a call, they witness a traumatic situation,

and I just expect to go home at the end of the day and be okay.

We want you to know that without you, the world we live in would not be the same. It takes a special kind of person to care for others when they don't have to. These people rise to the call of duty every time they walk through the doors at work.

I can't even imagine what goes through someone's mind when they are headed to a call. But what I do know is that they don't get enough credit.

It seems credit is only given when they make the save, but that's not how it should be. So I want to say thank you to all of you. Without you, the world would be a much different place. And to Brenton's side, I want to thank you for demonstrating what a good citizen should be. Thank you. Thank you all.

Next speaker, Charles Stafferton from the Maori Park Chamber.

I apologize.

I want to thank the first responders. I'm a former Los Angeles police officer. I moved over here from that other city in Los Angeles. And the first thing I did when I got here was try to start and did a neighborhood watch program. And so I know the responsibilities that you all share. And to me, it's a mask. What do we say to our first responders? And I just want to say the best thing that we can say for those that do put their lives on line every day is thank you for your service. And this young man, I think we all want to look at the Carnegie Medal for lifesaving. I think our first responders and this young man would be worthy of that. So thank you very much and thank you for your service. And those of you who just elected, thank you for supporting these young men and women.

Next speaker, Shirley Huang.

Good evening, Mayor Sanchez and council members and staff. My name is Shirley Huang. I am the chairwoman for Montreux Park Community Participation Commission.

And I haven't lived here since 1976.

I have two sons and one daughter. They're all born in Monterey Park. And they went to Highland School and Machiavelli High School.

And I have served in many, many commissions proudly. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't move away. I love Monterey Park. I love so much. This is part of my life. More than half of my life I've been here. And I got involved with the public service since I was PTA president at Monterey Highland School. So please excuse me if I get emotional.

And I have worked with, back then,

Frank Bente, Mike Ng, Betty Tam Chu,

five wonderful council members. We tried to give you guys more money too, raise money for you guys, you know,

because I heard that you guys get less than L.A. County. Wow. So my king and I, and oh my God, we didn't sleep.

We didn't sleep. Wonderful memories. Major V. Was that correct, my king?

I think that you're here, right? Yes, sir. Yeah. And we were so close. And Janet Yu was also a big part of that too. So anyway, it didn't pass.

It was so close. But we have so many senior citizens, retired senior citizens. And they didn't want to pay more money for the tax, you know.

It was like $5 raise or something, but anyway, it didn't pass.

But I want to do that again. I want to do that again before I get too old. I want to, if I can, to give more money to our city police department, the Marine Fire Department. And a while back, about 15 years ago, I had a dad.

fire department and a while back about 15 years ago I had a death very close death experience I had a bad ! allergy reaction some doctor gave me medication and my eyes was shutting down my throat was shutting down I could !

man what the heck is going on Shirley you know and I'm hearing from far away like I hear because I'm passing out almost I'm hearing from far away.

Like, I hear. Because I'm passing out almost. Oh, my God.

Those guys were like heroes. I'm not kidding. Talk about heroes. They were the heroes. And they took me to a Marine Park hospital, which was closest to one to the Rite Aid. Okay? So, you know, like, they saved my life. Talk about saving lives. You have an encounter, you know? And then the Chinese New Year's Day, I was there. We were celebrating. and that night I heard all that stuff

and my uncle from Korea I'm from South Korea by the way I was born there he called me up what's going on you know whole world heard and you guys were there helping all that and you sir amazing thank you so much I get emotional and I get all confused so much in my mind what to say first and last

I don't know but I think you understand how I feel. Thank you so much again. Thank you.

Next speaker, Scott Hara from Troop 329.

Greetings to Mayor Sanchez and to the city council and to the city staff and to the fire department and police and police department.

My name is Scott Hara and I represent Troop 329 of Monterey Park and the El Camino Real district of the BSA. You know I want to say thank you for everything you do for the city.

You know I've been here 30 years and one of the biggest reasons I love being here is because I know that you're here.

And actually, you know, when this tragedy happened, I wasn't even in the country.

And the way I learned about it was from family and friends from all over the country that had texted me or emailed me to tell me about what happened. And I was just confident that everything was going to get taken care of. and maybe that's maybe taking you for granted but I'm not taking you for granted it's just something that I know that I knew it was going to get taken care of or it was taken care of because I heard it after the fact

and I want to thank you all and you're an inspiration to my troop whenever we can

we try and volunteer to do anything with you so please call on us and we will continue to do that

and to Brandon

you know you're a real inspiration if you want to ever join scouting

I would love to have you and I'm sure our council would love to have you too so you're an inspiration to us all. Thank you.

Next speaker Jade Sandoval

folLod by Teresa Real Sebastian

Hello, my name is Jade Sandoval and I'm a Girl Scout from Troop 5631 here in Monterey Park. I just want to start by thanking all of the first responders, Monterey Park Police and Fire Department and all who protect us and keep our city safe. Thank you very much. So as a Girl Scout, I just want to mention that Girl Scouts is a little more than wearing a uniform and selling cookies, but it is an organization full of wonderful opportunities. Personally, from being a Girl Scout for seven years, I have been able to build skills and discover talents that I never even knew I had. From learning how to camp to building entrepreneur skills, I'm very grateful to be a Girl Scout. One of my favorite parts of being a Girl Scout is being able to see all the people I get to help.

In the past, with cookie money, my troop has been able to donate money towards things such as helping building wells in Africa and helping Loring the growing population of stray cats. In the forthcoming years, I plan to use my cookie money to help with my Gold Award, a high-ranked Girl Scout award that helps the community.

So it would be very much appreciated if you supported me by buying some Girl Scout cookies.

Thank you. A special thank you to Teresa for always encouraging and supporting me throughout my years.

Just wanted to answer one of the most frequent asked questions in advance.

Sorry, but we don't sell sugar-free cookies.

I'll be around after the meeting with a little red wagon. Thank you again.

Next speaker, Teresa Rial Sebastian.

Thank you. How do I follow Girl Scout cookies? geez. My name is Teresa. I'm a resident here in the city of Monterey Park and

first and foremost my husband and I and my neighbors we offer our deepest condolences to anyone, well all of us that were affected by the tragedy on Lunar New Year Eve and to those that lost family members, friends that night.

I cannot fathom what you're going through. Secondly I would like to thank our Monterey Park Police and our Monterey Park Fire. I've always said that you both rock and I

truly believe that. I can't imagine also what the first responders saw when you walked in, but I want to thank you for continuing. My neighbors were constantly calling me that night asking me what's going on. I wasn't in the city. I was in Long Beach and I learned about it from a neighbor and she had read about it on social media so the word spread really quickly and I understand that this sometimes you well we don't plan for things like this but here in the city of Monterey Park we do have an emergency operation center which I constantly remind people in other cities that our city has an EOC that is ready up and is ready to go and I'm very very proud of it and very proud that our police and our fire both man it and are ready to go in an instant whenever there is any kind of catastrophic event. So with that, I do want to say, however, that as much as I appreciate everything that was done, there are lessons to be learned from this event. First and foremost, as I was watching the news media, I realized our police chief maybe spoke a few words here and there, and I couldn't see our fire chief at all.

In Monterey Park, we have our own police and we have our own fire. And many of us are proud of that.

Heavily proud of that. And we've told you. So going forward, heaven forbid there's ever an event like this again. I hope there isn't in my lifetime. But please, we need to have our police chief and our fire chief present and speaking

because that's who we know. I want to hear from my police chief and my fire chief that everything's going to be okay. As much as I respect Sheriff Luna, I don't know him. But I do know our chiefs. And I know you all.

So lessons learned. I hope in the future that's something that we get to see. Because I had people, I had a girlfriend from Florida that was telling me, I thought you had your own police and fire department.

Because everybody was watching the news.

And residents were also asking me. another comment um when it comes to speaking and this is more for you on the council hi carl

remember political speech discipline if there's a catastrophic event or just any event remember residents are looking to you to see what you say and many residents will say what you say will hear what you say to be gold and will follow it.

So when I had neighbors calling me, panicked,

completely freaked out thinking this was a hate crime, they were afraid to leave their homes.

They were afraid to visit family. I had to calm them down and say, we don't know yet.

Police hasn't released any information. We all need to be vigilant.

We all need to be careful at this time because we don't know what's happening.

I think the fear that we felt, many of us, I know I felt it, is for those of you that have lived here a long time, was the, was it a night stalker? Remember Richard Ramirez when he was going door to door? That's the panic that we felt. By the way, my husband also turned in, he didn't turn in his card yet, but I'm taking his minutes.

That's one of the privileges of being married. but you do have to have political discipline, political speech discipline. That's what I'm going to call it.

And remember, residents are looking to you for assurance to keep them calm and police and fire are looking to you to keep residents calm so that they can do their work.

So just remember that. Last, and this is to staff. As I understand, some elected officials when there was a press conference were not informed of a press conference. And as a matter of fact, when there was a press, I think there was a briefing, one elected official was present and the door was closed on her so she couldn't attend. I hope this doesn't happen in the future because we elected our officials to represent us and staff shouldn't exclude them. I know how that feels like and it's not a good feeling. And last, well, not lastly, but...

Brandon, boy, thank you. I keep telling everyone, be a Brandon. Hashtag be a Brandon.

You acted without hesitation, without reservation,

and I thank you immensely for doing that. I hope everything you want in life comes your way because I truly believe in karma,

and karma should shed itself on you positively for the rest of your life. Thank you so much, sir. And this is lastly, this is for staff. As I understand, Stardang Studio is very reluctant to open, reopen their doors again. I hope staff speaks to the owners and encourages them to reopen their doors to reopen their doors because many of us would like to patronize them again. We need to continue the dance that wasn't finished that night.

Thank you.

Next speaker, Sarkees Antonian.

Good evening mayor council staff audience

Well first of all I think the fire department and the police department, but what they have done

And we do have a strong fire department police department

and And it's still on my mind because those areas there, that was our stomping grounds.

And the thing where they're not telling you, and back in when the Dancing with the Stars started,

they opened up that location and Channel 7 News would be there. Why? Because we would go to the Bank of America. there would be a Channel 7 News there van, and they would practice there. But to get the information out of them, they wouldn't say. So Wednesday night when the city did the memorial, so one lady sees me on council meetings, so we spoke. She verified it. That's when Dancing with the Stars started. That's when they opened up that location. So despite the killings and everything like that, so let's make something on the good part of it where they're making it things where they make,

I don't like this being in the city since four years old. They're putting this city on the map for these killings.

There's a lot of things in history in this city and that can be brought out, you have your Garvey Ranch Park, let them go over there and find out. One thing, if you want to put it,

when Bill Clinton was in a police, was in president, so Al Gore goes to the Buddhist temple, so one, two, three, photo.

They went, so the owner was Jackie Chan's friend,

so one of his photographers goes there takes the film takes the pictures a few days later the FBI came and took the negatives so there's a lot of things in the city that this uh all they call it fake news that don't I even call channel seven because that's what it was the grand moms and grandmas would call and uh would watch the show all the time and that's how we got to know I've been in the restaurant part and things like that. So in other words, after this is over, it's going to be in the people's mind. But let's go forward, because what you say up there, faith in the future, keep it going.

he swalLod 115 goldfish at the school. So he still has the record and on and on it goes. This Ford dealer, they go to Fernando Valenzuela, goes to the Ford dealer in Montebello. He plays golf at the golf course. So in the surrounding areas, the surrounding cities, there's a lot of history in this area that this one shooting, don't put this city on the map for this shooting, because this city, they don't want to come down here to, they never came down here to do a report when Marketplace opened.

They never done a report on there. When the grand opening, they weren't here during,

when Marketplace opened, Holland took to take, to get Marketplace going, what, 15, 16 years? So I could see how they were,

they pretty much during the days that they were here morning afternoon and evening shifts coming down there and i think i think that's wrong when when did this incident happen it got to be a lot bit other things going on and thank you no other speakers

Okay, so we are now heading to our presentation portion of our meeting.

And we are in item 1A and 1B, our recognition of Brandon Tsai and our first responders. So if council would like to join me down here to recognize our first responders

And we'll do comments down there

Thank you. THANK YOU.

SO WE WOULD LIKE TO PRESENT YOU, BRANDON, SIE, AND OUR FIRST RESPONDERS WITH SOME PLAX. I'M GOING TO GIVE OUR COUNCIL AND OF COURSE MYSELF AN OPPORTUNITY TO RECOGNIZE YOU AND TO SAY A FEW WORDS.

I'll try to keep it brief.

But I wish to start off by thanking first our city staff for making this event possible and for their countless hours of preparation. I think a lot of the times we fail to recognize a lot of the work that goes behind the scenes. So I wanted to thank you for all the work that you do to make this event possible.

Thank you.

We are here tonight to honor not just a local hero, Brandon Tsai, but many heroes and heroines who on January 21st went above the call of duty and their daily mission of protecting and serving their community and in doing so, preserving life. It is hard to believe that just 25 days ago, 25 days, our community of Monterey Park suffered one of the biggest tragedies in its history when a gunman opened fire in a dance studio full of people singing, dancing, and celebrating life.

It was supposed to be the beginning of the Lunar New Year.

I remember it very clearly because I was on that stage just hours before with my daughter celebrating the Lunar Year. It was supposed to be a time of celebration, being with family. But that evening of January 21st, there were 11 people who perished and many others who were injured. since this tragic day our community has been gripped with grief and loss and we have responded with countless vigils church mass and remembrances for the victims and their families aside from being mayor i'm also a parent but i'm also a classroom teacher here in alhambra and i just want to say brandon that um your courage and your valor does not go unnoticed um the lili studio is only less than two blocks from my classroom. And many of my students had family members there that night. So my classroom that day, and having to go back that day was probably one of the hardest things I had to do

as a classroom teacher,

and I've been teaching for 18 years. But I quickly realized that that day was like no other. It was not a day of instruction like most people would expect it, but rather a day of remembrance. My classroom of 36 students was not a room of work but a shrine of hope.

And during that week, we had difficult conversations about death, about gun control, and about courage.

Tonight, we are gathered here to celebrate moments of courage. We are joined here by tonight by one of our local heroes who on that tragic night stopped a gunman and saved countless lives. It is hard for many of us to imagine how we would respond to a similar moment of crisis. But Brandon showed us what it means to stand against hate and violence and show us what it means to be courageous. Courage, true courage, as Brandon showed us, derives from that sense of who we are and the belief that we can dig deep within our soul and do the hard things for the enduring

benefit of others.

Courage was also present during the first moments of the tragic event when officers entered the Stardang studio intent on the death of the Stardang. taking out the shooter and in doing so, preserving life. Courage was also present when the firemen and first responders arrived in those first moments and transported victims to local hospitals. On the days that folLod, so many people in our community and throughout the nation thanked our first responders. In my classroom, my students wrote messages and prayers of love and hope to the families of the victims. and to the fire and police department. And you guys received the banners that they posted in your respective offices. So let us take this moment in history to ensure that we thank our first responders and Brandon Tsai for their acts of courage.

We sometimes tend to lose sight of all of the quiet acts of courage

that happened on a daily basis. and sorry I'm getting emotional let us honor here tonight their acts of courage

not just because

it allows us to live freely but because it is necessary

for the survival of us as humans

and of course our democratic

institutions so I thank you Brandon I thank you first responders I thank all of you for all that you do

thank you

Thank you, Mayor Sanchez.

I just want to echo the many community members and our mayor and the council's appreciation for your services, our first responders in the community. In our darkest moment, probably the darkest moment in our city's history, you showed up, you did your jobs, you went above and beyond the call of duty, and you continue to provide the service day in and day out. and on behalf of the the city and the community and the residents that we represent and that I represent want to extend my appreciation my sincere deep appreciation for the work you do that often does not get called out and often does not get noticed but appreciate you and I do and we do notice you and notice the work that you do and the critical service that you provide to our communities both the police and the fire department and obviously from the comments that were expressed earlier during this meeting many in the community feel the same way about the service you pride and all that you do and then to Brandon thank you so much for providing that inspiration I think as was mentioned earlier as well all of us I think hope that we would respond in the same way to a similar incident I think I think we all hope and aspire to have the same kind of courage and reaction to save life and to preserve life and to serve our communities in the same way. Thank you for providing that inspiration to all of us and for bringing that example for our community. And I just want to echo some of your comments from the Alhambra Lunar New Year Festival as well. You talked about joining us and all of us joining together in mourning as we continue to mourn. We're not even a month out from the tragic shooting. I think this process, I know this process of healing and grieving will continue to be a long one and that road to recovery will continue to be long but join in your call for collectively coming together supporting each other loving each other through this long period of grieving and mourning and healing but also joining in your call for action to make sure that no other community has to deal and experience this level of grief and tragedy and to aspire to a world in a society that doesn't have to deal with this kind of violence anymore so thank Thank you for all that you do and continue to do and advocating for our communities for its safety and thank you to our first responders as well. Join with the council in honoring you tonight.

I'll keep this poetry real short. Five letters, one gesture, three words. D-I-T-T-O to all that was said tonight.

Thank you, heroes.

When our fire chief told us that, the first responder, it's actually very devastating and heartbroken. he said that when a first responder entered into the bloody crime scene, seeing people dying that they cannot save, the PTSD can end someone's career. I feel so heartbroken.

I know that now it's time to hold each other's hand and be strong.

We want to heal each other. I know if we can conquer this, we can conquer everything in our life.

So I hope all of you to hold each other's hands and be strong. I know our fire and police rock. So hopefully, you know, it's time for us to spend time to heal each other. And thank you so much for all your sacrifices.

And also for Brandon, we're such a young man. You have such a selfless behavior. I'm so proud of you. But I wanted to ask you a question. I'm curious. My son is also Brandon. And it's named after the American drama called 90210. There's a twin brother and sister called Brenda and Brandon. And I was thinking, if I have a daughter, I want to name her Brenda. But I finally realized that Brandon has a sister named Brenda. I'm curious to know that maybe your parents watched 90210 and they both are actually very pretty and handsome so I know six Brandon pretty much in my life they're all handsome but I'm not sure if they have the courage like you so thank you so much for the sacrifices thank you, thank you I'm from the bottom of our heart

thank you so much thank you

You know, the past few weeks have certainly been a difficult one for our community. No community should have had to experience the tragedy that we experienced. And I know that, you know, the first 24 hours, the first 48 hours, you know, people were concerned about the community, about the families, and about what was going on. And, you know, especially when those of us were asked to do interviews with the press, you know, probably for me, what was a moment in which I probably discussed was that, you know, within the first three minutes of those 911 calls, our first responders, all of you in front row, responded. Responded quickly to secure the area, to render aid for those who needed it. And as a council member, I am so proud of our police and our fire department, among the best in the region, if not the nation. And we must give you a round of applause and just accolades all the time.

And weeks since the incidents, you know, many of us have been reflecting on this awful tragedy. and, you know, yes, we've seen probably the worst in our humanity when a cowardly gunman decided to expose violence for what her demons was in that person's head. But we also saw the best in our humanity,

the men and women in uniform, and the heroism

of Brandon Say, who disarmed

this person and prevented more violence from being done and you know we could go Brandon myself as well as dr. Julie fun who lost her aunt during the tragedy at the star ballroom we were at state of the union

and probably for me as an American

Monterey Park. As a Monterey Park resident, I was moved when the President of the United States recognized Brandon Say at the State of the Union. And when we talk about, you know, as community, as we plot the path forward for recovery, you know, how do we do it? The solution is in this room. It's all of us. All of us who have

consoled each other, all of us who have leaned on each other, and all of us who will continue to provide strength

and support.

Together, we will show the world that this is a resilient community,

this is a beautiful community,

this is a community that has pride in its past

and faith in its future.

Thank you very much.

And now we will

present our awards and these are, aside from being very beautiful, we used our city manager's salary to pay for these.

Just kidding. Just kidding. Should we? Okay.

If we can bring Brandon, Si, if you can come up here with us. And we would like to present this award to Brandon.

And it reads, the city of Monterey Park

with heartfelt appreciation

gives this award to Brandon Say, honors

you for your incredible bravery

in disarming a gunman on January

21st, 2023. Your spark of courage changed everything

and saved many in harm's way.

We are all extremely grateful for your extraordinary efforts and selfless actions.

So on behalf of the city of Monterey Park and its residents we present you with this plaque, an award, and our gratitude.

And you may be a hero in O'Hambra, but you will always be a son here in Monterey Park.

I'd like to give Brandon an opportunity to say a few words.

Hello, everyone. Some of you may not know me, but some of you may know me. My name is Brandon Say, and I'm just your average Asian American man.

And I was born and raised here on American soil. And I just want to say I am very honored to receive this.

But a lot of people have been calling me a hero. But I do feel what I did was a heroic act. and I'm very proud of it. But what is a true hero? A true hero is someone who could go through their daily lives countering great turmoil and struggling with dire trials. And I believe that our men and women in uniform here are those people. they are true heroes thank you applause applause

applause Brendan

if you can come up and just take a few pictures

that's okay laughter applause

Let's give Brandon one more thanks. Let's give Brandon one more thanks.

Thank you, Brandon.

Okay, and we have a lot of awards for all of our first responders, our firefighters, and our dispatchers, and our police officers.

Should we bring them all up?

Yeah, can you guys come on down so you can receive your awards and be recognized?

Can you help me with these?

Maybe we can...

I just want to draw everyone's attention to our first responders in the back.

This just speaks to their humbleness, their sense of duty, their pride in service, and just the fact... Look at our chiefs.

They're all in the dark and letting their men and women stand in the light. That's a testament of who they are. Right?

Right? I think the same for Brandon.

I just want to say, you know, you're so brave because I know I'm watching you, and I think this is even more uncomfortable, all this attention, than what you did that night. And so I want you to know how proud we are, and thank you for withstanding this attention

so that other people can be brave and learn from you as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

and he's not here anymore.

Since they're all up here, let's give them a round of applause.

Thank you.

A CHANCE TO TAKE PICTURES, ENJOY SOME REFRESHMENTS, AND THEN WE'LL RESUME OUR COUNCIL MEETING.

OKAY, WE'RE GOING TO RESUME OUR MEETING, AND WE'RE GOING TO START WITH STAFF COMMUNICATIONS.

LIBRARY SERVICES.

You guys go first.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. Diana Garcia, City Librarian. This evening we wanted to give you some updates on the upcoming programs and events at the library for the rest of February and the beginning of March. Next slide, please.

First, I would like to remind the community that the library is providing drop-in counseling and services from Chinatown Service Center.

This is happening on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 6 p.m. We've got multilingual counselors and caseworkers stationed at the library.

They're there to provide support or talk to anybody who might want a little bit of support following the tragic events of January 21st.

Chinatown Service Center's counselors are available to provide immediate counseling.

They can also refer individuals to other services that they might need.

For more information about these services, as well as phone numbers and referrals to other agencies,

you can visit our dedicated HEAL MPK page at montereypark.ca.gov slash HEAL MPK.

On this page, you will also find the link to donate to the California Community Foundation's

Monterey Park Community Healing Fund as well.

I know that Langley Center has also been working with counselors from the Department of Mental Health.

They're available at Langley on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Again, all information about the resources available to our residents can be found on the HEAL MBK page.

Next slide, please.

The next program I'd like to mention is an upcoming exhibition and reception called Herstory 2.

The Legal History of Chinese American Women. This is going to be on display at the Monterey Park

Library from March 1st through May 31st, and we have a reception happening Saturday, March 11th

at 11 a.m. in the Friends Room, where you'll be able to meet the author, Dr. Cheng Chen,

as well as Wei Yang, a curator at the Huntington Library. We invite everybody to come to the reception or to come to the library during the months of March, April, or May to view this very

cool exhibition in honor of Women's History Month. Next slide, please. The next program we wanted to

mention is that our Spanish bilingual story time is returning next month on March 18th. We've got

the next three dates here, March, April, and May, and this will be taking place at 3 o'clock p.m.

upstairs in the story time room. Next slide. Additionally, we are very excited that the The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Clinic, or VITA as it's known as, is now happening at the library.

This started earlier in the month, and it runs through April 6th every Thursday from 10.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. upstairs in the computer lab.

This is for families or individuals whose income is less than $60,000.

They can come and get help with preparing and submitting their federal and their state income taxes.

This program is being sponsored by Chinatown Service Center.

For more information, you can call the number on the slide, 626-307-1368. And next slide.

And finally, the last item I'd like to mention is that the Monterey Park Library Foundation,

which is a 501c3 nonprofit that supports library services,

is going to be holding their Novel Tea fundraiser on Sunday, April 2nd from 2 to 4 p.m. at the library.

We're very excited about this because this is the first time this event is happening.

Since 2019, it is a very small, intimate event.

We only sell 100 tickets.

So if you would like to join the event, buy a ticket or sponsor a table, please contact us at 626-307-1269.

This event will sell out.

Thank you so much. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

Counsel, are there any questions?

Mr. Mayor, yes.

Yes, go ahead. Thank you.

For the VITA program, is there an income threshold requirement for those who can qualify for the

service?

Yes. The income restriction is $60,000 a year.

Okay. So you cannot earn more than $60,000? Correct. Okay, I see. Correct. Okay. Any other questions, counsel? I'll just take a comment.

I've been involved with this program, and I know the folks who are doing the program through association with Chinatown Service Center. I think last year they helped generate returns of $2.5 million, and the year before that was $2 million. So if you follow the guidelines, go get help because they can help you get the refund quickly,

and you can get some money.

So that's the easiest way to say it.

Yeah, and I didn't mention a lot of the volunteers

are bilingual as well.

So especially for older adults,

it's a really great program.

And for folks that maybe have trouble filling out the forms in English, this is a really great program for them.

No question.

Just wanted to, again, appreciate and echo the comments earlier and your comments in terms of encouraging the community to take advantage of these services appreciate the library and the staff for putting these essential critical programs on for free all of them are free programs and hope people will take advantage and encourage the rest of the council members to join me at the novelty fundraiser

coming up thanks I also wanted to take the opportunity to thank you I know my wife and

daughter going to the novelty so they're really looking forward to that thank you so much for all the great programming that you do at the library. Thank you. Thank you.

Next is police.

Good evening, Mayor, Pro Tem Mayor, Council.

I'm here to give you a-

topics that articles in great length so you can be able to read that next slide please coyote meeting season is generally January through early March coyotes become more active during this time what do we do to keep ourselves and our pets safe next slide please safety tips protect your pets keep your dogs on leash should be mentioned should also you should also keep your cats indoors coyotes are territorial they live in packs they can also be nomadic nomadic means that they can be singular they

can run around and be looking for a new home coyotes can't distinguish your pets from an intruder or an intruding coyote and will treat them as so and try to defend their territory. Next slide please.

Coyotes are naturally scared of human activity.

so in such when coyotes are out uh unable to detour them from becoming familiar and becoming urbanized you want to avoid putting food out you want to make sure that you confront them you haze them that you're loud uh there are many methods of hazing hazing is clapping your hands yelling, chasing them away. They're instinctually scared of us so if we are loud and aggressive it'll usually get the reaction that we're looking for and

that's maintaining distance from each other. Next slide please. Coyote data and

activity. If you want to report a coyote sighting you can call our police dispatch on the non-emergency line. That's how we track activity. The reason we collect the data data is to get a better understanding of the activity that we have in

our community and by collecting this information it'll help us to hopefully develop a long-term resolution on how to keep the community safe and how to maintain the population in a healthy fashion that concludes my coyote presentation

Thank you.

Any questions from the council or comments?

Well, thank you for your presentation.

I appreciate it.

I know that there are a lot of concerns, including my parents who live in the Highlands area, around increased coyote sightings and appreciate this. I don't know if we always point to Robert, I always point to Robert if there's a way to put some of these tips for avoiding coyotes and avoiding attracting coyotes on social media or other outlets in addition to the cascades. I think that would be helpful so we can help kind of promote that a little bit more, too.

I think that's definitely something that we can explore, and putting out safety tips

would probably be an easy way to inform the community. Yeah, that'd be great. We'll work on that.

Yeah. No, I appreciate that, and that'd be super helpful. And then I know we talked about reporting coyote sightings so that we're tracking those and we have a better understanding from animal services in terms of volume of visits and all that stuff and interactions with people. Are we thinking through any plans for addressing the growing or at least more visible coyote population not only in our area but in the region?

we are looking into it and by collecting the data and collecting information from our community and

trying to determine where the most frequent sightings are the type of contacts we're having

whether they're negative encounters if you are calling in to report a coyote sighting

the the activity that you would report that would be beneficial to us would be if the coyote was on your property.

If you had an encounter with a coyote, a description of the type of encounter, if you're walking your dog down the street and you felt like maybe you were possibly being folLod by a coyote, the areas, the times that it happens, you can call. But if you're reporting coyote sightings, it doesn't benefit us to say, I was driving down, we'll say, for instance, Monterey Pass and I saw a coyote running down the street. It's not a residential area that doesn't really benefit us because it's all commercial and the idea is that we're looking at the issues surrounding the homes.

So we want just a basic report if they're in your yard, if you had some type of encounter,

and just a brief description on it, and it helps us get a better understanding on how we can approach it. So yeah, that's what we're doing right now so that we can find an approach to find a resolution for a problem that's kind of plaguing Southern California not only the

city of Monterey Park yeah I appreciate that are we able to report coyote

settings in the go MPK app or you can report sightings in the in the go MPK app my recommendation is that you call dispatch because it's directly input into our CAD and by putting into CAD we get it we are able to pull the data and And this is a brief map of the way we're able to track some activity. If you call or if you input it into GoNPK, I will put it into our system. It just benefits us to get it directly from there. Sometimes when we get GoNPK sightings, a lot of information is lacking. Sometimes we might want to follow up. We might have questions surrounding exactly what they're reporting. and a lot of the personal contact information doesn't seem to be input into going PK all the time a lot of anonymity is always you know seems to be a favorite thing to do

No appreciate that and we are when we post this We'll have the dispatch the non-emergency line listed on yeah

yeah, and

For any questions surrounding coyotes you can always call animal services You'll get my direct line and we can answer any questions you might have

Thank you so much, thank you

Good evening City manager mayor's council members. I'm sergeant Arlene chidas and I work for the Community Engagement Bureau I'm here to invite the community and the council to our public safety town hall meeting tomorrow

February 16th at 6 p.m. at George elder Park in the community room some of the topics we will be discussing are how we're recovering from the tragic mass shooting and current crime trends you can ask questions or simply voice your

concerns it will also be an opportunity to meet your police and fire department staff refreshments and snacks will be provided next slide please our flyer

What the information will also be posted on our city website and on our Instagram accounts Please follow our social media platforms We hope to see everyone there tomorrow. Thank you

Any questions or comments from the council

Well, just appreciate the police firm for hosting these series of town halls I know we have to reschedule a few of them. Yes is police as the police department planning on doing any of these virtually

in terms of town halls? We can.

We can work on that.

Yeah, I think that'd be helpful for

some parts of the community too to be able to have a virtual town hall.

Okay. And tomorrow we're hosting with the fire department as well together.

Actually, Mr. Mayor, in addition to hosting it virtually, well, for tomorrow's event, will there be simultaneous translation

in case those who, you know, bilingual? Yes, sir. I'll have Chinese speakers there, officers. Okay. Okay, great. Thanks. All right.

Thank you so much for hosting that. I'll be there.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, Public Works.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council.

Sean Igoe, Public Works Director. Tonight I have a few updates on a few different items. The first item is our spirit bus. As you know, we've been working with the IBI group to determine how we better serve this community through this service. As part of that, a survey was conducted to look at various items such as use, stop locations, available times and dates. With that, we're looking at finalizing this through a secondary option, which is working with the PASIO technology to help us further identify how we can better serve the community through providing information such as ridership and various stops for ridership. So this is supposed to go into effect hopefully in March, and then we anticipate finalizing this data sometime by the end of the year and then coming back to Council with a final update on the recommendations for this completed survey. So looking forward to presenting that to you toward the end of the year, beginning of 2024. for. The next item I have is an update on the GoMPK app. We are working on a new campaign to give this a refresh to really push to the community on the value of this application and how it can be utilized. Various items such as reporting potholes, graffiti, abandoned items, things like that are huge for us. It allows us to better serve this community. So we are looking to reach out to the current subscribers and encouraging new subscribers. With approximately 8,500 current subscribers, we're looking at also encouraging them with a new notification module that we're looking at purchasing that would allow us to push out notifications via this app. So we're hoping to look at getting that in place hopefully in the near future and again utilizing this to push out notifications such as water outages or if we have projects that are coming up, things of that nature that we can hopefully communicate better to our community. Additionally, we do have a refresh to the front page. We're utilizing this for various items, including the quick link to the California Community Foundation donation site. We also have this for various services for the community. We're also pushing our Go Green campaign and also using it for items such as our community cleanup event. This event is happening on the 25th of February from 8 to 12 at George Elder Park. And so community members can bring in a large bulky items to this site And then the public works will work with Athens to take these these this material off site We're additionally trying to work with the Salvation Army to repurpose some of these items There are many items that can be repurposed so working with them to hopefully repurpose many of these items to go as part of the Go Green campaign with that. I'll answer any questions

Council any questions I

I have a quick question. Sean, thanks for the report. A question on the Spirit Bus. I know you're working on remapping the locations. Are you working with some of our various commissions, Parks and Rec, the business groups, to ensure that there are certain stops that we need to kind of stop by for transportation with either the elderly or the students or maybe the shoppers?

Yeah, we did a lot of outreach to the survey to get that data, And so we did have a lot of positive feedback from the community in various aspects whether it's from schools So various riderships were a part of this and we did receive a lot of feedback to help determine those routes stops and locations And also part of this PASIO technologies Phase we'll look at how we can also increase that availability to the public. Thank you

Yeah, thanks Sean appreciate the efforts public works departments taking on the go MPK app Is the app currently available for Chinese or in Spanish or Chinese language for people who want to access that?

That I don't. I don't think so.

I'll jump in here. Inez Alvarez, Assistant City Manager.

We recently reached out to GoGov, which is the application provider. And at this time, they do not have translation options for us at this time. but they indicate that other cities have requested translation.

So they are looking into that.

At this time, the app is not available to be translated. If you use the website and Google Translate, there is portions of it that it will translate if you're using a desktop, but the actual app on your phone is not translated.

So we are looking into that.

And yes, we have it noted with something that we brought up as well.

That's great. I appreciate that. As soon as that capability is available,

we'd love to make sure that that's integrated into our capabilities. And then, Sean, you mentioned how many users?

I didn't catch that. About 8,500 currently.

8,500. Wow. Okay. Thank you, Sean. No problem.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Recreation and community services.

Mayor Pro Tem City Council members. So start off first, it's kind of funny that you had mentioned me when you talked about

social media.

So one of the slides that's not on here tonight, and I just posted as you mentioned to me, is that the Langley Center was going to have a free

And,

actually a gift delivery service that we started during COVID. It was a way that staff felt was a way for the community to kind of show their neighbors, their loved ones, residents throughout the community during the month of February that they showed the love. That they cared about them, they were thinking about them. It had such good success that we wanted to bring it back year after year and so we've done it the last two years as well. So this year we've sold over 150. We DELIVERIES STARTED ON FEBRUARY 6th AND THEY RUN THROUGH FEBRUARY 24th. MOST OF THE DELIVERIES HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED BECAUSE AS YOU CAN IMAGINE MOST FOLKS WANT THOSE DELIVERIES TO HAPPEN RIGHT AROUND VALENTINE'S DAY. SO STAFF, THOSE DELIVERIES ACTUALLY HAPPEN FROM RECREATION STAFF AND THEY TAKE THEM DOOR TO DOOR TO MONTERY PARK RESIDENTS. AND FOR $10 YOU'RE ABLE TO GET A STUFFED ANIMAL, A SUCCULENT PLANT AND THEN ALSO SOME FAMOUS CHOCOLATES AND DELIVER THAT PERSONALLY WITH A PERSONAL MESSAGE TO MONTERY PARK RESIDENT.

Next slide, please.

Our Valentine's Day celebration, so that was yesterday at the Langley Senior Center. And, you know, with everything that's gone on, we weren't really sure how our attendance was going to be. But we really saw that united this community is still going to dance. And it was really a delight to see over 150 seniors come into the Langley Center, excited to put their dancing shoes on, celebrate together. I want to thank Council Member Yu for stopping by with her mother.

She got out there.

I saw her dancing over to former Mayor David Lau and having a good time. So it was just really nice to see the community come together.

The seniors were excited.

They got some treats. Each one of them got some seized candy and had some refreshments and danced to what was mostly seemed like they enjoyed a lot of 70s music. So we're starting to see a change in our seniors and what they're like. But it was a lot of fun. I stopped in, took some pictures with folks, and it was great to see all the smiles and people enjoying and remembering the enjoyment of exercise and dancing.

So keep on dancing. Next slide, please. Our tree memorial program.

So Tree Memorial applications are currently open until the end of the month. So I want to remind folks if there's someone in the community that you feel is worthy of a Tree Memorial. Now this is someone that's been a nominated Monterey Park resident for over 10 years and also has provided the highest level of community service to the Monterey Park community. So if you visit monterreypark.ca.gov backslash Tree Memorial, there's an application that's on that site. And it'll also go over go through the criteria that was approved in the resolution for the tree memorial now City Council does approve up to Maximum of three tree memorials per year So some years it may be one or two and some years is three So just kind of depends on how many applications once we receive those applications They are reviewed by a ad hoc committee members or had caught committee made up of commissioners of the wreck and park commission and the community participation commission and then they come before City Council for approval. So if you have anyone in the community that you feel is worthy of the tree memorial please submit those applications by February the 28th. Next slide please. Oh you know I'm sorry can you go back to that slide? I did want to mention we did have one of our tree memorial recipients in the crowd tonight Sharon Wu so you saw her come up with I believe is the Monterey Park High School Alliance, and so that's actually a picture of her receiving her tree memorial up by a tree near the Barnes Park Amphitheater.

Next slide, please.

So keeping in line with the Keep on Dancing, we had a huge successful event in October with the Electric Park event. This is a new event to the city of Monterey Park. It focuses on the younger adults in the community that felt that maybe they didn't have as many opportunities to celebrate and not as many programs focused on their age group. And, you know, interestingly enough, when we looked at the census data, about 34% of the Monterey Park residents fall within that 18 to 44-year-old age. So this event is going to take place on March 18th from 4 to 10 p.m. It'll be in the Barnes Park field. It's free, and it's open to all ages.

So I encourage everyone to come out. It's really good music.

If you like to dance, if you like, as one of the 80-year-old folks that dances here in Barnes Park told me, that's her disco.

So she called it disco.

Some people call it house or electronic dance music.

But for her, it's disco.

And she was excited to hear that we're bringing it back again here in March. So I look forward to seeing everyone out there for Electric Park. And then I think this is the last slide.

Yes. So spring egg hunt's coming up. Just mark your calendars.

March the 30th from 5 to 7. I do want to mention, because I know this was for last year, anyone that showed up last year, we had some learning. So this year, all of the age groups will be separated by different dedicated time slots. So for those parents that are coming with their zero to three-year-olds, one parent will be alLod within the egg hunt area.

For all of the age groups that are after the three-year-olds,

unfortunately, we will not be allowing any parents within the egg hunt area. We know parents are very excited about hunting for eggs, but we do want to make sure that it's the kids that are having the fun and the parents get a chance to take photos from just outside the gated area. So again, we'll be having about over 8,000 eggs that will go out to the youth at the egg hunt. And a lot of those eggs, and I was going to say some, but a lot of those eggs are going to have special grand prizes where kids can get anything from large candy to, if you know what V-Bucks or Roebucks are, for all the different video games, it's special money, and gift cards and stuff like that. So we'll have some nice grand prizes that the kids will be excited about, and we're excited to do the spring egg hunt in an upgraded version. And then lastly, to keep up to date with all of the programs and activities that the Recreation and Community Services Department is doing, I encourage everyone to continue, follow, like, share our social media at Monterey Park Rec. Thank you, and if you have any questions.

Any questions or comments?

Yes, I want to say thank you, especially for always you and your staff as learning as we look for ways to improve our programs. So thank you for reprogramming the Easter Egg Hunt event for this year.

Absolutely.

And just wanted to echo appreciation for everything the Recreation and Community Services Department does.

I keep saying Rick's Parks.

And I know this is a lot of programming, so I appreciate the continuous learning as well.

I was going to make a joke, but I'll pass.

But thank you, Robert.

You can tell me the joke later.

No, thank you, thank you.

I also wanted to thank you for the programming. I know my daughters really love a lot of the activities that you do, especially for the younger crowd. So I know they're going to be really excited about the redoing of the egg hunt.

You weren't one of the parents, right?

No. We only ended up with one egg. One egg. We had to share it between three girls.

So that was kind of hard.

But thank you so much for all the programming that you do. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you.

We have a presentation from our city treasurer, Amy Lee.

Good evening, City Council, Mayor, City Manager and City Attorney and the residents of Monterey Park. Just wanted to give you an update. I'm in here today not in my position as City Treasurer but as a fund administrator for the newly created Monterey Park Community Healing Fund. This is a fund that we partnered with California Community Foundation and we are together with Community Foundation we have a fund that is now addressing the aftermath of the tragedy that happened on January 21st. We recently got all our oversight board members on board. We met just this Monday, so everything is brand new. We are talking and we are deciding on what the fund is going to look like and how we are going to

distribute it. Our goal is to really heal the community. It's going to be a more broad scale to help the community move forward and heal and just get back to where we were and be better do you have any questions any questions counselor not question but

a comment thank you treasurer Amy for leading the team in this I know we had a couple of discussions and we kind of sourced through a couple of names I'm I'm glad we're doing it on behalf of the city for our own residents. I know there are a lot of community groups out there who are doing it, which is great.

They love our city. We love the support.

But truly, from our city standpoint, we need something that's on behalf of the city for our city. So thank you so much for leading that.

Just for the community, the site to donate is on the Monterey Park website. on the landing page on the top

top left there's going to be a resource center if you click on that it takes you to

make a donation and from there you can make a donation to the California Community Fund and it's going to be funding the

Monarch Park Community Healing Fund and you can either

donate by credit card or by check there's an address there to send out the checks and there's also a button for your credit card donations

I just want to let the community know that we are trying to move forward and it takes a village to move forward. We don't know how much money we're going to be able to create, but I do ask the community members, because this is a healing fund for Monterey Park, it takes a village. So whether it's $5, $10, I want to ask each of you to be a partner with us because it does take a village to move forward. And what we're going to do and what we're trying to do is have programs, initiatives, and support organizations that really will help Monterey Park heal, not just individually but as a community. And that's where we need to go forward. To let you also know that this oversight board is independent from Monterey Park. The committee that we have together is made up of eight different members of the Monterey Park community. but together we are going to decide how the money is going to be most well spent to benefit the community and to move forward. Actually, I have a question. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you.

And again, thank you for that great presentation. If someone has questions, and I know the website is pretty informative,

but even tonight someone in the audience had asked me if they have questions about the program, who do we direct it to?

They could direct it to myself. My email is amypelee.law at gmail.com. Or you could reach City Hall and they could patch you over to the City of Treasure and they could leave a message for me. You could also reach the California Community Foundation. If you reach out to them, there's going to be someone that will take the calls. And we'll get back to them. Thank you. I have a question.

Sure. Yeah, and you mentioned that there's eight community members. May I know their names?

Sure. Let me think I can remember them offhand. There's Rick Ng, the Honorable Bryant Yang, Ms. Jaramillo, who is the AUSD superintendent,

Ms. Anita Chu, who is the superintendent for Garvey School District.

Who am I missing?

Hans Liang, former councilman and mayor. Paul Talbot Paul Talbot former city manager

That might be it

Is there anybody else no, I think you got seven on the committee and then you being eight, okay

Yeah, I just wanted to appreciate and recognize them. Thank you

We do appreciate and we understand the gravity and the responsibility that we have so we are going to making difficult choices but hopefully all to the better event of Monterey Park.

So make that donation. Councilman Yu.

We have one more question. You can start it off.

I believe there's also matching if you're in the corporate world through CCF as well.

Yes, Mr. No.

Councilman No, who works for Bank of America. We'll be looking forward for that donation.

Thank you.

I just want to thank you Amy for stepping up and the oversight board members as well It's a all-volunteer effort and appreciate you guys stepping up to lead in this effort in the Helping to make sure the fund is you're welcome

If you have any ideas, please reach out to me and let me know and we'll try to make it work

Amy I have just one question are we going to be receiving any updates and how often would we getting updates in terms of

funding

programming and all of those different things that you guys are working on?

We are meeting once a week, so hopefully I'll have an update for you every time we do.

Thank you Amy. You're welcome.

Okay, so we're gonna move on to our consent calendar items. Council, are there any items we you would like to pull?

If not, we can vote to approve.

We have for approval. Comments? Oh, sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Are there comments?

We have written communication for item 3C as well as speakers for items 3C.

Okay.

You ready? Yes, go ahead. Okay.

Our first written communication is from Evelina Fernandez. She is writing to show her support for the library strategic plan because the library is an important institution in our community. It is a calm and peaceful place where children and adults alike can acquire and share knowledge.

She comments that the library has been very responsive to the community's needs throughout COVID by adjusting their services to keep us safe,

especially now after the aftermath of the mass shooting.

They've pivoted to providing resources to help us heal.

So they are an essential center in our city and we need them now more than ever.

So she asks that you please vote to approve.

In addition, we received a correspondence from Marissa Kwok. She also asks that you support the item.

She is with the, I apologize, the Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library's Junior Friends President.

The library strategic planning task force consists of people of all different backgrounds, she notes, who hold different responsibilities to keep the community thriving. She is, her voice is in this strategic plan is one that speaks for all teens in the community and it relays our needs and desires for the library and the city. So as one of our teenage community members, she's asking that you support it as that it is critical to all age groups and people of different backgrounds.

She strongly believes that the new generation of Monterey Park residents are able to inspire change and by continuing to support our library will be able to do so.

Another comment received is from Tara Kwan.

She also asked that you support the library strategic plan.

and she states that it's an important institution that has been present for us during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as supporting the healing process after the mass shooting. She has been

very impressed with how the library has voted to remove late fees to be more equitable and more

tech-friendly by offering mobile hotspots to borrow. So it's been extremely helpful to the

community so please support the plan. Lastly we received a comment from Linda

Tang who also asked that you support the library strategic plan. She notes that

growing up in an extremely low-income household the library provided a free

and safe space for her and her family to learn and do her homework and access resources that was not offered anywhere else. So during the summer she was

able to go there and participate in the summer reading program. She asks that you continue.

She notes that the library has been very responsive to the community needs, again, throughout COVID

and asks that you do support them in the strategic plan. Moving on to public comments. First up, Rose Scobie.

Good evening, esteemed city council members. I am here today to speak to you about the importance of supporting the Bruegger-Meyer Library's five-year strategic plan.

As a third-generation Monterey Park resident and as an active member of this community, I believe that investing in the library is essential to the growth and success of our city. When Ms. Diana asked me back in August to be part of the community task force to help with the formation of the library's strategic plan, the answer was an easy yes. Eight years ago, when I relocated to Monterey Park with a one-year-old, I was looking for community and friendship. the Bruggemeyer Children's Library provided me with both. It was there that I first became acquainted with members of the Moms Club of Monterey Park and Alhambra. The library provided the club with the warm and welcoming space where other mothers and I could gather with our children and provide each other with much-needed support. I will be forever grateful to the staff at the library for their excellent children's programming and their open-door policy. During the pandemic, the library continued to be a lifeline for my family. It was an essential resource for the success of the homeschool that I ran. Every week I would stop by the library to pick up their at-home craft kits and books that aligned with my weekly lesson plans. I loved seeing the familiar faces of the library staff, even if it was only the top halves, at a distance. I feel very lucky to have been a part of the community task force by recruiting a diverse cross-section of community members. Ms. Diana and the library staff ensured that the direction the library is headed has taken into consideration the needs of all Monterey Park residents. Being part of the community task force gave me joy and a sense of purpose. I enjoyed meeting and working with other individuals who deeply care about our community. I always knew our library was special, but being on the task force opened my eyes to just how much our library has been able to accomplish with a low per capita expenditure when compared to other libraries in the area. Basically, our library provides a big bang for your buck. Two weeks ago, I stopped by the library and I saw representatives from the Chinatown Service Center in the lobby who were there to offer multilingual counseling services in light of the tragedy that struck our community. It was bittersweet that this tragedy brought to light all of the things we on the community task force knew to be true about the library. That it strengthens our community. That it is a place where people can come together from all walks of life. And that it provides so much more than just books. The library has come a long way from the one-story building from my childhood where I tutored students and studied calculus in high school. The Bruggemeyer Library's commitment to literacy, its rich collection in multiple languages, and its programming is unparalleled. With your support of the library's strategic plan, the library will be able to expand its reach and improve even more lives. Thank you.

Next speaker, Jennifer Tang.

After it would be Travis.

Honorable Mayor and Council Members, my name is Jennifer Tang and I'm the President of the Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library Board of Trustees. I've served on this board since 2020 and I've been a patron of the library since childhood. I was also a member of the Community Task Force made up of community members that helped put together the strategic plan in front of you this evening. City librarian Diana Garcia will go into more detail about the plan and the incredibly collaborative, thoughtful process that led to its creation. I want to take a moment to share with you my key takeaways from my experiences both on the board as well as the community task force throughout this year-long process. The strategic plan is rooted in community feedback. Before the task force met for the first time, the talented consultants and library staff collected feedback from community members in various capacities. In addition to numerous messages about how much people love the library, the most common feedback I saw was that the library needed to expand its hours. It was clear that the community highly values the library and all that it does, and they want more and more and more. When the task force met, while we did spend time talking about specific programs and marketing strategies we wanted to see in the library, the consultants at Barry Dunn helped us root our conversation in vision and mission. Not just the vision and mission of the library, but we were asked how we envision Monterey Park in the next five, ten plus years. We talked about how we wanted Monterey Park to be an inclusive community, one that celebrates its diversity, one that values innovation, one that fosters connection with one another, and one that adapts to a changing society and worlds. We connected that vision of how the library can contribute to and serve such a community and that is reflected in the library's strategic plans, vision, mission, and values that you see. Speaking of innovation, I wanted to highlight how incredibly innovative the Monterey Park Rugenmeyer Library has been during the pandemic. While its physical doors were shut to keep folks safe, the library pivoted to offer contactless checkout, home delivery, expanded Wi-Fi access in the parking lot and through Wi-Fi hotspots,

outdoor story time, pop-up libraries, and so much more. And in the aftermath of the mass shooting,

the library has pivoted again to ensure that community members have easy, trustworthy access to mental health and casework services. The Monterey Park-Bergamore Library is not only a gem for our city, but for our entire San Gabriel Valley region. Patrons from all over come here to attend Storytime, to borrow books, and to use our services. In fact, during the pandemic, over 10,000 people attended the library's programs, which is far higher than any other library in our region. In fact, the second closest was Alhambra at 6,000. At the same time, we spent only $34 per capita in library funding, which is on the low end compared to our surrounding cities. The value here is unparalleled. I urge you to adopt the strategic plan tonight because doing so will help take our city towards new heights. But this decision is really a no-brainer because if you read the plan, you will see that it is thorough, thoughtful, and reflective of all the beautiful things about Monterey Park. That's because this plan has been put together with the talent and heart of a dedicated city librarian, library staff, and community members. So please vote yes tonight. But I want to close with a bigger ask. As you begin the budget process for the next fiscal year, I urge you to prioritize the library's funding. Diana has a matrix document of all the amazing ideas that the library wants to implement in order to meet the goals in the strategic plan. But it can only happen if you choose to invest in the library. Thank you.

Next speaker, Travis Kaya.

Hi, good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Travis Kaya. I'm the vice president of the Monterey Park-Burgermeyer Library Board of Trustees and a proud patron of many of the library services. I speak in support of the library's strategic plan this evening and in support of the library's excellent programming more broadly.

As many of you know, and as President Tang just alluded to earlier,

The development of the library strategic plan is the result of months of tireless effort on the part of City Librarian Garcia

and her wonderful staff who are here in force this evening. Give them a round of applause.

The consultants and I think most importantly, the diverse community members who formed the task force that have put their input and their heart and dedication into the document that you see before you this evening. From the very beginning, City Librarian Garcia and her team wanted the plan to reflect a true discourse among the residents of this city. What does the library mean to us as a community? What do we need from our library? And what resources do we need to make sure that those services can be provided for our community? And with the wide array of input that the library was able to collect via their online and in-person surveys, the incredible work of our community task force, I strongly believe that we have a strategic plan that distills the desires and aspirations of the stakeholders from every corner of our community. It will be a true general plan for the library for the next few years and beyond. Importantly for implementation, the strategic plan is not going to sit on the shelf. Apologies for the bad library pun. The library has set procedures to ensure that the goals set forth in this document will translate into concrete action. The library staff will undergo workshops on implementation and the general goals will be translated into actionable steps incorporated into the library's annual and monthly planning. In recent weeks, I think we all saw how important our city's institutions are to support the needs of this community, and building up the library's capacity to provide that kind of support is at the very heart of this document. I hope you will receive and file the strategic plan this evening, and more importantly, to echo what Jennifer Tang said earlier, I hope you will continue your strong support for the library as we implement the plan in the years ahead. Thank you.

Next speaker, Andy Yam.

Thank you so much for the time, City Council.

Great to see you all again. My name is Andy. I also...

people who are always in the community making people smile. You should see how they interact with members of the community at play days or at different community events. And every time, each of them seems to have their own little posse, some of the community members who know that these are their favorite librarians, some of the people that read to their kids. And so they're

kind of like our little local celebrities.

And so this strategic plan was this brainchild

of a number of members of the community

who came together to put together

what they envisioned the library to be.

And also with the direction from, I know that we have some experts here who were part of that process,

and of course our city librarian as well, who really made the group work together.

And I heard that made, you know, put them in a room for about a couple hours

and fed them, I think, one meal or something like that.

But anyways, they did a fantastic job. We on the Library Commission did have a chance to review it. I'm very proud of the work that was put into it, the time, the care, the love, the effort that basically gave birth

to this document. And so I kindly ask that you all pass it.

I think this might probably be the last thing

that I'd advocate for in my position as a Library Commissioner.

But this is truly an item that is worthwhile and truly something that will be a benefit

for Monterey Park residents for years and years and years to come.

So thank you all.

No more speakers.

Thank you.

Council, are there any items you would like to pull?

Can we pull 3C, please?

Which one? 3C. 3C? Yes.

Is that it? 4A.

Oh, we're not in that section yet.

Those are already. Yeah, we're just going to calendar. Okay.

And I think we already, staff already asked us to pull 3A for correction of the minutes.

Mayor Pro Tem, yes, well, we asked to pull December 7th minutes. The rest of the minutes are still good. Okay.

And then I'd like to pull 3E as well.

3B? 3E.

3E.

Okay, so I guess we can vote to approve the others.

3B, 3D, 3F, and G, and H.

So moved. Would anyone like to make a motion?

Motion. Second.

Okay, we can vote.

Approved unanimously.

Excellent. If we can start with 3A.

Just the correction of the minutes.

No, the request was to pull pull it off the agenda period. It wasn't to be pulled for a report. It was just to be pulled so we can correct the minutes and then we'll bring it back to you in the March 1st meeting. My apologies if I wasn't clear.

Excellent. Thank you for the clarification. If we can get a report on 3C, the five-year

Rugemeyer's strategic plan?

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it cumbersome, but the rest

of 3A can be approved with the exception of the minutes for December 7th.

So you can take it from

there. I'll make that motion to

approve the remaining minutes except for those for December 7th.

I'll second that.

If we can vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. Now we can go to 3C.

The five-year Bruggemeyer strategic plan. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. Diana Garcia, City Librarian.

I feel like the community did my presentation for me,

but I will try to share any additional information that we have with the City Council.

This evening I also have with me J.R. Clanton from Barry Dunn. He has been our consultant for the strategic planning process.

I'll be doing the staff presentation, but JR is here to answer any questions that city

council might have at the end of the presentation. Next slide, please. So first, our speakers touched a little bit on this, but I'd like to talk a bit about

the strategic planning process.

After interviewing consultants and selecting Barry Dunn, in July and August of 2022, we

began what was called the engagement readiness phase of the strategic planning process. This consisted of information gathering, discussing our goals and outcomes, selecting the members of the library's internal planning team, who are also here this evening, and the members of the

community task force, and setting up timelines for the completion of each stage of work. In August

and September, we launched the social pinpoint, which is the library's website for the strategic

plan. This had a welcome video from me explaining the process. It had information about the strategic

plan, and it was also where the survey was housed that collected information from the community.

The survey sought information from our residents on what services they used at the library,

their level of satisfaction with them, and then it also asked the public what they would like to see

that the library doesn't already do. This website and the survey were available in all of our

community languages to ensure that we received input from as many people as possible.

Our stakeholders also began holding, our consultants rather, also began holding stakeholder

and key informant interviews during this period. So in September and November, through November, we held task force work sessions with the

library planning team and the community task force.

As it was mentioned, we had several of these that were spread out over a couple of months. The library's planning team consisted of staff members from all levels and all divisions of the library

so that we made sure to, A, receive broad input from all divisions of the library,

and B, to build staff capacity by having all of our staff members participate in the process.

Most of the members of the library planning team are here this evening. You guys give a little wave.

The community task force consisted of about 10 residents that reflected the diversity of the community.

We had teens through senior citizens, people who represented early education through higher education,

the business community, volunteers, members of various city commissions, and library users.

So the role of the community task force was really to bring together knowledge and perspective from all corners of the community.

They were working together to help synthesize findings from surveys and interviews,

and they really helped to inform all of the elements of the strategic framework.

As our speakers mentioned, we really went in and had these meetings and asked them broadly

what their aspirations for themselves and for the community were.

We didn't start necessarily focused on just library services,

although we talked a lot about that.

We have some members here in the audience as well.

Throughout October and November, we met repeatedly with these two groups,

the library task force, the community task force,

and the library planning team to share data, seek input, and brainstorm.

With the community task force especially, our goal, as I said, was to get them thinking about their aspirations for the community,

really brought input, and then to start to consider whether the library had a role in

addressing these needs. And where the library was able to meet these needs, this was translated

into various portions of the strategic plan. In November and December, our consultants and I

drafted the strategic plan. And in January and February, we finalized the plan, we presented it

to the Library Board of Trustees at the January meeting. We are now presenting it this evening to City Council,

and tomorrow we will hold an implementation workshop for all of our staff members full-time and part-time.

Next slide, please.

So as I mentioned, public outreach was incredibly important

in this process. We knew that a strong strategic plan was going to come

from the people that we were serving with their input.

In addition to the extremely important work of the community task force, we had 11 outreach events throughout the city during this process where we talked about the strategic plan.

We sought input from residents.

I mentioned in the last slide our stakeholder interviews.

We had 17 individual and group interviews with stakeholders throughout the community.

These included elected officials, city staff, staff from organizations and nonprofits that serve the community as well.

Social Pinpoint was our website for the strategic plan where we received survey responses and comments.

We also had public comment boards up in each department of the library where we asked for input from the community in person.

And we received nearly 300 public comments total from those boards.

things that people liked about the library and what could be improved.

So slowly but surely throughout the process of holding meetings and collecting information about the community's needs and wants, we started to see elements of the strategic plan

emerge throughout these conversations. And so we pulled the threads of the conversations

and meetings and we started to weave together the content of the strategic plan.

Next slide.

And so here's the table of contents for the plan for the sake of this presentation.

I want to note that we aren't going to go over every single portion, but it is included along with the staff report.

We don't have the really narrative-heavy content in the PowerPoint.

We're happy to talk about it or answer questions about it.

This evening we're going to focus on the vision, the mission, values, goals, and strategic imperatives.

So since those are the portions that were created in large part by the task force and the library planning team. So as we're going through all of these portions of the strategic plan, I do want to emphasize that these came about with the input of the community task force

and the members of the public about what was important to them in the community. Next slide.

So I'm going to start with the library's vision.

The library is an essential community resource that is recognized and valued by everyone in a vibrant, thriving Monterey Park.

So this vision speaks to the fact that the library is not just a repository for books. We're really a community resource and a community center.

We provide everything from tax assistance to counseling to citizenship prep to English classes and many, many more services to the community. The library has always been an integral part of the community.

We've always worked very hard to meet the needs of community members.

And you'll see in this vision that we don't really mention anything about books,

but that the vision really gets to the fact that the library is much more holistic than that.

Next slide.

Next is the mission. The mission of the Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library is to create opportunities for learners of all ages and backgrounds,

to foster community connections, and to advance all aspects of literacy in Monterey Park.

Through our conversations with the community task force,

it became really clear that the library for them was about providing opportunities.

And it was also very clear that they saw the library as a place for learners of all ages and of all backgrounds.

So not just children or seniors, but really

everybody in the community. It was also extremely important to the community task force that the

library provided collections and services for everybody in the community, regardless of their

background, regardless of the language that they spoke, regardless of the resources that they had

at their disposal. When we talk about fostering community connections here, we're talking really

about our partnerships with our community organizations, which are so vital to providing the services to the community that we do.

And, of course, advancing all aspects of literacy in Monterey Park. Of course, the library helps to foster literacy in the standard definition,

but we're also providing programs and services that support early literacy,

cultural literacy, financial literacy for all of those skills. Next slide.

The next portion of the plan that I'd like to talk about are the library values. So these are the principles that guide all of our operations. They describe our approach to serving the community. The library values that you see here in opposition to almost all of the other parts of the library strategic plan, these were really developed by staff. So we've seen the culture of the library and the values of the library change in the past few years.

and we wanted to make sure that that's reflected in our plan and enshrined in

our plan because we're very proud of what we do and how we do it. So we worked with all members of staff at all levels to come up with what you see here. So our

library values are that we are welcoming, we are inclusive, we are innovative, we are patron-centered, and we are community driven. And these really describe why we come to work every single day and they drive every...

we heard from the community task force that are important to them. Community members can gather and learn and thrive by utilizing the resources, programs, and services of the library. Community members connect with information, ideas, and each other at the library. Community members experience inclusive and welcoming library programs and services. And residents connect, sorry, throughout Monterey Park have convenient access to library resources. Next slide. Finally, we want to highlight the strategic imperatives. These fall into three categories of actions that are going to help us attain our goals, mission, and vision. In the plan itself, you'll actually see a much longer list of imperatives which fall under these three categories, activities, access, relevance, and engagement. Again, in the plan itself, you'll see each one of these strategic comparatives broken out for different resource categories, and we also have very specific goals under each one of those. As mentioned in one of the public comments, the library also has a matrix of specific actions that fall under each one of these strategic imperatives that we plan to carry out for the life of the plan. The matrix itself is probably six or seven pages long. So what you see here and what you see even in the plan, there's a deeper level of actions beyond that as well. So moving forward and next steps, as I mentioned, tomorrow morning we are going to be holding an implementation

workshop for staff. We're going to discuss the strategic plan more in detail and we're

going to start prioritizing some of the imperatives that we have moving forward. The plan is also going to be used, of course, to help set the library's annual goals for each one

of our divisions, and it's going to be used to track our progress in meeting those. We also are

going to be using the plan for budget planning in the upcoming years, deciding what to prioritize,

and planning for future grant funding as well. We will also be holding an annual survey for

for our users to measure user satisfaction and track our progress for our goals.

I just want to mention really briefly on the right-hand side of this slide, you'll see

a two-page document which provides a high-level overview of the strategic plan. This shorter overview is going to be translated into our community languages, so Chinese, Spanish,

and Vietnamese, in case members of the public are interested but might not want to read

an entire 15-page document that will be available to them.

That concludes my presentation.

Staff's recommendation this evening is that City Council receives and files the report,

and I'm available for any questions that you might have.

Council, any questions or comments?

Yes. Councilman Lo?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First of all, I just want to thank the library and those involved with the crafting of the strategic plan for investing many hours

as well as work with our community to receive very meaningful input

to making a library one of the best in the region, even better. And I think tonight we heard a lot of testimony, stories, and I'd like to, as Mike, share my own.

And this actually has to do with the community legal clinic that was convened this Saturday after the tragedy.

I know that in speaking to our librarian that there was concern about being only a week after the unfortunate tragedy was a good idea to move forward and whether or not people would come out. And I think that in a sign that it was probably a good idea to move forward was when we, those of us who had the time to stop by, we, well, first, what I remember seeing was probably 50 volunteers of attorneys, law students, and then seeing a equally large amount of larger number of people who were waiting in line to sign up for free legal advice. Yes. And, you know, I think one of my takeaways, too, was during the legal clinic, a volunteer who was, I believe, an attorney, or was a law student, I do forget. But, you know, she came up and she had asked, you know, was there any more that I can do for our community? Because I feel like there should be more. And I remember saying, you know what, the fact that you're here at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning, volunteering your time, speak volumes. And I think that, to me, just personifies the value of our library. You know, in the face of tragedy, we still move forward, providing a valuable service, which our community has come to expect. And the fact that we had successful turnout of volunteers and people looking for pro bono legal advice, really just, I think to me, is summarized as the value of our library. And so I want to thank Diana and your staff for just having the courage, and not just the courage and leadership, but also the steady hand that you've guided this library in the last three years,

especially in the face of the pandemic,

and also to the volunteers who are there every day, every week,

and in particular back to the legal clinic.

I just want to also give credit to one of the people who were involved in the organizing and that's our Commissioner Travis Kaya. I know that Mr. Kaya, of course, is very modest.

He'll say, well, I didn't do anything.

But I will say in talking to the other attorneys who were there and they said that actually Mr. Kaya did most of the running around of gathering materials and organizing. And so I think he personifies the type, the caliber of the people who support our library.

Councilwoman.

I'm done. Thank you. Sorry.

Yes, I'll go eat a cookie now.

Councilwoman, you.

Thank you. Wow. I would say very nice flyer. I can see that you put a lot of time and efforts to think of the whole plan.

and I think with Diana and Jennifer's leadership, our library is in very good hands. I'm very impressed with all the positive energy and attitude that Diana put together with the library and the teamwork. Every time we talk about library and the whole team show up and also whoever I talk to work in the library, they're all happy. They have very positive attitude, and I love that. I love that atmosphere that whenever I go into the library, I feel the good vibe and energy that is very positive in this library.

So thank you so much for the leadership, and very impressive. I hope my campaign can have this type of flyers. Thank you.

and folks who have spoke on behalf of the library thank you for your participation and for your service so I'd say this the library is pretty much a treasure

of this community

and I mean that in a sincere sense

as a benefactor

growing up as a kid spent time in the library when I had kids the kids went to the library so it helped me a whole lot because I was able to let him go study there. Look at the services we provide, from the pro bono legal services to the citizenship workshops to the behavioral and mental health aspects and the vital tax programs. One of the speakers mentioned this. We need to continue to invest and put money into this library because this is the treasure of our community, and we need to keep it that way.

Just to echo what has already been said as well, I appreciate the Diana and the library staff and everyone that was on the committee, the different various committees that contributed and the task force that contributed to building and putting this plan together. I really appreciate it and appreciate the effort that went into also engaging the community and making sure that the whole community was part of this process. extraordinarily thoughtful in terms of the outcomes and the kind of goals and plans going forward the next few years and as was already noted the library does a lot more than just provide books and newspapers for people to read provides a space for people come together and connects them to services

that they really need in their lives. Quick question I understand this is a

kind of a living document and I noticed in your presentation you added right the Services the library has been putting in Just in the last few weeks in response to the shooting and partnering with Chinatown service center Hopefully those will continue. I understand hope that this plan will continue to adapt as our community needs to adapt to changing conditions as well I guess this question is more for Ron maybe Are other departments at in the city looking at doing a similar process in terms of strategic planning and envisioning for the next few years as well?

Some of them have put this in the queue, and some of the departments just hasn't budgeted

for it yet, but I do know that they have discussed this in their own departments.

Yeah, it would just be great to be able to replicate this kind of process, at the very least in terms of engaging the community about what services are needed and what are taken advantage of and how do we restructure as appropriate any of the services we provide not just in the library but other other departments as well going forward I think that feedback would be really helpful for the council and for

staff without taking away what the library has done they've done a

phenomenal job at the leadership with you know miss Diana but we are we have

conducted a community assessment needs and so we have that on what the community is looking for and we'll adjust that at a later time but that

will lend to what we should be looking for to provide to our community but your comments are well well warranted thank you and hope that and encourage Diana

and the library staff and everyone, Diana, to come back. I know this is a multi-year plan. I would love to receive regular progress updates on a regular basis on this.

Yeah, absolutely. And just to mention, the library's various divisions of the library

set goals each year in the budget. So those goals are going to be drawn from the strategic

plan specifically. We also, to respond to your comment earlier, one of the things that we added

at the very last minute was a piece under the relevance, under strategic imperatives about

continuing to provide programs and services to support the mental health and well-being

of our residents.

And as mentioned, you know, for the strategic imperatives

in the strategic plan, they're set fairly broadly

so that it can be a living document and so that we can go each year

and decide exactly how we're going to accomplish

these strategic imperatives. I also wanted to recognize the other consultant that worked on the plan with us, Ruth Metz. She couldn't be here

tonight but she's watching at home I'm sure. Thank you and I also wanted to just

echo a little bit about what other council members said but I'm just always very amazed by a lot of the programming that you guys do at the library. I know as a parent I'm always looking at what you guys are doing and the other departments as well where I can take my daughter so I really appreciate all the program that you do and as a teacher in this community I know that our students and families heavily rely on a lot of the, not just the library as a space for them to visit, but also a lot of the program that you guys do. So very, very appreciative. I really enjoyed reading this two days ago

and going through the pages. It was actually quite a page turner.

It was very, very informative for me. So I appreciate that and appreciate your report.

Thank you.

Mayor, if I may add some additional comments? Yes, go ahead. Before you make a vote.

I'm going to embarrass Diana a little bit.

So I love all our department heads, but this is a time where I'm going to talk about Diana a little bit, just really briefly. Five years ago, roughly about five years ago, she became the librarian for our library. and getting here, getting here to where we're at, was a process of evolving, changing, and keeping what worked and throughout what didn't work. And having staff that created the horsepower for her to really create the vision of what the library was going to look like. Without a good leader, it would be very hard to evolve and innovate. She tapped into resources, as you all have heard, library board of trustees, volunteers from the community, high standard people, to get where we're at today. And hopefully everything works well and you'll adopt it. But what I would say is she has been a phenomenal leader in the library and somebody that's well-respected amongst her colleagues. And she and the library are just a great resource, and it's not just the library.

are day in and day out. Thank you.

Okay.

I'm happy to make a motion unless someone piece me to it.

I'll move. Okay. Let's take a vote.

Approved unanimously. Thank you.

Now half the population's leaving.

We should have saved that to the end of the agenda. No, stay. I have cookies. Thank you. If we could pull item 3E.

And is there a, was that BU reporting on this?

Yeah.

Yes. What? The 11 ones? Oh, if I could. Okay

Good evening mayor Sanchez members of the City Council. I'm Jessica Serrano the interim community development director

And I'm here to present Item the item regarding the RINCON agreement

This item is an award of contract to RINCON consultants to provide services related to the implementation of the 2021 through 2029 housing element and technical studies related to the sustainability plan that is currently underway and being developed. By approving this item City Council would be authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with

ring con consultants in an amount not to exceed approximately $301,000 and a budget appropriation of $70,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act funds to pay for this contract as background ring con consultants were previously awarded a contract to help with the preparation of the recently adopted housing element and and safety element and also environmental justice element. As we move on to the implementation phase of the housing element, assistance from RingCon is needed to help the city meet the program timeline step forth in the housing element and to process several code updates needed to bring the city up to compliance with state law. RingCon was determined to be the best consulting firm to assist the city with this work since they are most familiar with the city's housing element and would result in some time and cost savings. Additionally, RINCON's proposal includes technical assistance in sustainability related to climate change, which will help technical aspects of the city's sustainability plan that is being spearheaded by the Going Green campaign. The primary funding source for this contract comes from a grant called the Local Early Action Planning Grant Program, also known as leap grant and this grant was issued to the city from the California Department of Housing and Community Development and the amount of 300,000 leap grant will cover up to two hundred thirty one thousand dollars of ring cons proposal an authorized a budget appropriation of seventy thousand dollars from ARPA funds is required to pay for the remaining amount of ring RINCON's proposal. This concludes my presentation. Staff as well as staff from RINCON, Michael and Rima, who are on Zoom, are also available to answer any questions.

Any questions? Comments? Yes.

Councilman Lo? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Again, thank you very much for that presentation. You know, I was reading a staff report, and I know that last year we had to make some adjustments to our housing element, and I know it's been resubmitted. Where are we with that process, may I ask?

Sure. Great question. You were correct. In November, the city council approved an amendment. We submitted the housing element to HCD. HCD came back with a list of Corrections findings they call it Staff is working through those findings We consider those to be technical amendments to the housing element when City Council Approved the latest amendment in November you did authorize city manager city staff to Conduct or make any technical changes to that housing element. So that's what we're working through right now and we're really working closely hand-in-hand with HCD to get

certification hopefully in the next month. Mr. Mayor, members of the council if I can tag team on Jessica's comments. I will say this that one of the I guess beneficial

things that has come out of our recent tragedy is that many different state and The federal agencies provided us with business cards and asked us to contact them if we need any help with anything. We used one of those lifelines to try to have HCD come back to the table and talk to us about the housing element. From a staff's perspective, we have not talked about this with the city council in great depth, but we've been very frustrated with HCD's performance with regard to reviewing the housing element, and in particular the fact that it changed the review team after the city council's actions in November to the extent that all of a sudden we were completely out of compliance again. So we did use the lifeline to the governor's office to help us bring HCD back to the table and have a more reasoned discussion with it. But I wanted to have that discussion out in front with the city council for you to understand that staff has worked very hard for it, and at this point we had expected the housing element to be completely certified. I think HCD staff is working with the planning staff quite reasonably, and I use the term loosely, I suppose, reasonably, and as Jessica mentioned, I think that most of these are technical corrections that we can make without additional city council approvals based upon your past direction of this in november so we're hoping to wrap this up quite quickly we had hoped to have it wrapped up before today actually in order to qualify for grant funding three hundred and ninety thousand dollars of grant funding to put that in perspective the city has already expended more than 350 000 just putting together the housing element so in reality the grant funding would simply be and effectively reimbursing the city for the work that's already been done. That said, HCD has been very accommodating in terms of extending the opportunities for the city to still qualify for that, assuming that we are able to wrap up the housing element and the technical changes. So I just wanted that to be out there in front of the City Council for you to understand where staff is on with regard to that and to also thank the governor's office and HCD for helping us out on that.

Other questions?

On that note, Carl and Jessica, I mean, as a new council member, I wasn't here in part of the discussions in terms of putting the housing element together. I don't wonder if there's an opportunity to just provide a briefing for me or any other council members that might be interested just to dig down in those details. I'm just curious what the back and forth has been with HCD and where we're at.

Oh, we're happy to share.

and then uh i'm just curious i don't know jessica if you know off the top of your head what what i'm curious on what our progress to goal was for the last planning cycle uh for 2013 2021 in terms of meeting the different levels of of housing that we needed the different affordability levels if you don't have it off the top of your head just an email once you get back

Tomorrow or whatever we sure we can certainly get those numbers over to you

I can't say that market rate was probably the the target we hit the the most but

Affordability the Lor affordable units are the ones that the city struggled with so we can certainly share that with you

Thanks. No, that'd be helpful. I'm just hoping to see some or look for some context on that I know the next this coming cycles housing goals are much more aggressive

than even that.

Aside from the, other than the housing element, which I'm good with in terms of this item, I just wanted to see if you could highlight a little bit more what Rincon would do on the sustainability plan, unless the mayor has more questions on housing, but I wanted to see if you could provide some more details on the sustainability plan and what role Rincon would play there.

Sure. As part of the updates that are needed for the technical work that's needed for the sustainability plan,

in 2012, the city adopted a climate action plan.

And that climate action plan provided emissions targets and inventory. And so in order for us to evaluate whether we've made any progress based on those emissions, updated emissions and greenhouse gas emissions need to be provided which will be incorporated into the sustainability plan and based on those updated emissions inventories Rincon is also going to forecast you know what where we would be at at certain target years and they would also be proposing

recommendations for programs that will help us achieve the targets that the city sets forth

also which will also align with the governor's greenhouse gas emission targets as well.

Thanks Jessica and I was on the part of the virtual town hall meeting you had on the the Green Monterey Park, Going Green Monterey Park Initiative that includes the sustainability plan. Appreciate people who are tuning in. I know you have a series of meetings coming up as well to gather community outreach and feedback on putting this plan together and sustainably measures the community wants to see and prioritize. So appreciate the staff's efforts and our fellow and the consultants that are going to be working on gathering that. And I understand this timeline where I'm just going to look at through towards the end of the summer early fall to have this greenhouse gas inventory updated for us and help to build kind of the structure of what this plan might look like going forward I look forward to that coming back to council as it gets fleshed out a quick question on but I know part of the scope of the work here is an update or right looking at the 2012 greenhouse gas goals I mean just to put it out there as a thought not saying that we should do it but to put on the table I it I don't know how instructive it will be to have to go back to the 2012 numbers and see how much or not we met those goals because the right the metrics from 2012 and even from right the data the baseline data from what 2008 2009 is so it's it's very different than our current the current way and the more accurate ways that we now measure greenhouse gas emissions uh in the state and in the region uh i don't know if that if there's an opportunity to save money there just right we're essentially starting from scratch because the real goal is 2045 net zero for the state and we should align with that goal doesn't almost doesn't matter right whether we met our 2020 goals the goal is to get to net zero by 2045. So if we don't really need to go back to the old plan to see if we met it, because it doesn't really matter at this point we're going to zero, that's an opportunity maybe to just save some time and resources and just focus on how do we get to that actual goal in 2045, just to put out there for thought.

And then I understand that part of the scope is also, there's an option and it not clear if we have to purchase the additional option or if this is something that's already included in the scope now to have an annual tracker the cap dash and the be able to track our greenhouse gas emissions inventory for the city on an annual basis going forward to track progress the goal if that so my question I guess is do we need to pay additional

an additional cost

to be able to have the ability to use this tool or is that something that's just going to be built in

in this existing scope?

GreenCon included that amount in the proposal amount.

They included that tool in the proposal amount.

Now we have the option to opt in to purchase that additional work.

And we can certainly provide that option

to the City Council when the time comes when we get the emissions data and you know the council can say yes

We want to add this as an implementation measure

Yeah, no, I think it would be important. I think right no one's fault in terms of I don't know what happened right with it

emissions to net zero by 20 provide but other sustainably measures that we're going to be looking at through the larger plan besides just the greenhouse gas emissions reduction just to make sure that this doesn't right to make sure that we are keeping accountable to the plan that we approve as the council going forward and that the staff is moving ahead on this in a coordinated strategic way so just early comments on that and then the way the tool is set up from my reading, correct me if I'm wrong, is that the tool would be, would enable the staff to take over the annual emissions accounting and inventory. So that would be in-house, we could do that ourselves. We don't need to go out to a consultant again to get a new

DHT inventory for the city. That's also my understanding of it. I would want Rinkon to chime in and provide a little more detail on that if they're available. Yes, sir. That

That is correct. The way we set up CAPDASH is that it can be utilized by cities after we have completed our contract. So you can use the tool on an ongoing basis. The cost of managing it is built into our fee. And so you can conduct the annual emission inventory and provide updates on the CAPDASH tool that show progress against your measures without additional costs to the consultant. However, I do think that the 301 contract amounts does not include the additional cap dash costs. However, there is a contingency set aside that could be put towards the cap dash. That's part of the $301,000. And then we did note the inventory reconciliation task is perhaps not necessary and that could be a further conversation we are happy to have with the city. Great, thanks. I appreciate that.

And those are my questions on the GHG and the Climate Action Plan tool. I

appreciate the feedback. I'm looking forward to the plan as it develops and gets fleshed out coming back to Council and digging into that a little bit deeper. Hope the other community outreach events start to go really well and we get a lot of feedback and encourage everyone whoever else is might be watching to provide your feedback on the sustainability plan priorities that you want to see and sorry going back to the housing element another question or request I know the report reference the housing sites inventory right with our housing element to identify operate opportunities and places where we could place and we're looking to place housing and dense housing if I don't think that Was including the staff report unless I missed it if there's a way to send that to me or other council members that might be interested

I'm just curious where we identified those sites. We can certainly do that. Yes. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you so much for your work

Thank you any other questions or comments, okay

Would someone entertain a motion

I'll move to adopt staff representation a second

Okay, if we can vote

Approved unanimously. Thank you

And now we'll move to the public hearing items are there any comes okay?

Yes, we have comments for item 4a we received written correspondence from five committee members as well as additional correspondence that was received after the deadline. The five written correspondence that we received within the deadline are from Gregory Moss, Christine Lam, Karen Sam, Chuck Sam and Joe Buonya. I am going to read it verbatim because they are similar. They are writing to express their support for a ban on business offices using ground level office space in the city and so let me please clarify that for this item it is opposing the reversal of the ban so they support the ban I believe this

ban would provide a much-needed opportunity for small businesses and

restaurants to thrive in our community small businesses are the backbone of our economy and provide a unique character to our city however the current trend of offices taking up valuable ground-level space is making it difficult for small businesses to find

the space they need to succeed. This is especially problematic for restaurants which rely on foot

traffic and visibility to attract customers. By reserving ground-level spaces for small businesses and restaurants, we can create a vibrant and diverse commercial landscape that benefits everyone in our community. In addition, the presence of small businesses and restaurants can enhance the overall quality of life for residents by providing a variety of shopping and dining options, creating a sense of community, and generating local jobs. By making it easier for these businesses

to establish themselves, we can continue to the growth, continue to contribute to the growth

and prosperity of our city.

I strongly urge the City Council to take action on this issue

and implement a ban on business offices using ground-level office space.

This ban would be a positive step towards creating a more livable and thriving city,

and I believe it would be supported by the majority of residents in Monterey Park.

On to the public communication, we have our first speaker, Dora Leung.

Would you like to open the public hearing before?

I'll open the public hearing on item 4A.

Good evening, City Council, Mayor, and staff.

I'm here on behalf of the Greater Morning Park Chamber of Commerce.

The board, after considering the proposed ordinance, they vote in favor of the proposal

to allow both retail and office use on the ground floor.

The reason why is right now the ordinance, the current, is allowing retail only with the office with variance.

The proposal is allow office both retail and offices. I'm also a realtor and I'm also represent the Chamber as a board of the Chamber of Commerce to support the business. I talked to couple business owners. They want to know what's the reason behind the proposal needs to be done.

And on the other hand, I'm also vice chair of the Economic Development Advisory Committee. And thank you for the lead of Joseph Torres.

We have a lot of program.

I think the most important thing is how to help the business grow and recovery.

Retail is suffering. Office is suffering.

We hardly accommodate all the needs.

We understand that the bidet area has a lot of vacancies.

So think about it.

If your office allow only for particular reason,

for example, the handicap is not allowable for them to use on the ground floor, how they can do business. I talked to Allstate Insurance.

They also went through the conditional use permit and variance