City Council Meeting — February 7, 2024

Monterey Park. Monterey Park City Council. Good evening and welcome to the Monterey Park City Council meeting. Welcome you tonight on this cold, not yet rainy, but soon to be rainy evening. I want to go ahead and start us off by reading our mission statement. The mission of the City of Monterey Park is to provide excellent services to enhance the quality of life for our entire community. And I also want to read our land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was once known as the Tanvangar. the home of the Gabriolino Tongva people and we show our respect to the Gabriolino Tongva people as well as all indigenous people past present and future and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land we commit to uplifting the Gabriolino Tongva people and we invite you to acknowledge their history and

join us in caring for this land we don't have tonight our our Monterey Park fire

EXPLORERS, BUT WE DO HAVE A YOUNG LADY WHO IS GOING TO BE LEADING US ACTUALLY IN TONIGHT'S FLAG SALUTE.

AND FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT NOT BE FAMILIAR, OUR CITY COUNCIL HAS MADE CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

AS PART OF ONE OF OUR STRATEGIC GOALS.

IT'S VERY IMPORTANT FOR OUR CITY TO INVOLVE YOUNG PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY WILL BE THE FUTURE. They will be the ones who will be up here one day leading our city and leading our country. And so part of what our city has done is we want to encourage young students to come and be part of this process. So tonight we have Yareli Martinez and her family here. And Yareli is going to be leading us in the flag salute.

So if you can please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag

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 please let's thank Yareli for leading us in the flag salute

tonight you did an amazing job and I'd like to invite the City Council to join

me down here to present your Elias certificate

Okay, so Yareli is actually a fifth grade student at Brightwood Elementary School, where my daughter goes to school. So very happy to have another tiger. Is that correct? Tiger? Oh, bingle. Oh, it's close. That's close. And so Yareli, we have a certificate for you. On behalf of the city of Monterey Park, we are declaring you a civic superstar, and we're extending our sincere appreciation for leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight. So here is a certificate for you. I'm sure your family is very happy. Make sure you show it to your principal, Ms. Grego, tomorrow so that she can, and who's your teacher?

My teacher is Ms. Arbuckle, but she had an emergency, so now my teacher is Mr. Lechuga. Mr. Lechuga?

Oh, I know him, yes. Okay, so make sure you share with Mr. Lechuga and your principal, okay?

Let's give her a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.

Yes, yes. You should get in the middle.

Yeah, come in the middle.

Good to meet you.

One, two, and three. Thank you.

Congratulations. Thank you.

Gracias.

Thank you, Yorelli. Thank you, Yorelli. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for coming tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Definitely my favorite part of the city council meetings. We'll go ahead and move on and city clerk if you can do a roll call please.

Councilmember Lo. Present. Councilmember Yu. Here.

councilmember go present mayor pro tem Wong present mayor Sanchez present we

have a thank you city manager do we have any agenda additions deletions or

changes although I'm not the city manager I'll jump in on that we did have an open item 1a on the special meeting agenda that was held at 530 that matter was rolled over to the consent calendar, which would make it item 3H on your regular meeting agenda.

And no other changes, Mayor.

Excellent. Thank you so much.

We are moving up a couple of items. I did want to move up the presentation portion of the agenda up because I know that we have some community healing fund members here,

And I don't want to keep them here all night in this cold weather. So I'd like to invite oh

Yeah, but before we do that we're gonna do public comments first city clerk. Do we have any public comments? Yes

We have three public comments first one is

Nadal

Hello.

Good evening, everyone. We the people. Which laws and who alLod and gave the permit to the police? Officer, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, chief of police in the city of Montreux Park, police department to violate so many constitution rules of laws. police policies, city policies, including the civil rights violation, and to lead the

guy who attacked a person and pushed him, and the other seven guys who was with him as a gang, mafia and gang member who came to the scene, harassed, threatened and attacking,

pushing and tried so many times to hit by the best, the face, the body, the head of an individual and the detective who working in the case don't do any action to make the seven guys and that guy accountable for their action and what they did. Even after providing the detective with the photos of that guy, that means he is knowing. Still don't act as a law enforcement officer and as a detective who's supposed to serve and protect. The individual requested and required from the police officer to do their duty according to the rule of laws. Take his statement, the witness statement, and the other attacker's statement. The police officer refused to do that, and let all the guys and the attacker to leave the promises without taking any action and ignoring the civil rights of that individual.

and the rule of law, especially after he, the police officer, threatened the individual to be arrested so many times. The chief of police himself said the prosecutor will not charge them with anything or any crime.

The chief of police, by saying that, he acted as he is the constitution, the rule of laws, the prosecutor, the courts, and the judges.

Incident number 2023-00001129.

Incident date and time 1-2-2023 at 7.58.48 p.m.

Where are both officers who responded to the call and who did that illegal behavior and violated all the civil rights, the Constitution and the rule of law in that incident.

Where is both of the officers?

Officer Schmidt, 465. Where is Officer Amantzen, 464? Are they fired, asked or ordered or forced to resign by the police department?

Who called the city manager office long?

We called the city manager office long, long time ago. We spoke with her secretary Diana Wong.

We requested to make an appointment with her to discuss some issues. The city manager and her secretary, they never called us back.

We never heard back from the city manager and the city manager office until now and until this moment.

The past issue will still exist, and according to that, we the people require from the city mayor and the city council member to defund the police department in the city of Montreux

Park.

We the people decided according to the rule of laws and according to what we are witnesses

seeing and what we are noticing to the behavior of some of the employees of the city of Montreux

Park, including especially the clerk office, employees, other department, and some of the public department officers, the police department officers, in different issues.

We ask them to use the constitution and the rule of laws to take action against any person

and civil employees of the city of Montreux-Barc, and we will go to the court to get that, even

to remove the immunity of any police officer in any ranks, to make them responsible and

accountable for their action, especially when they acted, behaved, and violated the constitution, the civil rights, and the rule of laws.

We will follow this even with the civil employees, and we will sue them individually, by law. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, sir, see that gentleman standing there right as you're

walking by there? That's the person to talk to.

He'll put you in touch with whomever you need to speak to with regard to the police department. These individuals will not be talking to you from the dais.

Thank you so much.

Next speaker, Jenny Chan.

Good evening.

Good evening. Mayor Sanchez, Mayor Potem Wong, and the Honourable City Council Members. My name is Jenny Chen. I stand before you today to address a matter of great concern that affects not only myself, but many families in this community who were unjustly targeted on the evening of January 27th at the Nuna New Year Festival. We were scheduled to meet up with friends at 5.30. After circling a few blocks north of Garvey, I thought it was extremely lucky to find a spot

on Lincoln Avenue, just steps away from the main stage.

However, as we returned to our car around 7.30,

we were shocked to found citation on our vehicle,

and a temporary no-parking sign appeared out of flimmed air. We were confused, as were another family who was also ticketed. It was then we saw a utility truck full of temporary no-parking signs placing them next to the parked cars. Our confusion immediately turned into anger.

The entire block filled with parked cars and no clear signage to indicate that there is parking restrictions at a time when most of the cars first arrived. I appealed to the City Council, City of Montreux Park Citation Processing Center that same night. along with evidence that the sign was added after I parked. Despite that, my appeal was overruled. So here I am coming with time-standard and geolocated photographic evidence depicting the city workers placing traffic posts and signs on the block of 200 North Lincoln Avenue around 7.30. This evidence highlights...

English in a city where one in five resident over age 65 among those cars ticketed there are families who cannot afford a $55 parking ticket there are

families who have no knowledge or resources to fight this injustice therefore I urge the City Council to take immediate action to ratify this and justice. I call for the dismissal of all parking citations issued on the evening of January 27, 2024, in the vicinity of the Lunar New Year Festival. Let us work together to ensure the residents are treated justly, and that such a lapse of oversight does not recur in the future. Thank you for your time, and I trust you will consider our plea to find a fair resolution to this matter. Thank you.

Thank you, and we have our contact information.

Next speaker is me.

Hi, neighbors.

I wanted to share with you some comments that I made at this past weekend's strategic planning meeting. As there were 15 minutes allocated for public comment and no official time limit set at the beginning of the meeting, I had asked the mayor if I could speak for seven minutes since there were no other speakers at the meeting, and I was the only one there to comment. Of course, and as usual, he said no, so I was unable to complete my comments, and here I am. What I had asked for, as I have done so for many, many years now, as you guys have all watched, was for the city to conduct itself honestly, transparently, and with integrity.

One of the issues I had brought up was the city not disclosing it did not have a current sewer master plan,

and yet it was raising our sewer rates.

Upon further inspection, I found out our sewer rate increases were going to raise the city an additional $14.5 million in revenue, while only $8.7 million in sewer projects were planned during that same time period.

So what are they going to do with the other nearly $9 million they're making us pay on top of the sales tax increase that was supposed to fund projects like these as well?

So when the city is spending over half of our capital improvement budget on repairs for private property with little hope of ever getting our money back, it's scary when they continue to try to squeeze even more money from our residents.

Neighbors, this is the type of stuff we have to look out for. In addition, I reminded the council, as public servants, we should always conduct ourselves in the spirit of service.

When the mayor goes out of his way to discourage public comment by not allowing time for speakers or holding items until the end of a meeting to tire residents and business owners or property owners out so they're too exhausted or no longer able to speak, that's not service.

That's censorship through abuse of power.

You'll make the accommodation when it's for your friends or something that you benefit from, yet you won't make it for the people who voted for you or who you are supposed to serve.

Such a small gesture to make for the people to show goodwill and you refuse.

That speaks volumes.

I hope the next administration has more consideration for its constituents.

Thank you.

No other speakers we'll go ahead and jump to the presentation portion of the agenda and we have a presentation of recognition for the community fund members

Amy thank you

Good evening. Mayor and city council members, I want to give you an update.

I want to report that we have given out $161,571.

That was to individual victims and to programs supporting the community.

Tonight I wanted to bring forth our members of the Monopark Community Healing Fund. We have a couple of them here today.

If you could please step up. The city would like to recognize your contribution and the time you've put in.

Yes, if we can have all of the members come up. And we want to give you also maybe an opportunity to speak and say a few words if you'd like. but we thank you so much for the time and effort that you took to help with our community fund the fundraising but also all of the work and time that you gave up to to do this and I also want to give council a chance to acknowledge I just

want to say their names Anita to Bryant Yang Hans Liang and our famous prior

City Manager, Paul Talbot.

We have two members that were not able to attend. Rick Ng and Ricky Choi are unable to attend today.

Thank you.

And thank you as well, Amy, for all the work that you did in helping administrate and lead

this group.

We really appreciate, and the city appreciates, all of the work that you did.

I do appreciate our team.

It was a lot of work, but I'm glad we were able to help our community and the victims.

It took a lot of time, a lot of hours on Zoom, longer than anyone anticipated, but we were led by the need of the city, and we got that done, we believe.

Thank you. Thank you. And we have certificates of appreciation. I want to invite the council to join me down to present these certificates.

Council to join me down to present the certificates.

So if you can come up here and let me put on this side so we can do pictures a little bit better. So if you can come up here and if Robert's on this side, I actually can do pictures a little bit better. But you have a certificate for Amy.

Oh, here we go.

Right?

Thank you. Thank you. One.

And her.

Let's give them a round of applause for the world.

Thank you.

Thank you. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, we can maybe ask you guys to stay for a little bit.

We want to say nice things about you.

Yes, council wants to say nice things about you.

And we'll start with Mr. Lo. Council Member Lo.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

You know, I just want to thank every one of you, either president or in absence, for serving on the Advising Committee for the Hope and Healing Fund.

This has been a very challenging year for us, and I think the way in which we responded to the crisis, to the incident, from the resources raised to help the community in the healing, I think speaks volumes about how we came together united.

And I think a lot of that also came from the leadership exhibited by this member of the advisory committee.

And we know all of you have your daily lives, your jobs, your families,

and for you to come forward and to essentially help this community guide through one of its darkest moments

is something that we'll never forget.

And we are always, as a community, eternally grateful.

so thank you so much for your service

Councilmember Yu

I want to say it's not easy I salute to all of you because in the beginning we thought it would just take about six months

to be able to resolve but now it takes over a year

and I know there's a lot of voices

out there, a lot of complaints oppositions and I think that you guys did a wonderful job

in resolving all the issues and make everyone happy. So I salute to all your hard work. Thank you.

Councilmember Ngo.

Again, thank you.

I think the most important part of this is your ability to be here tonight. It's a reflection of we all know how busy you are,

all of you.

Not just your day jobs, but important day jobs that you have to address for the community and to be here tonight and also to spend the last year in helping our community heal. That speaks volumes for your continued good work. So thank you on behalf of our city, and great seeing you guys tonight.

Mayor Portempo?

I would just add my appreciation and gratitude to the Healing Fund steering committee members and Amy in particular for leading the group. It's been a little over a year since I think we organized the Healing Fund, and the fund and its work has been critical to helping the community really come together to heal to provide not just funding but also activities I know at other community events to help bring the community together help the community and community members to process the event and the tragedy and I know that there's still a lot of work to do though not necessarily not just within the responsibility of the healing fund and many of you are already contributing and leading the community in other ways we appreciated all of you for stepping up into this role and into this this critical role for the community in helping to organize around what we need to do and we're just a few weeks ago the healing fund helped and judge jang helped to organize gun violence restraining order workshop here in this chamber and there's still more work to do to both bring the community together to heal but also to help to work to prevent tragedy like that from happening again in our community and in other communities around us so applaud all of you for stepping up into this work over the last year in all the work and time and effort that you've put into this in your hearts as well the community appreciates it and we are stronger because of many of the efforts that you have helped to lead so thank you to Amy to the whole steering committee I know that we're starting to figure out how to wind down the fund and the activities there but the work of healing and bringing the community together will continue to be critical and know that many of you will continue to be part of that work in the future. So thank you so much for your year plus of work and commitment in this way and look forward to your partnership with us as a city and in the community to continue to bring healing and bring the community together.

Thank you.

And in that same spirit, I want to thank you for all of the work that you've done and continue to do on behalf of our city and our residents. So thank you so much, and we appreciate the work that you do.

Thank you.

We're going to go ahead and move up item 5A, which is the Tree Memorial Program recommendation for Carol and Larry Sullivan. 11. Were there any speakers, City Clerk, for item 5A?

No speakers. Okay.

And so we, unfortunately, Carol and Larry could not be here to accept the Tree Memorial

Certificate.

But we're still going to go ahead and give it to them on their behalf. anything Roberts gonna share some information yes good evening mayor mayor

pro-tem city council members Robert Gary director of Recreation and Community Services here tonight humbly to ask that you authorize the city manager to assist us in honoring to take action to honor both Carol and Larry Sullivan with the tree memorial the tree memorial program was created as a way to recognize those individuals who've made a significant and positive impact on the Monterey Park community. This recognition is reserved for those individuals who

have demonstrated the highest level of community involvement. I think all of us

know the level of involvement both Carol and Larry Sullivan have dedicated over

the over many numbers of years. The Recreation and Community Services Department received a nomination from

the recreation and community services department received a nomination from councilmember ! colleagues colleagues !

of dedication and service to the Monterey Park community. And so it's my honor tonight to present that nomination to you. As you know, Carol Sullivan has served on the Community Participation Commission since 2016. She also serves as a volunteer at the St. Paul Lutheran Church. She's served many, many years on the Women's Club and is super, super active, both with both with our library foundation and the Lions Club. Larry Sullivan has been on the library board of trustees since 2018. He's a former planning commissioner, traffic commissioner, and was served on the personnel board. He's also a docent at our Monterey Park Historical Museum and a long-time Lions Club member. Both these individuals have dedicated countless hours to this community, and so it's my great honor to be able to present this staff report to you tonight and ask that you

consider honoring both Larry and Carol Sullivan with the tree memorial that completes my staff

report I'm available for questions thank you Robert and is there someone from the library

foundation to accept their certificate so we'll still present it and on behalf of Larry I know that Carol and Larry have been instrumental in terms of making sure that a lot of our organizations and committees in our city have have functioning members in them but also their commitment level has been amazing in the last year that I've gotten to know them and so especially in the

library so on should we go down and so council you want to share a few words

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I think they might be listening.

Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Robert, thank you so much for that presentation. You know, let me say that I cannot think of any individuals that are more deserving than Carol and Larry Sullivan.

I mean, you know, those in the audience or listening at home, you know, you heard the list of involvement from Robert of both Larry and Carol Sullivan.

And, you know, when I think about, you know, their commitment to community, it shows a love community, commitment to community, a desire to be involved and to encourage others to be civically engaged. And I think that they're role models to all of us for their commitment to volunteerism and, you know, not for any personal pride for gain, but rather just because they want to make a difference in their community. And I think that if everyone in our community can live up to that ideal, then Monterey Park will be a better place. So again, Carol and Larry, when you're watching this, just know that City of Monterey Park, we appreciate you.

We love you.

And this is, I think, a humble token of our appreciation for all that you've done for this community that we all dearly love.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lo.

Councilmember Yu? Yes. When I heard about the tree memorial program to Larry and Carol, wow, I'm so excited. I think they well deserve honor.

And also they are like the family members to all of us and their dedications, their

commitments, their support efforts to our community. Yeah, I would say, yeah, I treat you as my family member. I love to talk to you because I really see your hearts putting into our city, our community. So really thank you. And hopefully you will see us.

We'll watch the video later on. And I wish you well. And thank you so much. Council Member Ngo.

Carol and Larry, we wish you well. Fortunately, you're not able to be here tonight, but we will see you very soon. First and foremost, thank you for both of yours, 60-plus years of service to our community. To them, being grandparents, parents, and great-grandparents is the mode that they are living their lives by. And I say that because in many ways, they have served and protected our community like grandparents, parents, and great-grandparents.

so we love you

continue the good work because I know there's probably a lot more years left for you guys to continue to help and be involved and share with us your knowledge your passion for the community

and the city we all love

so congratulations and we'll present this in person

when we see you next time thank you

I'll add my appreciation for

Larry and Carol

as long as I've been involved in the city going on 15 years now. They have been involved even longer and I've known them, gotten to know them over that amount of time and their commitment to the community and to making it better in a better place and Robert read off some of the formal support and engagement that they've had with the community and with the city but in many ways they've been informally and behind the scenes supportive of so many things in the community. they are more than deserving of being honored and appreciate this opportunity to be able to do that for them. They're also sort of my neighbors, right? They live up the street, up the hill from where I live and right down the street from where I grew up. So every day I pass by their house to get somewhere and see them interacting with their neighbors and them taking care of the lawn and some lawns that aren't theirs and just helping to make the neighborhood better

and a better place.

And so really appreciate this opportunity and would, if other council members don't beat me to it, happy to make a motion to support staff recommendation for this tree memorial for both Larry and Carol Sullivan.

Second it.

Okay. If we can please take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you, Carol,

and thank you Larry for all of your work.

We're going to go ahead and move on to staff communications and we're going to start with our community development department.

Hello, good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, all council members and our community members as well. My name is Olivia Williams.

I'm a Civic Spark Fellow that's serving the Community Development Department. And if we can go to the next slide. I am super excited to announce that the draft of the Monterey Park Sustainability Plan will be available for public review starting tomorrow the 8th at 5 p.m.

It will be available for review until the end of the month, February 29th.

We're really excited about this plan. It's going to be a really great step forward with Monterey Park's climate action journey. and not only for the city, but for all of our community members as well. We put in a lot of work to make sure that this plan is accessible for everybody,

and hopefully it's kind of fun to read. It's educational. So definitely make sure you check it out during this time period. The easiest way to access it will be online on the Going Green webpage, but we will also have physical copies available right here at City Hall at the planning counter over at Brugmire Library and Langley Senior Citizen Center as well. So definitely check that out.

All of your comments on this plan can be submitted to the Going Green email, which is right up on the screen. We also have a submission form right on the webpage as well. So when you go to read the plan, it's right there. So we're looking forward to hearing all of your comments.

And if you can hit the next slide for me, thank you.

During this time period, we are also going to have two different workshops.

We'll have one next Monday. That is the 12th.

It's at 6 p.m. over at El Encanto. and we will also have an opportunity for you to join us virtually as well on the 22nd at 6 p.m. on Zoom. All of this information is available to you on the web page so I highly encourage you to scan that QR code. We'll also have posts on social media and I encourage you to share those as well. We're really excited to hear all of your feedback. Hopefully you enjoy the plan and I am open for any comments or questions.

Thank you so much for that.

And I know that we are really excited about where this is headed and that Monterey Park is heading in this direction in terms of making sure that we're environmentally sustainable and that we're looking at different types of ways that we're going to be able to accomplish that, especially as we move forward. And I think that's something that's very, very important to me because I have kids. I also teach and I know that this is very important to the students that I teach in terms of making sure that we create an Environment that is sustainable but also that we have an environment in a and a place to call home For future generations, but I want to give council a chance to also share some thoughts about Some of the works and thank you so much a little before all of the amazing work that you and your department have done Throughout the year to get this together very very proud of the work that we're doing here

Councilmember Lo? Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

And again, I just want to thank all the hard work that was put into this. I know for many of us, this started from an interest in updating our climate action plan. And I'm glad to see that, you know, we came together and we decided to make it more robust and more comprehensive. And so now it's a citywide sustainability plan. And I'm really looking forward to the presentation. and hopefully also I encourage everyone in the public watching in the audience or from home to participate and provide input. Perhaps you could, as a preview, you know, like what are topics that will be discussed at the upcoming workshop?

So the upcoming workshops will give kind of an overview of what is in the plan, kind of as we've done in the past, but we'll delve in a little bit deeper into some more of the specifics of what the plan entails. And we'll also be doing some activities asking our different community members different ways that they think they can assist us in this plan and doing their own part to move the city forward on these emission reduction measures But it's gonna be a really fun time. I definitely hope to see you all there. Great. Thank you

Councilmember you so I wanted to say I applaud to the staff of creating such a wonderful logo and color. As you can see from our sustainability plan,

that we conserve water, we go green, and that's how we will have a better future. So I think by looking at the logo and color, we already know what is in there. So hopefully we look forward to the upcoming workshop and educate people more about our future. Thank you.

And I want to give a big shout-out to Michael Lee from the library for designing that wonderful logo. So props to him. Excellent job. And if you come to the workshop, you can get a sticker of the logo. So join us. Do we have stickers on hand by any chance? Yeah, I do have a couple. I can't have.

I know we have students in the audience that might want some of those stickers to put on it.

Yeah, absolutely. Council Member Ngo?

Olivia, thank you for working on the plan. I know it's probably a binder worth of notes, but that's really the assessment of what you have done or what staff has done. In terms of looking at the overall viability of our city from a sustainability standpoint, going green is one component of that. But there are many aspects of that. So without giving too much of the preview, I encourage our residents to come out. well tomorrow they can view it and then review it give input on it when we have our two sessions drive it home so that we can continue to work on this program to make Mardi Park better for our future thank you thank you councilmember go

mayor put them one I just I share in my fellow council members excitement for

this plan I know it's been a long time coming I know it was initiated before a a few of us got on council about over a year plus ago now but was a huge advocate for it then previously served on the Rural Commission when we adopted our first climate action plan for the city over 10 years ago so excited to see this next iteration and know that it will come with a lot of work for the city and the community to do hand in hand so encouraged as the other council members have also encouraged the community to get involved and i know that we're doing these sessions to go over the plan but knowing that the action items that will come out of this plan are going to be years and decades in terms of commitment and work to do to bring the community and the city of maurie park into in line with the goals of the state to become net zero and decarbonize our economy by 2045 and earlier if we can in some sectors. There's a lot of work to do and looking forward to working hand in hand with the community because the city cannot do it on its own and will not accomplish those goals on our own. So look forward to partnering and hopefully keeping the community engaged. I know there were hundreds of comments that were submitted from community members through the process of community engagement as this plan was formulated. so appreciate that that was a core part of building this plan and hope that we can build on that in engaging the community and bring them along to make sure that we're implementing this plan successfully in the coming years so thank you so much Olivia to Jessica and I know it was not just the community development team but we have members from every department in the city involved in this because sustainability and addressing climate change and and getting to net zero emissions and all that work requires everyone in the city doing their part and there's a role for everyone to play both the city and the community. So thank you so much for this work. I look forward to the work to come as well and look forward to these meetings and continuing to engage the community on this.

Yes, thank you so much.

And I just wanted to share that I really appreciate that we also got students involved in this who participated in the survey, but also I know when I attended the workshop that you guys had at Robert Hill Lane, There's a lot of college students there who wanted to share their ideas and their concerns about how we move forward. I know we have a lot of high schools in the area and middle schools and elementary students ! And so we have a lot of high schools and middle schools and elementary students as well

!

But thank you so much for all the work that you have done. Thank you.

And just one last thing before we go, just want to let everybody know that if you do come to the workshop on Monday,

we will have some of those countertop kitchen organics recycling bins to give away.

So just a little incentive for you to join us, and we can't wait to see you there. Thank you so much. That's quite the incentive. Thank you so much.

That's quite the incentive.

Thank you. And we have, thank you.

And our next staff communication is our fire department.

And we have our new interim fire chief, Mr. Chris Thompson.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council, and residents of Monterey Park.

With the recent storms, the Monterey Park Fire Department wants to make sure our community is prepared for these storms. Our goal is to always make sure that we're resilient and we're always ready.

So some of the examples that we would like to let the citizens know of Monterey Park

is before the incident actually happens that we make sure that we're prepared.

Some of those things that we might want to take care of is make sure that our trees and our foliage is cut back.

Some of those trees cause major problems with the storms that happened in the last recent days.

Make sure that all our roof gutters and our drainage system is all clear, making sure that the water has a place to go and the water is flowing out the way it should do. Next slide.

During the storm, we also want to make sure that we're applying and we're making sure that we stay clear all down power lines and making sure that we stay away from all those trees that are laying in our roadways.

We also want to make sure that water conducts electricity. We want to make sure that we're not standing or playing in the roadways and that we're driving our cars and staying out of the major flood areas.

After the storm has passed, we want to make sure that we stay away from the saturated ground.

Trees can still fall. There's also major issues with storm drainage. Water can be toxic with different types of chemicals that can flow in.

The City of Monterey Park is offering sandbags at City Yard and at City Hall between the fire station 61 and City Hall area. we recommend that you only take 10 and try to make sure that you use them in the correct manner.

Last slide.

We have a community preparedness event that's happening on February 24th, Saturday.

It's from 9 to 12 at Elders Park.

We'll be trying to teach all the community members how to maintain their homes in a safety way

and making sure that they're prepared to shut down utilities

and making sure they're prepared to handle disasters when it comes.

So if there's any questions, I'll be ready to answer any.

Thank you, Chief, for that report. It's also good to hear that everything, despite all of the storms that passed,

but that will probably still continue to come,

that we're being very proactive and ensuring that our residents are safe. So I appreciate all of the work that the fire department that you have been doing to keep the residents safe. I want to give Council also a chance to ask questions or make some comments.

Council Member Lo? Sure.

You know, actually, the only thing I want to say is congratulations, Chief, from your first presentation, Chief Thompson, as our Chief, to the City Council. And also thank you to your department for, you know, making sure that residents had the means to get sandbags and are prepared for this weekend's storm. I mean, it was certainly one of the intense storms in recent memory, and my understanding is that we were very prepared. And certainly, you know, as the weeks go by, we assess any damage, any damage, you know, but nonetheless, we know that a lot of it was preventative, and so we want to credit your department for being a large part of that.

So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Look, Councilmember Ngo?

Yeah, just a couple of quick questions, especially the Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday when we had heavy rainfall. I actually had to go to downtown, and I noticed because I was either flooded, freeway overpass, or traffic lights were not working. Basically, it just went dark, so you had to four-way stop. Do we have those issues in our city?

This storm, we are okay when it came to those types of problems in our city,

but those are the things that we want to think about when we're out there on the road. we try to recommend people to stay at home when it comes to the flooding because those those issues can come up at any time

we can't we can't stop the storm from coming but we can also prepare it for the

safety reasons that we need to you know stay home when it comes to these these type of storms okay thank you mayor portem one

thanks chief and again congratulations on your interim role appreciate your leadership here and uh appreciate the update on uh the city and how we're doing and how we did I know we don't have a public works update but from everything I understand and was reported out right we weathered the torrential rainfall very well actually for the community I know there's some potholes and things that have popped up that always pop up when we have rainstorms but generally have not experienced some of the more extreme impacts that other communities especially on the coast that have experienced over the last few days so appreciate our preparedness and our community preparedness and their our neighbors work in terms of preparing themselves and the hillsides here for this rainstorm it's great to see that our partnership with the community has paid off right over the years and especially during this rainstorm so appreciate the work that the fire department does and everyone on your team and the rest of the city did in helping the community to prepare for this rainstorm and I know it's raining apparently it's raining right now so everyone to remind everyone to continue to be on the lookout and please be careful as you're continuing to drive and get home and get around the community things are still very wet and soggy and appreciate the fire department in helping to just keep preparedness up on not only this issue but other other potential hazards in

the community thank you thank you chief thank you we now have a presentation from the library and we

We have our library director, Kristen Olivares, here. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and City Council. To begin, first slide, please. We'd like to invite you to celebrate Lunar New Year with the library. Last night we hosted our All Ages event, which featured crafts, games, and photo opportunities,

and there's still more to come. Next slide.

Celebrate the new year with films that highlight Asian American culture. Stay afterwards for an optional small group discussion about the movie where we will discuss the characters and ideas in the film and what we liked or did not like about the films. On February 13th, we will screen Everything Everywhere All at Once, and on February 27th, we will show Lucky Grandma. Movies will begin at 1 p.m. in the friend's room.

and the community will be held on the adult reference department

The new year is a new year to the community wishing tree. The new year will be held on February 9th at 4.30. And lastly, we invite the community to visit the library to add a wish for the new year to the community wishing tree. The wishing tree will be up in the adult reference department through the end of the month.

Next slide.

February is also Black History Month, and the library has book lists available for all ages to celebrate. Visit the library's catalog to view the list or stop by the library to check out one of our book displays.

Next slide.

Additionally, all Monterey Park library card holders have free access to Canopy, which is a video streaming service that provides instant access to thousands of critically acclaimed movies, documentaries, and kids' favorites. Canopy has created a collection of narrative and documentary films honoring Black History Month.

Next slide.

Teens and young adults are invited to join Chinatown Service Center Youth Center for a Teen Work Readiness Workshop Series. On February 1st, teens learned about writing resumes and cover letters, and they will learn the basics of interviewing on February 8th and professionalism in the workplace on February

15th.

All sessions will be held at 4.30 p.m. in the large classroom, and no registration is required.

Next slide.

On February 24th at 11 a.m. in the Friends Room, join us for a lively discussion exploring Asian American communities and culture. Our panel of acclaimed authors will talk about a wide range of topics, including Chinese restaurant culture, Asian American representation in film and television, the 1992 L.A. Uprisings, and of course, their books.

Next slide. We got a lot. There's a lot.

Families are invited to join us for Pokemon-themed fun, games, and crafts on Friday, February 16th at 3.30 p.m. in the Friends Room.

I make sure to include that for you, Mayor. Next slide.

Individuals or families whose income is less than $63,500 are invited to participate in Chinatown Service Center's free volunteer income tax assistance clinic from January 18th to April 11th. Appointments are available on Mondays and Thursdays and can be made by visiting the library website. from January 15th through the 31st the library accepted submissions for our library card design contest now we're asking for the community's help in selecting a winner visit the library February 7th through 21st to vote for your favorite designs the new library cards will be made available on April 8th in celebration of National Library Week and finally the next free legal assistance clinic sponsored by Asian Pacific American Bar Association and Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California will be held on February 13th at 6 p.m. in the Friends Room. To register, please contact the reference desk.

That concludes my presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Wow, I'm always amazed by all of the amazing programming that you guys do. I wish there was more days in my calendar to fill a lot of those in. But thank you for the Pokemon. I love taking my daughter to a lot of your workshops. I know the last time we did, I think we did Bluey or something like that. So Pokemon is right up her alley, so I think she'll be very excited about that. But also a lot of the amazing programming for teenagers that I see visible there. I know a lot of my students come to the library. They'll be there on Monday studying. But also a lot of these amazing resources that are available to them in terms of preparing for the next level and preparing for college and the workforce. So very appreciative of all the work that you guys do. and then also a lot of the legal clinics. I'm not sure if Carl's there providing legal advice, but very, very thankful of all the services that are provided.

Thank you, Kristen.

And also thank you for honoring and celebrating Black History Month at the library.

Thank you.

Council Member Lo, any comments?

I think every month you just, every time you come present, And you just remind all of us how indispensable of a resource this library is. Not just a place to learn, but a place to gather and to nurture minds and expand horizons. And so just keep up the good work.

Thank you, Council Member Lo.

Mayor Potemwine.

Thank you.

Looking forward to going to at least a few of those. And I know the community appreciates all the programs.

So thank you so much.

yeah I'm going to stop by and see what those library cards look like so

come on by and vote please thank you so much

thank you thank you our next presentation or staff communication is from the recreation and community services department

like the shirt I'll be talking about Easter or spring egg hunt Good evening, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem and members of the City Council. My name is Memo Chavez, Recreation Supervisor. Thank you for having me here tonight to share some upcoming programs and events. Next slide, please. First, we want to thank everyone who came out and supported two recent events. The first one was January 21st, the Candlelight Vigil, which showed how resilient and how much support the people in Monterey Park have for one another. So thank you for coming out to that. And the Lunar New Year Festival, which took place on Garvey Avenue on January 27th and 28th, it was reported earlier today that over 200,000 people attended the event. So, thank you. Next slide, please. Next, the Langley Center is partnering up with the Department of Mental Health to offer a Lunar New Year celebration at Langley Center on Wednesday, February 14th, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. The event will offer food, karaoke, a photo booth, and entertainment. Participants must be 50 years of age or older. We are currently sold out. There are 220 people attending this event, so we're really looking forward to that. Also at the Langley Center on February 24th, from 9.30 to 3, the Los Angeles County Office of Violence Prevention will be hosting a youth mental health summit. The event will offer exciting workshops and fun hands-on activities. It will also include a free breakfast, lunch, a gift card, and community service hours. Registration will be available. County Transportation is currently available. Next slide, please. Currently, the Recreation Department is selling Love Grams packages that include a coffee cup, a succulent plant, chocolates, and a stuffed teddy bear that you can send to your family, friends, or neighbor. The price is $10, and there is a free delivery to Monterey Park residents only. Deliveries are only available between February 5th and February 16th. To place an order, please call Langley Center, at 626-307-1395.

The Langley Center will also be offering a free workout class

to participant ages 50 and over each Thursday for eight sessions

beginning tomorrow, February 8th.

The class will focus on how to properly use each machine

and how to target specific muscle groups.

For more information, please contact the Langley Center. Next slide, please.

The Langley Center will also feature three upcoming workshops in the month of February. The first is on mental health on February 8th, which will be offered by Garfield Health Center.

The second workshop is on preventing scams on February 15th, which will be offered by the YWCA.

And lastly, on February 21st, from 11 to 12, the Monterey Park Police Department and Chinatown Service Center will offer a workshop on pedestrian safety.

all workshops are free and you can contact the Langley Center for more information

and down the road as you can see the shirt I'm wearing here

you can save the date for two upcoming events

the first is the annual spring egg hunt

on March 28th at Barnes Park

and the other is the cherry blossom event on April 27th

and 28th also at Barnes Park thank you very much

and that concludes my presentation I'll be happy to answer any questions

Thank you so much, Mammel, for all of the information.

I'm always amazed by the great programming.

I know my daughters and my family are always very appreciative, but also the hard work that you guys do. I know that I mentioned this to Robert already about just how much work and effort that you guys did at the vigil, but also our Lunar New Year Festival. We really appreciate all the hard work that you guys do to make our city look so great

in terms of our programming.

But also very looking forward to the spring game hunt and a lot of these other events,

especially the Cherry Blossom Festival as well.

So thank you again for all of the hard work and for keeping our city busy and keeping me as a father busy as well.

Thank you.

Council Member Lo, any comments or questions?

I know I just want to echo all sentiments on Byron Mayor, but also I appreciate that you are holding a mental health conference for youth.

I think that when we talk about community, collective trauma, individual trauma,

I think sometimes we do overlook our youth, and so I'm glad that we're being proactive and hope that there will be a good turnout among our local youth for this gathering. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions? Council Member Go?

Memo, I'm just amazed. I mean, when I listen to the library and I listen to you guys, you guys are kind of just whoever speaks gets the advantage the next person speaks gets the advantage and then someone else comes up and there's more programs so thank you for being a great part of the resource for our community and our neighboring community so good job on that both library and parks and

rec thank you mayor pro time one no thank you to the department and all the

staff as others have already said Lunar New Year a festival I think huge turnout just walking around the festival I think I felt like there were more people than the last few years festivals very very obviously the community is very eager and hungry for events like this so looking forward to continued outpouring of support from the community and interest in the community to come out to events like that in our community where they can just come and enjoy each other's company enjoy culture learn more about other cultures and their own and just take time to be with their neighbors so looking forward to the other opportunities coming up I know we have a year packed of community events and activities both the library and the parks in our community on the streets and a lot of things to celebrate this year too so thank you so much appreciate all the staff and all the work that goes into planning this thank you thank you

so much and like the shirt thank you thank you we're gonna go ahead and move to consent calendar items

3A to 3G

and I want to give council

a chance to pull

if there's any items that you want pulled or either for a quick question

or to H sorry to H I forgot we added 3H as well

I will pull 3C for abbreviated staff for discussion and then

3E for I don't need the

staff report but just wanted to ask a couple quick questions okay 3c and 3e any other 3d for quick discussion 3d any other is all right so items 3c 3d and

3 even pulled so is there a motion for items 3a 3b 3f G and H move second

Seconded by Council Member Ngo, so if we can please take a vote.

Passed unanimously. Thank you.

So if we have a quick report on item 3C for discussion and questions. a quick report on item 3c for discussion and questions

good evening council mayor sanchez mayor pro tem long Good evening, Council Mayor Sanchez, Mayor Pro Tem Wong, and Council Members Go, You,

and Lo. My name is Laura Borjon.

I'm the finance manager here in the finance department. I'm here to present the mid-year financial report for fiscal year 23-24.

I'll do a really quick presentation. Next slide.

We're going to quickly overview the general fund revenues, general fund expenditures, general fund five-year projection, and the budget augmentation requests. general fund revenues are up 40 percent from last fiscal year we're at 42 percent of the budgeted estimates thanks to sales tax which is up 92 percent from the previous fiscal year due to measure mp

overall departmental expenses are at 51.9 percent and on track to meet budgeted estimates

revenue projections were made uh with the following of um assumptions three to four percent increases overall and uh tot revenue uh assuming the addition of the holiday inn and um that is scheduled to be completed in May 2024.

Expenditure projections include increases ranging from 2% to 5% for expenditures. Salary and benefits include contractual COLAs and benefit increases for fiscal year 24-25 and annual increments for eligible staff.

Surplus ranging from $1.3 million to $3.6 million are projected for the next five fiscal years, and surpluses will increase the fund balance. With the aforementioned assumptions, we project a fund balance of $39.4 million at the end of fiscal year 27-28. Please note the committed catastrophic and committed stabilization fund balances will make up the GFOA recommended 15% of the city's general fund operating budget.

The city is requesting a mid-year budget augmentation in the amount of $113,850 from water funds.

The city is requesting a mid-year augmentation in the amount of $150,000 from internal service funds. And we are also requesting a mid-year augmentation in the amount of $400,700 from various funds.

Thank you for your time, and staff is available for any questions.

Thank you so much for that staff report.

Are there any questions from Council regarding this item?

Mayor Potemwong?

Thank you, Laura. I appreciate the presentation.

Can you go back to the five-year projection for general fund?

Which one?

We have revenues, expenditures, and fund balance.

The fund balance. Yes.

Actually, the one that shows the surplus for...

Oh, prior expenditures.

Yes, this looks a little different from the numbers in the staff report because I think

I'm trying to find the one in my staff report.

But the one in the staff report for the five year projection shows smaller potential surpluses in the out years in my agenda packet.

I'm trying to find what page it's on.

on page 37 I think that's the reason I see it it was a formula it was probably a formula error

okay so the one you're the one in the deck is the one that is accurate right correct

yes so that's more encouraging thank you appreciate that on the staff recommendation right one of the

staff or the staff recommendation is to set aside money for an additional $500,000

currently to add to the reserve for I forgot what the the account is called

catastrophic catastrophic events I know the recommendation in the staff report is

in the guide I guess for the council and for the cities to get to 15 or 20% of the general fund revenue for catastrophic event reserves. We're currently at 5.7, 5.3, sorry.

The 3 million is also part of that. So we're at 8.3.

Okay, so 3 million is the working capital.

The 3 million is also part of the committed stabilization.

It's working capital.

It's called here stabilization,

But it but it's also part of catastrophic we can't touch it without council approval

Okay, so yeah, my question was going to be for if the if our goal is to get to 15% 15 to 20% right of General fund revenues being in the catastrophic reserve But 5.3 million would not be that would be well below 10% because 10% of our 60 plus million dollar general fund budget right now is six million so 15% would be nine so plus the three we're closer to the nine which makes sense now but knowing that our general fund revenues and expenses right the budget will continue to grow in the in the next few years I think this year we're expected right a little 63 million so those percentages grow I would be in support of adding and it sounds like from the unaudited 22 23 financials that there was additional money set aside or additional right surplus out of last year's budget that's sitting in our bank accounts it sounds like we should be able to allocate more than $500,000 to grow the the current reserve for

catastrophic events we can add it for the closing of the 24th so if we could We could add more yes for this closing this fiscal year. What would

What is what's a higher amount right if if the council wanted to add more than the $500,000 recommended for catastrophic

It's whatever council

Is there a ceiling to that in terms of what we expect?

There is a dollar amount that it's not recommended by GFOA, but I want to say it's right at the 50%, but I'd have to go back in the number. I think it's about 50% that you don't want to.

You want to be able to spend that.

You want to be able to have. Do you want to be able to your operation? You need to be able to spend in your operations and your infrastructure. That's why you're collecting the funds and the taxes to be able to then use them for your community. So you don't want to have that much in your reserves.

Yeah.

But, yes, you can increase it, and you can recommend tonight to increase it by it.

And I think we haven't closed the books.

you could ask to increase it by a little bit more. I wanna say that we actually,

we can increase it by a little bit more.

It's gonna reduce our assigned if we close this year

by closing for 23.

if we closed this year by closing for 23,

! that we haven't closed the books for 23, ! or because our measure MPs, we have a little bit more revenue coming in 24, ! I would recommend that we increase to maybe a million in 24, ! and we can increase in 24, and then we can come back and we can do another half a million in 25, ! Or a million in 25, and you can increase it a little bit more but I wouldn't you know go more than we can maybe or our goal could be to go up to the 20 percent.

So the GFOA recommendation is for 15 to 20 percent?

So the GFOA recommendation is for 15 to 20 percent?

The GFOA is two months.

Recommendation is two months, which is about 15 percent.

Okay.

So we should aim for 15, right?

Right.

Which would be about 9 to 10 million.

As for the, yes, it was 9.5 as of next year's, or as of this year's budget, 9.5.

Okay.

So we're pretty much there with, if we authorize the 500,000 today. I would be in support of I'm totally supportive of the 500,000 today and with direction to staff to Do an analysis and as we propose for budget for 2425 To get us to where we need to go right in the future years to get to that 15% target for catastrophic reserves

Council can authorize

today

Our city attorney approve if agrees we can authorize it that when we have we close with a surplus in 24 we can move another half a million to committed is that okay

mr. mayor members of the City Council if we can can we address the item when

we're planning for this next budget year and still make that recommendation per Council's request to increase the catastrophic fund let's can we do that at the next budget cycle since we're working on it now I

Could bring in maybe in

September when we're closer to doing all our job into the end of the year journal entries it would be better to bring it back in September

Would that be okay? I

Think the question that we were asking is the with the budget preparation for fiscal year 24 25 when we plan for catastrophic, can we increase that request at that time?

Yes. Okay. If you do it then. Okay.

I think we can do it whenever we have money, right?

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

So I would be in support of the staff recommendation tonight to authorize $500,000 to add to the catastrophic event reserve, knowing that the $3 million in addition to the other reserve account is meant for this, can be meant for this too. So we're a lot closer than I actually thought to the 15%. But if we need to make adjustments, knowing that we do need to make adjustments and grow, we need to continue to grow the catastrophic event reserve fund as we expect the general fund to continue to grow in out years. Let's continue to reach that 15% target. that should be our aspiration and our practice whenever possible for the budget. So if that direction is clear, well, we'll vote on it.

But a couple other questions on page 23 for the general fund expenditures for mid-year point.

Can you talk to why on community SIP, capital improvement project line, We're currently dramatically underspent in terms of your date expenditures for community sip. Yes

So currently we are finishing up the prior fiscal year 20 to 23 community CIPs

So we've prioritized those which include the playgrounds

As soon as those projects are completed. We will continue with the current fiscal year CIPs

Great, so it's it's more of a matter of timing right correct It's not that we haven't spent more the money is in process the projects are in process They just haven't we haven't expended the funds correct. Can you talk about for I mean that same page? I guess non-departmental expenses We're well over in your expenses. What what some of that is?

So non-departmental the non-department department It includes subrogation accounts. So it handles claims for workers comp and accidents and other city liabilities

and those are things that are that we don't necessarily budget for all the time. So

That's what's included in that expense

We did want to mention that at the end of the fiscal year any available general fund appropriations will be used to cure that account

So essentially comes out of any additional written underspend in other parts or additional right revenue above projections correct

We we to add to that we do get reimbursement for some of the claims And then we use that and whatever's doesn't get reimbursed in that fiscal year. We try to cure it with an unused general fund appropriate budgeted amounts

So we expect this amount to moderate a little by the end of the fiscal year. Yes

For

I guess the next page 24 enterprise funds for water funds and no, this is not necessarily a finance question, but

right the additional

allocation 38,200 for purchase of a diesel diesel compressor diesel compressor equipment for water operations i know sean is always looking for cleaner technology uh and non-emitting and non-polluting technologies uh i hope that we're looking for that there if those technologies are available uh we'll encourage take this moment sean you don't have to come down but we'll encourage our staff right if there are technologies that are cleaner non diesel non fossil fuel to look at those technologies integrate those to the extent possible into the budget and into our

purchasing processes next note on page 33 I think this is 33

General fund expenditures

There's the chart there the table at the top general fund expenditures debt service is showing Three percent for year to date for budget I'm just I don't know if this is just a matter of timing or if there's another explanation for why that's below 50 well below 50

Yes, it is timing. There are some debt service payments that aren't due until the end of the fiscal year

So that's what the Motorola in particular, we have a payment that's due in June.

So we're expecting to hit budget, pretty much come in at budget by the end of the year.

Correct.

And then, yeah, my only other comment is back to the catastrophic event reserve. I think for future staff reports and analyses for this, if we can include the $3 million in working capital reserves to be part of the calculation and the analysis for our meeting the 50% goal for a catastrophic event, I think that'd be helpful and more accurate representation of where we are in terms of available funds for catastrophic events. And that's all I have. I'm happy to move, make the motion to adopt staff recommendation on this,

authorizing the $500,000 to grow the catastrophic

event reserve and I think direction for staff to look at that for next year's budget to grow is clear right

yes

so I made a motion if there's

I'm second if council

is open to that okay

so seconded by the mayor and

we take a vote

approved unanimously

Mr. Mayor so just for

Clarification we want to make sure that we are noting we understand if there's an opportunity for us to increase Catastrophic fund at the closure of a fiscal year Then we could bring back a staff report doing so if there's additional funds So we are noting that we understand that that's the direction

Yes, thank you

The next item that was pulled was item 3d

Was that by councilmember just just wants to have to give a quick reasoning of why

it's being pulled and the premise behind it thank you mr mayor members of the council i'll take that

one thank you as noted in the staff report and for i guess only two of you were here at the time that

this was placed onto the ballot there were a there the proponents for this particular ballot measure

were health care workers represented by seiu this happened in the late summer of 2022 brought forward an initiative that did qualify for the ballot and at that point the City Council had two options either to adopt the initiative via ordinance or to place it onto the ballot. The Council voted 2-1 to adopt the ordinance. That action was challenged by the opponents

to this particular ballot measure. The Council, after receiving the lawsuit, ordered the City

Attorney's Office not to take a position with regard to the matter and consequently

a court order was issued to place the matter onto the ballot for this November, November 2024.

Fast forward to now, in the staff report, the proponents of the health care measure asked that it be removed from the ballot. And in addition to that, beginning January 1st, 2024, the measure was actually superseded by state law, which means that it was rendered moot.

that in

vernacular means that even if it were to go into the ballot and be approved by voters it would immediately be rendered useless because state law would take precedence over it. Under those circumstances my recommendation is simply to remove it from the ballot and to move forward both the opponents and the proponents would be notified of the city council's actions.

Happy to answer any questions. Thank you Carl. Any questions council member Ngo?

Any one else?

Questions, but I'll make the motion to remove the initiative measure from the November ballot.

I'll second it.

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

Approved unanimously.

Thank you.

And then the last item that was pulled was item 3E by Mayor Potemwine.

Would you like a quick, or do you have a question?

Just questions. Sean, is this Sean's item? Yeah. And Martha, sorry.

It's more on the lifeline. Well, one, I'm in full support of this and appreciate the water district, the San Diego Valley Municipal Water District for offering grant funds for the city to be able to utilize, particularly for this purpose. As Martha makes her way up, I just wanted to ask her to just give a little bit more background on our Lifeline Water Rate Assistance Program and what the current funding source is other than this potential grant funding, what other funds go into supporting the Lifeline Program.

So, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, I will turn it over to Martha in just a second. I wanted to just remind Council, this item is being brought back at the request of Council to look for additional funds to help any potential residents

that are struggling to pay their utility bills.

to find some funds that could potentially be utilized to offset their bills. So that's why this item is brought before you. But Martha could answer the questions about the Lifeline program.

Thank you.

So good evening, Mayor and Mayor Potem, Council Members.

Martha Garcia.

So I just want to touch a little bit about this $50,000. Thank you to our Public Works Director. We're going to be able to help 634 households. And each household is going to be getting a credit or reduction in their bill of $78.86. Our lifeline program gives the same 634 households a $12 credit, $12 a month credit. We are going to be bringing back to council the first quarter of next fiscal year after a whole 12 months have been Revenue has been collected. We will be bringing back to council a revamp of the program so that we're hoping that we've collected enough so that we can give a bigger discount to our our a lifeline of members

Thank you appreciate that that was gonna be my question right when I don't know if you know offhand how long rare current

one one question on the

City's existing lifeline bill discount program right $12 a month Do you know when that $12 a month was set or how long ago?

It's right around when I started here. So maybe around 2020 there was a different dollar amount before I got here

A Lor dollar amount or it was a little bit higher. Okay, and so that's just a

Result of how much funding we have available to it depends on how much we receive from late fees and our interest income

alright, and then so

It sounds like we're already staff is already gonna do this analysis and make some adjustments to the program right as our rates and bills are expected to go up in the coming years. It would be, I would like to see if where we can and where funding is available to the extent funding is available, see how we can increase the amount of assistance for bill discounts or bill assistance from the current existing $12 amount because the percentage of the bill that that makes up shrinks as the bill goes up as we're expecting. So it sounds like we're already doing that. I applaud that and hope that we can continue.

Center. Council Member we're giving it as it sounds like it's a bill forgiveness program or so this is

sorry this is a Sean I go public works director so this is a one-time credit this is you know one of those things where we got the grant this is the dollar method that San Gabriel gave to us and so based off the number of accounts divided by the number that the volume or the for the amount that we got that's kind of it's a one-time credit so there's no other way that we can

disperse that accordingly. So we is there is that number of counts for this

with $50,000 from the watershed that would be dispersed is that the number the total number of accounts that are in arrears currently or how did that how do

we get to that? That's a different program that this is specifically for the lifeline program the arrears is a different program which Public Works and finance are working together to apply for additional funding for the second round of arrears so we're looking to get additional funding from the state to help with those that are behind on payments this specifically is for the lifeline program the 50,000 is specifically the lifeline so so what's

going to happen with these fifty thousand dollars if they're up to date with their payments they're just going to get a credit they'll see a credit And they'll just pay less the following their following bill and if they have a bill or they have a balance to they'll They'll have a reduction on their balance, too

So mr. Mayor members the City Council if I may the lifeline program is income eligible Residents and so for this program we're targeting the lifeline Program participants, so that's what the intention is here not not not to assist anybody who's in rears, not to say that they could be eligible and we'll make sure that they are aware of the program, but this specific allocation is looking to help the ones that are income eligible on the Lifeline program.

So I understand. The water utility accounts that are targeted

for this specific $50,000 grant

are ones that are existing in our Lifeline program, right?

That's correct.

But if someone were to apply for Lifeline in the coming weeks, they would not receive this? What's the cutoff date for accounts that are eligible?

So we don't have a committed number to the 600. So when the 50,000 does come in, at that point, we will take a tally of how many we have,

and then we will divide it, yes.

Is there any, I don't know if this is a legal issue, or is there any reason why we couldn't apply that $50,000 to just to increase the amount of the Lifeline, right, or existing bill, like bi-monthly bill subsidy program, right? You could apply, could we not apply the $50,000 to give everyone $20 off their bill instead of $12 for the next year, or add that just to the lifeline program the existing lifeline program as opposed to one-time

bill assistance um do we is it a program you can answer well it's it would be the same in in for accounting for us it would be the same because you're talking about 80 80 dollars per account so you're talking four months that they would be getting a discount so it's just an accounting On a spreadsheet that we'd have to maintain so giving them the since they're eligible giving them the 80 up front Then they would be able to manage but I'm not sure if there's a program issue to it

I think the hardest part with this is that if we tried to spread this out over the year We don't know how many accounts we're going to have today versus Six months from now. So this is applying to what we know today And so again, these are going to target the same Lifeline program members that already are paying that Lor rate. This is going to get them those additional funds. So and then on top of that, if they're behind on payment, then we're applying for additional funding to help those that are behind on payments as well.

Okay, no, I understand. I'm just trying to...

I think the hardest part is going to be the accounting side. Yeah, because we can't predict who's going to be a part of the program in six months. someone could apply today and or ten people could apply today and now we're gonna have a different accounting so we're basing this based off of the numbers that we know today which is the 634 and taking that dollar amount and dispersing those monies to those individuals but again if ten people apply then that number could shrink and so it's hard to say that we can commit to giving a reduction of we'll say $14 $20 a month consistently

I understand.

I'm in total support of this. Again, I appreciate the Water District for making these funds available and allowing this use for those funds. My question for, or my, I guess, for thought, food for thought, working for my employer, Edison,

The setup for their low-income rate assistance programs is similar in terms of the monthly set bill discount for electricity users. And then there's a one there through a nonprofit, right? They offer one-time bill assistance like what we're doing with this grant funding to eligible customers. but they have to go through an application process right through United

Way where there are some grantees to make the application to apply for I think

it's $100 or $200 one-time bill assistance within 12 months to be able to get a bill essentially a bill credit or get to pay part of their bill or a portion of that bill and that credit take carries forward if that doesn't if it covers more than their existing bill so very similar setup here I just food for thought for us if we come into additional grant funding like this to

look at what that might look like to have like I'm just worried that we're I'm

not worried but I know that the people on our those that are on our lifeline program are in need but I think there are also people not on our lifeline program that might need one-time assistance on their bills as well that would not be eligible given the current construct of this grant fund distribution. So if we can be creative and just start thinking about how we can look at other ways to distribute funds that might be one time for assistance for those in need, I know that there are not just people on the Lifeline eligible and those who have already qualified for our Lifeline water rate program that at certain times of their lives and during the year will probably need some bill assistance if we can look at ways to creatively I know it's harder and requires a lot more administrative work to do that But if there are other avenues to in a different structure to consider at least For making assistance available for those in need one time with grant funding like this

Let's let's explore those and we into your point. We try to do that

So Martha and her team have done a great job on putting that some of that information on their website to give residents the ability to apply for their own arrears monies so again her team does a great job trying to push that information out there but as we find different grants we can definitely evaluate that great no

thank you and goes to the other point for I know the legislature has on and off looked at opportunities to allow I know that for public entities and most of the water utilities in California are public entities there are constitutional restrictions in terms of what funding is alLod to be used to offset utility bills like water bills, gift of public funds and restrictions on that.

And so if we can look at, I guess this is direction to, I know we have grant writing

and lobbying firm in Sacramento also looking out for this, but Carl and staff, as these deliberations continue in the legislature in terms of what a source of funding potentially and what a program from the state might look like for low-income assistance for water utility users, if we can find ways to support and encourage those discussions at the state level too, since that's probably where the source of a lot of this funding for one-time assistance and other assistance ongoing, for those in need for water utility and other utility services, it's probably going to happen. Let's just keep an eye out for where we can help move the needle on some of these conversations and see how we can provide additional support for residents that are in need into the future. And then just to confirm, our Lifeline program is only for residential accounts. Are there business accounts that are eligible for Lifeline?

It's only residential. That's all.

I'll move staff recommendation on this in terms of accepting the grant and distributing the grant funds in this way. But I'll just ask staff, hopefully that was clear in terms of let's see how we can be created for opportunities to utilize these funds in different ways going into the future I think

would be great to explore that's my motion no second seconded by councilmember go if we

could please take a vote unanimously thank you so we'll go ahead and jump we already did item 5a

city communications there is a resolution that I requested to declare the month of February is National Black History Month.

And I will just speak to this very briefly. Aside from being mayor, I also am a teacher. And next year, actually, I will be an ethnic studies teacher. If you're not aware, our state passed a law requiring public schools to start offering a required ethnic studies course, which is, in my opinion, a good thing. But part of that is being able to understand the diverse communities that exist not just within California, but throughout our country and the world. And so keeping in line with that spirit, I ask that we approve and request that we declare the month of February, Black History Month in Monterey Park, and honor the history and the people

and the contributions of our black community in our country.

And I'll ask for your support. Any questions or comments?

Will the mayor move?

Okay, I will move then.

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

Approved unanimously.

Thank you.

And so we'll go ahead and do council communications. We'll start with Councilmember Lo. Sure

Thank you, mr. Mayor. No first I want to begin by just thanking the community who everyone who turned out for our vigil on the 21st on during the anniversary of the mass shooting and although the rainy night, but nonetheless

it was wonderful to see so many people come out to remember and to

just continue to demonstrate their support for our community and you know what I said was that you know it was moving as we remember but you know segue into the following weekend it was also great to see that same support translate into the enormously high turnout for a Lunar New Year festival and again they just I think as my colleagues have said earlier this evening and throughout this past year. I think there's just been an incredible support for our programming by residents who want to just be out with their community and their friends, you know, from Lunar New Year to Cherry Blossom to Earth Day and Cinco de Mayo. And so again, just thank you very much, community, for believing in Monterey Park and for supporting this community. Also, I want to just thank everyone who who participated in our strategic planning meeting. It was a very productive conversation. For me, this will be my fifth strategic planning meeting, and I will say that one can feel the momentum of progress from the past few years, and I just believe that good things are ahead of us. And then lastly, I want to take the opportunity,

and I'm sure some of my colleagues,

to thank Mayor Sanchez, because I know this is your final meeting as our mayor, and I want to just thank you for your administration. Certainly I know around this time a year ago, especially during the shooting, just when we had the Passover, I just want to thank you for continuing the leadership as we were dealing with the aftermath of the mass shooting.

So that's it for me. Thank you, Council Member Lo. Council Member Yu?

Wow, yes. Mayor, this is your last meeting.

Wow. We will miss you. We will miss you.

And I'm sure this is not an easy year, but you did a very good job.

So I'm proud of you, proud of your learning curve.

And I wanted to touch back the mastering, the visuals.

I wanted to appreciate our staff for your hard work in planning this event for a few months.

And it's not easy to make determinations on our guest list and speaking arrangements. So it had a good turnout, and it's a very clear message from our community that, yes, we're healing well, and yes, we're moving on.

So thank you all for joining us.

And last Saturday, we had the strategic meeting that I want to say we had a very productive meeting. The voice that we heard the most.

we can concur, speed up, and get a lot more done for our people. And thank you all. We look forward to a more productive year to come. And I wanted to touch base with the 27 and 28. We had the Lunar New Year Festival. I'm glad to see everyone's coming out. We have the biggest Chinese New Year festival. I think not this time, but I think we make history previously. I heard we have about 200,000 people, but I don't know last year, I don't know the number for this time. Actually, I wanted to say from our public speaker, I parked at the same parking spot that the speaker at the public speaking.

So, I don't know what happened that the no parking sign has been removed for whatever reason. So I was so excited to park at the same spot. And luckily, I didn't get tickets because I have a special permit set put in front of a car. But I was so confused when I find a parking spot. I asked people around, can I park here? Can I park here? And they said yes. So I wanted to say that I hope we can waive the parking fee for the people,

especially those who are underserved populations and they're excited to join our Chinese New Year. So I wanted to give some feedback. So that's all for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Yu. Council Member Ngo?

Yeah, so I would start with saying, wow, it was a very emotional past couple of weeks since our last council meeting.

Emotion in the sense that it was a lot of things that we brought back from the past,

but also I'll start off with just a couple of dates. So the 18th, the day after council meeting, we had a gun violence restraining order training here in this chamber. And you can hear not only professional experts but also input from our community in terms of how devastating gun violence can be to any community. Then, you know, you flip that two days later, we were out at Bella Vista Park. We opened another new park, so we were all cheering and happy, and the kids were happy at least before the rain got there. then you move that forward and I attended a well actually all of us we attended the memorial we first had the round table at the library then the memorial outside our city hall

so again

thank you to our staff for organizing the events the prevailing rain the weather we did an awesome job

letting the public know

thanking our community for being here for us

for the last year

and passing on the message that we are healing, we are recovering, and we are moving forward. We will continue to remember those we lost, but as a community, we are moving forward to go on with life.

Then a couple of days later, we say goodbye to Chief Howling. On to greener pastures, or at least he thinks it's greener pastures. but in any case we're happy for them

much bigger city more more

more impact to that community in Santa Monica and then I attended the Monterey Park Hope Resiliency Trauma Victims Training which we had some staff from our libraries as well as from the city attended that event so another kind of emotional training to kind of get through the day and of course the 26th, 27th we had our Lunar New Year festival outside and just that first day was just amazing turnout. I actually think the 200,000 number quoted is a low number. You take the two day average I think we're probably 250, 300 in terms of that number so that was an epic number in a sense. No one in the community anywhere in Southern California has done a Lunar New Year event that has more than 200,000 people, and we did it in two days. So kudos to our staff for sending it up and getting it organized, getting the event going, and then also cleaning up so that the next morning it was clear, no complaints about traffic. Happy to report that we spent seven hours on a Saturday afternoon with staff leaders. I'm just going to relay three words that came out of that seven hour meeting Results, we did a lot of results for last year Direction, we basically focused on direction going forward this year Next year for the oncoming three years And also one thing that I haven't seen in a long time in this city Was the unity and the group that kind of got together and said this is what it takes to get our city moving forward to make the best for our city so thank you for staff for putting it together and organizing and now we've

got a three-year plan last night I actually attended another celebration

and this is the Golden Age Manor so I had the privilege of watching senior citizens dance do Tai Chi and then somewhere in the middle they had five and six-year-olds do competitive dancing. So it was kind of like, wow, you got the little kids and you got the seniors dancing,

enjoying celebrating Lunar New Year.

So that's a lot to report, but hopefully, for those who are celebrating Lunar New Year,

it's coming this weekend. Have a safe holiday.

For those who are not really celebrating, enjoy the weekend because there will be a lot of celebration going around.

Thank you.

Thank you council member go mayor for 10 one. Thank you attended many of the same events as the other council members

I just want to express my appreciation to staff for all the work that they put into a lot of these events Including the roundtable and the vigil we had for the anniversary of the shooting Great attendance and great turnout. I think from the community and Really appreciate all the work Especially in the background that the staff had to do to help organize everything and went off without a hitch in terms of the logistics and everything else I THINK A FEW OF US WERE ALSO AT THE HOMELESS COUNT THAT HAPPENED ON JANUARY 23. I APPRECIATE ALL THE COMMUNITY MEMBERS THAT CAME OUT TO SUPPORT IN THE COUNT. THIS COUNT IS VERY IMPORTANT IN TERMS OF HELPING TO ALLOCATE RESOURCES AND HELPING US TO JUST UNDERSTAND WHAT THE SITUATION IS HERE IN THE CITY OF MAURI PARK IN OUR COMMUNITY IN TERMS OF HOMELESSNESS AND WHAT WE NEED TO DO AND HOW EFFECTIVE OR NOT. some of our efforts have been over the last few years knowing that it's just a point in time count and it's very difficult to count right a population that doesn't have homes and isn't stable in that sense but the data is helpful and once looking forward to the count for the region coming out in the coming months and helping to assess what else we need to continue to do in the months and years to come also join the Boys and Girls Club for their Youth of the Year

and I think we have a lot of people here. Celebration. A week or two weeks ago.

Know that they are doing a lot with the youth and families in our community and appreciate all that they're doing. Attended with the other Council members the Lunar New York Festival here. Again great turnout and I think a lot of hunger among the community and the wider region for opportunities like that to celebrate. in in the community and celebrate with each other and then just again kudos to staff and fellow council members for spending six or seven hours together this past Saturday to really just come together provide a vision for the community and for the city in the year and few years ahead and thank you to all those who joined us in that effort and I know that we the council and collectively the leadership team for the city have set very ambitious goals for not only this year but in the years to come there's a lot of work to do and i know that plan is coming back to the council for adoption uh in the coming weeks or months uh i look forward to that and look forward to continuing to partner with and work with closely with the staff here at city hall and the community and realizing all the the goals and the dreams that we put out uh during that session uh this past and we're going to be able to do that on Saturday so looking forward to a productive year ahead and wish everyone will walk in thank you to as the other council members have have mentioned thank you to our mayor Jose Sanchez this last full meeting as mayor for our city appreciate all his work especially over the past year plus in helping lead the community in the aftermath of the shooting as well but also want to wish everyone so thank you to mayor Sanchez I I know there will be opportunity to provide appreciation during the next meeting that we have. But thank you for him and to his family as well for lending him to us for several hours a week at least. So appreciate their patience with us as well. And I'll just end with to wish everyone

a happy Lunar New Year.

I think this Saturday or Sunday is actual Lunar New Year. so wish everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year, lunar new year, as we welcome the year of the dragon. Thanks so much. Thank you so much. I also attended some of the same events. I just want to talk about the roundtable discussion that we had and the vigil, which was very inspiring. I wanted to thank staff for all the amazing hard work that was put into putting this together. It was very well attended and very inspiring to see many people coming together, especially at the roundtable, not just to discuss what we've accomplished and done in the last year, but also being able to hear people that they want to do something to continue to prevent this issue of gun violence that is plaguing our communities. I also wanted to talk a little bit about our strategic plan meeting that we had. It was very inspiring to be in a room with all of our city leaders and very inspiring to hear and listen to how aligned, but also how hard we want to work in the coming years to be able to move our city forward. A lot of I'm very inspired by a lot of the work that came out of that meeting and a lot of the work that will continue to come after that in the coming years and how much our city will progress and how different it will look, I think, as well. I'm very inspired, especially because I have kids and this is the city that I chose to raise them. So it's a very personal thing for me as well to be able to be in a city that works so closely together and is working closely together to make the city so much better. I know this is my last full meeting, and I just wanted to thank staff and the council as well. It's been a very amazing year, a very trying year as well. I wanted to especially, and I know we'll have moments for that later, but just in case my wife is watching, I wanted to thank my wife more than anyone who's been extremely patient and an amazing woman and is at home right now with our daughters and they're waiting up for me before they go to bed. but I never thought that I would be mayor only four days after probably one of the worst tragedies in Monterey Park history and in L.A. County history. And it's hard to reflect on it because there's so many different emotions. And it made me appreciate our police department, our fire department in different ways, in ways that I had never appreciated them before. and I think that's same for

community members

we are very lucky to have such an amazing police department and fire department and first responders who not just on that day

helped preserve life

but helped keep our community safe so very appreciative of that I think my wife would hurt me if I didn't mention that because she's a very big fan of our police department and I think when she talks about our city that's probably the very first thing she talks about um i also wanted to um it made me really appreciate our parks and library um and some maybe because i wasn't a parent before but made me appreciate that you do a lot of amazing programming for our families um and makes me not have to work so hard uh to come up with things to do for my kids because we're already doing so much in our city so very appreciative of the library and parks and rec for everything you do and of course our Public Works Department who keeps us keeps our streets great fixes our potholes is working really really hard to update our infrastructure which is so important so I really appreciate Sean all the amazing

work that you're doing and of course you know the mr. on of the the work that

your department is doing with environmental sustainability I just wanted to thank you so much. I think that there's so many pressing issues that are impacting our community, but I think the one that really keeps me up at night is our environment. I want to make sure that we're leaving a place for our children that they can be proud of. So I think that part of my involvement in the city, because it does take me away from my family, is that I hope that one day I can tell my daughters when they're older that I did something to try to help our environment and help make this community a much better place for them so that the sacrifice that I'm doing here today would have been worth it. So thank you so much for everything that you do. And I know that our work is not over yet. We are still going to continue to do work together, not just in the coming year, but in the many, many years to come. So thank you so much. HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR TO OUR COMMUNITY AS WE CONTINUE TO CELEBRATE THE LUNAR NEW YEAR. AND IF THERE AREN'T ANY OTHER COMMENTS FROM COUNCIL, WE'LL GO AHEAD AND END OUR COUNCIL MEETING AT 8.37 PM.

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

AND BE SAFE DRIVING HOME. IT IS RAINING OUT THERE HERE, TORRENTIAL RAIN, SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL AND SAFE.