City Council Meeting — October 4, 2023

We gotta counsel me. ! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, wow, okay.

That's why it took me so long to get it. We always had the same night, same time. Right. You guys did a little earlier, and I can just be a little late.

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

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. zero zero

zero Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Hope everyone is doing well. Welcome to the Monterey Park City Council meeting. I wanted to start off 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 I also wanted to take this moment to read our land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was once known as the Tomvangar, the home of the Gabriolino Tongva people. We show our respect to the Gabriolino Tongva people as well as all indigenous people past, present, and future and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. We commit to uplifting the Gabriolino Tongva people and invite you to acknowledge the history and join us in caring for this land. I'd like to now invite the Monterey Park Firefighter Explorers to host colors.

Oh, sorry. Could you please stand?

Thank you.

Present colors. Please place your right hand over your heart. Oh, we're going to actually, we're doing something a little different tonight. As part of our strategic goal for the city, we want to encourage young people to be civically engaged in the city. So for the first time in our city's history, we started a new program called Civic Superstars. And we have actually a student here, a resident from Monterey Park, a second grade student from All Souls Catholic School, Camila Isabella Martinez.

Welcome, Camila. This is your chamber, and she's going to lead us in our flag salute.

Go ahead, Camila. Put your right hand over your heart.

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

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Let's give her a round of applause.

And we're going to ask Camila to stay up here. This is the first time we've done this, and we're going to continue to do this as a tradition at the beginning of every council meeting. It's so popular that, believe it or not, we already lined up through December. So I'm going to ask the council to join me down here to present Camila with a certificate of appreciation.

and the certificate reads Camila Isabella Martinez, Civic Superstar. The Monterey Park City Council hereby extends our sincere appreciation for leading the Pledge of Allegiance at the Monterey Park City Council meeting held on October 4th.

We thank you Camila for being part of the city's Civic Superstar program.

We applaud your enthusiasm and dedication to civic engagement and we are pleased to recognize your involvement in tonight's City Council meeting.

The City Council further extends our best wishes for continued success in all your future endeavors. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye, Camila. I know you have to go home and study.

City Clerk, if we can do a roll call.

Council Member Lo.

Present.

Council Member Yu. Here.

Council Member Ngo.

Present.

Mayor Pro Tem Wong. Present. Mayor Sanchez. Present. We have a quorum.

Thank you. And City Manager, City Attorney, do we have any additions, deletions, or changes or adoptions? Yes, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council.

Also, we are requesting to move item 1A to be heard tonight before staff communications. Mr. Cacciati, who is the vice chair for AQMD, he's actually also a council member in our neighboring community of South Pastina,

who also has a council meeting tonight.

So if you don't mind, we would like to request to move item 1A to be heard before staff communications.

Thank you. Okay, excellent. Thank you so much. So if we can go ahead and move item 1A.

Sorry, Mr. Mayor, just to announce that there were no reportable actions from closed session.

Okay.

Thank you so much. So we'll go ahead and move item 1A. Do we have a presentation? Mr. Cacciotti, thank you. Thank you for being here tonight.

I know you have a busy schedule as well.

Mayor, thank you so much. Council members, great to see everybody. City Clerk, City Treasurer, Michael Cacciotti.

Councilmember from your neighboring city of South Pasadena and Vice Chair, one of the largest air pollution districts in our nation is South Coast A. Kim D.

But you're my boss, and you direct me with the other 34 cities I represent from Santa Clarita, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Monterey Park, all the way along the 60, the 10, and the 210 to Claremont, the border with Riverside County, who has another representative, so does San Bernardino and Orange County.

Next. So what is the South Coast Air Quality Management District? was founded back in the 70s. There's a picture on the left in 1970. That was then Assemblyman Jerry Lewis and the lieutenant governor and others in the Inland Empire. Petitions of hundreds of thousands of people complaining about all the pollution from Los Angeles blown over there. So as a result, at that time, there was four separate area districts, L.A. County, Orange, Sempernary, Riverside. He brought legislation, became a congressman, but it was state legislation he created. The four counties came together because they're surrounded by mountains, became called the South Coast AQMD. Now 17 million people or more. We actually give out 28,000 permits a year, and I'll describe those in a moment. You can notice at the bottom, one-third of all U.S. containerized cargo comes through our base and really impacts pollution in people's health. Next. So here's why we're here. Our duty is to reduce pollution so you don't get cancer, asthma, emphysema, things like that, you, your families, your kids. On the left, we, as a local air pollution agency, you regulate stationary sources, things that don't move. So if you look at that list, cleaners, paints, any auto bodies, a paint shop, spray booth, we regulate that. I've had some complaints in La Plente about that. Gas stations, we regulate. They've got to get a permit. I have an ongoing issue with Council Member Alois from Glendora. Their gas station was closed down. They were pumping too much gas, more than their permit, and the pollution was going in the neighborhood.

So we're working on that, trying to get the gas station back open. but notifying a school that's just down the street that there may be more pollutants and they have a chance to complain or contest it.

So power plants, refineries, again, things that don't move. Lately, we've had a couple issues with landfills. Bureau of Sanitation.

goes out. Let me ask you this question. I ask all my cities, and my staff at AQMD didn't know this.

So these are cargo trains, okay, freight trains. There's also Metrolink trains go through our city,

all our cities, every day. And what's the federal train agency called? It starts with an A.

Amtrak. So how many Amtrak trains and Metrolink trains do you think go through our basin to four

counties every single day. And they're all diesel. Diesel, just like these freight trains. 50, 100, 75.

Over 200. Over 200, so there's lines that go out. San Bernardino's got like

40 or 50 every day. One goes along the 60, right by Montebello, just a little bit north of you or south of you. And we've got ones that go up the Antelope Valley, out west of Ventura,

and down to Orange County. So these are big sources of pollution. Then you've got the trucks, the off-road equipment, lawn equipment, lawnmowers,

weed whackers, et cetera. So we don't meet federal standards. And they could actually shut

our area down by taking federal money away and saying on Monday

or Tuesday, only odd number of cars on the street. And they almost did that a number of years

ago. Next. And this is why I'm so passionate about

it. I think you will be too. These are two sources of pollution that we don't meet the federal standards. One on the left is ozone. And that's, you know, a chemistry experiment you put volatile organic compounds, could be paint, solvents. You mix it with

the nitric oxide that comes out of cars, trucks, lawn equipment, trains, planes, locomotives. When they mix, it's a chemical reaction, and that produces ozone, the layer when you can't see the city.

And that causes a lot of respiratory problems, but the really dangerous ones on the right, that gray stick is a piece of your human hair.

And when you look at that little blue globe, that's Particular Matter 10. When we came in here, and I do this at the high schools when I go, I have an air quality monitor or sensor. When we all came in, we kicked up dust. You may not see it, but that's a particular matter of 10.

If I were to show you, it's blowing around right now. But our bodies are strong enough to fight it.

The problem is it gets smaller. Look at the next red globe, PM 2.5.

That's from combustion, organic compounds, metals, etc., your brakes.

That goes through your blood-brain barrier, and it lodges in your organs.

And even smaller than that, that really small little ultrafine part, even farther goes deep into our organs.

It may sit there for 10, 20 years.

So these are two pollutants that we don't meet federal standards. Next.

This is your body, your family's body, your neighbor, your kid.

And as you inhale these particulates, look at that respiratory. We always knew that, but now we know cardiovascular, metabolic disease, increased cancer risk, cognitive, physical.

First time ever they've done a study. We always tested rats by the freeway. We put rats by the freeway, and we did multimillion-dollar studies at Cedars-Sinai.

They'd take the rats back and they would find a change at the cellular level.

The rats that were closer to the freeway developed something called dementia. So for the first time, we took humans this year in the University of British Columbia study in January, and I think 6 or 12 people volunteered, went in a room, got exposed to gas from car vehicles for 6 to 8 hours, came out, and they tested their cognitive ability before and after. Significant decrease in memory loss.

A week later, they tested their back to normal.

But the issue is if we're exposed to this every day from all these different sources around you, there is a long-term effect.

Next.

So here's the health impacts. If we could meet clean air standards, we'd avoid this. But there are 1,000 in the first category, 500 premature deaths a year.

Compared to traffic fatalities, it's more. We can prevent hospitalizations of kids with asthma.

There's almost a million kids in L.A. County with juvenile asthma.

Third column, look at the kids playing soccer, kids lost days from school.

I coached soccer for the last 30 years, AYSO. Last year I had three boys on my team, under 16 boys that had asthma.

So every game I had to be careful. And this year one of the kids went up to under 19 boys I'm coaching. He's got asthma.

So every practice, an inhaler, a nebulizer, he's measuring what he's got. And I've got to pull him out of the game on a bad pollution day.

And it costs us $19.4 billion a year.

hospitalizations, the medications, the treatment, the emergency room. Next. So there's good and bad

news. On the left, air pollution is going down. So you can see it from 1992 to 2010. It's gone

down significantly. The blue is South Coast AQMD. The red is the Coachella Valley on Riverside

because we still represent that area. On the right, the dark purple is bad. That's air toxics. Those are the metals and things like that. It was really high. The purple means really bad in 2000. but we're getting a lot better.

People are transitioning to electric, compressed natural gas,

and the hydrogen fuel cell. They're walking, taking the trains. Next.

Again, we don't control this. We've actually sued EPA about six months ago. We filed a lawsuit because they're not fulfilling their obligation

to reduce pollution from all these sources right here.

Next.

Just quickly, there's three agencies that regulate air pollution. On the far left, the square, U.S. EPA.

They manage mobile sources, some stationary.

CARB is a California Air Resources Board in the state.

They have a lot more power than us. They, again, regulate mobile sources, and on the right is us, stationary sources. What happens if we don't meet federal standards at the bottom in the green?

$40 to $50 million per year, they could say, charge more for a permit. Somebody comes to Monterey Park, open up a pizza oven, a gas station, a spray paint booth, pay double in your permit because we're going to take that money and get better technology from the federal government. Take away all of our federal funding for highways. It could be up to a billion dollars.

And finally, as I mentioned before, the implementation plan, they had a draft.

Monday's even number cars, Tuesday's odd number cars. So it's serious. We're trying to meet these standards. So we're struggling between keeping business open and trying to protect your health, Mayor. Next. Good news. I'm coming with money, Mayor.

So on the left column, before you change out your HVAC system, we've got $1,500. I don't care what you make, $5 million or $20,000 a year.

We'll give you $1,500 for a clean air furnace rebate program. And look at Edison. They're doing some of the same, too. On the second column, I've done this for 25 years. You can get an all-electric, cordless, state-of-the-art electric lawnmower up to $250 off.

You just got to turn your old one in, the gas one. I did that 20 years ago when the technology was horrendous. It was like a plastic. Now they're comparable to commercial gas brands.

On the third one, electric vehicle chargers. Actually, we've modified that now, so it's going to be $500,

but you've got to make under a certain income level. But anybody under a certain income level will get $500 to install a Level 2 charger.

You've still got to pay for the electrician to install it. But those I got when installed, a new one about eight months ago,

I got the top of the brand charge point was $800. So they go from $300 to $800.

Finally, replace your ride. You want to turn in an old jalopy, a car that just doesn't run, it's a beat up in your yard. It's got to be running, but it's probably a polluter. We'll give you that amount was just raised by the board to $12,000

So if it's an income income certified to they got a look at your income level The cars got to be operating or transit passes car sharing e-bikes and finally mr.

Mayor that bottom rectangle. We're developing a zero emission appliance program. We were just at Edison

Thomas councilor mayor pro tem at your The facility on Irwindale right there a few weeks ago checking it out and talking with staff about trying to maybe join projects together for residents.

Next. And this is programs for your cities, mayor, and some of your businesses.

We're going to do a demonstration. Well, look at it at the bottom. So we got this a shuttle for South Pasadena. There's money available at the state level. We sometimes administer the funds. We got about $70,000 off for that electric shuttle.

That was one about four or five years ago. The new one we just got this year, the drivers love it. It's twice as good as, like, with the car evolution of the power.

everything's getting better so great events heavy duty trucks there's money

every year there's a carl moyer program if you got trucking companies in the

sound there's always a lot of mom and pop have five trucks or bigger ones

we get we had a program this year for if you had under 10 trucks we'd give you four hundred thousand dollars off for an electric truck heavy duty

because they cost about that much we tried 150 000 nobody was buying so we

give them four hundred thousand dollars off so a

lot of programs mr man finally i would hope you would look at this we're doing it. Pasadena's doing it. Glendale's doing it. Azusa's looking at it.

We're transitioning our lawn maintenance. We've actually already transitioned our entire city seven years ago to all electric lawn maintenance. I walked around your facility here. It's maybe eight acres or something like our large signature park. Easy to do. We've been doing it for eight years. Everything's electric. Lawn mowers, weed whackers, hedge trimmers, etc. We've got 85% off for the city. If you want to buy a large riding lawnmower to cost $25,000, we'll give it to you for $4,000. You're going to save $20,000. Get all the handheld equipment, which is no problem. You've got gardeners that want to do this. They can also get 85% off.

Only catch is you've got to just turn in your old polluting equipment. We want to get rid of it and destroy it.

State had a program from November till just yesterday, $30 million. It's all gone. We've got $4 million left in our program. Last time we had that money about five years ago, L.A. Unified jumped in the last couple months. They bought like 20 of those large mowers and about 300 leaf bLors. The money evaporated. So if you're interested, we have staff, consultants on staff.

We will come out here with your, I don't know if you have a contractor or staff does it, Mayor.

What we'll have is our experts come out. We'll bring all the electric, state-of-the-art equipment, so they can try it out. They can use it for two weeks and see if you want to do it. We tried it at Alhambra.

They're getting all the handheld equipment. At one of their parks, the elevation was just too much. We tested one of the riding lawnmowers, the two brands we used, and it just wouldn't do it.

But they wanted all the handheld equipment. They love it. Passing has converted all their parks. Glendale is about 95% converted with all their parks to all electric. So please consider it. More and more cities are doing it. All of our cities, Passing and Glendale, us, we passed an ordinance banning gas power leak bLors in the city. We've got a model if you ever want to look at it. and there's still a lot of money available for the gardeners if you think about doing that. Ben, we're going to do just a quick demonstration. This is a battery.

Anybody wants to come down with me with hair, long hair?

I'll do the demonstration. Ladies, anybody?

Michelle, I thought you were an environmentalist. Come on.

Okay, so this is a state-of-the-art

and this is just a handheld. The backpack is even twice as powerful. Ben, go ahead. All the way, Ben.

So this is what the power we have.

Let me see this. Thank you, Ben.

So this is just, this is a still, one of the top brands from Germany. And this is the battery. This is for mainly residential, but a lot of, actually, commercial gardeners have a couple of these.

This battery is like, it will last anywhere from four to eight years. We've got some that have lasted seven, eight years. Some last less, they're guaranteed for two years.

And this could be several hundred gallons of gas and hundreds of gallons pints of oil because you need two-stroke oil and gas, carburetors, filters, spark plugs.

None of that on this, but a battery. You plug it in.

I don't want to blow any paper's way, but very powerful.

Next.

So there's money available at the state level. Clean air funds. Wow. Your city has used, this is where your city has applied for grants or something, Mr. Mayor. 1.2 million dollars. That's one of the highest of the 34 cities I've gone.

So your city, your staff has done an incredible job applying for grants that come available. You've done a replace your ride. Replace your ride, that means that was the last column I showed you where there's $12,000.

So a lot of your residents probably applied for that, and they basically got that $9,500 off on the vehicle or a transit pass. Prop 1B was vehicles, et cetera. Second column, mobile source. So on each of your residents' car registration, they have to pay a $4 or something fee.

30% of that goes to this Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee, which is kind of under AQMD, separate but under. They've got about $14 to $15 million a year they give away. They set up four or five grant programs, and if you have some ideas, tell me, and I'll push them to do that. They give money, and you apparently applied for and got a natural gas vehicle, CNG. So another great thing, more than half my cities. This is where I want you to really look. I'm not sure if you're even aware of this. I was in a city in eastern San Gabriel Valley. They had over $600,000 and had a big changeover in staff and council members. Had no idea the money was sitting in their account. So listen to this. Of that $4 in your registration, you get 40% of it. AQMD gets 30%. Mobile source air pollution gets 30%. And we give out the money for grants.

You have 40% of it at the bottom. It's called AB 2766, motor vehicle subvention, your car registration.

You keep getting it every quarter, every quarter, just coming in, coming in.

So let's look at it. You had a balance of 300,000 in 2020-21. You used 77, so you've got about 250,000 left in that budget.

The only restriction is you've got to use it to reduce mobile source pollution. Cars, trucks, lawn equipment, things like that. So you can get charging infrastructure. I noticed in your parking lot, too, you've got one EVgo charger like we have at our city hall, same company. You've got the Chathamo and the CCS. This is a great opportunity to get three or four more. Because I saw you had several electric vehicles parked in there, several other Teslas, and they weren't charging. So this would be a great opportunity for employees. We're converting our whole parking lot to level two chargers using some money we have from this fund. And we're also going to transition our whole entire police force. So I'm also going to invite you. We've got the first car delivered a day ago. It's kind of under wraps. We're transitioning our entire fleet all at once to be the first in the world to go all electric police vehicles. It will be Tesla Model Y's Pursuit and Model 3 Detective Vehicles. So they're all being upfitted by Unplugged, which is at SpaceX, down by Tesla. and I think we'll have a grand opening probably in about a month or so. We're going to be testing a couple out first.

at your parks where the kids are playing soccer out there, especially some kids with asthma. Next. On the left, first column, small business assistants. If you've got a guy with a pizza oven,

you've got a paint shop that's having problems, complaints, let us know. We'll come out and help you. If you've got a complaint about something like San Fernando did when I was there several months ago,

they had a concrete plant next to there, dust, odors. We sent our staff out there. They weren't keeping records. We issued a citation.

and we peppered the neighborhood with flyers. Call this number if you smell something. Second, we've got a free mobile app.

Wherever I go, I turn it on to see what the air quality is, and it's pretty good today, not as good as yesterday. We've got sensors all over the four counties. Actually, we're supplemented by Department of Defense in case there's ever a bomb or something. And finally, we can test your sensors. You can buy it at the store at your air quality, sensor performance center, our district.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If you have any questions, happy to answer. Thank you so much for that presentation. I mean, a lot of great opportunities. I envision that we're going to be doing a lot of talking, but I want to give council an opportunity to ask any questions or have comments. Sure, Mr. Murray.

Well, Mr. Kosh, it's always a pleasure to see you and hear in your capacity representing the AQMD and to your staff, Ben Rainbow, thank you for coming to our city.

Question.

So the funds that are available for city governments and commercial, is there any deadline or is it year-round that anyone can apply?

There are no pending deadlines we should be aware of. No, can you put that back up to AB 2766?

There it is, the bottom. So, again, you get, Council Member, you get that every quarter. It just keeps adding to your fund, and there's no deadlines. You can use it whenever you want to. The only thing is, again, it's restricted to mobile source pollution.

So, again, if you have a program for your staff, you know, like a transit pass or something, it can be used for that. We did that in South Pass.

or you want to get police vehicles or transition any of your diesel or regular gas cars to electric hydrogen fuel cell or plug-in hybrids,

use that money for that. And even if you use it all up, every quarter just keeps coming back in. Every car, $4, you get 40% of that $4 every four months, three months. Thank you.

Yes, so Mr. Cacciari, thank you for coming by. I'm just trying to understand the balance that's as of 2020 does that how does how do we get that

to increase by by doing what so you have to do anything so when it was when it was 308,000 and next year you use the money for it looks like alternative fuel vehicles and you're already

doing an employee ride share program it looks like city manager but so you so you still have 308 minus 77, 250? 235, yeah.

Yes, better addition than me. And you work with the banks, of course. That's unfair.

So I bet it's even more, because this is like six months old, this presentation, so you've got more money in there, to be honest.

And that's your finance person. I get back to ask my finance person because I can't keep up with it.

There's questions?

Mayor Patelman?

Well, thank you, Mr. Kashiotti,

Thank you, Vice Chair.

First of all, congratulations on becoming the Vice Chair this past year. I appreciate your leadership and leading from the Sanguru Valley on the QMD board. We met maybe 15 years ago now.

Many years ago, Mayor Pro Tem.

Here when we were showing off some early models of clean air cars and electric lawnmower and other equipment. so I appreciate that you're still at this helping to praise or helping to proselytize these clean air technologies and electric technologies. I don't know if Scott, our police chief, has your information. I would love to see how we can take lessons from your city, South Estonia's efforts on transitioning to electric and zero-emission vehicles for their police fleet. and then I know that we are aware for our own fleet transition of some of these potential opportunities to offset costs and the rebates and incentives. I would love to, and I continue to encourage our staff and the city I know is continuing to look at opportunities to begin that transition, especially since it's required in the next few years to transition all of our fleet to zero emission as soon as those technologies are available for our needs. and so appreciate AQMD's financial assistance on a lot of these technologies to make sure that they're available. I don't know if we have listed on our website a link to some of these rebates. If we don't, if we can add the AQMD rebates and programs for businesses in the city and residents to be able to access that, and maybe we can tee up an article in Cascades

on a regular basis to help promote some of these rebate programs

for businesses and residents in the city to take advantage of. And how appropriate that you're here today. I don't know if it was intentional on California Clean Air Day.

Got a free bus right here, by the way.

I appreciate this kind of public service announcement on this day of all days. I know you're going around to all the cities that are in your jurisdiction, your kind of area, but I appreciate that you chose us on Clean Air Day and on your council meeting day to come here to present this. I would love to continue to make sure that we are working with AQMD to access funds that belong to the city as well as we look at fleet transition. I'll just echo your point on the need for more EV charging as well. I think all of us have EVs in some way, shape, or form on the council, and I think it's a clear sign of things are transitioning and shifting in the community if the leaders in the city are driving electric vehicles. and so and there other than the one DC fast charger station in our parking lot there are no no other chargers at City Hall and so there there's a lot of need for charging and not just here at City Hall but across our city facilities and I'm hoping that this will get worked into I know one of the items on our agenda tonight is the parks master plan I'm sure that that will get worked into our thinking on parks and city facilities as we are looking to transition our fleet for the city and hopefully our spirit bus as well as quickly as possible to zero emission. The need for charging infrastructure throughout the city is apparent to me and I think to many others. And we'll look to AQMB to partner with us on delivering that infrastructure and building it out in the coming years.

Mayor, can I ask a question? Sure. Do you, because I come down to Monterey Park, you see your movies all the time. I love it down there, Atlantic Times Square.

I remember driving by the shopping center right south of that. I saw some chargers.

Are those Tesla or just other type of chargers in there?

Wait, where? There are.

At the shopping center just south of Atlanta.

On Ralph's? Yeah. Yes. Those are not Tesla. Those are just regular chargers. Those are DC fast chargers.

They're Electrify America, part of the Volkswagen settlement.

Oh, yes.

but here at City Hall and at Barnes Park there's only that one EVgo fast charger station there's no level two charging right now at the city. The money's there and let me just give one

example so Ben helped me set this meeting up with Tesla West Coast operations several of our cities

were interested we talked about it and because Ben and his city West Covina had another installation

We met with the people. And so who was it? Was it Claremont or was it Laverne? And Duarte.

So Sam King, you know.

And actually, Sarah Marbury the other night just signed an agreement

when I was at their city council last month with Tesla.

We're looking at her on Fair Oaks at the Vons. I've been working with the new owner that took over for his father.

So finally, after pushing him and telling him the benefits, wherever you have these charges, if you drive an electric car, you know over at Tesla, you've got to stop and charge it.

and you're there for 20, 30 minutes. You want to go buy a Coke, a coffee or something. So the economic benefit to that shopping center is incredible.

It's a turnover for 20, 30 minutes and just thousands of dollars. So he's finally doing it.

They're doing the – it's going to take about 12 to 18 months to do installation of about 18 to 20.

But we can set up a meeting if you want to with Tesla and whoever from your staff, council members and staff, and we can – because they told us –

a year ago the Singapore Valley was a desert.

now they're putting them everywhere but we need a lot more and this is a part of the desert right here

absolutely I appreciate your efforts and AQMD's efforts leading the charge

on that

and look forward to a continued partnership

appreciate it please invite us to your when you guys open up your fleet so we can check those out

your police cars

I know a lot of us would be interested to see how these police cars work we'll be happy to do it we weren't the first there's about a dozen around the nation that have done one or two.

Highly in Miami Lakes, where I grew up in Miami, they've done about a third of their fleet. But we've done their studies.

We've been testing cars. So we're doing it all at once, all of our entire fleet. So we'll be happy to show you. Excellent.

And then before you leave, I do want to test out, just because I do air blow my driveway in my home every weekend.

You want to test it out?

Yeah, sure.

So come on, Mayor. And while he's doing that, I believe we, our Public Works Department

or our Recreation Community Service Department,

I don't know which one oversees our parks maintenance.

I think it's public works.

It would be great to see how we can start to transition

to electric maintenance equipment. Here, hold on.

Maybe they'll leave that behind.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

No, no. It's okay. I'm sorry.

Thank you again. Thank you so much.

So we'll go ahead and jump back to actually public communications. Are there any public communications?

Yes, we have two speakers. First up, Nancy Okeri.

Good evening, you all.

I'm objecting to Mayor Jose Sanchez's request to his resolution to request Latina equal pay day in Monterey Park.

Your resolution should require equal pay day for all women working in the city of Monterey Park.

Based on our census, Hispanic residents are only 28% of our population. White residents are only 5% of our population. Black residents are less than 1% of our population.

And Asian residents are 66% of our population.

I worked for 47 years in corporate America, and I was paid less than my male co-workers.

I strongly request that you amend your resolution for equal pay for all women working in Monterey Park, regardless of their race, since Asian women, black women, and white women work just as hard to earn their paychecks as a Hispanic woman.

Thank you.

Next speaker, Saracis Antonio.

Yeah, that sounds good. Good evening, Mayor, Council Member.

Due all respect for what his slide that he put up,

he did not mention how in 1975 they got rid of the unleaded fuel and he went to catalytic converters. So this ethanol that they put in the fuel, remember, 10% goes out in the air. That doesn't burn.

so unleaded straight fuel will burn less but you have to

satisfy the bushes and the Iowas, the farmers. You don't put food into vehicles, meaning corn and stuff straight unleaded because you have your computerized vehicle that will run that and he didn't mention about the But he didn't even mention about how much does the Smog Check 2 program goes for this stuff too.

And he didn't mention about Pasadena. They have the Ford Lightning truck, F-150s. I've seen it up there. The fire truck in Michigan and in New York, they're using the Mustang E, which I have stock in Ford. So you don't have to buy. And if you break it down, look at Scotty Kilmer on YouTube. He says that that's a junk vehicle from day one. And there's also Borman that makes aftermarket parts. The quality on those vehicles, they're not all that great that they say there is. Quality is bad. And I understand there's a new dealer in Alhambra. And there's also the one that he was mentioning about. they got lines of cars waiting for them to be serviced. So I never understood how can a guy get so popular with his vehicles. Where do you get them serviced? Any other manufacturer to take it to the dealer, they're going to work on them. So what I'm coming here today is at O'Hammer Avenue from Garvey up to Emerson on both ends. Drive it over there tomorrow. They got holes.

There's pottos like this on both ends of the street. And yet I called down over here, and yet they're letting the people drive, and that's a main stretch to go to Mark Keppel and goes into O'Hambra and amongst other streets. And then another thing is they're redlining us over here on the car insurance. Oh, the guy says, what area could he live in? Oh, 91755. You're in a high-risk area. that's better known as redlining the people. And I'm pretty sure everybody that's in this chamber and watching it on TV, their car insurance has gone up. And then all this construction that they're doing around the city, and then I'd like to know how you like your $6, $7 gas when this governor shut. So let me ask you the definition of winter fuel versus summer fuel. Winter fuel, my opinion, is snow on the ground, not when it's 55 degrees when it's raining. So this governor should have all the refineries shut down to raise the fuel now. Now the oil went down about $4. And then this state, we're getting, it's constantly, you don't have enough income to keep going. And for me, at my age, to get an electric vehicle, a Mustang E, it's like about $70,000 with my cost. I don't have that kind of money. And, yeah, look at that street over there on Hammer Avenue. Both sides of the street is not something where people should be driving on. Have a blowout on your tire or your suspensions are going to get messed up.

No more speakers.

So we'll go ahead and jump back to staff communications, and I know we have, we'll go ahead and start with fire department.

Good evening, city manager, Mr. Mayor, city council members, city attorney.

I'm John Jin, captain here with fire department, here just to read about our local hazard mitigation plan.

to build a more resilient community takes collaboration between local government

residents and community stakeholders

these relationships will build

a stronger more prepared community that will be able to mitigate natural

and man-made disasters this plan is a living document and is prepared to be flexible and adapt to the needs of the community

and serves as a comprehensive

guide to reduce the impact of a disaster the city of Monterey Park 2023 local hazard mitigation

plan LHMP

is now open for review and comments.

The plan will be available for review

starting on Monday, September 18th, and is set to end on Monday, October 9th at 5 p.m.

Residents and community stakeholders

also can review the plan online at montereypark.ca.gov or come by City Hall at 320 West Newmark or the Brueggemeyer Library at 318 South Ramona. All questions regarding the LHMP can be sent via email to lhmp at montereypark.ca.gov. Cal OES, or California Office of Emergency Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, will review the City of Monterey Park

Local Hazard Mitigation Plan,

and this forum is open for public review

and is part of the process.

We look forward to hearing from you, and the point of contact for this will be Battalion Chief Chris Thompson

with the Monterey Park Fire Department.

That's one part, and then also, Just so you know, for October 19th, the Great Shakeout, the City of Monterey Park will be partaking in that as well. And we're going to be sending out a flyer to residents surrounding the EOC, notifying them, just like everyone got today, the alert on their phone, that they're going to be receiving that. I have copies of that if you guys would like to see that.

Yeah, okay, no problem.

AND THEN OTHER THAN THAT I'LL TURN IT OVER TO MY COLLEAGUES REGARDING THE FIRE PREVENTION.

THANK YOU.

GOOD EVENING. I'M INGENERER DAVID GETTS WITH MONTERAY PARK FIRE.

COUNCIL MEMBERS, MAYOR, CITY STAFF.

Here to talk about a program that we are going to be doing this Sunday, October 8th.

Domino's has put on a partnership with all fire departments nationwide for Fire Prevention Week,

along with the slogan of,

Cooking Safety Starts With You, Pay Attention to Fire Prevention.

What this program was going to entail, that on the 8th,

Fire Department is going to be going out and assisting Domino's with some deliveries and kind of like a spot check for fire prevention to those residents.

What we're going to be doing is we're going to be going in, of course with their permission, and taking a look at their fire, their smoke alarms and seeing if they're working and if they got batteries.

if they are working domino's is buying their pizzas for that order and if they aren't working we are going to be installing and replacing the batteries for smoke alarms making safer homes we're choosing this sunday because we're hoping that people are ordering plenty of pizzas having

gatherings for you know sunday football or whatever it may be and we can use this opportunity to reach

as many residents as possible and this is something that's going to be done to residents homes not apartments or renters but actually homeowners that are within the city.

That's about it. If you guys have any questions. Thank you for that information. Now I know what I'm going to have for dinner on Sunday.

Well, we're only doing about three to four homes, so you better get in early. We're starting at 1230. So it's kind of like that

radio hotline. Just start dialing right away.

Any questions or comments from Council? Councilmember, you?

Just a quick question. So do we sign up? How do we sign up? But only three to four houses, right?

It's just random. We're starting at 1230, and the first three or four homes that put in an order

and agree to getting a delivery team of a fire engine and a fire marshal and some fire prevention specialists will be joining us,

a whole crew in there to kind of just talk about fire safety and kind of use that as a community reach-out moment. That's great. Thank you. Just asking for a friend.

How many pizzas can they order?

Like, is there a Max?

I don't know if there's a Max,

but if we don't show up to deliver, you may be stuck with the bill. That's the gamble you'd be running.

I've got three chances.

Yeah, if you don't see a fire truck rolling up as the delivery car, maybe you just pretend no one's home.

Wrong address, right? Yes.

We'll start with Ivan's house first. All right. Well, thank you so much. I think that's a great idea, and thank you for taking the time to do that. I know that takes you away from the powers, but a very good PSA to do in the community. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good night. Thank you.

All right, Ivan, now we know what our kids are eating. So next, staff communications, human resources.

All right. Good evening, Council.

Christine Tomikawa, human resources and risk management director. I'm here to introduce our new human resources and risk management manager.

She was hired two weeks ago, I think.

So she comes to us with 16-plus years of public sector HR experience. So she brings a wealth of knowledge and information. I know she's already shared some with a lot of the departments that she's been meeting with. So we're excited to have her and add her to the team. And as we continue to kind of do our recruitments and move forward with a bunch of other projects, She'll be a great asset for the city. So Julie Dazelle, and I will let her just say hello.

Good evening, Council.

I'm very excited to be at the City of Monterey Park,

and I look forward to working with you more and working with the department heads and the city staff here at the city.

Well, thank you so much, and we welcome you to Monterey Park. Thank you. Any questions or comments from Council?

Welcome to the family.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next staff communications is the library.

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

Kristen Olivares, Interim City Librarian, and I'm here this evening to provide you with some updates on library programs and services. First up, on Saturday, October 14th, the annular solar eclipse will cross North, Central, and South America. It will be visible in parts of the United States, Mexico, and many countries in South and Central America. And millions of people in the Western Hemisphere can experience this eclipse. So, prepare for your own viewing party with the City of Monterey Park and the Los Angeles Astronomical Society. The library will be at the Garvey Ranch Observatory tonight and next Wednesday, October 11th from 7 to 8.30 p.m. to distribute solar eclipse glasses to the public. Next Wednesday, representatives from various city departments will also be present and families will be able to enjoy activities, giveaways, sign up for a library card, and view the stars with the Los Angeles Astronomical Society.

Next slide.

The next free legal clinic presented by the Asian Pacific American Bar Association will be held on October 10th at 6 p.m.

To register, patrons can call Adult Services at 626-307-1368.

Next slide.

on saturday october 21st at 3 p.m teens are invited to get in the halLoen spirit with a scary movie treats and a ghoulish activity this event is sponsored by the junior friends kids ages 4 to 12 are invited to register for the in and out cover to cover reading program

beginning October 7th.

Kids who read five books will receive a voucher

for a free burger from In-N-Out. They can receive up to three free vouchers,

meaning a total of 15 books read. To register, you can visit montereypark.beanstack.org, and this program runs through November 18th.

Next slide.

I'd also like to highlight two new services available at the library.

The first is the Scan and Save Memory Station, which is a free do-it-yourself space where library cardholders can digitize their collection of photographs, slides, negatives, and documents. The station will be available on Thursday afternoons. Patrons can make a two-hour appointment from 2 to 4 p.m. or 4 to 6 p.m. And to make a reservation, you can contact Adult Services at 626-307-1368.

Next slide.

Additionally, patrons with a valid library card can now check out a parks pack for their

next outdoor adventure.

Parks packs include hiking poles, binoculars, a laser compass, a flashlight, and guidebooks about California hiking trails and native bird species.

For more information, please contact the library at 626-307-1368.

Next slide, please.

And just a reminder that the library is now open six days a week. We are open Monday and Tuesday from 12 to 8 p.m. and Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Next slide.

Lastly, there is still time to purchase tickets for the Library Foundation Gala, which will be held on Friday, October 13th from 6 to 9 p.m. at Luminaria's restaurant.

Please visit the library website or see me for more information.

And that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much, Kristen, for all that amazing programming that we have. Any questions or comments from Council? Yes, Mr. Mayor.

First of all, just again, congratulations for the extended library hours. And thank you for having the little community ceremony on the 18th to celebrate. I know that's something that this community has been asking for a while. and so I'm glad that you know I said we were able to find the resources to extend the hours and I know that's something the community looks forward to as well

any other questions or comments councilmember go just a general comment you

guys are doing a great job extending the library and making a community center and I really appreciate you guys doing all that thank you thank you and any

other questions comments no and thank you for promoting literacy really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you very much. And our next presentation is the police department.

Just a little brief history on the pink patch. So back in 2013, the Seal Beach Police Department began wearing pink patches, like the ones we have here, to bring awareness to breast cancer. And in 2015, it officially kicked off to now we have over 700 agencies participating in the pink patch. In the month of October, the police departments wear their patch on their shoulders. Monterey Park we have the badge as well as you can see this year we're actually having our first annual car show to raise money and all proceeds will go to the City of Hope. Have you guys seen the flyer? Next slide please. And for the car show we're actually selling t-shirts and other merchandise so the patches will be sold for ten dollars each the shirts are 25 to 27 dollars and we have the challenge coins as well and that'll be held on October 7th this Saturday we'll have vendors food trucks 50 50 raffle so 100% of the proceeds will go to City of Hope Any questions? We're going to get, other than the event, we're going to get shirts, patches, or a challenge course.

Yes, come over to the front counter and ask for Linda and records.

She'll be, we'll have the merchandise there and she'll bring it up. She's here Monday through Friday until 4 p.m. We're still trying to work out to have it on later graveyard time or after hours.

so as of now you can contact her and they're opening merchandise and then also at the event Saturday Thank you and then you guys

didn't bring any patches with you to sell to the council? I know Henry wanted to buy like 10 of them

She can run and grab some patches, no problem

we have those available, we have shirts also

All of the city events that we have coming up will have the pink patch items available to the public there

And they'll be at the car show right? Oh, yeah.

Excellent. Oh, yeah. Go grab some shirts and patches. Awesome.

Any other questions or comments from Council? Well, thank you so much for supporting Breast Cancer Awareness this month, and we'll see you on- Pink Patch is an amazing program that started locally in Seal Beach and now encompasses the police departments all over the world. So it's really kind of an amazing program, but it's been centered here in Los Angeles County for a long time. So next slide. I want to introduce some of our new employees at the police department. This is one of our lateral officers. A lateral means he was a police officer in another agency and changed assignments and came over to our department. So he's already been to an academy. He can immediately start out on the street in a patrol car with a training officer. Doug Banowitz, lateral to us from Riverside County, from the police department of Riverside County. He's got some years of experience. Fullerton College graduate. He's now assigned to field training. He was a police explorer and a police cadet and has a real passion for working for a department that interacts with their community. I won't talk about the department he came from, but he was really very open about the ideas of – He came on numerous ride-alongs before we hired him, and he saw how we interacted with the public, and he was really excited about getting involved in those kind of programs, something he didn't have from his other agency, he said. So we look forward to having him. He's here. I think he's on day three right now. So he's just started. He's excited. He doesn't always look mean like that. We get him to smile every day. So go ahead, next slide. And we have an intern. Samantha's our new intern. She's a student at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

She's looking at law enforcement. She's not sure what part of law enforcement she's interested in, but we have a pretty good intern program.

We had an intern over the summer who came from Grand Canyon University, and he was here all summer long with us and worked in our investigations bureau, and he's interested in the forensic side of law enforcement. Samantha is kind of looking at what police work offers Not kind of past what you see on TV With TV shows and what real police work is about So she's going to intern with us while she's a student And if she likes what she sees Hopefully she will We'll be able to transition her over to Some other form of paid position in law enforcement Either with us or another agency So I'll continue to kind of bring updates to you As we bring in new personnel So you can kind of see their faces it's really a good way for them to understand how the process works and for city council and the rest of the public to kind of recognize that we have new people coming on board all the time. So any questions? Any questions or comments? Mayor Portempo?

Well, congratulations and thank you for updating us on the new hires. Are we, I'm just curious if we have additional openings in the police department or are we?

We have openings all the time, quite honestly.

For both sworn positions and non-sworn positions, professional staff, it's a, I won't say it's a revolving door, but we have people that are retiring. I just, one of my officers after 30 years retired today, Robin Lopez.

We're going to promote somebody into a position that she held, but we're going to hire behind her. And so I'm constantly having to anticipate who's leaving, who's going to retire, who may be moving on to other agencies. And we're trying to fill behind them. The problem with law enforcement, and it's not any different than any other agency, is the process to hire somebody who has not been a police officer takes anywhere from six to nine months. Then they have to go through a six to eight month academy. And then they go through at least six months of field training. and that's to the point where they get to drive the police car on their own without having a partner officer with them and that's really the first time i can include them as part of my what part of my numbers part of my staffing so it takes a while to get them to where they can where they can go out on their own with professional staff it's a little bit different but for a dispatcher for example a dispatcher comes on board and they have the same process six month process to get hired, and their training program can be up to nine months because it's a very difficult job. So we're constantly trying to anticipate that so we don't have openings. We're more successful than some of the agencies around us, but it's a constant battle, I guess, to find qualified personnel. Thanks, Chief. Thank you, and I see you brought some patches. My God, look at, she just appeared like that.

She's amazing.

All right, guys, take it. Okay. Also, just real quick while she's doing this,

we've been in constant contact with South Pasadena about the Tesla police cars. Chief Brian Selinsky from South Pasadena and I have talked numerous times, and we're looking at what it's going to take.

there's a lot involved in that the car just rolled out yesterday we've already looked at the car and I will have more information as the months go on about how these cars perform as everyday police cars but we are looking into that just so you're aware I spoke to them on the break up there and we all the chiefs in LA County are very interested in seeing how South Pass South Pass does this. They've been planning this for two years. They had to build out infrastructure before they even got to the point where they were purchasing cars. So we're looking into that.

I know there's a lot involved. A lot. With my day job, I understand there were issues with building out the infrastructure that took a little longer. So I appreciate that we're looking at that. I know we already have some

bolts. Yes, we do. Three of them. For traffic.

I can – but more than we can start to integrate zero emission vehicles into our fleet, I think – I know we're on it, but we'd love to see if there are other sources of funding that can offset the cost for us here as well.

Agreed. Ford and Chevy are both rolling out police package, which means they're pre-built to be police cars.

They're both rolling out police package electric vehicles within the next two production years.

We know that for sure. They've communicated with us.

we should see the first all-electric Chevy Tahoe police vehicle probably by the end of 2024.

So we're all waiting to see what that looks like.

Yeah, I'm sure some people are, some of us are excited for some test drives too with some of these different vehicles.

Exactly. Do you know, Chief, if the Tahoe you're talking about is comparable in price or cheaper, more expensive than the Tesla models that South Pass is using? We don't have a price yet. I know that the current gasoline-powered Tahoe police vehicle is only $5,000 more than the Ford Explorer police SGV. So the costs of Fords went up where the Chevy costs kind of stayed the same. We have both of those in our fleet for different purposes. We're still waiting to see what the electric police car will cost. I don't know what the cost of the Lightning pickup truck is. There's one agency in Northern California that has one, and they're testing that out to see if it works for them. There's a lot that goes into it, as you're fully aware. We've got to have the infrastructure. We have to have the charging. We have to have the ability to build the cars out. A lot of people that build police cars don't quite know how they're going to do it with all the batteries and all those kind of things. So there's a lot of electronics that go into a police vehicle. So South Pasadena seems to have decided to take a bite out of the elephant and figure out how it's going to work for everybody. So we're watching them very closely. Thank you for that. All right. Well, thank you so much, and we have some money for you.

I have two tens, Michelle.

Any other questions for me? I'm sorry. I told the people in the back I wouldn't take a long time. I'm already in trouble.

All right. Well, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll go ahead and move on to our next presentation, Public Works. Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor, Pro Tem, and City Council.

I'm pleased to announce the hiring of Frank Hellman as our new water utility manager.

He's been on for about a month or so.

Just some background on Frank, he left us about 2017.

We're glad to have him back.

He was a significant player in getting us our groundwater treatment facility started. He'll actually see that to completion now.

We're excited for that. I know he's excited for that as well. Frank comes to us with over 30 years of experience in the water industry.

He currently holds his Distribution 5 and Treatment 4 from the State Water Resource Control Board,

which is very significant in the water industry, very hard to get. So we're pleased to have him here with that.

He also holds his Master's in Organizational Leadership. So with that, I'll turn it over to Frank.

Good evening.

I just wanted to say I'm glad to be back on board.

I've seen a lot of new faces, a lot of familiar faces, and it feels good to be back home.

So I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Well, thank you, and welcome back.

Thank you.

Any other questions? or comments?

Do we have a date yet for the grand opening and coming in operation for the new

treatment facility? We're in the process of working out the bugs and doing some trial runs and making

sure that everything is going to be up, but hopefully within the next few weeks.

Looking forward to it. A very long journey. Welcome back, Frank, to the city. I appreciate you stepping in this newer role with the higher level of requirements

for the treatment facility. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

All right. A couple more announcements. Next slide, please.

So we have a clean-up event coming up this Saturday from 8 to 12 at George Elder Park to 1950 Wilcox Avenue.

Bulky items, electrical items are alLod to be dropped off.

No hazardous waste at this location, though, for this event. We're also partnering, again, with the Salvation Army, so we'll be recycling some of the items that are reusable.

SO WE'LL BE PARTNERING WITH THEM AGAIN THIS EVENT.

NEXT SLIDE PLEASE.

SO I WANT TO GIVE HOPEFULLY A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF TRAFFIC STUDIES. I WON'T GO TOO FAR INTO THE WEEDS BUT JUST WANTED TO GIVE COUNCIL AN UPDATE.

WE DO HAVE A FEW TRAFFIC STUDIES WE'RE WORKING ON SO JUST WANT TO KNOW IT'S A HOT TOPIC. SO THE PURPOSE OF THESE TRAFFIC STUDIES IS REALLY TO EVALUATE RISK MANAGEMENT, EVALUATE IMPROVE SAFETY, AND THEN PROVIDE STANDARDS THAT CONFORM WITH VARIOUS MANUALS SUCH AS WE

We have the California Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which is MUTCD.

It's a very standard common across. It's actually a national standard.

We use that to define how we actually do our traffic studies. So we have that as an option. So at the MUTCD, this actually is updated every four years. And again, like I said, it's a national standard, so it's something that we have to go by.

It's the law.

These standards are used to install various traffic control devices. SUCH AS FOR ON ROADWAY, BICYCLE LANES, THINGS LIKE THAT. IT ALSO HELPS US TO EVALUATE ITEMS SUCH AS STOP SIGN REQUESTS. AND WITH THAT, JUST WANTED TO GO OVER STOP SIGNS AND JUST THAT TYPE OF A REQUEST. SO THESE, WHEN STOP SIGNS ARE EVALUATED, THERE'S VARIOUS THINGS THAT GO INTO THAT, INCLUDING WHY THEY'RE THERE. THEY'RE NEVER USED TO BE USED FOR

Unless, like I mentioned earlier, that we have five traffic accidents or more at an intersection or we get requests from PD. If a resident does request that we look at an intersection, we as a city will evaluate that and make the determination if an actual traffic study needs to be evaluated. We don't just automatically initiate a traffic study. One of the main reasons is because if we did that, we would do traffic studies all over, and those things start anywhere from $3,000 on up. Typical traffic study can take anywhere from one and a half to three months and can take up to a year. There's various factors that are involved, such as the time of year. So if school isn't in session, we're not going to get an accurate representation of traffic conditions if it's around a school. So that might delay the evaluation of a traffic study.

And then, again, we typically don't.

We will take requests in from residents. You can see here we have our traffic website up.

So residents can look at that.

There's a form they can request if we can look at traffic studies. And then for the current studies that we have going on, we have Floral Drive, Orange Avenue by Garvey Ranch Park,

Wilcox from Pomona to Riggins, and then Riggins and Fulton, and then Hellman Avenue as a whole,

the entire stretch of Hellman Avenue within our jurisdiction. And we're also doing that in combination with Alhambra. So with that, I will answer any questions.

Okay. Okay. Well, thank you so much for that update. And I know a lot of people in our city and some of us have concerns about some of the, you know, the highly trafficked areas within our city in terms of pedestrian safety. But are there any questions or comments from Council?

Council Member Lo?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Sean.

I'm, you know, I'm glad that we're doing traffic studies on what I think all of us can be on very busy roads in our city.

May I ask, what is the timeline?

Like for example, the study that have been initiated, when can we expect a conclusion or recommendation?

Typically they're about one and a half to three months if all conditions are normal. Again, there's various factors that come into play if they're around schools.

If school is in session, then we'll delay them.

Like floral, we'll take for example. Floral, we talked about this several months ago, but because school wasn't in session, we delay the start of that evaluation for almost two months.

So it really depends. But typically a month and a half to three months.

Okay.

Other questions or comments? So I understand.

So a month to three months for a traffic study, if it finds that there's a need for, if it identifies the need for mitigation measures like lane narrowing or stop signs or light or whatever, how long might that take?

It depends. So it really depends on what it takes. So we'll take the example of Graves and New, right? That was a little bit of a challenge because we had multi-agencies that were evaluating the conditions of that. But as long as we're all on the same page, if it's within our jurisdiction, we're just putting up signage, typically fairly quickly. If we're talking about traffic signals and things like that, it's very expensive. So you get to the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if we don't have that programmed into our CIP,

then we have to come to council, and council will have to allocate those funds.

So, again, it really depends on what the needs and desires are.

I'll give you an example.

So on Atlantic and Garfield, there's a couple of painting striping that we've done.

That we did that on our own.

We had a traffic study initiated because we felt there were some challenges with traffic. So we did that on our own, and that was easy.

We did that in-house.

We just had it painted, and we were done. Same thing along Newmark right here by City Hall. We addressed those items internally, and those are things that we can do fairly quickly. But traffic signals gets a little more expensive.

Great.

And are these the only current ongoing traffic studies?

That's correct.

And then once they're complete, does council have a view to the actual outcome of the studies, or is there a way to get a view of the outcome of the studies?

If you can, you can get access to those, yes. Yeah, that would be great. So to follow up on that, so you will bring these back to council so we can see these, or are these just, what's the process behind this?

So typically, I mean, we evaluate those internally

and we take the appropriate measures.

Typically, we would come back to council if there's some type of financial requirement that we have to come back for you to appropriate those funds.

Yeah, no, I don't know that we need to bring it formally to the council, but maybe through some of our one-on-ones or through the city manager's office, once these are completed, maybe they can report out, particularly on the ones in, at least for me, I'm interested in the ones that are in my council district

to know the outcome of the traffic studies.

Yeah, absolutely. We can do that. And then also, if some of these were brought up by particular residents within the city, do we normally or typically let them know this is what the traffic study said, this is what we're planning to do as a city, just so they're also aware?

If they call and they request that, yes, we will update them. But we typically do not call them throughout the process. We tell them that we're in the process, and then once it's completed, If they wish to have a call back, we can call them back. But, yeah, typically we don't update individuals through the process.

Okay. Thank you. Council Member, you? Yeah.

I saw that Hellman Avenue.

It said we talked about last time on the Hellman and Chandler that you also studied.

Yeah, that's part of that study.

We're evaluating the whole stretch of Hellman, but Chandler is part of that.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Sean, and we look forward to seeing what the results of these studies are. Thank you. Appreciate it.

All right. Thank you.

We'll go ahead and jump to our last staff communication, Recreation Community Services. Oh, yes. They take Epic seriously. Okay.

So normally I have staff come up here and do staff communications and definitely wanted to come and get back up here in front of you guys tonight. So share some of the upcoming events and activities that we have. Some of the exciting stuff going on. So next slide please. So definitely want to start by thanking everyone that came out and helped us celebrate our first events of Hispanic Heritage Month. We did up five events throughout the from September 12th and this our next our last event was on September the 28th

So we had our friendly Fred walk which council member Lo led us on

Along with our mariachi and then we also did a movie in the park with Salina

And we are also treated our seniors to a trip to Riverside

So they went to the Riverside art museum and then also to the Cheech Marin art museum that's there And they were led by a docent through both of those museum and so we think we had about 50 seniors that went on that trip we also I know I had seen the mayor out at our

farmers market for the Balacol folklorico

Dancers what was great is that the farmers market both of those events where we had the mariachi and also the balacol folklorico Definitely saw a huge crowd increased crowd at the farmers market, which is really nice See everyone come out for the entertainment And then we also had our monthly theme dance at Langley Center and this month was a fun fiesta of 150 seniors out there dancing and and getting down to some Latin music so they had a lot of fun and real festive event. What's great

about those theme dances when you go and visit you always see that the not only

is the facility themed but our seniors are themed. They like look forward to

getting into theme and dressing up whether it's a cowboy or it's some type

of Latin entourage so they really get into the theme and have a really good with making sure you know that each theme is different and so they really enjoy that.

Next slide please.

Some of our upcoming events so definitely want to encourage the council as well as the

community to submit your photos of loved ones that have passed.

We are going to be having a community altar hosted at the Langley Senior Center so from October the 12th through November 2nd staff will be putting together a community altar and honoring those loved ones that have passed in the community and throughout our lives.

Even if you want to submit pets, we'll also accept pets. I know pets are very dear to a lot of our families,

and so definitely we want that to be part of the altar as well.

Next, Electric Park. So as you know, Electric Park has been a new event here in the city of Monterey Park. This will actually be our third installment. Exciting. we actually were able to land international DJ Doc Martin. So he'll be headlining this event. Doc Martin has been a world-recognized name for about 30 years. Also that night, we will have David Delano,

who, for those of you who may be familiar with Power 106, he has hosted the Power Tools show on Power 106 for the last 30 years as well. We also have a number of other local DJs. What's really unique about this year's event is that five of the seven DJs either grew up in Monterey Park or still live in Monterey Park.

So we really are showcasing local talent and bringing the community together.

I know our theme has always been music people community and united we dance. Another unique thing about this event is that we have over 70 art vendors.

So these will be local artists, local vendors that will be showcasing the art. So now is it not only celebrating music, but also going to be celebrating the visual arts as well. There will be food trucks there, games for the family. And, you know, so hopefully everyone will come out, get your blankets, your chairs, and get ready to dance.

It's a really nice event. So that's October the 14th from 4 to 10 p.m. here in Barnes Park.

And then another very popular event. We've seen our crowd grow year after year. This is in conjunction with our Bergamot Library.

We got our annual Monster Mash event on October the 19th here in Barnes Park from 4 to 7. This is completely free. Tons of game booths.

I think we have close to 40 booths, which is city departments as well as local nonprofits and clubs that all come out.

They provide every booth. There's going to be an interactive activity. I know Public Works usually puts on a little haunted house to scare the kiddos. Tons of toys, tons of candy. We also have a magician that will be performing that evening. it's completely free it also be in conjunction with our farmers market so come out make it a whole evening and and have a good time put on those costumes and it'll it'll be a lot of fun next slide please and just some other events that will be coming up in the future we do have an annual community health fair this year will be on October the 28th at Langley Senior Center so we offer a variety of services from 9 to 1 p.m. and I do want to emphasize that no health insurance is required and we do have translators available on that day so number of services from dental checkups to glucose to blood pressure vision a

number of services we work with UCLA Health Corps to provide this year after year and we usually get I think like over three to four hundred people that

come throughout the day and get those services so it's a really successful event I think we've been doing it now with that group close to 20 years so

it's very successful and we look forward to working with those students year after year.

So I mentioned the Langley Senior Dances. So if you have time on October 31st on HalLoen,

I encourage you to drop by the Langley Senior Center at 1 p.m. and I guarantee you'll see some

very festive costumes. Seniors definitely dress up every year and we'll be having our annual HalLoen dance and there will be a costume contest as well. So do come by if you want to

come by and even maybe put a costume on yourself.

That's welcome as well. And then just for your calendars, don't forget,

November the 11th, we will be honoring our veterans over at the American Legion. This is the event we do annually with our local American Legion Post 397.

That's November 11th at 11 a.m., so 11, 11, 11.

And that'll be there at the American Legion Post 397. And then finally, last slide, is just a reminder,

The best way to keep up to date with all of our activities is follow us on social media at Monterey Park Rec.

We try to post regularly and keep things up to date and fresh and exciting so people don't get bored following us.

And so definitely follow us and share with your friends and let's keep these events well attended.

Thank you and I'm free for any questions.

Well, thank you, Robert.

I think it deserves almost a round of applause. Not just for the activities but the performance.

I want to shout out Orlando. It's controlling my lighting for me. I got a little help.

I think I want to buy some of these so every time I give a speech I can post them up as well, get people's attention. Thank you so much for all of the amazing programming. I mean, you keep us very busy but also very entertained as well, so I really appreciate a lot of those events. Any questions or comments from Council about any of these events?

I think you'd always have those lights. Just leave them there permanently.

at least. They're always available. So if anyone wants to use them for something or

an event, we do have them available. As well as the other department heads, if they want

to use them. I know Chief Wiese wants to make his presentations more epic, so he might.

I can't fit a car in a person.

Thank you, Robert. Have we, you talked about the health fair and the screening.

Are there any plans?

I know the federal assistance and the paying free COVID shots are no longer being subsidized by the federal government. I don't know how that plays into this, but is there any plan to do another round of COVID vaccines with CSC?

Actually, I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think our fire is already working on something like that, right?

Correct, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

yeah that's great yeah okay great well thank you so much i'm looking for

Center. So, you guys are looking forward to the Monster Mash. It's already on our calendar. Girls are already dressed up. Thank you. And we'll go ahead and thank all of the departments for the amazing presentations and program that you're doing. Thank you. We'll go ahead and jump back to presentations. We already did 1A, air quality, so we'll go ahead and jump to 1B, which is our Monterey Park Community Healing Fund update from our Treasurer, Amy Lee. Amy, do you want to hear about this? Do you want the lights back? Sure. Good evening. This is Amy Lee, Fund Administrator for the Monterey Park Community Fund. I want to update you. I'm happy to report that our fund is up to

$193,000 and we are looking to distribute the checks probably in the next two weeks. We have

currently 33 names that have been verified. We have maybe about 10 that we are waiting to verify.

We've been in touch with the Sheriff's Office, the District Attorney's Office, and we're getting the names approved one by one.

Hopefully we'll get those out shortly. I just spoke to CCF earlier today. They say once the names are approved, 8 to 10 days to distribution and mailing. Thank you, Amy, for

that update. Go ahead and any questions from Council? I know Council Member Lo looks like

he has a question. No, I'm just very pleased to see that our fund continues to grow and

you know that's thanks to I think the community support and hopefully it'll continue to grow.

Any other questions? Council Member, you? Just a quick question. So everyone, how much do they get? Oh, we do have an update.

The fund, everyone in the fund decided we were going to distribute 3,000 to each applicant.

Thank you.

So thank you. That was going to be my question, too.

So it sounds like about half of the funding that's in the fund will go out to the victims that have applied. is what are the plans for the remaining funds to be essentially granted out for other community healing activities?

Yes. While the application did close, we are looking to reopen it to invite more community organizations

to apply for that.

Yeah. No, that's great. I appreciate that,

and I appreciate that we have additional funding to be able to provide to the community and for organizations and others who have ideas of how to pursue that. and I'm assuming that we are working, that the fund is working with the Resiliency Center on helping spread awareness and doing some outreach around the availability of these funds.

Yes, we'll be talking to the director shortly.

Great, yeah, because I'm sure they're interfacing and people are going through the Resiliency Center that might have ideas in terms of utilizing some of these funds too.

Yeah, we're reaching out to different organizations within Monterey Park. If you know any organizations that do need funding, please have them reach out. The website is still open

Under the Monterey Park Community Healing Fund. Great. Thank you so much and appreciate you and please pass on our appreciation to the other members of the steering committee

Will do

Do we have a timeline on when we want to close out the date on the fund because we don't want this to be perpetual?

That's a good question. We want people we want the organizations to apply right now. We only have one applicant and

and we are looking at that applicant, but we do have some funds available.

This new amount of funds was a recent addition, so that was not planned to have all this extra money.

So hopefully we're able to share that with organizations in Warnley Park and help them heal. And then, Amy, if you could just remind me, how many people are part of the group?

Which group? The committee?

There's eight of us, I believe. So maybe in some future meeting we can invite them to a council meeting just to thank them and recognize the work that they did. I know this was a voluntary thing, so I want to make sure that we thank them for the work that they put in.

Will do. Thank you. Thank you, Amy.

All right. We'll go ahead and jump to item 1C, going green sustainability plan update.

Hello. Good evening. I'm happy to be here. This is Olivia Williams. I'm a Civic Spark fellow that is serving the City of Monterey Park to build capacity for climate change mitigation and adaptation. I'm super excited to give you an update on the Monterey Park sustainability plan tonight. I can go to the next slide.

So we began this project in September of last year by creating an interdepartmental green team to develop and launch the Going Green Community Outreach Campaign, which ran through February of 2023. We received a ton of really great feedback from the community during this campaign and presented the results to you in March. And then we used all of this great input to start developing the plan in April. Since then, we have collaborated with consultants to develop community and municipal greenhouse gas emission inventories. This kind helps to contextualize the strategies measures and actions that make up the sustainability plan last month we met with directors and staff from every city department to review their roles and responsibilities in the plan to ensure that what we are proposing is both feasible and to garner support on a city-wide level last week we held a joint meeting with the environmental and planning commissions which i'll discuss on the next slide but just moving forward on the timeline the draft sustainability plan will be available for public review next week on October 12th through the end of the month. The plan will be revised to incorporate feedback throughout the month of November and will be brought to City Council to consider for adoption in December. Next slide, please. So as I mentioned last week, we held a joint meeting with the Environmental and Planning Commissions during which our consultants provided technical background on the emissions inventories which were conducted on the community and municipal level. This was folLod by an overview of the plan development and how the plan will be implemented and monitored after adoption. The commissioners asked some great questions regarding the data analysis, building decarbonization, and improvements in public transit. They also made suggestions that will be considered as the draft is in its final stages of revision. I know many of you are unable to attend that meeting, but we do have the recording and presentation slides available on the Going Green webpage you are welcome to look at. Next slide, please. So just some dates to keep on your radar. Like I mentioned, the public review period for this document is October 12th through October 29th, and you can anticipate seeing the plan on December 6th for your consideration to adopt. Next slide. And of course, to follow the plan updates and read the draft when it's released next week, you can check the Going Green MBK website using the QR code that's listed on the slide or I also have some flyers here for you. And we highly encourage all community members to provide input or ask questions about the draft sustainability plan. You can email your comments to goinggreen at montereypark.ca.gov or we will also have a form available directly on the web page as well where you will read the draft. Yeah, so that's all. Thank you for your attention and we look forward to hearing from you. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much for the update. I know a lot of us are very, very interested to see how this works out. I'll go ahead and ask Council if you have any questions. Council Member Lo.

Mr. Mayor, again, very excited by this Going Green program. I had an opportunity along with the mayor pro tem to attend at least part of last week's meeting with the environment commission and planning commission. And I know there was a question asked which I know was on a lot of public people, community people's mind was, you know, how does this fit with the previous climate action plan? And I think it was explained that this is actually a continuation of or rather I guess

a complimentary

to the Climate Action Plan program.

So I'm very excited to see the city developing

a statement plan,

especially given

earlier today when we had a presentation by the AQMB.

And I think that hopefully will be a blueprint

on how we can do our part

to mitigate climate change.

and in terms of the outreach, was that done in multiple languages to make sure that everyone is able to understand and participate?

Yes, it was. So we had our community survey that was available in Spanish, Chinese, and English

and then we also provided translation services at all of the workshops as well.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions or comments from Council? Mayor Potemwong? Thank you.

appreciate all the work that went into getting this plan to where it's at now and I'm still excited to see it come out next week in draft form and just want to first pass my appreciation on to the whole team and all the departments who have been very involved in putting this plan together as Councilman Rouleau mentioned I caught part of the presentation to the planning

environmental commissions.

I know they were very robust questions and very robust engagement there. I think that's a good preview of more to come in terms of the community being interested in this topic and how it will play out into our community and the city's operations as well. I recall from the meeting and the presentation,

a lot of the plan has focused on GHG emission reductions

and the inventory for our current GHG emissions for the city, both a subset of the full GHG emissions being or the subset of the city's controlled facilities and fleet and emissions directly and then the community emissions profile. Will the draft plan that's released next week include specific mitigation measures to get to net zero by 2045? because I don't think that was touched on specifically at the presentation. And we'll start with that one.

Yes.

So one of the chapters of this plan is focused specifically on low emission development,

and it focuses on strategies, measures, and actions that we can take as a city

and as a community to Lor those emissions.

So will there be recommendation? Is there going to be a recommended plan of a list of actions THAT THE CITY NEEDS TO TAKE TO GET TO NET ZERO RIGHT BY 24. YES THAT IS CORRECT. AND THEN THAT THAT WILL BE OUT IN DRAFT AND THEN WE'LL BE SOLICITING FEEDBACK ON THOSE SPECIFIC MEASURES AND THEN THAT WILL COME BACK TO THE COUNCIL TO ADOPT TO PUT INTO ESSENTIALLY COUNCIL ACTION TO MOVE AHEAD ON ALL THOSE DIFFERENT ACTIONS THAT WILL BE RECOMMENDED RIGHT? YES EXACTLY RIGHT. Are we planning any additional outreach in the draft phase as its release or in the time between now and when it would come back to council for final approval?

Good evening. Council, this is Jessica Serrano, your community development director.

Just to answer that question, we are doing some specific outreach with the Environmental Commission, reviewing the draft with them. and at the request of another club in the city, we are doing a presentation to them. We're not doing any more community workshops, but we are available, remaining available,

at the request of any community members or community groups to join their meetings and do presentations.

If you have, do you know, will there be a deck prepared for that Democrat Club meeting, I assume?

and if there is, I know I have a town hall meeting coming up in a couple weeks. I would love to, I don't know how long it is, but I would love to include a couple slides from that if it makes sense in my town hall meeting.

Sure, we can share any materials that we present to you and you can use it as you'd like.

Great, that'd be great.

And then if I haven't seen the draft plan in its entirety or in any way,

When it comes out, if it makes sense to do, I think it would make sense to do some outreach if it's a matter of budget. I think if we can look at potentially bringing that request to the council to do additional outreach between now and final adoption of the plan, I think that would be it would be good to at least have some additional feedback Beyond just right publishing the plan and having the draft plan having people Have to proactively look at it to bring back feedback if there's opportunity to do another outreach meeting or a virtual one If that's easier and more budget conscious Just allow more opportunity. I don't know that if we will get a lot more But would like to provide an opportunity at least for the community to see what the draft plan actually says and kind of have a staff-led kind of overview of what's going to be in the draft plan and how people can participate in shaping the final plan as it comes to the City Council other than just the City Council meeting agenda item. Would love to see if we can explore that. And then once the plan is adopted, assuming that's in December or whenever, there's going to be a lot of action items, I assume, INVOLVED IN ACTUALLY IMPLEMENTING THE PLAN IN THE YEARS TO COME. THAT WILL REQUIRE, THERE'S THINGS WITHIN THE CONTROL OF THE CITY THAT THE COUNCIL AND STAFF CAN TAKE ACTION ON TO REDUCE GHG EMISSIONS AND ACHIEVE NET ZERO IN THE NEXT 20-SOMETHING YEARS. BUT THERE ARE A LOT OF ACTIONS I WILL ASSUME THAT THE COMMUNITY

IS GOING TO NEED TO TAKE.

AND I THINK WE NEED TO THINK ABOUT HOW WE CAN DO MORE TO ENGAGE RESIDENTS AND BUSINESSES IN THE CITY AROUND THESE MITIGATION measures and adaptation measures in the sustainability plan because we're going to need them to actually take these actions that we won't be able to force them to do a lot of these things ourselves so if we can start thinking about what that might look like in terms of implementation after the plan is adopted and the outreach that's going to be needed for that

kind of where the direction that we want to go as a city. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you so much.

Our next update, our next item is 1D zoning code updates, outreach and engagement. Thank you so much. Mayor, members of the Council, good evening. My name is Beth Chow, INTERIM PLANNING MANAGER. IT'S MY PLEASURE TO BRING YOU AN UPDATE RELATED TO THE OUR CITY OUR PLAN CAMPAIGN THAT THE KMEA DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT HAS BEGUN AS PART OF ITS EFFORTS TO MAKE THE CITY'S ZONING MAP AND ZONING CODE CONSISTENT WITH THE GENERAL PLAN LAND USE

ELEMENT AND THE HOUSING ELEMENT TO BEST IMPLEMENT THESE COMPONENTS OF

THE GENERAL PLAN. NEXT SLIDE. AS PART OF OUR EFFORTS, FIRST OFF, I'd like to point out the logo that was created as part of our campaign, which is featured on the top right-hand corner of the slides.

In order to put our campaign out, we put word out to the public through the community development team's efforts,

contacting those who are directly affected by the changes, but also publicizing our efforts to the community at large,

to the directly affected properties or parties.

We conducted mailings to both property owners and business owners. We sent out over 1,000 letters to reach this target audience.

We also made some targeted email blasts for those lists that we had related to business owners. To the general public, we put out items in the Cascades as well as social media posts. We also created a website to keep people up to date about the city's efforts. And to entice participants to the workshop, we teamed up with MPK Rewards and offered a special promotion for attendance. Additionally, we put out a registration system to track potential attendance. And all these efforts were provided in English, Chinese, and Spanish. Next, please. So on September 11th, we held a workshop in the library and were very successful in having over 50 in-person attendees as well as 33 people virtually.

And as I'm sure those of you in attendance can attest to, it felt like standing room only.

so while city staff went over the efforts to create and implement

a mixed use zone to allow for new mixed use developments which will help revitalize our downtown and address housing needs within our community. The attendees both virtually

and in person brought up issues related to changes in our city and they touched upon topics such as public improvements, traffic, zoning and crime and safety And these topics are especially important as the capacity for development within these areas will be increasing. And these areas include the largest commercial corridors within our city at Garvey and Garfield and Garvey and Atlantic. So overall, the workshop was very well attended and staff received important feedback to the R-City R-Plan implementation. Next slide.

moving on we'll cover next steps in the very near future we'll be bringing forward a round of zone changes to create consistency between the land use element and the zoning map these efforts will be concentrated along the corridors of Monterey Pass corporate center and East Maple smaller local street and then moving on into this winter planning proposes the creation of the mixed use zone, properties to be rezoned to the mixed use zone and standards for the mixed use zone, which were all land use designations within our general plan. Our city, our plan efforts will continue into 2024. However, this will be fleshed out, or the items that we would be bringing forward will be detailed at an upcoming city council meeting during the second meeting in October. Next slide, please. Because the RCD, R Plan campaign will continue into the next year, we encourage the public to keep updated about changes we're working on and moving forward with. We've also included resources such as a fact sheet, which has posted a GIS, an interactive GIS map, identifying effective properties, and we've posted the workshop video online for those who could not attend. Should anyone have questions related to our efforts, they're welcome to call our general planning member, as shown in the slide here, or email planningpermitcounter at montereypark.ca.gov. In these efforts, staff can set up individual meetings

to discuss how individual properties will be affected, and I'm happy to report that we have met with several properties

to have those one-on-one discussions. This concludes my presentation for this evening, and I'm available for any questions. Thank you so much for this update. Any questions or comments from Council?

Yes, Mr. Mayor.

Yes, Council Member Lo.

Yes, thank you.

Again, thank you for the presentation, and also I and some of my colleagues attended the meeting on September 11th, 11th, and yes, it did feel like a standing room, but that also, I think, demonstrated the immense interest from our community. I'm kind of curious

after the meeting on the 11th, have we received additional comments in terms of emails or phone calls from residents who either attended or listened, or maybe people who had an interest about what this plan is all about?

Yes, we have received various emails and phone calls, some from larger property owners and some from more small properties.

And to the extent possible, staff has been able to schedule meetings to meet with those owners

to discuss what is actually happening for their specific property

because there is a large laundry list of items

to be covered within making the zoning consistent with our general plan.

And do we plan any additional outreach,

like maybe in terms of form like an e-blast or on the Cascades? I think that what the attendance on September 11th demonstrated was people really have an interest, especially when it comes to development. I think that was a lot of comments about direction of development

as well as I recall there were also questions about even how we are facilitating housing in the city,

like, for example, the ADU process.

And so I think it sounds like maybe it may not hurt to do another round of outreach to the extent that we are able to.

Well, we don't have specific workshops listed at this time. Through our efforts in future steps, as will be presented next week,

we can start establishing additional workshops as they become necessary. Okay.

Thank you. Other questions? Mayor Patel Wong? No, thank you.

I'll echo what Councilmember Lo said. Great work on doing the outreach on the initial R-CDR plan outreach right for the downtown area. I think going back one slide,

we are looking at zone changes as well

for Monterey Pass Corporate Center and other parts of the city.

And it sounds like there aren't current plans

to do outreach of the same type for those other areas?

So those areas, actually, the property owners have been notified that zone changes will be occurring.

However, these zone changes

are just more for consistency's sake

because no development is happening. Yeah, I think...

I'm trying to think how necessary or how helpful it would even be

to do additional outreach on zone change,

particularly in the downtown area. I mean, if it does make sense to go back out and do kind of a town hall meeting or a workshop. If we're hearing additional concerns or misconceptions about what's actually happening, I think it would be worth doing that, and I think I would want to support doing more outreach, particularly to make sure that the downtown business owners and the property owners are aware of some of these changes that are coming down and the changes to their ability to develop and redevelop their properties to the extent we can help them understand their potential and encourage them to look at the potential for changes to their properties,

I think that would be helpful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So we'll go ahead and jump to, oh, I did have one more question. I did like, I just wanted to say I like the logo that you guys created for our city, our plan. Thank you.

We have content calendar items 3A to 3K. Council, if there's any items you would like pulled, and if you can specify whether you want like an abbreviated report or just a quick update or a full-on report.

Mr. Mayor? Yes.

Item 3A, but very abbreviated.

Actually, if anything, I have a question. 3A? Yeah.

Okay. Any other items that would like pulled?

I will pull 3C for a quick discussion. I want to pull 3D and 3E just to make sure we're actually noting these, not for a staff report.

3G.

and I need to recuse for 3i and 3j since those will both be passing by my property within 500,000 feet. I know one of them was pulled from consent, so I believe I need to leave the room for that conversation, right, Mr. City Attorney? But I'll note if 3j was not pulled from the consent calendar note that I am recusing officially from item 3j.

Okay.

All right.

So I am pulling items 3C, 3D, 3E, 3G, and 3I. And Thomas, Mayor Pro Tem, is going to recuse himself from 3I and 3J.

Is there a motion to approve the other items that were not pulled?

3A, 3B, 3F, 3H, and 3J and K? So move. And seconded. If we can please take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you.

So we'll go ahead and start with item 3C, and I believe that was pulled by the Mayor Pro Temp.

So I know that this was,

I would like staff to just detail the addendum, the FAQ sheet that was added very quickly, but I know that this is what we discussed at the last council meeting in terms of the Prop 218 notices that are going to be mailed out. But I just wanted to make sure staff had an opportunity to talk about what will be included with the official formal notice.

Good evening, Mayor.

Mayor Potem, Council Members, Martha Garcia, Finance Director. Yes, what we're presenting today is the Prop 218 sewer and water ballot notices. It will be going out on Monday, October 9th. There will be two ballots, one for sewer and one for water, and then we will have a cover sheet, which is the one that's the addendum that we presented today to Council and to our public.

And what it does, it just kind of gives a quick summary of what's happening.

We explain what Proposition 218 is.

We explain what the water and sewer rates fund.

We explain what items are funded and what services are funded.

And then we explain why we're looking at proposed increases.

for the necessary service fees and capital projects.

And at the very end, the very last paragraph, it says how they can be heard. They can submit a ballot, you know,

they can submit their ballot back to our city clerk's office, or they can also come to our public hearing

that's scheduled for December 6th.

And that concludes my presentation. Thank you. Mayor Pro Temp?

Thank you, Martha. I appreciate this. and do you know when we expect to mail out the notices for yeah we will be mailing them out on

monday october 9th this monday it's coming monday yes oh okay uh so that and that will include in

the faq sheet that's going to be there's going to be three sheets in the envelope it's going to be

sent out through a vendor info send there's three sheets one of them is a cover sheet which is a

FAQ frequently asked questions

and there's going to be the ballot for the sewer and then the ballot for the water so each parcel

owner and tenant of the city that has water

each tenant that has water services

and all parcel owners of the city will be receiving that letter with the three sheets in it

okay and then I mean just

this may be nitpicking but

on the FAQ sheet

the link to the rate study and the analysis. I know it's a very long link. If there's a way to shorten that web link,

if people are actually...

make it easier to so they don't have to type in the entire link there yes correct we will make that adjustment thank you so much all right and then

will this FAQ be translated into other languages as well yes it will okay and then I mean just a general comment on this I appreciate that staff wrote this FAQ up as well or it's helpful to explain to people if they're going to get a formal notice I understand their requirements right and we tend to government tends to, not just government, but we tend to write and communicate in legalese to the extent we can and where and when we can. I think best to make sure that we're communicating in plain English as possible and plain other languages as well, but to make sure that it's very clear to the reader the purpose of these actions and write for this. I understand we have to have some of this language in here, but very plainly, we need to raise these rates because we need the revenue to meet the needs of the city for our water and sewer needs. And these are, we're a city utility. We're not here to profit. We're not trying to make more money. We're just trying to meet our basic needs. And to the extent we can, not just here, but across the board, communicate in plain English as much as possible to our residents and businesses I think that would be helpful and appreciate staff's efforts on this to do that thank you and with that I'm happy to make a motion on this yeah I'll make the motion to adopt staff recommendation with some of these changes noted for the noticing I'll

second that and seconded by councilmember low if we can take a vote

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and jump to item 3D. I know this was also pulled by Mayor Protelmong but I know for the purpose of just making sure that we highlight this. But is there someone who can give an abbreviated version or yeah.

And Martha, thank you and I'm glad you're doing better.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council.

So Code Enforcement Officer Week began in 2018 and it was adopted by a resolution through the state recognizing October, the second week of October as Code Enforcement Officer Appreciation Week. This would be the first time that the city has adopted this resolution. So we look forward to really uplifting the code enforcement officers and creating a more transparent communication between not only city staff, but the community as well. So we really want to try to do our best to provide more outreach to the community. And so they understand what it is of what we do and what we can do to help our city be maintained in the best way that we can.

Any questions or comments from Council? No just again the job is actually very important

because I think that all of us probably have either through email, phone or in person have expressed to us issues because of our code enforcement so i actually the job you do is very important so

thank you yes any other questions uh councilmember go i'll make a motion to

i'll second and i'll just echo uh appreciation for our code enforcement team and appreciate the staff bringing this to us to make sure that we are highlighting their role uh a very critical one And there are a lot of quality of life complaints that I think at least I as a council member get. And code enforcement is at the forefront of making sure that our communities and our neighborhoods are meeting these community goals and guidelines in terms of how we function. And I appreciate all the work that they do. AND THE VERY HARD WORK THAT OUR TEAM HAS TO DO TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE HELPING NEIGHBORS GET ALONG WITH EACH OTHER AND HELPING TO EDUCATE MANY IN OUR COMMUNITY AROUND THE RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR OUR COMMUNITY. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I APPRECIATE THIS. I'M HAPPY TO SEE THIS RESOLUTION GET PASSED.

I WANT TO ECHO THE SAME THING. WE APPRECIATE ALL THE COURT ENFORCEMENT DOES FOR OUR CITY. IF WE CAN PLEASE TAKE A VOTE.

approved unanimously

thank you

Mr. Mayor and members of the council I just want to take a moment to introduce

this is Ray Lozano he is our senior code enforcement

officer he forgot to say his name so I just wanted to make sure that we recognized him

and we do have our fire marshal who oversees the division behind him

Jessica Estrella and the audience as well so thank you both for coming tonight

thank you so much for coming and for staying for the whole night no that's hard

Thank you. We'll go ahead and jump to item 3E, which is our 2023 Banned Books Week resolution. I know we've got a presentation. I think, oh, I thought you were going to set up the lights. Okay.

Okay. Hello again. Kristen Olivares, interim city librarian.

The resolution before you declares October 1st through 7th as Banned Books Week in Monterey Park. Banned Books Week is celebrated annually and celebrates the freedom to read and spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. This year's theme is Let Freedom Read, and the honorary chair is LeVar Burton, who you may know as the host of Reading Rainbow.

Yes.

Libraries provide open access to information for everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or socioeconomic status. And we invite you to join us in celebrating the freedom to read and drawing attention to the harms of censorship before you also see a small sample of books that have either been challenged or banned at some point in time.

Well, thank you so much. And these books that have been either challenged or banned are available for our residents in our own library, right? Yes. And do we have any type of display that, thank you for, yes, exactly. And is there any type of display within our library that highlights these books as banned books? Yes, we have displays in our children's department and I believe in our adult services and teen area as well. Excellent. Thank you so much for bringing these books out to us. And I think we all brought our library cards, so maybe we can leave with a banned book to read with us. Any questions or comments from Council? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Loon.

Yes, again, I'm glad, you know, to have this item on the agenda

because I think, you know, almost every day when you read the news,

you hear about in other communities, some across the country,

some in this state or even this region,

where you have folks who want to stifle free thought

and free choice of materials to read in literature.

and you know you I mean just today I was reading about how some of these cultural wars have moved

to school boards library boards of trustees even city councils and I also want to just make the

comment that I'm really pleased that we have a library board of trustees who believe in having

a library in which you know all materials all thoughts are welcomed and I think that is important

especially in a democracy, to have that ability to read, to peruse all types of thought.

And so I'm glad that we at Monterey Park are on record saying that we do not support any type of banning of any books in our libraries.

Thank you, Council Member Lo. Council Member Gung?

I just want to go on record and say that the freedom in this country is founded so that individuals have the choice to read any book of their choice. But at the same time, that freedom does not allow the individual to prevent other people from wanting to read books.

So let's be clear about that.

Thank you, Council Member.

Mayor Potem Wong.

I know this echo appreciation for the library and the staff for bringing this resolution up for us to consider today. I'm happy to make a motion if one hasn't already been made to adopt the resolution and appreciate that. Our city does not ban currently any books, I believe, and I look forward to that. And you mentioned in the staff report, right, historical efforts to ban books. It's unfortunate, right, that there are current efforts, and even within our region here, that are where there are governmental entities looking to ban books from being read by people. And would love to make this statement today that we're a community of diversity, of freedom, and the freedom to read included among those, and the freedom not to read. If they don't want to read the book, they don't have to touch it. And so I appreciate this opportunity to make this statement.

And as an educator, I'd like to second the motion. But I'd also like to say that the American Library Association, and I mentioned this when we had our grand reopening at the library, highlighted that the majority of the books that were being banned throughout the country were primarily targeting LGBTQ plus and African American communities. So it's so important that we take a stand and that we go on record as a community and as a city council that we support free access to books because that is what really freedom and liberty, which is what Council Member Gose was speaking to, is very important. And so I'm really happy that I live in a community and that my daughters have an opportunity to go to a library and read about almost any topic but also read about people and from authors that might look particularly like them so thank you so much for everything that you do and for bringing this resolution to us and I look forward to taking one of these books that are home with me that I haven't read yet that might be bad if we can take a vote

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. And thank you so much.

Thank you very much. We'll go ahead and jump to item 3G which is to authorize the interim city manager to execute a professional services agreement with City Fabric and I believe this was pulled by Mayor Pro Tem? An abbreviated sharing out.

So you want the cliff notes. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and City Council members.

Robert Aguirre, Director of Recreation and Community Services. And tonight with me, I also have Recreation Manager, Christina Alatorre.

So as you know, the City of Monterey Park is entering a very exciting time with our first ever Park Master Plan.

And so a parks master plan is going to help produce a long-term planning tool that the city will be able to utilize for years to come.

The plan will evaluate our parks, recreational facilities, and our amenities. And it's going to include a robust community engagement process that encourages our residents to share their desired programs, services, and help prioritize our future capital improvements.

Just to give you a little bit of background, in August, the Recreation Community Services Department requested proposals from quality. qualified firms and we received two proposals. City staff, both in the Recreation Department and also in Public Works, reviewed those proposals. We interviewed the firms, contacted references

and then collectively we decided to recommend City Fabric to become the contractor to facilitate

the City's first Park System Master Plan. So City Fabric, which we have tonight with us the executive director Brian Luzinski. City Fabric has an extensive experience in master

planning and was recognized by the American Planning Association in 2010 with the emerging firm award and also the public outreach award. I know public outreach and public community engagement is something that we really look forward to doing in this community and something I know council sees as very important. They have extensive experience here in Southern

California and especially in communities around the 710. The firm is actually based out of

Long Beach and they've demonstrated a good understanding of all the surrounding communities. The master plan process itself is going to include visioning, evaluating our current existing

conditions of parks and facilities. It's going to contain a ton of community outreach and our needs assessment and then ultimately there will be recommendations and a plan for implementation.

So this process is a multi-phase, very community-centered and equitable approach and it will

take approximately 16 months to complete. So city staff is recommending the city council authorize

our city manager to execute a professional services agreement with City Fabric for the Parks Master Plan services. That completes my staff report and as mentioned I'm available for

questions as well as Brian from City Fabric the executive director he's also here if there's any

questions. Thank you. Thank you Robert for that cliff notes version of the report. I think all of us are really excited that our city is moving in a direction to have a parks master plan for the first time, right? Yes. So we're very interested to get the community input and see what comes out of this. Any questions or comments from Council? Council Member Lo?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, and thank you very much, Reverend Bryan. I'm just curious, what is your timeline as far as having our materials? materials, make sure we approve this tonight, how soon can we see some of these materials

be available to the public?

So from tonight, so this project will be funded through Measure A funding. It's our annual allocation, so we will have to submit to the county for those funds.

each one of the council districts and a number of other surveying. There will be a statistically valid survey that's done, multiple languages.

That's one thing I can share definitely with when we spoke with a lot of the other cities and agencies that have utilized City Fabric.

One thing that they really spoke to is that their ability to really get community engaged

in a meaningful and fun way.

So we really look forward to that. Okay, great.

So I'm hearing it's 2024 is when we...

2024 is when we should have the kickoff, yes.

I mean, but I'm just curious, is there any way in which we can maybe prior to that, just again, just raise awareness that we're doing this so that...

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

We can definitely push it out there that this is something that's coming and get the community excited. Definitely something we can do in the Cascades and also social media. That way the community knows that this is something to look forward to and start getting ready to get engaged.

I think that's important because I think all of us probably hear at one time or another comments, questions, opinions about all of our recreational facilities. So I think, yeah, maybe it would be great to just let the community know this is coming and be ready for it.

Absolutely. And I will share.

I definitely mentioned the two to three month process with the county. It is something I plan to stay on top of to make sure that we can try to get it closer to that two months or even sooner. because definitely this is something we want to get going as well.

Yeah.

Perfect. Thank you for that. Council Member, you?

Yeah, I realize that. I think Brian, our Executive Director, has been sitting there for a long time

and has been very participating in our meeting.

I would like to have Brian come up to say a few words to explain a little bit about your projects.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor and Council Members for having us here in this item. We're really excited to be kicking this project off. You know, Monterey Park is an incredible community. Like, there's a lot of great park assets already, but there's certainly always room to improve and room to expand those opportunities and enhance the park user experience. We're a nonprofit organization. We're a nonprofit organization that is around social justice and equity in everything we do, whether it's around housing affordability, park access, transportation, safety, cultural development.

And we build all of our work around community engagement,

understanding that we all have shared expertise.

You know, I went to school for architecture and landscape architecture, but the community members know their community. They know what are the challenges, what are the opportunities, and that sort of shared conversation and shared learning will yield a very positive and very impactful plan.

But also the process itself, we try to build it around so that they're part of the process and they start taking ownership in the product, in the plan, so that they're champions for its execution,

whether it's a new park or a new program, and also stewards for those parks.

AND SO WE'VE HAD A NUMBER OF PARK VISIONING EFFORTS THAT END UP STARTING A FRIENDS OF X PARK

WHERE THEY HELP ON PROGRAMMING, THEY BECOME PARTNERS FOR THE PARKS DEPARTMENT.

SO YOU KNOW, THAT'S HOW WE LIKE TO BUILD THESE PLANS. IT'S MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL BECAUSE WE ALSO

LEARNED AND IT'S, YOU KNOW, IT'S FOR US, IT'S NOT JUST A PROJECT BUT IT'S ABOUT THE IMPACT OF

THE PROCESS. SO I HOPE THAT HELPS. BUT CERTAINLY IF THERE'S ANY ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS, I WILL BE bringing the Bulls entry music to all the events. That was definitely a flashback. I appreciate that. I appreciated many of the council agenda items. We learned more about the council. It's very encouraging. Everything that I've heard, even the book banning. My next-year neighbor, Alana Arnold, is one of the most banned book authors right now. I'm going to share with her this item. I'm really excited to be partnering with the Monterey Park and again if there's any other questions or available to answer.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Any other questions?

Yeah, I wanted to add this. Thank you so much for your proposal with over 200 pages and a lot of pictures and with each different projects that you have, pictures and detailed explanations. So thank you so much for such a nice proposal. So if people have time, you can take a look at it. It's very, I will say, very extensive and entertaining. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member, Mayor Patelmo? No, I appreciate it. I echo a lot of the comments already.

Happy to make a motion to adopt this. And as many city staff already know, and Robert in particular, I'VE BEEN HYPING THIS UP AND EXCITED ABOUT THIS FOR MANY, MANY MONTHS. AND I THINK MANY IN THE COMMUNITY ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO ENGAGING IN THIS PROCESS AS IT

GETS UNDERWAY. I'M GLAD IT'S FINALLY GETTING GOING.

I'M EXCITED TO APPROVE, VOTE AT LEAST AND HOPEFULLY MY COLLEAGUES ARE ALSO GOING TO APPROVE THIS PROPOSAL TODAY SO WE CAN JUST GET THIS GOING BECAUSE I THINK THERE'S A LOT OF EAGERNESS TO GET GOING AND THERE'S GOING TO BE A LOT OF INPUT FROM THE COMMUNITY ABOUT how we want to envision our parks and open spaces and public facilities and services going forward. Now that our city is 100

some odd years old,

we have aging facilities in the community providing services that people are loving and have loved a long time but need a lot of additional love and new investment and we need to upgrade and rethink some of these facilities and these open spaces and these green spaces in the community and how they provide benefits for our community. And we want to make sure the community is involved in this process going forward as well. So thank you so much for bringing this to us.

Happy to make that motion.

Seconded by Council Member Yu, if we can take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you, Robert. Thank you. And thank you for staying so long. Yeah, it's very light. Thank you. Thank you for being here. We'll go ahead and jump to the last item that was pulled, which is 3J, and I know Thomas has to recuse himself, or the Mayor Pro Tem.

Wait. 3I. Sorry, 3I.

Sorry, 3I. And that was pulled by... No, he has to recuse himself for both items, yeah.

Oh, okay.

And I know this was pulled by Council Member Lo. Council Member Lo, do you like an abbreviated version, full version?

Yes, abbreviated, yes. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Good evening, Honorable Mayor.

and council sean igo public works director item you have before you is our 2023-24 street rehabilitation project this is for various locations throughout throughout the city on roadway rehabilitations within the staff report it goes over all of the various locations that we have

the bids that were submitted along with the the bid base price and then also some of the contingency

we have in place. So with that, I'll answer any questions. Thank you so much, Sean.

Question. So I was cross-referencing with on our website the construction update. Is what the item that's on the agenda tonight, is that part of what's called year three

on the construction website? That's correct. This will be year three. I see.

So backtracking, is year two

then almost completed or possibly completed? Yeah,

it's nearing completion now. Okay. And I asked you earlier tonight,

so as a speaker regarding Wilhambra Avenue, and I know that in year two, if you look at the map of year two on the construction updates website, sections of Wilhambra Avenue are in that year two project. Have those

rehabilitations been done already? Some of them haven't. So we delayed some of the areas due to

the water main project that's going on. Okay. So once the water main project is completed,

then we'll complete the overlay of those streets.

So like Alhambra Avenue, so that has not been completed yet?

That's correct. I see.

Again, I know the speaker just left, but nonetheless, you know, when he mentioned Alhambra Avenue, and I thought, wait a minute, I remember this was in the year two map, so it will be done.

That's correct, yeah.

We're hoping in the next couple of weeks they'll do some base paving. That's the contractor doing the water main repairs or water main replacements, and then shortly after that we'll do a full grind and overlay of those streets in that area.

Thank you.

I also recognize that, you know, also the weather has not been very cooperative.

That's correct. It has not, unfortunately.

Okay, great.

Mr. Mayor, that's the only question for me.

I mean, I'm happy to, oh, I'm sorry. Is there a comment? No questions for me.

You were saying you'd like to make a motion?

Yes, sir. Yes. Is there a second?

Seconded by Council Member Ngoan. If we can please take a vote.

Approved unanimously. Okay, so we can have Mayor Pro Tem Wong come back in. Okay, there he is. Excellent. Thank you. And that concludes all of our items that we pulled. There's no public hearing, no new business items, and we'll come back to city communications. There was two resolutions that I requested be brought forth. The first one, which is item 6A, resolution recognizing October 5th, which is tomorrow, as Latina equal payday in the city of Monterey Park. part of the reason and I'll highlight some items from the resolution that I brought this forth is equal pay date Latina equal pay day coincides with Hispanic Heritage Month and just in general women in general and suffer from a wage gap throughout this country but but also very important to note is that the the particular groups within the women community African Americans Latinas Asian Americans suffer very different experiences. And part of the reason why I brought this resolution was to just also share some items. My daughters, I have three daughters and my wife, all Latinas as well. But October 5th is Latina Equipaida. But I'm going to share some items from the resolution. It says one in five people in the state of California is Latina. Latinas are one of the fastest growing, most influential groups in the United States. Latinas excel in every sector and industry in our country, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Latinas in particular continue to face the pay gap that is on average 57 cents to every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. The wage disparity reflects the economic hurdles Latinas continue to encounter. More than 12 million Latinas account for 16 percent of the female labor force, a figure that is projected to grow dramatically according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly four in 10 mothers are primarily breadwinners in their households, and nearly two-thirds of mothers are the primary or significant earners, making pay equity critical to the economic security of their families. A lifetime of Lor pay means women have less income to save for retirement and less income counted in a Social Security or pension benefit formula. And due to the wage gap, Latinas in California would have to work until 116 years of age to earn what a white, non-Hispanic male earns by the age of 60. The wage gap is a disadvantage for Latinas, their families, and the economy, and fair-paying California would strengthen the security of individuals and families today, regardless of education or socioeconomic status, while enhancing our statewide economy. Until the women who perform some of the most essential jobs can achieve economic security, our economy and communities will not be as strong as they possibly can be. And I did want to highlight something else because I had an opportunity to attend a talk where our own city manager, Inez Alvarez, was highlighted as one of the very few Latinas who actually had a city in the capacity of city manager. And so kudos to you. But part of the reason why I brought that up as well is because I know that my daughters, I constantly talk about Inez and the type of role that she does and the impact that she has within this community. So I know that they're your role model for them, but I but anyhow With the with that I'd like the council support for this resolution

I'll make the motion and also note Right we do I believe because I remember commenting on it. We also do a resolution for women's equal pay

Day, right or equal pay

so we'll just note that that is something we do and happy to make the motion to adopt this resolution today

I'll second it and if we can take a vote

approved unanimously thank you and the second resolution that I brought forth was recognizing the month of October 2023 as domestic violence awareness month in the city of Monterey Park we know that domestic violence is a issue not just within our own community but throughout our country. So I just wanted to highlight a couple of items because domestic violence disrupts communities throughout the nation causing harm to not just women but also men and children and destroying relationships and disrupting social order. The National Domestic Violence Awareness Month supports public awareness efforts to educate each citizen about the detrimental effects of domestic violence and the need to focus on prevention, intervention, and treatment to strengthen our families and teach alternatives to violent behavior. In October, battered victims will advocate nationwide and unite with government officials, corporations, unions, health care providers, legal services, and religious groups to organize events and activities that focus public attention on the negative impacts of domestic violence. To end domestic violence, we must address the problem at the societal, community, relationship, and individual levels. So the City Council recognizes October 2023 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and the city of Monterey Park. So with that, I would like to ask the council's support, not just to recognize the month of October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month, but also the importance of making sure that families, children, women, and even men who are suffering from domestic violence have the support.

North Dakota. Monterey Park. So, both within our community, but throughout our country as well. Sure. Hi. Mr. Mayor, do you want to say something? I'll, I'll, I'll, well, I'll let you. I have a comment on this. Oh, yes, go ahead, Councilmember, go. So, I am, I'm actually very happy to, um, share that our Monterey Park Women's Club will be hosting a, uh, domestic violence speaker from CPath. So, they are, it's actually October 11th at the, um, clubhouse. Okay, great. Do you know what time? So, October 11th, it starts, It starts at 1045 and it should go until about lunch.

Excellent. Thank you.

And is there a motion?

I'll go ahead and make a motion.

Thank you. And I'll go ahead and second it. All right. And if we can take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

All right. Excellent. So let it be declared then. And we'll go ahead and jump to city communications. We'll go ahead and start with Council Member Lo. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. and I know that we haven't met in a while and haven't shared so I'm going to go ahead and limit you to three items I'm just kidding

I will be as quick as possible

thank you well let's see well first I'll begin

by saying that I want to thank the city for holding its

annual September 11th Patriot Day

I think it's important that we never forget the events of

9-11

so we're very happy that our community recognized now after so many years that we should never forget the tragic events of 9-11. Also, later that evening, I attended our city, our planned town hall meeting at Buggamara Library. And again, as was mentioned in the presentation tonight, it was very well attended by our community and so pleased to see people who are interested and engaged with the city and expressing their opinions about the direction of our city.

later in the week on September 14th

I was very pleased to join our community in coming

out to remember Fred

and do another friendly Fred walk this time around Barnes Park

it was actually a very great turnout and I think it's because

members of his church

River of Life actually came out

and attended and so again thank you River of Life for keeping the torch of Fred's memory and as well as many other folks from the community And I recall we did probably three or four laps around Barnes Park before adjoining over to the farmer's market to hear some great mariachi music for Hispanic Heritage Month. On September 16th, that was a Saturday, I attended the El Hamburgo Education Foundation annual gala. And for those of you who may or may not know, the El Hamburgo Education Foundation was created to support schools in the El Hamburgo Unified School District. Of course, they have several elementary schools. In fact, the bulk of the elementary schools in Monterey Park are part of the Ohio Unified School District. And, of course, a large percentage of our students attend Mark Kepa High School, which is part of the school district. Prior to that, I actually went to our neighboring city of Temple City because we'll – who many of you know is located in Monterey Park, but they also sponsor our annual Lunar Day Parade. I mean, the Lunar Year Festival also had their autumn moon event at Temple City this year. But they had invited me, as well as other people from the State Council, again, because of what happened in January. And again, just to show support for Monterey Park. On the 18th, I attended the official ribbon-cutting and celebration of the expanded library hours. And again, congratulations to our library for expanding its hours. On the 22nd, I attended the Asian Youth Center Gala. And although the Asian Youth Center is located in the state of San Gabriel, but again, their services are regional. And they do a lot of important youth after-school enrichment activities.

on September 27th, I held a town hall, one of many series that our colleagues are holding throughout the city of Monterey Park in their districts. But I want to thank everyone who attended my town hall on the 27th at Garvey Ranch Park. A lot of great questions, in fact, questions that were related to parts of the presentation that was made tonight, including traffic studies, of course, questions about public safety, and we had an opportunity to talk about our Enable to

Watch program.

We also used it as an opportunity to promote the sustainability plan, Go Green plan, as well as I personally had an opportunity to remind the community that we're having a Parks Master Plan that just we spoke about tonight. and it was interesting too

at my town hall there were some questions about

what are we doing to install more EV charging stations and again that was what was brought up tonight in discussion about our sustainability plan so again thank you to the community great turnout

great output

and I hope that as all of my colleagues are hosting their own town halls that we get robust turnout from the community because engagement is so important at the local level.

Also, on Saturday, this past Saturday, September 30th,

I attended the Chinatown Service Center Gala, and of course, as well as our own colleagues. In fact, our colleague Vingo, I think, was actually UMC part of the program.

So thank you so much.

But again, we really are grateful for Chinatown Service Center for just stepping up and providing counseling services in the aftermath of the January 21st shooting, as well as facilitating the Viziliency Center at Sierra Vista Park. And again, it was a great turnout and just a great celebration of the work that the Chianton

Service Center has done.

And then this past Sunday on October 1st, many of us attended the promotion ceremony for our own Monopark resident, Arthur C. Fong, who was promoted to the rank of Navy Captain. And for those of you who are familiar with Arthur Fong, he's participated in several commissions in our city. I know when I sat on the Economic Development Advisory Commission, Arthur and I both sat on the same commission. And, you know, he's probably such an example of someone who gives public service, selfless public service to a country. And so it was just a proud moment to join his friends and family for this promotion ceremony to the rank of captain. that was performed on the deck of the USS Iowa in San Pedro. And that is it for me.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Lo, for sharing your busy body this last couple of weeks.

We're all busy bodies. Council Member Yu.

Hi. Yeah, I think I attend a lot of the events that I think Council Member Lo attended, like the AYC, Patriot Day, Library Hours, Alhambra, and that's, yeah, I can really, Council Member Lo is really good. He documented everything. So I wanted to highlight that third week of October,

we attended the League of California City in Sacramento. And we met a lot of people, including Northern Cal, Southern Cal, all the Council Member Mayor, but guess who I met unexpectedly? Ron Bo.

Oh, a former city manager.

And I asked how he's doing, and he said he has to get used to driving 15 miles per hour now from 150 miles per hour before.

So that means his life is a lot sLor. And so I got it. That means that he's bored. And so feel free to call him to say hi.

last week I want to share my Tesla died and the battery need to be replaced luckily that is covered by warranty but it costs about $17,000

yeah if it's no warranty that so I'm pretty lucky so my car is brand new now I don't really get it but how amazing owning an electric car and now become

brand new and um so um yeah and also all my electric charge charge are free for live so i

get a pretty good deal as long as i'm driving the same car so i'm keeping that hopefully and keep changing the battery and see how how far it can go but thank you so much that's all for me

thank you council member you and uh council member okay so i'll try not to duplicate so i'll just

say I was with Council Member Lo and you as well on the Bukumar Community Workshop,

the Humber Education Foundation Gala,

the Library Ribbon Cutting, Asian Youth Center

Evening Gala,

Chinatown Service Center Gala, the promotion

for Captain Artifong of the Navy. A couple of things I'll add here.

I actually got the chance to play with the Mara Park Police Youth Activities Golf Course in Alhambra.

And that was fun.

Haven't been on the golf course in quite some time. So that was epic. And I'll be back next year, Police Chief.

Oh, yes, I was at that too.

So I also attended the Tiltro Association

mid-autumn dinner a couple of weeks ago. And then we also attended the Golden Age Village Senior Community Center.

Oh, I'll have that too.

many of our council members were there as well.

So that's it for me. Okay, thank you so much, Council Member Ngo,

and thank you for keeping it short and sweet.

Wow.

Mayor Pro Temo.

I'll try to keep this short, too. I'll try.

I was in the past, since the last regular council meeting on September 7th and 8th, I think a few of us were at the API Leadership Summit that the API Legislative Caucus hosted in Sacramento. A great time to meet other Asian American elected officials from throughout the country, gathering to learn from each other and to celebrate kind of our leadership and our work and the advances we've made over the decades. On the 13th, hosted a town hall meeting at Inez School. Appreciate everyone who came out to that. Went to a bunch of other events between as well that have already been mentioned. On September 20th, I was at the, attended the SCAG demographic summit a lot of interesting takeaways, including the projections of sLor population growth that SCAG and the federal government, the Census Bureau, are projecting for our region in the years to come, just given the pandemic impacts. And among the other constraining factors is just the lack of continued housing restrictions and our relatively slow building, including despite some changes in some of those state law and local regulations on allowing and streamlining housing, it's still seen as a huge restricting kind of factor

for population growth going into the future.

And many of, right, going back just a few years ago, the population growth that our region was expected to experience, a lot of those trends are reversing. SO THAT WAS INTERESTING AND THAT HAS A LOT OF RAMIFICATIONS FOR US AS GOVERNMENT LEADERS, ESPECIALLY AS WE'RE PLANNING FOR AN AGING POPULATION GIVEN THAT AND A SENIOR POPULATION REQUIREDING DIFFERENT KINDS OF SERVICES AND DIFFERENT KIND OF POPULATION. SO FOOD FOR THOUGHT FOR US AND FOR OTHER CITIES ACROSS THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REGION. ATTENDED WITH THE COUNCILMEMBERS, THE LEAGUE OF CALIFORNIA CITIES ANNUAL CONFERENCE, very my first one as a council member so very exciting to be there among hundreds and if not thousands of council members from throughout the state to learn from each other and from others lessons that we're we hope to bring back here to the city to just try out as well and to share our own lessons out to others in the months and years to come so appreciate that opportunity to get together a couple of other things well one sorry i see martha in the back i have a question

I missed the question.

I know we already passed the water and sewer rate notifications, but I had a question on one of them. If Martha wants to make her way down to the microphone, I don't know if Inez or Diana might be able to answer this, but just for my own curiosity and trying to understand this, on page 51 of the agenda packet, the proposed sewer rates table for multifamily,

Right those rates are going to go down So if I'm reading this right, I don't know if Martha houses or someone else has this up the current rates for multi-family

residences

These rates that are listed for current rates. These are for individual units in multi-family dwellings. Is that right?

Can you repeat the page number page 51 of the agenda packet proposed sewer rates that table That shows the current rates versus the proposed rates for the next five years

Yeah, that's for single-family and then there's multifamily there

So the multifamily ones right that's not for the full complex but for each unit in the multifamily complex?

Correct, yes.

Was there any reason, I know it looks like for future years, we are projecting the rates would match the single family for every unit in a multi-unit dwelling. Was there, what was the rationale if there was one for why individual units and multifamily dwellings had a higher rate than single family in the past? I don't know if there is one, but I'm just curious.