City Council Meeting — April 19, 2023

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening. We're going to go ahead and get started, and I'll call the meeting to order at exactly 6.31 p.m.

If we can do our flag salute first.

If we can please stand.

maar maar maar maar maar maar maar maar maar maar maar maar maar maar maar maar

maar maar ! ! !

Put your right hand over your heart. 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.

God are all your colors.

maar maar maar !

post color

maar ! 高校

! 高校

! 高校 maar !

Thank you. Please take your seat.

We'll go ahead and continue with the roll call.

Council Member Lo.

Present.

Council Member Yu.

Here.

Council Member Ngo. Present.

Mayor Pro Tem Huang.

Here. Mayor Sanchez.

Here. We have a quorum.

Thank you. And are there any agenda additions, deletions, changes, or adoptions?

None from the city manager's office.

None from the city attorney.

Okay. Thank you. So we'll go ahead and move on to public communications.

Do we have any public communications? Yes. First speaker, Nai Kong Liu.

Hi, everybody.

Oh, if you can come up here. Thank you.

Thank you. Hi, everybody. My name is Naikong Lu. I'm one of the survivors at the Slot Dance studio shooting.

Actually, I was the first one who called the 911 call.

And first, I want to thank you for the city letting us using the clubhouse last Saturday for our first meeting.

And besides provide us for the special good lunch over there.

I would like to say something about the funding they had. They already got from GoFundMe. the Asian Americans Advancing Justice is a non-profit organization which they organized the funding.

But so far they have only funded some people who passed away and some people who were injured. But none of our about 50 survivors, they haven't done anything. So we just stopped there. because they said that we are only the victims people, not the victims. I remember the last Saturday, the two detectives, they were there to interview us here overnight. They also mentioned we are actually the victims at the same time. So I hope the city can do something for us because we are stuck over there. and they just ignore us. So I hope anything the city can do will be really appreciated. Thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker, Nancy Akuri.

Good evening, everybody. I want to ask the city council about Southern California Edison news article that was posted on ABC News the other day. Southern California Edison was one of the three power companies in California required to base their rates on an individual's income. The news article stated that their corporation would set up different levels for their ratepayers based on their income. I asked Thomas Wong about this on April 15th, who would provide them with each individual annual income. Would Edison receive copies of their customers' California state returns? Thomas stated that this issue is required by the elected officials in Sacramento, not by Southern California Edison. Since our city council deals with our elected officials in Sacramento, I want to know what legal rights does the Sacramento group have to release our state tax returns to our electric company. The next thing our city officials may have to be required, that our water customers disclose their income for a Lor rate. I believe all the consumers must pay for their usage of electricity, gas, water, phone, internet, credit cards, as well as their rent or mortgage. Please let the Monterey Park residents know what legal rights the elected officials in Sacramento have to demand that we declare our income for any utility services. Please ask them. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, for the Mr. Liu.

Mr. Liu?

I don't know if we can get staff to make sure we have this contact information to reach

out after.

Yes, we have it.

No, it's okay.

We'd love to just make sure we get in touch. I don't know if you're attending this state for the full meeting, but I would love to

make sure we follow.

Next speaker, Sarkis Antonian.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Member, Staff, Audience. I kind of, not kind, I would amen to what Nancy says. So I was at the Ford dealer getting the oil change through the warranty work. And I'm looking at Mustang E's. So the markup is like 70,000, 80,000. And so they're going to get rid of the gasoline and diesel vehicle and tell us to get an electric vehicle. Okay, so that's one part of dictatorship. And now getting rid of the gas stove, that's another dictatorship. And my dad's side came from Russia. So why would I want to live in a dictator's country, and why would these wars fought for freedom? So they want me to have an electric vehicle instead of sending the money over to Ukraine and all these other foreign countries, especially the ones that don't care for this country at all. If you're going to be a dictatorship, then you're going to start giving people money to get these electric vehicles and the gas stoves. And this all started with the low emission water heaters about 15 years ago. So that's one thing right there. So gas stove cooks better than electric. So I don't know what they're getting off on. They want people to be getting this. Yeah, fork over their money. But with a $31 trillion debt, this country don't have any more money to be spending like they're spending with this administration. Well, yeah, another thing is how many illegals are coming over the border that's coming through California, let alone Arizona, Texas? And therefore, we don't know those figures where they're coming from all over the world. And I mentioned the fentanyl last time I was here. So now they're on the fentanyl. They're getting that stuff going on. And then your George Soros that's put all these DAs in coast to coast. Well, right there, your DA, that Gascon, he wasn't a DA, like, graduating high school, going to law enforcement to be a DA. He was a sales manager at City Ford close to Dodger Stadium at one time. And I believe he doesn't have the education. So there's three officers that were killed. two in El Monte and one in Monterey Park that he let out early. And that's how your George Soros likes it, where they let him out if they keep on doing the crime. There's a lot more crime going around over here. And I'm pretty sure you saw yesterday where that one lady that lost his son that was fighting in Iraq that got stabbed so many times in New York. So that's coast to coast and even Chicago too. So New York, like Frank Sinatra says, The song, I'm pretty sure if Frank Sinatra was alive today, he'd be ashamed what's going on in New York, in all these states,

because that George Soros, he's a Jew, and back in World War II, he was turning in Jews with his father.

And by that side, he was in a camp in Stuttgart. That was a war camp. And then there was another Russian guy in the Russian Army. He recently passed. He was 101. He was in a camp in Berlin. So that side family came from Russia in the camp in Germany, and they called them DPRmenians. And they came here, and they were always telling us, hey, watch it, son, daughter, because this country can go communism, and it's starting already, with the electric car, the gas stove,

and telling kids, oh, you're not a girl, you're not a boy, so they do the surgeries and all that. if that was 10 15 years ago you'd be seeing people in jail so what's the deal with this and why am i

going to this because like nancy says you see them in sacramento and you see them in washington dc and this administration according to mark lindale he spent over 40 million dollars and those computers were were hacked this state they hacked the 2020 election a million and a half ballots were stolen from Trump that went to Biden, Texas, and Florida. And this deal with Fox, that Murdoch's and the

Soros, they're all buddies. So that amount of money doesn't want to hurt that Murdoch

anything. And look into it.

This country going upside down, and I'm looking at communism

where father's side came from

there and you look into it.

Next speaker, Leticia Aceved.

Hi there. Good evening. My name is Leticia Aceved. I've been a resident here in Monterey Park for over 50 years. I come here today to address an issue that our neighborhood has been dealing with for many decades. My home is located on Schoolside Avenue and Cesar Chavez. Behind my home is an alleyway, which happens to be right near Robert Hill Lane Elementary School. In the time that my family and I have lived there, it's never been completely repaved for over five decades. There have been many years when someone would come by and fill the potholes, but never have we had it on a consistent basis nor do we know when it's going to happen they just kind of come by fill a pothole and they're out of there They just kind of come by, fill the pothole, and they're out of there. ! When I started to inquire about this issue, I reached out to our new mayor, Mayor Sanchez. ! Thank you, Mayor, for your responsiveness and for being willing to come out to see the alley, ! To see the issues at hand. I appreciate that. ! I'm not sure if you guys are all aware how busy this particular alleyway is. Many parents from the schools come through this alley to drop off and pick up their children after school. We also have local residents of all ages walking through the alley, sometimes to the vote at Robert Hill Lane, or just doing an occasional stroll. I also would like to mention that hill lane or just doing an occasional stroll. I also would like to mention that the alley serves a pathway where the LAUSD trucks drop off food and educational supplies several times a week. At this school, there are two parking lots where the teachers and staffs park, and the only way to access it is through the alley. The alley also serves as a thoroughfare for college students from East Los Angeles College. They're constantly walking down the alleys because it's located right near my home. So I stand before you here today to invite you, the members of the city council, to come on down, take a stroll down my alley, if you dare. In all seriousness, I ask you, my dear city council and Mr. Sanchez, to do the right thing and fix the alleys in Monterey Park. This particular alley behind my home has as much use as a residential street does. Since the residential streets are maintained on a regular basis, this alley should be treated the same way. I've seen our residential streets, specifically the ones near my home, being done every couple of years on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, they recently redid them so beautifully after the rains so now you're able to walk and drive on them safely.

The longer we wait and delay fixing the alleys on a consistent basis

is what has led us to this day today.

Now we have to do a total repavement of the entire alley. If the city would just repave all the alleys, get them on a maintenance schedule, we wouldn't have to go through this again. Lastly, I wanted to make sure I remind you as well

big trash collection trucks that come by to collect recycle, greens, and trash. That's three big trucks every week coming through our

alley. These are big trucks that damage the roadways terribly on a weekly basis. It's so dangerous to haul your trash cans out to the alley because of the unevenness and large potholes.

This is a huge liability for Monterey Park and the citizens of Monterey Park. So I have a few questions for you. I would like to know, in this year's budget, does this show how much is allocated towards alley maintenance and how often that they should be maintained?

I've noticed that streets are being done around the city and that money gets earmarked for residential streets,

but how do we get that done for the alleys?

and is there any money this year left to repair my alley specifically because it's so busy

so i want to come back in 30 days if i can to come back and have my answers

you know and my questions answered um that was it thank you so much for listening i will

be back in 30 days i will email you mayor sanchez thank you so much

Thank you so much. Thanks for coming. And we will get back to you. Next speaker, Cindy.

Oh, my goodness. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. First of all, congratulations to the Cherry Blossom Festival for a successful event after a three-year absence. It was a great time to see the community out there and to see the vendors sell out. I wanted to speak on three issues. On page one of the city council thing here, the rule on page one under public participation,

first paragraph, last sentence,

states written communication will be accepted up to 24 hours before the meeting via email to

mpclerk at montereypark.ca.gov be adjusted with two paid city employees and one elected official along with today's technology a simple click and print and placed on the city clerk's desk before the city council meeting is sufficient time. I hope a city council person will request a visit of the simple rule

to engage dialogue rather than suppress residents' voices.

And that's the reason why I'm here talking on Agenda Item 3i

because my life is pretty hectic as it is.

On Agenda Item 3i, there's a plan for a last mile distribution, a retail warehouse, and a retail building.

As a resident, I prefer an Ikea or a combined TJ Maxx and HomeGoods Center like in Downey and Monrovia. I sincerely hope Agenda Item 3I addresses improvements on the entrances and exits of Marketplace. Social media has shown many negative comments by consumers avoiding the area due to the poor design infrastructure regarding traffic flow

and the small individual stop signs along the only pathway. I hope they can expand the street by creating an easier flow to the various businesses and add an exit out of the marketplace and onto the 60 freeway heading west.

Thirdly, this council and city development department has a golden opportunity to soar above the surrounding communities who have redeveloped in the past 10 years by inventing attractive retail and quality shopping and dining for residents and non-residents. The corner of Atlantic and Garvey is an eyesore to the city. We could be the LA La Cienega restaurant role of the East. Thank you.

Next speaker, Kailea Garfield.

Good evening. My name is Kylia Garfield. I am part of a youth-led organization that is hosting an Earth Day thrift sale to promote sustainability.

It is on April 22nd, 12 to 4 p.m. on Graves Avenue, Monterey Park.

We're also having snacks and music. Furthermore, 10% of the proceeds will go towards sustainability organizations. We're also asking for donations of lightly used clothes.

Donations will continue to be accepted until Thursday, April 20th. Please come by to support the environment and our student-run organizations.

More information can be found on the Hamburger Young Dems Instagram.

I also have a flyer if you would like to know more. We're so excited to see everyone this Saturday.

Sorry, what time was that Saturday? 4. 4. 4.

4. 4. 12 to 4. 4.

Okay. And I'm going to share with you. You want the flyer? Yeah.

On the radio set? Great. Have it.

The flyer has a full.

Next speaker, Mayshelle Yee.

Good evening. My name is Mayshelle Yee, and I'm speaking as a resident.

I'm going to say this for the record because some people clearly need to hear it again,

and sadly because this bad behavior is apparently pervasive in our city.

not telling the whole truth omitting details to make yourself look better purposely concealing information is pretty much the same as lying cut it out stop it's especially concerning when done

against the backdrop of attempting to set some sort of moral standard with this fake code of

conduct. What, being decent and moral pertains to everyone else, yet you don't have to be accountable or hold yourself to the same standards? What is that? I'm sick and tired of having to say

this over and over again. Just stop. Thank you. Next speaker, William Yin of the Los Angeles

County Asian American Employees Association.

next speaker william yen of the los angeles county asian american employees association

Hello everyone. Actually I was intending to come here and speaking in support with my

colleague pastor eric chen in regards to his uh efforts in assisting the monterey park tragedy

shooting uh that happened a couple of months ago i was actually hoping to build off of what he was going to talk about but it looks like i'm here first um let's see a little bit about myself my name is william yen part of the la county asian american employee association i've worked for the la county for the past three years and i think ever since we started opening up from the lockdown

I began to or sorry my organizations began to a lot more outreach in regards to community activism and

community outreach in regards to such as like voter issue voter issues awareness and voter turnout and helping in regards to redistricting and

Gerrymandering as well as trying to help promote at like a API

AAPI County employees to help promote so

I'd say starting a couple months ago So after that tragedy, it kind of spurred a lot of intense feelings in our organization.

So many of us live in Marmarie Park and living in San Gabriel Valley and, of course, L.A. County since we're L.A. County employees.

And I'll just, I guess, speak as a short little story.

After the tragedy happened, I literally lived two blocks away from where the shooting happened. All my friends were concerned. I was okay. and then shortly after that once we got more details a lot of friends both in government and out of government knowing how I'm kind of active in community outreach reached out to me saying hey I want to help these victims and survivors like what what do we do tell us where to go unfortunately after you know I couldn't really tell him what to do that's not my specialty I'm not a

disaster services worker I'm not a logistics expert you know I'm just a you

know county employee without any of that specialization but I am a passionate Monterey Park resident I've lived here ever since I came back from college and I've been here for about 15 almost 20 years I'd say and this tragedy has

struck a really deep nerve and I guess I don't say kind of awoke and even further

awakening in my civic spirit. So because of that, within my organization, Lisea for short, I've been pushing a lot of figuring out how we can get us county employees to work together with the city because it felt like, number one, there's not much coordination, not much contact because we all have our daytime jobs and we volunteer on the side and we do what we can. And there's no real official way to interface. And because of that, I've been trying to make as many

inroads as I can. I've been helping my friend Eric and in the process of that, I met some

good people such as Amy, Yvonne, a couple of places, I bumped into Vinn, I think Tom,

I think, I'm not sure. Throughout all the different events that we've held in regards to the tragedy and i've been trying to figure out like what can i do in regards to my organization to bring us all together and figure something out licea is a great resource that can be used to help our community we have you know over 2 000 aapi county employees all throughout the county

and we all live in these various communities whether it's monterey park san gabriel valley just we're all over the place and we can be a great interface in figuring out like what we can

do to help each other faster because one of the biggest tragedies or one of the biggest problems after that tragedy was I was able to organize a meeting between Hilda Solis's office that was chaired by her senior justice deputy Esther Lim and got together a bunch of county representatives

from different departments such as mental health,

district attorney's office, emergency disaster services, coroners, sheriffs.

And I was surprised that there is a lot of outpouring support from the county. Hiddlest Police, Judy Chu, they want to help.

Problem is they have their large jurisdictions and they don't know exactly how to target that help. And they need people like us on the ground, the people, the local people, to kind of give them targeting data. They go, yo, you got to talk to these people.

here here here because they themselves they will they wield great power and immense resources but the problem is they don't know exactly where to go and i feel like as a member of this community and a member of a member of working for the county people like us in licea as well as other uh

employee associations like lacaea which is la county asian african-american employee association lachma la county hispanic managers association we can all be great resources to interface account i I was wondering if it was possible for me to get time extension, ask for permission.

Maybe like two or three minutes. maybe like two or three minutes

okay um all right eric

! eric can see some of his time to you yes and come up together and share the time

! if you don't mind i'll just stand by him

okay

um if it's okay with council can we give him another minute

!

thank you! thank you so much for the extension basically i'm here to represent my organization and i want to reach out to of my organization and I want to reach out to you guys personally to see what we can do to help.

Last week at the Long Beach Marriott, we hosted an executive retreat for all the, I guess,

division chiefs, executives, and up-level AAPI employees in the county. We had people show up

such as like Lisa Wong, recently confirmed AAPI department chief of the Department of Mental Health,

as well as her chief of staff, Patty Choi. Yvonne Yu made a graceful appearance, and she was able to speak also about that tragic event. Basically, I feel like there's a lot of resources out there. The county has said this much,

but we really got to find a way to tap into it. And I really feel like, you know,

I don't know where to go exactly or how to go about it,

but, you know, that's why I'm kind of here and spreading my idea and hoping that

maybe you guys can give us an idea where to go because there's a lot of energy out there that I want to help. Let's figure out how we can harness it. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Last speaker, Dora Leung with the Greater Monterey Park Chamber of Commerce.

good evening i'm so happy to come back from asia yesterday and i still have a little jack but this is a great event that i need to invite all city council and residents and staff to come down here. After three years, Chamber has difficulties to put this out because we don't have people to work in the restaurants. Bob Fisher come back to ask me, I am ready. So our cars and pie back to town in April 23rd, this Sunday, early bird, 7 o'clock to 11 a.m. They are very happy to present the brunch. I know that a lot of people are looking forward to have this brunch time. Right now, we can serve. So Bob is very happy that Chamber is helping us out. All cars, whether you're a light truck, vans, you name it, come over. I remember last time when we mentioned about with Vingo, I remember Ron, our city manager, has very collectible cards too. So please join us 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. on this Sunday. I got this inspiration from Arcadia. Arcadia, they did wonderful jobs. They have all kinds of people gathered together. So this is a great opportunity. We will have community fun. And, you know, all these projects happen. So I would love to have more invitations for every single one, especially thank you so much for our Mayor, Jose Sanchez, for all this event, our Mayor Pro Tem, Thomas Wong, Council Member Vingol, Council Member Elon Yu, and Council Member Henry Lo. My pleasure, and this is all I have. The other announcement is I'm sure that everybody knows that I want to thank all the nominations for the Congresswoman Judy Chu. Every city, there's a Woman of the Year. This year, I'm the recipient from the Woman of the Year in the city of Monterey Park representing. I'm working for the last 10 years. this is the time that I got this award. I invite everyone to know me and nominate me. Coming over, Ivana Xu will be my contact. Please let me know. Text me. I'm more than happy. They are alLod only nine guests. I tell Lindsay, I have more than nine guests here. Please come on in. Thank you for your support. I appreciate that. Thank you. Good night. No other speakers. Thank you, Dora, and congratulations.

So we'll go ahead and head into staff communications and if we can start with our economic development

department.

Mr. Mayor, while Joe is coming up, if I can address or ask staff to quickly respond to at least one of the comments. I know it's come up a number of times for the public participation and the written communication

deadline.

I know we're limited in terms of our responses, but I just wanted to ask the city clerk's

office.

We do, I know and I believe we do make every effort to include written comments that are sent in even after the deadline to include those for city council, right?

That is clear.

So it's just I see the city clerk shaking her head but I don't know if I know that this is in place because there are times where we can be overwhelmed with a lot of public comment and it does take time to put these comments together. so we do set this deadline out but the staff and I think with the assistance of the City Clerk helps to put if we do receive comments after the 24-hour deadline we do do our best to include those for the City Council to take a

look at and they are included in the public record right yes so great

communications that are received within within a time frame within the 24 hours

we do have to sort them and depending on certain items if some of the items There may be a you know a lot of great communications So I do have to sort them and then we also have to email it to the Council so that at least give you guys time to review it as well and the city clerk

We also post that on the website if anything that's received after

the cutoff we still do post that on the website thereafter

Yeah, go ahead the the request is just to extend the deadline for a few hours the deadline currently is 6.30 at night, right? And so the office is closed, so there's no work being done. And so the request is to extend the deadline until maybe noon, the day of the meeting. And so it's only a few hours more because the office isn't open until 8, right? And so just for that public perception that we are trying to make some accommodation to extend it just a little bit more within to, of course, to allow the staff to continue to do their work in sharing the information, but then also compromising with the public in allowing just a few more hours. And at least it's the same day as the meeting. So it's public perception that it's some extension of courtesy.

I'm happy to defer to staff on working this out.

I think there's a happy compromise here. and I think maybe we can just adjust the language because I think there's some misunderstanding

that we absolutely don't take comment after the 24-hour deadline, but we do, and we do our best to include that in the public record. Maybe there's a way to note that we can't guarantee that all these written communications

will be packaged together

if they're after a certain deadline received, but that the staff will make every effort to make sure that council is made aware of comments that are coming in after the 24 hour or whatever deadline. I think we can just clarify that.

Sure, we can work on the language.

Yeah, I want to echo Council Member Wang's approach. I think, if I remember correctly, we have seen those after the hours. I don't think there's many. In fact, staff report, can you guys confirm? Because I asked this question last session or the session before. And I think the answer was no. Have we had any communications come in the day of? And if you can confirm that.

There has been communications that has come past the deadline that has been denied. That's why the resident came to the meeting to speak on behalf.

So we have, so the written communication that comes in, if we have received the day of, we did receive a communication after the deadline, it will be posted on the website. We usually try to post it by the next business day. So we do post it, and we do provide it to city council as well. So it is included in the record. But we can definitely look at the time frame. And in addition, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, just for clarification, our agendas, our city agendas are being posted on Thursdays. which gives the public one additional day to review the agendas. Previously, when the City Hall was open on Fridays, we were posting the agenda on Fridays.

So there is one additional day for review for the public,

but we can definitely take a look if that's Council's direction.

Okay. Thank you, Joe. The floor is yours.

My pleasure, Mr. Mayor. Good evening. Mr. Mayor, Mayor, Pro Tem, Council members.

This is your Economic Development Manager, Joe Torres, speaking. I am here tonight to announce that the City of Mineroy Park is partnering with the U.S. Small Business Administration, or SBA, to offer low-interest economic injury disaster loans, or EIDL, to small businesses and nonprofits that have been economically impacted by the recent mass shooting and related investigation that occurred in our city from January 21 to 28.

Next slide, please.

The city and the SBA fully recognize the adverse human and economic impact that the Monterey Park mass shooting and related investigation have imposed on our community. We understand that small business and nonprofit organizations have been hit hard, and we want to provide some assistance to help with the healing process and foster overall recovery. These low-interest loans may be used to pay fixed debts, accounts payable, payroll, and other bills that cannot be paid because of the disaster's impact. These loans have a low interest rate of 3.3% for small businesses and 2.4% for nonprofits with payment terms of up to 30 years. Eligible businesses and nonprofits of any size may qualify for EIDL loans of up to $2 million. In contrast, without the EIDL, the Lost SBA loans typically have interest rates of 8% to 13% with payment terms of only 7 years. Eligibility is based on the financial impact of the Monterey Park disaster only. However, a business operating outside of Monterey Park but is in L.A. County and doing business with an impacted business in Monterey Park may also apply. For instance, a Long Beach-based food distributor delivering food supplies to a Monterey Park restaurant that has experienced decreased orders because of the shooting's impact on that Monterey Park restaurant may also apply for the EIDL loan.

Applicants may apply online at sba.gov forward slash disaster.

We understand that applying for the EIDL loan may be intimidating for some of our English language challenge minority businesses. So, in addition to ongoing multi-language announcement to the community, your Monterey Park Economic Development Team is working with the SBA, state, and county officials to deliver one-on-one EIDL application assistance to our minority-owned small business community. We will announce the schedule of those one-on-one assistance events in the coming days. We want to ensure that all our community's small business and non-profits can access the resources and support they need during this challenging time. Again, the City of Monterey Park and the SBA are committed to supporting our business community. We encourage all eligible small businesses and non-profits impacted by the disaster to apply for the EIDL loan. Mr. Mayor, Mayor, Pro Tem, Council Members, thank you for your attention. I'm happy to answer your questions.

Any questions? Yes, Mr. Mayor, may I? Go ahead. Thank you, Joseph, for that presentation.

And I'm very pleased that the Small Business Administration is providing these low-interest

assistance loans to our businesses.

So far do we know if any businesses have applied so far for this program? I know it's just been announced, but do we know if already any businesses have tried to apply for them?

It goes directly to the SBA, Council Member Lo. So we are requesting the SBA to provide us with a report, if possible, on Monterey Park businesses that we'll be applying.

And is there any point of contact?

Because, I mean, I know, like, I know what this is, spa.gov disaster.

But at the same time, there are regional offices. Like if I'm not mistaken, SBA has a regional office at the campus of Pasadena Community College. So therefore, do we have that that we can post to the public a point of contact? Therefore, do we have that that we can post a point of contact or if we can establish ! Because as you said, language is an issue. But again, if you're not familiar, if you're trying

! to call an agency, you may get an automated message.

! But I think if we can also have a point of contact as well, that we could post for businesses to reach out.

! If SBA has that capacity.

! Yes, we actually are

Your economic development team is actually working very closely with the Pasadena Small Business Development Center or SBDC.

They're the ones that you're talking about that's based at the Pasadena College campus. They're the ones that you're talking about that's based at the Pasadena College campus.

They will be providing the multi-language assistance on a one-on-one basis. We're also working with several nonprofits, including PACE in Los Angeles. We're also working with the LAEDC for them to provide the business technical assistance. and we are going to be meeting with these non-profit agencies and economic development partners on a regular basis so that we can coordinate our efforts and measure our success in terms of getting our business community to actually apply for these loans. We're also going to be designating El Encanto as our business assistance center for EIDL. So as we put all these logistics together, we will be making those announcements to the community and making sure that they're distributed in all the native languages that our community has.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions from Council?

And Joe, I believe we are going to work with PACE and SBA to do some actual door-to-door marketing and engagement with the businesses in the downtown area with this program and other programs that are available for both the businesses that have been likely impacted and nonprofits that are in the area, right?

That is correct, Mayor Pro Tem.

We actually had a lot of success with the L.A. County Economic Opportunity Grants when we had the L.A. County Department of Economic Opportunity sanction a nonprofit organization to knock door to door to promote these one-on-one business assistance event. It was held at El Encanto, and because of that effort, we ended up assisting more than 70 local small businesses to apply for the Economic Opportunity Grants, which was a tremendous success. So we're going to use that same model for the EIDL loan. One thing that we have going for our favor here is that the EIDL loan, unlike the grants, has a one-year window to apply for the loan itself. So it expires, I believe, January 31st. Actually, yeah, January 21st, so more than one year. January 21st, 2025. E-25, but I'll confirm that. But we have at least one year, as I understand it, from the SBA. And again, this EIDL loan is not available to everyone. This was something that was done as a result of the SBA administrator's visit here in Monterey Park about a couple of months ago. We had the opportunity to ask her to EIDL, and for us to be, for our business community to have access to EIDL, the governor actually has to declare our city as a disaster area. So we have their cooperation in this. We have their full support. And with the SBA administrators' support as well, that's why we have this EIDL loan exclusively for our city. So it's a tremendous achievement for our community. And that's why we will do all possible to make sure that our business community is taking advantage of this opportunity. That's great. And my understanding

I think is the SPA also going to be working on translating the actual application into languages?

Yes.

They actually have been starting to provide us with some of those applications in some foreign languages.

We have one in Korean.

We have one in Mandarin. So they're working on a Spanish version. So we're going to be sure that we cover all the native languages that we have.

Great.

If we can continue to promote this program and the other resources that are being made available to impacted businesses and groups here in the city and beyond, I would love to continue to highlight that and see what else we can do to promote.

Absolutely. It's going to be a multi-pronged approach.

We're going to promote it in the community through all the communication venues that the city has, whether it's social media, email blast, door-to-door. And again, we're soliciting the support of our economic development partners and other agencies. So we're going to make sure that our business community is fully aware of this wonderful opportunity.

Joe, I have one more question for you.

Do we know the turnaround for the applications? I know for small businesses, getting the money is very important. but do we know what the turnaround is time time frame wise for businesses that apply for these

loans we're still getting kind of an estimate of that time frame but one one thing that we were

assured was and i know and i know exactly why you're asking mr mayor because during the pandemic

the eidl loan processing was notoriously long because obviously there were millions of applications that were going in. Keep in mind that this EIDL program is exclusively just for

the city of Monterey Park. So you're only potentially, you know, they're only going to

be processing potentially maybe just a handful of applications compared to what they handled during the pandemic. So it's going to be relatively easy. I mean, a short processing period. I was assured of that by the SBA. As far as the exact timeline, we're still waiting for

that okay and then on your end can you see when local businesses apply and kind of be able to figure out like a time frame like how long it took them from the day they submitted an application to

when they received actual you know an actual loan we're gonna we're gonna try to work with our sba

counterparts to give us a kind of a periodic report on the number of applications they're

receiving from our city and from our region, because again, even businesses that are outside of the city of Monterey Park may also avail of this program. But when we start doing our one-on-one business assistance event, we can more easily track how many business come in through those events and actually apply for the loan. So that we can track for sure, because we're going to be working with them along with our economic development partners like PACE or LADC, but as far as the ones that may be going directly to SBA by submitting their loans online, we're going to try to work with the SBA and see if they can provide us with a regular report.

Okay. Did you have a question?

If I may.

Just a suggestion, or if not, so it sounds like we are working with SBA and some partners

like PACE, but I think it's important also that if we can have the capacity, help these applicants even fill out the application.

And the reason why I say it is because, again, especially if one has never dealt with a government

agency, and sometimes these applications, I mean, I haven't seen the application for the EIDL, but from my own experience, you know, sometimes literally like not dotting an I or causing a T can make a difference in delaying, which was the case during the pandemic, business that applied with the SBA for a paycheck protection program or even applying for EDD with the state.

Little mistakes can actually delay the program, and I just

hope that if we can, not just provide

the information, but if possible, even help fill out the applications

because I think that's very critical because I think, at least for me, you know, over the years I've seen so many examples where people, again, innocently, mistakenly may not have filled out something correctly and it can cause delays up to months. You know, nothing that's going to happen here, but I just think that it would probably be helpful if we can find a way to also not just be a clear enough information, but even assistance in completing the information, filling it out, even providing the proper information that the program may be asking for? That's exactly what we plan to do with those one-on-one business assistance events

that we're going to be holding.

We're actually not just going to inform them about the program, but we're actually going to assist them apply for the loan. So we're going to ask them to bring their financial documents with them. We're going to ask them to bring whatever paperwork is required. and we're actually going to have multi-language consultants that are going to be sitting down with our business owners on a one-on-one basis and actually hold their hand through the process from start to finish. That's exactly what we did with the economic opportunity grants for the LA County. We assisted more than 70 business owners one-on-one where they actually submitted their application on the spot. So we knew that they submitted their application forms. And hopefully with these events, we can track the number of applications that are actually going to be submitted by our residents, by our business owners.

Not only that, the reason for these one-on-one events, and this is based on my experience with during the pandemic,

when the EIDL and PPP loan programs boxed out a lot of minority-owned businesses

because a lot of those small businesses don't even know what a financial statement is.

And they probably do their payroll with cash, and they've never even filed a tax return. So we need to focus on those businesses, make sure they're not boxed out of this opportunity. We're going to sit down with them, show them what a financial statement looks like, help them put together a business plan, and all those that may be required by this application process.

So we're going to make sure that everyone's covered.

You're welcome.

Joe, thanks for the presentation. My understanding from the visit from the SBA administrator, it's been like two months now, was that PACE was kind of the local liaison with them for this process. So I know we're doing whatever we can do to help, and I'm glad we're doing that. But you may want to just double check with PACE because they've got the language skills to help as well. So let's just confirm. I mean, whoever is going to do it doesn't matter, but let's just make sure someone's doing it.

We are actually already working with PACE. So I hear you. Yeah, we are working with them.

In fact, they were the frontline nonprofit organization that actually reached out to us and said, hey, we got the resources, we got the manpower, we got the personnel, we're good to go, and we are going to leverage that resource. but we're also working with other agencies to provide us with those multi-language consultants. Because keep in mind, this is going to be ongoing for about a year, let's say several months. So it's going to be an ongoing process. So we're going to need all the help we can get, not only from PACE, but from all our economic development partners.

Well, thank you so much, Joe, for that presentation and for your help with helping coordinate all of this. And we look forward to hearing more about how this program has helped some of the businesses in our community that have been impacted by the tragedy that happened on the 21st of January.

Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you.

Our next staff communication, Fire Department.

Good evening, City Council members, Mayor, Assistant City Manager, everyone else.

I'm Engineer David Goetz with the Monterey Park Fire Department. And this Saturday, the 22nd, the Fire Department is going to be hosting a community preparedness clinic at Barnes Park here, kind of between City Hall and the gym. basically we're going to be going over things that you at home can do to help prepare you and your family in case there is a major disaster and then also some other tips of what you can do just you know for you know utility shutoffs things to do during the disaster things to think about

afterwards so that you and your family are better prepared and that should the big earthquake or

something else disastrous happen, you are prepared, not scared, as we like to say.

And hope to have you out from 10 to noon. We'll be out there. We have our cert trailer that kind

of has a little demonstration of all of our utility shutoffs.

We have some paperwork to kind of give out, kind of like some

stuff to a literature

to take home as a friendly reminder of stuff we may be going over.

Demonstration, kind of take a look at also

just emergency supplies and things to kind of have to be prepared. So hope to see you out there again this Saturday, April

20 i'm sorry yeah april 22nd from 10 to noon at barnes park thank you any questions or comments

from council is is it just going to be out here on the baseball field or uh yes yes just kind of

between the city hall and the gym that where the uh back of the parking lot kind of butts up against the grass right there so that people kind of walk in being out in the park during the day can

kind of mosey on over hopefully learn something to help them out during the day can kind of mosey on over hopefully learn something to help them out in the future ! Thank you for the invitation thank you hope to see you there

! Our next staff communication recreation and community services !

Good evening Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, council members, Robert Aguirre, Director of Recreation

and Community Services. I'm here to share with you some of the upcoming events and also wanted

to start off by thanking everyone for coming out this past week in Cherry Boston Festival our 24th maar maar

by thanking everyone for coming out this past week in Cherry Blossom Festival, our 23rd annual Cherry Blossom Festival.

Tremendous turnout.

So I just want to first start off by thanking all of our city staff. Not only was my department involved in planning this event, but numerous other departments, police, fire, planning with Earth Day,

also our public works department.

It's really a global effort between all the departments to help put this on this event. So I just want to definitely shout out all the city departments for their help in making this successful. I also want to shout out to all the residents and all those folks that came from neighboring cities. It was great to see everyone back out enjoying Cherry Bossom, sharing the Japanese culture with them. And it was just really beautiful. We got some amazing weather, and we had a great time. And then finally, I want to thank the Cherry Bossom Planning Committee. So the Cherry Bossom Planning Committee is a group of volunteers that help put this event on every year. And I think I need to make sure and always acknowledge that they do a great job every year. And kudos to them on bringing this back after the pandemic. Definitely some learning again, right? Since the last event was in 2019. So remembering all the little things that we used to do and how the event turned out. And I just have to say, at the end of the event, they were extremely happy. It looked like the public was extremely happy. And so I get to stand before you and say, I'm extremely happy.

Next slide, please.

The next one, please. Thank you.

Next, I just want to let everyone know in the public, if you don't follow us on Shulson Media,

then you may not know that the new courts over at Sierra Vista Park are now open. we had a resurfacing project and which also included an addition of new basketball and pickleball courts at Sierra Vista so last night we had a ribbon cutting with city council and so you'll

see some photos up there of council member Ngo shooting some hoops with one of the young residents

and then some of the council members playing some pickleball and then also our ribbon cutting so I drove by this morning and we already had lots of folks out there utilizing the courts and I'm sure I'll drive by after the meeting and see people out there still using them. So we're excited, and we know summer's coming, so those courts are going to get heavy, heavy use, and that's great because that's what we want to see.

Next slide, please. Next, I want to invite everyone out.

On May the 11th, we're going to have our tribute to Cinco de Mayo. Last year, we started doing this event in conjunction with our Play Days Carnival. So on Thursday of the Play Days every year will be our tribute to Cinco de Mayo. It'll include music by a Latin DJ.

We also have a mariachi. And then we also have a band this year.

I know last year we only had a mariachi, and everyone said, well, we want to dance. So we're going to bring a band in after the mariachi. We're going to play salsa, cumbias, merengue, all kinds of dance music. And I think we're going to have a full tennis court of people just out there having a great time.

The carnival rides will be open. Games will be playing.

And then this year on Thursday, we also have the advantage of having the farmer's market.

So the farmer's market will still be going on.

On Thursday, you'll be able to get all your fruits, vegetables. and delicious food and still enjoy the carnival.

Next slide, please.

And then finally, our Happy Birthday Monterey Park Play Days Carnival is coming. So May the 11th through the 14th here in Barnes Park.

We have carnival rides coming in.

It'll also be featured some food trucks, carnival games, an all-star lineup this year.

So we do have Thursday where we have our Tribute Cinco de Mayo.

On Friday, we'll have an 80s band called Video Star. And then on Saturday, we have a band named Brobots,

which is like top 40s rock and roll,

kind of like your wedding band, kind of plays a variety of everything.

So it looks like we're going to be united in dancing again

and really having a good time out at the Play Days Carnival.

And then I brought up Diana Garcia, our city librarian.

She'll kind of talk about a collaboration

that we put into place last year with Play Days. Good evening.

So I'm happy to talk about the Read and Ride program that the library does in conjunction with recreation to help promote our Play Days event.

We started this last year.

This was actually Robert's really brilliant idea, and it's a collaboration between the two departments.

Kids can go to montereypark.beanstack.org and sign up.

They read for four hours, and they get a ticket for a free ride at the carnival.

So it's a win-win situation, helps encourage reading at home, helps parents defray some of those costs of taking their kids out to the carnival.

Last year we had about 450 kids sign up.

And this year we're about a weekend and I think we've got nearly 200 kids participating.

So very popular program. It's absolutely free to participate.

Once you read your four hours, you log that on the app, you'll come into the library and get that free ticket. So that goes on until May 11th. Kids can sign up and get their tickets. Thanks. Thank you.

And then the last slide is just always reminding folks to follow us on social media. It's the best way to stay up to date with on-the-spot updates and information. Any of our social media is at Monterey Park Rec.

I'm available for any questions.

Any questions or comments from Council? We'll start with Council Member Lo.

Yes.

You know, Barbara, I just want to again just echo what you just said.

but my appreciation to Parks and Rec, not to mention all of our public safety officers were there this weekend, and from the community, the Cherry Blossom Committee.

I had the opportunity to come out both days to Cherry Blossom Festival, and yeah, I think some of the comments I heard was that, yeah, it was a huge turnout from the community and the region,

and I think not to mention even it was covered by local media as well. I believe CBS came and covered it and other media.

And I think it was important to also just show that, you know, that we don't, with the pandemic subsiding

and also what our recent tragedy to have the opportunity to have this type of programming.

And so it's really appreciated. And from the community action, I think it was something that was very much celebrated this weekend.

Thank you.

Let me just add, I missed Saturday, but I was here on Sunday, and I was told that Sunday had more people than Saturday. I think the weather was better.

The lines were great.

I actually gave up the squid line because the line was about 40 minutes, and I said, okay, I'm going to eat everything else.

It was very popular, yeah.

And then, you know, kudos to just resurfacing the courts at Service the Park. I drive by that all the time and just this afternoon coming back from home I drove by it you saw it this morning I saw it this afternoon I'm pretty sure when we go home tonight yeah there'll be people playing there because the lights on the courts on it's summer so there'll

be lots of usage on those courts good job on that thank you and just want to echo appreciation for

everything that the staff did and the for cherry blossom vessel the committee as well for leading this effort and bringing this event back after the pandemic shut down for the last few years great turnout as was noted already a lot of people i think came out to enjoy it and danced as well to some of the band music so we'll keep the the dancing going on at these future events that are coming up and appreciate everything the staff is doing to help facilitate and coordinate all these events to help bring the community together and encourage as you have encouraged others to follow uh the city and parks and recreation department or recreation community Service Department on all the events that are coming up. I know we do a lot.

Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks so much. And I also wanted to add, I'm sorry,

yeah, I don't want to repeat what they appreciated, but then I'm thinking the reading books and earn free ride is a great idea.

It's a great, great idea. It's a great collaboration between us. Yeah, it's a great

way to encourage education. I think the partnership with the library is beautiful. So it's, yeah, this is something that we look forward to doing every year. Oh, great, great.

because free ride can add up, can be expensive to the kids. That's right, yeah. So thank you so much for your great idea.

Thank you.

Yeah, and on that same note, my daughter's signed up already. In fact, I really loved that.

Everything helps.

So I really also enjoyed that you had a library booth at the festival this weekend. My daughter's checked out quite a bit of books, actually, about eight of them. So you have to go return them.

I have to read a book every night. So catch up with our tickets.

But thank you so much for all of the programming. I mean, we were there both days as well.

Our daughters got introduced.

They really actually didn't think they would enjoy it, but they really loved the squid, the grilled squid. Yeah, I think they just really did.

I only bought one, actually, and I didn't want to go back in line and get another one,

so I was like, you know, take a bite and pass it around.

But they really enjoyed it.

My daughters really loved it. In fact, they were, you know, that's why we came back a second day.

But anyhow, thank you so much for all that you do

and the amazing programming that you do. It really keeps families and people in the community coming back and, you know, very impressed by the work that you guys did in the collaboration.

So thank you to all the staff.

And I know I saw police there, fire as well, and everyone else who made this possible. I really appreciate you guys seeing you there as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's one of the things I definitely want to make sure I acknowledge all the city departments because it's really – I appreciate the kudos to myself and my department, but it's really a global effort by all the departments. And so I really want to express my appreciation to them.

Yeah. Thanks so much. And thank you for introducing my daughters to a new treat.

Now I have to go find some more. Introduce them to Samochi. So, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Then we'll go ahead and move on to presentations.

And we have a presentation. Oh.

Oh, public. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Public comments for presentations. Go ahead.

1?

Oh, 1E. Okay.

1A, sorry. Yeah.

First speaker, Eric Chen of the Monterey Park Shooting Support and Advocacy Group.

Good evening, Mayor, City Attorney, City Treasurer, Clerk, and Council Members.

and I'm here while I wear different hats. In addition to being a pastor, I'm also City Commissioner of San Gabriel as it relates to human equity, relations and access. I'm here to talk today just on behalf of many of the victims of the Monterey Park shooting and just give you a report where things are at. First, I want to thank Amy and the city, the healing, Monterey Park Community Healing Fund, for providing, subsidizing and paying for the lunch we had.

Two Saturdays ago, we had about 40 or so, around 40 victims of the shooting

and their family members gathered together to provide them support, and this was in conjunction with the county. The Monterey Park Police Department was also there and we had held it at Barnes Park. And so it was great to connect them with the resources of the county, Chinatown Service Center. And so that was really great. And I want to thank, again, Amy for supporting the event as well as Will with Laseya and Cindy Wu with the Mountain View School Board. I want to talk about a few things, and that is we have here with us more than 10 victims and families present of that incident. And unfortunately, it's still been a challenge to get the resources that they need. One family present, they still have not received their wage compensation from the Cal Victims Board, California Cal VCB, even though they've been constantly going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So I don't know what can be done about that. Another gentleman here who was also injured has medical bills, and it's very challenging.

So anything, I hope we can work together to help many of the victims.

And another issue is that many of the relief efforts have been dedicated towards the deceased families or the physically injured victims. And one neglected group has been the ones who are present, the traumatized victims or the threatened victims. And many of them here are present. So, so far, they've been excluded from the $1.4 million fund, the Lumen New Year fund.

And, you know, even when you talk to lawyers who want to, for example, sue the gun manufacturers,

they say, oh, yeah, we don't want to represent them.

So it's, I hope that we can make an extra effort to show that category, the traumatized,

the threatened that they do matter, whether it's in the form of some kind of, you know,

I don't think any of them are looking for life-changing wealth, right?

I think they just want to be seen that they are also victims.

And many of them, you know, I get texts in the middle of the night saying, Pastor, I can't sleep. I'm seeing, I get nightmares. And yet, you know, a lot of times they go to a different organization and say,

oh, well, you know, were you injured?

No.

where you're not deceased, obviously, so there's limitations. But thankfully, Chinatown Service Center, Herald Christian, and other L.A. County, they are offering up services, and we're making that happen.

But there's just still a lot.

and outreach and I know it's not an easy thing and you know the city oftentimes

does its best to get the word out there and I know that for example for the

Chinese speaking population you know social media like what's app or WeChat

or line that's tend to be where they're at so that's a possible avenue of

outreach to for example today in the small business loan we have one of the

victims. She's a small business owner. So a litmus test would be, okay, to what extent will she be able to get the help that she needs? And so I hope that we can work together to really turn this tragedy into a victory for our community. I thank you.

Eric. Mr. Mayor.

I'm sorry. I could just say something.

So first of all, thank you so much for coming here today and advocating for these people. But if you could do us a favor on behalf of the city and compile some names, phone numbers for us, and we will do everything within our power to make sure that the victims have what they need. And if there's anything that we can do within our realm to push paperwork or any of those types of things forward, we will do everything we can within our power. So if you can please share that with our city staff and our attorneys, we would really appreciate it.

And counsel? Actually, thank you, Mr. Rain. Those were exactly the follow-up I want. And again, thank you, Pastor Eric Chen, for convening the meeting. And I'm really glad that our community healing fund was able to provide meals for the group that they met with local county officials. I think it probably will also be helpful to us. I mean, thank you for being that point of contact. But also really, you know, to the extent that you were able to share, you know, in respect of privacy considerations. But, you know, as we are making assessments of, yeah, what are the community needs? You know, for example, you mentioned the example of some victims who have been still waiting for the state compensation fund. You know, I mean, I think it would be helpful for us as well to also know that what are the main challenges and is it just simply a matter of making sure that there is the correct outreach and access, you know, And also, you know, an example of the state compensation board, you know, if it's an issue where we need to contact the governor's office or state representative or even the Office of Emergency Management Services, if there's a disconnect, I think that would be where it would be helpful to us as well so that we can, you know, be a conduit, if you will, a bridge to the community as they are themselves trying to plot a path forward to recovery. Yes. That's what I hope to accomplish, is that we can continue to work together

while respecting, of course, whatever the families wish in terms of disclosure,

but working closely together

to make sure that we can push things forward.

Because a lot of times when I advocate as a pastor,

they're kind of like, well, they're not really sure.

I mean, they kind of know,

but when it comes, as city council members,

it comes different from well from you as well and that thank you any any other council members

uh eric i i don't know if you already connected to mr torres in the back uh i would love to make sure that if there are business owners among the victims to make sure that we sir torres uh is he still here yeah he's in the back so after you yes uh so we'll meet back in the hour please do connect I think he'd be more than happy to utilize you as a conduit to communicate about some of the resources for businesses and business owners that have been impacted. I think that would be great, and we would love your support and assistance in that endeavor. On the victims, as Councilman Rouleau and the mayor already mentioned, I think if you can help us get some of those details, We would love to, I think we'd be happy to advocate with the governor's office, see where we can help streamline some of these processes for helping support victims and get resources to them more quickly. In terms of the fund, I know this has come up with the others.

Together, we don't have, the city does not have direct control over that fund and how it's being dispersed. but I think it might make sense maybe for the city to reach out maybe I know as maybe we can reach out to the lead nonprofits there just I think it would be helpful for the council to get a briefing on what they're working on and how they're what process kind of they're going through to help disperse those funds to the victims and if they're to explore opportunities that we can help get the word out and support them in their efforts to service and provide resources to the victims and their families. I think that'd be helpful. But please do keep us informed and let us know how we can help and push to advocate for the needs of the victims for sure.

Yeah, I just think it's important that in one way or another we find a way to

whatever, it doesn't have to be the biggest amount. Like I said, they're not looking for life-changing

wealth, okay? But I think, you know, as you know,

Asian culture, right? It's like, you know, what do we do during the Chinese

red envelope? So just even some, whatever it is, the amount, right? If we can make that happen, I think that would mean

a lot to the victims to know that they are seen by the community. So thank you.

Okay.

Go ahead. Oh, Amy? You got more?

Next speaker, Chen Yu-Ki of the Victims of Montero Park Tragedy Support Group.

This is also one of the victims

who was present at the Stardance studio. Okay.

So I'll be translating. Go ahead.

in that moment.

There are many days where she's had recurring nightmares, difficulty sleeping, and even at one point, her period did not stop for over 25 days. and so it's been a really difficult experience but she also wanted to thank the city for providing the space a couple weeks ago and also providing lunch for the community that it was a safe space for them to share and to gather.

I just I just blinked I'm sorry about that yeah she really hopes that

together that as

a community, as they gather together, as they share their stories that they can continue on the journey towards healing.

Okay.

Okay. And yeah, I mean, even

even with Amy, you know, she's had to change

jobs because she just could not, you know, when she tried to go back to her old job, it was, she just could not enter that space. So she had to change jobs, change professions, right? But even to apply for compensation, because there is job retraining compensation, but a lot of times they say, well, you're

physically hurt. You have to be physically hurt, right, to change.

And so there's a lot of bureaucracy for her to, you know, they said you have to go to the Department of Rehabilitation and this and that. So

you know, this is one of the stories that, you know, trying

to help her to have a path forward as she wants to get better and to move forward.

Yeah, I'll jump you at that one. Okay, that's it.

Any comments or questions from the council?

I have a comment.

Pastor Chen and Amy thank you for coming here

and showing

just sharing with us your story please reach out to the community outreach

the behavioral health, mental health

well-being folks in the community we'll make sure to also take their number and contact information so we'll reach that first hand

so

sorry he said thank you today to share your story and he said

you can share your phone number and contact you.

I can contact you with your phone number.

I can help you with your phone number. Thank you.

Eric, has she and other victims been able to take advantage of services that are being provided by organizations like Chinatown Service Center and others that have been providing some of the mental health and job support kind of resources since the shooting?

I think that some have...

You have to go to the hospital hospital to see your mental training?

Because it's too late. It's not even been able to go to the hospital.

Yeah, well, for a situation like her, it's really even hard to step out of the house.

And there's that anxiety and there's that fear. But there are some people I know that have taken advantage of the services.

So I think that's one of the challenges is that the gap, right, it's not that easy. Number one, when you're already in that state of trauma, plus the cultural nuances. But many have as well.

I echo what has also been said, very fully recognized that trauma can manifest itself even months and years down the line. And we appreciate the courage it takes for victims to come to a public meeting like this to express some of their concerns and what they're going through. I think we really appreciate that and recognize that this is a very difficult thing to do. and whatever else we can do to help connect the victims and others and their families to the resources that are available. And if there are things that we need to do and can and should do to advocate and push for these resources to be more accessible and more available, please do let us know. It's hard to... We're not getting all this direct feedback.

I appreciate you being able to help facilitate this.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story today.

and your experience

and they thank you for your information so they can know how to help you

Thank you

because we hope we can help you in the city council, in our government.

So let's meet in the next few minutes.

Thank you.

Actually, I met Amy at the dance studio, outside of the dance studio.

I know about her story, and then we already exchanged contacts.

So I will be contacting her as well, you know, on behalf of the government.

And so hopefully to see what we can help her in the next step.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, we do have our police chief in the back.

He is going to any victims in the audience. If you can please see our police chief or our police staff,

they're going to take down your contact information to make sure that we have it.

I know in your speaker cards, some of you had provided your contact information, but some did not.

SO WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE CAPTURE A PHONE NUMBER, AN E-MAIL ADDRESS, SOME WAY TO MAKE CONTACT, IF YOU CAN SEE OUR POLICE

STAFF. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

LAST SPEAKER, CINDY WU OF THE MONTERY PARK VICTIM SUPPORT

GROUP.

HI. GOOD EVENING, MAYOR. Mayor Pro Tem, council members, staff, and the public. My name is Cindy Wu.

I'm a board member for Mountain View School District. That's based in El Monte and South El Monte.

However, I have been a very active participant with the efforts that Pastor Eric has been helping with

in regards to the Monte Park victims, as well as various community events in regards to that.

and I also helped out a couple Saturdays ago

when it's the first time ever

the victims, for many of the victims that come together it's kind of one of those situations you experience

from because it really took a lot of courage for her. I had met her at the funerals and I've attended many of the funerals of the victims and the reason why I'm so engaged in it because I knew teacher Ma, I knew the owner, the other owner as well and they were my go-to when I put on a lot of events for the city. Star Dance actually was the performing group of the event which I founded the AAPI Heritage Month for the city of El Monte. And so I knew them for about six, seven years. And so it was extremely important for me. I mean, I've been to the studio even prior to that. And I think I even went to a dance event there many years ago. And so for somebody like Amy, who could not sleep or eat for first two weeks, and she didn't go out the house and really be courageous. Saturday was the first time. For a long time, after meeting her at the funeral,

that even we all went out to eat, and she doesn't want to talk about it, because every time she talks about it, and we've been following up with her to make sure she was okay, because there was no connection for her to go to. So after I met her, we all got connected with the rest of the group. But for somebody like Amy, it's really traumatized. She quit her job immediately after because she

couldn't exit the house. For some of the victims, it's really extreme. They either can't be in the house because they have to go out every Saturday and Sunday. Otherwise, they have PTSD. They go

crazy thinking about it. It just rotates in their head. Or they are kept in the house

because they're afraid of going out. So for Amy, for a long time, she couldn't talk about it. Every time she talked about it, it was extremely emotional. And so I think the healing that

was done a couple of Saturdays ago, and thank you to Amy that was there, Amy Lee, your city treasurer that was there for many hours hearing all the stories and I really encourage all of you hopefully y'all so I speak in favor of of whatever that's being proposed tonight that really provide

the platform and the space for them to have a place where they can really talk about their experience among the people that was there that night it meant the world to them so many of them It was the first time they ever openly talked about it. I've been to therapy that was kind of done, a group therapy by Christian Harold. It's not the same when you talk about it with the people that share the same experience. And especially for Asian culture, a lot of time it is a taboo to talk about your feelings. And so for many of them, for some people, right, not all, generalizing is about the fact that they really provided a space to open up.

And so I just want to thank all of you here for creating the Monterey Park Community Fund that actually could allow a monthly meeting for the victims to continue to work with PTSD that incurred from them.

And I just want to briefly mention kudos to the Cherry Blossom.

I'm the vice chair for the Asian Youth Center Stop Hate Committee that also created the Monti Culture booth that was there. We had about four to five booths there.

And I think no matter what kind of hate it is, that just having this space and being more awareness was definitely amazing.

And kudos.

I saw a whole bunch of cherry blossom signs twice the size of, actually the size of the room in the back here at the West Covina Mall. So with that, thank you so much for allowing me to speak. Thank you.

Thank you. Hi, I actually wanted to say I want to thank Cindy for stepping up and take the lead and care about our community. I know Teacher Ma because of Cindy. and also thank you so much for helping out we met Amy at the same time at the funeral and I can see that Amy improved a lot since the time that we met and so I greatly appreciated the group that has been helping the victims and so let me know if you want to step up as well to help out and I wanted to get connected with you guys thank you

I know there's a lot of GoFundMe page

there was about over 10 GoFundMe page for the Monterey Park victims. Some of them was formed by family and friends, but I know there's at least five GoFundMe page that was created by people that's not related to families. And so if there's anything, maybe city attorney or any of the city council can kind of help monitor that. And I know it's a GoFundMe page thing, so I know they have their own protocol,

but we have the names of all of them.

we also have screenshots of those groups that created funds, supposedly for the victims, that the victims haven't got.

So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, did you have a call? No. Thank you. Any other public comments?

No more speakers.

If I may ask our city attorney to just provide some staff update or clarification, my understanding is that there were a lot of money raised for the victims, a lot of funds, Advancing Justice, Chattel Service Center. I believe the only fund that we actually have, the city has no control over any of the funds. We have input with the City of Moira Park Healing Fund, which our city treasurer is one of the administrators, a committee chair. If the city attorney can clarify that, we have no control over the disbursements to either primary or secondary victims.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, as the Councilmember mentioned, all of the funds

are completely independent from the City.

It was intentionally created that way by the City Council for a number of, amongst other

things, tax reasons.

The hope, I believe, at the time that the City Council adopted its emergency orders

was for the official fund, which was set up by the City Council, was for that fund to

coordinate with all of the other funds that had already been created in order to consolidate all of the donations that have been made so that all of the money so to speak was in one pot and that the same policies could be applied for equal distribution based upon the protocols established by the oversight board of that official donation fund again the city doesn't have any control over it the oversight board which who are completely independent from from the City Council are the ones making the determinations with regard to protocols and how any funds are

distributed.

And I don't, frankly, have any factual information about how successful that fund has been in terms of coordinating efforts between all of the other GoFundMe funds.

That's pretty much all I can provide in terms of information. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, but just to ask a conversation again, the Mayor Pro Tem already mentioned

earlier, but I think, though, it would be helpful for us to maybe at one point get an update about,

yes, it is a fund managed by another organization, but I am curious as well, how has it been dispersed? Because, you know, I mean, let me just share my own opinion that, you know, certainly there has been a tremendous outpouring of support, and certainly we're very grateful for that. But a lot of these efforts in some ways, and again, I have to say the most diplomatic way that a lot of these efforts were also created not necessarily

where we were consulted or briefed, you know, and I think that again we're also

hearing comments tonight is that you know there has to be some way to coordinate

or at least know where there are gaps so that that also allows us as community to

know where the focus for assistance should be I mean those are just my

thoughts mr. mayor members the council I some of these issues were discussed at

the time that the council created the donation fund in and accepted the nominations of the board members and appointed the the fund administrator there were specific tax reasons why the city is not involved with that particular official fund. I will say if I take off my city attorney hat, I had high hopes as a person also affected by all of this that all of those funds that had been created would have come together cooperatively

in order to come up with some sort of joint agreement,

if not to directly transfer money into the donation fund to at least come up with a uniform set of protocols in terms of how that money was distributed. To my knowledge, that has not happened. And the city is not really in a position to create those protocols because it has tasked the oversight board of the official fund to do so. And again, that's for various legal reasons, including IRS deduction reasons and internal revenue code reasons. So I think at this point the old adage of the bully pulpit perhaps is the best influence that you can have on that to encourage all of those funds to get together, if you will, at a summit meeting to come up with a common set of protocols in terms of how to distribute the money. That's not something that I would advise the city council to do. We don't have control over that money. and were we to step in to try to assert the city's influence on all of those funds, I'm not sure how that would be either from an optics standpoint or from a legal standpoint.

So, again, if you have influence over the people that control those funds, I encourage you to do so in your private capacity.

But the city council took the action that it wanted to take when it created the official donation fund, And my advice at this point is to simply encourage everyone to try to cooperate together to fulfill the expectations of the City Council at that point.

One more speaker.

William Yen.

Hello. The topic that you guys are discussing is actually something that Lisea was trying to tackle as well. For example, my brother, who's the president of Lise, he's a lawyer, and he was able to, especially with the whole GoFundMe situation, basically him and a few of his legal buddies were just using their spare time to, like, figure out what's going on. And yes, as Mr. Berger basically said, like, you know, the city, the county, no one has any authority over controlling whoever opens these accounts. So that the best solution is in the future, the county, the city, there should be some kind of, like, central authority to figure out who should be the official GoFundMe, assuming like a future tragedy also in regards to um during that meeting that was held with all the different county departments organized by the hillis leases uh justice deputy there are basically all this type of stuff you guys talking about were being discussed and like what the main thing is the from what the disaster service people are saying is we the community you guys as council members local politicians we don't have the authority to talk to these people for legal reasons liability etc therefore all we can do is provide outreach like getting numbers for these people and giving it to the county as well as related uh nonprofits that were supposed to help uh these the victims and their families uh what else was um and also as i mentioned before about rallying the resources this is where um as i said the county has a lot of resources and organizations such as licea we have connections not only like through our jobs but you know case in point you know my brother he works in the board of supervisors office how i was able to step that meeting in the first place he works directly under all five supervisors and basically this is a this event was something that hit my community and eric was hitting all these roadblocks trying to find help for these people and when people were basically telling him well you know what go go to your government you know and he went to me and went hey is there any way you can get us to something a connection with someone to like help us break the gridlock and that's basically what i did help set up a meeting with hillis lisa's office to basically get the county involved and figure out what the county can do to like you know break the gridlock so like as i said in my previous few minutes we need to find a way to take advantage of the county's resources and also this was mentioned in the briefing that the meeting cities like monterey park when something's like this like this happened there's no resources you're a city whereas that's why you need either like a county resources or a major massive organization like red cross like or suchi to just drop in and provide triage to help people immediately because marley park does not have these specialized disaster services counseling type of you know resources so it's like what we have to figure out is how do we set up the interface so that information can be passed along as easily as possible and when roadblocks are hit who do we talk to within the government especially in the county to basically you know break that gridlock and uh that's pretty much what i want to mention for now any questions questions comments thank you so much for your time all right sorry i just felt like i had to chime in you guys are talking about stuff that i've been like

Oh.

We can have Amy start. We can do the... Report on the community healing fund or the finance report?

The community healing fund, yeah.

We can do that after.

Good evening, everybody.

Mayor, pro tem, city attorney, assistant city manager.

I just want to report we were at the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival this weekend. We were there Saturday. It was a huge success. We had a Monterey Park wishing tree.

If you were there Saturday, you could have made a beautiful wish. We had about 400 to 500 wishes on our tree.

We would like to thank the city of Monterey Park for donating those trees.

It was a beautiful time for a lot of the community members to come out, and they were able to share their feelings and their wishes for the community. In terms of outreach, we did the Community Cherry Blossom Festival. We are also working to see if we could create a web page right now.

for the community just to let you know that the goal of our fund is to heal the community

we've decided that the monies that has been collected will be going toward education

prevention and community engagement we currently have 50 almost 54,000 collected at this point

we are also working with parks and recreation to have our monthly dance celebration and we hope to

have something up either in may or june hopefully by may play days that's our our first target and

that will be at langley center for everyone to be to participate it will be free for everybody

so we hope everyone will come out and we'll get that information out once we have a date and we're also working on

with in conjunction with the Bar Association to have a seminar for the city

educating the community about

laws in place that can prevent mass shootings

and that we hopefully also by July

we hope to have a program up for that any questions

Council Member Lo

Thank you, Amy. I'm sorry, Madam Treasurer, for that report.

May I ask you, and again, I know the Director of Committee,

again, I want to thank them for diligently working in terms of articulating goals of objectives.

At this point, are they still kind of trying to work that through,

and is there any way that again I noticed this is set up separately from City Council but I guess are there ways in which the device can be can also be

appraised of the situation with those who spoke tonight so that they also have a

more broad picture of the community needs that includes victims survivors as as well as attending the witnesses that night at the incident? I am in communication with Pastor Eric. I did meet with him at the support group meeting, which I attended about two weeks ago.

So I am in conversation with him to see what services or what he believes might be helpful for the community to heal.

Okay.

Any other questions?

I just wanted to add my appreciation for you for leading the fund and for the committee for being out there during Cherry Blossom Festival. I know you've done a number of events already and planning to do more to continue that engagement with the community. I appreciate all that you're doing on a volunteer basis. I think the city appreciates it.

I appreciate it personally.

looking forward to continuing to receive these updates on what the committee is going to be doing and what the fund will be doing to help further healing. Glad to hear that the fund helped support this gathering for victims. Would love to see that continue and see if that can be, it sounds like it will be a regular thing. If there are other needs and needs that emerge from those convenings. Would love to see how we can resource that if that's beyond the fund, the

current fund. Yes, we will be talking to the, Pastor Eric, and reaching out to other community members along with Chinatown Service Center and the library to see what services they need or

support they need that we could help the community and the victims to improve.

That's in the process right now. Yeah, and please keep the council, let us know how we can support.

Obviously, it's a completely separate, as we continue to note, a separate effort and separate from the City Council's control. But if you can keep a surprise, we'd love to keep our constituents aware of what's going on, too.

Absolutely. Just to let you know, we are still collecting and accepting donations. The webpage on Monterey Park has a link on top under resources.

If you click there, it will lead you to the Monterey Park Community Healing page to make that donation.

The donation is tax deductible, and if your company matches, that would be great also. It's acceptable through the California Community Fund. Thank you. I just have one more question, Amy.

First of all, thank you so much for the report and for the update. I know you had mentioned the possible creation of a website. If you can perhaps elaborate a little bit more what the website purpose would be for and maybe just a little bit more?

Sure. Right now we don't have a website. It is just a link to the donation page. So we would like to create a website,

so maybe just a web page, a landing page with more information

with what our fund is doing,

and maybe people can suggest ideas of how to improve, to heal,

and that's just a place for them to get more information.

And we don't have that right now. It's just a link. Yeah.

And then I think that if there's a way to even advertise through social media for the time being, just what the committee is doing and what the plan is, just because I know that a lot of us within our own constituents are getting those types of questions, like how the money is going to be used. But if there's a way to maybe the committee can find to advertise those through social media, that would be great.

Yeah, we're going to reach out to the city and see how we could do that using the right channels. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And we have one more speaker. Jason Jim.

Good evening, council members, city staff. I'm a retired psychologist. I also happen to be a patron of Stardance for over 20 years, but I wasn't there that tragic night. Cindy asked me to fill in one more point, and I just happen to agree that I think you folks are doing a terrific job assisting this horribly injured community. But my suggestion is somebody, this is what Cindy suggested, asked me to relay to you, somebody needs to be the leader, the focal person of all these efforts. Right? Instead of saying, the committee is great, the council is great, but I think the website is great also where everybody can get access to the resources. but I do suggest that somebody be the leader on this effort, just to make it more efficient. On item number two, I've also volunteered to come out of retirement to lead group therapy, because as you had heard from Amy, how really healing group therapy can be and how horribly traumatized these people have been. I'm also fluent in Mandarin, and I think I'm kind of uniquely placed to contribute to the community on this. So if the city can continue to provide the meeting place, I think we can help everybody heal. Keep up the good work.

if you could please create an oversight committee and somebody to lead this.

Is that right?

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. No more speakers? No more speakers. Okay, thank you.

So we'll go ahead and move on to the next item, item 2, old business. 2A, receive and file staff reports summarizing the status of emergency repairs of the Monterey Pass Road waterline.

Is there an update on this?

Yes, I do have an update. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. Sean Angelo, Public Works Director.

Tonight I have a quick update on the emergency repairs of the Monterey Pass Road waterline project. Construction has begun on the replacement of the nearly one mile of the failing 12-inch water main and is anticipated to be completed around October of the calendar year. Additionally, the majority of the material for this project has been received. We have a few ancillary items that are forthcoming. Extensive outreach to the area, including businesses, has been ongoing, and we continue to work with businesses to allow for deliveries and access to their properties. We continue to use various outreach opportunities, such as construction message boards, And door-to-door notifications go mpk app and the city website and other forms of communication For project updates with that I'll answer any questions

Thanks, Sean, I'll take I don't know if others

Do you know when the estimated completion for the main water main replacement is going to be around October this year? So the there will be traffic impacts through October, correct? And I'm happy to make a motion to receive and file.

Someone want to second?

I'll second.

Thank you.

And if we can take a vote on item 2A.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. Thank you.

We'll go ahead and move on to item 3, consent calendars, items number 3A to 3L. Council, is there any items you would like pulled?

I will pull the resolutions.

I don't know that we need a staff report, but I think we all want to chime in a little bit on 3B, 3C, 3D, 3E for the resolutions. I'd like to pull 3G for a quick discussion and 3H. And I'll note, City Attorney, please advise if I can just note that I will be recusing on the vote for 3i, or if that needs to be pulled separately. Okay, I'm announcing my recusal from 3i as we vote, unless it's pulled from the agenda or from the consent calendar. And then I'd like to pull 3l for a quick announcement of that item, too.

Excellent.

So I have 3b, 3c, 3d, 3e, 3g, 3h, and 3l.

Any other council?

Okay, so do I have a motion to approve the others?

Items 3A, 3F, 3I, 3J, 3K, and yeah.

We have speakers for 3I. I'm sorry?

We have a speaker for 3I.

For 3I, okay.

Yeah, we won't pull it.

You'll need to recuse yourself and remove yourself from the room.

Okay.

Okay. Is there a motion?

A motion to approve the remaining non-pulled items on the consent agenda.

Do you need to hear 3-aye first, the speaker?

We're going to pull 3-aye just for the public comment.

Okay. Do I have a second? Second.

Second by Council Member Yu. If we can take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Okay.

So we can go ahead and

Okay. So we're going to go ahead and

go to 3A. Is there a staff report for 3A?

Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, this is second reading for the two ordinances related to the Marketplace

project.

Okay, so we'll go ahead and hear then the

the comment, yeah. First speaker is

Kylia Garfield. She's allocating her time to Mayshelle Yee. Second speaker is me, Mayshelle Yee. I'll be right back.

I wasn't sure if I was going to have enough time.

So good evening.

My name is Masha, and I am speaking as a resident, and on behalf of my neighbors who asked me to relay their serious concerns with Agenda Item 3i.

While I am sure our council is very knowledgeable in many areas,

Planning matters such as this would greatly benefit from review by your planning commissioners who may be seasoned professionals working in the areas of architecture and urban planning, which is why you probably selected them as your commissioners. As evidenced by the fatal accident which occurred a few months back directly outside of the marketplace, there are critical issues with ingress and egress at the exact location of where these changes are proposed.

As there is only one lane in and one lane out, hundreds of people were trapped in the marketplace.

Some even resorted to leaving their vehicles in the marketplace parking lot, walking out to Potero to get rides home because they were unable to get their vehicles out.

No changes to the specific plan should be granted unless safeguards to address traffic issues are included.

In regards to the proposed uses, the following concerns were noted. For those who aren't familiar with what end of line refers to, because I didn't know what that was,

it is similar to the end of line for like an Amazon drop-off,

so where they store all of the packages before they're picked up for delivery.

So as you can imagine, adding 18 wheelers to the traffic mix right there at Costco

is not going to help the situation besides all the smog, noise, and pollution from the trucks,

as well as all the damage to the already battered roads.

So if anybody's ever driven on Petrera Grande, it's like you're trying to avoid potholes the size of kiddie pools.

My neighbor, she warns, an industrial designation is far too broad and vague.

There needs to be clarification and parameters to prevent abuse and misuse of that designation.

She also notes while a car dealership and retail uses are good,

they will bring in, as they'll bring in, much-needed tax revenue.

There are concerns with the lack of parking.

So the plans that you were provided did not indicate the parking for those uses. and so she recommended that a subterranean parking requirement would help to alleviate those concerns.

She also states, the proposal is unclear.

Should this change to the specific plan be approved,

would future projects be required to go before the Planning Commission,

or does approval of this specific plan change mean future projects are automatically pre-approved,

or does it need to go for the review?

furthermore she states the proposal states projects would be given final approval by the

director is that the director the community development director if so what is our community

developer development director's qualifications do does he have an architecture or urban planning background does he have the appropriate knowledge and experience to make this decision that's a pretty big decision to lean on only one person without any other review by experts.

The specific plan revisions should be reviewed by the Planning Commission, and as projects

are proposed, those building plans should go before the design review board.

The city should not be circumventing the process and bypassing this review. You should allow the experts whom you have entrusted with this responsibility to do their

jobs.

Please recommend the item go before the Planning Commission for review and recommendations before you make any decisions.

That is the request from your constituents that you take a step back, allow further inspection of this proposal by your planning experts before making a decision, please.

Thank you.

Any questions or comments?

Actually, I have a question. This item, has it gone before the Planning Commission? Or is that the name we can direct?

Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, the Municipal Code provides that the City Council acts as the planning agency for anything that requires a development agreement or a zone change. So this has not gone through before the Planning Commission simply because you are acting as the Planning Commission

is there an urgency though to To enact like to pass this like tonight. Is there an urgency an

Urgency it is second reading the public hearing has been closed all public comment has been Taken as part of the administrative record and the yeah, the environmental has already been done to answer your immediate question I can't speak to that, but there is a due process issue if you wish to continue this or if you wish to reopen the public hearing. I don't know that the applicant is here. It was expected to be on consent and have second reading.

Well, only because, again, I mean, I know they were here at the last meeting, and I know they expressed, you know, what their interests are. And I know even I myself had made a comment about, you know,

my own suggestion about what could be a possible suggestion of what can go on

that location but again I do wonder like yeah can we you know is it possible I

mean I do the movie that we open hearing in other words to have our own plan

commission just take a quick look at as well maybe make suggestions if you wish

to forego a second reading and send this to the Planning Commission that's

certainly within your power. Okay.

That said, I do urge you, if that's something that the City Council wants to do, to first of all continue this item in terms of the second reading to the next meeting so that the applicant can be here to address that particular issue. Again, this is a due process issue.

Okay. No, no, I understand. Okay.

So if that's something that the Council wants to do, you can continue to the next meeting so that the applicant and their representatives can be here to answer any of your questions,

and then you can make a decision then. I mean, if we were to forego tonight, not just to have the applicant here, but again, can we also make a suggestion to also get a look over by planning? Is that something? Can we?

Again, if that's something that the City Council wants to do, it's certainly within your power to do to remand it to the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission hasn't seen it.

The City Council is acting as the planning agency for this particular item. But that said, again, the applicant's not here. with the expectation that this was going to be a second reading. So if that's something that the council wants to consider, then in fairness to the applicant, you should continue this particular second reading to the next meeting to reopen the public hearing to answer any questions and potentially remand to the planning commission.

Okay. No, thank you for that.

Thank you for that council. Thank you.

I have a question.

Maybe staff can give me a report on part of this process, as part of this rezoning was so that the applicant can go ahead and finalize their ingress, egress,

which is the two roads.

Right now, as it's situated now or as it's presented, part of that ingress and egress is partially done because the phase two, the western part of the parcel, is not finalized, is my understanding. So part of this process is so that they can get the ingress, egress, connected through all the way for the entire project is that a fair statement

part of the roadway to realignment and the entrance and exiting is part of the overall approvals that okay that were considered by the city council thank you

any other questions or comments well you know I'm okay and again I know the the developers not here but you know I know when they made a presentation I will just say it again part of the reason why I did share my suggestion was because you know I understand that yes they explain the currency of the market but still I

mean given that what is built there you know will be there because brick and

more you know I do I guess I would I wish more comfortable if the developer

or the owner, you know, had a more wider list of possible developments. I mean, that's just my two cents. And so I don't, I guess what I'm saying is that then, you know, maybe perhaps we can then wave to the next meeting.

My suggestion, and also if this council is willing to, you know,

also maybe just even have it deferred to the Planning Commission as well.

Questions, comments?

Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, I am informed that a developer's representative is on Zoom if you want to ask any questions.

Okay.

Okay. Well, this person is okay.

I mean, I guess my question is this is that, how did, I know it was presented, you know, like for example, yeah, a distribution center, retail, a car dealership. I mean, can you explain, walk us through, like how did you come to those conclusions for the recommendation?

I don't.

No, no, that's to the representative because you're on Zoom.

Why don't we have that, is it Mr. Talbot?

Yes, do you hear me?

Is that, am I coming through?

Yes, we can hear you.

Oh, okay. So for the last six years, M&M Realty, who owns approximately 5 to 10 million square feet of retail across the country, has tried to market the site to retail. They would love to have a retail site in there. Unfortunately, with today's economy, that is not available. And the city is not getting any revenue, neither is the developer. So they would like to be able to bring in, expand the opportunity, such as an auto dealer,

such as either a last mile facility, which serves every single resident of Monterey Park, the opportunity to bring in alternative uses.

That's the purpose of trying to expand this. Yes, they would love to have a Target or an IKEA or whomever, but those folks are not interested today and have not been interested for the last 10 years at this site. And so they're just trying to finish it. As you all know, this site is by far the largest sales tax generator ever in the history of the city, and they would love to continue to expand that relationship that they have with Monterey Park.

Okay, well, thank you. Well, thank you, Mr. Talbot, for explaining it to us.

now does that just reflect current market conditions market conditions because for example during the pandemic there was a rise in people making online retail orders and i can see why for example there is an issue in the distribution center um but at the same time you know as the market continues to evolve i mean is that the best use as well for that location Well, if one of those users, if Ikea or whomever would come in, they would absolutely love to have that. You've got to go back about 12 years ago when M&M first came into this site. And there were at least twice as many retailers in the market as there are today. When they started this site, there was a Circuit City and a Best Buy. There was a Bed Bath & Beyond and a Linens and things. There was a Mervyn's and a Kohl's and a Forever 21 and all of those. And over the last decade, all of those users have gone out of the market. And both M&M Realty as well as the city of Monterey Park were enormously lucky and successful to have the users that came in during the pandemic, the Home Depot, the In-N-Out, the Chick-fil-A, the Costco. Costco is doing three times the volume they expected to do, and the city has done tremendous volume because of that. Part of one of the uses is just expanded parking, because Home Depot and Costco have done double to triple the volume that they've done, that they expected to do. And so the amended development agreement and specific plan addresses the issue that this is doing, Costco is doing three times the business they expected to do, and they need more parking, as well as some of the other uses. So everything that's on the proposed plan for the specific plan in the development agreement would be less impactful to the community than what was part of the original plan. Plus, it brings in revenue. I mean, they would love to be able to produce. They've got 10 acres, 8 to 10 acres of spots that is not being used today and is very, very expensive to develop because it is part of the remediation site. So they're just looking for flexibility. That's all they're trying to do. I think they've been a tremendous community partner.

those markets have changed so much in the last 10 to 15 years.

Okay. Yes.

Mr. Talbot, this is a council member of Ben Gold here.

I humor me as I try to put my commercial estate hat on here.

You know, a site like the marketplace where, as you mentioned, and Costco is probably top five in the U.S., and the Home Depot is probably top 2% in California.

A site like that, any city, any developer will wish to have.

So my question is this. If you had a site like that, and if I was a retailer,

TJ Maxx, Target, Whole Foods, I would jump into the site the moment you open. I probably wouldn't wait six years to try to call you rather than let you call me. Would that be a fair assessment?

That's a very fair assessment. Plus, they have called them every single month to try to come into that site. And those retailers, the one you've described and the ones that came up earlier in the evening, have turned the site down many, many, many times. as well as hundreds and thousands of others. And so the retail market is brutal in today's market. Plus, when you get into the current financing structure that's out there for commercial real estate, for those of you that follow that, that market has even gone more upside down in the last six months to a year when the interest rates have doubled. And so, I mean, as I said,

They own more retail locations in the country than anybody I personally know. They own 5 to 10 million square feet of retail and have tried desperately to get those folks to come in, and they don't want to come in.

Now, that might change. What's before you tonight doesn't preclude that from changing. But in the meantime, the city's not getting any revenue. They're not getting any revenue. And if one of those come in, if anybody on the community or the council can get one of those folks to come to the table, they would absolutely love that. Now, that said, if you get a last mile facility, which is now producing local sales tax for local communities, if you've got an auto dealer, right now an auto dealer is not alLod. Auto dealer would be a tremendous success if you could grab a new auto dealer to come in. which is not currently alLod in the precise plan that was adopted in 2012. Since 2012, a lot has changed in the world. And as you have known, I mean, you've gone through the pandemic, you've gone through all of that, but none of those things have come back with a charging resource to say, hey, we're back in full force. It's all gone the other direction. And all they're trying to do is try to get more revenue for the city. hopefully be able to lease eight to ten acres of property that has not been and as a city attorney has alluded or staff has there are improvements to traffic that comes in there is a project that's before that's in front of your building and safety department right now to to reroute the entire gas station line to reroute it to help alleviate some of the traffic. There are improvements to bring the two lanes all the way in from Porturo Grande, which will help alleviate traffic. There's improvements that the city's doing at Porturo and Marketplace Drive to help alleviate traffic. But don't discount the fact that this center is three times more successful than it was ever dreamed to be. And also don't discount the fact that because the city has been so business friendly and has alLod Chick-fil-A in and out, the great latitude that they've given them over the last three years of the pandemic, those were not meant to be 90% drive-through restaurants. Those were meant to be, you know, 50-50. And so some of the traffic and some of the issues are going on is because you guys have been so gracious to them. One day they will go back to being a restaurant that is a 50-50 kind of mix, which will help alleviate a lot of the traffic as well as the gas station improvements that are in the works and before all your planning staff.

Hi, this is Yvonne. I wanted to add to that is I think now the commercial, the retail, is actually having a hard time. They're thinking of downsizing instead of expanding to new locations

because that involves a lot of investment.

So I would say as a city we have to understand how the business is doing out there

and be flexible in order to leave it as vacant land

or then we can actually capture and change the zone

and hopefully they build the business that they want

and it will help the business, help the labor market as well. So I think the city has to be flexible and understanding. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Council Member Lo? Sure, I was just making a comment. You know, again, first of all, I want to just acknowledge that I do want to thank M&M for bringing this great development, and it has tremendously added to the retail choices to our community. But let me just also say just my thoughts. You know, this council has adopted things like a Vision Zero policy, a Complete Street policy. In other words, we've advocated, you know, alternative transportation because we want to be more pedestrian-friendly. And again, this is my opinion, but, you know, just my two cents. I mean, you know, one, flexibility for a car dealership, essentially encouraging more use of single-use vehicles.

Again, I know I drive as well,

but you often talk about making the city more pedestrian-friendly

as well as a distribution center.

Again, I understand that that is maybe what the market currently needs, but at the same time, if one reads some of the articles written and published in the early times, I mean, places like the Inland Empire, which has seen tremendous growth in warehouse distribution center development, has also brought forth a lot of congestion and pollution.

to these communities.

And I'm not saying it because I realize there is no such project before us, so I don't want to, you know, prejudice any proposal, but at the same time, you know, I think it's something we have to consider. Because anything that is built and is there, it's brick and mortar. Now, definitely, I think the traffic improvements, they should be made. Because, again, I mean, I live right by there. And, yeah, sometimes I also have to go through all the traffic and, in fact, where I work because it's a regional location. I mean, I have people who are my co-workers who live in the surrounding area and come to the same marketplace. And I appreciate my co-workers for spending their dollars. But at the same time, they even come up to me and say, hey, Henry, council member, sometimes it takes me forever to get in and out of that location. And again, they say it jokingly, but at the same time, it's probably an opinion that is shared by neighbours.

So again, I intend for flexibility, but I just also question, like, is this all we can expect?

Or, I mean, again, I know maybe it sounded silly at my last council meeting at the last time, well, can we do, like, soundstage development? Only because, again, although I was told that maybe because legally, when you use the term warehouse, it could include that. But at the same time, it's because, you know, what we also permit is it's not just about retail choices and revenue, all important, but also, you know, like what kind of local economy do we want in the community as well? And, you know, that's why I said what I said at the last meeting. And I, you know, that's my comment. I know we have the item before us.

um if i if i could council member low you are we we agree with you completely when we say a car dealership that doesn't mean it's a gmc truck dealer it might be a tesla and rivian because everything's going to be electric soon uh when you talked about soundstage that's awesome i mean joe marino when you when you brought that up that night he would love to do something like that i

I mean, as far as jobs and little traffic, absolutely. When you talk about a last mile, we're not talking about a distribution center of a million square foot facility.

They're talking about a last mile facility like an Amazon, which may or may not happen in today's world. But that is one of the least traffic impact uses you can use because you have four or five semis that come into the facility, usually in off hours. And then you've got a series of vans that leave. And those take hundreds, if not thousands of cars off of your local streets because instead of them running down to CVS or Walgreens or Albertsons or Costco or Home Depot, So somebody else is delivering that. So there's one van on the vehicle instead of one vehicle on the road instead of a couple hundred going to do their own local errands.

So, no, they, Joe Morris and Jack, Jack Morris and Joe Marino are completely in sync with you.

What your vision of Monterey Park is and what their vision is align very much so. It may not come across that on a piece of paper, but no, what you're saying, Councilmember Lo, is 100% correct.

And the world is changing, and you recognize that. And so I commend you for that.

And that doesn't mean that it's not going to be a target that brings in tens of thousands of cards.

It might be. But it might also be something that is what the new generation is bringing forward. And so we just hope that you guys support it because so much has changed since 2012 when this last agreement was adopted. And I think you can all recognize so much has changed.

Thank you, Mr. Talbot, for that. Let me ask if you or anyone knows, but currently in the region or in location, is there an existing Amazon distribution center that is close by or at least in proximity?

I'm not positive. There was one in El Monte. I can tell you that in Torrance, there was a Costco that closed, and they built a Costco right next door to it, and they turned the old Costco into a last-mile facility. And if you looked at that and if you talked to Torrance, The new Costco generates a thousand times more traffic than the old Costco, which is now the Amazon last mile. And your staff could reach out to them. But that's the most appropriate example that I can think of. A lot of the facilities that you're referring to are the large warehouse facilities that are out in Inland Empire. But that is not what this is. this is this would be more of the local facility that brings in like i said there's four or five semis that come in in off hours and then they get distributed within a three to five mile radius of that warehouse and those are typically vans that come in in fleets uh three or four fleets throughout the day of maybe 24 to 36 vans and i mean it's really minuscule compared to what you've got in any of the users uh i mean and in and out would generate so much more traffic than amazon last mile would just because the way the way that this structure but we're still talking about fleets of vans nonetheless no but the vans are you have like 36 vans every couple hours it's not like these these do not come in at times and they they structure that those vans to be off peak hours so that they're not impacting traffic on Petro Grande and everything so yeah I mean the van is bigger than a vehicle going to In-N-Out but it's one-tenth of the volume that's going to an In-N-Out so if they don't use Petro Grande then

where would they be then how would they be entering and exiting the facility then no so i

mean so the way that the the last mile facility works is again you've got um four to five semis that come in in the evening off traffic and then starting around nine to about 10 a.m you have shifts of like you'll be there may be and this was the last discussion we had with amazon and i don't know that amazon i mean so much has changed just in the last year or two i mean amazon was the hot ticket two years ago they they aren't today because amazon's kind of peeling back so i don't want to suggest that that's who is likely to come in Done. But they would bring in 36 vans or so that would come in around 10 a.m. They would bring another 36 vans that maybe come in around 11 and around 12. So you may have like three shifts of those once an hour because they come in, they load up, they get ready to go and then they're gone. And so the volume of traffic, everything, everything that's on this development agreement and the specific plan, is built to be less traffic and less vehicle miles traveled and less level of service traffic than if you put in 125,000 or 150,000 feet of retail. Everything that is being proposed is Lor than that. It has all been analyzed and developed and would not be approved by staff or planning or whomever the approval, everything that is on the new list is less impactful than what was already approved for this site in 2012. And some of it's substantially less. That was the benchmark. Everything needed to be below the threshold that was already approved. That's why you see each of the buildings is sized accordingly because it needs to generate less traffic than what has already been adopted.

All right. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from Council?

Any suggestions, recommendations?

I'll motion to forward it. I'll make a motion to approve it.

You make a motion to approve?

Okay, if we can have a vote.

Council member Lo abstained. Council member Ngo approved. Mayor Sanchez approved. And Council member Yu approved.

Sorry.

Oh, we're not on. Sorry.

Okay. If we can take another road, please. Thank you.

I'm sorry. I accidentally pushed the wrong one.

Thank you.

Council member Lo abstained. Council member Ngo approved. Mayor Sanchez voted no. And council member Yu approved.

Based upon that vote, this does not pass.

And it is defeated on a 2-1.

Can I say a comment about this issue? Can I say a comment about this?

I think I understand

Council Member Lo's concerns and I think I have the same concerns too. I think I'd like to sit down and maybe talk some more with the developers about what options we have at this site before we move forward with actual development. I also understand that this is a tough time economically speaking so whatever we decide I'd like to move

forward with that. Any other questions or comments?

Okay. So if we can move on to the next item.

Okay.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, as we pull the items, if you could please, council members, let us know if you'd like the staff report or just make comments or if you have specific questions. And we'll be happy to provide what based on your direction. Thank you.

We have one speaker for item.

3B.

We have one speaker for item 3B?

Yes. Okay.

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

It's more of a staff report, but just in case.

I'm sorry?

You want the speaker now?

Yes. Okay.

I am the speaker. I'm Aisha Lee. I'm the city clerk. I'm going to do it from my seat here. in case it wasn't pulled.

As a first-time city clerk and having recently returned from the 2023 City Clerks Association of California Conference, I am so proud and honored to present this item to you tonight. The Office of the City Clerk is celebrating the week of April 30th to May 6, 2023 as Professional Municipal Clerks Week. This week is sponsored by the International Institute of Municipal Clerks and is celebrated annually. It honors and recognizes the municipal clerk profession as the vital part of local government and is celebrated throughout the world, including the United States, Canada, and 15 other countries.

Although city clerk is one of the oldest professions in local government,

few people realize the vital services professional municipal clerks perform for the community. Primarily, they act as the cornerstone of their council. They also prepare the council agendas, record and index minutes, and maintain the ordinances and resolution files. Other responsibilities include keeping the official records of the city and conducting local elections. They also serve as the contact office for general information, public records request, receipt of claims and subpoenas. I hope the City of Monterey Park joins me in recognizing and celebrating the hard work of these dedicated professionals and declare April 30th through May 6, 2023 as Professional Municipal Clerk Week in Monterey Park, honoring and recognizing the central and professional municipal clerks,

the role, the central role professional municipal clerks play in local government,

specifically named Cindy and Helena. So please join me in celebrating and appreciating the great work that they do for all of us.

Thank you.

Do we have a...

Council Member Duong, I know you pulled this item.

I just wanted to...

I don't appreciate the City Clerk presenting this item

and the resolution.

I just wanted to voice my personal support for this. Appreciate all the work that the city clerk's office does to keep our records and how essential the office is to functioning government, especially at the local level, to keep our agendas going and minutes and keeping track of everything that we're doing as our city's official record keeper, but also in coordinating elections and everything that needs to happen and for the services that you provide directly to the city council as well.

I just appreciate you.

I know that resolution is very symbolic. It doesn't come with anything beyond that, but I just wanted to express my personal appreciation and support to all the city clerk staff. I know it's a small but mighty team that does a lot of work and makes sure everything gets done behind the scenes, so I appreciate you.

Any other questions, comments?

Ditto to what Council Member Wong said. We need to push this to more than a week.

And I'm happy to make a motion to adopt the resolution.

I'll second.

If we can take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. And we have item 3C.

I'll dispense with a staff report.

I think the resolution language is in there. I wanted to pull this just to make sure to similarly make sure that we are calling this out. I don't know if Chief Weiss is coming up to provide very quick comments on this or not.

I can provide whatever comments you like. You can make it quick. I'm very good at that, too. We've done Denim Day in the past. In fact, Monterey Park began Denim Day back in 2011.

It's something that coincides with the National Crime Victims Week.

So I present you with this resolution and staff report explaining what the program is

all about, why we wear denim on that day.

Basically, it's to talk about Sexual Assault Awareness Month and a way of recognizing victims

of sexual assault during that very important week in the United States.

Thanks.

I'm happy to make a motion and just want to ditto what the chief expressed, I think, bringing awareness to sexual assault and making sure that we're providing resources, not just we, but the royal way in terms of county and other levels of government as well, and making sure to highlight that many in our community are victims of sexual violence and that we want to do what we can to support those victims and also prevent these crimes from happening and anything else we can do as a city and a council to support those efforts in addition to the symbolic adoption of this resolution I think would be very important so I'll make the motion to approve or to adopt

the resolution I'll be happy to second okay if we can take a vote

Approved unanimously.

Okay. We'll go ahead and move on to item 3D.

Do we need this pulled?

Yeah, I know Chief Weas is already here. I don't know if he has any quick comments he wants to start to kick this off.

Again, we've recognized the national crime victims week in the past here in Monterey Park, But I think tonight, listening to the public comments earlier, the fact that our city was ground zero for a very tragic event that we're all aware of,

brings the need for us to recognize that there are a lot of victims out there that we may not recognize right off the bat,

but it affected a lot of people in our community. So I think this resolution is even more poignant right now, and the police department obviously and the city supports it 100%.

Thanks, Chief. I just echo those comments as well, and I think in light of the shooting tragedy that happened this January in our city,

I agree with you in terms of how important a resolution and attention to something like this is for our city, and wanted to make sure we called it out instead of just putting it on the consent calendar for adoption. And I know that we have our continuing conversations about what else we can do to provide resources for victims of crime, not just the victims, the direct victims, the families of those who were killed and injured that went to the hospital, but victims also include people who are suffering traumatic stress and other witnesses to the crime and others who are in the vicinity who are feeling this and not just from this shooting but from other crimes that happen on a regular basis in our city and others as well to make sure that I think it's our responsibility to one do our best to prevent as many of these crimes as possible but also when they do happen to provide services where we can in a connection of the services and resources where we can I know that we're doing that for the victims of the shooting. I know there's

more work to be done and I want to commit

myself and I think the rest of the council in the city is committed fully to fulfilling that work in the weeks, months, and years to come. So I'll make a motion to adopt this resolution.

I'll second. If we can take a vote.

Approved unanimously. And I know we have our librarian here.

If you want to...

No need for a staff report.

I just want to highlight, as we always do, how much our library does for our community. And just a few weeks ago, we joined Chinatown Service Center and the library and our city in terms of signing a formal memorandum of understanding for a permanent space. It's just remarkable how much the library... It's more than just a collection of books for people to come check out. It is really a community center. A lot of people of all ages and backgrounds come to our library and utilize it as a community center for services and for help, for job training, for English language learning, for access to legal services, and a whole host of other resources that we're making available through our library. Appreciate everything the library staff does for our community and happy to make a motion to adopt this resolution to recognize all that they do and how critical they are for our community here.

I'll second.

Okay, thank you. If we can take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

And our next item is 3G,

the California State Library Building Forward Library Facilities Improvement Grant.

Unless other members wanted the staff report, I just wanted to note for this, appreciate the library putting this forward and are going after grant funding to utilize for potential capital projects at the library.

I know the staff report noted that we haven't decided which projects would, if we receive this funding, which...

the council will be involved in determining what those and helping to prioritize what projects should be funded at the library and making sure that the community is engaged on

that as well.

Just to respond briefly to the comments. So right now we're working together with Sean Igoe,

the director of public works to identify some critical maintenance projects for the library.

This is an extremely competitive grant.

It's not money that comes around very often. It's probably about every 20 years that the state devotes money to capital improvement projects for libraries.

So understanding that it is so competitive, we're trying to identify some real critical maintenance needs for the library

because we do know that there are a lot of other library buildings, a lot of other communities that are not quite as lucky as we are to have a newer library building. So some of the things that we do have to identify the projects before the grant is before we apply for the grant or when we apply for the grant. But some of the things that we're looking at right now are a generator for the building, replacement of some HVAC units that would make the library more sustainable, as well as let me look at my list here.

as well as generator HVAC units

and elevator replacement as well

to make the library more accessible.

No, I appreciate that. That's helpful in terms of understanding what we would be applying for money for.

You bring up the generator. I know I brought this up when we talked about generators

a few months ago as well. If we can look at potential zero emission options for generators and backup power options for the city,

not just for the library, for other facilities,

that we look at those, I think that would be helpful. And I think, I don't know if this was part of the thinking, but to turn the library into a potential kind of resilience center when there are high heat days, I know we already utilize Langley Center and potentially the library as a cooling center. If there are opportunities to, when there are natural disasters and other things hit the community, I think the library is a great place that many people in the community are already familiar with as a place that they can go and seek out services. The more that we can do to make those resources more robust by providing generation and backup generation and other resources to make those available to the community when there are needs, I think that's helpful and we totally support these efforts.

Absolutely.

With that, I'll make a motion to adopt staff recommendation on this.

I second that. If we can take the vote.

Approved unanimously.

Excellent.

And our next item is item 3H, the tree memorial program recommendation for 2023. And I know that the honoree is actually in the audience. But I think before we can honor her, we'd have to take a vote first. But do you want to speak to this, Thomas?

I don't know if other council members have said anything.

I'd like to say a couple things.

I've had the pleasure of knowing Victoria Chavez. and so I was one of the people who had, you know, helped move this forward and recommended her. I know she lives in my district, and she is a very involved community member, a very large presence in our community, very highly respected and involved in our community, and I can't just, she's very visible everywhere that she's at, and so I appreciate her commitment to our community and for always being so engaged and always very communicative. So I can't think of anyone more.

Mr. Mayor? Yes. I'd also just like to add to that.

You know, Victoria, I've also known you for many, many years, probably actually more than a decade.

And, you know, that also speaks to the longevity and commitment you have had to this community.

And I think that if more people took your example and, you know, gave their time to this community, you know, it would just make Marpa even better than it already is, one of the best places to live in.

And it's just thank you, Victoria.

And certainly I'm very pleased to support this formal recommendation.

Victoria, I've known you for a few years now. I've known you're kind of one of the many pillars of the community here, not just the work in the commissions, but all around work, helping I'm sure many of the staff here knows who she is because she's been in probably every one of your functions or events.

so it is a pleasure

and this tree only means now you've got to double the time and effort going forward

and I say that with a smile

yeah congratulations Victoria and I see you everywhere especially at the women's club

so I thank you so much for the dedications, your sacrifices and to our community. Thank you and

congratulations

I'd just like to echo what

the other council members have said thank you one for sticking it out to for the meeting to be here for this item appreciate being able to receive the appreciation directly Victoria I don't know if you remember but we sat on the commute when it was the Community Relations Commission together almost 15 years ago now and so appreciate all your efforts before that and since then in supporting the city it is volunteers like yourself that really make this community as special as it is it's I mean the city staff and the council provide a lot of these the city's here to provide a lot of basic services, but the community is really made by volunteers like you that really put in the time and effort that go unpaid and often overlooked and a lot of times in the background to make our community what it is. So thank you so much for your work. You're very well deserving of this honor. I'd like to support this. I'd also like to have a quick question separate from Victoria. is staff able to take additional recommendations or nominations for tree memorials from the

days? Yes. If council would like to provide a nomination they can do so and at the next council if there's a consensus at the next council meeting we could put an agenda item together

I'd like to nominate former council member Fred Soronoso for a tree memorial. I think it would be very fitting for him to receive this honor posthumously given what he has contributed and despite the fact that his term was cut short and his service was cut short to the city, he was completely and totally devoted to the city and the neighborhood that he lived in and growing up here as well, has done a lot of work for the community and would love to honor that legacy

with an award like this. And I would support that as well.

So would I.

Thank you so much, Thomas, for bringing that up. I'm so touched, and thank you so much for honoring Fresno. Thank you.

So it sounds like we have a second, third, fourth, and fifth.

Well, I think first we need to get through Victoria's.

Noted.

Yeah. So we'll bring it to the next meeting.

So I'd like to make a motion that we approve item 3H.

I'll second that.

And if we can take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

And I think since we have Victoria here, I'd like to ask the Council if we can take a moment to honor her down here and take a picture quickly. I know that we are pressed for time, but I know that there will also be a different tree memorial ceremony, but this will just be for the moment since we happen to have Victoria here.

Thank you.

Thank you. Can you just one more? Sure. One more, one more. One more. Oh. Oh. One more. One more. One more. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Moving along, item 3L.

I don't, well, I don't need a staff report, but I don't know if the City Manager or Assistant City Manager just wants to quickly announce this item for whoever is watching

so that they know that this is happening.

Sure.

Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council and community, on Friday, April 21st, our Spirit Bus service will be provided free to the community.

And this is in honor of Earth Day.

So we definitely encourage all of our residents to give Spirit Bus if they haven't given Spirit Bus a try yet. and also to remember to download the app so they can get real-time updates about where the buses are located and how long their wait times would be

so that they could monitor that.

So we definitely encourage everybody to utilize the Spirit Bus on Friday, April 21st, in celebration of Earth Day. And the app is called Passio Go.

Passio Go app, correct? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you.

and just along with that echo and appreciate staff for thinking this up and appreciate implementing this idea. And if we can do, if there are other opportunities throughout the year that make sense for us to encourage public transportation and our own public transit system for residents and the community to take care of or take advantage of, I would love to encourage that as well. I noted in the staff report that really fares from riders does not make up much of the revenue and covers very little of the cost of actually running this bus system, but it's a service I think it's important, and the council and the city have determined it is important to provide for the community. So I appreciate our efforts and the staff's efforts keeping this going and providing this resource for the community.

Mr. Mayor, if I may also add, and I do appreciate it. Again, I know that the last council meeting that we had a presentation about the app, but I do appreciate that, you know, we are also trying to be proactive to provide tools for residents to be able to consider using the Spirit Bus as an alternative, I know, to their mobility and community needs in our city as well.

Yes, thank you so much.

With that, I'll make a motion to approve the item

to waive Spirit Bus Fair in honor of Earth Day on Friday, April 21st.

And I second that.

If we can take a vote.

Approved unanimously. Excellent. Thank you so much for that. I plan to take advantage of that on that day, my girls.

If we are seeing no public hearing,

I will go ahead and move on to new business items. Item 5A, consideration of possible action to introduce an ordinance amending Title 13, Chapter 12 of the Monterey Park Municipal Code, MPMC. its entirety to regulate encroachments within the public right-of-way we have a

staff report we do okay thank you good evening again Honorable Mayor and City Council Sean I go Public Works Director this item is to introduce in a way of

the first reading of an ordinance from mending title 13 chapter 12 of the Monterey Park municipal code in its entirety to regulate encroachments within the public right-of-way this section of the municipal code regulates encroachments within our right-of-way this may include objects that are placed or installed in the right-of-way, construction work, or any other work within the right-of-way that may obstruct or interfere with the use of our right-of-way. These updates include general language cleanups, items such as fee schedule additions that allow us to adjust via this fee schedule as opposed to a fixed dollar amount. This allows us to update the fee schedule as opposed to amending our ordinance. The additional items include language within our permit requirements related to emergency work that has been updated. Finally, the largest update was the indemnification language within our permit form. With that, I can answer any questions.

Any questions or comments from Council?

I just appreciate staff taking the time to update this ordinance.

I know it's a little bit outdated, and I appreciate attention to that. I'm happy to make a motion to adopt as recommended.