City Council Meeting — September 6, 2023

Good evening. I'm going to go ahead and call our meeting to order. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. I want to go ahead and get started by reading our mission statement. The mission of the City of Monterey Park is to provide excellent services to enhance the quality of life for our entire community. and our land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was once known as the Tavangar, the home of the Gabriolino Tongva people. We show our respect to the Gabriolino Tongva people as well as all of indigenous peoples past, present, and future and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. We commit to uplifting the Gabriolino Tongva people and we invite you to acknowledge the history and join us in caring for this land. We're going to go ahead and get started with our flag salutes.

If you could please stand.

And tonight we have the Monterey Park Firefighter Explorers. ! ...

... ... ... ... ... ...

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

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

Prepare to design colors.

Forward march.

Bowers, bowers, bowers, bowers, bowers, march.

Lord march.

Please take your seats.

And thank you to the Monterey Park Fire Explorers.

City Clerk, if we could take a roll call.

Council Member Lo

Present Council Member Yu Here Council Member Go Present Mayor Pro Tem Wong Present Mayor Sanchez Present We have a quorum Thank you

City Manager, do we have any agenda additions or deletions or changes?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, thank you We would like to do two additions to staff communications We'll be adding Public Works and also Police Department

And Mr. Mayor, on item 3i.

3i has a former draft of the ordinance. It doesn't reflect the ordinance that was actually introduced during the council meeting

at the last council.

specifically included the language that was stricken by the City Council

with regard to concealed weapons permits.

And so the actual second reading will not have that language in it. In any event, that was the original draft that was presented for introduction and through inadvertence we simply didn't strike out that one particular item.

That is all.

Thank you.

Do we have any public comments? communications? Yes, we do.

First speaker, Sarkis Antonian.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff, audience. As you probably know, if you have Spectrum, you're not getting Channel 7, so we were told yesterday,

they call them up you'll get your $15 off and that's to me when the big one hits god forbid it hits we need news to be watching what's going on and they're cutting out why because their stock was like $190 share and now it's like about 80 something or 90 so that's what they're that's what they're doing so now they're trying to push this mask mandates on people and I don't know how How many of you looked up, what are the people I told you to look up?

Those three people? Well, Nomi Wolf was on today. And you young, well, this, okay, the three of us, we took the Johnson & Johnson. Since then, I never felt the same. So your Pfizer is the first one, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. So Dr. Nomi Wolf has about 20 lawyers. They're going after them. And she has documents that those vaccines do not do anything.

And they're going to put it in the flu shot, like I've been telling you. Everything like that's what's going on. So look it up. Dr. Nomi Wood, Robert Malone, who is the founder of the MARA, the vaccine, not this garbage they're pulling on us. And Dr. McAuliffe, and one stuff that you should be taking, which we do, is Dr. His dead doctors don't lie. Tangy tangerine, there's all kinds of supplements to get away from the gluten, to get away from the junk food.

Yeah, I'm a junk food junkie. If anybody should attack or stroke, should be me.

I can remember the times eating at McDonald's, Push you to the McDonald's. That would be an easy way to do it. Dr. Wallach. I mean, I forgot. Well, I'll tell you the name tomorrow. I'll call people up. Okay, so this max doesn't do anything. In the vaccine is the spike protein. It leaks out. So the more shots you take, the more of your immune system gets weak. So those three doctors that I told you about, look it up. And I suggest you not to have these employees here to be using that mask. But that mask, the blue masks, what it does, it breaks up and goes into your lungs and get asbestos on it. And all they're doing is just starting up another election like they did. Those drop boxes out there, that should have been gone a long time ago after the 2020 election. Because that was done by your Zuckerberg. your Facebook, all of LA County, those things, that's illegal. You have law enforcement here, that should be out of there by today. That was done illegally. And then everything that was done in the 2020 election, and then they're going after one guy, they're not going after the other. And being on my dad's side, it's from Russia,

and all that money is going directly to Ukraine. back in the day when Russia had all those countries, the money would go to Russia first.

Then they would think they would send that money. That's billions of dollars. So remember this, on the foreign aid, first is Israel, then Saudi Arabia, then Turkey, and then on down. It was never happened in my lifetime that one country can get that kind of billion dollars and getting again on your global warming push, obviously you people weren't around in the 60s when we would go outside, ride bikes, and do things. You can even go out there. Until every single state that pays for what we're paying for gas tax, the smog, and everything like that, then I'll think about your global warming and your climate change.

Next speaker, Nancy Curry.

Good evening, you all. I want to thank the police officer who saved the stranded motorist on September 2nd at 6.30 a.m.

His car was stalled in the intersection of New and Graves in the right turn lane.

My home and moony faces overlooks this intersection, so I was very happy to see the police officer arrived to help out before there was an accident.

The officer explained to him that he could push his car up the hill on graves and advised him when to put his car neutral and when to apply his brakes.

This officer prevented a possible traffic accident. I want to thank our police department for keeping us safe. Thank you.

Next speaker, Joseph Leon of the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito District.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, staff, and of course residents of Monterey Park. My name is Joseph Leon. I am the city's representative in the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Factor Control District. I name a full agenda today, so I'll be very brief.

I'm here because I have residents who are concerned regarding spraying in our city. I did confirm with our district director there is no spraying in Monon Park. There is no West Nile virus risk at this time in Monon Park. Other cities, perhaps, but not in Monon Park. Very fortunate at this time. Also, there was a concern regarding, I guess, some small white bugs flying around. I confirmed with the district that they haven't heard anything about that.

But if there's any concerns regarding any kind of insects, mosquitoes, et cetera, just call the district. And the phone number is 626.

Should I get it right so you can call?

814-9446. And don't be afraid to call. We actually pay for this. This is part of the special assessment of our property tax every year. So it's already, the service is already paid for. Because I know sometimes residents will call me, how much is it going to cost them to come over? No, it doesn't cost anything. It's already paid. And other cities are using the services, so we might as well, Monopark, take advantage of the service. So feel free to call them with any questions you have. and basically they're most concerned regarding West Nile mosquitoes, West Nile virus but they have scientists there so any little thing that you have a question regarding even if they don't deal in that area they can help you with it and the other concern too which I have, I don't know about any of you a lot of ants and that's because of all the rain and humidity so we're just going to have that for a little while sorry about that okay and that's it, the only thing is there's going to be I think a full presentation, schedule I believe October 18th at the council. But today I just came up because the concerns were brought to my attention just recently. Any questions? Questions? Sure, 626-814-9446. And I believe they close around 4.30. So you want to get a hold of them before 4 o'clock. All right, thank you. Thank you. Other speakers?

Next speaker, Angela Pau Johnson of Mercy.

Good evening, esteemed city council members. My name is Angela Pau Johnson. I just wanted to introduce myself.

I am the new executive director of Mercy. For those of you who know us or those of you who don't, we have been in the community for over 50 years. I have been a part of the company for two weeks

and I'm already astounded by the work that we are doing. We provide home and community-based services to adults with developmental disabilities. And I've been really privileged to be able to steward Mercy's mission and be able to work with such a dedicated team.

Some of our staff have been with us for decades, and some of the residents that reside in our homes and are participating in our programs have been there also for several decades.

So this is definitely an organization that I feel very proud to be a part of. I know currently we are seeking different partners. I know currently we are seeking different partnerships with the community, Monterey

Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Welcome to the City.

the city. Thank you. Much appreciated. And if you happen to have any business cards or anything like that, feel free to leave it with our city clerk. Perfect. I might do so next time. I don't have them sent out yet, but absolutely. Okay. Thank you so much. Next speaker, Randy Kaye.

Good evening. The last time I was here, Judy Chu was sitting behind that desk. But I'm here tonight to prevent a traffic fatality at the corner of Chandler and Hellman. Within two weeks of moving to Alhambra on May 23rd, I noticed that it's a dangerous intersection. Chandler runs north-south and ends at Hellman at the north end. Hellman runs east-west perpendicular to Chandler. There's a stop sign on Chandler where it meets Hellman. Traffic must turn left or right onto Hellman. There's parking on both the north and south sides of Hellman. On the south side, there are red zones east and west of Chandler, about 20 feet long. It is difficult to impossible to see beyond the parked cars and trucks to view the traffic coming along Hellman. Traffic making a turn onto Hellman from Chandler must advance almost to the middle of Hellman to be able to see the east-west traffic. That might account for cars not stopping at the stop sign on Chandler. They would have to stop a second time as they inch farther into the intersection to the point where they're actually able to see the cross traffic. The latest four accidents I'm aware of took place Wednesday, August 9th, Thursday the 10th, where an SGV T-boned pushed the car down the road over the curb and into a steel fence into someone's front yard. The woman was also taken to the hospital. and Friday the 11th, which was reported to me by a neighbor, another occurred on Hellman at Chandler on Tuesday, August 15th. I saw three of the four accidents myself. There is a lack of visibility along Hellman due to parking on both sides. There is an exceedingly high number of accidents at that intersection, four in six days. Since Hellman runs from Atlantic to Garfield and Chandler runs between Newmark and Hellman, these two roads are heavily traveled. Hellman is an alternative to Garvey, Valley, Maine, and the 10th Freeway. Many pedestrians traverse that corner and cross the street there. It is a school bus, pick-up, and drop-off location, and children and their parents are present both in the morning and the afternoon. Ralph's big rig trucks and smaller trucks are using Chandler for deliveries to the store. The 106 bus has been rerouted from Atlantic to Chandler. I contacted Public Works in Alhambra soon after moving here, and it was suggested I call the city of Monterey Park. I spoke with Zayed in Public Works at that time, and I was told a traffic study would be done. I called for the results of that traffic study after the first accident I saw on August 9th, and then again after the injury accident on the 10th. Since I did not receive a call back after leaving these messages, I called the city manager's office and then received a call on August 28th from Sean in Public Works. He told me he spent an hour at the intersection on August 28th. He also informed me that a traffic study would be done. That's what I was told the first week of June. We, the neighbors, would like to see something tangible indicating exactly what, if anything, is being done to address the situation at this intersection. I spoke to three drivers of the 106 bus that turns left onto Hellman from Chandler. All three told me it's a difficult turn because it's hard to see cross traffic. Neighbors have told me they've been trying to get something done about this unsafe intersection for years without success. My proposal is two additional stop signs placed on Hellman to make that intersection a three-way stop, westbound in Alhambra and eastbound in Monterey Park. Limit or eliminate parking on the north and south sides of Hellman to improve traffic visibility. Limit truck weight along Chandler to prevent oversized vehicles from entering Hellman from Chandler and ensure that that restriction is enforced. Move the 106 bus route back to Atlantic Avenue. Inform residents of updated results of activities undertaken to address problems at this intersection. And I know this will not be a popular proposal. However, instituting a nominal annual fee for parking in Monterey Park will reduce street parking and encourage residents to utilize the available parking spaces on their properties. It will also discourage Alhambra residents from parking in Monterey Park. This is a safety issue for both Alhambra and Monterey Park residents.

Thank you.

I still have time left? Okay.

The Pacific Plaza condos near Emerson has 84 units with two to three parking spaces per unit. That has increased traffic as every car has to travel along Chandler after entering or exiting the building. This happens multiple times per day. The daycare center, which is a commercial facility, has parents dropping off and picking up children, and teachers have to use Chandler to enter and exit the school. The data on accidents from the city of Monterey Park may not be complete, as middle-of-the-road accidents may be captured in the data for Alhambra. Therefore, the total number of accidents is likely underestimated.

Thank you.

Thank you for that information. Do we have any other speakers?

One final written comment. from Michael. He's a lifelong Monterey Park resident and he also has safety concerns for himself and his 11-month-old daughter at the intersection of Hellman and Chandler. He has noted there has been several near accidents on multiple occasions at that intersection because Hellman and Chandler has no stop sign, no speed bump, no traffic to turn at all. Despite being a three-way intersection that leads from arguably our city's busiest street. In fact, only a few weeks ago, he states, there were three days of consecutive car accidents at the intersection of Hellman and Chandler, two of which resulted in both bodily harm and damage to property. He is hoping, pleading, begging that something can be done to help mitigate these accidents, perhaps a stop sign put in place or red-painted curbs on Hellman

to deflect obstructive parking.

He understands that the intersection of Hellman and Chandler

rests on the Monterey Park-Alhambra border,

which makes any meaningful changes to the street difficult. Perhaps there is something that can be done.

He thanks you for your time. Michael Becerra.

Thank you. No other comments?

Mr. Mayor, regarding the written comment and the last speaker,

would it be appropriate to have this concern also forwarded to the Traffic Commission, or is staff already looking to this concern?

Thank you.

City Council, yes, staff is looking at it. If we feel the need to bring it to the Traffic Commission,

we will definitely do so.

Okay, thank you.

I just want to echo that.

I've heard as well from others that weren't part of the public comment tonight

around traffic concerns around On-Hellman

and the Atlantic intersection in that area.

if appropriate action for the traffic commission,

but also would love to get a report. I know Public Works comes occasionally and traffic studies can be notoriously long or take a long time, but if there's anything else we can do to do short-term kind of safety improvements along that intersection or in that stretch of Helmand, I think that'd be, I would love to see that. And if there are other options to bring to the council to consider to address some of these concerns.

I think that'd be great. Noted. Thank you.

And just for public sake, I had a question regarding if residents have a public safety concern, in this case dealing with traffic, is there somewhere within our city website where they can submit a concern

that's particularly related to them?

I'm thinking more like a form that might be like, do you have a public safety concern? Where is it? And they can leave a comment.

I believe most of the time, Mayor and we get these types of concerns, we definitely encourage residents to call our public works department or send us an email. I don't know that we have a specific place on the website for intake of traffic items, but that's definitely something that we can take a look at. Most of the times that we get correspondence or traffic concerns that are brought to our attention are usually by phone, by email, or through our traffic commission. But definitely we can take a look to see if there's some other way to have a space for people to provide us that information.

I think if there's a likely site or a place within our city website, even the MPK Go app where residents can submit and maybe even furnish images or pictures that could help us realize and know where these traffic concerns are, makes it a lot easier for residents to be able to communicate with the city where these concerns might be.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

It does sound like there's an option on the Go MPK app to report those items as well.

and I have a comment from council member you

I also have experience crossing that from Chandler to

Hellman even left or right I mean it's almost impossible I was so I was so worried every time you know I have to cross it so

I actually go around and try to avoid that but I know for other car parking

on Hellman especially there are big cars I don't know why they have all the big cars there, but it's really

blocking the view of us crossing the road, making left or right safely. So yes, I will

urge to look into it, especially there's a preschool there, and especially there's a lot of roadblock

recently on Atlantic, so people try to cross it and it just makes it a very dangerous spot. So thank you for looking into it. Thank you, staff.

Comment from Council Member Ngo? Thank you.

And as I think it's already, you mentioned it's already been elevated to our public works,

and we're going to take a look at it.

But I also want to encourage our speaker, Randy, if you stop by the traffic commission meeting, they meet once a month or once every few weeks. Stop by there and raise your concern there because that's the commission that looks at it, and they'll report back to you probably faster than what we can do.

So, okay.

When are the meetings for the traffic commission?

I'm not sure if Sean might know.

Our public works director, Sean Igo, has come in to provide us with the dates and times.

Thank you, Sean.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. I'm Sean O'Gill, Public Works Director.

So we have those every third Thursday, and you can be here at 630. And so we do host those. Unfortunately, this next meeting is going to be canceled. We won't have a quorum, so it'll be the next month.

And where's the location? Here.

Excellent. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

We're going to go ahead and head into staff communications, and we have community development.

Going first.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. I'm here tonight to inform the City Council and the community about our upcoming workshop regarding our city, our plan. Oh, by the way, my name is Jessica Serrano, your community development director. Next slide.

This next slide shows our flyers that we put out for the workshop. We do have copies of this flyer at the table in the back of the room,

but we invite you in the community to join us on Monday, September 11th at 6 p.m. at the Bergemeyer Library Friends Room to learn about an exciting initiative that is aimed at revitalizing our downtown and expanding our housing opportunities throughout the city. Participants can join virtually and in person. And we also teamed up with MPK Rewards to provide points that can be redeemed at our local businesses for our participants.

And we also recently sent out letters to property owners of properties that are undergoing zone changes. So we encourage those participants, those property owners, to reach out to staff if you have any questions. If you hear from any of your constituents, please direct them to staff, and we're more than happy to provide them with additional information about this initiative. Next slide.

To learn more, please visit our website, montereypark.ca.gov, backslash, our city, our plan,

to register for the workshop, to review our fact sheet, to view the map of the affected properties.

And you can access the website by using the QR code also on the screen. For more questions, please contact our Community Development Department Planning Division at 626-307-1315, or you can email us at planningpermitcounter at montereypark.ca.gov. this concludes my communication please let me know if I can

answer any questions

thank you Mr. Arano any questions

from the council or comments looking forward to a good meeting on Monday

Monterey Park. Thank you. Hope to see you there. Thank you. Our next communication is from the fire department. Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. Fire Chief Matt Halleck. Here tonight as September has been designated as emergency preparedness month and I think we were all reminded how important it is to be prepared just a few weeks ago. when we were faced with a significant weather event. And then on top of that, later that evening, a significant earthquake in Ventura County. So it just shows you that anything can happen at any time. And our preparedness and how we prepare will certainly make things hopefully a lot easier for us in our community. So just wanted to go over some things tonight. Next slide, please. The motto of our emergency preparedness department has always been be prepared, not scared.

And to do that is it takes certain things. And there's a saying, a chance favors the prepared individual.

And so the more we prepare, the better hopefully off we'll be when that earthquake does hit or we have another significant weather event or whatever type of emergency we're going to be faced with. So the importance is preparation. And that saying failing to plan is planning to fail. And we certainly will want to avoid that. Next slide, please. So I want to talk about understanding what are some emergencies we might face in our home. And, of course, that depends on where you live. So if you obviously live in the high desert, you might be faced with wind events. In the mountains, snow events or something like that. Obviously, in the coastal areas, flooding. So it just depends on where you live. So understanding what you could potentially be faced with. You want to create a plan. Ultimately, it's an escape plan. It's a plan what you're going to do when a type of emergency happens. and the sooner you create that plan, you practice that plan, again, will lead to your better preparation. You want to assemble a kit.

We talk about this all day long, having that kit available for you to use at home, in your car, at work.

I'll talk about what should be in that kit, but it's important to remember that an earthquake doesn't happen when you're at home, always.

It can happen when you're on the 210 freeway and you're stuck on that freeway for seven hours. Do you have a kit? Do you have water? Do you have food?

Do you have those things that are going to keep you comfortable until somebody can come and get you or get you off the freeway? Same thing with that work. So it's just important to build that kit, a smaller version of your home kit. And then know what to do during an earthquake or an emergency and after. There are lots of things you can do, and we'll talk about each of those as we progress. So next slide, please. Some common emergencies we're going to face, obviously fires, wildfires. Not around here, thankfully, but obviously northern California, some more of the wildland areas. We're going to see those types of events. Flooding, we just were kind of reminded of that can happen here in Monterey Park. Earthquakes, obviously, it's not if, it's when it's going to happen. We had 5.2 in Ventura County just a couple weeks ago, so we're on the cusp of that big earthquake, so it's preparing. And as we have those, it kind of reminds us that we need to be prepared. Power outages with the summer months, you know, we're always faced with the potential for an outage. And so how do we get through that? Again, we rely so much on that light switch. We'll always provide light. Well, if we have an outage, it may not be there. So just being prepared for that. Medical emergencies, and obviously all those are kind of natural disasters that we might face. Next slide, please.

So we have to have that, I mentioned, emergency plan. So we create that plan, and then we practice that plan.

And within those plans we should have escape routes. We need to know where to go. You go into businesses and there's a placard on the front that

Shows you how you should leave the building if you have to leave in an emergency You should have that same kind of design for your home or your office or where you're wherever you are So that you know where to go where the safe places are to go if you're on the second floor

How do I get to the first floor if I can't get to the stairs do I have a Escape ladder that I can get out the window things like that start to get you thinking about those types of emergencies DESIGNATE MEETING POINTS. IS IT ACROSS THE STREET? IS IT A PARTICULAR HOUSE? IS IT A LOCATION WHERE A TREE IS? HOPEFULLY NOT A BIG TREE THAT COULD POTENTIALLY FALL OVER IF IT'S WINDY OR AN EARTHQUAKE. THINK ABOUT THOSE THINGS. ASSIGN RESPONSIBILITIES. WHO'S GOING

TO DO WHAT? OBVIOUSLY IF YOU HAVE SMALL KIDS, THAT'S A PRIORITY. IF YOU HAVE THINGS THAT YOU NEED TO REMOVE WITH YOU THAT ARE VERY IMPORTANT, YOU NEED TO DESIGNATE WHO'S GOING

TO DO THAT. AND THEN ALSO SPECIAL NEEDS. WE ALWAYS TALK ABOUT OUR PETS. THEY'RE OUR FAMILY members who's going to get the dog or the cat how about elderly family members who's going to take care of them and also those with disabilities how do we account for them and get them into a safe location next slide please and also so emergency contacts obviously your local emergency services 911 non-emergency phone numbers for the city police department fire department are all

things that you should have stored somewhere we have everything in our phone everything's in here but what if you didn't have access to this you have

it somewhere written down that you can get to in an emergency. Have your neighbors phone numbers. We're kind of isolated into our homes, but do we know who our neighbors are? Are

we able to communicate with them? They might be people that you rely on, and they rely

on you. Your relatives, having that out-of-state contact, very important in an emergency so

everybody can call that person and let them know we're okay. You might not be able to

communicate within the county of Los Angeles but you could for some reason

established phone line can get you into another state so have that person out of the area so that you can reach out and everybody knows to contact them so that

you know that you're you're okay obviously doctors and hospitals and

then utility companies you know we stress that we want everybody to be self-reliant for up to 72 hours if not a week that means food water and potentially lighting all those creature comforts we may not get to you for that amount of time because we're going to be so busy with different calls. Same thing with the water department, same thing with Edison, same thing with the gas company. So it's about self-reliance.

Next slide, please. So in that kit, there's no set list of what you should have, but obviously

water and non-perishable foods and a good supply of that, at least a gallon per person per day. And the water is so easily attainable through Costco or different Smart and Finals, you can buy a lot of it and you can rotate it out after the course of a year making sure that's still good. Non-perishable foods, you know, those different vendors, Costco or camping stores, you can buy the freeze-dried food. You know, it's not, you know, your fancy lobster thermidor or anything

like that, but it'll get you through. And, you know, it has a 25-year shelf life. So you can buy

it and you can forget it, but it'll be there when you need it. Flashlights and batteries. When we lose power, no candles. Candles are a fire hazard and we want to avoid that. So having good batteries and flashlights available for everybody. First aid supplies, obviously if somebody's injured we're going to be able to take care of that. Blankets and clothing for inclement weather, important documents. You need to think about that on a personal level. What is important to you? Insurance

documents, financial documents, health directives, anything like that, have copies of those available

and ready to take with you at a moment's notice.

And then tools, multi-tools, things that you might be able to need to cut certain things

or get a screwdriver here or there to remove something.

And, of course, hygiene items, I think, is something we tend to leave off kits, but you have to consider that. Toilet paper, feminine products, things like that,

that will make you more comfortable in those times when you might be without service for quite a while. Next slide. Again, check your kit and update it.

Stuff could expire. So make sure you can get it and the most important thing with that is don't build a kit and put it somewhere

You can't get to it when the earthquake hits okay make it accessible and available so you can get to it So check on its location periodically and then don't forget medications very important medications baby supplies formulas diapers things like that that you may not have access to for quite some time So next slide please some some emergencies we might face fire safety

We stress this two times a year always your smoke detectors check your batteries and change them out

Your smoke detector when you change your clock so in the spring and the fall check those batteries and your smoke detectors Know your escape routes again going with that plan. How do I get out of my house?

How would I get out of the City Hall if I need it to escape in a moment's notice?

How would you get out always practice practice that stop drop and roll? We're so Used to that in our childhood and as a teacher you probably do that all day long or you know multiple times per year and so So practice that. You never know when you're going to need it. And then, again, finding that meeting place outside after you have to evacuate. Next slide. So we experienced this a few weeks ago, floods and water safety.

Avoid flooded areas. You think that's common sense. We hope that's common sense.

But we always see on the news somebody has to be rescued from a car that's, you know, up to their door in water. If it looks like it's unsafe, it is unsafe. Avoid that area. Turn off your utilities. Obviously, electricity does not go well with water. So turn off your utilities, and I'll talk about that here in a second. Have sandbags ready. So we experienced sandbag phenomenon a couple weeks ago.

And, you know, that weekend we went through 30 tons of sand for our community members.

And that's probably the amount we used in an entire winter season.

But it was important. People felt like they had to be prepared. The media, of course, stressed how important it was to have sandbags. So what we are asking our residents is those that came to get sandbags, let's reuse them if we can. So keep them in a place that, you know, the sun doesn't hit those bags because they'll degrade over time with the heat and the sun. Put them away someplace where we can reuse them, and that way we have plenty for everybody moving forward if we have another emergency like that.

And then obviously with flooding, keep important items off the ground where they could potentially get damaged. With earthquake preparedness, drop, cover, and hold on. Again, we practiced that, and we're going to practice that in October with the Great Shakeout. I'll talk about that in a second. Secure heavy objects. Use EM wax is another thing that you can utilize. If you have dishes up high, pots, vases, just secure them so when we do have an earthquake,

they don't fall and cause an injury to somebody. And emergency drills. So that Great Shakeout, October 19th at 1019.

So 1019 at 1019, you can go online.

You can register for the Great Shakeout. You can do it at home and just your family.

practice it duck cover and hold at work we always do that with the city we evacuate city hall

again it's just that repetitive practice that will when the actual event happens we feel comfortable doing those things power outages again no candles flashlights only unplug your appliances when the power turns back on there could be a surge could potentially cause a fire so when that happens for an extended amount of time you want to unplug your appliances and then

And keep your battery powered radio. Again, we rely on our phone for information and news, but if it's not available, we have that good old fashioned battery operated radio that will hopefully get us information that we need.

During an emergency, again, stay informed with your radio. Hopefully the internet will get you information not always available. Follow that plan. Again, relying back on that plan.

If you're able to help others, do so. within your neighborhood, within your family.

If you can get to other people to help them and vice versa, if they can help you, that's how we rely on each other in our community. After an emergency, check for injuries. There's always a potential, especially after an earthquake that people got hurt, so let's check for that. Assess damage. One thing I always want to stress is when you see lines that are down, always assume they're energized power lines and avoid them. That's a high priority for not only us, but for the power company. So you can't see electricity. It's very dangerous. If you see that, please avoid that. Reach out to your loved ones and let them know you're okay. That always provides that comfort after an emergency. And then document any damage that you have for later on for your insurance purposes. So what are the first steps we should do in preparation? First thing you can do is join our CERT program, Community Emergency Response Teams. So our next class, October 28th, November 4th, and 11th. So if you haven't already been a part of CERT, join. We teach you all of this stuff in those three weekend classes.

It's free. All we ask of is your time. And you'll learn about emergency preparedness, fire extinguisher usage, first aid, CPR certification, all that for you and your community.

So that's a great thing to be a part of. The police department has a Citizens Academy. You'll learn a lot of great information within there as well, so sign up for that if available.

Nixle is a platform that the city uses to get critical information out to our community. However, it's an opt-in platform. You have to submit your contact information for that message to get to you. So if you haven't done so already, go to nixle.com, enter your zip code, your contact information, and when the city pushes out information about sandbags or what other road closures,

anything that's critical to your safety in the city, you'll get that notification through Nixle.

Know where your utilities are, how to turn off your gas, your water, and electricity. At 2 a.m., when you smell gas or you hear running water, the last thing you want to do is find where that is. Insert, you'll learn where all those utilities are and how to turn them off. But if, when in doubt, contact your utility company or go online, you can certainly find how to turn off your gas or your electricity. Very important for your safety. We have a emergency preparedness guide that the fire department put together. It's online. It's on prepare mpk.com It's a digital version You can download it and it's got all this information and then some for you to use for your preparedness at home and again practice your plan Thank you and be happy to answer any questions

Thank you chief for all of that valuable information any questions or comments from the council?

Yes, mr. Mayor. Thank you chief. Thank you. That was a very informative and

Certainly I hope for the audience watching and listening that they take advantage of these programs we have to help our residents prepare for a disaster. I have a curious question, actually.

And again, I know most of the focus has always been on preparing for a disaster.

But have we ever done, I guess, a post-disaster type workshop?

And this is why I bring it up, and certainly I don't think it's ever happened here in the city. but sometimes you hear anecdotally, like, you know, if there's been a disaster, like an earthquake or flood, and you hear things like, you know, people...

Nothing happens here, but I've heard anecdotally we're in situations where people have pretended to be inspectors and it's really to scam someone to extract a fee out of it. So it sounds like a lot of our focus, and it should be, is preparing, but I almost wonder do we also, or can we maybe also think about putting something like post-disaster, how

one should react in the post-disaster? Sure, no, absolutely. Absolutely. We do disaster preparedness clinics quarterly.

That's something we can incorporate into those deliveries is considering that because we know we talk about cash and carrying cash as part of your kit but having small denominations

because unfortunately the worst in people come out in emergencies and they want to take advantage.

That gallon of milk that was $3 and you have a $20 bill is now $20. So people take advantage.

So yeah, we can certainly add that into a delivery to guide people into

How they should be contacted who would contact them in that form so they know if they get a phone call It wouldn't be from FEMA FEMA doesn't make phone calls. It would be certain things like that. So absolutely

Mayor Portemua. Thanks chief appreciate the the comprehensive update. I know you shared the website where all these tips and guide information is at. Do we translate any of that to other languages?

It is, yes. The guide is translated into Spanish and Chinese on the website, so you can download

all versions. Awesome. And then do we put snippets of these tips into the Cascades or anything?

Yes, we do. So in October, you'll see the article for the shakeout. And then as we go through the

year we always put preparedness tips whether it be for Christmas tree safety swimming pool safety just overall safety tips preparedness tips we put in the

cascades on a regular basis great that's super super great and hope you continue

that work and I feel like I'm trying to remember on my refrigerator home I think there's a magnet with all the emergency numbers and utility numbers I don't know when I got that from the city but maybe inappropriate time to redo that at various times of the year to either as a giveaway or some sort of thing

where people can

have those numbers that are such a...

In this guide that you can download, there's a section for you to write all those numbers down.

So you can certainly

download the guide and then you can update it, but absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for that information.

Thank you.

Our next presentation is from the library.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council members. My name is Lauren Frazier, and I'm the interim senior children's librarian at the library.

So I'm here to provide some updates for the library, as well as let you know some of the awesome programs we have going on in the next month or so. So first, and one of the most important things, is we're thrilled to announce that we're expanding

our open hours at the library. So six full day service is officially here with our first Monday open being next Monday, September 11th. So our new hours will be 12 to 8 Monday, Tuesday, 10 to 6 Wednesday through Saturday. So one of the most consistent comments we got when we were conducting our strategic plan was community members wanting more access, more open hours. So we're thrilled to address that strategic imperative. Next slide, please. So in celebration of the expansion of hours, please join us at the library for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday, September 18th at 4.30 p.m. A reception and light refreshments will follow in the friends' room.

All right. So also, September is library card sign-up month. So this year's theme is a library card is elemental.

So this is a theme that the American Library Association came up with in partnership with the Elemental movie.

So get in your element this month by signing up for a library card.

It's free, easy, and it gives you access to not just books, but so much more. Next slide, please.

All right. So to celebrate National Library Card Sign-Up Month, the library will be out on the town providing pop-up library card sign-up tables. So you can see us at the movie in the park and the farmer's market. We're also partnering with the Alhambra School District for a library card sign-up drive. So this is on the 16th. So second graders have submitted their applications already. We've processed them. They get to come to the library, celebrate getting their new card. with a little gift, so we're excited to be able to provide that. Also, I wanted to talk about all the cool things you can do with your library card besides checkout books. So you can check out our Wi-Fi hotspots. We have Chromebooks for checkout, our California State Parks passes. You can have us print your 3D printing project. You can stream movies for free on Canopy with your library card. You can access our virtual storytime archive, and you can get free homework help online and much more. Next slide. We also wanted to announce coming up on September 30th, we have our Elder Law Day from 10 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. in the Friends Room. So lawyers from the Asian Pacific American Bar Association and Asian Americans Advancing Justice SoCal will be on hand to answer questions about planning your estate. Space is limited, so we request registration. Please contact the library to register for that. Next slide. Also, homework help is coming back. We're very excited about that. So Saturdays from 2 to 4 p.m., high school volunteers are available in the library to provide homework help for elementary school students. But for those who can't come into the library, we have an excellent online resources. This one, BrainFuse Help Now, is especially awesome because it has live one-on-one tutoring. You don't even need a library card to use it. You can just go through our website. so it is for all students k through 12 and even beyond so you can connect with the tutor live online if you have any questions about using help now just please give us a call and we'll walk you through it next slide also we are celebrating hispanic heritage month at the library so that is september 15th to october 15th we have a ton of cool programs we have our spanish bilingual story time, folLod by a craft. We will have our junior friend social. We will have our afternoon matinee. We will be showing La Bamba, and we will have a Crafts of Mexico program as well. Next slide. And we are also celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival with adult and teen crafts, and they'll be making lanterns. Next slide. And we also have college prep workshops that are sponsored by the Chinatown Service Center. So those are Saturdays at 11 a.m. in the library computer lab. So they will learn how to apply for financial aid, fill out college applications, how to choose the right college, and how to write the college essay. So those are going to be very valuable for high school students. And finally, just a reminder about our library gala, which is happening on October 13th. So from 6 to 9 p.m. at Luminarias. For more information about how to purchase individual tickets or to sponsor a table, you can visit our website, and our gala will be honoring the Monterey Park Fire and Police Departments. All right, so that concludes my presentation. Does anyone have any questions?

First off, thank you so much for that presentation, but also all the amazing programming that you do through the library. I always tell people we have the best library in all the San Gabriel Valley.

Thank you. Any questions or comments from Council? Mayor Pro Tem Wong?

Just thank you again echoing the mayor's comments.

I appreciate all the programming.

Looking forward to reopening or opening on Mondays going forward. and thank you to the staff for getting that together this year. I don't know if you will know this. I'm just curious, the free mental health drop in counseling services, I don't know if a lot of people are still making use of that given the opening of the Resiliency Center or how uptake of that programming looks like.

Christmas coming.

Good evening, Kristen Olivera's interim city librarian. Currently, the staff from Chinatown Service Center is still available on Wednesdays and Fridays.

They are located at the entrance to the library, so based on what I've heard, they have had pretty good response.

People just sort of catching them as they're entering the library.

so they are still getting a number of people even with the Resiliency Center opening so far as I know.

Thank you so much. And I just had one question.

For the library card event that's going on this entire month, I just want to say thank you for partnering with Alhambra Unified. I teach in Alhambra Unified, but also my daughters attend Alhambra Unified. But I was wondering if we happen to partner and reach out to any of the other local school districts including Garvey, Montebello, or LAUS. We have some of those schools in our city as well.

We haven't contacted to make an official drive,

but we have been present at back-to-school nights across various districts.

And we're going to go to Hillcrest next week for a back-to-school night.

And at back-to-school nights, we have our library card sign-up table.

but we're definitely interested in the future in making those partnerships as the like, you know,

every child having a library card gets closer.

We want to definitely try to make those connections for sure.

Excellent. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next presentation is recreation and community services.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of the City Council my name is Orlando Muto Recreation Supervisor for the City of Monterey Park I'm here to share some updates and some save the dates of our upcoming events next fire I want to take the time to thank everyone who came out to support Langley Center's wildest party of the West we had an

amazing turnout our seniors line dance the day away to life sounds and and of the sorry life sounds of rock top next slide I also want to thank everybody who competed in our Langley Center Karaoke Contest. Once again, they had some great singers who sang their favorite tunes. Next slide. Please join us to kick off

Hispanic Heritage Month at our Farmers Market as we start the evening on September 14th with our friendly Fred Walk. The walk will begin at 5 30 p.m. Come and enjoy food, craft vendors, and the sound of Mariachi Antonio Navarro. We We will continue the celebration on September 21st by showing Selena.

The movie will begin at dusk and will be in conjunction with our Farmer's Market. Langley Center will continue the fun on September 28th. Seniors come out to dance the day away at the fun fiesta party. The event will start at 1 p.m. with Latin music, food, and raffles. And finally, come out to the farmer's market to see Ballet Flucorico Sol de Juego at Barnes Park from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. that evening on September 28.

On Thursday, October 12, please visit Langley Center as they kick off the Dia de los Muertos altar.

The altar will stay up until November 2.

Next slide.

Come join us to honor the lives lost on September 11 at our Patriots Day event. on Monday, September 11th at 8.30 a.m. in front of City Hall. Next slide.

And save the dates. We have a few events to save the dates, starting off with Electric Park on October 14th from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. here at Barnes Park.

There will be music, food trucks, games, and vendors. Our next event will be Monster Mash that will be on October 19th from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in collaboration with Brugmire Library.

It will be here at Barnes Park. please come trick or treat visit all our local vendors and our organizations that will be out

there giving out candy both events are free and family friendly I thank you for letting us share and if there's any questions I'm happy to share some but don't forget to continue to follow us

on Instagram and our social media thank you so much for all of that amazing programming that you guys are doing in the next couple months and thank you so much for all the events for Hispanic

Heritage Month. But any questions or comments from Council? Thank you Mr. Mayor. Again thank you

again for a great presentation. I know I'm personally looking forward to our second annual Friendly Fred Walk and again thank you for doing the first one last year which included a walk past

his family home in Monterey Park. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next presentation is

Public Works. Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and City Council, Sean Igoe,

Public Works Director. Tonight I want to go over some sandbags and how to dispose of those. So, as Chief Halleck pointed out, we gave out nearly 30 tons of sand and over 10,000 sandbags during the recent storm event. And that was just one weekend. So this is typically abnormal, what we normally do even during a normal wet season. So now residents are asking what they should be doing with these handbags. So we're strongly encouraging

or at a minimum out of the sunlight so they can reuse these in the next couple months. Should they feel they need to dispose of them, they can throw them away in their mixed-use trash cans

as long as they weigh less than 50 pounds.

So if they weigh more than 50 pounds in total, then they'll need to call Athens for a bulky item pickup. Typically, each handbag weighs about 6 to 7 pounds.

So that's just for everyone's information so they know what they're disposing of.

And again, Athens offers the free service for bulky item pickup.

Next slide, please.

Worst case, they can always come to our community cleanup event that we're having on October 7th. It's on a Saturday from 8 to 12. So they can also come here and dispose of them there with any other bulky items they want to dispose of at this event. So this is going to be at George Elder Park. Again, this is going to be on Saturday, October 7th.

So with that, I'll answer any questions. Thank you. Any questions from Council? Mayor Portamont?

Thank you, Sean.

I appreciate everything that public works and the rest of the city staff did to prepare for the storm. Luckily, I think the impacts and the winds were not as impactful as I think we were expecting in the forecast. But still good to be prepared, as was noted earlier. Are we planning to put the sandbag tips in the Cascades or any other avenues to get out?

Yeah, we can definitely do that.

We also put that on social media, but we'll also do that.

We'll put it out there as much as we can to encourage people. Perfect.

I know when we had that previous meeting, I don't know if it's appropriate to put it on the banners.

People seem to read the banners.

But the more we can do, I think a lot of people got the sandbags and now have no idea what to do with them. And asking them to sit on them for a couple months is probably a lot to ask. But the more we can get out the word to them about keeping that and knowing that El Nino is in store, not knowing for sure if it's going to rain, but the conditions are there for a heavier rainy season, I think,

or we want to be prepared to.

Another separate question, I don't know if you know, I was at Costco yesterday, and I saw at the OIA landfill site that they're doing some work on the slopes there. I don't know if you know what's going on there, if that's just damage from the storm.

Most likely that's what it is, but I'm not aware of what they're doing.

If there's anything worth checking in on there, let me or let the council know, I guess.

Sure. I'll do.

Thank you, Sean. Thank you.

And our last presentation is from the police department.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council. Scott Weiss, Chief of Police. Go ahead and first slide, please. So kind of a memorial date for us. Officer William Gadara was killed in the line of duty September 9th, 1927.

He was a brand new officer. He'd been on the department two weeks. He was at Rural and Garvey assisting a motorist that he pulled over and fixing their taillight. While the motorist and he were standing between the two cars, the police car and the civilian car, a driver approaching from another direction swerved to avoid a collision, struck the police car, which then pinned them between the two cars. Officer Goddara was transported to Alhambra Hospital and died at the hospital on the 9th of September, 1927. It's a long time ago. The department remembers it. We have a memorial wall. We keep the remembrance of his passing. He was not a police officer here for very long. It's very difficult to get the information from 1927, But with the help of with Diana Garcia, we're able to mine some information recently. And so we will hopefully put a picture up soon with his with his likeness up in the police department. But, you know, we've only had a few officers killed in the line of duty. And this is one. But it happened many, many years ago. So for us at the department, we still remember it. Next slide, please. So this is a response to some of the communication with council over the last several months. One of the things we're developing at the police department is a link on our police department website for firearm safety. The firearms unit, the training unit within the police department is creating that website, and anybody who accesses the city webpage, goes to the police department page, will be able to access the different subpages within that. Some of the topics we're going to talk about in there are firearm safety. We'll have links to different firearm safety organizations. We've partnered with a child safe organization, which has provided us with 100 safety locks for firearms. We'll be pushing that out through the website and through social media. And anybody in the public who needs a lock for their firearm at home, if they haven't purchased one in the last 10 years, I believe, is when the law changed in California. If it's an older firearm, we would like them to get a hold of us, and an officer can either drop it off at the house or they can come up to the department, pick up some literature, and we'll show them how to install that on their gun. But those are available. We received them in the mail just yesterday, so we're getting that information out to the public as soon as we can. But that's available for free. We're going to talk about on the website how to safely dispose of firearms. Believe it or not, we get dozens of people every year that call the police department. They're going through their dad's stuff. They're going through the garage. They find an old firearm. They don't want it. They don't know what to do with it. They don't feel comfortable with it. They can call the police department. We'll either send an officer out to the field or some of them bring them into the station. And we have a procedure for that that we'd like the public to understand so you don't walk in with the shotgun over your shoulder or whatever it is. But we'll have that in there and explain how people can safely turn in firearms. All those firearms are brought in. We book them into evidence and then we destroy those firearms. There'll be a link to California firearms laws through the Department of Justice. and we'll link with their website. And there's a lot of frequently asked questions that people can go to. And I was on it today to see some of the different topics. And there's dozens and dozens and dozens of topics that people that have questions can access. And it comes right out of the firearms unit with Department of Justice.

We're also going to put a link in there to explain to people how if a firearm is taken for a purpose here

and it's judicially released to them, which a judge can release a firearm to somebody. If it's taken for safekeeping or for whatever reason, they have to go through a court procedure to get it back.

But once that's done, there's a procedure within the department that they have to produce that court paperwork

before we release those firearms. And that's not our decision. That's a decision that's made by case law or by statute, and a judge has to sign off on that.

So we'll explain that in there. And then we'll also have a link to the new gun violence restraining order procedures that LA County is developing right now.

It's a county-wide process that will be in place pretty soon, and we'll have a linkage there and an explanation and some suggestions of how people can navigate that. And ultimately, we'll fall back on us at the police department to figure out how we're going to execute that court order if it does get approved.

Next slide, please.

California State Senate Bill No. 2 is now in committee. It's out of committee, and it's, I believe, on the floor. I'm not going to go through each of these sections, but what it does is it amends the California concealed weapons laws and makes them very restrictive. And these are just some of the places that will be restricted if SB 2 passes in California.

It affects a dozen or so different sections, and way too many for me to list on here, but if it gets to the governor and it is signed, these are some of the restricted areas that will be, for any CCW holder, they won't be able to carry there. Now, that goes above and beyond our local rules, but if you see on there, government buildings and parks are listed in the state law. So we'll have kind of double coverage, if you will. Next slide, please.

I did a little bit of, We talked about signs and private businesses. Businesses in town are private property.

Private property owners, as of right now, with the way state law works, they can restrict anybody on their private property.

CCW holders aren't specifically precluded from carrying a concealed firearm on private property unless the private property owner is aware that they're carrying it and doesn't want them to have it.

that's the way the law works

there is no state mandated sign at this point that California has approved to go in the window of a store to say that you cannot carry a firearm other states do have them but California does not

this is an example of one sign when I was doing the research

there were on this one side alone where I grabbed this

there were 30 different iterations of this sign that people can get and put in their windows the cost of the sign varies

if we were to add any kind of or require them to add any kind of language to it I believe this sign was $12 a sign and they go up to $20 depending on what the language is on the sign

if a person is found to have a concealed weapon and the business owner does not want them to be on the property they're not in violation of any firearms laws the business owner then tells them I don't want you on my property you can either go to your car, lock up the gun in an approved situation you can take it home and lock it up and come back or you can leave the premises if the person says well I don't want to leave and I have a second amendment right to carry this gun you do, but not on private property

and at that point we would trespass that person and ask them to leave now that trespassing would also in Monterey Park's case lead to a kind of an administrative hearing of the CCW permit

and there's more than likely we would then pull that permit from that person

if that kind of interaction were to occur and we were aware of it.

But the caveat there is that the business owner has to know the person is carrying the weapon in the first place. Sometimes if they're carrying it concealed like the law says, technically you won't see it because it's concealed. So there's a little bit of a back and forth there that people would have to kind of navigate. I think SB2 will probably pass. There will be challenges to SB2 by the National Rifles Association and California associations that handle Second Amendment items. But we'll have to wait and see.

And I think that's it.

I welcome any questions.

Thank you, Chief, for that information.

Any questions or comments?

I have a question for Carl. we got ahead of some of these things by our actions

couple of meetings, correct? Go back to the slide with the list, please. There you go. Correct.

Any other questions or comments? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. Again, I'm very excited that we are establishing this resource page for our residents. Do we plan to also maybe do some workshops, like in-person workshops or online on some of the topics we're covering for the community?

Definitely.

When I have one, when SB2 passes, we're going to dive deep into SB2, the final bill, when

it's actually made a law.

Okay. We'll be able to kind of take it apart and define it and be able to kind of communicate with the community about what that means. we don't have any workshops planned at this point but there's no reason why we wouldn't do them

we just have to kind of drill down our local law drill down the state laws and see how they would

apply to the public all of our ccw holders when they are given their permits and explained the

liability that goes along with the permit and they're explained the liability by three of us

by the range safety officer that tests them, by the lieutenant who does the background on them,

and by me personally, we talk about the liability that goes along with them having a CCW.

I have not had anybody say, here it is, I'm going to give it back because of that. But we do explain to them that the laws are very restrictive, and the likelihood that they're going to be in a situation to pull that gun out has to be very, very specific. And there's a chance that without the extensive training that a police officer gets, that they may make a mistake. And that's part of the process. But all of them are aware of these sections that are coming down the line. And we will constantly keep them updated so that they understand it and they also know where the line is drawn with them. The state is going to basically restrict firearms carry for concealed carry people

other than peace officers to public streets. And that's just about it. Your car, your home, your business, and that's it. Great, thank you. Mayor Pertumwang? Thanks, Chief. We appreciate this.

I was going to save this for the second reading for some of the items coming back,

but maybe we can save some time.

You mentioned some signage. Are we planning or are we looking into assuming the ordinance has passed today? Are we looking at, or is your department looking at signage for city facilities that prohibit gun carrying?

Yes, we would be looking at that.

We would be looking at that for both city facilities and parks.

We're in the process of, we're waiting for the immunity code to be, just like all the signs you see for parking and all those things,

we list a municipal code with a police department number.

we'll have to mock up a sign and make sure that it passes muster before we post it.

But, yeah, we will have signs in city facilities and city parks. Perfect.

And the more timely we can get those signs posted, I think, the better, assuming we pass the ordinance tonight. And you kind of mentioned it, if there's an opportunity to provide signage or to provide templates for signage for business owners and others. to provide signage or to provide templates for signage for business owners and others who want to also

! We're prepared to do that right now. You don't have to purchase that sign from a business. You could print it ! Print it on a color printer and put it up in your window. So there virtually is no cost to the property owner if they want to post those signs. We're there to help them navigate that and explain it to them. Again, the sign is not, there's no statute that backs the sign up. there's no statute that backs the sign up. So you can put the sign in your window. The CCW holder at this point can ignore it. And if you don't see the gun, then you don't call the police and the process doesn't happen. It all depends on the signs kind of a warning that if we catch you with it, we're going to kick you out or tell you not to have it. There are some venues that are big venues in L.A., which even off-duty peace officers can't carry firearms in. So private property is private property, and you can control what happens on that private property. So we will help business owners with that and give them direction within the law that currently exists, and then we'll update them and update the community if and when that law passes.

Yeah, that's great, and I appreciate that we're watching what L.A. County is going to do and how they're going to roll out their outreach kind of campaign on GVROs

and these other gun control ordinances.

the more we can dovetail and connect with those efforts I think would be great and if there are other efforts that we should be looking at specifically here for Monterey Park to get the word out and to do outreach right the law is only as good as people actually know it exists to enforce it or to actually call it out right so the more we can do outreach I don't know if this is this makes sense or is appropriate but I know right every every business has to come in for a business license, including some sort of material in there around their opportunity as business owners to restrict gun carrying weapons, you know, their stores, some sort of education or pamphlet or whatever for people coming in for business licenses every year and including that as part of their packet would be, I think would be helpful promoting this, assuming the ordinances pass tonight, promoting some of these efforts in Cascades and other avenues

I think would be great too.

Okay.

And then adding on to what Mayor Pro Tem Wong said, if there's any way we can maybe even contact businesses using the MPK Rewards app, that they could potentially, I don't know, maybe even a way to download and print out as simple as a color printer, that would be great. I did want to piggyback on what Council Member Lo said regarding education. and I think it's very important that as we move forward with these ordinances that we're passing within the city to obviously prevent gun violence here. I want to know if we are thinking about potentially partnering with maybe just kind of like the library does with local school districts to be able to do some type of education, maybe even having a booth at their back-to-school nights with information about safe storage and handling of weapons. We know that a lot of the gun violence that happens at schools or among children usually comes from weapons that parents have at home to make sure that parents are getting this information, not just from our city, but from a different venue that they visit often, which is their schools.

Absolutely. Children are considered restricted users. Right.

So there are already pretty extensive state laws that prohibit firearms in homes where children are present from being unsecured.

So there's already a violation present there. If the child is injured or someone else is injured because of that, it's a felony.

So there's some teeth in those laws. But we would absolutely partner with the four school districts in our area and the library and get that information out.

I think that would be great just in terms of doing, you know, almost like parent education classes, but being able to share that information with parents so that, you know, households that do have weapons are properly storing them and keeping them away from kids.

We'll put together some posts, some Instagram posts and stuff. The school district is very good about capturing those that we put out and putting them out to there.

And their social media access is very extensive.

A lot of their parents subscribe to that, as you probably do. Yeah.

Thank you so much, Chief.

No problem. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll go ahead and, seeing there's no more presentations, jump into item 2A, Old Business. discussion of city council stance on amended Senate Bill SB 710 by Senator Durazzo.

City manager, is there?

Yes. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council.

This item tonight is regarding SB 710. It's before you tonight as requested by city council for discussion and consideration. At the city council meeting on April 5th, 2023, the City Council expressed opposition to SB 710. The City Council in general felt that there was a lack of representation of all the cities impacted by traffic concerns, including the City of Monterey Park. The City of Monterey Park, along with other neighboring cities, sent opposition letters regarding SB 710 as originally drafted. Since then, Senator DeRazzo amended SB 710 and the updated bill language is attached to the staff report for reference. As of when the staff report was prepared, the cities of Alhambra, Los Angeles, and Pasadena are now supporting SB 710 as amended. In August, the city received a letter from Senator Durazzo requesting the city council consider removing opposition and moving to support of the bill. That letter is also attached to the staff report for reference. this concludes my report and staff is requesting city council to provide direction regarding the city's stance on the amended language of SB 710 and if desirable direct staff to send a letter stating the city's continued opposition or support or take other action as desirable thank you

thank you city manager are there any questions or comments regarding SB 710 from council

Council Member Lo?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Question.

The copy of the bill that we have on the agenda, is that the latest version of the bill? Because I know some lines have been stricken, which I'm assuming is because of amendments taken up by the author.

Correct. This is the amended language.

I see.

Any other questions or comments? Council Member Lo?

Yeah, I'll start.

We were in Sacramento a few months ago, and we went to their office, and we specifically asked to be included, to have an active voice in either the committee or panel, and we have not heard anything. I understand why the state of Alhambra, Los Angeles, and Pasadena have changed their opinion on the bill, because they got what they wanted. From my standpoint, the city of Mario Park continues to have no representation here, so I'm going to stay silent. That's where I stand here.

Until we have representation, I cannot, in my mind, support something that affects our city,

but we have no control, no voice over it. So that's where I feel on this.

Mayor Portempo?

I just echo kind of those sentiments.

I support my understanding is right. A lot of the concerns from our neighboring city of Alhambra were addressed in amendments to the bill.

And those seem like they would take away some of our most, our main concerns as well.

in terms of the body being formed here, whatever it is, being focused on advising on potential solutions and uses for the land there in the existing corridor. So in that sense, there's no direct impact on us in and of itself that they're able to do, but also no benefit to the city, and so would be amenable to moving to a neutral position

given some of the changes to the existing bill,

but not seeing a reason for us to explicitly support the bill unless I'm missing something.

Thank you. Any other comments? Yes, Mr. Ryer. Council Member Lo?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Ryer.

Again, the reason why I asked if this is the latest version of the bill is because, again, thank my colleagues for your comments, But yeah, I mean, I look at the language in this list.

Two representatives from the city of Longhambra. Two representatives from the city of Los Angeles.

One who resides in 90032 zip code. One representative from the county of Los Angeles. One representative from California State University of Los Angeles. One representative from Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. One representative from a business or workforce entity. One representative from a community-based organization. And let's see, no more than two additional members to be appointed by a department.

And, you know, my concern is that, you know,

One is only looking at a map of Monterey Park, and it's very clear that the terminus, part of the terminus is in our boundaries. And I find interesting that the author is willing to include part of the county of L.A., because I know there is unincorporated Los Angeles west of us, but not us. And so I would say I don't see a need for it to take action to change our position, to be honest.

Thank you, Council Member Lo. I'd also like to echo the same sentiments of the other council members. Frankly, kind of offended that we're not included in this. In particular, the district that I represent, District 3, would be potentially dramatically impacted by anything that happens in this corridor. So I think that Monterey Park not only deserves a spot on this commission as part of this group, but also I think we have a vested interest to ensure that whatever happens in this corridor falls within the benefits of the residents of Monterey Park. It doesn't dramatically impact it. We are already impacted by heavy traffic because of the 60 freeway and the 710 corridor and the 10 freeway. Our city resides within the borders of all these freeways, and so whatever happens in this section of the 710 freeway will obviously dramatically impact the residents of Monterey Park. especially those that I represent in District 3. So I also do not see any reason why we should support SB 710. I also would encourage us to, as a council, to send a letter back to Senator Durazzo expressing our sentiments and feelings about this and request that we be offered a seat or two on this commission as well. But I see no reason to change our position. In fact, I would probably even argue in opposition, but just to be fair and give Senator Durazo an opportunity to respond, I would say stay neutral on this and not support it.

Councilmember, you?

I just wanted to, yeah, I mean, follow the sentiment.

Yeah, when we opposed in the beginning, we want a voice.

And now with the changes, I don't see that they give us what we want.

And I don't know why we wanted to change it from opposed to agree.

There's no reason. So I will say continue to oppose the bill.

So just to clarify, the position of the city is already to oppose. We're talking about if we want to change our position. So there's no action if we want to continue with that position, right?

Correct.

We do not have to take any action if that's the council's desire. if the council is looking to send a letter though about requesting a seat on the task force. I'm not sure if that's the, I heard a comment. I'm not sure if that is something that the council would like to consider or it's just no action.

I know, I mean, this is my very quick thoughts, right?

There's a week and a half left in the legislative session, right?

We won't have another council meeting to suss out what might happen or if there are any amendments to the bill, good or bad for us. My feeling is to provide authorization to the mayor at his flexibility and depending on what happens these next few days, since the council probably won't meet before this bill is finalized one way or the other,

just to give him a broad authority to issue a letter if he sees fit,

given where it's at, or to, I don't know, express a different opinion if the bill changes in one way or another towards our...

And to add to what the Mayor Pro Temp said, and he's correct,

session ends on the 14th of September.

In fact, I mean, given this bill is probably already in the Assembly,

I mean, it may have already been voted on or will be voted on. So I do agree.

Yeah, I mean, perhaps, you know, empower the mayor to see fit, you know, how he wants to respond.

But I mean, at this point, yeah, I mean, the bill is probably somewhere moving its way through the docket of the assembly.

And so, I mean, when does, when does this request came from the senator's office regarding our position change or ask us what this came?

Let's see.

We received the letter, or the letter is dated August 7th.

Okay, I see.

So probably because at that point it may have gone, we'll still go into committee.

So I mean, I mean, again, again, I just wondered,

you know, this late in the day, you know,

I think our positions are made clear from the beginning. And, you know, I think perhaps had we acted sooner,

maybe a bit of consequence to the senator's office. But again, given that it was August 7th, it's now September 6th,

again, it probably is already going through the daily file as we speak.

Well, I think for the time being, what I'm hearing is we could... I think for the time being what I'm hearing is we could maintain our opposition position without

!

having any votes and then following up with a letter about our status and the need for a seat on the task force.

Is that what I'm hearing?

I think I'm amenable to the mayor if the mayor feels the need to issue a letter in the remaining week and a half

or so of the session to make our concerns that were made clear tonight clear to the senator and the legislature. made clear tonight, clear to the Senator and the legislature, I think that authority should be there for the Mayor to do so in the next week and a half.

Well, thank you, and then we'll keep you updated.

We'll go ahead and jump to consent calendar items 3A through 3Q.

Are there any items that Council would like pulled for discussion or reports?

3d and 3e 3d and 3e any other ones I will pull 3b 3f 3n

AND THEN I BELIEVE I NEED TO RECUSE ON 3P SINCE SOME OF THE PROJECTS ARE WITHIN 500 FEET OF MY PROPERTY.

OKAY. SO CAN I, IS THERE A MOTION THEN TO PASS ITEMS, THE REMAINING ITEMS, 3A, 3C, 3G, H, I, J, K, L, M.

I HAVE ONE COMMENT FOR 3L.

OPQ.

One speaker for 3L.

Okay. One public.

That one's being pulled.

Okay. We'll hear a comment now.

Nancy Okurie.

Good evening again. I'm very happy to see this project on North New Avenue get the one-year extension,

finally moving forward as this lot has been vacant for many years.

When the New Avenue school was located there,

I noticed there was heavy traffic backed up on the left lane on New Avenue as many of the parents had to wait for break and traffic to enter the schoolyard.

So I want to know what this developer will be doing to prevent this issue from happening again. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. No other speakers. No other speakers. Okay.

Is there a motion?

I'll make the motion to approve everything except for the pool items.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Council Member Lo. And if we can take a vote, please.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you.

We'll go ahead and jump to item 3B and I know several Council members, I'm sorry, Mayor

Potem Wong pulled this. Do you like an abbreviated or?

Abbreviated. Abbreviated staff report. Sure.

Good evening again, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council.

This item again is brought forward tonight at the request of City Council. The Behavior Health Modernization Package includes two bills aimed at addressing behavioral health crisis and providing better care and support to those in need. SB 326 seeks to modernize the Mental Health Services Act by expanding services to include treatment for substance use disorders

and focus on accountability outcomes and equity. AB 531 proposes a significant $4.68 billion

general obligation bond on the March 2024 ballot to create 10,000 new treatment beds and housing units offering housing and care to individuals experiencing homelessness with behavioral health needs. City Council has requested to consider authorizing the Mayor to sign letters of support for California Senate Bill 326 and Assembly Bill 531 addressing mental and behavioral health services. That concludes my report.

Thank you

Any questions or comments from council?

Mayor for 10 long. I know you think I didn't thank you to the staff for putting this together

And I just want to say up front that I wholly support the intent behind these and then providing resources for mental health right beds and housing and there's obviously a need and For us here in our own community. I need to address homelessness and mental health issues that intersect in a lot of ways in our own community. I just want to make sure if we haven't, or if anyone knows, if LA County has a position on this, I know and I've heard that there are concerns from some counties and mental health providers around at least part of this bill in terms of redirecting existing funding for mental health funds and services to this specific purpose, and there are concerns around the loss of funding for some existing programming. I wouldn't want to get in the way, I don't want to support something that's going to take away from services that we still need to provide for other services that are in need of resources too, and if there's a way to check in on that. And also knowing, given our just recent discussion, that the legislative session is about to end and that these bills are going to be,

from the news reading,

it looks like these are very likely to pass, but knowing that we won't have another councilman to go through this, I just wanted to see if there's any information on where the counties are or even CSC or others that provide mental health services, if any of their funding might be impacted by this potential change in funding at the state level.

I don't believe that we have any information of whether LA County

or even CSC has supported these items or opposed them.

I'm happy to make the motion or to let someone else make a motion on authorizing the mayor when I would suggest all council members signatures beyond this letter but authorizing that action to happen to sign on in support of these bills if we can do a quick check and if we do find that LA County or other mental health service providers that the city partners with have serious concerns about these bills that maybe we don't exercise that authority. I don't know if that, does that work, Carl, or I don't know how that works.

Okay. Council Member, you? Yeah, I just have a question that for AB 531 proposed a significant 4.68 billion

geo bonds on March 2024.

I'm wondering that if they're issuing the geo bond at the highest interest rates, what would be the interest rate? And that would be a very significant debt to create it for the state.

So I'm just wondering what the interest rate would be. And that is actually the, I don't want to say it's the wrong timing, but it's like the highest interest rate ever.

And then when you issue bonds, it can be given out so much interest at the time.

Then I don't know if the timing is right here.

I believe the bill would authorize the state to issue those bonds. It doesn't require them to do it at a certain point. right they have flexibility to determine if I'm not that interest rates are come down to where they were a few years ago very likely anytime soon but they don't have to write the day that it passes they're not buying the bonds there's

flexibility there in terms of financing period but I don't know that's yeah

Councilmember Ngo?

I hear

Councilman Yu's concerns

however

in this situation it's going to get voter approved in March I don't know how long it's going to take for the

bonds to get issued

I think where I stand on this is

I'd like the suggestion made by Pro Tem Wong

which is let's figure out LA County which we're part of if they're supportive of this I think deep inside we support this mental health aspect of this. The bond issue is another story another discussion hopefully later versus sooner based on the bond market and interest rates. In any case if the state approves it they're gonna find a way to

do it. So I mean I'd be happy to make the recommendation or did Pro Tem Wong

already make a recommendation I'll second that. That sounds great. Are there any other questions or comments? All right if we can take a vote please.

Approved unanimously. Thank you. If staff can just report back on what we ultimately do on this one that would be helpful. Thank you. And we did say to put

all the council members signatures right now. Okay. Okay. Excellent. And then item 3D.

Council member, you, you pulled item 3D. Would you like a report, abbreviated report?

Good evening, Council. My name is Amy Lee, City Treasurer for Marnier Park. The City Investment Policy requires an annual investment report and a statement of investment policy we submitted to the City Council for annual review.

The attached annual report shows all the investment activities for 2022-2023 that they were conducted according to the city's investment policy for that year. The total investment balance for the city of Barnard Park as of June 30, 2023 was $87,909.153. The Treasury Committee is introducing and recommending the adoption of the attached investment policy. The investment policy includes the most recent government citations as amended by Senate Bill 998 and 1489. It allows the Treasury Committee to diversify the city's portfolio while continuing to prioritize safety, liquidity, and yield. The city, together with the Treasury Committee, has contracted Chandler Asset Management to assist with the development of the investment policy.

We have worked on it and has been reviewed by Chandler, and they are here today to have a presentation for you.

Today we have Mia Corral Brown, a regional director for Chandler, and Kara Hooks, an associate portfolio strategist at Chandler.

Mia Brown has over 20 years of experience servicing the municipalities,

and Carol Hooks is an associate portfolio strategist.

Her specialty is on key investment themes and trends for implementation into the local government

and additional client portfolios. I'll let them speak on the investment policy.

Thank you, Amy, and good evening, honorary mayor, mayor pro tem, and members of the city council. Thank you for inviting us to be here this evening. In late spring, early summer, we were contacted by finance staff and City Treasurer Amy Lee to conduct a thorough review and analysis of the city's investment policy. One of the things that we wanted to do was to provide Chandler's model policy to the city for consideration and adoption. What this does is it elevates the city's investment program, provides and incorporates all of the language that is set forth per California government state code, and will allow the city to submit their investment policy, if adopted, to the California Municipal Treasurers Association for annual certification. as Amy mentioned I'm a regional director at Chandler Asset Management I've been at the firm for 19 years but I've brought an investment specialist with me this evening, Kara Hooks and Kara outlined and redlined the investment policy for submission to the finance committee and we have a very brief presentation that we will go through to just highlight some of those key changes if you will. So with that

I'm going to invite care up. I'm a bit taller. There we go. So on this next page that we have, what we've done first is we want to highlight first the full investment universe that the city is alLod by California government code to invest within. So what you see listed there is everything in the investment universe. So these are things that individuals would be able to invest in in their own portfolios, whereas now if you look at the top green area where it says short duration fixed income and code status on the far right alLod, those are the very narrow parameters that the city is permitted to invest within within California government code. And then within those parameters, you'll see in the investment policy, we further refine and restrict allowable investments in order to ensure the city's objectives of safety, liquidity, and yield. On the following slide, you'll see some of our higher observations.

The main items that we have is we'd like to include the Senate Bills 998 and 1489.

Senate Bill 998 includes no more than 10% of commercial paper in corporates of any single issuer may be purchased, as well as zero or negative interest accrual securities, but that was mainly implemented during the pandemic.

includes is it changes allowable days to settlement and that generally involves municipal bonds. And then 45 days to submit a quarterly report opposed to 30 days. And then lastly it changes the settlement date as opposed to the trade date for when maturity is established, changing

it by just a few days there. Other items really to allow for greater diversification that we see there is we like to expand the authorized investments to include money market mutual funds, supernationals, and pass-through securities, inclusive of asset-backed securities and mortgage-backed securities. We'd also like to adjust the maximum percentages alLod per investment type and issuer.

There might be, one example would be federal agencies, where in the California government code there is no limit as to what you can invest in. However, we find it is a best interest and a good industry practice to instill a limit there. So you'll find that we'll further refine California government code to further ensure safety.

One other area that we'd like to highlight is you'd like to note that the city would explore the potential to engage with an external investment advisor.

You'd want to add just some language in there stating this potential availability for the city. And then that would further establish some other areas within the investment policy, namely like if there's broker-dealers, we would use our specific broker-dealers that we've contracted with

essentially after we do review with them.

On the following page, you'll see here. So overall, what these recommendations would do, as Mia had mentioned, is that they'll allow an external investment advisor to have access to all investments as described in California Government Code 53601. It would also provide city staff with an investment policy that can be submitted to CMTA, as Mia had mentioned and then also create the groundwork to truly employ an investment strategy to optimize returns for longer-term projects and Resources for the city and with that we'd like to take any questions

Thank you any questions or comments from Council

Council member you yeah, thank you so much for clarify and so I think it's good to review our investment policy has been outdated for quite some time. And I think that leads to your next presentations about your investment allocation.

So, yeah, thank you so much for reviewing our

investment policy. Thank you. Very welcome.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Mayor Potemwong? Thank you. I appreciate the

work and staff and the consultants in terms of looking at expanding our options for what we can do to invest and make sure that we're yielding a return. For some of the, when I was looking through the investment, the proposed investment policy, I'm just curious, I don't, I'm not personally familiar with some of these assets. Are any of these, do any of these carry a risk of loss for the principal?

So our ultimate goal is principal preservation.

So with our research done by our team, that would be if we were to be managed.

There would be minimal loss.

However, when you're investing, there's always a potential for loss.

But ideally, when purchasing bonds, though, if you're holding to maturity, you are never truly losing what you are purchasing.

Yeah, I'm particularly looking at asset-backed, mortgage-backed, mortgage-passed securities, collateralized mortgage obligations. funds, my understanding of money market mutual funds are that those are pretty much guaranteed.

Those are guaranteed.

But I'm not, these asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities sound like, just remind me of the 2008 financial crisis.

Yes.

And significant losses that occurred there. I'm really worried about this potentially, the risk there in terms of, and potentially and other assets that we might invest in if this policy passes that might incur losses to our principal?

That's a great question. And also a common concern when we are presenting these types of updates to cities who haven't done these types of updates. A lot of them ended up putting pass-throughs in the prohibited section following what occurred in the early 2000s. And so one thing to notice if Chandler were to be the ones investing on your behalf is the asset-backed securities that we purchase. are of the high grade, the higher end of those, the higher tranche. So very safe. They tend to be the ones that get paid back first. And so we're not going to be buying the ones from, say, an asset-backed security where it is backed by car loans and the individuals have a higher loan rate or a longer-term period. We want to have the money returned quickly. And with mortgages like CMOs or MBS,

We are looking to purchase the ones that get paid back the quickest with the highest level of safety in there.

So we are also doing our due diligence within those. So you are opening yourself up.

I mean, more options there is better diversification. But, you know, with investment does come some risk. However, per California government code, you are very limited to how risky you can really be.

Yeah, it sounds like you. If I may just add, these are all highly rated A or better fixed income securities, and we will really be conducting very in-depth credit analysis. But I do want to make the point that the city currently invests with LEIF and LASIP. And as a passive investor in both of these investment pools, The city has had exposure to all of these asset classes for over the last two decades. So we're not introducing anything that's necessarily new. What you're allowing LEIF and LASIP to do, you would just be potentially allowing an external investment advisor to do.

So question for me, as you stated, we're already in this game.

You are.

and it's double a double a or better so we're basically peeling off the top tier pieces my question for you is because i'm not really familiar with your office so your group can you tell me a little bit background about your office and how much in portfolio management strategic management in the in the billions and how many full-time employees

and how many regions and offices certainly so one of the things that we did this evening is prepare a presentation about Chandler Asset Management and how we might be able to partner with the City of Monterey Park. So if we can go ahead and pull that up, we'll go ahead

and jump into that. Council Member, no. Do we want to go into 3DE and move off of 3D?

There is a separate question. If there's a motion to approve 3D, we can move on to 3E.

Motion to approve 3D. Is there a second?

I'll second. I would just note that understanding that we already

exposed.

So can we just do both?

They're both related. That's fine.

We'll do three and then we'll. Thank you.

If we can do the presentation.

Thank you.

We're back for part two. So the city has historically invested the majority of their funds in the local government investment pools, which are LAF and the city

LAF and LA County investment pool.

With rates substantially higher, the city has the opportunity now to optimize our interest earnings. We brought Chandler

again. They're here to talk about what they have to offer.

Chandler currently manages $27 billion in California with over $20 billion with the public agencies. So I'll give it to them to present their presentation.

Thank you, Amy. And again, we really appreciate this opportunity to be here this evening

and to present our qualifications to potentially partner with the City of Monterey Park.

So let's go ahead and advance a slide, please. One more. Again.

Thank you. And this is really just introducing our engagement team. So again, I'm Mia Correll-Brown, a regional director at Chandler.

And for almost the last two decades, I've had the pleasure of serving as an institutional client service and public sector specialist, working with public agencies throughout Southern California. With me again today is Kara Hooks.

Kara is a portfolio strategist, which is essentially a client-facing portfolio manager. Also pictured here is Jason Schmidt. Jason has been at Chandler for over 25 years and has almost three decades of industry experience. If we were fortunate enough to be selected to manage a portion of the portfolio for the city of Monterey Park, Jason would lead the implementation of the investment strategy on your behalf.

We also have pictured here to the right Stacy Alderson, and Stacy is a client service director. She will oversee the onboarding and work very closely with me and our team in order to ensure that we provide a very seamless experience to the city of Monterey Park.

Next slide, please.

So this to address Mayor Pro Tem Wong's question and some of the concerns of council. Chandler Asset Management was founded 35 years ago by Kay Chandler.

And Kay, in the early part of her career, served as an investment officer first for the county of San Diego,

folLod by the city. And she was often called upon by agencies like, or associations rather, like CMTA, GFOA, which is the Government Finance Officers Association, and CSMFO to provide technical training and expertise.

And one of the key observations she had back then was that there was not a local California-based public sector investment advisory firm. So with that, she set out to open our doors. Today, well, this is as of 630. We have $33.3 billion in assets. But as of today's reading, we are approaching $35 billion in assets.

all shared for clients who share very similar objectives to the city of Monterey Park

for safety, liquidity, and last but not least, return. Our goal at Chandler is to provide customized investment programs for public sector clients. And as you can see to the left, over 86% of the assets that we manage are for public agencies, many of whom are here in our home state of California. The other assets that are managed are for health care or for private individuals who have the very same objectives of safety, liquidity, and return. I think it's important to note that Chandler is an independent firm, and we are employee-owned.

We do not have any ties to brokerage, banking, or financial advisory services.

We are a registered investment advisor, and as such, we serve as a co-fiduciary of the assets that we will manage on your behalf. We have a very stable team of investment professionals. Each of our portfolio managers have earned the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst, and we have a team that has been in place through various market cycles, especially at the upper end with our senior team and investment members. One of the benefits of working with us is the access. Martha and Amy can attest that they have had the ability to meet several of the employees at Chandler and benefit from direct access via phone and or email to the professionals at our firm. We currently have 42 employees, and if we were selected, your portfolio would be managed and serviced from our headquarters in North San Diego. Next slide, please.

I think it's important to note that we have a significant amount of experience managing portfolios for many of your neighbors and peers. What I did here is just pull together a snapshot of some of our neighboring clients for whom we've been able to provide investment management services. These are all existing clients, and we have very longstanding relationships with all of them. When you look at the LA cities here, we have been working with the city of El Monte, Pomona, also in the San Gabriel Valley, Walnut Valley Water District for, gosh, over 15 years, Upper San Gabriel Municipal Water District located right down the road on Foothill, as well as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation System, the bus system, essentially, that runs through this area. We also have very large clients, such as the city of Beverly Hills. When you look to the inland area clients, large, really large entities, almost a billion dollars, include the city of Riverside, city of Palm Springs, and many others. So we work with not only municipalities, but water districts and counties and special districts. Again, looking to Orange County. in Orange County, we manage portfolios for over 22 public agencies within Orange. So I'll go ahead and continue on to the next slide, please. And we'll ask Akira to come up to talk to you a little bit about the investment strategies that fit well with our California public agencies.

Thank you, Mia. So what you see here is really how we like to think of the city's total portfolio.

So when designing an investment program, we want to think of that main top gray bar, the total items.

So on the far left, you have the checking account. Those are your daily expenditures.

That will be items that are needed for daily liquidity. In the middle item here, you'll see the liquidity.

the far right you'll see greater than one year. So we're expecting for those funds those will be the ones that Chandler will step in and manage on your behalf. And what we expect for those funds is really for them not to be needed for more than a year. That way we could truly put an investment program to work for you. With these they would be invested in either a limited maturity strategy or a short-term strategy and we'll look at those on the next page. And really we'll target that longer duration to enhance the potential earnings income. If we move to the next slide, what you'll see here are two different composites that Chandler has that are used by many of the entities Mia listed earlier in the presentation. On the left-hand side, you'll see the limited maturity, and this is really a step up from LEIF or LGIP's investment. So this is a one-to-three-year strategy. You'll see the average duration is set at 1.6 years, and then further down with the maturity distribution, we have a heavy allotment to the zero to one years and then almost 50 percent in the one to three years and then the remainder in three to five. On the right hand side you'll see the short-term bond which is the one to five year and this is really this will have more volatility as it will have a higher duration of 2.34 years. Now duration is really your measurement to risk and that would be the primary focus for Chandler is we're going to really measure the duration instead of trying to chase yield. So in good times we'll stick to the duration and in bad times we'll stick to the duration. Now whether that means we go under or over the benchmark duration really just depends as to what our research teams are seeing. You'll see the maturity distribution but really what I want to point out down below is the sector allocation. So the diversification in both of

these portfolios have a heavy use of U.S. treasuries and agencies and corporates and then you'll see some inclusion of super nationals as well as CMOs. We're finding a lot of use in CMOs as they're relatively safe and are being issued a bit frequently now.

So as I mentioned, these are the primary options that your fellow constituents or your fellow cities have used. And so we would really recommend them to be, you know, one to three as the safer option, the step up. Whereas if you're willing to have that higher volatility potentially have some losses, but that would be realized, but not without those being calculated into future purchases. So we wouldn't ever sell a security without ensuring that the purchase we'll make in its steed would outweigh that loss, essentially. On the following page, what you'll see here is the two benchmarks that we use against these strategies. We have LAFE, which is essentially the city's current strategy, and then we have the ISP of A 1-3-year U.S. Treasury Index and then the 1-5-year Treasury and Agency Index. So the 1-3 would be the limited option and then the 1-5 would be the short-term bond security. Now, these are the benchmark information and down below you'll see with a value on 630-2023 of $40 million invested 20 years earlier, you can see the annualized returns and the difference between the three different strategies there. Now, these are the benchmarks. So really, let's compare to the strategies that we have on the following page.

So the strategy information listed here, you'll see LEIF across the top. Really what this is showing, and as we have talked to the city for a decade now, this would show what happened if the city would have invested 20 years ago. So if the city would have invested $40 million 20 years ago, you'll see that the LEIF amount would come to $54.6 million. Now, if it had been within the Chandler Limited Maturity Composite, it would have been $58.5 million, so an additional $3.9 million.

If you would have taken that additional risk of a longer duration, then you would have had an additional $6.8 million for a total of $61.4 million.

Really think of that as more funds to put towards the city's needs and any future projects that you would be planning. On the following page, you'll see truly how we approach to build an optimal investment program.

So review of an investment policy, we can check that box as we've conducted that. That would be something that we do on an annual basis with all of our clients.

Next, we do a cash flow analysis to ensure that you're maintaining an appropriate amount of liquidity

because we don't ever want you to come upon an event where you would have to draw from the investment portfolio.

We'd want you to have those funds safely secure within LEIF for easy access and to minimize any potential losses.

Then we would develop the portfolio strategy. We would discuss with you what your safety levels are, what staff is safe with, what you all feel safest with, and the amount of risk that you're willing to take in the portfolio. Once we have that developed, and that would be using the four pillars that we have. We take a focus for the investment team. We look at the duration that you're willing to go with. We look at the sector allocation that you want. so what's available within the investment policy. We would look at the maturity term, how long you want to go, so 1 to 3 or 1 to 5. And then we would also select the security selection, so what are you comfortable investing in?

Even though we have the investment policy, that doesn't mean we have to invest necessarily in all those things immediately.

We would be open to only investing in the items that we see fit at the time. So just because we have MBS in the investment policy doesn't mean that that would be one of the first things we invest in.

because we want to ensure that we are doing proper due diligence when creating the city's optimum portfolio.

And then within the following page, you'll see here the, oh, sorry. What I'm going to do is hand it over to Mia Corral-Brown now as she can go over the reporting types that we have for you. In light of time, I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up very quickly. But what we're wanting to show you here is that we have a very robust reporting program. so you'll receive monthly reports on the third business day as well as quarterly reports and annual reports to close your books and to create the annual comprehensive financial report as well as the GASB 72 report for fair value market measurement. And with that, we can go ahead and close and open it up to any questions.

Thank you for that report. Any questions or comments from Council? Council Member Yu?

Thank you so much for the presentation. You came here about two years ago on Zoom, I remember. So I actually did research on your company. But another question, because now safety is very important to us. And may I ask, who is your broker dealer? Which broker dealer are you using?

So we use a variety of broker dealers. We have over, I would say, 35 on an approved list that we interact with. And that would be to ensure that we are getting a multiple amount of quotes We have some that we use for certain types of securities that are coming to market And so on the specific list I don't have but we do evaluate our broker dealers on an annual basis To ensure that they still are providing us optimum pricing and that we can maintain a good relationship with them

You said you use 35 yes

Yes. So we utilize Bloomberg Aim when we go out to conduct trading because we are block trading at institutional levels with the assets that we have under management. So they are oftentimes names that you'll recognize, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, but we are going straight to Wall Street in order to provide savings and not using local brokers. we provide trade tickets to show evidence of best execution and we always get three bids or offers when you go when we go out to trade on our clients behalf then where's your license holding on

your license with which broker dealer our license um

I can send you our CRD number but we are a registered investment advisor and each of our investment professionals are licensed.

Do you have fidelity bonds and what will be the coverage? Definitely

we do. The coverage is greater than $10 million and when we contract with any agency we share

the COI or certificate of insurance. I'd be happy to furnish one to Martha tomorrow if you'd like to see it. But we do have a fidelity

bond, we have cyber security program, disaster recovery and a privacy policy that we do share with clients. It all can be found in our ADV.

Council Member Goon?

Just clarification, it's $27 billion in

California and

the rest of the states or you guys operate

mainly in California?

We were founded in California so we do manage the vast

majority of assets here in our home state and we're very proud of that. We do have clients in Colorado,

Washington,

an office in Florida

and a sporadic amount in Utah and in the southwest.

So I guess that's the 33 versus the 27.

Correct. Okay, I just wanted to confirm.

Thank you. And Council Member Lo? Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Real quick, so I know in our staff report you listed some of our neighboring cities,

the city of Pomona, the city of Amonte,

and I know in your presentation you mentioned the upper San Diego Valley Municipal Water District. For example, for those agencies, how long have you represented them?

We've probably worked with the city of El Monte for over five years. The city of Pomona is seven.

I can tell you there are many clients listed in that client list. City of Brea, we've worked with since 1997.

City of Newport Beach for over 30 years. Our client list is deep.

We have a very strong client retention rate. It's over 95%. Clients hire us and retain us.

And we really have very strong relationships with those agencies.

Thank you. And Mayor Potempo?

Thanks. I appreciate the overview for your firm. A quick question for staff more.

Do we have an existing relationship with Chandler? And are you guys managing any assets for us currently? I'm just trying to understand the context.

No. This is a new relationship we are trying to build.

Okay.

And then you guys pitched this a few years ago too?

We've been pitching the city for over 15 years.

So we've been out here through various financial professionals over the last decade and a half.

And then for a little bit, about two years ago, when we brought Chandler, we did an RFP.

And we had three proposals and Chandler was the best qualified for our city.

Okay.

Is there any reason we didn't? I mean, obviously I was on the council.

Was there a reason we didn't move ahead with Chandler after the RFP at that point? Or we just didn't see a need for?

It was voted against by council. It was brought to council.

Any summary of the reasoning why?

I'm just curious. It wasn't the right time.

it wasn't the right time and now it's hopefully a better time to bring him back

okay

and I understand the you presented the right the value statement in terms of

how you over perform how you would have over performed late

returns

over the years I mean I would want to make

one I would want to make sure that going forward that's the case as well and we make sure that we do

in analysis

net of fees and I'm looking at the fee structure

some other questions on that but can you explain in very succinct language

and in as plain English as possible

how your firm

returns better returns than LEIF if you're investing the same kind of assets

yes so LEIF is an overnight government pool, they utilize a shorter duration. So the duration of the LEIF portfolio is shorter. We would be taking a longer duration approach, investing, as Kara said, assets greater than

one year, between one and three years or one and five years. So typically the longer duration,

the higher return. But there can be a little more volatility.

So my question is even more pointed and succinct to Pro Tem Wong here.

Bottom line, what distinguishes you guys, your firm, from your competitor set? My understanding is I know it's $27 billion, $33 billion. It sounds like a big number, but it's not in this magnitude with municipality, government works. So what's your differentiator in terms of how you compete and why are these cities that have been with you three years, five years, seven years, the relationship?

What's the success rate of that?

I would like to answer that. It's their customer service.

When we interviewed the three companies, Chandler was the most prepared. They offered us a cash flow analysis even before they came and interviewed

While the other two companies wanted to charge us, Chandler did not.

So there's a lot of, they helped us prepare a policy.

So it's their customer service. I pick up the phone, they're there.

They also offer online services.

And we have same-day, real-time activity reports of what's going on with them.

So it's customer service.

And if you ask any other cities, they're going to say it's their customer service and responsiveness.

On the, is there a minimum required investment amount that we would have to place with Chandler?

So our account minimum is typically $25 million.

I mean, this question is for Martha. I understand that we have like $80-something million in assets in investments right now, but our actual reserve, right, a lot of that, the bulk of that is money that's meant to be spent, right, the street bond and other water fees, water.

So most of those assets aren't sitting there for a very long time. Is that $25 million minimum, are we able to meet that, given that that's the case for most of our funds?

Yeah, the Treasury Committee has been meeting more regularly, and Amy, along with Ines,

and our city manager and our assistant city manager, we all agree that we feel comfortable

starting with $25 million because we do have so many capital projects going on.

Okay.

And then I don't know if Finn wants to go while I collect my thoughts. Okay.

So basically we got 80, but we got to keep some in LEIF and LACPIF, right? So what of that portion can we really invest? I guess that's my more direct question.

Of the 50, what is it?

I know it's at least 25. Is that 40? Is that 50?

So the last time we did a cash analysis with Chandler,

which was about two years ago,

was $40 million that was idle longer than a two-year period that we could use.

We could, if council authorizes,

do another cash flow analysis to see what the right amount is.

Right now, without the cash flow, it was a vote for 25 to bring to council.

But with council's direction, we could do another cash flow and determine what that right number would be.

I think that would be helpful, yes, given great conditions of change, I'm sure, in the last two years.

and then yeah I understand the the potential value in terms of investing

directly with and having our assets

invested directly through Chandler or some sort of investment manager I'm just

trying to get my head wrapped around like

the potential if there if there are any potential risks and to think about this more

For one, I'm personally not ready to make a decision on this tonight. This is the first I'm hearing that we've had, that this has been an ongoing conversation with Chandler and not having the context around this, RFPing this two years ago. And I'd like to go back and look at the conversation from Council

on what happened two years ago

and why we ended up not going forward on anything. Not to say that I have not predetermined anything, I just want to do more homework on this at least that's my personal view and then just to get this a little bit more And maybe in the meantime we can do a casual analysis to come back with staff Kind of analysis on that and what's available and knowing what we're projecting going forward in the next couple years Do you Martha you know offhand what our Minus the street water like revenue a special fund Better invested our current reserve policy for general fund. What's that?

that amount?

What's the set aside?

Our policy follows the GFOA,

which is having enough for

two months cash flow.

So it would only be two months of our so it's about $6 million

that we would have to keep in reserves.

So that we would keep in lay for lay-sip

and everything else. Correct. But we do have a lot

of projects right now

that are being used.

There's ARPA money

within the portfolio. and we are purchasing our equipment for the playgrounds. So that's going to take about $2 million out of the portfolio that we haven't. I haven't seen all the expenditures come in.

And then we have a lot of the streets is not coming.

It's not in our, the street bond funds are not in our portfolio. They're kept with the fiscal agents.

So you're not really seeing, you don't see those in our portfolio.

But we do have a lot of water and sewer infrastructure that's happening. If I might just ask, could you please back up and go to the investment strategies? Because I think it's really important given the interest rate environment that we're in today. Two years ago when we were here, interest rates were very near zero. And so now the city has an opportunity to really create investment income.

Now, if you look at that one- to three-year investment strategy, you can see that 33% of the portfolio naturally matures between zero and one year. So if you needed funds from the $25 million that invest, that happens very naturally. Again, if you go out to the one to three year bucket,

you can see that between zero and three years,

over 80% of your assets mature between three years' time. So you have an opportunity to lock in yields currently at 5% and allow those funds, those monies to marinate and grow. And you can facilitate liquidity if you absolutely need to from those funds. We are not necessarily recommending that the city do more. What we'd like to do is start with a $25 million allocation, meet with staff quarterly, present to council annually, and if you have the opportunity to invest more, you can. But if you do not, that's okay. You have a $25 million reserve that will create investment income for the long term. And that's really how we operate with the vast majority of our clients, especially gateway cities who are smaller and have more outflow requirements.

So Mia, thank you for those comments. I appreciate those comments. My view on this is I probably want to just dive in and sit on this, review a little bit more factual background. My promise to you is if we go with you guys,

which is probably a good likelihood,

it shouldn't be $25 million.

It should be $26 million.

And you understand why, because you're smiling.

Oh, thank you. Okay.

Council Member Yu?

Just for your information, I look into your website and then also the form that you guys feel on the ADV Part 1. You guys are using Charles Schwab as your broker dealer. just for your information, this is actually on the website, and this reason is the most current form that under the rep fee program. I understand that you may be using possibly multiple, but then on the form is actually said all the asset pretty much. I'm not going to argue with you, but just for information, you're not using 35, 30, you know, broker dealer. And also go back to Mayor Pro Tem questions about why we decided not to use them two years ago. is because of the interest rate. Actually, I'm the one who banned them and stopped the investment there. You can look back at the video. So two years ago, the interest rate was almost down to zero, and the bond rate is really high. So at the time, I don't think it's the right timing to get in. And now I bring them back just because I think now is the right timing. When the interest rate goes up, maybe we have one to two more times this year, but pretty much we may lock down and may come back down. So I think now is actually a lot better timing. I'm not saying the best. So that's how I decided to bring you guys back. And why is not other firm? Actually, for RIA, they are very, they have each different RIA. There's tons of RIA out there. But then each of them has the niche. So what they are actually specializing is the public fund, public asset. And what they do is mostly very similar, I would say, to a lot of the city. And then they manage it under the city requirement compliance. But a lot of RIAs out there, they're not specializing in public funds. As you know, public funds are not the fancy thing out there. It's only the very short-term bonds. And then the income that they're making is very thin, I would say. So not a lot of RIAs, they want to do that. even though their number looks big but then you can see their their income their fee is very low compared to outside so um i'm i'm i don't object if you wanted to look for other firm but um i think that's pretty much um similar out there and i i have a question that for you guys is um the allocations that you guys are giving us. Can you backtrack? Can you backtrack for the last two years? I wanted to see the same portfolio that you proposed today. And let's say for two years ago, if we buy into the same portfolio, I'm sure you have all the data in place already. So give us the amount, give us the price. Let's say, for example, if we bought into what I assume is 100% two years ago. And now what is the price right now? I expect it's Lor. Let's say, for example, 90, okay? And so 90, 80, I don't know what the price, because you're a short-term bond. So I don't think the fluctuation will be as much as our bond that we underwrite like 25 years. If it's a 25 years bond, that will be fluctuated dramatically, like maybe 20, 30 percent. But yours is only one to three or one to five. So it's very thin, I would say, maybe hopefully 90%. So if we buy into it now at 90%, so we're getting in at a discount, I would say, at a better pricing. So I want them to, for the financial team, their advisory team, to know what the fluctuation can be. Because two years ago, it would be very low interest rate, which is very high bond rate. And we want to know the pricing there compared to now. and maybe in the future they can make decisions into when they want to maybe reduce or add more to the portfolio so that they know what the fluctuations, the range will be.

So in the disclosure portion of the portfolio, we do have our global investment performance standard performance. We are independently verified, and because of our strong culture of compliance, this is all required our general counsel provides it, And we can go ahead and forward, Kara, to slide 29.

So this just jumps in a bit towards performance over the last one year, three year, five years,

10 years, and 20 years for those specific strategies, inclusive of gross and net of fees

compared to the benchmarks there.

So this will show the performance of those specific strategies that we are proposing for the city.

So what you can see here is, while we work on that, for the Chandler limited gross for one year, it's in at 1.01%.

The net is 0.91%.

but versus the benchmark of ISP of A, 1-3, or U.S. Treasury Index, that had a total rate of return,

and total rate of return, again, is inclusive of realized and unrealized gains and losses plus interest income.

The index shows 0.13%.

Is that better? Okay.

I didn't.

If, right, if first, if, right, something like GAP, right, happened, the good views abatement

has to happen, we have to pull money out, right, that Lors our investment with Chandler

below $25 million, what happens?

You'd have to be invoiced at the minimum annual fee. So it would be approximately, let's just say, 10 basis points, and I'm probably quoting a little bit higher than the actual fee. So you would have to meet that fee criteria for $25 million. So it's a minimum fee. And if you go, But you're not going to take your money out willy-nilly from day one to day two. These would be conversations that we'd have. We'd help facilitate that liquidity. We would make accommodations for the city. We would want to have conversations with Inez and Martha and finance staff. So it's not like, you know, we believe firmly that if we do what's right for our clients, our own success will follow. So we're here as a co-fiduciary sitting really on the same side of the desk as you. I think it's important, too, that slide 33 shows all of the annual performance. And maybe that can be shared with Councilwoman you and council for tomorrow.

But those are GIPS returns annual, and they will have to be increased dramatically. And you can see that one-year number for 2022 going all the way back to 2012.

And you do see those negative numbers. However, that is just with the unrealized gains and losses. So the amount that you just see on paper happened to outweigh the actual percentage of interest income. So these portfolios were still earning income, even though they were showing a negative performance. And I would just like to add on with Bia Corral, yes, we are investment managers. However, we are also risk managers and have a heavy focus into the compliance of the program and many parameters set with our compliance team being separate from our investment team, as well as having Bloomberg AIM set up so we do pre- and post-trade compliance checks on any trades that we do place.

Thank you. So any other quick question for Martha? When we did RFP this two years ago, was it customer service and the level of service that...

similar. So it wasn't cost related. It was mostly customer service, the level of the

reporting that the Chandler would be providing in comparison to the other companies. And

they were, one of them was so poor that he was, it was just very badly presented to us.

And then the other one was moderate, okay, but the customer service level, Chandler's going to be meeting with us quarterly.

That was not part of the other company, the other firm. Chandler had an online system where we can monitor and pull all our reports. That wasn't going to be something they were going to offer.

So it was how much we were going to get for our money versus the other companies.

Great. One last comment. I don't think that the minimum fee, the portfolio minimum is higher with some of the larger firms. So

PFM, for example, public finance management will not take an account under $40 million.

Okay. One more question. Council Member, you? One more question. Just to echo what the fee is. I think you guys, the fear is the Lost, I would say, among the industry. So that's how they can get a lot of clients from other cities.

And the 0.1, which is 10 basis points, is only one-tenth of a percent. And usually for a lot of firms out there, I mean, I used to do the business. I mean, less than 1%, I won't even consider. So you are 0.1 of a 1%.

And also for the $25 million, they only charge about $2,000 per month. I mean, this is a very, very good price, I would say, among the industry. So I would say I would be understanding why you get a lot of clients. But then the amount doesn't mean anything because it's the income, the fee that you charge. So I would say compared to others, hardly find anything that will be Lor than them. But I do see that they have a big team, and they are very professional. But, you know, feel free to shop around out there, and I will be happy to find anything better than them. I will be happy to entertain those. So any other questions? Council Member Ngo?

Clearly your customer service is showing because you're affecting change, and you're explaining yourself, and you're providing a lot of good resources and information.

I can go either way tonight, but what I'm really curious is you pitch. This is your first pitch to me.

Yes.

And I'm a risk person background, so it's probably a little bit harder. At the same time, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I think you made a pitch to a team, and I think you did a good job with the team.

That's why they're presenting it.

In that pitch, I'm almost curious because I didn't see it.

I'm almost curious to see, did you take baseline? Did you take standard deviations above it? Did you play around with the portfolio for the next six months, one year, two years? Did you go about that, or is it just very basic in terms of asset allocation?

So what we do, you know, we have the benchmarks that we're showing here. Essentially, we have multiple committees that the investment team comprises,

and one of those is the qualitative committee. So I sit on that committee, and what we do is we take information from our economic team as well as the credit analysis team and take that information that they're seeing as well as proposed

interest rates that we're seeing in the future and put those into a few models that we have to give us an anticipated duration set for the next six months and from that we may extend duration we may shorten duration slightly just based upon that information so we do periodically if not at least monthly, we evaluate those quantitative tables to ensure that they're appropriate and do a six-month outlook for what we're seeing happening. And we'll take different interest rate scenarios that may occur, as well as different potential credit risks that we're seeing happening, and try to get a balance of where we're seeing, and then we come into an agreement, present that information to our investment team, and then we move forward with our investment strategies. So within that also, I mentioned a credit committee. What they do is they'll look at our corporate holdings that we have and do a deep dive analysis on those by issuer and industry to ensure that we are selecting not only securities that are rated A or higher, but entities that we believe will continue to be of that grade, if not better.

Okay.

Martha, another question. I know we currently purchase CDs.

Do we have an investment manager that assists with that,

or do we do that directly with some staff?

We have a broker.

We use MBS, I think MBS, and we purchase CDs through them.

But that's all they do? They only do CDs?

They did do securities, but it takes the short-term ones.

There's like three months, and those have a higher interest rate,

but it takes a three to one vote for me to approve that purchase and they go fast like within 30 minutes to an hour in the morning so we don't have enough time to take the vote to get to purchase

those but they do offer other other types of purchases okay uh i mean i this is also the first

time i'm hearing this uh pitch as well i echo kind of some of uh councilman rego's comments uh i

I WOULD LIKE TO SIT ON THIS A LITTLE BIT LONGER AND I'M NOT READY TO MAKE A DECISION PERSONALLY TONIGHT.

I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE OTHER COUNCIL MEMBERS ARE.

BUT IF I CAN SUGGEST CONTINUING THIS CONVERSATION FOR THE NEXT COUNCIL MEAN. I KNOW WE DON'T HAVE ANOTHER ONE FOR THIS MONTH, SO IT WOULD BE OCTOBER AT THE EARLIEST. BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SIT ON THIS A LITTLE BIT.

COUNCIL MEMBER?

I just question again just for their information so is there enough time for my colleagues you know especially if we defer to October to get the information that they've been asking for tonight?

Would we have enough time?

What information are we asking for? Can you just clarify? I'm not sure.

I'm not asking for anything specific. I just want to look through some more. Potentially we'll have some more questions for staff but

I'm not ready to vote on this

just at this moment tonight.

I'm kind of curious but it's kind of irrelevant at this point because you came two years ago. Whatever was in that proposal, it's moot and it probably was not a positive return because of what we are with the rate today. You made a pitch, was it this month or last month or based on pro forma of what data time?

I'd say we've had ongoing conversations with staff, checking in with them, let's say, every six months, if you will. I think that even if you decide not to engage us today, we hope that you'll consider adopting the policy. The analysis and the work that went into that was very thorough. I think it will help to elevate the city's investment program and give you a blueprint, if you will, for working with an external investment advisor in the future. If you want to consider working with Chandler Asset Management, you can feel free to follow up with me. I definitely want to make sure that I provide performance numbers in a larger format and take a look at that item in our ADV related to broker-dealers and ensure that it is accurate. And I'm going to provide a certificate of insurance so you have that information for background. I think ultimately all I can say is we are the investment experts for the public sector clients in our home state of California. Any other RIA that you interview will not be a California-based firm. They will not have the breadth and depth of experience that we have, nor the reputation.

And I really encourage you to take a look at that list. If you want to reach out to any of those public agencies, I'll provide you with reference information and contact information. I think any client that has hired us has retained us, and we'll tell you that we have really been able to provide investment value

to their program over long periods of time. So thank you very much for allowing us to take up so much oxygen tonight. Thank you.

I also want to add that our current portfolio does not have the diversity that it requires for our policy. The old one and if the new one is adopted today, We do need to invest in another party or with another entity because we have enough money. We have a significant large portfolio that requires more diversity. Amy, our city treasurer, and I have been working together. We are looking forward to possibly getting the CTMA certificate, which is the California Treasury Municipality Association. I think that's what the, and we would have to diversify as well so that we can be eligible for that certificate.

So I do have an ask, but it could be moot depending on how the vote goes tonight. I guess if there's, you have a majority here, then my ask would be moot. But my ask would be this. Based on my assumption that I'd like you guys to go back and come back next month and present it, the pitch that you did based on a 25 i'm going to round it up to 26 million because i am cost efficient okay let's do 26 million based on what you have today let's run the numbers and crank out let's see what the next six months a year would be because potentially there could be another 25 in november and that would be it that's the latest although that changes almost every week

That's synopsis one.

Synopsis two, if you look at something that's around $26 million, $25 million, whatever, close enough, from another city that is around Southern California, and you can redact the names, but tell us how they performed over the last six months, or maybe because it's September now.

Year-to-date, nine months. That's really the information you have.

The composite information that we've provided is for existing clients. Okay, year-to-date. With names redacted. We don't cherry pick when we provide performance numbers. We adhere per compliance and the SEC to the global investment performance standards. So all of the performance that we show you exists. We do not have the ability to create like a forward-looking performance appraisal to share with you. That, quite frankly, is not legal. we can show you historical performance but we do not have the ability to um to create performance let's say six months out what we can say is our strategies are performing um in this manner the investments are locked in at these rates and you can expect to receive similar rates over the next six months um if if the fed is going to increase one or two times i would say a lot of those increases are already baked in but but we will continue to invest in at least this environment for the next six months based on on the conversations that are occurring in the markets

currently so i guess what i'm hearing is that we just want to kind of sit on this and think about

it a little bit more and find maybe ways that we can bring them back and do another presentation i'm not sure if it might be necessary also to have like maybe a special council meeting or something to kind of go over some of these numbers and maybe ask the more.

Mr. Mayor, the item will be continued then to the next council meeting?

Right, there are two items here.

I'm ready to make a motion on 3D to approve the new investment policy

and then 3E to continue. And I think in the meantime until the next meeting when this is on the agenda,

maybe we could ask for a new cash flow analysis

and if there are any updates to these numbers since we did the RFP two years ago. I mean it looks like we've updated a lot of this analysis already in this pitch But if there's anything else in the meantime that would be helpful

to update

We can do that too and then bring this back to council in October So with that I'll make a motion for us to approve 3d the new investment policy

Let's do one at a time. So let's do so there's a motion for

for 3Ds are seconded by Council Member Yu if we can take a vote on 3D.

Approved unanimously.

And if I heard correctly, there is a motion to bring back 3E.

Do we need a motion or is that just, we can just continue it.

We'll continue the conversation.

Actually, I would like to suggest maybe there's a special session for us to, you know,

have for the investment portfolio because we're not all having the same background. So it will be good to have education sessions for all of us before the next or

next time we bring it up so that we have a more understanding of how they pick the investment. Thank you. Thank you. And maybe we can set

up a date sometime in October or late September. We can come

up with a date together. Thank you so much for answering and fielding our questions. Hopefully, you know, we can, we'll see how this goes, but we appreciate your time and we look forward to continuing to speak to you and work with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll go ahead and jump to item 3F.

Who, was that you?

Yeah, just a very, very abbreviated staff report.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Portem, and Council Members.

My name is Stanley Arden. I'm the IT manager for the city. This evening, basically...

causing a periodic internet loss and email connectivity citywide. In order to improve the network stability,

I would like to propose to upgrade the infrastructure and improve cybersecurity.

The city is requesting to amend the agreement with existing vendor

with Network Magic by modifying the scope of service to include the purchase and installation of two firewalls, upgrading email servers to the most current version,

and reinforcing network infrastructure.

for the total compensation of the amount of $228,900.

Thanks, Stanley. So let me know if I'm reading,

if I read the staff report and I understand this correctly.

The original agreement with Network Magic is a three-year agreement that originally

the agreement is for $29,000 and we're adding almost nine times that.

That's correct, yes, sir.

Can you detail a little bit more what we would be adding to the scope of the contract?

Yeah, the original scope was basically to do an upgrade just for one of our fire stations.

And all of this that we're basically looking at is upgrading our firewalls,

upgrading a lot of our network design, and restructuring a lot of our network and putting us in a better cybersecurity position is what I'm proposing to add.

A lot of this was already on cue online that we were planning on doing down the line, but based on some of the recent changes, it was just easier to come to council and just put everything in one lump sum instead of coming over for every project

instead of coming in every single time we were going to make a project. And that's the reason why it kind of just lumps them into one big jump in price.

All right, is there any reason we wouldn't RFP separately for these other services or is there some sort of efficiency with Network Magic?

I'm proposing to sole source it and just put it all together

Into one and just just because all the projects kind of overlap each other

So it's easier just have one vendor just put everything together versus

Breaking it up and having pieces because then every time we would have a different vendor come in

they would have to redo evaluations and trying to put everything together.

So there would be efficiency gains from doing this?

Correct, yes.

And so, I mean, my understanding, right, is that, so this would be essentially cybersecurity upgrades

and network, right, improve network performance at all of our city facilities,

not just the fire station, right, to expand beyond just the fire station?

That is correct, yes. That is for the whole city, yes.

Are we planning or are we looking at other or do we need other upgrades to our IT infrastructure beyond this as well?

We always need to upgrade and keep renewing.

We're working on a schedule so that our firewalls and all of our other cyber secure infrastructures

continuously update it so that nothing gets outdated. There's always going to be a need for additional infrastructure.

Is Network Magic the only vendor we currently have working on our IT kind of infrastructure,

or do we have others?

NINTH.

We hired NINTH, and they provided and installed our servers. And then we have the NINTH contract who actually maintains our servers.

All right.

But it made more sense to go with network magic for these specific.

For these particular items, yes.

Okay. Yeah, I just appreciate staff working on this and being proactive

and understanding the growing threats in terms of cybersecurity and IT infrastructure threats to not just municipal governance, but all around, also for personal people in our communities,

households that are under threat.

And I think we mentioned scams earlier as well, proliferating in cybersecurity space as well. So appreciate the work we're doing here, and please keep the city council kind of apprised of these kind of upgrades, knowing that the need to invest in our IT infrastructure and security are probably going to increase significantly in the coming years, and particularly with other emerging threats continuing to proliferate too.

That's great. Thank you, sir.

That's all I had. I fully support this agreement. I just piqued my interest that we were adding this much amount to a low base amount for the contract, but I understand why.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

With that, I'll make the motion to approve staff's recommendation.

Is there a second?

I second it.

Thank you. I'm seconded by Council Member Lo if we can take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. And I think we'll jump to item 3N, Environmental Systems Research Institute.

A very quick report, if possible.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Temp, City Council. Sean Igoe, Public Works Director. Tonight we have before you an item for Environmental Systems Research Institute, or ESRI. It's an enterprise license for our GIS system. If you recall, a few meetings back, I did a presentation with our GIS system demonstrating our CIP program and how it interacts with the public and they can pull up projects. This is an enterprise agreement that allows not only ourselves within Public Works but other users such as FHIR, PD, Community Development that are currently using this system to all merge together under a larger enterprise license.

So with that, I'll take any questions.

Thanks, I just wanted to applaud the Public Works Department,

Sean, and everyone for moving more to use GIS

and integrate that into our operations and also making these tools and the ability for residents to be able to see what we're doing more easily and hope that we will adopt more of the GIS and other mapping tools for us to be able to present data to residents and community members more easily and more visually to going forward on all the data kind of points and interactions that

we have with with the community while we are here i know we already passed the the next side of the

ct and t the best pad repairs along garvey and atlantic and all that just wondering if you can get a very quick update on the schedule for that and when we are Garvey Avenue traffic nightmares

might be easing we're anticipating to be completed with Garvey by the end of this week so we're hoping that we'll be back to normal after this week after the bus pads are complete that's for

just the bus pads the rest of the construction will continue after that cool my parents who I

saw over the holiday weekend will be very relieved to hear that the traffic will be easing on Garvey SO ALL WILL BE RELIEVED THEY WILL WE'LL ALL BE VERY VERY HAPPY UH APPRECIATE THAT UM I DON'T THINK I HAD ANY OTHER QUESTIONS ON THIS BUT I CAN'T FIND THEM SO I'M HAPPY TO MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE THIS

UH ITEM 3 AND STAFF'S REGUMENDATION IS THERE A SECOND I'LL SECOND SECOND BY COUNCIL MEMBER GOEF WE CAN

TAKE A VOTE PLEASE APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY THANK YOU THANKS AND JUST URGE ALL THE OTHER CITY DEPARTMENTS

who are using ESRI and GIS tools to continue to look for other opportunities to utilize the tool and to make some of this data more accessible for our community as well.

Okay.

We'll go ahead and jump to item 4A, public hearing, to review and approve the fiscal year 2022-23 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report. I'll go ahead and open public hearing on this item.

Are there any...

There's no comments?

No speakers.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Paton, Council Members, Martha Garcia, Finance Director.

The city submits a consolidated annual performance and evaluation report to HUD

annually as one of the conditions of receiving federal funds

under the CDBG and Home Programs.

The CAPER outlines progress made in achieving these goals

in the city's five-year consolidated plan.

And here to talk about it is our CDBG and Home Program

consultant Priscilla Davila. She's on Zoom.

Hi, good evening, everyone. Good evening, Mayor, members of the city council. In front of you tonight is a staff report that is dealing with HUD's 2022-2023 CAPER.

consolidated annual performance and evaluation report. It needs to be submitted to HUD annually. The report and staff is recommending, one, opening the public hearing to receive testimony and document evidence, which we just did, two, approving the draft fiscal year 2022-2023 caper for the CDBG and home funds, three, directing staff to prepare and transmit the final documents to HUD, four, or authorizing the city manager or his designee to take all actions necessary or desirable to complete and submit the caper, and lastly, take any such actions, related actions that may be desirable. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provides funding to states, counties, and cities in the form of Community Development Block Grant, we call it CDBG, and Home Investment Partnership Funds, home funds. Since the City of Monterey Park is an entitlement city, the city is eligible to receive both CDBG and home funds, which it has for many years. As a condition of receiving these funds, HUD requires the city to complete a CAPER to demonstrate what it accomplished during the program year related to CDBG and home funds. The City of Monterey Parks Housing Division has completed the CAPER, which covers the period of July 1st, 2022 through June 30th, 2023. The CAPER describes the overall use of federal community development block grant and home funds. A copy of the draft CAPER was attached to the staff report, and it was made available for public review starting August 21st, 2023 through September 5th, 2023. All comments will be incorporated into the final paper that is submitted to HUD. If you look at the report in front of you, you will see that it details how much funds were expended throughout the program year and exactly the accomplishments that were achieved throughout the program year. I'm available to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from Council?

Mayor Patum Wong?

I appreciate the report being put together, and I understand this is a look back at what we achieved over the last year, and I think when we had a similar report come up a few months ago, I brought up my interest, at least, personally, and understanding this next year is already programmed. We had to submit that report to HUD for use of these funds, But for the next cycle that's available to make sure that we're coming back to council with other options for how to spend these funds I can think of a hundred other things for us to consider Potentially to provide support for the community where I know that there are always more needs than there are resources available including in this case with our home and CDBG funds, but just looking at some of the THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS THAT WE'RE LISTING HERE IN THE CAPER AND IN THE LAST REPORT OUT, THAT I THINK THERE ARE OTHER THINGS WE SHOULD CONSIDER IN TERMS OF PROVIDING SUPPORT TO COMMUNITY MEMBERS AND OTHERS IN TERMS OF ADDRESSING HOUSING NEEDS AND LOW-INCOME PARTS OF THE COMMUNITY, THEIR NEEDS FOR ASSISTANCE, RIGHT, JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD, AS I'VE NOTED ON MY OWN KIND OF WHEN I WENT THROUGH THIS AGENDA PACKET, RIGHT, UTILITY RATE ASSISTANCE, I KNOW WE'RE already used this for our net team for overnight shelter and providing housing for some homeless individuals that our net team encounters and those that are open to services, but also providing tenant and landlord education around requirements for new and emerging requirements for landlords and tenants' rights education efforts. I know we do a little bit of that in a limited way with some workshops, but bolstering some of those efforts looking at other home buyer assistance or education efforts looking at funding those and funding potentially other nonprofits that provide those services already in our city or in our region other efforts to prevent homelessness partner with the schools provide grants other programs that exist to provide right these kind of services and resources education to families through those avenues as well. Senior and there's a good amount of senior affordable housing that exists in the community. A lot of those facilities are aging and coming to a point where they need major maintenance. Potentially a grant program or a low or zero interest loan program for those facilities and existing affordable housing projects that are here in the city to provide financial assistance for them to do necessary and needed improvements or maintenance projects as well. Potentially economic development opportunities that we could fund through this additionally. So a whole host of other things that I think we should start to consider going into the next time that this opportunity comes up to program these funds. I just want to make sure that we're bringing that back to council. But don't have any issues with this report.

It's a look back. Nothing to change here. Appreciate staff's efforts.

on all of these efforts and achievements. I know that a lot goes into this

and a lot of resources are required as well