City Council Meeting — December 20, 2023

Thank you. Thank you.

!

Oh, I heard. Hi, Joe.

Hi, Joe. Joe, can you hear me, Joe? Yes, I can. Okay, thank you, Joe. You're welcome.

Recording in progress.

Good evening and welcome to the Monterey Park City Council meeting.

I want to welcome you here tonight.

I want to go ahead and start off by reading our mission statement for the City of Monterey Park. The mission of the City of Monterey Park is to provide excellent services to enhance the quality of life of our entire community. And I also wanted to take the time to read our land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was once known as the Tambangar, home of the Gabriolino Tongva people. We show our respect to the Gabriolino Tongva people as well as all indigenous people past and 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 their history and join us in caring for this land.

I'm going to go ahead and invite our Monterey Park police explorers to come on in.

But we also have some visitors here who are going to be leading us in the flag salute.

So I'd like to invite up...

Evangeline? Yee? Is she here? Yes. So for those who might not be familiar,

one of our strategic goals for the city of Monterey Park has been to promote civic engagement with our community, especially our schools. And so we've decided that we would invite a student from one of our schools here in Monterey Park

to lead us in the flag salute.

And so Evangeline is a student from Monterey Highlands, and I'd like to invite her up to lead us in the flag salute. So if we can please stand.

We're going to have the color guard post colors first.

Thank you. 了解 Outward face. Outward face. Freeze and arms.

And Evangeline, if you can lead us in the flag salute.

Ready, begin.

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

and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Order, march. Outward, face. Forward, march. Forward march. Forward march.

Thank you.

Thank you. You can take your seats.

And I'd like to invite the city council and also the family of Evangeline to come and join us up here.

I know we also have the principal of Monterey Highlands, Mr. Abel Bourbois, and also the assistant principal here.

So if you guys can join us.

But we're also very fortunate to have our superintendent of the Elhambra Unified School District. So Ms. Jaramillo can join us up here as well.

You did a really good job, Evangeline.

And so on behalf of the City of Monterey Park and the City Council,

we would like to present you with this certificate that makes you a civic superstar.

I know you're going to make Monterey Highland School very proud,

but also your parents who are here today, and Santa, who's going to be coming in a couple,

just a matter of days, right? Yes.

And you have your little sister here too?

And this is your little sister as well? Wow, three girls like me. All right.

Congratulations.

Let's give her a round of applause.

Yes, future superstars here.

I got the picture.

Okay, me too. I'm doing it for Natalie. I got the picture.

Okay.

I got it.

All right. I'm next. I got the family picture and the district one.

One, two, three, smile.

Thank you. Let's give her one more round of applause. Thank you.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. Do you want to take a picture with your principal? Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll send it to you later, too. OK, I can see.

Why didn't you bring my phone? Oh. My turn for Natalie.

Oh. Teresa.

Oh.

Great job. Congratulations. Good job. Good job. Good job.

Thank you so much, Evangeline and family. Thank you so much, Evangeline and family.

This is truly one of my favorite parts of the city council meeting. But I know we have other students we're going to be honoring here today. We're going to go ahead and move on to roll call. If our city clerk can please do the 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 because we have also students here today, we're going to be moving some items in the agenda to make sure that they get home in time because they don't want to stay here all night and listen to our agenda items. But before we do that, are there any agenda additions, deletions, or changes?

No, Mayor. Thank you so much.

And do we have any public comments?

Could I ask how many we have? Yes. two oral and one written.

Okay, so we'll go ahead and move on to public communications.

First speaker, Nidal Uda.

Hello everyone and good evening. I spoke before in front of you in many subjects.

I just want to let you know I just get register letter from the deputy city

attorney, which his name is not included in the list on the city website.

I don't know why. He said in the letter

the request denied, which is he have no right under the Information Act to say that. Second,

he said the case concluded or closed and he has no right when the case is still open, and many of them open, and a lot of problem with them.

And we the people again, we elected you to be professional, to act in our favor, and to do your duty as well.

As we are the people elected you, we have the right to recall you.

And if this keeps happening, we will start that.

We don't live in a police state, neither a police city yet.

Moreover, a city controlled by the police and the police ego psychologically and mentally sick and ill. I repeat again, we don't live in a police state, neither a police city yet, a city controlled by the police and the police ego psychologically and mentally ill and sick.

How come the evidence is not missing the evidence? Who is responsible for the missing evidence? For any crime or any incident?

and who can control that and who are responsible for that.

Since the evidence slot must be controlled all the time,

24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 months in a year

and 365 days in a year. And every person and law enforcement officer sign in when they go in and sign out when they leave. and any evidence get in and out must be recorded.

What kind of law the police department in the city of Monterey Park have and apply? When some individual harassed, threatened to cut the throat of another person

and the police don't arrest them, don't hold them, don't control anything of that individual.

especially when the person asks the police officer to make a citizen arrest and the police officer don't take that action to apply the rule of law. So, the incident number 2022-002753, incident date and time, August 19, 2022, 625.48 p.m.

who alLod the police officer, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, chief of police

in the city of Monterey Park, police department,

to violate so many constitution laws, rule of laws, police policy, city policies,

including the civil rights violation,

and let the man acting like a mafia and a gang member.

Let me jump to another thing. I have one minute, yeah? The time flies here.

All of the following, they don't tell us the truth. They promise to check many cases and body camera reports, evidence, and they said they will get back to us, we the people.

They don't fulfill what they promise.

Let me just mention some names. Chief of Police, Scott, Captain Gus Menis, Captain Bill Huavis, Diana Wong, Secretary to the City Manager, who alLod the police to answer the phone call when the people call the city all the time and respond with untruthful facts and lies.

Still, there is some more, but my time finished for this time and this meeting. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, if I may briefly respond. This is in response to the gentleman's Public Records Act request from early November. The chief of police has all the documents available to him, which have been available to him.

the chief of police has all the documents available to him which have been available to him for more than six weeks at the police station.

! So there they are. We have also waived the $75 copying fees involved with it. Thank you very much.

! Thank you. Thank you.

! Next speaker.

Next speaker, Randy Kaye.

Good evening. I'm just going to take a second for the students who are here tonight who want to become more civically engaged. civically engaged. So if you see a problem in your community or if you'd like to bring something to

the attention, something that needs to be fixed, this is where you come to present your case to

the City Council and then they can discuss it and they can do something about it. So this is a very important meeting to come to and we hope you come to a lot more as you go through your years of education. So thank you very much for coming today. So I'm here to talk about Chandler and Hellman. We have a safety issue there. We have very dangerous intersections, so we brought it to the attention of the City Council. And then we got 984 signatures on a petition. So we're working on some solutions with them, and we're going to have a traffic camera put up after the holidays to see what kind of problems there are with traffic at that intersection. So tonight I'm here to talk about two things, risk to pedestrians at Chandler and Hellman, and how lack of police presence leads to potentially hazardous situations. Pedestrians have a difficult time crossing Hellman at the intersection of Chandler and Hellman because they can't see pass-apart cars on Hellman. They have to walk out between the cars into traffic lanes to be able to see east-west traffic and get across. Looking at the Hellman corridor more broadly, at this time there is nowhere for pedestrians to cross between Atlantic and Inez. The population density adjacent to Chandler and Hellman in both Montreux Park and Alhambra is high, largely due to the high number of ADUs and multi-unit dwellings. This area is not pedestrian-friendly. We are hoping that future safety improvements at this intersection include at least one place where pedestrians can cross the street safely. Should three-way stop signs result from the recommendations from the traffic study, this would be an ideal place for pedestrians to be able to cross Hellman. As for the need for increased police presence for general safety of residents and traffic safety, I will recount an incident that occurred just south of Hellman on Chandler about a week ago.

Having worked for years as a nurse on the streets of major cities, there isn't much that frightens me. However, this incident was one that I won't soon forget. I was walking my dog south on Chandler. I noticed a car facing north stopped in the middle of the street. All of a sudden, its wheels started spinning, but the car didn't move. The smoke was so intense, I couldn't see across the street. Dark lines appeared on the brand new asphalt. At that point in time, I thought we were in danger should the driver put the car in drive. I picked up my dog and backed up onto a lawn. All of a sudden, the car stopped spinning its wheels and left. It took several minutes for all the smoke to clear. I have lived in the San Gabriel Valley for 35 years and have never felt unsafe before. In addition, there seems to have been an uptick in vandalism at the southeast corner of Hellman and Atlantic, and it appears that this activity may be moving east toward residential streets. In the last several weeks, this has included the destruction of a traffic light signal and damage to the walk sign. The traffic light was replaced. Tagging of a planter at Atlantic Times Square and also tagging on the glass of the vacant Tasty Garden restaurant on more than one occasion. Now a street sign and utility box at the corner of Chandler and Hellman have also been tagged. Police presence acts as a deterrent to crime. We are again asking for increased police presence in this area, and it would be appreciated if the tagging can be removed. Thank you, and I hope you all have nice holidays

and get a break from this for a little while. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. Our final correspondence is from Nancy Ashino Gilmore, the president of the Friends of the Monterey Park Library. She is writing regarding an open treasurer position. She asked that the board of the City Council share with the public the board of the Friends of the Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library is seeking your assistance in locating a volunteer treasurer. As background information the Friends is a nonprofit organization formed exclusively for charitable literary and educational purposes. With that focus in mind, we strive to supplement the library in enhancing resources and services for the community. We provide additional funds for library equipment and services from funds received through membership dues, donations, and bookstore proceeds. As such, the treasurer is very instrumental in helping us achieve our goal. Thus, the duties of the treasurer include a working knowledge of basic bookkeeping. This includes the maintenance and safe record keeping of the friend's checking account. A monthly statement of income and expenses is required to be provided at each monthly

board meeting.

Some familiarity with tax reporting is also helpful. Computer skills are important in compiling the financial information and communicating with fellow board members. Please give this some thought. If you are interested in supporting your community in an active capacity, don't hesitate to contact the Friends. Their email address is mpkfriendsofthelibrary at gmail.com. Or perhaps you may know someone who has the skills for this position. Please communicate our situation and our contact information, our email address to that person. We are anxious to hear from you. and also as a last agenda item the friends of the Monterey Park and Bruggemeyer Library wish you your family and our community a holiday season that shines with peace joy and happiness

no more speakers thank you I'm going to go ahead and move up item 1a the congressional finalists just so that we because then we have some students here tonight who need to go home and prepare for tomorrow finals maybe as we wind down the school year. And so I'd like to invite Drexel Noh and Alina Ramos, both students from Brightwood Elementary School to come up. And for those who might not know, the congressional app challenge is a app challenge that is sponsored sponsored by Congresswoman Judy Chu. And I want, and the students from Brightwood Elementary were finalists in this app challenge. And they're going to share a little bit, I don't want to steal their thunder, they're going to share a little bit more about what they

did. So I do want to invite them up to, we're going to watch their video first and then

I'm going to invite them up to share a little bit more about what they inspired them to,

create this app

and then we can ask them some questions

as well. Thank you.

Apologies, technical difficulties. Let me work on getting the sound for this.

Okay. Maybe while we wait we can invite Drexel and Alina up. And I also want to acknowledge that we have

I WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WE HAVE THE BRIGHTWOOD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL, MS. CANDICE GRAGEL IN THE AUDIENCE AS

WELL. THERE WE GO.

we got it no worries and also the assistant principal uh mr lee hanachek so thank you for

being here tonight and i'm an eighth grader at brightwood elementary monterey park and i'm

alina ramos i'm also an eighth grader at brightwood and this is her app red 11 less than a year ago on

january 21st 2023 a gunman took the lives of 11 people and moving nine others at star dance studio in Monterey Park. Alina and I both grew up and live in Monterey Park and our school is about three miles away from the shooting site. It was a very scary and tragic time. We don't want to feel helpless anymore. We want to do our part in helping our community and ourselves to heal and feel safe. So we created our app Red 11. We named our app Red 11 to honor the 11 victims that have passed and to bring awareness and our support for the California Red Flag Law. In California we have

something known as the Red Flag Law, which is a gun confiscation law to remove firearms from a person who is deemed a threat to themselves or other people. Red Flag Laws empowers families, schools, and communities to prevent gun violence. This past summer, I met Brandon Tsai, the local

hero that disarmed the gunman at his parents' dance studio and saved many lives. Upon speaking

with him, we really wanted to help and do our part too. At this current moment, it's creating an app that could potentially save someone's life as well as our own. Here's how it works.

If there is an active shooter in your area, the most important thing is getting to safety and to get help as soon as possible. If you don't have time to text your family or try to talk to 911 about your location, naturally, your mind and body will be in a panic. Our app allows you to easily alert the people in your contacts and notify them of your location with just one touch of a button. By pressing one button, it will alert everyone in your contacts that there is a shooter in your area. Your only priority is to stay safe. We coded our app so that the first thing users will see is this page. Once your account is created, you will see the home page and you can add your contacts.

By pressing one button, an alert will be sent to everyone on your contacts list that you need help.

When the recipient receives a message on their phone, it will make the following sound.

Next, they will see this page to know exactly who alerted them and needs help. It will also show them your exact location, which authorities can use in real time to save you.

For our app, we use Flutter Flow, Dart, Firebase, HTML, and CSS.

Flutter Flow and Dart were used for the bulk of our code. Firebase was used to store usernames and other data. And HTML was used to get the device's location.

And API and backend data collection was also used for the notifications.

We know that we're both just 13 years old and we're still in middle school. but mass shootings weigh heavily in our heart, especially in light of what happened in our city, and we hope that our app, Red 11, can save many lives.

We thank you for your time and consideration. Let's all stay safe.

Amazing. The app that they've created. I'm at a loss of words. I'm getting a little emotional here. But I'd like to invite Alina and Draxo to come up and share a little bit more about

why you decided to create this app.

And I'd also like to invite our principal,

Ms. Candice Griego, and our assistant principal,

Lee Hanachuk, to join us up here as well with their students and our superintendent,

if she'd like to join them as well.

So go ahead, share with us what inspired you

to create this app.

Well, as you know, the mass shooting

of Monterey Park early this year, it really affected us in a very emotional way.

I mean, during the time, me and Alina, we were both scared, frustrated, angry, all of these things.

And so we wanted to help.

And we felt that the best way to help was to create an app that could save someone's life in one touch of a button. Wow, well, thank you for doing that.

And I want to allow our council members, if they have any questions or comments for our students who are here from Brightwood.

Council Member Lo? Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor.

And again, congratulations for your leadership and for being innovative. I'm curious, since you created this app, how popular has people been downloading this app in your school or your circle friends? What has been the level of interest?

Currently, it's not on the App Store, but we're hoping to debug it quickly and get it out as soon as possible.

Oh, okay, great.

And you must let us know how we can help you promote it as well.

Very good. Council Member Yu?

Yeah, I attended the award ceremony yesterday,

and I wanted to say very impressive speech, especially Dressel, very impressive.

In front of Congresswoman Judy Chu and 10 times more audience, wow, I would say you have very confidence, your passion,

and I see that you create the app out of the box with your age.

Very impressive. So thank you so much, and keep up the good work,

and let us know how it can help the app to actually put on the app stores and we want to promote and advocate that. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Ngo.

First of all, let me ask, are you guys going to Keppel?

Yes. Thank you. Perfect.

I think that's music to the superintendent's ears. But congratulations. You know, we need young leaders like you guys. Just continue learning, continue growing, make a difference in the world. and you started that, but there's a ton of potential in high school, the science clubs, the different teachers, the different groups, and then you guys are 13 years old. You've got a lifetime of events and activities to explore and to conquer. So congratulations and good luck, and keep us posted. If you need any help, you know how to reach us, we're there for you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor Potempo.

I would just add my congratulations along with the rest of the council. So I stopped by with Councilmember Yu at the ceremony yesterday. I appreciate all the work that you put into this and echoing Councilmember Ngo's comments. Applaud your entrepreneurial spirit and the fact that you saw a problem and an issue in the community and you did something to try to address it.

and just applaud your willingness and your eagerness to take action to solve some of the problems

we have in our community.

So thank you both so much and to your families for sharing you tonight with us, and also for their encouragement in the school and the environment that has helped to support this kind of effort in our community. Look forward to many more accomplishments that come from both of you.

Thank you.

And I also wanted to thank the principal, Ms. Grego, and the assistant principal, Mr. Hanacek, but also our superintendent for allowing to create the space within your schools for students to be able to create things like this in a

very creative space.

And I know that's so important and valuable today within our schools. So I appreciate the work that you are doing with our students. And so I'd like to invite the council to join me to present certificates of appreciation on behalf of our city.

Congratulations, Alina. Here you go. And Drexel, congratulations. And here you go.

And Drexel, congratulations. Here you go. And thank you so much for the app and for everything you're doing. Thank you.

Robert, we need your height.

No, we're not sharing. Hey, look at me.

One, two, three, smile.

Maybe I'm not sharing. I'm not sharing.

We can share it about the head for you. Let's give the students another round of applause.

Thank you.

Thank you. Full service. Full service. Full service. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Chief?

One, two, three. Thank you.

This is me. Thank you. Thank you.

I think the students wanted to say one of the family. Yeah, the students are going to share something.

Alina. Alina.

He wants to say one more thing. Yeah. Wow.

Well, I just wanted to thank the mayor and the entire city council for recognizing our efforts tonight.

So thank you.

And we'd also like to thank our parents for always encouraging and supporting us.

Now, we have learned a lot through the process of creating this app.

And as you already know, we hope our app can make a difference and hopefully save some lives. So thank you for everything.

Thank you, Drexel. Thank you, Alina.

So agreeing with Drexel, thank you for having us out here and giving us this recognition.

We're really honored. We worked really hard on Red 11, so we just want to thank you for that.

And thanking our parents, like he said, for always supporting us,

but also our teachers for coming out here and showing our support.

If you're a teacher, can you stand? If you're a teacher here supporting, thank you.

Thank you so much.

And we'll let you go now so you can go to sleep.

Yes, prepare for finals.

We have a vocabulary test tomorrow. Okay, there you go. Yes.

Thank you so much.

Good night. Thank you. Drexel also shared that he's the ASB president at Brightwood Elementary.

Leader in the making. And I think a future.

Oh, yay.

Good job, Alina.

And I foresee a future council member right there.

Yes.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

So great to have students and young minds in the audience at our council meetings.

Thank you again.

We're going to go ahead and jump back to staff communications, and we'll go ahead and start with the city manager's office.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Diana Garcia, Interim Assistant City Manager.

This evening, the City Manager's Office would like to share information about two important upcoming events in the city.

The first is the Mayor's State of the City Address, which will take place on January 10th at 6 p.m. at El Encanto.

The public is invited to join in person or via streaming to this event where the mayor will discuss the achievements and accomplishments in our city during 2023 and look ahead to the future.

This is on our website and the public can scan the QR code to watch the live stream.

The second event that we'd like to share is the one year remembrance taking place on Sunday, January 21st at 6 p.m.

This will be a candlelight vigil, and it will be an opportunity for the community to come together in unity and support.

We're hoping that the event will provide a place for reflection and healing as we honor the memory of the victims of the January 21st shooting.

Our city website, montereypark.ca.gov, forward slash Jan 21 vigil, will be updated as plans and speakers are confirmed.

the public can also scan the QR code seen on this flyer for more information.

Happy to answer any questions about those two events. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that. Any questions or comments from Council regarding either of those two events?

Okay. Thank you so much, Diana. Thank you. Thank you.

And our next staff communication is Police Department.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council members. Scott Weiss, Police Chief, wanted to share some updates for December with everybody. Go ahead and hit me with the first slide. We, Santa's Slay, we just had our Santa's Slay event. It was a big success. We were, it's a collaboration between police and fire departments. And we go out to, this year was 15 separate families.

We get a lot of referrals from our school district for some of our families that could use some extra help. And it's completely funded by local donations. Go ahead, next slide. This is a list of some of the people that helped us out this year and were part of the donation group.

Garfield Medical Center is always a big part of this program for us. Camino Real Chevrolet, Starbucks, the regional Starbucks manager was there

and provided refreshments for the participants and is a big supporter of the program.

Athens Services, F&A Credit Union, Chick-fil-A, Courtyard Marriott, the Burgermeier Library, and the city employee unions were all big parts of this.

It's an annual event. We do it. We've done it for many, many years, as long back as I can remember. And this year we also had our Jolly Journey, which came a few days after that. Go to the next slide.

I want to give you an update on our homeless engagement team. We talked a little bit about this. These are November, December stats, primarily November stats.

The December stats will come in in January. That's typically how we get our numbers back. 110 homeless people were contacted in our city. This is just by the neighboring engagement team, not by our patrol officers also, but by the net team. 49 of them were repeat contacts. and we've talked a little bit about the fact that we have to go back and talk to these people over and over again to kind of gain confidence. 21 accepted services, 40 declined services, and five people were sheltered. A sheltered person typically is after we've contacted them a half a dozen times, and they haven't received services from other providers, and we, because of the robustness of our program, were able to provide them with sheltering services. It typically takes our net team housing coordinator and a net team officer with that person most of the day to find a shelter for them somewhere in Los Angeles County. We arrange for their transportation. We physically take them to it, no matter where it is, anywhere in LA County and sometimes in other counties. We transport all of their stuff with them And if they can't take it to that place, we store it for them free of charge at City Yards.

Three clients were referred to LASA. Three were referred to Lakata.

The NET team handled 19 mental health calls, so specifically calls involving mental health people in crisis in the city.

And the NET team also has a detective assigned, and they are assigned any crimes related to homelessness.

So if a homeless person is a victim of a crime,

or unfortunately if a homeless person we know is a suspect of a crime,

that detective is assigned that follow-up investigation. We had 18 criminal cases assigned to Annette last month.

Any questions about the numbers? Council, any questions?

No, I want to say I just want to thank the Neighbor Engagement Team for just being so diligent.

I know I've had the opportunity to do a ride-along, and I've thought firsthand the efforts that the team does to build trust and have a relationship with these people that they identify and also try to provide service to. And then just also acknowledge that in the past, the NET team has been recognized, and I think it's important that what we're doing is actually very innovative. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, Chief, other police departments have looked at what we've done with our neighborhood engagement team as a model on how, you know, we can truly create a neighborhood community-based policing force.

Exactly. And departments meet with us on a regular basis to try to copy some of the things we do.

And we're more than happy to help out other agencies and show them what's successful for us.

and the things that, quite honestly, through the evolution of the program,

things that weren't successful that we had to change and modify. And that's what we look at. We look at this every single day to see if we're doing it right.

And if we're not doing it right, we fix it. That's why we're so successful. So, yeah. Council Member Go? Can you say five shelters?

Yes.

It implies that they're off the streets, off the city streets.

Yes. They're in a home somewhere.

Or these are homes with what type of agencies? Most of the time, it's a private organization that is contracted through the state or the county or the federal government to provide transitional housing to homeless people.

Some of them are dependency-based.

Some of them have a mental health assistance component to them.

and some of them are shelter facilities that are trans.

through our housing coordinator, through Shadeen, she knows who all these vendors are and finds the right place. Sometimes we'll take them down to the harbor area because there are certain facilities

down there that are perfectly designed for them and they do well. Others, because of cultural differences, we take them to different places. But we sit down with them and we don't just say, this is where you're going. We sit down and try to marry them up with the right place. it's a plan that I think the large organizations try to do, but they don't have all the components

in one place. LASA comes out and they spend a day with us and they talk to people, but they don't

have the transportation ability. They don't have the housing coordinator ability. They don't have a lot of things that we have at our fingertips. So they just sign people up and try to follow up with them. But if you try to track a homeless person on the street, it's not easy. They're very, they move around a lot. And we believe in providing them with wraparound services right

from the beginning. But it's a matter of trust. We have to establish trust with them. They're not,

they've been so burned by things, they don't trust people. And we have to convince them that we're not going to hurt them. And we've been pretty successful.

Council Member, you? A question is that besides our city, do you know any other city that has similar net team service?

Pomona used to have a team. I don't know if it's still in place anymore. They may have some issues with staffing. I don't know of any other department our size that has a similar team. Larger departments, Pasadena might have a team. We have a mental health professional from the county that's embedded with us. They don't have that. So we lost our guy down to Long Beach. So I think Long Beach is trying to build a program a lot like ours. Obviously a much larger city with a lot bigger problems down there, impacts. So for a city our size, we're it. We're the only one in the county.

And then so you said five people shelter. So how many homeless do you have? Do we have in total?

In Monterey Park? I'm not sure. And it changes all the time. We are going to do our homeless count coming up in the end of January 23rd, 24th and 25th. I believe our night is the 23rd. We will go out and do the best we can to count the homeless. But that's a snapshot in time. That's one night in January. So wherever they land that night, we try to count those numbers. It could change the next day. We don't have riverbeds in the places where it's harder to get into. And our net team and our volunteers will go out and we know where they all are. So we'll have a pretty good count. So come February, I'll have the count that we will turn over to the county. I'll have that provided for you to give you an exact number. But it changes on a regular basis.

Right, because I tried to figure out what the percentage that you contacted and then five people shelter. Right. Maybe you can't contact at 15 and then five each other so you convert one third. So I tried to figure out what the percentage is. Yeah, it's difficult.

It's difficult because sometimes they'll go out and they'll find someone for the first time. It's like, we've never met you. Here's who we are. And that person may take services right then and there and say, yeah, that's great. You know, the city of L.A. won't doesn't have anything to help me. Thank you for helping me. That's a win for us. One contact, one sheltering doesn't typically happen that way. We may contact them two times and then they leave the city. We never see him again. And it's a challenge. It's a challenge. My homeless team, the NET team, knows our local homeless on a first-name basis. It's a relationship that we've established with them.

Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Portempo. Thanks, Chief.

Appreciate the update.

Do you know offhand how this compares to the prior months?

I have, I do have a stat for that. It was too large to present up here.

I can provide a stat based on what it looks like for each month.

I can give you year to date and fiscal year to date.

Yeah, we can put something together.

It wouldn't fit on a PowerPoint single slide.

So it's something that I can work with the city manager on and we can get that information out.

Yeah, and I'm just looking to see if there's a trend, if we're seeing an uptick in kind of homeless engagements month to month or year to year.

We're looking at the same thing. We're going to try to apply some analytics to it.

And the graphing of it is a little new for us. We're starting to see trends. So we're going to, we'll report those trends to you.

Yeah, at a future meeting when we're able to get the data, it would be helpful to see.

And obviously I'm a cheerleader for them.

I will bring them in and then they can present the information. They're very good at it, but I'll, I'll bring them in to present the information off the top of your head.

Anecdotally, are we seeing an increase? Yes, we are. And we're not quite sure why, but we are seeing an increase and the, the weather, the seasons will have a lot of effect of that.

So like they were out this morning, they're out every morning at six and they're trying to get them why people are still sleeping, so to speak, or still bedded down so we can contact them. But we've started to see an increase, and we're not sure if that's because of transportation. We're not sure if that's the city of LA pushing people out into the outside jurisdictions. We're not sure yet, but we are seeing an increase. Yeah, and once we're able to

discern, if we're hearing kind of things, I think it'd be helpful to make sure we're providing that kind of information to LASA.

We meet with LASA on a regular basis, once a week.

So we share that data. And that's how we gain their trust.

And the partnership that we have with them is very important with LASA.

Yeah.

And it would be good for the council members, I think, to know what some of the – what's going on so that when we see other council members from other cities like Los Angeles or others that we –

Yeah. If we need to engage on –

You can tell them how messed up there. Yeah. No problem.

I'll give you ammunition for that. No problem.

Yeah, that would be helpful.

And then so the homeless contacts, this is just people on the street.

Are we doing outreach?

I mean, in the count, does that include people living in their homes or RVs?

RVs might be if they're out and about.

This number here? Yeah. These are homeless individuals that are on the street.

whether they're in a vehicle or on the street. These are the homeless that the NET team is making contact with.

So we do have people that live in vehicles.

They don't stay in Monterey Park very long. We have safe housing that is provided by LASA for them. We get them into that safe housing.

We have funds to get their vehicle moving and get them over there,

and it's a much better place for them than being parked on some street in some neighborhood. And so we assist them. I don't know if we have any people living out of vehicles right now in the city. I have not heard of it, and I'm usually aware of that because my team tells me. This is mostly homeless individuals that are on the street.

So, I mean, it's also fair to say this is probably a drastic undercount, right?

This is just people that we have.

These are the ones that the net team can find and that they make contact with.

We don't work, the team doesn't work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So if someone rolls in on a Saturday or a Sunday, patrol may contact them.

And the patrol numbers are quite a bit Lor, but we don't have a way to correlate yet.

We don't have a database for homeless that we can use on a regular basis.

LASA has one that signs clients up. I don't believe we have access to that.

and that's just to check if they have services pending or they're a client of LASA. We don't have a homeless tracking system here in Monterey Park.

Well, hopefully we're able to see a decline in the homeless.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Some of it is they know that we provide wraparound services and they feel safe here.

So some of them come here looking for our help.

so they add to our numbers but they do come here looking for our help they trust us the word on

the street is hey the monterey park guys are pretty cool and they'll help you

yeah thank you chief for sharing these numbers i just had one quick question yeah i know there's been an uptick in homelessness within monterey park are there specific areas within monterey

park where we're starting to see an increase in homelessness the mapping that we've done shows

primarily along the Atlantic and Garvey corridors.

So the main streets.

They're not up in the neighborhoods. They're staying along the main streets.

Safety, they know they're going to be, the residents are going to call 911.

There's some anonymity with them being in the shopping centers and along the main streets,

but that's where we see our homeless contacts mostly. We don't get a lot of calls of homeless in our parks.

we don't get a lot of calls of homeless in residential neighborhoods.

And we don't allow homeless people to set up encampments?

No, we do not.

Okay, so most of the homeless people that we see within the city that we've made contact with are, I guess, mobile?

Yes, they're transient. They're moving.

If they sleep in a doorway, they're human beings. if it's raining. Quite honestly, I've told my officers, if it's pouring down rain or it's freezing cold and they're trying to stay warm and they're in a doorway and they're not hurting anybody, come back in the morning when it's time to get up and we'll make contact with them.

We do that because they're humans and there's no place for them to go. They'll contact them if they want services, we'll get them placed. But we don't have encampments. If we do have encampments, we immediately interdict them through the help of Public Works and Caltrans. And we get them placed. And we explain to them, it's either public property or it's private property. If it's on public property, we explain to them that they have to keep moving. If it's on private property, the owner of the property is contacted and they ask them to move. If they will not move, then we trespass them and tell them you have to leave. It doesn't typically end in an arrest, but we do have people that come back and come back. We have a constant outreach with our businesses, especially on the North Atlantic area that have subterranean parking. We find that a lot of people like to go into those and they set up encampments. When the business owners finally tell us they're there, because it is private property, we'll go on the property and tell them to leave and then trespass them. But we see that more often than we do anything else. At this point, Caltrans does not have any encampments in the in the geographic city of Monterey Park that we're aware of they would call us and tell us and we would help move those along okay well thank you so much for sharing this

information Mr. Mayor yes I have a question thank you chief I have a question um in your opinion you know based on the net teams uh work this past year or and and longer do you think there's room for improvement between the net team, the city and LASA?

Absolutely. This is my opinion based on my limited interactions with LASA, but I've asked my team, LASA is a giant organization that gets millions of dollars. Why aren't they as effective as us? LASA is an independent agency that doesn't have all of the components that we have available to them. So a LASA representative or two come out They have an iPad and they go out and they contact homeless and they ask them, would you like services? And if the homeless person says yes, they get their name and they say someone will follow up with you. If they don't want services, they move along. They don't talk to them about any kind of, if they're breaking any rules, if they're dependent, any of those issues. We do that. It's more of an interview with us.

If LASA partnered with L.A. County Mental Health or the City of L.A. developed its own mental health unit, they partnered with a unit of the Los Angeles Police Department on a regular full-time basis. They partnered with L.A. City Fire, Public Works. If that was one big group, they would probably be extremely effective.

Okay. But they don't. And this is just my outsider's view of it based on the effectiveness of our program. Okay.

And do we receive any funding from LASAC? I mean, you know, if you look at their website, they talk about how they manage $800 million in funding. I'm just curious, do they reimburse us or help us out with that $800 million?

LASAC is in partnership with the COG, the Council of Governments, and that's where the money is funded for homelessness is through the Council of Government,

through the cog. We're part of that. The primarily portion

able to be so effective is we're using grant money for that.

That comes to the city of Monterey Park and we manage that through finance department,

planning, police department, fire.

We all have a group that manages that and we provide those services. I don't know where LASA's money goes.

I don't know how they spend it. I probably don't want to know.

the city manager and I have been to some meetings

and there are other city governments

and other city councils like you

who are not very happy with the way that money is being spent

Loss is trying to be more transparent I think with the community but those are questions for them

our system works because we have all those people involved it's a team

It's not just a housing coordinator. It's a team.

You have to remember, we rebranded our officers, put them in different uniforms, put them in different cars, sent them to training,

basically turned them into a homeless engagement team.

That's their sole purpose.

They don't do anything else. They work on homeless engagement and mental health.

They're not out handling burglary calls. They're not out taking traffic acts and investigations. That's all they're doing.

I mean, it almost sounds like to me, based on everything you've told us or shared us that, it almost feels like we should probably send a letter to LASA, you know, and just say, you know, we as a community go above and beyond, but where is the support from LASA? Where is the support, you know, from the county and Los Angeles that purportedly are conceived to share these resources? I almost feel like it's something we should, I mean, if it's true

that a lot of cities are not happy with LASA,

I almost feel like we should then perhaps express those concerns, and especially if

our net team

is doing so much, I think

it's only fair to assess, well, where is some of that funding coming into our city? I don't disagree

with you at all. I know that that's

a lot of funding, and that's way high

above my pay grade of where that goes and how they manage it.

They do have a new director at LASA who was brought in, and she was brought in to kind of clean house and fix things. And I'm hoping that's what happens.

Mr. City Manager, maybe perhaps we can meet with this new director of the city. I think, you know, or we're going to have her come along with a ride-along just to see what we're doing and to also, I think, understand, again, you know, we are more than happy to do our part, but I think that, you know, this is a regional issue and we can't do it alone. And I think that it's only fair that LASA also, I think, I think is more substantive as a partner to us as opposed to just signing up people are taking intake

If I could piggyback on that maybe we can request a briefing from a loss of representative at a future council meeting just to go over their services and On our partnership going forward and I would imagine They would be very immutable that since I don't know if they're pushing it but the county I know we have a representative from one of the supervisor's offices to talk about another item, but the county is going to be pushing their Measure H successor measure for the ballot next year. So I imagine they will want to get the word out about what that's about. So hopefully we won't get some word on that as well.

Noted. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for the chief? All right. Thank you, chief. Thank you for that information. A couple more slides. Oh, okay, okay.

I know. They're already going to kill me up top. I wanted to introduce some of my new employees. It's an important part. So Annabelle Magana. Annabelle, come on down here. Annabelle is, you know her as one of my explorers, but she's also now a paid employee. She's a police cadet. If she turns red, it's because she's afraid I'm going to embarrass her.

She's a cadet now assigned to our patrol division. She'll be out assisting officers, taking police reports, doing investigations, working in patrol.

She's a student at Cerritos College. She loves water, pool, and swimming.

And the important thing to note here is she just graduated from the Explorer Academy at the L.A. County Sheriff's, which is a 15-week program, high stress.

And she was awarded the Courage Award and was the Honor Explorer for the Academy.

So she was the number one explorer in the Academy. So I want to welcome her to the department.

In a few years, I'm going to have her in a dark blue uniform, I hope. So welcome. Go ahead with the next slide. Another cadet is Brenda Zuniga. Brenda is assigned to our Investigations Bureau. She has a bachelor's degree. She has a background in analytics and is working as a part-time analyst with our investigations bureau now. She enjoys being with her family, travel, football, and has a passion for investigations and helping the community. So she's a new cadet in our investigations bureau.

Next slide. Another new cadet is Ryan.

Ryan, a criminal justice major. There's a theme there. He is also assigned to patrol. He enjoys family, travel.

He loves photography. Big Instagram poster. I'm going to see if I can co-opt him in helping us with our Instagram account. And, again, the theme here is they go to these criminal justice classes, and they start and they watch a lot of TV, and they love all these first 48s and all that, and they fall in love with investigations. So all of these new cadets love getting involved in the puzzles of investigations.

And our last one, go ahead, is Aaron. Erin is a crime analyst. That's her position. Very interesting lady. She has a bachelor's and a master's from Northeastern in Boston. She's assigned specifically to investigations as an analyst and enjoys solving puzzles.

She is originally from New York City, worked on several New York PD major crime task forces as an analyst.

She has an expertise in Bitcoin investigations and major fraud cases. so she's going to be a great addition and i hope at some point down the line to make her a full-time analyst with us but for now she's come on board as a part-time analyst so these are some of the new people in our department and that's it any questions well first of all thank you for um

sharing this with us hopefully we get i'm sure throughout the the weeks and months we'll be able to meet them but um you know be nice to bring them to council meetings too so we can recognize them and hopefully we can maintain and recruit a lot of this young talent. So I appreciate all the work that you are doing

and get a lot of

young talent and our talent just in general to our department. Any questions or comments from Council?

Just echo

appreciation for introducing the new staff. I think it would be great, well, not to make new staff come to a Council meeting, but

it would be great to highlight new

employees in the different departments as well in the future Council meetings.

I like to bring them up front. I want them to know that they're becoming part of a family and they need to meet everybody in the family.

Yes, we can get HR to help us with that.

Thank you. All right, thank you very much.

Our next staff communication is Public Works.

The Chief said I should keep this short, so I'll try my best.

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

Public Works Department, in partnership with Athens Services, is hosting another community cleanup event. This is going to be on Saturday, January 20th from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Ceravista Park. So this is a great opportunity for residents to come by and drop off bulky items or electronic waste. No hazardous waste will be accepted. but we are also partnering again with the Salvation Army so some of these items can be reused as part of our endeavor to reuse some of the equipment that we have dropped off or the furniture or whatever it is so again it's a good opportunity for residents to come by and also participate in some reuse so with that I'll answer any questions

And where is the collection? Sierra Vista. Sierra Vista. Okay.

Any other questions or comments?

Mayor Portemont.

Sean, thank you.

Not related to this, but just I don't know if you have a very quick update on status for Mari Pass Road, line replacement, the water line replacement. And I know the expected completion is at the end of the year. Are we on track for that? and when will residents not have to drive through traffic on Mari Pass.

Yeah, so the work has been completed.

We still have some minor items such as some red curve paint, things like that,

but the majority of the major construction has been completed. We'll be coming back to Council with a presentation on the project because it was a fairly significant project that Public Works created or completed, so we want to make sure that we highlight the endeavors that were done. I'm sure the questions are now coming about repaving. Repaving is coming, hopefully, Q1 or Q2 of next year. We're waiting to finalize some agreements on getting the funding for that.

Yeah, that definitely was going to be the next question, and I'm sure residents will feel relieved to know that we are on top of it. And I know the Brightwood and Highlands neighborhood residents left earlier, but some of them were the ones that were very curious about when the Monumenthouser Pass would be open and back up as it was before all the construction. So we appreciate the work from Public Works on the project. We'd love to make sure that we highlight a project especially of that size. Maybe we can do a Cascades article and some other work to highlight the tremendous amount of work that went into that and how it's going to improve services for both water and once we pave for traffic for the residents in that area and everyone that goes through there.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you, Sean, for bringing this in.

Oh, sorry, Council Member Ngo? Yeah. One more question.

John, question.

I know we've done a lot of the road work, the paving.

Yes.

What's left in the work for this, I guess, for the next couple of weeks? Because the rain season is back at us, so I know most of it's done. But how close are we from, like, all done with what's in the timeline?

So with the bond, you're talking about related to the bond for prepaving?

Yeah.

So we are still working on getting some of that work done. We have slurry work that's already being scheduled for January, February, along with some repaving. So there's still more to come related to the bond in addition to our ongoing rehabilitation progress,

which will be done every year.

So it's going to be an ongoing effort as we continue to not only repave areas that haven't been touched as part of the bond, but then to continue to maintain those areas moving forward over the next several years.

No problem.

And, Sean, just two quick questions.

One is rains are coming, and so that always lends to a lot of potholes and then a lot of emails. So for residents who might be listening in, if they see a pothole or experience a pothole or anything like that, how can they?

Go NPK.

It's the best way to do that. They can take a picture and send it right to us, and then we can have that all logged, and then now our staff has access to that, so it automatically generates a report for them to go ahead and take care of those. That's the best way that they can report that.

Excellent. Thank you for sharing that. No problem. And then for the community drop off,

can they bring any item that they just don't want? Furniture items? Are there any limits?

The only limits is hazardous waste. Anything beyond that? Yeah. Athens will take that. So no cars, though. We don't take cars. That's probably too big.

Yeah, no, that's fine. I know I went to the last one and actually got to help out a little bit and throw some items in there. And actually, I found a couple of items that were going to be trashed.

and one man's trash is another man's treasure.

So I still use them, actually.

They're quite fine.

So I might go and help out a little bit

and see what else I can find.

Yeah, again, that's the purpose of Salvation Army, is to repurpose those items. There's a lot of good items that are dropped off, so why not repurpose that as opposed to sending it to a landfill?

Excellent. Thank you so much, Sean. Thank you. Appreciate it.

All right.

Let's go ahead and jump back to our presentation portion. I wanted to thank City Manager's Office and Police Department of Public Works for the staff communications.

Thank you. Next, we have Item 1B.

We have LA County efforts to address human trafficking. Do we have a presentation and a presenter?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. We have two presenters joining us via Zoom tonight.

We have Regal Reyes.

He's the Executive Director from the Los Angeles County Office of Immigrant Affairs. and we have Joseph Milas, Deputy County Counsel.

The floor is yours.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. My name is Rodrigo Reyes. I'm the Director for the County of Los Angeles Office of Immigrant Affairs in the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs. Thank you for the opportunity to review with you tonight a motion authored by County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors members Hilda Solis and Lindsay Horvath. Adopted on October 17th of this year, this motion's intent is to reimagine how the county addresses human and labor trafficking. As mentioned with me today is Joseph Mellis, Deputy County Council. And I'm going to yield my time to Joe so he can provide us with a quick summary of the motions background, the work that is currently underway by a number of county departments, the Monterey Park City partners, as well as many community stakeholders. Joe will also review the next steps we are pursuing, including a Workers Resource Center pilot to provide victims with the wraparound services they so much need. Joe?

Thank you, Rigo. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and the Council. We're so grateful to you for giving us a little bit of time to talk to you about the work that we're doing at the county level to address human trafficking, which is a worldwide problem, of course, but it is particularly...

as you may or may not be aware, it is a locus of trafficking of Chinese migrant workers,

mostly Mandarin-speaking Chinese migrant workers. And so that is the reason that we're here today.

But just to give you a little bit of background on why this motion came about,

the Supervisor Solis, as well as many people in the county and stakeholders across the county,

community-based organizations have been working very hard in multiple ways over the last 20, 25 years, really since 1995, when the El Monte investigation and rescue of 72 Thai workers

happened. But people have been working very hard to address this issue. And it's just,

there continues to be an expanding amount of unmet needs. And so as your police chief was saying, you know, we constantly look at what we're doing and when things are not working as well as they may, well, we re-examine and we re-envision how we might be able to do this better. So here we're re-imagining the way that we're going to address human trafficking and the way we're wanting to do that is to expand our approach. Currently across the country, in this county, in this state, the real focus on human trafficking, on dealing with human trafficking is through a law enforcement lens. And that's effective. There's no doubt about it. There are bad people out there. They're doing bad things. And in no way does this initiative try to say, well, law enforcement doesn't work.

It does work. Of course it works. But the point is that we want to expand that approach and we want to expand it to include a public health lens, a public health approach, because as you know,

public health is about prevention. It's about awareness. It's about education. So we want to get into the community in a much more proactive way and engage with our community-based organizations and all of our municipalities, because we cannot do this alone. No single entity, not a government entity, not a community-based organization, nobody can do this alone. The only solution, and this is backed up by years and years of research, scholarship, and boots-on-the-ground experience, is by working together. We have to come up out of our silos that we all are in, in our various missions, and we have to reach out and hold hands and do this together. And so that's what this is about. We're reaching out to you, Monterey Park, to help us in this endeavor and in this particular approach of doing it from a public health lens. So as I was saying, we've focused on

the law enforcement approach. We want to expand that to a public health approach. And with the law enforcement approach has also been really focused on sex trafficking, when the reality is that the problem with labor trafficking may be even larger than the problem with sex trafficking. And that's really the locus of our focus on Monterey Park, because the vast majority of

people, Chinese nationals, migrant workers who are trafficked, they're labor trafficked, and they end up all over the country. They've been found in New Mexico. There were a group of them who were found in Seattle. But the police in Seattle who do their human trafficking investigations, there was a quote in the paper up there that said, all roads lead to Monterey Park when it comes to Chinese nationals who've been labor trafficked. So that's why we're coming to you. And that's why we're hoping that you will collaborate with us and work with us on this project. So if you can move to the next slide, please. So we're working currently on a report to the board of supervisors about these actions that we're recommending that they take. And again, the larger thing is changing the approach to expanding the approach to a public health approach. The other part of what we're recommending is to really unify the county's efforts and all of the municipalities' efforts with a coordinating unit, a human trafficking coordinating unit. And then finally, really in the most particular down in the weeds, as it were, we want to try out this idea of these worker centers. Now, there are worker centers of various types in the county and across the country, but these worker centers that we're talking about, and we envision and hope that you see the efficacy of this vision, we hope to focus these worker centers on labor trafficking and sex trafficking. But really, in Monterey Park, the focus would be, as I say, on Chinese national migrants, workers, and how they're being labor trafficked. So we're working with a variety of community-based organizations, and you can see the list there. It's an incredible list of organizations, and that's just a small portion of it. Obviously, Thai Community Development Center, they've been around the longest. They came into being around that 1995 Almonte case, and so we're partnered up with the community-based organizations. We really want to take leadership from them because, you know, they're out there, they're doing this work. So if you could go to the next slide, please. With this worker center, you know, it's interesting and it's kind of beautiful because your police chief was talking about his net team and it's the same principle. It's the same principle. It's about building trust with the community. We don't expect this to be a panacea And we certainly don't expect it to just happen overnight. We know that it's repeated contacts that build trust in the community that that establishes that we're here. We're not going anywhere. And it's and these services are going to be here for you. And as you can see from this list of services that we want to offer, it's similar to what the net team is doing.

And I just want to commend you on the net team. It's really a remarkable, remarkable achievement.

And I think that, you know, I just want to emulate your police chief's values, the value of really paying attention to the work that you're doing and making sure to make course corrections when they're necessary. So we see this as an ongoing project. We want to collaborate and work with you. And in terms of the way that it's going to go, you know, we're still very much in the ideational stages. There's a lot of questions about funding and those types of those types of issues, which always are super important. But by and large, you know, this is about what we're proposing to you is and asking you to work with us on is this idea of locating our pilot worker center in Monterey Park, hopefully nominally close to Ding's Plaza right there at Garfield and Garvey, but somewhere in the town, in the city of Monterey Park, that would be accessible to people who are there. Because as you may also know, there are a lot of migrant workers who are living in temporary housing. That's not necessarily legal, but it happens. And so we want those folks to be able to access these services and find a path out of a life of being trafficked, which is predicated on being in incredible debt and being shackled to that debt and having no way out of it other than to continue to be exploited. So this is really about alleviating the phenomenon of worker exploitation. And with that, I thank you so much again for this opportunity, and Rego and I will be happy to try to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you so much for that information and the presentation. I want to give Council an opportunity to ask some questions.

Council Member Lo? Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, I want to thank the LA County Office of Immigrant Affairs for coming to us to make this presentation.

Now, you mentioned a report that we prepared and presented to the Board of Supervisors.

What is the timeline for that, I guess, recommendation?

Yeah, it's basically a five-part report.

It's kind of a history of our efforts in the county, kind of a snapshot of where we're at right now, and then a series of recommendations about a public health approach, about a coordinating unit, and about worker centers. And that report, the deadline for it is January 15th.

That is in January, as you may be aware, is Hema Trafficking Awareness Month. So we're very intent on getting the report done by then. We are not expecting you to make a decision right now at all. We understand that these are delicate issues. There are a lot of considerations that you would have with your constituents.

and in terms of logistics and infrastructure.

So all we're asking tonight is that you say yes to considering the idea, really, and that you're open to further discussions. What we're hoping for from getting this report in timely on January 15th

is just to get the board behind this idea, behind these ideas, and to move forward with them.

And moving forward with them would involve further conversations with you and further conversations with community-based organizations in your area and direct conversations with the community to figure out what is really the best and most efficacious way forward that's going to be decent and humane for everyone.

Okay. You know, my follow-up comment is that, again, I, you know, again, thank you for coming to us, and I think certainly your proposal is well-intentioned, but just like, you know, it sounds like you heard our previous presentation by our police department, and, you know, one of the questions that was asked was, you know, can the relationship with LASA be improved? because as a local agency, we often are on the front lines.

And yes, this issue of addressing migrant issues is something that we do as a city deal with on a daily basis.

I know for me as a council member, I'll receive phone calls from residents who may observe something in the plaza you mentioned

or even in the neighborhood. And, you know, my thought is that, you know, if you are asking for a buy-in, I think there are a couple of things I'd like to see.

One, transparency is that if you do establish services, will the data be shared with us? And number two, you know, I want to also, I want assurances that it's not a situation, you know, just like the presentation regarding homelessness said, where we end up doing most of principal outreach and referrals,

and yet we get no resources,

especially if the county wants us to essentially, what sounds like it would be a test model for this type of center, then I want to make sure that it's also something where our community does benefit from us, and we're not just a test subject, and then the county moves on and then we are left to deal with this issue, which I think many of us can agree has been an ongoing issue for many years.

Well, all of your concerns are, we're very mindful of all those concerns and the issue of transparency is front and center for us. I should elaborate that in terms of the way that the worker center and all of the worker centers that we envision would work, is the county would actually not be running them. We would be helping in terms of funding and in terms of logistics, but actually our bond hope is that we'll be working with community-based organizations, individual community-based organizations, that will be staffing and running these worker centers in partnership with the county and in your case in partnership with the city of Monterey Park. But it would be the community-based organization that would be the face of it. Because as the police chief pointed out, you've got to have humans out in front. It's not necessarily going to work with badges and government entities being there.

It's tough for people to accept services. And again, it's establishing trust. And in our most ideal vision, we will have survivors of trafficking working in these centers,

people who really have lived experience of this kind of life and who are able to speak directly to the experiences that these victims are having.

But in terms of the transparency, yes, we definitely want our practices transparent in terms of the work that we're doing with human trafficking.

And the whole idea of collaboration is predicated on transparency. So definitely. And in terms of the idea that we would leave the city of Monterey Park holding the bag, our commitment is hands and feet.

We're in this all the way to the end. And it's hard to even imagine that it would end. Our real goal is to reduce it. Our real goal is to really create an existing and ongoing, robust on ramp for those who want to avail themselves of the services.

And as the chief said, you know, some people just don't want to avail themselves of the services and you can't force people to do something. They have to want to do it. Well, I have a follow-up question.

These centers, how long do you envision them from creation to be around?

Well, you know, we definitely, in our vision for the pilot, we want to secure funding for at least three years.

We don't believe that it would be possible to show good, reliable results in less time than that.

We believe that it'll take at least a year to just get it up and running.

And then we would ideally want to have funding to keep it going for three years beyond that. So it's a long arc.

And, you know, but of course, there are all kinds of vicissitudes. And perhaps there will be a miracle and human trafficking will end and then we can stop. But we don't imagine that'll be happening anytime soon.

But then what happens at the end of those three years then? I mean, what if, again, this is hypothetical, but what if the county determines the model doesn't work?

My concern is that then do those markets or those seeking services have,

may come and depend on it, then just assume, well, we'll always continue to come to Monterey Park. And so in that sense, we are, we'll be left holding the bag. And so, you know, that is something that I do have concerns.

the last three years. Joe, if I may just jump in, because I think this is a very, very central

concern. Our hope is that this pilot will demonstrate the need for us to be supporting the survivors. And the intent is that if there is this demonstrated need, this will be a sustainable

program ongoing. As you can see on the slide, the wraparound support services that we want to build in now are from the very acute situation some of these victims are experiencing who are greater and broader long-term integration into, you know, becoming our pillars in our society. So

So the failure of this center would basically be if no one comes to the center.

But if we get the clients coming to the center, that is going to be the measure of our success because we're currently at trust, including fear of immigration repercussions, you know, fear of just not having the cultural, the language competencies that we see,

sometimes these victims experiencing when they approach us for services, that's what is concerning

us. So I think I would turn that concern around. If people are coming to us for help, we are going to do all we can to be there indefinitely. Now, if we try this, when we say a pilot, and it doesn't work because no clients come forward, then we're going to have to reimagine it and figure out something else. But I don't see a scenario where we will have victims looking for service where we would just walk away.

And additionally, if I may? Yes, go ahead.

Just another kind of core element of what Rego is saying is that the worker centers, as I said earlier, would be in partnership with community-based organizations. And so the funding that we're looking at is both private funding. We're also in partnership with the United States

Department of Labor, and we believe that there are sources through the United States Department of Labor as well as the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice has the Office of

Victim Services, which has a robust funding stream, and of course the county. So there will

be a variety of funding streams. And, you know, our intent is definitely a long term. And the idea

of the idea of walking away is anathema to the people who've been already working for the last 30 years to alleviate and abate this problem. So to the extent that I can say that we can say, we're in it for the long term, we are, but, you know, we don't want to discount the fact that

we're all adults here and we know that things change and all kinds of stuff happens. But our commitment is long-term. All right. Any other questions? Mayor Portem Wong?

Thank you.

I appreciate the county coming to present an update on this and I really appreciate the focus on Maori Park as a community bearing the brunt of the migrant crisis, particularly for Asian and Chinese migrants that are coming here to Maori Park and have been for decades. without this kind of resource to help direct them to the resources that are available from the government and immigration support and others. I know there is an informal network already of resources for migrants that are coming to the United States, landing here, and they know where to go. They know the plaza at Lincoln and Garvey is, they still call it in Chinese, the name of a restaurant that hasn't been there in over a decade. because that's the spot. And they all know to gather there, and they're going after resources, and they're sharing resources among each other. And former migrants who have settled in a little bit are providing some support to others that are coming anew.

But I want to express a strong desire to partner with the county,

and I appreciate the county coming in to recognize that this is occurring and recognize that there needs to be a resource to meet the needs that have been existing in the community for such a long time. I know there's not a voting item here. Look forward to the full report coming out in January, but would love to direct, if there's support among the other, for staff here at the city to work hand-in-hand with the county and county staff. Once that report is final, to determine what next steps make sense and how we can work together closely and to Council Member Lo's point, share information and share and walk together,

right hand in hand,

in making sure that we're developing the right kind of resource to provide for the needs that are here in the community already. I really appreciate what you mentioned in terms of community-based organizations and the community leading this effort. And I know you mentioned a few, TIE CDC and some other resources already. I didn't see on the list, I don't know if they're already in some of these conversations, right, the Chinatown Service Center, the Tzu Chi, Buddhist, I don't know what they're called, but Tzu Chi, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, A.J. SoCal, right, who also led on some of these, the labor and human trafficking issues in the past and continue to do that and can offer a legal resource and immigration resource to those, and a host of others. I know there's, right, churches and others that are part of an informal network in helping to welcome migrants already, making sure that there's language and cultural competency as we build out whatever this resource is, which by your nodding, I assume, it sounds like this is part of the thinking. I know the representative from Supervisor Solis' office is here keeping a watch on this particular effort. I want to make sure we are going to partner on this. I, for one, do want to see this happen because the migrants are coming.

They're here. They're in our community.

They're living in many cases in substandard conditions. How do we make sure we're connecting them to resources that are available, and how do we make sure that they are set up to continue to be able to find safety, but also an opportunity that they came to the United States for, that they're able to find that here in Monterey Park and in the region, the wider region as well. And so I appreciate County reaching out to us. Please let's move both together and also urgently, because this issue is one that's been going on for a very, very, very long time. I know there are informal supports that are in gatherings and resource distributions already happening. How can we coordinate that better and make sure that the government at the county, local level, and the resources that are available at the federal level and the state level are brought to bear and connected? And how do we connect these dots so that the migrants and the immigrants that are coming to the community are able to access what is being made available to them.

Absolutely. Council Member, you?

I'm going to try to make it quick. I greatly appreciated the effort and greatly appreciated the resources that provided to Monterey Park.

But one thing I hope to request from you that I hope to make it more low-key. and we don't want to announce and make it public and tell people that, you know,

affecting the business, telling people that, you know, we have this issue and so affecting the future resident, affecting the school. So we hope to actually make it more low-key when even though we have the resources

and help support from L.A. County. So thank you so much. Thank you.

Well, Council Member, that's definitely in line with how we envision this happening, We're not looking to have brass trumpets and flags and everything to get this all going. We really are hoping to make it happen in a very thoughtful and deliberate way. We want to front load the thinking. We want to front load the strategizing. But when we open, we just want to open the doors. And we know that the real way that this worker center and any worker center that we may be able to participate and open will only succeed by word of mouth. It's not something that is going to have a big giant social media campaign or anything like that. There may be components of that, but really it's about word of mouth. That's how Word of Dings Plaza has spread all the way from our partners at Department of Labor. They tell us that on various social media platforms, communication platforms, they talk about laborers, people who are trying to get to the United States, talk about Dings Plaza and have been for years and years. And that's how the word spreads. So we really appreciate your thought, your thinking on being low key, as you say, because that's really how we want to come at this.

Thank you, Mr. Nellis, for the presentation.

And we look forward to partnering with you and see what we can do to develop and provide the services that our immigrant community here desperately need.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Just to confirm with staff, so once the report is published and sent to the county board of supervisors, when appropriate, the results and next steps will be brought to the council sometime in January, February.

That's our hope.

Thank you.

Yes, and city staff will work back with the county to make sure, and if county staff are available to come back to a city council meeting to provide us with an update, we'll try to do that as well. Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you. Good evening.

Good night.

Excellent. We're going to go ahead and jump to consent calendar items 3A. What about item 1C?

I skipped 1C, that's right. We have an update on the Monterey Park Community Healing Fund from our city treasurer.

Good evening. Happy holidays, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and City Council. I wanted to give you an update. We had some questions in the last meeting regarding the balance. So total we have raised is $197,000.

We have granted 37 individual grants as of last meeting, and since then we've actually added four more individual grants for a total of 41 individual grants to victims. We have a balance right now of about $78,000 that may or may not be including the last four grants that went out. I want to inform the public

in our community that we are having our gun violence restraining order training that's going to be on January 18th, 2024 at 6pm. It's going to be held at City Hall

and City Council right here. And we invite the public to please join us. It will give them an opportunity to learn

more about red flag laws and how they can participate and protect their communities and loved ones.

Once again, that's a gun violence restraining order, January 18th, 2024 at 6 p.m.

Thank you, Amy, for that report and for giving us an update on where we are at with the healing fund and for also helping lead this effort. We look forward to attending the event on the red flags.

Do we have any questions or comments from Council?

No, thank you.

Again, thank you, Madam Treasurer, for that update and presentation. I'm very pleased to hear about the upcoming red flag law event.

Out of curiosity, I know we've given out several grants, especially to some victim survivors,

But have they also felt comfortable to also share what may be ongoing concerns or needs moving forward? And the reason I ask is because, you know, I think oftentimes people ask us that, you know, in the aftermath of the shooting and as we approach the one-year anniversary, you know, what are next steps that we need to do? use the healing fund as a vehicle to continue to sustain programs

or what else should we be doing? I'm just curious.

In other words, the committee itself is also advising. Have they also made any recommendations about what are next steps going beyond

a one-year anniversary? Thank you for asking. It is a very diverse opinion amongst the victims.

There are some that are very private and they don't want to talk about what had happened. And then there are some who are more active and they're looking for ways to prevent these kind of incidents occurring in the future. The ones I've spoken to, they want to move on. They want to celebrate life. And through our fund, we are able to do that. we made a grant to the Chinatown Service Center, and they are going to be throwing a big celebration, a party for the victims just to help them move on. And that's something they did ask for. I know they want to dance, so that's something we are also working with the city and to the Chinatown Service Center to provide some funding for continuing dancing.

Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions, Council Member Go? Yes.

maybe Robert can shed some light here because I believe there was a

social dance

event that garnered 250 plus folks

yeah there was a dance last week that I attended at the senior center and it was wonderful they were having such a

good time and that

Actually, that flyer will be coming out.

There is another ballroom dance session. It will be at Langley Center on December 28th. The last one went from 11 o'clock, I think, to 5 o'clock.

It was a lot of dancing.

Me and Amy actually spoke at the dance ceremony and just understanding how important dance and music can be to healing. And definitely the seniors were really, really enjoying themselves. And they were excited that they had a space that could host that many of them dancing. I know they did an initial Event at the at the resiliency center at Sierra Vista and the space just wasn't too big for that amount of people So they're really excited to have the Langley Center Available for them and so we're making that available. It's for ongoing dances so we can continue that healing process

so

Thank you, Robert, for that. Can council members come and dance too?

Absolutely.

Yeah, I'll make sure and share the flyer with everyone. That should actually be out tomorrow, and then you'll see it on social media,

and hopefully you can share it.

And not only the healing process there at the dance, but there's also additional resources that are available at Langley Center. So as they come and some of those maybe seniors or folks that have never been to this senior center, they'll hopefully come back and still engage in some of the other activities and gain friends and become part of that family that we have there.

Thank you, Robert. Any other questions?

Thomas?

For Amy, for the remaining funds in the healing fund, are you applications or ideas and applications are still open?

Yes, we are accepting applications from local community organizations.

I've been reaching out to several of them. I've talked to the Chinatown Service Center,

the Monterey Park Firefighter Relief Fund.

Monterey Park Women's Club, they are all interested, but the holidays, they most likely will apply after the holidays because they don't have the resources right now to finish the paperwork.

But we are reaching out to them, and if you know of any other organizations that might be interested, please reach out to them and let them know, or let me know and I can reach out to them. Thank you.

And for the organizations that are applying, is there specific criteria that they have to meet?

There is. We do have guidelines. It's on our website. You can find the link through the city website to the modern park community healing fund

But generally it is very broad what we are looking for is programs that really reach out to the community and help us heal

Perfect. Thank you Amy. Thank you Thank you Robert

Okay, and I would just I know we've asked this before when the time is right if we can figure out how to recognize the efforts of the healing funds advisory board members and and Amy as well as the administrator at the proper time would love to make sure they

get some recognition for it for their volunteer work thank you we'll go ahead

and jump to consent calendar items 3a to 3j and council there's any items you

would like pulled. I just had a quick question for Carl.

If I have one small edit for the minutes, do I need to pull the minutes from the consent count? Just identify

the edit and then if everyone's good with it, then we can keep it on consent.

All right. I don't know if others have to pull. For the minutes for, well, I have page 31 of the packet. Item 3H, California Office of Traffic Safety, Pedestrian and bicycle safety program grant I did vote yes on that I just want to make my name was left off of the eyes and that's that's all I got no they will make the

correction thing I remember he voted the ice any I'm sorry any items that would

like to be pulled? I'd like to pull item 3B just for short discussion summary. Okay any other items?

Not hearing any? Okay we'll go I'm just kidding. I'll move the remaining items. Oh yeah yeah.

You'll what? Yeah I will move for remaining items. Okay so just item 3B then. Okay so um moved by

council member I'm sorry by Mayor Potem Wong. A second. Seconded by council member Lo if we

can take a quick vote. Approved unanimously. Excellent. Is there for item 3B, Council Member

Ngo, is there something, a question you have or quick report? Yeah, just a quick report.

Okay. Good evening again and back. Let's see.

The total invested funds for the city of Barnes Park is $57,446,000.

We have $44.4 million invested with the L.A. County Pooled Investment Funds,

$5.1 million the Local Agency Investment Fund, and about $7.8 million with NCDs.

And that's a grand total of $57,446,000.

This is this number is generally a little bit Lor than what it used to usually is

But that's because we are waiting for reimbursement And that should be coming shortly

Any questions

Go ahead.

Actually, less than a year and a year out. And these are 0.6, 0.7 interest rate to 1.15 interest rate. Just want the team to take a look at it and figure out, based on what we're seeing in interest rates today, you can get 4%. So it's probably worthwhile to just forego the 1% or the 0.7%, even though we're like a year left. Forego that, sign on to the new one. You're gonna get paid two and a half times. It's worthwhile that way take a look at it and maybe you guys can decide on that

Thank you. We did talk about that and the

Committee decided to hold off, but we did take a review on that and we spoke with Chandler

Any other questions

If not, is there a motion? Yeah, I'll make a motion to

I'll recommend motion to pass it

Is there a second?

Second.

Move and second. We'll have the vote.

Please vote.

Approved unanimously. Thank you. I did have one comment I wanted to present to the City Council. If the City Council at some point would review or have written description of the job duties of the City Treasurer,

which we don't have, I've asked the City Manager and City Attorney to look into it. We don't have anything that specifies the specific duties of the city treasurer.

So that would be, I believe, a good idea for us to have.

Sure.

I think we can leave that with staff to again work on.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. We'll move on to item 4A, right?

we'll open the public hearing for

our zoning changes is there any well we'll open the public hearing and then I'll hand this back to the mayor but we'll see if there are any

speakers no speakers okay no speakers

so are there any sorry is there a report yes I see Ms. Serrano there

Yes, good evening mayor Sanchez mayor pro tem Wong and members of the City Council

I'm Jessica Serrano your community development director, and I'm here this evening to present this item It's a public hearing to consider a zone change to update the zoning map for certain properties for consistency with the general plan next slide To provide some background

the general plan land use and urban design element was approved by measure jj in november of 2020

subsequently the city council approved an update to the general plan housing element in january 2022 as part of the general plan implementation efforts the city initiated our city our plan in august 2023 to create consistency between the city's zoning regulations and the general plan. The work that's being done to update the zoning will be phased out throughout the

upcoming year. This is the first set of zone changes that will be part of our city, our plan

initiative to bring consistency between zoning and general plan. Next slide. As part of this zone

change, there are three areas of the city where zone changes are proposed to occur. This slide shows a map of the city with the zone changes circled in red and shown with a red hashed pattern. The first area shown is on the left of the map and it's located in the southwestern edge of the city along Corporate Center Drive. The second area is in the center of the map and it's located along the northern edge of the city along Monterey Pass Road. The third area is located in the eastern

edge of the city to the right of the map, north of Newmark, south of Barravee, east of Orange,

and west of New along Mabel Avenue. Approximately 45 properties are affected by this zone change effort. It is important to note that this zone change will only impact future development, and the uses on these properties can continue to exist. Also, existing structures may remain. Next slide This next slide shows a zoomed in Map of the properties along corporate center drive where zoning is proposed to be changed on the left You will see a map with the existing zoning which is shopping center SC zone which is shown in pink on the right you will see a map with the proposed zoning Which is office professional zone shown in blue next slide this next slide shows the proposed zone for the properties on corporate center drive on the left and the existing general plan land use designation on the right the proposed office professional zone is consistent with the general plan land use designation of innovation technology the proposed zone will allow uses such as eating establishments education facilities entertainment uses light manufacturing office retail and service uses to name a few. Next slide. This next slide shows a zoomed in map of the properties along Monterey Pass Road where zoning is proposed to be changed. On the left you will see a map with the existing zoning which is commercial services CS shown in red. On the right you will see a map with a proposed zoning which is office professional zone which is shown in lilac light purple. Next Next slide. This next slide shows the proposed zone on the left and the existing general plan land use designation on the right. The proposed office professional zone is consistent with the existing general plan designation of innovation technology. The existing businesses on these properties will be alLod to remain in operation and these properties will only be affected if they're redeveloped in the future or if new uses are introduced to those existing buildings. next next slide this next slide shows a zoomed-in map of the properties along East Mabel Avenue where zoning is proposed to be changed on the left you'll see a map of the existing zoning which is commercial services zone shown in red on the right you'll see a map with the proposed zoning which is high-density residential shown in orange next slide this next slide shows a proposed zone on the left and the existing general plan land use designation on the right the proposed high density residential zone is consistent with the general plan land use designation of high density residential the properties where the zone change is occurring are already built out and currently developed with residential uses which will be alLod to remain only time this zone change affects the properties is if they're redeveloped in the future. And the R3, any new development there would have to comply with the R3 development standards, which allow single-family and multifamily dwellings.

Next slide. Staff recommends that the City Council recommend opening a public hearing,

taking public testimony and documentary evidence.

After closing public hearing,

considering evidence submitted during the public hearing introducing and waiving

first reading of the ordinance amending the zoning map for certain properties

for consistency with the general plan land use and urban design element

and taking such additional related action that may be desirable staff I'm available for any questions

thank you Mr. Rano for the presentation are there any questions or comments from council

regarding this item? Yes. Council Member Lo? Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Jessica, again, thank you as always

for presenting a very thorough presentation.

I'm kind of curious,

especially in the era that's not corporate

Center Drive. Do we know what are the vacancy rates in those buildings that are in that area? I'm just curious, you know, in the aftermath of the pandemic, how has that market recovered or not recovered? That's an excellent question. Unfortunately, I don't have that precise number. But what I can tell you is that we have received multiple inquiries from realtors that are actively trying to market properties and to the

that area um having this inconsistency has created some issues for future uses because we have received inquiries for new businesses that want to go in there that are consistent with the land use but not consistent with the current zoning so by marrying the two then we can we can um work with those realtors to make sure that um we can approve um new businesses and those vacancies um expeditiously but we have have also talked to some owners that like for example the the is it the Chinese newspaper oh Chinese dealing a world journal yes the world journal so that building you know was they vacated that building and we did talk to the owners about potential new uses and so that is not part of this area but there are multiple properties on corporate center drive that we have heard are vacant and we are working with them to help fill those vacancies.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Ronald, I had a quick follow-up

question based on what Mr. Lo said. Actually, what you said.

So there are realtors or developers that are interested

in building housing on corporate center?

Did I misunderstand that? Yes, I didn't indicate that. Oh, I'm sorry. We're talking to realtors that are trying to fill vacancies I MISUNDERSTED THAT. THANK YOU. ANYONE ELSE?

BEFORE WE GO FURTHER I'LL JUST NOTE FOR THE RECORD THAT THERE ARE MY EMPLOYER EDISON HAS PROPERTIES IN THE AREA ADJACENT TO SOME OF THE REZONING THAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. BUT I'VE LOST THE E-MAIL NOW THAT CARL SENT ME. But according to just in line with the memo that the FVPC sent, we request that was requested in terms of an opinion based on the marketplace rezoning that happened a few months ago in June, I believe. Following that guidance, my understanding and it is my understanding is I am able to participate in this discussion and will do so unless otherwise directed. But really quickly, unless Carl, you wanted to add anything to that.

Just for the minutes, it's FPPC advice letter number A23-087 dated June 6, 2023.

Thank you.

Jessica, do you know offhand, I don't know if it's an overwhelming amount, but how many in these three areas we're looking at rezoning, how many legal non-conforming facilities would occur if this rezoning was ahead?

Yeah, unfortunately we didn't do that level of study, but we did a windshield survey where we looked at the existing uses

and what the proposed zone would allow.

And generally looking at just doing a windshield survey,

meaning we just looked at the uses based on what we could see from the street.

We didn't see anything that popped out as glaringly inconsistent.

Like, for example, we didn't see a property that was commercial, and then we're changing it to residential.

Okay.

And then just for the property on Mabel, right, those are all, there's no existing commercial, those are all residential, right?

So there would be no issues there.

Correct. Okay.

And then do you know offhand I know we're going piece by piece across the city for places to come in to To bring the zoning in line with the land use element What I remember you presented I don't remember what the dates and the timeline are for updating When do we expect the zoning code to be fully updated? And come into line with the land use element through through the end of next year through the end of next year

THAT'S ALL I GOT. OKAY. SO DO WE NEED TO MAKE A MOTION HERE? YES? SOMEONE WANT TO MAKE A MOTION?

I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO ACCEPT STAFF RECOMMENDATION ON REZONING THESE THREE ILEES. I'LL SECOND. AND IF WE CAN PLEASE TAKE A VOTE.

APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY. THANK YOU. WE'LL GO AHEAD AND OPEN PUBLIC HEARING ON ITEM 4B to consider possible action regarding zoning code amendment number 23-05 to comply with California law regarding medical cannabis delivery retailers.

Are there any public comments for item 4B?

No speakers. Okay. So then we can listen to the report. Thank you.

Yes. Hello, Mayor Sanchez, Mayor Pro Tem Wong, and members of the City Council.

I'm Jessica Serrano, Community Development Director.

This item is a public hearing to consider a zoning code amendment to comply with California law regarding medical cannabis delivery retailers. Next slide.

As background, the Planning Commission reviewed this ordinance on November 30th, 2023, and recommended that City Council adopt the ordinance.

Additionally, California legislature adopted Senate Bill 1886 in 2002, which precludes cities from imposing regulations that have the effect of prohibiting medical cannabis delivery within the city. And this Senate bill becomes effective on January 1st, 2024. Currently, the Monterey Park Municipal Code prohibits all commercial cannabis facilities, including medical cannabis.

The proposed ordinance will amend Title 21 zoning to conditionally allow non-storefront locations for delivery-only medical cannabis in the commercial services zone and impose reasonable regulations. Conditional use permits are discretionary, meaning the city has ability to approve or deny, but the city must make certain findings when considering a conditional use permit. And conditional use permits are reviewed and approved by the Planning Commission, but conditional use permits may come before City Council if they're appealed. Additional use restrictions include that a delivery-only medical cannabis retailer is conditionally permitted, and also that there's additional use restrictions that include a 600-foot buffer from any sensitive use and a 1,000-foot buffer from any other delivery-only medical cannabis retailer. Also proposed as part of the ordinance is to add a Chapter 6.36 entitled Medical Cannabis Delivery to Title VI, which requires the retailer to obtain a retailer permit among other regulations. And there's additional cleanup being proposed as part of this ordinance to comply with state law. Next slide.

Staff is recommending that City Council, and this is for purposes of clarification of making our ordinance even clearer, we're recommending that the city council

amend the draft that's proposed tonight to add residences

in the definition of sensitive use

if a motion is made tonight to approve this ordinance

city council would add that change to add the word residences

as described by my presentation and you would add this to your motion next slide

This next slide shows all the areas where the commercial services zone is located, and this is where the proposed ordinance would allow delivery-only medical cannabis retailers with a conditional use permit. As discussed in the prior hearing, two of these areas will no longer have the CS zoning after the approved zone change goes into effect.

But for purposes of tonight's presentation, we included all areas that currently have the existing CS zone designation.

And also, as previously indicated, one of the use restrictions is that a 600-foot buffer is placed between a delivery-only medical cannabis retailer and sensitive uses. City Council may consider a different buffer from what's contained in the draft, which is the 600-foot. And staff has included in the green ring, you'll see a 600-foot buffer around the properties with the CS zone.

and the red ring represents a 1,000-foot buffer. Just to give you an idea, if you wanted to increase that buffer from 600 to 1,000 feet, that's an option that you can consider tonight. Next slide.

Staff recommends that the City Council consider opening the public hearing, taking testimonial and documentary evidence. After considering verbal and written testimony, close the public hearing. After discussing the evidence, adopt urgency ordinance amending Monterey Park Municipal Code Chapter 6.35

and adding Chapters 6.36 and 21.27.

Also introduce and waive first reading of an ordinance amending the Monterey Park Municipal Code Chapters 6.35 and adding chapters 6.36 and 21.27.

Second reading and adoption would occur on January 17, 2024, and taking such additional related action that may be desirable. Staff is available for any questions.

And Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, if I may just tag team on the comments.

If you could go back to the zone. There we go. Thank you very much.

As a practical matter, you'll notice with the buffer zones, whether you're at 600 feet or 1,000 feet, there's only, as a practical matter, one place in town where any of these facilities could go into place,

and that's there close to Sheriff's Road.

Every other buffer area surrounding each one of these zones would affect a sensitive receptor, so they wouldn't be alLod in those zones in any event.

and I think

Mr. Rana mentioned this but you've already taken action to rezone several of these properties

so those properties would be taken off the map in any event

so for all intents and purposes

there's only one place that

this type of cannabis warehouse could go

into place and that would be up there

by Sheriff's Road. Happy to answer

any questions.

Thank you Mr. Rana for that report. Are there any questions

or comments from the council? Yes Mr. Mayor

I would favor increasing that buffer to 1,000.

Also, so if an application does come in from an initiative party, would it then go through the Planning Commission before coming to us?

I'll let Ms. Serrano answer it. This is her show. Okay.

Yes. The ordinance requires a conditional use permit,

and conditional use permits are reviewed and considered by the Planning Commission.

and they would have final decision-making on those types of applications

unless their decision is appealed to city council.

Okay, got it.

Okay, thank you.

And Carl, Sheriff's Road, is that where the Sheriff's Office Building is right now?

That's correct. Okay, got it. Okay, thank you.

So that would be the, depending on which map you're looking at.

Yeah. It's across the 710. Correct.

Right, near the Edelman Courthouse, right? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

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

So there's no, in a practical way,

there's no difference between 600 and 1,000 foot buffer.

Okay.

And then I support, I guess I'm indifferent

on the 600,000 foot.

A separate kind of action for future agenda,

I think if we can have staff research and look into adopting or for the council to consider adoption of some sort of taxing structure or a tax on cannabis delivery businesses if they were to open up in the city. I think we should look at options and what other cities have done to implement a tax where I know there's a current fee for the CUP and other things for business, but I know other cities that have alLod the siting of cannabis businesses have developed taxes specifically for cannabis businesses, if we are required to allow these businesses to open in the city

in some limited fashion,

let's look at options for what a tax might look like,

might or might not look like,

for these kind of businesses in the city.

I don't know if there are other questions on this,

but I'm happy to make a motion.

Just to clarify, on the Mayor Pro Tems' comment,

are we talking about a delivery... In other words, if they drive through to make a delivery, are we talking about that type of fee?

I mean, just for whatever business they're in the cannabis delivery business, we can be on whatever, but I don't know what other structure or tax kind of infrastructure or structure exists for delivery or any kind of cannabis businesses. But right there, other cities, from what I understand, that have adopted or that have alLod cannabis businesses.

the taxing for purposes of enforcement for illegal cannabis facilities. But in any event, we'll bring that back as a future agenda item.

And just to add on to what the Mayor Pro Tem mentioned, I don't know if we need any type of special public safety requirements. I'm not sure if any other cities – I'd like to see what other cities are also doing in regards to if a cannabis business does open up in the city in the only area that is alLod. Whether we need any special type of security in that particular area, I don't know what other cities might be doing. Saving with any type of special licensing that might be required.

And Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, one of the provisions of the CUP is to have a security plan in place

approved by the city, specifically by the chief.

So any hypothetical facility coming in

would have to go through the whole rigmarole of applying for a conditional use permit, submitting an operations plan, getting a security plan approved, all those types of things that the council indicated it wanted when we first discussed this past summer.

Excellent. Thank you. Council Member Yu?

I do hope to have the 1,000 feet buffer sewn because that would be the same as our gun

buffer sewn. And I think it shows people the commitment that in Monterey Park we're still accountable.

and the

Marijuana business, but yeah since the state you know requires to do so then I have I would like to do like the maximum hopefully maximum

Precautions and to tell people that we're not welcoming this type of business but Thank you. So just my two cents

If that's a motion from council were you for the thousand foot buffer I'm happy to second

All right, so motion made by Council Member Yu and seconded by

and including residences in the motion as well, right? Right.

Okay, excellent.

So motion by Council Member Yu, seconded by Mayor Potem-Wang, if we can please take a vote.

Approved unanimously. Excellent. Thank you.

And Mr. Mayor, just for purposes of the minutes,

That included both the adoption of the urgency ordinance and the introduction of the regular ordinance, just for clarification.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

So we'll go ahead and jump to Item 4C, an ordinance incorporating by reference Chapter 7.46 of the L.A. County Code, Title VII business license into a new chapter of the Monterey Park Municipal Code. So I'll go ahead and open public hearing on Item 4C. Are there any comments of Item 4C?

No speakers. No speakers. Okay.

So we can get a report on this item.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. This one's under my name. I thought it was more appropriate for the city attorney's office to bring this forward simply based upon the direction from the city council this past summer in adopting, as you know, a number of ordinances and resolutions directing us to be on the lookout for additional things that may help the community following the mass murder in January. So one of the things that we identified was the efforts by the County of Los Angeles to tighten up its gun dealer licensing. And so what the recommendation is tonight is to incorporate by reference what L.A. County has done. And a somewhat revised portion of their ordinances here on the dais and also additional copies are available for the public. for the public you'll see in here that we've added one definition just to make sure that all uses of the word county within the incorporated regulations really means the city of monterey park just as a housekeeping item so you know that when the city incorporates by reference other types of regulations they're sort of a backward process so that the first discussion of the ordinance is an introduction and then the second part is actually scheduling a public hearing for consideration of

adopting and incorporating by reference so tonight was noticed for a public hearing and what we're

asking to do is if the council wishes to move forward with this is to continue the public hearing until january 17th which would be the official public hearing for this particular item and at that point we would open the public hearing again in order to have further discussion if any and then you could adopt at that point if you wanted to.

In essence, I have one slide.

Rather than go through line by line,

if the council wants to move forward with this particular regulation,

this is what would happen with the incorporation by reference of the L.A. County Code. We would add a new Chapter 5.90 to the Municipal Code. It would require gun and ammunition dealers to apply for an annual police permit. This is alLod by case law. It's been identified in California as being acceptable, and you'll see there a list of things that would happen once police permits were being issued. Recall that there are only two gun dealerships in town, and based upon action that the council took earlier this year, the reality of having additional gun dealers come to town is diminished, so it seems unlikely that that would occur. but in any event, any existing gun dealership and any new dealership would have to comply with this particular police permit. I have talked to Chief Weiss about the matter, and his department is prepared to enforce the regulations if they are adopted, and he's available for any practical questions from an enforcement standpoint, and I'm happy to answer any questions, but I think most of this is covered in the staff report and up on this particular slide.

Thank you, Carl, for bringing this forward.

Are there any questions from Council?

Just to make a motion. Any other?

Just really quick, Carl.

So just to confirm, many of these restrictions are already enshrined in an ordinance by adopted by the City Council right earlier this year?

Correct. Some of these are duplicative.

The one item with this is obviously there are legal nonconforming gun dealerships right now

that are currently existing that are not subject to the conditional use permits requirements

that the council already adopted.

So this, in essence, is duplicative, except this would apply to the existing dealerships

because this is not a land use provision.

This is an actual licensing permitting provision.

And so if we're adopting by reference, right, the existing L.A. County ordinance, if we move forward that way, if there are changes to the county ordinance, they would be adopted automatically just by reference?

No, that used to be the conventional wisdom amongst city attorneys, but the actuality is if it's amended at the county level,

that we would come back with amendments to the municipal.

So we're adopting by reference at the time of adoption what the county ordinance.

Okay. I don't have a question. I think someone made a motion already. Motion was made by Council Member Ngo. I'll second.

We can take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you.

So we'll go ahead and jump.

There are no new business items, so we'll go ahead and jump to city communications.

And we'll start with Council Member Lo. Let us know what you've been up to, Mr. Sure. Oh, I want to.

Thank our parks and parks for having an epic snow village. My understanding from all the feedback from residents was that locating it to Barnes Park was a great idea, especially because it coincided with the farmer's market. So, again, just wonderful turnout, and I think it was a really great way to just bring the holidays.

I also want to thank the city for having its staff and play luncheon, although I will admit that I was late to that.

luncheon, but at least they come from a tail end.

But nonetheless, you know, I think it's important to just say how much we appreciate our employees who are there every day to serve our community. And then this past Sunday, I attended the Cambodian Chinese American Association holiday event. Well, I didn't dance, but they actually had singing and dancing.

I observed. I didn't dance, you know.

but nonetheless it was nice to see people in our community

celebrating the holidays

with something that brought a lot of joy to people which is a lot of dancing, eating and also singing

and I think being each other with good company

and I will end there by also saying

happy holidays to everyone

I think that this is our last council meeting for the year and I want to say that 2023 has been a very challenging year for us But I also want to just commend all of us who serve for coming together to seeing this community through its darkest moments, as well as continuing to just show what we are about in terms of providing programming and also services to our residents. And I wish everyone happy holidays and a happy new year.

Thank you, Council Member Lo. Council Member Yu?

I don't want to repeat, but I attend all the Council Member Lo's events.

And I did sing and dance at the Cambodian event.

Yes, you did.

I had a good time. And also I did sing at the autism events as well. Someone requested an autism, autistic kids that play piano really well. and requested I sing a song with him. And it's my honor. So, yeah, we did it about last week. And I was so impressed. I mean, with all the autistic kids that they have special talents that I wanted to really say that I admire the teacher who teached on piano for 18 years and really admire the efforts that she being contributed to the community. And I also want to highlight one event that I attended yesterday with the Congresswoman Judy Show.

I'm sure you guys heard about the Brightwood Award today.

And I wanted to highlight is that there are 46 apps that are being considered, and top eight that they got the award. And I wanted to highlight about how eye-opening is that for me to hear about all the apps.

And the third place is about the allergy alert. The app actually scan the barcode on the food, and the app will analyze all ingredients and alert you if there's any allergic ingredients.

So I think this is very creative. And second place is called Factorial, which helps readers to identify what is fake news or not.

I'm sure you have been reading a lot of YouTube, and you may not know what are the fake news. and so they will show all the source, where it's from, and what party that they support. So quite a lot of statistics that shows on the app.

And the first place is a quick quill from Arcadia High School,

an app that provides the math equations, note-ticker,

an easy way to capture special symbols or functions which are not on their keyboard.

So yeah, when they demonstrated it, I said, wow, okay, those are very creative too because they put a lot of symbols in the app that alLod the note taker to have an easy job. So I learned so much, and especially they're not just from high school. They're from middle school and elementary school.

So it was eye-opening for all the young quarters, and, yeah, so wanted to share that. So happy holidays, everyone. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Yu, and thank you for sharing all the winners and what they did.

Very interesting. Council Member Ngo.

Okay.

So along with Councilmember Lo and Councilmember Yu, I actually attended the Staff Appreciation Lunch, the Snow Village.

That was epic, by the way, Robert. Good job on that.

And the Cambodian Chinese group dance. And no, I don't have two left feet, but I may have two right feet, so I can't dance. In addition, it is the holidays. I had a number of occasions where we actually supported the community by providing either adopting the families or providing gifts and support. And I'll just kind of give two instances. My employer and our group, we adopted about 21 families and we gave gifts to the community

in Downey.

It's the Rancho Los Amigos Rehab Center. supported about 100 adults there and had a great time just sharing Christmas with many of the families. And then just this past weekend in Chinatown with the Chinatown Service Center group, we supported 325 families with the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association. So we had 325 gift baskets and we had leftover for another 25 families. So we served about 350 and 50 families in the community, Lor income, and just providing food gift baskets. And then today had the privilege of attending the Chennai Service Center all staff holiday meeting and luncheon, and this is the first time since the pandemic we got together with 260 staff and enjoyed a great dinner and just showcasing what the organization has done. I'm just so proud to be part of that group to be able to serve almost 175,000 people a year in the community in Southern California and then First day last I want to wish everyone here as well as who still online with us happy holidays. We always get through the year We're close to the end.

Take some time off.

Spend some time with the family.

Rejuvenate.

20-24 is going to be an awesome year and we expect everybody to be up and running and I want to say thank you to our staff in the city

for

keeping the city together for this year thank you thank you councilmember go and

thank you for the spirit and mayor for 10-1 attended some of the same events

appreciate being able to close out the year I know as some of the other council members mentioned it's been a very tough year especially for our community and particularly for the staff and everyone here at City Hall having TO HELP TO LEAD THE CITY THROUGH SOME VERY TURBULENT TIMES BUT APPRECIATE EVERYTHING THAT THE DIRECTORS AND CITY MANAGER ON DOWN TO THE STAFF HAVE DONE TO HELP BRING THE CITY TOGETHER AND TO PROVIDE THE SERVICES AND THE RESOURCES THE COMMUNITY HAS BEEN NEEDING FOR FOR ALL THESE 12 MONTHS AND SO ATTENDED THE EMPLOYEE HOLIDAY LUNCH AS WELL ON THE 12TH APPRECIATE ALL OUR CITY staff for everything that they do day in day out much of it that goes unappreciated and i think is taken for granted by many in the community so appreciate everything that our staff does on a daily daily basis for for the community and look forward to a strong 2024 and a start to that coming up in a few weeks and it was the last meeting of the year so along with uh fellow council members want to wish everyone happy holidays uh and particularly our staff i know city hall is formally closed, though not that the staff stopped working. The counters will be closed for the week between Christmas and New Year's, but I appreciate everything that everyone has done and hope everyone enjoys a quiet and restful holiday season and look forward to coming back well-rested and ready for a very active 2024. Really quick note as well, on the 16th, I think a few of us were out about for the tour, the Santa tour through the city. I know a few of my neighbors gathered on Casuta Canyon to check that out. Thank you to the mayor for waving to a few folks along the way.

Yeah, I know you saw Travis.

And then just a suggestion for next year. I don't know if this is a noise issue, but to have music or something to kind of play along, I THINK WOULD BE GREAT TO JUST GET MORE ATTENTION FOR FOLKS THAT ARE OUT IN THEIR YARDS AND IN THEIR DRIVEWAYS AS THE TOUR KIND OF GOES ALONG. AND THEN THEIR COUNCILORS HAVE MENTIONED IT, BUT CONGRESSWOMAN CHU HAD HER APP CHALLENGE YESTERDAY AT JPL. JUST REMARKELY, I APPRECIATE OUR OWN MONTERY PARK RESIDENTS AND STUDENTS PARTICIPATING AND BEING RECOGNIZED THROUGH THEIR EFFORTS. But these kids are super smart and it brings optimism to me and I think to many others that students and young people are doing this kind of work and are looking at challenges and issues in our community and being proactive about working to address them and hope that we can encourage

more of that going forward. And to the chief and others who are there, it looks like there's some

TALENT IF WE NEED SOME HELP ON TECHNOLOGY FOR SOME OF OUR CITY DEPARTMENTS MAYBE SOME OF THESE KIDS CAN HELP ON A VOLUNTEER BASIS ON SOME OF THIS STUFF AND MAYBE EVEN SORTING THROUGH SOME OF THE DATA WE HAVE FOR THE POLICE DEPARTMENT BUT THANKS SO MUCH AGAIN AND THANKS TO THE STAFF FOR ALL THEIR HARD WORK AND LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING EVERYONE IN THE NEW YEAR

OH I'M SORRY WANT TO WISH COUNCIL MEMBER GO

I don't know. Okay, all right.

I was trying to steal my thunder here.

I'm just kidding.

It was a very busy last two weeks, so I want to start off with the holiday snow village,

which happened on December 7th. Thank you, Robert.

I can't tell you how much a lot of the parents and a lot of my neighbors were super excited at how big and how successful it was.

My daughters loved it.

meeting Santa, the train ride, they're still talking about it. Can you ask Robert for the train ride guy's number?

They felt like they were going to fall out.

At some point I thought I was going to fall out, but it was tons of fun.

Just kidding, just kidding. But anyhow, it was great to see so many people out there.

Same thing with the, I think I came earlier that day for a meeting, and I saw them putting out the snow out there, and so I started, I was getting ready to get on there, but I'm glad I was able to do that and actually race with my daughter.

She beat me, actually. But thank you so much.

And I wanted to thank the library. December 13th was a very busy day, so bear with me.

There's a lot happening.

I wanted to thank the library for hosting the Dogman party. I got an opportunity to take my daughter, and she's a big fan of Dogman. So we're taking her, actually, I think the Pantages has something going on with Dogman. So I think my wife bought some tickets, I was told.

But thank you so much.

It was great to see a lot of, actually, there was one of the students I ran into, and there was one of our former civic superstars who was there making some hats and stuff like that. So great to see a lot of kids come out and a lot of the great activities the library has. On that same day, we also had a meeting with our ELAC president. And we're developing and growing our relationship with ELAC and along with President Roman of ELAC to try to see how we can help each other out in different types of programming. I'm very excited about a lot of the stuff that's going on at ELAC. that's going to also benefit our community. So great meeting that happened there. December 13th was also the reorganization of the city of Montebello

and the Montebello Unified School District. So I just wanted to thank outgoing Mayor David Torres for his service in the city of Montebello

and their new mayor, Scarlett Peralta. They had their reorganization at the Quiet Cannon. and then surprisingly I still had time to go to the Montebello Unified School District reorganization which happened that same night and I wanted to thank outgoing Montebello Unified School Board President Elizabeth Cabrera but also their new president Liliana Magana who's their new school board president. As you know we have two schools from the Montebello Unified School District within our city so I wanted to thank them for their service and their help in terms of what they do in terms of running our schools, and they do an amazing job. Wanted to mention that as well. We also had an opportunity to meet with Mercy. If you're not familiar with Mercy, they are within our city, and they provide services for disabled adults. So we had an opportunity to meet with them. They're starting to come back out because of the pandemic,

now that the pandemic is over.

So great to see them out, and we're trying to partner with them, see what types of services we can help, how we can engage Mercy a little bit more. So I look forward to what we can do to help them out, but also see them out more in the community as well, because they do a lot of amazing stuff. I got an opportunity on the 16th to go out to see the Fire Department Community Clinic at Sequoia Park. It was a very actually cold morning, crispy out there, but it was great to see a lot of community members out there teaching them stuff from like stuff like even I didn't know. In case of an emergency, you can drink your water that's inside your water heater. You just got to turn it off. And there's, you know, up to 60 gallons of water that actually last you almost two weeks. So a lot of importance of how to shut off your gas. So a lot of important stuff happening there. So I'm glad the fire department, thank you to the fire department who was out there engaging the community in that way.

Thank you.

And then later that day, of course, who can forget the Santa's Jolly's journey, which I'm still hearing tons about. In fact, I had a couple of council members from Alhambra say, well, what happened on that day? We're hearing about how we should do something like what's going on in Monterey Park. So thank you so much, Robert, for that. I had the opportunity to ride in one of the fire trucks with my daughter and see a lot of the residents out there waving at Santa and being fully engaged. I'm really excited by not just by what happened that day, but also what this means for the future as we go more epic, right, in terms of what we can add. I know Mayor Pro Tem Wong suggested music. There's a lot of different ways we can engage, especially within all of our districts as well, to try to ensure that everyone gets a chance to not just see Santa, but maybe even an opportunity to maybe take a picture with Santa. So a lot of interesting ideas out there. And that is it for me. Before we close out, I wanted to close out a couple of items. We don't have a January 3rd meeting, so that meeting is canceled. So our next meeting is January 17th. So we will see you then.

I also wanted to share that tomorrow is Council Member Ngo's birthday,

and he's turning 25.

And so we wanted to close by wishing him a happy birthday. Happy birthday, Council Member Ngo.

I wanted to also wish the community a happy holidays and Merry Christmas and whatever you celebrate, but also to echo what Council Member Ngo said. I hope it's a very restful year as we enter 2024, and I wish you the best. And so we will go ahead and close tonight's meeting at 9.10 p.m. Thank you, and have a wonderful holiday season.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's do it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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