City Council Meeting — June 5, 2024

Recording in progress.

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All right.

Welcome to our meeting, our city council meeting.

We will call the meeting to order.

If you can, the flags are already here.

If you can join me in standing and I'll lead the flag.

Right hand over your heart. Ready, begin.

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

and to the Republic of the British Sands, one nation, another God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for our all.

Thank you. We'll also start the meeting off with our land acknowledgement. We'd like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was once known as the Tovan Gar, the home of the Gabalino Tongva people. We show our respect to the Gabalino Tongva people as well as all indigenous people, past, present, and future, and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. Commit to uplifting the Gabalino Tongva people, invite you to acknowledge the history, and join us in caring for this land.

So call to order, flag salute, roll call. City Clerk.

Council Member Sanchez.

Present. Council Member Lo. Present. Council Member Yu. Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Ngo.

Present. Mayor Wong. Present. We have a quorum. Thank you.

Any agenda additions, deletions, changes, adoptions?

None from the city manager or the city attorney's office, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Any changes? No? All right.

We'll move to public communications.

City clerk.

First speaker is Nathaniel Hernandez of the Boys and Girls Club of West Aguero Valley.

Good evening, esteemed City Council members.

My name is Nathaniel Hernandez, and I have been a member of the Boys and Girls Club for around six years. On behalf of our team-led initiative, Think, Learn, Create Change, we are excited to be here tonight to share with you some of the rich history of our club in this community and to formally request that the city of Monterey Park to pass a resolution to formally recognize National Boys and Girls Club Week here in the city of Monterey Park.

Our Boys and Girls Club at 328 South Ramona Avenue, Monterey Park,

has been serving this community for over 52 years and was established in 1972.

Since its establishment, the club has been able to achieve some remarkable things, such as the following.

Over 175,000 registered club members,

over $100 million in services provided,

over 10 million meals served, over 65,000 after-school pickups,

and over 98% of club members graduate with a plan for the future.

We are here tonight to formally request that the city pass a resolution

recognizing National Boys and Girls Club Week. National Boys and Girls Club Week is from June 24th to June 28th,

and we have some great things planned for our club youth and our community.

National Boys and Girls Club Week is focused on STEAM and teen mental health.

So on June 24th, we'll begin with the history of the Boys and Girls Club.

We'll go over all of the club's history and past. On June 25th, we'll take pride in all of our Boys and Girls Clubs and celebrate by wearing Boys and Girls Club apparel and having vents. On June 26th, we'll focus on STEM, a.k.a. STEAM, by doing different activities. Focus on that since it is our feature. On June 27th, we'll focus on the mental health of our community in Mental Health Day. And on June 28th, Total Teen Takeover Day, a.k.a. our celebration for teens. We have been so blessed to have the support of our city council over the years and the partnership we have formed with the city of Monterey Park.

It's left an invaluable impact in our community.

We ask that you please support our resolution and continue to do whatever it takes

to support our youth, families, and Boys and Girls Club home. Thank you very much.

Are there other speakers on the side?

Okay.

Oh, yeah, you can take a seat. Feel free.

Thank you so much for coming.

Next speaker.

Next speaker.

Mayor, can I say something while they're still sitting out? I wanted to thank you so much for coming today and sharing about your National Boys and Girls Week. and I'd like to request that staff bring back maybe at our next council meeting a resolution to support you guys. And please invite us to your events. I think many of us would love to attend. And I commend you for the civic engagement that you're doing here today, but also within the Monterey Park community.

So thank you so much.

I don't know if the Boys and Girls Club has draft language for a resolution that they could share with staff.

Maybe that's something. Yeah, cool. Perfect.

I would join Council Member Sanchez in requesting staff come back for the June 18th meeting for the resolution.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Next speaker is Camilla Chan of the Girl Scouts.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Camilla Chan, and I just graduated from Mark Apple High School and will be attending UCLA in the fall.

I'm also a Girl Scout who has completed her Gold Award project, the highest community service project a Girl Scout can earn.

As a result of the increase in Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, my project revolves around the idea of building more united communities by encouraging others to explore and respect cultural differences. There were three parts to my project.

First, I hosted workshops in two YMCA branches, teaching 500 students about different Asian cultures through interactive activities.

Then, I went to Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Little Saigon, Little India, and historic Filipino town to vlog my journey of trying new cuisines and describing the history and religion each culture entails. My YouTube channel with these vlogs now has over 2,500 views.

And the last part of my project was publishing a children's book titled Hidden Jewels of Asia.

I have fundraised over $5,000 and distributed and presented 700 copies of my book to Girl Scout troops, libraries, and schools across the nation.

In fact, this January, I flew to New York to host a workshop in partnership with Jackson Heights Queens Library.

This two-year project has undoubtedly had its fair share of challenges. Nonetheless, I was able to overcome them thanks to the massive support I received. Even when I was running around promoting my book with a 94 cents prototype I got from Staples,

friends, families, and organizations were more than generous in providing a helping hand. I want to take this time to thank Treasurer Amy Lee and Councilmember Henry Lo

for their support in my project. Without you, my project would not be able to have as much coverage as it has today. Thank you for having faith in my project, advocating for my cause, and like the Girl Scout motto, making the world a better place. Lastly, to everyone in the audience, if you are interested in my project, you can visit my website, hiddenjewelsofasia.com, or if you would like to read my book, it is currently accessible and ready to check out at Brueggemeyer Library. Thank you, Ms. Amy Lee and Mr. Henry Lo for your support again, and thank you, everyone, for your time.

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

Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff, and of course, residents of Monier Park. Joseph Leon, I am the city's representative on the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control Board. Just a quick update, there's no West Nile virus in Monier Park. We're all great here. It's a great city to live in all around. But we've had a lot of rain this year, and the mosquitoes breed in stale water. And then the mosquitoes hatch at the heat, and we're having a heat wave right now. So I'm going to urge everyone in the rest of the Binding Park to make sure that you get rid of any stale water you may have around your house. And I bought a little sample. This is the, I'll show you a couple of council members. This is a bottle cap from my water bottle. I don't know if you can see it on the camera. But when it's full of water, several hundred mosquitoes can breed here. so when you go walk around your house if you see anything like this with water just tap it and empty it out easy enough otherwise every summer I have people calling me residents there's so many mosquitoes in my yard well yes because you don't take the water they breathe in the water so just tap the water out and that's it easy done but you know I know people are busy don't have time for it but just keep in mind it's like I'm here today because when mosquitoes start hatching come around June in July, and they start calling in the council and the city staff saying, how come there's so many mosquitoes biting us? And I've had council members tell me before, well, look, I have so many mosquitoes. Because you have stale water around your house. You get rid of the stale water. The fortunate thing, all these mosquitoes in the past, none of them have been infectious. So they're not dangerous. They're just a nuisance, at least here in Monarch Park. And other cities have other issues. But Monarch Park had been a nuisance. But still, you want to get rid of the mosquitoes when you can. So that's the number one, is get rid of any stale water you have. Also, if you have neighbors that have pools, because I've had people tell me, well, my neighbor's pool is turning green. Yeah, that's really bad because, I mean, that mosquito is going to breed in your neighbor's pool. And it not only affects your neighbor and you, but it affects all the neighbors on the block because millions of mosquitoes are going to breed in that pool. They're going to not just stay there. They're going to go out. So if you have any neighbors that this pool is getting dirty, getting a little green there, you know, especially if they want to enjoy the pool anyway in the summertime. so make sure you ask them, hey, can you clean that pool or drain it if you're not going to use it? And the mosquito board, and we pay for this as taxpayers every year, so it's a service that we already pay for, so might as well use it. If there's any questions, you call them. Like if you want to remain anonymous, you don't want to get in trouble with your neighbor next door, you call the mosquito board and say, hey, you know, a neighbor down the street, the pool is really green, I'm a little concerned. And they'll come and they'll knock on a door on your neighbor's house. I'll say, by the way, do you have a pool in the back? Is it clean? And then they'll kind of question them and kind of push them along to get the pool clean. And the district has, the district, if it doesn't get done, the district will then go to the city. It will go to code enforcement because it is a health danger. And if it doesn't get done, then the district will come in and do the cleaning. But they will charge, they will charge the owner of the property. So it's best to get it done. And I know that with the district's history, almost 99% of the owners that get approached by district get taken care of. As long as it comes to their attention, they take care of it. So don't leave the water. Again, don't leave any water laying around and clean it. And if you have any pools or any neighbors, you know, you call the district. And let me give you the quick number, 626-814-9466. That's district's number. And they have scientists. And, I mean, again, we pay for this. as residents of Monterey Park. Use the services. And only for mosquitoes. They have scientists there full time. If you see any little insect in your home that you don't know what it is, take a picture and call them. They'll tell you what it is. I mean, we deal with mosquitoes, basically, but, you know, they can help you with other things. I mean, if you have black flies, rodents, we don't deal with that, but you can... You can contact the office and go directly to the correct department. Thank you very much. Any questions I'll be happy to answer. Perfectly timed. May I ask one question. Can you repeat that number again for those who didn't pick it up the first time? Yeah sorry I was a little rushed I saw the clock ticking here 626 814-9466 and the website is sgvmosquito.org. All right. And if we can have staff follow up to make sure we're

as mosquito season gets underway in summer, if we can make sure we're putting those kind of tips into the cascades and social media,

I think that'd be great to share.

Yeah, actually, I mentioned, Mayor, there's going to be a mosquito awareness week

is June 16th to June 22nd.

So there'll be out more stuff online about it. The city may want to contact the mosquito board

to get something maybe on the site, on our city site.

Our city manager can contact me if you like, but there is going to be a mosquito awareness week

coming up in about two weeks. Because now is the time of the season because of the heat. They're going to start coming out. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Next speaker.

Next speaker, William Tang.

Hi, Council members and mayor, city attorney and city managers. This is William Tang. I live in Monopark for 45 years, since 1979, right next to Judy Chu's house. we were teams before to get the marketplace going. This is about 25, 30 years ago. And it took a long time. And my issue today is I attend the meeting Monday with the plant commissioner, the recreation plant commissioner for the Barnes Park Tennis Court. We have three tennis courts all these years.

And now they've already took court one and court two and make it six pickleball. And now they're planning to make the third court for another four pickleball lines, make it ten pickleball.

The good thing for them is they can hold tournaments whenever they want. Once they put up the nets, kids, elders, we won't go inside and ask them to remove four tents. And let's have the court for one hour. So we are kind of expelled from Barnes Park. And I also noticed the neighbors,

when they see 10 pickleball calls, that's very noisy. They live across the street, light slippers,

different races, white, Asian, Hispanics, and most of them don't play pickleball. And the point I'm trying to make is pickleball,

it extended to 10 quarts.

Last two times, I walk around there a lot. I know a lot of pickleball people. And these people told me, even though my son plays pickleball, but not over there.

They said, fair is fair. You cannot take everybody's privilege.

We are taxpayers. You cannot take everything for pickleball only. Can we?

Turn around, tennis won't do the same to pickleball. When we need courts, we go to Regenero and pay for the courts, Santa Anita, and someplace else. So far, El Humber has so many parks. Only El Humber Park on Palm, they have five tennis courts. They make one, they make it three brand new pickleball. colorful, professional, not like rice on rice, pickleball rice on tennis rice, and stuff like that. I mean, once they hold tournament over the last time, I've seen the pickleball people, I mean the company, they have advertisement here to sell their product. I'm talking to my friend, this is not a city court. What are you guys doing here? Selling product. There's a lot of people playing pickleball because it's an easy game to play. No question. I don't blame people like pickleball. It's a good exercise. But you can do one in sequoia. Now they want two at the elder. And then they can do one in the rugby range, range park. And do one and make it three. Go sideways. You don't go two, two, two, two. It's so narrow. Somebody's going to get hurt sooner or later. And El Hambra only got three pick-up ball court. That's it. These people are invited to come play in Warner Park. They come play, have a good time. After that, do you think they spend money here? They go back home. And they spend their money in El Hambra, St. Gabriel. That's what they told me. They put their foot there.

I mean, I'm up. Thank you very much. And I hope you hear my concern. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Next speaker is Jane Lee.

Hello, everybody. My name is Jane Lee. I'm also part of the retirees that have been playing here at Barnes Park for tennis and pickball.

we've been playing as a group together about there's about we started with a group maybe about

20 to 30 of us pre-pandemic time after pandemic our group you know separated some stayed here some have gone to other courts that's closer to their homes so our group continues to stay here We have players as old as 80, 85 years old, as young as 60 years old. We've been playing together for many years. Our group has been a pro advocate for tennis. We play together side by side over here at Barnes Park with them. We don't have a problem so much with them, but we need to know that also tennis is very important to us as seniors who want to play the sport too.

We know that pickleball is the new sport. We know it's getting popular. It's out there. We know it is. But also tennis.

It's still a viable sport, especially to students. Even walking down here tonight, I do see people playing pickleball, but also tennis. Not too long ago, months ago, when we had our meeting with the commissioners, And they would mention, oh, there's about 100 of us waiting for the courts. So I would, you know, as a community person that lives in Monterey Park, would drive by and just check out what's going on with the pickleball.

Is there 100 people waiting for those courts? And I know the game of pickleball goes in and out. People go really fast.

But there was not 100 people out there waiting for the courts.

So here we are today. We just attended a meeting two days ago. There was 30, 30-plus letters sent as emails to our commissioners. All 30-plus letters were read at the meeting two days ago, along with many of our tennis groups that came out to support our cause. A vote was taken by the commissioners that were there present. a quorum was met, two to one vote. Now I ask myself, how did that happen? How did that happen with all these people giving their input, all the tennis players giving their input, all these emails, and yet there was a two to one vote? And no pickleball player is there to speak on their behalf, to support pickleball. You know why?

two of the commissioners play pickleball here at Porn's Park.

Two of them play. Of course they're going to go for pickleball because that's their game. So two to one vote.

Our group was so upset what happened that night two days ago. And I wrote to my council member, Yvonne.

I hope you received my letter, my concern. so you know I just firmly believe that as officers, as commissioners you have a duty to call you're here to meet the needs of your community you need to look at all the concerns I felt there was your own personal bias involved in there there is also a city plan that is

still in the works for looking at what's going to happen with the pickleball issue that we're having and yet this vote came forward. We're hoping that our distinguished leaders here would look at this matter

and see what's going on with our tennis community.

So thank you for hearing me, and I hope I was able to express my concern here.

Thank you.

No other speakers.

Thank you.

No, we appreciate all of our speakers.

I'm sorry.

Before I continue, is this item going to come forward to City Council? Was it heard in the commission, you said?

That is correct.

There was an item put in front of the Recreation and Parks Commission for Monday night's meeting. So we have our Director of Recreation here available to speak on the item further if you'd like. There's no action that we're taking right now. But I believe that the action that was being requested or being approved by the commissioners was to advise staff on looking at the commission was showing their support for the expansion of additional pickleball courts at both here at Barnes Park and at George Elder Park. so um at this point yes that that is what is is the community members are sharing is that the commission voted um there was only three members of the commission that were available for monday night's meeting uh i don't know if i missed anything else robert uh no yeah i think you

had pretty much everything but yeah just just to piggyback on what the city manager was saying uh the action item was basically for the commissioners to recommend that city staff consider adding additional pickleball courts, four courts at Barnes Park, and then also four additional courts at Barnes Park and eight courts at George Elder. So that's the action item that was passed, and so that goes to my department for consideration as to how we move forward or what happens from there.

If I may, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council, we often hear from our community members about important amenities and requests that they have for many, many, many of our parks from all kinds of items, dog parks, expansion of sports courts, basketball courts, pickleball courts, another swimming pool, lots of different requests. They know at one point there was interest in skate parks. And so based on the city council's direction, we have embarked on a parks master plan to help us to really identify and help us to prioritize these amenities. We know that these amenities are going to come with a price tag. And so I think our recreation staff has been encouraging community members to make sure that they're filling out the surveys. and when we have our community engagement meetings for our parks master plan we're inviting all community members to make sure that they're participating that's what we've been doing at this point i think some community members are excited enthusiastic about making sure that they're sharing their concerns about their amenities that they'd like to see

but if

based on council's direction to do the parks master plan we have been asking community members to really participate in that process before any other further decisions are made for expansion of amenities

and just to remind the public

we're still asking for

people to take up the master plan survey right?

yeah the survey will run through

around mid-July then we'll have an open house meeting that will actually be in the Cascades and they'll invite all of those folks that have been involved in the survey as well as anyone that hasn't taken the survey yet to an open house meeting that will be here at Barnes Park on July the 28th. So that's an opportunity where we start seeing some of the data from the survey and also gives folks an opportunity to start prioritizing some of those projects and really putting dollars you know to helping folks understand that we can't do all the projects and there's an exercise where you know community members will get a certain amount of dollars

and they really then to get to feel what it's like to be able to put those dollars to usage

and understand that we have to spread that out amongst all the community's needs and so really understand what's priority, not just for a few folks, but for the community as a whole.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for the update. Thank you.

First off, let me just say thank you to Mr. Tang and Ms. Lee for coming to council tonight and expressing your concerns. I want to make sure I fully understand this, Robert, because as far as I can remember, this discussion with tennis, pickleball, pickleball tennis, it's been going on for years, in particular the last two.

And there's kind of a mutual understanding

between the two groups who actually play at Barnes Park, cooperating, figuring out the time.

And from what I just heard from what the vote is

or the proposal, it's not that we're shutting down tennis of shutting down pickleball which

courts at a particular time of day or particular time of the week? So currently courts one and two

are priority for pickleball and then court three is priority for tennis. What the commissioner's vote was basically designed to do was to add additional pickleball lines to court three. There was no discussion as far as priority but the assumption would be that tennis would still have priority on tennis court three currently you're correct the groups work together uh they're still my office right is right next to the tennis court so i see lots of folks playing tennis both in the morning the group that's here um in the afternoon uh see lots of folks walking over young players or older players and then the pickleball courts on courts one and two um in the mornings monday wednesday fridays you'll see some of the folks that are here uh it's kind of

sharing court too so that they can still get they maybe they don't play an active game but they're

still rallying just warming up and that way the pickleball players can play as well so they do try to work together that way they're all getting the exercise that they're really out there to get and so so far it's it's been working well we definitely like i said we see lots of tennis players out there but we also see lots of pickleball folks the game moves rather quickly so you see folks rotate in. We do have a paddle system that enables folks to rotate in. Pickleball game usually, average game is about 20 minutes. And so it gives opportunity for lots of folks to

get some activity. Before Tim cuts us off, I know this item is not agendized on our agenda.

I know that there's a lot of conversation here around this. I will just default and would like

to make sure that we are pushing everyone who is advocating on this and other issues in terms of our parks facilities to our parks master plan that's what the process is for to help us prioritize a whole host of needs right beyond just pickleball versus tennis courts but a whole lot of other facilities and upgrades we all know we want in our community i think we're asking for the community's help to identify what those needs are for our neighborhoods and what we want to see our parks be in the future and what this facility should be and what we need to invest in and prioritize all those things right how do we approach this from a more holistic perspective instead of just this singular pickleball versus tennis here at barnes park courts um understanding that this is a discussion that happened monday at one of our commissions uh if the council wants to discuss the specific Barnes Park discussion, I guess, from the Recreation Commission. I think we can ask the staff to bring that back to us. But my preference would be to push everyone to express their opinions and feedback and their priorities at the Parks Master Plan and through that process and have this kind of continue that way.

But I don't know how. All right.

So that's, I hope that those who are here speaking

and those who were at the commission meeting on Monday and others who have opinions on our parks and want to see our parks do great things and continue to be great opportunities and venues for our community to participate in the Parks Master Plan. Robert's going to send this out after, through the email, and continue posting about it so that we can all retweet it. And the Boys and Girls Club, I'm sure, is going to express some interest as well in facilities. and the students and the members there and look forward to that process going forward over the next few months as well.

Thanks, Tim. Any other comment? We're good? Nope.

All right, thank you, everyone. We'll move on to staff communications. We'll start with the library.

All right. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council.

My name is L.V. Frazier, and I'm the Senior Children's Librarian at the Monterey Park Bruggemeier Library.

So I'm here to let all of you know about the awesome programs that we have coming up this month.

Next slide, please.

Thank you. All right, so the 2024 Summer Reading Program is upon us, and this year's theme, we have come up with community reads. So with this theme, we're focusing on the reality of the library as a vital community space, and also use this opportunity to both go out into the community and further create community within the walls of the library. So this addresses the library's strategic imperatives of engagement and relevance while centering our strategic goal of having our community members connect with information, ideas, and each other at the library. So in the summer reading program, readers of all ages can register online at montereypark.beanstack.org and log their time spent reading or listening to books for the chance to win books, raising Canes and Panda Express free meal coupons, grand prizes, and more. And all reading counts. So last year, over a million minutes were logged in our summer reading program across all ages, and this year we're looking to see even more. So the program runs until July 31st. And a big shout out to the Friends of the Library and the Library Foundation for sponsoring the summer reading program. Next slide, please. Thank you. So here are some highlights for events that we have for adults in June, including Trivia Night, print-to-screen views from L.A. movies on Fridays. We had our inaugural game night last night, which was a success. I saw people having fun in there. Tell Your Story Journaling, which are guided writing workshops designed to help community members record their personal stories. And a financial literacy series presented by the Chinatown Service Center, Saturdays at 1030. The library is also participating in One Book, One County, which is LA's largest book club, which brings readers together from throughout the county. and participating libraries are reading and discussing LA weather by Maria Amparo Escandon. And there will be a book discussion in July, on July 20th, and registration for the discussion starts June 10th, and the first 10 registrants will receive free copies of the book. So come see us at the reference desk. Next slide, please. All right, we also have programs for teens this summer. It includes college prep workshops with Chinatown Service Center on Fridays in June. We also have a life skills workshop series coming up in July, which you'll see on the right there. We have summer movies, Uno Tournament, and more. Next slide, please. Thank you. Here we have some of our children's programs that we're offering this summer, including Park Dance Party, where we bring music and movement to Barnes Park, Community Rights, which is our writing club for the summer, which happens every Thursday, and a collaborative engineering program and an art program for kids and families. We also have performers during the summer, thanks to the Friends of the Library. Our first performer will be Mad Science on the 19th, and we will also have Thor's Reptile Family coming June 26th, and those are at 3 p.m. at the Langley Center. We also have some pictures on the right over here from our summer reading kickoff event at Barnes Park Amphitheater from last Saturday. Shout out to Recreation for that, where families celebrated the beginning of summer reading by making tie-dye shirts, making bubbles with Bubble Mania, and enjoying popsicles for registering for the program. Next slide, please. And lastly, the library is happy to celebrate Pride Month. We had a great time at the fourth annual SGV Pride Festival providing pride-themed keychain giveaways. And we also have LGBT-themed books for checkout. We have book lists available for all ages, both on our online catalog and in person. And for events, we had a History of Pride presentation presented by PFLAG SGV API. and we have a Pride author talk with Marsha and Aidan Azumi coming up this Saturday, and they will discuss their book, Two Spirits, One Heart, A Mother, Her Transgender Son, and Their Journey to Love and Acceptance. All right. That's all I have for the library. Any questions? Thank you. That's a lot.

We'll start with Councilman Sanchez.

Wow.

Thank you so much for all of the amazing programming. I mean, I'm especially interested in the summer reading program. You said it's for adults as well?

Yes. Okay, great. You get a free book if you register for adults.

Oh, okay, very good.

So I know that I went on the website and tried looking for a book, and I was on the chat. I'm near finishing my current book, so I'm still hoping that someone will return if someone's

listening and has this book checked out, The Wager.

It's due back on June 15th, so I'm desperately waiting for it to be returned. And same thing with Poverty by America. I'm still waiting for that one to get returned as well so I can start reading those. But thank you so much and encourage all of our residents to enroll in the summer reading program, log in their pages, and take advantage of this great program.

Thank you so much for all that you do. Thank you.

Thank you. You know, I really am pleased to just see, especially with the summer season coming forward,

to have so many programming for our local youth. and I'd like to share, because I think it's really important when you come up to also share some feedback, but this actually is feedback from a friend who lives in neighboring East L.A., but comes to Monoparks frequently, and what this friend said was that she's already impressed that both our library and our parks and recreation seem to have almost every month, every week, something happening, and I think that is something that, you know, I take pride, and I imagine that probably a lot of people in neighboring communities, when they see the volume and the quality of what we're doing and I would imagine why we get a lot of interest from even people who live outside the city. Thank you.

I just want to say there are a lot of things

happening at the library,

so much that I thought I heard correctly that you have library events at Langley and at Barnes Park. So you need bigger space.

Yeah, Langley provides a bigger space for our performers because we can get hundreds of people there.

Yeah, it's better for the space.

Kudos for the programming. Thank you.

Thank you.

No, appreciate all the library does. I know it's great to see library staff and the team out at the Pride Festival we had out here this past weekend. Appreciate everything the staff does. Please pass our appreciation, our kudos, and looking forward to a very, very active summer for the library.

Awesome.

Thank you. Any other questions? If not, appreciate the update. Thank you. I look forward to the next one.

Next up for Staff Communication Police Department.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Temp, members of the City Council. Tonight, I'm Gus Jimenez, a captain with the Monterey Park Police Department. I'm here tonight to talk to you about our Neighborhood Watch Program and the upcoming George Elder Memorial Day. If I can have the first slide, please. So our Neighborhood Watch program is ran out of our Community Engagement Bureau. The Community Engagement Bureau sponsors many programs with the goal of enhancing the community's quality of life through crime prevention and safety education. So these programs include Business Watch meetings, Citizens Academies, Explorer Post number 300, as well as our Neighborhood Watch groups. Next slide, please. So currently in our community engagement bureau, it's ran by a lieutenant, Lieutenant Brenda Iglesias. We have PIOs and our social media coordinators are Sergeant Rudy Contreras and Sergeant Arlene Chaitis.

This is normally ran by one sergeant. We're in a transition period.

I'm pleased to announce that Sergeant Arlene Chaitis was promoted to lieutenant, so she'll be going back to patrol here shortly.

So it'll be one sergeant in that position. We also have our dedicated community service officers, Natalie Banks and Destiny Carmona, who run kind of the day-to-day stuff in the Community Engagement Bureau. Next slide, please. So a little bit about our Neighborhood Watch Program. I'm sure you all know about this, but for the residents that may not know, the Neighborhood Watch Program is a proactive approach to crime prevention. The program encourages our residents to work together to enhance community safety, report suspicious activities, and promote vigilance and shared responsibility among our neighbors. The Neighborhood Watch Program groups are formed by blocks. A captain is elected by the neighborhood group to represent his or her block, and a meeting is scheduled with the community service officers. The Neighborhood Watch meeting topics can range from usually the block captains will give us a direction on what they want us to talk about, but generally we talk about our safety-related issues, quality of life issues. We also discuss home security options as well as vacation house checks. Next slide, please. So how we're getting the word out about our Neighborhood Watch programs, we use different platforms to do that. We use our social media platform, our Instagram and Twitter. We use the city website. As a matter of fact, currently on the spotlight section, there is a promotion for our virtual Neighborhood Watch meeting that's going to be coming up, a Cascade newsletter, community events. We participate in all the community events. We usually have a tent out, and our community members will come by, and we share information about all of our programs. And we also collaborate with local schools and organizations within the city. Next slide, please. So just some quick stats so you can kind of see where we are and where we're moving to. So prior to COVID, we had about 125 registered residents and held about 18 Neighborhood Watch programs. And we also had a quarter of a year.

Residents, those numbers dropped, and we had no meetings during that time. In 2021, CEB introduced the virtual neighborhood watch meetings, and we completed 11 for that year with a total of 205 total participants. Out of a tragedy like COVID, we actually learned that our residents really enjoyed the virtual meetings. We got more people involved, and they felt safer and felt that we were able to communicate with them a lot better. Next slide, please.

So post-COVID-19, end of 2022, Community Engagement Bureau collaborated with our chief, Chief Weiss, and we started to have some town hall meetings, which were very successful. A lot of our council members attended those meetings as well. In 2023 through 2024, Community Engagement Bureau sponsored five town hall meetings and four neighborhood watch meetings. We also had, we have two scheduled meetings coming up this month, which I'll touch on on the next slide. As of 2024, Community Engagement Bureau has registered about 24 active residents, and we've held three business watch meetings. Next slide. So this is some information for all of you. We broke down our block captains based on districts. So District 1, we have six current block captains. District 2, we have eight. District 3, 2. District 4, we have one. And District 5, we have seven. Next slide, please. So these are some stats for the different districts.

We have three Neighborhood Watch Meeting events. We had, sorry, three Neighborhood Watch Meetings for District 2, one Neighborhood Watch Meeting for District 1. We have one upcoming meeting scheduled for June 5th in District 2.

And then this weekend, we actually have a block party in District 5, which our lieutenant and our sergeant and our community officers will be present at. So that will be coming up this weekend. Next slide, please. So how we are going to kind of bridge the gap. So we're promoting our community engagement through the virtual engagement sessions. Again, our citizens have expressed that they are very pleased with that way of us communicating. We've gone out and we've tried to reenact the captains that were active before. A lot of them don't feel comfortable, don't want people in their homes. And, you know, tragically, we did lose quite a few of our captains. Many of them passed away and some of them moved out of the area. So we are trying to find different ways to communicate with our public. And, again, the virtual communication, virtual community engagement sessions are being very popular.

And, again, starting in July, we're going to be starting our monthly virtual meetings to include police.

And we're going to bring in other city departments. so the citizens can ask questions in regards to their needs. So that ends this part of my presentation. If there's any questions about the Neighborhood Watch Program or Community Engagement Bureau, I'd be happy to answer those questions at this point.

Any questions from Council on Community Engagement? Thank you very much again for that presentation. So what I'm hearing then is that right now, the way to get more interest, that the virtual version of the Neighbor Watch Group is what seems to be your engaging community because of, I guess, like I said, post-pandemic. Is that the case?

Correct. And we're getting a lot more people involved. I mean, our last one we had about 205 people participate in our virtual meetings. We broke them up into different sessions, but total of 205.

And the stats from previous years for the year, we had about 100, 125.

So we had quite a few more people interested in the virtual version than us actually going out. We offer it. We still offer it.

If there's block captains in neighborhoods that still want us to go out, like the one this weekend, we will absolutely do that.

But we're also offering the virtual sessions. But what you're saying is that they have higher turnout or higher attendance.

Correct. We have had higher turnout.

Okay. Out of curiosity, and I know it's always a capacity issue, But do you think that we would get even more interest if we offered these virtual events in language, like Spanish or Chinese?

Do you think that would be an interest?

Right.

So what we do is when we receive their request, we also ask if there's any language requests. And we usually have translators available.

We have put out specific for Chinese or Spanish. And the turnout just wasn't that high.

We weren't able to reach out and impact as many people. So what we do is we just offer it to everyone. They email us with their requests, and we have people that are available to translate.

It takes us a little bit more longer to get through the meetings, but that way we can still attract more people, and we provide those services for our residents.

And you use Zoom, right? Is that the platform you use?

Zoom, correct.

That's only because I know with Zoom you can do audio translations, right?

Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Captain, for the initial list, how are we doing outreach to get people to inform people about the virtual block meetings and all the events that are happening around neighborhood lawn?

So we're using our social media, Instagram and Twitter. We're using our community events. We're also using the spotlight section on the city website that has the flyer.

It has a QR code where you can actually scan and register yourself.

and then word of mouth of our officers too. At briefing, our watch commanders brief up our officers and encourage them to promote our business watch programs, our neighborhood watch programs,

and they go out and actively try to recruit, especially if they go out and speak to a family

and they see that there's some security concerns. First of all, they'll address those concerns and then they'll tell them they can be a lot more proactive

and get some tips by participating in our neighborhood watch program. So it's just word of mouth and through our social media and then also through the Cascades and through our city website.

And we've been putting them in the email blasts out too?

I don't know that I saw the most current one in the e-blast. We'll work back to make sure that the e-newsletter has that information. But definitely I know we put out a news release for the virtual meetings.

No, it's great to hear and appreciate the pivot to virtual Neighbor Watch groups. I think that accomplishes most of the effort that's meant for the Neighbor Watch program to get information out and to do some engagement, answer questions from residents around how to be safer and what to watch out for. So I think that's great, and it's great to see that there's a desire for that

in the community.

On the business, I don't know if you have any, I'm curious update on any statistics or numbers on the Business Watch program and how many businesses are being engaged and things like that too.

Right, so we had two Business Watch meetings last month

where we spoke to businesses on Atlantic, South End, and the North End. We have one set up coming up, I believe, in a week or two for the Garvey Corridor. So what we're doing is anytime we have our businesses that are victimized, our Community Engagement Bureau gets a list from our Detective Bureau.

We actively reach out to them, and we visit their sites. We try to see if there's any security concerns. We address them immediately, but we also ask them to participate in our business watch program

where we can share more information and we get all the businesses kind of coming together if they don't already know their neighbors. And it just enhances the vigilance for the community and the businesses, especially on the Garvey corridor.

So we are actively having our business watch meetings. And like I said, I know we had two last week and we have one scheduled here in the next week or two for the Garvey corridor.

Great.

Are we looking to do virtual meetings for Business Watch too or are they already virtual?

So it's available if our businesses prefer that. we kind of leave it up to them. We can pivot either way.

If they prefer us to be there in person, we can. We also do virtual. We've noticed that when it's,

especially medical buildings or businesses that have multiple occupants,

sometimes it's easier to do Zoom and we'll present that to them. If it's a single business,

it's usually easier for us to just go in person and we just kind of have it

wherever they would like us to have it with the other neighboring businesses. So we can do it either way when we kind of let them dictate how they want us to present the information.

No, I appreciate we're flexible with that and trying to meet businesses and residents where they are.

So I really appreciate that.

I assume we're working with Joe and the economic development department, our team, to do some outreach to the business community around Business Watch and trying to grow that program.

Absolutely.

On the neighborhood watch group, one, I just want to offer my appreciation, express kudos to the police department for growing this. right we essentially went to zero during the pandemic and by my quick count I think we're I think Finn actually did a count but I think we're around 30 or so neighbor watch groups is that right right great progress and great to see that uh we're we're being proactive about this and trying to grow the neighbor watch program back and get residents engaged in community safety and public safety so really appreciate that um are we utilizing I know we're still doing Coffee with a Cop and Cookie with a Rookie kind of events and things like that. Do we ask people to sign up for things there, or do we have a list that we add people to if they want,

as they attend these events?

It would be great to just make sure we're not missing opportunities and making sure we're connecting people to Neighbor Watch and other programs that we have available for people who are showing up to those.

Right, yeah, again, that's just another way of us to have outreach. And we actively talk to a lot of businesses,

especially when we do businesses on Atlantic Square.

When we do businesses over at the Chick-fil-A,

we engage the businesses since we're there, and we promote our business watch.

And then our residents, as they come, to do cookie with a rookie or coffee with a cop,

we also promote our Neighborhood Watch program

and tell them how they can be more active in the community and how they can essentially help us do our job.

Perfect. Thanks so much. Really appreciate the update on Neighborhood Watch program. Look forward to more residents getting involved and the number of neighbor watch groups continuing to multiply.

Yeah. And then my last slide, if I can have that, please. On a somber note, this Sunday, June 9th, we'll be memorializing Officer George Elder. Officer Elder was shot and killed June 9th, 1961. Officer Elder was in an exchange of gunfire while attempting to apprehend suspects

who had just robbed a grocery store in Monterey Park. He was a resident of Monterey Park. George Elder was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead and unfortunately or fortunately for us the three suspects were eventually convicted for his murder

we will be memorializing him on Sunday for those residents that don't know there is a plaque at George Elder Park with his story we will have fLors here at the station the family generally comes every single year on that day so we anticipate the family to be here that day So for those residents that are interested, please visit George Elder Park and reread the plaque if you haven't and help us memorialize Officer Elder for his sacrifice in keeping the residents of Monterey Park safe. And, Mr. Mayor, that concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Captain Jimenez.

Any final comments from Council? I appreciate the update and I know we'll continue sharing information with the community and look for other Posts on Instagram and social media and all that. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you Move on to next staff communication recreation community services

Good evening mayor mayor port 10 city council members Robert Gary director of recreation and community services here to share some of our upcoming activities. But first to start off, I want to thank everyone that came out to our fourth annual,

our award-winning fourth annual Pride Parade and Festival.

We had an amazing event on Saturday, June the 1st.

And just wanted to share, you know, at the event we did this MPK art project to bring the community together.

So our department each year does an art project that we try to get everyone that's there at the event to participate in. And so we'll be showcasing this art project. hopefully somewhere in the city, but we also make sure that all of the art projects are there to view at each and every Pride event going forward. So again, we just want to thank everyone for coming out, making the event a success year after year. I want to thank the West San Gabriel Valley Boys and Girls Club and also the Alhambra Teachers Association for their amazing partnership in making this event successful year after year.

Next slide, please. So summer's upon us.

I want to share with everyone, if you know anyone out in the community, that we want to make sure the kids are fed. We are offering free lunches this summer from June the 10th through August the 2nd. That's every day, Monday through Friday at Barnes Park from 1130 to 1230. That's anyone 18 years and under.

Come out. There's no registration. You just arrive. Get a free healthy meal.

This is in conjunction with the San Gabriel Unified School District. We've been doing this, well, I've been here almost 16 years, and I know it's been going on much longer than I've been here. It's a great program, and it helps keep our youth fed in the summer when they're not getting those meals from school.

Also, summer camp, I will share that, unfortunately, I got an update on my way in.

We have one spot left next week, and we have one spot in our week six. So unfortunately, unless you need daycare and you want your youth in the summer camp next week, we're basically sold out.

So it's really nice.

I can tell you, being in my office, I get to hear all the laughter and joy that's coming out, and it kind of makes my job really worth it.

So I really like having the summer camp going on.

I also want to share that summer, the pool is open, and all programs are kicking off. Summer recreational swim will start on June the 10th as well.

That's next Monday.

And there will be opportunities for recreational swim Monday through Friday from, I think it's 1230 to 130. and then also on the weekends there will be a 2 to 4 p.m. recreational swim and then also this year we're going to offer a 7 to 9 p.m. evening swim on Saturdays as well. So for only $2.50, come out, swim, cool off. I know we're going to have a hot summer, so definitely utilize the Georgia Elder Pool.

Next slide, please. And then some of our upcoming events. So definitely want to invite everyone.

! So definitely want to invite everyone out to our summer movies in the park. ! We have on June the 20th, we're going to be showing Super Mario Bros. ! I will share that with all of these summer movies in the park, we're not just going to be showing

! movies. ! Come out a little bit early.

! We're going to have some fun activities and also some really, really cool surprises.

!

Some stuff that you're definitely going to want to bring your camera for. And bring the kiddos an hour early. This is also in conjunction with our farmers market.

So you have an opportunity to get your dinner, get your snacks, shop a little bit, and then watch an amazing movie in Barnes Park on our massive...

Watch an amazing movie in Barnes Park on our massive inflatable screen. And then next is our independent celebration. So this year, our independent celebration is on Saturday, June 29th. That's here in Barnes Park. And we'll have food trucks starting at 4 o'clock. And then there's live entertainment by Classic Rock Band, 4x4. And then, of course, the famous fireworks show at 9 p.m. I do want to remind everyone, again, that's Saturday, June 29th.

That's not a typo.

Just to remind everyone that as we came out of the pandemic, there was a massive shortage of pyrotechnics.

So back in 2020, or actually once we came out of the pandemic and everyone wanted to start doing fireworks shows again,

a lot of cities were faced with a tough decision.

Have fireworks or don't have fireworks.

and it was pretty much anyone that had done fireworks during the pandemic was able to keep their shows on July the 4th. Anyone that did not do fireworks during the pandemic, which was a lot of us, we kind of had to adjust and make adjustments. And so we opted to continue to have fireworks for the community. And so right out coming out of the pandemic, we opted to do the Saturday before the 4th of July. And I can share with you that every year I go around, I talk to the folks that are there. A lot of these folks have been coming to this fireworks show 20, 30 years, and we've received nothing but positive feedback. People enjoy that they're able to come out on a Saturday, watch a fireworks show, and then also enjoy the 4th of July a day off, usually, at home with their family. It also is a benefit to the community as well. As you are well aware, during the 4th of July, our community is alLod to have safe and sane fireworks going off, but there's also those people out there that, and I'm sure Fire and PD can attest to it, there's lots of folks that are doing some things that are not so safe and sane. And so by having the event on the 29th, not on the 4th of July, it enables the police and fire to also get out into the community and not be in two places at once, but really focus on safety, not only for our community members, but also for all of our little furry friends

that sometimes get scared and lost on the 4th of July.

So that's kind of the reason the date's been moved. and so hopefully we've had great crowds the last couple years and hopefully see everyone again on June 29th for the huge fireworks show.

Next slide, please.

And then just again, just to remind everyone, a great way to keep up to date with all the upcoming events and activities.

Follow us on social media.

Try to stay as active as possible and keep it fresh at Monterey Park Rec. That completes my happy to take any questions.

Any questions? Comments?

Yeah. Robert, thank you so much for all the amazing programming, but especially on Saturday, the Pride March that we had here in our city. I think it's starting to become a staple year in Monterey Park, and I'm glad that it's happening here in Monterey Park because this has a very positive message to our community and to all of the San Gabriel Valley what Monterey Park stands for. So I appreciate that and the partnerships that we've set up, including the Elhambra Teachers Association, which I'm a part of, for that, but also for all of the other amazing programming. I mean, I think I'm planning to come to the Super Mario video viewing on the 20th.

Definitely come to Super Mario and do not miss Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I'm just going to share that.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to be here for Super Mario. And your girls will love the Barbie movie. I know.

You also got a special surprise that night.

Yeah, and you have the farmer's market there as well on Thursday night, so it makes it a double whammy. So thank you so much for all that.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Robert, again. And, you know, I know this past weekend we celebrated our fourth Pride Marching Festival. And I just want to just congratulate the leadership of your department and yourself for really, you know, embracing and making that this is part of our community's programming. And it's also just very impressive to see, you know, between your department and the libraries, all the program we're doing for our kids and community. I think if you're a parent watching and you're worried about what am I going to do when it's summer break, I think between the kids that are enrolled in summer school and enrolled in the library and parks recreation, there's actually not enough hours in a day if I'm not mistaken. Absolutely. I think that's the quality program that we come to expect from our department. So, again, congratulations on upholding that high standard.

Thank you. I appreciate that, and I'll pass it on to staff as well.

so i'll echo their sentiments on this weekend's pride parade festival but i also wanted to add the fireworks on the 29th i actually think it's a brilliant thing that we're doing outside of everyone else because we are the only game in town along the san gable valley so we'll get a lot of people coming here and then on the 4th the sky will be lit you can watch at your home

where you can go somewhere else.

So with that said, in the words of the Ninja Turtles,

Cowabunga, I'm looking forward to that too.

I'll ask my appreciation again for the amazing work on putting the Pride March and Festival together again. And thank you to Outhermere Teachers Association, the Boys and Girls Club, for helping to co-organize this. I know it gets better and better every year. The weather turned out pretty well that morning.

It got a little warmer, I think. It got better. Yeah.

It was great for walking. It was very cool for walking.

But, no, I appreciate all the work that went into that. I look forward to next year's as well, and look forward to the programming that's coming up in the next few weeks.

I appreciate all the work. Sounds good. Thank you so much. All right. We'll move on to presentations.

Mr. Mayor, could I just add one more thing? Just along with the Pride March, I had a question for you, Robert, and maybe as you can help me with this. but have we ever flown a pride flag in our city?

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, traditionally I have not since the time I've been here, so six and a half years or so, have seen anything else flown besides a California and United States flag. So we traditionally have not flown any other flags.

I think given the the pride march and and the and the new traditions that were setting here in Monterey Park might want to look into Specifically on that day maybe looking into flying the pride flag in the city

I think we can I think we can discuss this internally in Monk staff and all

All right, thank you Robert. Thank you

We'll move on to presentation item number 1a announcement of funding for fire station 61

Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council, this evening we have a video, a short video, from Senator Alex Padilla's office on the announcement of the funding for Fire Station 61.

I'm Senator Alex Padilla, and I'm proud to join Mayor Wong, Fire Chief Thompson, and everyone in attendance at today's City Council meeting as we celebrate over a million dollars in federal funding coming to Monterey Park. Yay! Now, during this past year's appropriations process, my office worked hard to empower local leaders with the federal funding needed to build stronger, more resilient communities throughout the state. Because in a place like Monterey Park, we have a special appreciation for first responders.

Day in and day out, we take comfort in knowing that in the event of an emergency, you all aren't far behind. And in the face of increasingly frequent and catastrophic wildfires, for example, local

fire departments were also called upon to serve on the front lines. So I was proud to help secure $1.5 million to design and remodel the aging Fire Station 61 so that the firefighters of Monterey Park can continue to do what they do best, protect our community and save lives. So thank you all for all that you do.

Okay.

Well, appreciate the Senator sending the video.

I don't know if there are any comments or questions from Council otherwise.

Just a big thank you to Senator Padilla for securing this funding for our police department.

I'm sorry, for our private department. or perhaps we could return the favor and record our own video of appreciation in front of fire station including our first responders and anyone who wants to express their gratitude i know these are difficult fiscal times um for the federal government but the fact that our representative was able to actually get this money i think that we should really celebrate that so maybe that's just we return the favor and do our own community video to thank Thanks, Senator Padillo.

Sure. Yeah, of course. Any other comments, questions?

I just had one more.

Are we going to be making that video public or sharing it on social media for our residents to see?

It will be shared on the link for tonight's meeting. We can see if there's another place where we can share the link, but definitely it will be included in the meeting video for replay option.

My question is, this is the same funding that Congresswoman Chu's office has also confirmed for us, right? It's not on top of that funding.

Correct. It is the same funding. This is federal funding for Fire Station 61. The video came to us tonight. We tried to coordinate schedules. Senator Padilla is very busy, and so we tried to coordinate a check presentation here at the fire station. But scheduling conflicts just prohibited us to do that, so he sent this video for us. So if the council would like to send back a video message, or we can definitely send back a letter sharing our appreciation and thanking the senator for this funding.

Well, I think a letter at the very least would be appropriate. I think maybe when we get a chance to shoot a quick video would be probably.

appropriate as well.

But I think at teeing up a letter from staff, just to appreciate both Senator Padilla and Congresswoman Chu, they both have to vote on the appropriation in their respective

houses. So I think they both

deserve credit for the appropriation.

And we're going to put it to good use quickly, right? All right.

We'll move on to presentation

1B, development presentation.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of the Council. This is your Economic Development Manager, Joseph Torres. I am pleased to present an update on the city's major development projects.

I know we can all agree that land development is essential for our city's success and imperative for our community's prosperity.

These development projects generate more jobs, bring this hard curb appeal, unite community members, and maintain or increase home values, not to mention additional revenue opportunities for the city.

Next slide, please.

But before I begin my presentation, I'd like to take a moment to familiarize the City Council and members of our audience with the City's project development process, which can vary depending on the specific nature of the project. So this is more of a general overview from start to finish. The process begins when a developer submits a formal application for entitlements and permits. This application typically includes detailed project plans, environmental documentation, and any required fees.

This is called the entitlement process.

The next step is the design review, which ensures the project's aesthetics and compatibility with the surrounding area. The timeline for design review may be concurrent with the entitlement process. The next step is the plan check, which ensures that the development meets the City's building, safety, and fire requirements. Once we complete these three steps, entitlement, design review, and plan check, the project proceeds to the permitting phase, where building permits, grading permits, and other specific approvals are issued. However, construction can only begin once all the necessary permits are issued. Regular inspections are conducted during construction to ensure compliance with building codes and safety standards. After construction, the City conducts the final inspection, and if applicable, a certificate of occupancy is issued. The development is now ready for occupancy and operation.

Next slide, please.

In its entitlement phase, a multifamily condominium complex on 338 to 410 South Alhambra with 65 residential units, including affordable housing. A public hearing is scheduled for summer this year.

Next slide, please.

Whitmore Villas is a two-story townhome with 63 units on 2.7 acres, officially entitled in August 2021. I'm happy to report the project broke ground last year and construction is underway.

Next slide, please.

283 East Garvey is a 5,000-square-foot building about to come up on the corner of Garvey and Nicholson. The city issued its building permit in May last year and is now under construction.

Next slide, please.

A1 self-storage is a 108,000 square foot building on the corner of Garvey and Nicholson. The city issued its building permit in May last year and is now under construction.

Next slide.

A1 self-storage is a 108,000 square foot multi...

I'm sorry, I'm a little bit behind my slides.

Can you go back to slide six, please? A1 self-storage... Monterey Park. The project is a 108 construction of a multi-story self-storage that will occupy the corner lot on Davidson and Monterey Pass Road which had been empty for many years. The project is now nearing the end of plan check and the developer plans to begin work sometime in 2024. Next slide please. A downtown project we've been very excited about is the Celadon Mix Use on Garvey and Garfield. This transformative project will take place in the heart of downtown, occupying a piece of prime property that's been vacant for over 20 years. It's a multiple-story commercial residential mixed-use with 151 dwelling units. However, this project is experiencing delays in its start because of unforeseen increases in materials and labor costs, high interest rates, and other prevailing economic headwinds. Therefore, the developer is working on revisions to the originally approved plans.

Next slide.

420 North Atlantic is the city's new hotel.

The Holiday Inn Suites makes use with 136 hotel rooms, 84 condominium units, and more than 5,000 square feet of retail space.

The condominium has been open since last year, and the hotel is now in soft opening operation. We are working closely with the Holiday Inn folks to plan a grand opening and a ribbon-cutting celebration soon.

Next slide, please.

Like developers, small business entrepreneurs also often face economic challenges, including high interest rates, materials and labor costs, and a tight lending market for capital. Rest assured, though, that your economic development team is working to create a business community environment that reduces these economic barriers to entrepreneurship and support small business growth, even in challenging times. However, a complex interplay of factors often influences the decision to start a new business, and some entrepreneurs are still willing to take the plunge, even in adverse economic conditions. These are some of the brave entrepreneurs who took the plunge despite these prevailing economic headwinds and opened their businesses in Monterey Park.

Since I presented this update to you last November 2023, we've received 72 new business applications.

Some that recently opened are Yao Mai Thay Yummy Kitchen on the corner of Garves and Ines, 10 Seconds Rice Noodle at Deerfield Plaza, Sky 111, a beauty service provider also at Deerfield Plaza, TP Ban Bao, a popular Vietnamese food place with multiple locations in Orange County, and chose Monterey Park to open its first location in L.A. County. and Meat Fresh, another popular beverage and dessert located inside the Holiday Inn Suites. Opening soon are Asayori Maid Cafe at Atlantic Times Square, Book Off, a specialized anime and used bookstore at Prado Center, Leaflet Tea and Coffee on South Atlantic, occupying the former Mr. Obanyaki, and Fika Coffee inside the Holiday Inn Suites.

Next slide.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council Members. This concludes the development project update, and I am happy to answer questions.

Thank you. Any questions from Council?

Well, first of all, thank you, Joe, for the report. And we're always very interested to hear what new restaurants or businesses have opened up in Monterey Park, but also to get updates on some of the developments in the city. So please, well, thank you for all the work that your team is doing to attract more business to the city, but also please continue to keep us updated on developments and also just new businesses that are opening up.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Robert, again, thank you for that presentation. I think that the folks I see that are coming, I mean, love and play to the strength of our city. I do have a question, though, and I know this is one of many

that you have made before the city council,

But I know throughout this time, through the years, I think all of us at one point have asked, you know, like, I've been asked by the community, you know, is there a way to get a sports bar? And I'm just curious because what are the conditions? What is it that would we need to do if we weren't trying to track the sports bar? Because, again, a lot of the businesses that you have presented, again, in some ways they complement what we already have. In other words, we already have several dessert places. We already have several drink places. And don't get me wrong. I mean, each has its own unique flavor. I personally went to Meat Fresh this past weekend at the new hotel. But I know that given that we have so many, well, as you said in your presentation, new commercial spaces opening up, a lot of existing ones that we are trying to work with these owners to fill, what would be the ingredients that we would need if we wanted to bring some type of sports bar type project into the city?

we are definitely hearing the same um requests and need within the community and you know your economic development team would love to quench that thirst for not only a sports bar but also for a brewery which we're actively seeking right now in terms of bringing our first ever brewery into our city there are many factors involved in getting a business such as sports bar or a brewery into our community, one of which is the zoning. It has to be the right zone for that particular use. Obviously, you know, there's some restrictions on how close it can be to a school, for instance,

is one of those restrictions.

And then the appetite for some of these sports bars and breweries to expand because of the current economic headwinds that they're facing. So what we're doing is we've identified a brewery industry association, of which some of them are considered sports bars, where we have found a database of more than 200 breweries that are currently in operation. And we're targeting these 200 breweries. And the further they're out, the more we're prioritizing them, because if they want to expand further, obviously this would be a good place for them to expand. So we're targeting breweries in Orange County. We're targeting breweries and sports bar in San Bernardino County.

And we're enticing them to come to Monterey Park.

We're working very closely with our planning department team to make sure that we have the right space.

We have the right inventory.

You know, for anything, before you can sell your city, you have to have the right product to sell. So that's the first thing that we need to ensure is that we have the right space, the right product that's completely zoned for it, that is conducive to the business that we're bringing in, and to make sure that they all meet the requirements. But rest assured that your economic development team is hard at work at it.

And thank you very much for the answer. And as a follow-up question, are you saying then that, for example, a lifetime score, and I just use that because, again, it's right there, right off freeway, I mean, is there a zoning issue that would per se prevent a sports bar? Or I'm just curious, like you keep saying zoning. So do we have restrictions at some of our commercial centers currently? There are some restrictions.

And, again, we work very closely with the planning.

We've developed a GIS platform that we actually use as a reference

so that we can quickly identify the right zones, the right product that we can sell to our prospects. But there are also some market forces that pose challenges.

For instance, Atlantic Times Square.

There has been instances where we would bring in prospective businesses, but for some reason the landlord is sticking to unrealistic pricing on their lease rates. So those are kind of the ones that are driving some of the tenants away. So it's not just the zoning, it's not just, you know, having the right space, but also the right pricing. And if the landlord is not cooperating and is not being realistic about what the prevailing market rates are, that's sometimes a difficult challenge to overcome.

But we're still working and we're trying to, you know, put together a, like a kind of a roundtable process or sessions,

Not only we had one for developers, our next target is for property owners. So we can get them to communicate with us, get them into conversations where, hey, listen, we all need to work together. We all know that we have certain price limits, but here's what's realistic and here's what not. So we're working on that as well.

And then my final follow-up then. I mean, then are there any policy prescriptions then that we as a council need to consider? Because, I mean, I appreciate on the one hand that we create dialogue and communications, but at what point talk is talk, and at some point we need to then also, if necessary, then I think adopt policies that might be conducive to, you know what I'm saying? because, again, I'm sure we've all heard, again, that, you know, we are asked often, like, yeah, we have so many commercial spaces that seem to be not fit. And I realize it's not just limited to us. I think every city is experiencing that. But at the same time, I'm just curious, like, at what point, though,

then we should probably take some policy action then,

especially if you're saying that there are headwinds,

but then do we adopt policy to respond to headwinds?

You know, you're absolutely correct, Council Member Lo,

because it all begins with having a business-friendly policy and legislation.

And without that, really nothing else happens.

So it is very important for Council to be very much engaged and involved in these dialogues, to hear what these concerns are, to make sure that we address them, and to make sure that we put the proper legislation and business-friendly policies that we need in order to compete with our neighboring cities and to attract these prospects.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, I wanted to greatly appreciate Joseph Torres for your presentations. And also I wanted to let everyone know, and also Council Member Lo know,

about a few weeks ago, Mayor Pro Tem, Go and myself and the Joseph Torres, the whole team went to ICSC in Las Vegas. And we actually give out a lot of our business card that has a QR code. And whoever scanned the QR code would know what kind of vacancy that we have in the city of Monterey Park, including the vacant land and vacant restaurant location. So we approach a lot of retailer developers and ask them what kind of criteria they are looking for. And then we give them, show them the map, the interactive map, to let them pick the locations maybe that feed you or maybe the other side feed you. So we look into different locations.

And that we build up a pipeline now with a lot of restaurants, with retailers. And so we did a, I do think that Joseph Torres and his team did a very good job and promoting Monterey Park with the business card, with the QR code,

and also updated everything online so that everyone can see it at the same page.

And also I wanted to bring that to everyone. We have updates from all the developers and especially the shopping mall owners. And nowadays they are having a very tough time getting retailer.

as you know that a lot of retailers are closing the stores.

I just wanted to give you a few names just to refresh you

because it makes them really tough to get business. And for example, a lot of the retailers are closing hundreds of their stores like Macy's, Sears, JCPenney, Bed Bath & Beyond, Party City, 99 Cent Store, Gap and Banana Republic, Walgreen, Rite Egg, even CVS,

Foot Locker, Tuesday Morning, they're all closing a lot of their stores. So it makes the shopping mall owners a really tough job. So I wanted to echo what the situation is. When you see a lot of vacancy, it's not just Monterey Park, but it's the whole United States, the whole California out there. So thank you.

Great. Thank you. And Joe and Jessica, I wanted to echo the sentiments of our appreciations is, as Council Member, you mentioned, we were in ICSC, and we were in meetings from 9 till 6, and then we were at dinner. We were at reception, so we were pitching, pitching, pitching the city

the entire weekend.

Just a couple comments in terms of bringing the right tenant mixing

to our city.

We would all love that. But at the end of the day, it's kind of a dance. Just because you want a tenant in your city doesn't mean the tenant wants to be in the city.

We can go all day.

Everybody wants Trader Joe's. But if Trader Joe doesn't want you, you can go blue in the face and ask all day. So at the end of the day, it's always they got to be here and you want them to be here, and then it starts. And as a city, we can promote so much. but ultimately it is the landlord or the property owner who actually signs the lease with the tenant provided it's market driven market rate sometimes there's ti dollars involved they can Lor the rent today but they'll collect at the back end giving a business the opportunity just wanted to share some of those thoughts we at the city everyone sitting here including our staff we want business in our city because it's a vibrant community and we are pitching to all the tenants

and

Mount Rees. And all the businesses that you can think of from a national chain, brewery, sports bars. We do have bars in the community. In fact, I know three bars I have been in the community for years. They're just not sports bar status because it's a small location. They stay in business. They continue to stay in business. And they don't want to grow because they got the little niche. They got the little pocket. So so at the same time, I know you guys are doing your best. So I commend you guys for doing that. Anytime you're doing that. you need us to come in to make the sales pitch to bring them in close the door close the deal let us know we'd be happy to talk to the tenants and the landlords to make sure they work together because we all want this work we all want it to work better for a city and to bring them into the city to continue their business to grow their business that's what we want for our community

echo what the other council members have said in terms of keep doing keep doing what you're doing Joe to continue to track quality businesses that we want and we need to fill a lot of our vacancies in the city. I know that, and it has been mentioned, it's not just our city that has been impacted by changing work from home kind of environment and the retail landscape. A lot of people are struggling, a lot of cities are struggling with this as well, so I know that we're not alone, but whatever we can do and whatever the council can do to help make sure we're resourcing this challenge and our work to address this challenge for the community. Please continue to bring that to the council. A couple of quick questions on some of the update that you had for the Celadon project. I assume the actual entitlements have expired at this point.

Mayor, this is Jessica Serrano, your community

development director. Just to answer your question, the entitlements are still good.

They have not expired. They were good for I believe a six-year period Okay

On the I mean, I appreciate this update Joe and particularly update on 70 something New retail businesses opening up since your last update in November I mentioned this to the city manager maybe earlier this week I think it'd be great to highlight the new retail businesses that are opening up in the city maybe in the Cascades and set aside a specific section every month for new businesses that are opening up for the community to know, right, which new restaurants and new retail businesses they should check out. Maybe in the Cascades, we can set aside a section specifically for that every month, just to help highlight that for the community. And then if there are other avenues and channels, we should explore to highlight new businesses. I think it would be a great and relatively easy way to help promote new businesses, help them get started in the city on the right foot, and if there are other things we should look at to help promote businesses. I know we're already thinking through that, and I'm looking forward to the Economic Development Strategic Plan coming to the council for review. I look forward, and I know that some of these items and ideas will probably be coming forward there. So I don't know if you have an update on when that might be coming to the council in draft. I'm just curious on how the process for the strategic plan has been going and any news you might be able to share.

Yes, I'll be happy to provide a quick update on the status of the Economic Development Strategic Plan, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Council members. The strategic plan draft is in the hands of our consultant, the Nathalsundale Group.

They're actually putting together a final draft for staff to review.

this final draft is going to include all the feedback that they received from the public input sessions that we had conducted.

It'll include the one-on-one interviews that the consultant did with the council members,

and it'll include staff input as well. They are estimating presenting that draft presentation to staff sometime late, mid or late June,

with another maybe couple of weeks for some public input review of the final draft,

getting their input on what the final draft is.

And then once staff reviews that and works closely with the consultants on finalizing it,

then we will present it to council sometime early August, late July or early August. That is the timeline that we received from our consultant.

That still might change.

I'm in contact with them, making sure that we're pushing them to make sure that we're on schedule. But at the same time, we want to give them as many time as they need to put together such a very important document like this.

Thanks.

And I'm hopeful that the schedule doesn't slip much more, if at all. I'd love to just get our hands on the plan so that we can get going, because I know the businesses need, a lot of the businesses in the community need support and would love to see how we can start to stand up some more programs.

I know we've been doing some,

but would love to get going on what else we can do

for economic development,

growing the base here in Monterey Park.

Absolutely.

I was told, I was assured by our consultant

that it would be early August,

the very latest for presentation to council

and hopefully earlier than that, but we'll stay on top of it. Great, thank you.

My final kind of question, I don't know if there's my question slash request is I appreciate the update on development opportunities. There's still a number of vacant and relatively large vacant parcels that are not yet developed or don't have plans for development in the near term. I can think of Garvey Garfield, the pumpkin patch lot, the lot that's between Bank of America, Ralph's, and Nine-Nine Ranch that has been staging construction equipment for a number of years now, and corporate center and a bunch of other places that continue to sit vacant. I don't know if there's anything else. If we can start looking at what else we can do, and I know our city attorney's office is looking at some of these potential tools as well we can exercise, but whatever we can do to start to encourage and push for development opportunities to at least start to be explored on some of those sites I think would be great and would love to see what tools we can bring for the council and for the city and for the economic development and the planning teams. to be able to start to exercise more aggressively to bring some development to these undeveloped parcels and also for potential redevelopment parcels where there's underperforming assets in some of our commercial corridors on Garvey. I also think of 111 North Garvey or whatever that address is, across from the pumpkin patch lot that continues to empty out with tenants and has a lot of empty space. what else we can do to help encourage both carrots and sticks to push some of those property landowners to take care of their property and also to look at opportunities to get to the right mix in terms of providing services to the community and providing an economic, growing economic base for the community as well.

That was actually our strategic plan going into ICSC in Las Vegas

a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Mayor.

We had prepared an inventory of all these spaces,

including the Pumpkin Patch and including the 111 North Garvey or West Garvey property.

And we presented it to several developers for the first time

and asked them to take a look at it and think about the possibilities.

We wanted to expose these properties to these developers, developers that may have never even seen Monterey Park before,

because even though some of these available land

has some conceptual plans in the pipeline, and we're continually working with the property owners on those piece of properties that you mentioned, we still wanted to market them at ICSC to other developers to see if they might be interested in not only developing it themselves,

but also partnering with the property owners in terms of finding the right price, finding the right partnerships,

whether it's public or private.

And we will continue to do so.

We will follow up with those developers that have expressed interest in these spaces,

and we will continue to market these properties to more developers that hopefully will see the opportunities that our vibrant city does offer.

I appreciate that, Joe.

And I would just emphasize my frustration and I think shared frustration with some of the other council members on the lack of progress or any activity on a number of these parcels. And not just the vacant parcels, but some of the underutilized parcels currently. And if there are tools we should explore and maybe we look to other cities that may be becoming more aggressive than just trying to market some of these to existing developers. Even the current property owners who are, in my opinion, not living up to their responsibility for maintaining and utilizing some of these properties. If there are other more aggressive tactics we should at least explore, I think I would be open and I would like to bring that to council to explore what else we can put in our toolkit to really urge more progress and urgency to address the frustration that I feel, and I think many of the community members in those neighborhoods are feeling with these vacant parcels. So whatever we can do to start to add to the toolkit, let's not just continue to – I don't think we need to just play nice with some of these. I think we can start looking at how we can be more aggressive.

And we share your frustration.

We, too, are very much frustrated, but we're also – we want to share our optimism, too, because based on our conversations at ICSC, we've had a lot of interest in these properties,

and the key from here on is just to follow up and to continually market these properties.

So we'll work hard on it.

Thank you. Any other questions for Joe?

Appreciate the development update. Would love to bring you back in the next few months with more good news, hopefully, on some of these projects and hopefully more.

Looking forward to it. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, we will move on to old or item 2A, update on the Saturn Park Advisory Recommendation Committee.

One public comment?

Sure. It's me.

Hi, neighbors. It's Michelle.

I'm speaking as a resident tonight.

unfortunately

despite being the only resident to publicly comment on this item the Saturn Park Committee Advisory Committee and being the only resident to publicly request to be on this committee I was not selected and so as such I am requesting that the mayor announce publicly who has been selected on this committee because who would like to know

thank you

if I can address that very quickly I will say we've the initial committee subcommittee of the council that has met on this and this is part of there are no other public comments I'll confirm we can move into some discussion

have discussed some potential

invitees for the committee we have not finalized that list I think the plan is for staff right now to look at making sure we're resourced for expected public participation kind of hearings or meetings around the SPARK effort and depending on that schedule that might be in terms of meetings and things like that we'll start to work on finalizing and making actual formal invites to people to join the committee so it has not been finalized no one's been the committee other than the Mayor Pro Tem and I sorry I'm on three committees I have to remember which one I'm on

but the Mayor Pro Tem

will I think finalize given the authority from the council from last meeting finalize and actually form the committee but that has not happened yet with that we'll go to staff for the quick update and report on this item

thank you Mr. Mayor and members of the city council Inez Alvarez city manager going to give this brief report tonight

at the last city council meeting the city council

created the SPARC ad hoc committee. The SPARC is led by the mayor and the mayor pro tem who are authorized to appoint individuals to the SPARC. The mayor

and the mayor pro tem have met to identify potential committee

members. A selection of committee members has not been

finalized yet as just been described. It is anticipated that

the SPARC would have about four meetings and would wrap up in, this is a tentative timeline, but in late

August or September, and meeting dates have not been set yet for those meetings.

The ad hoc committee also discussed the potential for a moratorium on new development within Saturn Park during the time period that the SPARC considers options. If directed by the City Council, the City Manager and the City Attorney would prepare documents for the next Council meeting to consider whether a moratorium, a temporarily pausing new land use applications should be adopted. Any such moratorium would require a four-fifths vote of the City Council. This concludes my report, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions, comments, feedback from Council members? No? No? No? All right.

Is there direction from the Council, then, on the proposal or the idea for a moratorium on development in the center park area do we want to direct staff to come back with that item or

do we not like this idea uh you know um mr. and council i think that it's something that at least

merits discussion um because you know we just had a presentation from our economic development director and thank you very much about the right conditions to bring in the type of development Thank you.

talk about retail space. On the other hand, you know, we're in a built-out urban area. And once something's built, then it's there for a while. And so I know that, and again, it's not unique to us, but I think, especially like where I work in downtown LA, because there's a lot of empty office buildings, I think what's happening is a lot of data centers are coming in. And again, you know, we're all in this digital age, you know, in which, you know, the world is at our fingertips. But at the same time, it's energy intensive and also automated. And I think it is important for us to at least have a conversation until we can have a community discuss, you know, what do we want for that area? Because, again, ultimately, if something is there and it's not what fits what we want, but at the same time, it may unfortunately be there for a while.

Any other comments?

I'll just say some of this initial discussion and my initial thoughts on this are to support a moratorium and to ask for the staff to bring that back as an item for discussion and action at the council. Just given clearly the council wants to explore new and different uses and expanded uses in the Saturn Park area. and I think I know that there are some applications from existing land owners in the area for uses and development within the existing allowable uses, and we want to be able to give them more options, and we want them to explore other options for uses, and it would be good to kind of keep people from moving ahead too far along in some of those plans before we're able to finalize what those options might even be. So it'd be I think we're talking just a relatively short term

right

freeze or pause in terms of development in the area and I think that would be reasonable test the property owners there while we work on this process and also adds to some of the expediency and urgency we want to see in terms of the spark committee kind of coming up back with recommendations for the council to to to consider because we want to move quickly and we know that some of the property owners there in the Saturn Park area would like to fill their long vacant properties as well. And so let's, I think, move quickly and move on this. I support moving on this item and getting the staff to return with a moratorium so that we can make sure that we're working off of a fuller and more expanded list of options for what can happen in Saturn Park.

If that if there are no comments otherwise

Do we need a motion or is that direction? Okay, if there's a motion to direct staff to Bring back a moratorium to consider on this item. Yeah, all right

Then I'd like to make a motion to direct staff to bring back

An item for discussion in action on a moratorium

Your second second second by councilman Sanchez any further discussion

Hearing none. We'll call for the vote. Please vote

Approved unanimously.

Thank you.

Anything else on this item?

No? All right.

We'll move to the consent calendar.

Are there any items we want,

council members want to pull from consent or not?

Mr. Mayor? Yes. 3C.

All right, 3C. 3D. 3D. Any other items?

3F.

3F. 3F. Okay.

3F. Any other items?

If not, is there a motion for the remaining items?

I'll move to approve the remaining items.

Is there a second? Councilor Rolol?

I second. All right. Thank you. Move and second for the remaining items on consent to be moved. Please vote.

Approved unanimously.

All right. Thank you.

We'll move to the first pulled item, 3C, and just let the staff know if you want the full report.

Shorter report. Just questions? Not full report, actually. Again, I always say, look, thank you, staff, for a great report, but given that this pertains to our CDBG grant funding, and part of the goal is to address housing challenges with low-income people. And I actually, it's more I would like maybe as a future agenda item to see how are we using these CDBG funds to maybe leverage other resources or to really help our communities, especially those that are struggling with housing, because I think we all can agree that this is an issue that we all have an interest in. Good evening, Mayor and Repertim.

Council Member Smurthaker, CF Finance Director. The CDBG funds, we are going to be proposing on the first council meeting in July

to be used for ADA sideward compliance.

And that'll be about, at this time, we're estimating about $250,000. And then we're going to be trying a new program with our community development department for some businesses to assist them. We are going to be allocating about $200,000 to that. And then we also continue to contract with the Fair Housing Center, and what they do is they provide us two to four workshops a year to help our landlords and tenants. And the rest is 20% is for administration to fund the contracts that we have with our two consultants.

That's the CDBG program.

The home program is about 10% goes to our administration, and the rest goes to the residential rehabilitation and other projects for our residents. And with the residential, each resident is authorized or eligible, not eligible, but they're eligible to receive up to $100,000 depending on the amount of corrections or maintenance that they have to do for the house. They have to have certain qualifications. They have to meet those qualifications. and again it's up to $100,000 and if the repairs are more than that the federal funds will not allow us for it

so we have to use other funds to help them to get to

where we can use the home funds to be able to support these individuals

so for next year we're looking at about

we are receiving $90,000 plus less this next year

than previous years

so we are going to have about 208,000 to support homes, to support some of our participants. And it could be a max of two households that we help,

depending on how much they need.

If it's 50,000, then maybe we have four households that we help. But that's pretty much in a nutshell what these programs are. And I do have Priscilla and Debbie on the line if you have any more detailed questions.

Debbie runs the program, and Priscilla does all of our reporting.

If I may, Mr. Mayor and members of the council, just as a reminder, we are going to bring back, as Martha explained, we are going to bring back the action plan that details those programs in more detail. The item tonight is really about the agreement extension. So just a clarifying point about how much we should be diving into those programs. But if it's just a simple question, we could provide a response. But, you know, this item is really about the agreement amendment.

Thank you. I will apologize. I forgot.

I know we already voted to approve the minutes, but I don't know if we can do this one minor change on the minutes for the March 6th meeting. I forgot to look at my notes before this item It says the call to order Mayor Sanchez called the meeting order 536 I believe that should be Mayor Wong And that if we can vote that change or if we can just do that change without a vote, I don't know but

Mayor We will make the change. All right. Thank you

I apologize for that

Any other questions on this?

Martha, a few quick questions on this.

Appreciate the quick rundown on the potential,

what we're expecting to use the CDBG and home funds. You mentioned that the home funds were expecting a reduction

from the federal government for home this next fiscal year. Are we looking, is CDBG as well going down,

or are we getting the same amount?

CDBG's going down about, I want to say it's about 15,000, so it did go down as well.

Okay, but we're programming to the Lor amount, right?

Correct, yes, correct.

For the specific item we're talking about today in terms of the administration of the programs, do you know what the percentage is over, I think it's a three-year agreement we're looking at for both firms?

Well, HUD has a cap.

So the cap that we have for CDBG is 20%, which will be 20% of the funds, but we will actually be budgeting less than that because we wanted to make sure that our housing center, right center, had funding so that they can continue to provide us with that service,

so our admin will be a little bit less.

And for home, it's 10%.

Okay.

And we are, so for the home funds administration, we are hitting the cap?

Yes, we are.

I get it, and I understand we need to pay, we don't have a team or staff in-house to administer these programs, so totally understand that. I mean, some of these amounts just, I know it's over three years,

so you get divided by three.

It still seems a little high to me in terms of the amount of funds we're administering in total, right, under a million dollars a year. We're paying, what, five, six, $200,000 a year or so in fees for administration. if there are ways to look at how else we can Lor costs on administration or to streamline the program or redesign some of our programs so that the overhead costs can come down and we can spend more money, more of the funding that we received from the federal government for CDBG and home on actual programs versus administration, I'd appreciate that. And I appreciate your previewing potential redirecting of some of these funds to a business support program for CDBG. and I know we've got to do the ADA improvements to sidewalks regardless, so one way or another that needs to happen. For the home funds, for our existing residential retrofit program, I know we're only doing a few residences a year just given limited funding. Have those been historically owner-occupied housing, or are those rental units?

I believe, but Debbie, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that they have to be a homeowner. They have to be the owner of the home.

That's the home funding requirement, or is that R?

That's HUD.

So we can't use any of that money on affordable rental units?

Debbie, are you on? Can you answer that? Or Priscilla? Martha, I'm on, yes. Hi, good evening, Mayor and City Council members. Yes, one of the requirements for the home funds is that we can either grant money to homeowners or to tenant-based rental assistance for rental units. But for right now, we currently only do homeowners. But that's not to say in our next action plan we can't do a new program that helps renters. Or in the next year, next May 2025, we will be submitting into HUD a five-year consolidated plan. And that's one of the reasons why our fees are a little bit higher this time around, because we're actually going to be implementing and creating the city's five-year plan of what they're going to be doing with their CDBG and home funds. I appreciate that.

Just my perspective on the home funds, owner-occupied housing, generally you'll still have some equity you can tap into if you need to make repairs and do that. I'd prefer to start to shift some of these resources to affordable rental units that need rehab because they will not have an opportunity or any kind of equity that they can tap into to make repairs and things like that.

Yes. One of the concerns with helping renters is that let's just say you have a duplex, for instance.

In order to receive home funds, you have to be low income.

So if you had a duplex, it would be that one of the tenants in the duplex has to be low income.

But say you have three units, that would mean that two of the tenants would have to be low income. So that's where it gets a little complicated, but still doable.

So I know we're getting into programs.

I know that Tim's going to stop.

I understand this will come back to the council for actual approval for the programming of the funds and the five-year kind of plan.

So look forward to that.

but appreciate being able to give a preview of my initial thoughts.

What we're bringing back in July is just the one year,

and then we'll come back. We have required to do the five-year,

and we'll come back in May of 25 to do that, and that's when we can make quite a bit of changes to our program.

Great.

Now I look forward to being able to get into the weeds a little bit on how we're going to utilize some of these limited funds from the federal government for housing assistance and programs.

With that said, any other questions from Council on this item?

Unanimously all right item 3d was pulled as well

authorize city manager demand agreement for

extending term for initial five years will journal for One speaker go ahead Amy Lee

Good evening, my name is Amy Lee. I'm here as a resident. I do have a question before we move on with

renewing the contract. It looks like we spend about $77,000 annually for the event,

and the co-producers for the event reimbursed us about $7,500. We do get a certain portion back

to the city. I was looking at a staff report. It looks like in 2020, our portion recovery was only

about $3,254, which seems kind of low. I'm not sure

if you had a chance to look at that, but before you vote, I would ask that you maybe take another look at the numbers and see

if we can just take a look at if we're getting what we are

entitled back from the co-producers for the event.

Right now, if the net profit from the event

is between 0 and 20,000, the city gets 20%.

This is a very large event for our city, and we love it, but I want to make sure that we are getting the portion back if we are entitled to it.

So I ask the council to take a minute and take a look

and maybe reevaluate the percentages and that we are getting that portion back to the city. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any no other speakers? Thank you. No other speakers. All right. Any is there a staff report on this item?

Yes. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Temp and City Council members, Robert Aguirre, Director of Recreation and Community Services. For the past 12 years, the City of Monterey Park has worked with World Journal and the BID Act to produce one of the Northern America's largest Lunar New Year festivals. City staff has been very happy with the event that attracts hundreds of thousands of people from all over to celebrate the annual Lunar New Year celebration. The agreement with World Journal expired at the end of our 2024 event, and staff is recommending extending the term of the agreement for an additional five years. The five-year agreement will enable World Journal to leverage the term and secure additional sponsors and vendors for the upcoming years. That completes my staff report. I'm available for any questions tonight. I also have with me Dale Lee and Alan Leo from World Journal. They can also answer questions as well as myself. Thank you

Thank you any we'll start with any questions from council comments

No questions at the moment

Yes, hi good evening and thank you for being available I'm kind of curious. I mean, since we started resuming these events, what has been your experience in terms of getting sponsors and those to, you know, I guess, help underwrite this event, especially given that we know that events, you know, they do get the cost to go up, but at the same time, what are we doing to try and also increase our underwriting as well.

Hello.

Hi, my name is Dale Lee from World Journal. Sorry. So in terms of getting sponsors, we normally take our sales group and they reach out to the connections that they already have with the ads that usually run or other events that we've done as well. Especially since this is such a big event, we have a lot of sponsors come back from previous years or some new sponsors will reach out to us once they've seen a complete year. For example, from the 2023 event, we didn't have as many sponsors as we had in the past because we just returned back from COVID. And I'm pretty sure a lot of these companies also wanted to see how this event would turn out before they invested. But in 2024, we did get quite a few new faces and also some old faces from before as well.

I see. and out of curiosity do you differentiate like say a non-profit to a private company are they different rates or I'm just curious

so in an effort to try to give back to the community we do offer a discounted rate for the non-profit organizations as long as they provide proof and I believe the the temporary business license permit fee is also waived for these groups as well. I think it's 20% to 25% off of the booth fee.

That's it for now, but thank you.

Actually, let me ask also, in terms of your profit, how do you account for the variations in your profit margins? I mean, again, since we've resumed these events.

So I know that the last two years, we have had not met any profits.

Last year, it's more obvious to see because the second day was canceled,

and based on the numbers that we had to reimburse for the, out of goodwill, we reimbursed a lot of the vendors, half, or we gave them credit, or we basically,

but the contractors were not able to give us any refunds because the labor was already done for the first day. So we ended up eating a lot of the cost for that year.

This year, it's because after the pandemic, a lot of items have,

a lot of contractors have started doing a raise, they increase their prices every year.

We have done the numbers, and based from the 2020 numbers and the 2024 numbers,

a lot of the items have increased about 50 percent between 30 to 50 percent how do you

how do you come for that though i mean i know it's inflation but is it labor costs what what a lot of it is labor costs because um it just requires a lot of manpower i think manpower has grown significantly and some um i believe some of the rental equipments the delivery fee has increased as well because i think that also has to do with labor as well as the price of gas has also increased so those are all factored into all the quotes that they give us before we rent with

them. I see all right all right thank you. Do we have your financials to see how much money that

you make or lose during? Yes we provide a financial statement after the event every year so I believe that should be on record I believe Recreations has has a copy of that. And so in

2024 you make you you you lose money you you um we have over 200,000 people attending and so um is that the reason why why why you lost money on on the event so we did have um an unprecedented

issue come up on the night of the event so it didn't happen during the event with all the people around but during setup something did come up that incurred an additional cost that I believe shouldn't happen again. So this year, if we looked at the numbers, the total profit, so to say, is just negative. I think it's not negative 30, but negative 29 something. So it's actually not a lot. If we look forward, we should be able to see profit again. And then we'll be able to give the city its due portion.

Okay, so 2024, you make a little money, not not negative 20 it was a negative 29 dollars in 2024 negative 29 dollar and so 2023 um i heard that you oh okay 2023 you also you also i believe it was also negative 16 000 but that's because the second day was yeah and then 2022 2022 and 2021 the event was canceled due to the pandemic

okay and so but before that you make money right before that um 2020 2019 2018 2017 all were profit

there was a loss in 2016 that was also a year that we had to cancel uh the sunday as well there

was a windstorm uh that year's okay and so um you and then our city staff they cost 77 000

dollar for the staffing. Yeah, and that cost

has gone up. Obviously,

safety is of the utmost

importance, so costs for

police and fire have increased significantly. That's also,

that cost also is our public works, helping shut down the streets

for the event. So that means we're losing

money to do that?

Yes, we're subsidizing that cost,

yes. Wow, we're losing quite a lot of money to do that. We're losing maybe $70,000 plus every year to do that.

And so let me ask you, so if you're losing money, why do you want to even want a five-year contract instead of three years? Because you used to sign three years. But why do you want even a five-year contract if you're losing money then?

um so for our company we have been um i think our los angeles branch has been in monterey park for over 40 years and on one hand it's very satisfying and very um it's very nice to see monterey park get the recognition that it gets from this event it's a very great annual tradition i've had a lot of people just be just people that we talk to they know of this event they come every year it's a tradition for them as well. And it's a great way for us to give back to the community, to host a great event with the city, and to celebrate and share the culture for the Lunar New Year time with everyone. It's not only the people that are local. We have a lot of Northern California people come by. East Coast people have heard of our event, people in the Midwest. This year, actually, we had someone lose a passport from Greece. So we've had international visitors as well come to this little city. And it's very great knowing that people know of Monterey Park. And so that's one portion for us as to why we want to keep doing it. It's a very great tradition. And we actually, it holds a very good reputation for everyone as well to create such a, just such a big event. And on the other hand, while we are not making any monetary profit what we don't gain financially we gain in exposure and reputation publicity and influence and so yeah do you have the financial information with you like the last year i did have a printout of okay i only have one copy oh no i'm just curious i have

one question that i wanted to ask you so um you do advertisement for the events right yes So when you do advertisement, do you just do your newspaper advertisement or do you place ads in other areas as well?

We do have other areas. So aside from our own newspaper print and our digital platforms, we do also go through social media. We do some Google and YouTube advertisements as well. And we also do a couple different websites that will help broadcast our event.

Okay, how much did you spend in 2024 to do advertisement? I'm just curious to know how much that you need to spend on that.

So I know we have a large portion that's for our newspaper, but we do for the newspaper and for our digital platforms, for Goodwill and cooperating with the city, we took off 20%. So the margin of profit for that portion is Lored. and then for we have a couple TV how about the newspaper newspaper newspaper we have

so for newspaper prints we had 41,000 41,000 for the newspaper and how about overall

including digital including TV including everything I think overall I would need to

count it all up maybe a ballpark so six yeah give or take so sixty two thousand

sixty two thousand I believe yeah okay sixty two thousand to do advertisement with that event okay okay thank you

Miss Lee thank you for being here and first let me start off by saying we are very blessed to have the partnership with World Journal and creating this event that centers around Lunar New Year. And you can look at every city in the LA area. You can include that Chinatown Golden Dragon Parade, but this is where people come in, hundreds of thousands of people at a time. So I'm going to start with that. And then I actually have very similar questions to my colleagues here in terms of the budget. If something is not making money, it doesn't make sense for us to continue that. I get goodwill. I get having the response of being engaged in the

community. Where I'm going with this is that we as a city, it costs the city about 70,000,

give or take. It brings goodwill. It brings people in the community. But we also heard at the same time that the cost of the inflation, the cost of workers, that also went up.

together, they got paid, which means the city didn't. So that's where I want to ask the question, the city also needs to be paid. If everyone's going to be paid, the city also needs to be paid, which means it's got to be equitable across the way. I get it. We all want this event to be successful. We want the goodwill of the community to come to Monterey Park. At the same time, this is an event, this is a overhead cost to this. And where I had trouble was looking at some of the

financing and realizing that, you know, the revenue standpoint, the revenue stream standpoint,

roughly $445,000, half sponsorship, half was booth. And I also heard from the community that the booth prices have gone up in the last few years. And that's given because of inflation, just like the cost of the vendors and the cost.

But the expense number,

that's where it struck me as a little high because that was also $400,000. Well, if the revenue was $445,000, the expenses was $445,000 as well because technically we lost, or the partnership here lost $29 this past year. but the city is eating up the 70,000 because we got $7,500 back in reimbursement for the permitting and the fees but we have to actually pay staff police rec overtime security personnel over the weekends just to keep the event going where I want to go with this is that I like to actually

have world journal maybe take a better look at the financing part of this to make sure it makes

economic sense for all the parties involved, meaning if we're going to take a loss, then everyone should pay a proportionate share. I actually don't believe there should be a loss to an event like this, because if there's a loss, then nobody would do events like this. But there's an opportunity here where everyone actually gains some kind of profit sharing. Now, we don't need to make a lot of money.

That's not the purpose here.

The purpose is to bring the community together, to show the world, the community, that Marley Park is the host of this great event.

You're in, you're out.

So I'd like for World Journal to kind of go back in and look at the budget.

I know the past is the past.

2024 has already happened. Maybe look at 2025 and figure out what you can do to enhance the financials so that everyone is either making a smaller amount of money, profit margin, or if there's a loss to this thing, then everyone has an incremental increase to the cost so that the loss is not just to our city but to everyone else. And if there's a significant loss to this event, then maybe we need to restructure this such that it's not a cost inhibitor to do an event like this.

so that's where that's where I'm going I don't know if there's any other

questions but I actually have a request on the proposal here I mean mayor do

you have any other questions to this yeah I'll offer some comments and then

maybe the mayor can provide a motion with some direction well I just want to rewrite our appreciation World Journal for organizing this I know the last few years particularly have been very tough for this event and for the World Journal shouldering some of those costs, especially last year. So appreciate World Journal being a great partner in this. I think this event is one of the premier events,

not just for Lunar New Year,

but community events in the entire region. And we want, and I want this to continue. Absolutely, I'm supportive of a five-year agreement with most of these terms in place. And I have some suggestions for potential, what we can look at for the next five-year term as well. but wanted to start off by rearing that the community clearly loves the Lunar New Year Festival, has shown up and continues to show up, including this last year, right, hundreds of thousands of people from not only Monterey Park but throughout the region coming here. And I would just note, too, right, the benefit of people from out of town and from Monterey Park coming to shop at the Lunar New Year Festival. They also shop at other businesses in Monterey Park and spend money. And so in that sense, it's hard to quantify directly, although maybe we can do some math, to figure out what the other economic benefits of the festival being here in Montepark are. I suspect that that would come closer to actually closing the gap in terms of the cost and the subsidy that the city does provide for this event. And I would note that the city subsidizes community events all the time. It's a matter of how we can close the gap in terms of the cost of the city. my kind of question and request here is so one I know this was the staff report and the recommendations to extend this term I'd prefer a new new agreement and directing the city attorney to draft a new agreement I would want to address the there's a bullet point whatever article 2 2.2 that in the existing agreement that caps the expenses for the city at $7500 I think that should be changed to not be a cap or at least a higher cap and start looking at how we can get a little bit closer to at least reducing the costs of the city. I know the city's costs are going up above $70,000. I'm not saying we need to get to a point where the city zeroes out in terms of expenses. We subsidize events at our parks and other things that attract people to the city that will spend money and produce sales tax revenue for the city and help to build a brand and help to showcase the city to other people to come back to do business in the city. So there are benefits, there are real tangible benefits to the city in spending funds for events like this that help to promote the city and the World Journal and our businesses to a much wider audience in the region. So in that sense, absolutely, I want this to continue, support continuing this effort

in the Lunar New York Festival.

I just think the current agreement or the existing agreement that's expired at the $7,500 kind of cap for city expenses is a little low, and I know expenses across the board are going up. If we can look at how we can adjust and add some more flexibility for the city to recover a little bit more of its costs, at least, for helping to put on our end of the event.

I'm not saying we need to get to the full costs being covered,

but somewhere in the middle, I think, would make sense in how we can adjust that and make sure it's flexible for the full five years of the agreement moving forward,

if that's what the council wants to move forward on.

That's what I would support. And then I rewrite what Mayor Pro Tem Ngo said as well. We want and need the World Journal to be successful. One, you're a business here in Maori Park Headquarters, here on Corporate Center Drive, so appreciate that. But also the success of this Lunar New Year Festival is a mean success for all the small businesses that are vendors at the festival and all the businesses along the route in the rest of the city, the benefit from hundreds of thousands of people coming in for a weekend

to continue to shop and do business and spend money.

So really appreciate this event. I believe it is an economic driver for the wider community beyond just that weekend as well and helps bring people and introduce people to Monterey Park in ways that we do want and would be happy to spend some money to get people to know more about Monterey Park. and so in that sense I would support a subsidy like that because I don't think it's a subsidy it's actually we're paying for economic development and business attraction and economic attraction for the city but how do we kind of get to a point where we can reduce some of the costs of the city and start to cover some of those costs as our costs go up and your costs go up how do we make sure that this continues to be a financially sustainable situation for both World Journal, the vendors we want to continue to come, and for the city that needs to help make sure that this is a safe event and goes off well and all the work that the city needs to do on its end too. So I don't know if the pro tem had other comments.

Yeah, so I'll continue with, again, we want this to be successful. There's a lot of intrinsic value when you bring people into our community, sales taxes, our businesses. What I like to do is I like to maybe propose giving World Journal just the one-year contract and then come back within 30 days, take a look at extending it for the next four years. And the reason being, I want World Journal to kind of go back. And I know 2024 is water under the bridge because I know there was a lot of loss in 23 due to the tragic event. So 2024 could be a blur, could be basically covering the losses. So I'm going to move that away from that, and I'm going to look toward the future. And the future is, I know World Journal has probably started the process, recruiting, trying to get people in place for next, is it January or February next year? It's January, so it's coming up even faster. So let's maybe agree to one year and then have World Journal kind of take a look at the budget for subsequent years, give a projection. We can have staff take a look at the projections to see how it plays out. And then we'll take another vote to extend the additional optional four years. A couple of tidbits for you to think about in terms of your budget. Advertising, wages, commissions. just those three categories alone from a cost standpoint is about $175,000 rounded. So listen carefully, about $175,000 in cost rounded. That's something that we can think about or you can think about in terms of better allocation so that it's spread across for all the partnerships involved. Or perhaps we can increase the revenue to cover those costs. So those are my points, and I'd like to make the recommendation.

I would, well, Councillor Olley, you want to go first?

No, just to clarify, so you are then suggesting that we amend the action so that instead of five-year,

we are suggesting, you are suggesting that it's a one-year with the proviso that they then come back

with terms for the preceding four years?

So one year for now, and we'll join in to kind of take a look at, give us the pro forma budget for the next few years so that city staff can explore and review that

and maybe share with council.

And at that point, we will vote again for the additional four year as the option.

I would just, I have some initial concerns

around the one-year, one-four structure. My assumption and my guess is that Royal General wants a five-year contract because you want to sell longer-term sponsorships to bring in more money. And the one-year might defeat that purpose in terms of looking at how we can raise revenue for this. I would continue to support this five-year contract because there's a termination clause. And I think we can get to the same end point that the pro tem is suggesting in that right i think i would support approving this five-year contract with for a new five-year contract uh without a cap on the expenses for the city and i think we can leave that up to the staff to work with world journal on how we can what's a reasonable number for the next year i think after next year i think we're in the run-up to the 2025 festival maybe we can invite World Journal to come back to present to the council right the proposed budget and what how the finances look and We can adjust that number in terms of what the cost share and what the World Journal might project to be able to provide to the city And we can do a deeper dive as the pretend was suggesting And if things are not to our satisfaction then we can exercise the termination clause at any point and we can still give World Journal the opportunity for five years to write the five-year contract to be in place so they can sell, right, two, three, four, five-year sponsorship commitments that can bring in additional revenue, right, because some of those sponsors are looking for longer-term deals.

So, Tim, so City Attorney, if you can help me here. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to rescind what I asked for,

which is the one-year and the four-year option,

given that there are long-term sponsorships involved here and I don't want to be a disruptor to that so I will also ask for then I will make the proposal to approve as is with the caveat that we get additional information from budget performance for the next few years out and please share that with our city staff which we'll share within our city council and then we will review that as appropriately timed.

So just to make

clear, Pro Tem, if this is what you're saying, the motion is to direct staff

to move ahead

with the five-year contract

negotiation, negotiating the language

given some of the points we've talked about today in terms of removing the cap on expenses for the city and these other points. Negotiate that final language, authorize the staff to negotiate the final language

for up to a five-year contract

with World Journal to continue to partner on the Lunar New Year Festival here in Monterey Park. But to come back and bring to the council a report before the next festival every year, a more detailed financial kind of update and picture on the festival so that the council can consider that in terms of making adjustments in the middle of the term on an annual basis.

Does that sound right?

I have a question. And, okay, if we're changing the contract and lift the cap from $7,500 to unlimited, we actually should refer back to World General and see if they agree to it because now we are changing the contract and we make motion, but they may not even agree. So if we alter the contract, that we should... So do we should we if we alter the contract that we should respect them and ask World Journal to come back ! ! If you agree with what we suggested ! So then we can actually negotiate to a final contract and then we can make motion to approve, right? ! ! Because now we're just thinking one year, five year, and then you know, lifting the cap actually ! Affect a lot of their budgeting and their decision making. their decision making. Maybe they don't want to partner with us at all.

I think, well, the motion is to allow staff to negotiate that. And if that's not, if we don't arrive at a reasonable... So we don't have the five year, one year, we'll just say...

No, no, up to five years, the specific terms in terms of what expenses would be covered by the revenue generated by the festival that would be returned to the city to cover its costs, that's up for negotiation. We defer that to staff

to find what's a reasonable amount. Then I would think one year

because five years we don't even know what the situation is.

They would report back to the council every year on what that amount is and we would look at the finances as a whole and if we don't find to our satisfaction the prior year's performance, we can end this contract at any time.

or another thought or perhaps we should have both parties renegotiate and have the item come back to us

well I mean

well we can provide this authorization to the staff

to negotiate and then a final agreement would come back to the council for approval if that makes sense

yes so what I'm hearing is

that the item is not going to be voted on today. The direction from Council is to work back with World Journal, and we're looking at that section of the agreement, Section 2.2. So the paid amount to the city right now in the current agreement is $7,500. So to renegotiate that dollar amount with World Journal, then bring back the contract to Council for consideration at a future meeting.

Yes. Yes.

It seems like we're open to a five-year term, which is what the Federal General was asking for, and some of those other kind of negotiating points I think we discussed today to authorize staff to put in the negotiation.

Okay, understood.

Any other comments? No formal action.

And I realize I'm just here, but it's already now June, so is there a timeline of when we might see this again? as quickly as possible yeah we'll start working with world journal right after the meeting okay

because we'll want to move quickly i think it's in everyone's interest that we move quickly quickly

all right all right thank you thank you any all right we'll go to the next item 3f purchase of

ev ford e-transit and thank you again a little journal for being here appreciate the

presentation. 3F EV4E Transit 350,

aerial lift vehicle. Did you want to report?

Hi, Sean. I don't need a brief report. I just wanted to pull this item to kind of point out a couple things. First of all, thank you so much for I know that at times a lot of our city vehicles reach their expiration date and have to be replaced and I I am very happy to see that we're purchasing an EV vehicle to purchase this. And I'm also very glad to see that we made use of a lot of rebates and saved about $22,000 in this purchase. So very, very appreciative of that. And as a lot of our vehicles start to reach the end of their life, I would encourage the city to continue to search when possible EV vehicles to try to replace them. I did have some questions in terms of, because I'm assuming this particular vehicle is going to be at our city yard.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

That's what will be staged, and then we'll use it throughout the city.

And we don't or do not have, we do or don't have a charging station there?

At the yard, we don't currently, but we will be installing one prior to receiving the unit.

Oh, okay.

And what are the plans to, is that just going to be inside the city yard for any future EV vehicles?

That's correct.

Okay, cool.

And then I know that this location is really great in terms of being close to the park, Garvey Ranch Park. It would be great if there was also availability for the public when we install these. And I know that we're looking for grants potentially because I know our city is really great at looking at grants to be able to do some of that where we can maybe have dual use with the city and also maybe make some available for the public if possible.

Yeah, we are looking at public.

These ones are supposed to be specific to city fleet because they're within our yard, and so the public isn't alLod to pull their vehicles in there, and it's a secured facility. But we will be evaluating and looking at solar and EV charging at our parks, including Garvey Ranch.

Do we have a date set in mind when we're planning to get this vehicle?

I don't have that date. Chris, do you have that date if we approve it?

Within 30 days or so?

Oh, great.

After fully executed.

So yeah, okay great would be great if we can highlight it and I know we always talk about Highlighting a lot of the great stuff that we do within our city, but maybe even writing it around Would be great. Thank you, Sean. That's all that's all the questions. I had unless someone else

It sounds like councilor Sanchez wants to volunteer to put some signs up with the new truck when it gets here

And we'll do yeah, absolutely any other comments questions. No. Thank you, Sean

Sean, I don't know how Councilmember Sanchez directly read my mind on this.

Those were my same questions. Appreciate one. Kudos to Sean.

I know we've been, and the Council has been, very eager in asking for more zero emission vehicles

as we start to transition some of our fleets. Really appreciate that we're doing this, and this is one of our first kind of public works vehicles that we're able to transition to electric. It sounds like we're planning on or working through plans to install EV charging at our public yard or the public works yard. Since it's right next to the parking area for the west end of Garvey Ranch Park, if there are opportunities to extend some of the conduit or whatever to prepare for other charging at the park, I think we should look into that. and see where we can upsize or prepare for a larger kind of fleet transition. If we're just looking at one charger port right now, if we're going to put the infrastructure in, if we can upsize that, or if it's cheaper to look at how we can make sure that the infrastructure is there for more, as we know that we have to transition more of our fleet in the coming years, that would be great. I'm sure you're already thinking that.

and whatever else we can do to accelerate EV charging and fleet transition for all the city fleets and all city facilities, I think that'd be great to look at

and make sure we're integrating

our recently adopted sustainability plan goals

that include that

and also integrating that into our pending parks master plan as we're looking at city facilities and parks facilities and making sure that these are amenities that we're integrating into our planning.

widely. On the van, when we get it,

I know we've kind of done this with some of our vehicles. Other cities with their fleets have looked at how we can do wraps and designs for some city vehicles that are educational, water savings, water conservation, other kind of messaging to put on. Maybe we can get the water trick to pay for something for this vehicle. There's a lot of white space, it looks like, from the sample image. If we can look at that and see what opportunities are there, we might as well make use of that to continue

to engage the community.

Yeah, and that is it. Really appreciate public works and look forward to more of these items coming up

for us to begin transitioning more and more of our fleet and our vehicles to

zero emission. Yep, we will look into those items and thank you.

Thank you. Is there a motion on this item?

I'll move. I'll second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call for the vote. Please vote.

Approved unanimously. Thank you.

Alright, moving on to

item 4A, public hearing. Public hearing to consider renewing assessments for citywide maintenance district 93-1 for fiscal year 24-25.

We will open the public hearing any public comments no public comments. All right. We will close the public hearing

Any council or is there a staff report?

there is

Good evening mayor mayor pro tem council members Laura Bourgeois and finance manager

in

1993 the city formed a citywide benefit assessment district to finance the operation and maintenance of public street lighting and landscaping the district was renewed each of the past 31 years and must be renewed for the 24-25 fiscal year in order for the city to continue collecting assessments the city started the process to renew its citywide maintenance district number 93-1 for the 24-25 fiscal year at its may 1st 2024 meeting at that time city council approved the engineer's report adopted the resolution of intention and scheduled the required public hearing for today. This concludes my report. Staff is available to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions

from Council? I do. Actually, just

for my information and the audience, but a bit of history, but the reason why we did this in the first place is because the state was rolling back its own funding for these type of projects, mainly the ERAF issue, correct? That's correct. Okay. And again, I do want to say that it's important that the community, any time we can find ways to fund our own services, especially given that here's an example this year where the state of California is looking at something like $67 billion deficit, it's important that we be able to also look at ways in which we as a community rely on our own source of funding as well.

Yes, that that is correct currently this assessment assists with I want to say 1.1 million in collecting revenue 1.1 million dollars in revenue the city's general fund subsidizes the remaining amount in about

887,000

Any other questions

if not uh just laura to confirm so this is a parcel tax that property owners pay in the city

right that's correct okay um and what can you just remind us i know it's the staff report but what

the gap is between the actual cost of maintaining streets and street lights and sidewalks uh that's in our budget uh and what the subsidy essentially is from the general fund for those activities yes

The subsidy is eight hundred and eighty four thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars

And there's been no adjustment since 1993 to the amount of the parcel tax and what it generates revenue wise or other than growth of properties, but

That's correct. Generally stayed about a million dollars. Correct

In 30 some odd years. That's all right. Thank you. Is there a motion on this?

I'll move I'll second

Any further discussion? Hearing none we will call for the vote. Please vote

Approved unanimously

Thank you Moving on to item 5A

resolutions for November 5th general municipal election

their staff report

Thank you

Mayor, member of the city council my name is Cindy Trang I'm the Deputy City Clerk. Before you for consideration is a staff report relating to calling for a general municipal election on November 5th, 2024. The general municipal election is scheduled for Tuesday, November 5th, 2024, for the purpose of electing three members of the City Council for District 2, 3, and 4 for a term of four

years each.

The nomination period will begin July 15, 2024, and concludes on August 9, 2024. Candidates must reside in the district in which they are running for. Candidates may submit an optional statement for inclusion in the official voter pamphlet for an additional cost of $500 for English only or $1,000 for English and Spanish. The candidate filing process and inquiries will be conducted by the City Clerk's Office. However, candidates may purchase maps, voter files directly from the county. The election will be consolidated with the statewide general election conducted by the Los Angeles County Registered Recorder's Office. A resolution requesting the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors to provide election services is required. The county will be responsible for securing voters vote centers and canvassing the election results. spectator may view the canvassing process at the county ballot processing center located in the city of industry. The semi-final results will be released by the county and continuously updated and displayed on its website at www.lavote.gov throughout election night and during the official canvas. The county is tentatively scheduled to certify the election results on November the 29th. And the Board of Supervisors is tentatively

seat of the official certificate of election results from the county and the adoption of the final declaration of the results by the city council. The oath of office for the council elect is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, December the 4th. The clerk's office will be conducting voter outreach leading up to the election, including using social media to push out

information in addition the staff has created a website a web page dedicated to the election

at www.montereypark.ca.gov backslash election 2024 this website will be available next week after the adoption of the resolution the fiscal year for 2024-25 budget is expected to include $250,000 for expenditures associated with the November election. That concludes my presentation, and we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions from Council?

I have a question, but more of a clarification. So I heard, I thought I heard, the certification from the county was November 29th to December 5th. So they have until December 5th. But we schedule an oath of office on December 4th. So I guess we would know before, I mean, I guess if we don't know by the 5th, then we can't have an oath of office on the 4th. But I guess when we get there, then we'll reset the date.

That is correct.

So we are tentatively scheduling the date according to what the county has published.

All right. If no other questions, is there a motion?

I'll move. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion?

Hearing none, please vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Looking forward to the November election.

All right, we'll move to the remaining items, future agenda items.

Oh, there is a resolution.

Sorry.

item 6a resolution city council for june 7th national gun violence awareness day and june 8th and 9th as wear orange weekend in monterey park is there staff nope is there

aren't comments questions from council yes so um i um was going to ask to be to put this

for many different reasons, but this weekend and the entire month of June is National Gun Violence Awareness Month. And so I put out some ribbons that my students made for the occasion, but wanted to share some of the stats, which I think some of us are very already very well aware of that are in the resolution, just for the public to know, but just to also refresh our memory. Every day in the U.S., more than 120 people are killed as a result of gun violence. Every year in the U.S., over 40,000 people are killed with guns, and approximately 85,000 are shot and wounded. The gun homicide rate in the U.S. is 26 times higher than that of other developed nations. The first Friday of June marks the beginning of a three-day movement honoring the victims and survivors of gun violence and calling for an end to the epidemic. in 2024, National Gun Violence Awareness Day is observed on June 7th, and Wear Orange Weekend is observed June 8th and 9th. And I know there's a lot of events happening in the area, including the San Gabriel Valley, so I encourage residents and also my colleagues to attend some of those. But it also rings true here in Monterey Park in light of the mass shooting that we had here in Monterey Park, the lefty love and dead. And I'm very proud that this council has worked very hard to try to promote gun violence awareness, both within our city, but also to help advocate for gun violence awareness with our legislative partners, like Assemblymember Mike Fong and Congressman Judy Chu, both at the state and federal, national level. So last thing is I want to, I know that we're going to be making the Cascade Fountain orange in commemoration of the state, and then also the fire station, right, lighting it up orange. So wherever possible, and continue to wear your ribbon. If you didn't pick one up, I'm sure there's more over there.

Wear orange, right? Yes, wear orange.

So continue to wear orange, but also continue to be an advocate. And I think there's no better way, just as item K says, to memorize all of the victims of the shooting here in Monterey Park than to continue to push for gun control wherever possible. So if the council is amenable to the idea, I'd like to move for us to pass this resolution.

All right. Any comments or a second?

Oh, I support that. I was a little bit shocked.

I thought you said, Jose, you said you want to paint the whole fire by the orange in color.

So I'm like.

No, it's going to be lit up orange. That would take a while for me to paint it all orange.

I think SAP already did that with the auditorium chairs.

Yeah.

A little bit orange.

It might just be very faded red, but who knows.

But is there a motion? Is there a second?

I'll second.

All right, move and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call for the vote. Please vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. All right, now moving on to future agenda items and any council member comments, events attended, whatever.

Council Member Sanchez? I'm sorry, we're doing... Closing comment.

Oh, closing comment. Sure. just also wanted to mention that tomorrow, June 6th, is the 80-year anniversary of D-Day, Disembarkment Day, and I know our president is currently in France, so I wanted to thank, I know we still have actually vets who served on D-Day, and I know that 2,500 Americans died on that day alone, and it's a very important day because it's a turning point in World War II, but at that time we were fighting for democracy and preserving democracy worldwide, And in some ways, shapes and forms, President Biden said that that's exactly what we're still continuing to fight on this day. So I just wanted to end on that note. I did want to share just with teacher-wise, because I promised I would share. I was invited to the Markeppel High School's Aquatic Program gala that they had this past weekend. and they honored their coach and teacher, Markeppel teacher Ish Perez, who has been their aquatics coach for the last 25 years and has successfully led the aquatics program at Markeppel High School. So I wanted to make sure to also mention him and honor him for his tireless work with the aquatics program at Markeppel.

That's it for me.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. A clarification. Our next council meeting is June 18th. Okay. Would it be possible at the next meeting, actually, for us a resolution to mark the 42nd anniversary of the murder of Vincent Chin?

Anything is possible. Okay.

I would like to. Well, thank you very much. And the reason why is because it actually brought to my attention that on June 19th, 1982, it was now 42 years ago, was a very important moment that I think galvanized the Asian American community. And that was the murder of Vincent Chin, who unfortunately was a victim of a hate crime. And I think that given, again, so much talk about addressing xenophobia and violence, I'd like to ask that we bring a resolution to mark the 44th anniversary of the murder of Vincent Chin. And I can work with you for language for that as well.

I would fully support that, and I think that's good direction for counsel, and I'm sure they'll follow up with you on the language and work on that.

I think that would be great. Any other comments? Okay, real quick, and I was trying not to be verbose. Again, I want to thank Public Works for having a great open house.

And, you know, it was just, I was told that it was very good turnout. And certainly I had a chance to stop by and grab a burger and hot dog. But again, thank you so much for everyone at Public Works for all that you do, for keeping the city running. Again, just incredible all that you do.

Also, I attended, let's see, also our Memorial Day event.

And again, thank you to our American Legion Pulse 397 for putting on this event with the city to remember those who have put themselves in harm's way to protect democracy.

Oh, and then also the day before, some of us, also thanks to our resident Arthur Fong, actually, it was Fleet Week, invited some members of the United States Navy to visit Monterey Park for dinner, and some of us got to meet those sailors. And again, thank you for those who serve currently around the world to protect our nation's freedoms and interests.

Also, again, thank you so much, Parks and Rec, for just a wonderful Pride event this past weekend. And this is now Pride Month, which is why I'm wearing a rainbow tie. But, you know, it's interesting how Monterey Park seems to always be a trendsetter. Because, you know, I know earlier we had a very spirited conversation about our Lunar New Year event. And if you think about it, Monterey Park Lunar New Year event kicks off the season for Lunar New Year in Southern California. Well, likewise, in the Sangamah Valley, for the past four years, we have kicked off Pride Month in the Sangamah Valley. and so that's something that we should be proud of that we kick off probably in this area and so again, you know, another example where we are just setting trends for the region

and that's it for me. Thank you. Councilman Ryu.

Last week I attended the EDI API award ceremony and this year they honor Judge Echow and our former mayor, Lili Chen and also a group of API leaders. Congratulations to their achievement to API community. And I wanted to bring up last week on May 30th

at the San Gabriel Court meeting, there was a discussion about Brown Act. What happened is that the Ventura Chamber of Commerce holds an annual breakfast at which Ventura Mayor did a presentation at a state of the city event. The public could attend the event, but only if they purchase tickets from the chamber.

So according to Attorney General Robonta, if three or more council members attend a meeting, such as state of the city, that address the city issues, that charge a ticket. And we must ensure free public access right before the mayor's presentation because charging a fee creates a bias in public attendance

and is considered a violation of Brown Act. So the Cog actually suggests suggestion is that if we want to hold a state of cities similar of that type of event, Ms. Ventura, we should work with our city attorney to discuss possible alternative,

for example, not charge for the events or hold a pure social function first for which the public could be charged and then allow the public to attend the free of charge to hear the state of the city address. So in addition, if this is considered a Brown Act meeting, our local

agencies should need to comply with other aspects of Brown Act, including posting agenda

and allowing the public comment. So just a comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. That is correct. We have been working with our city attorney's office on the determination based on our attorney general's opinion.

And yes, correct.

So I'll just speak most recently.

The last two state of the city addresses

that were hosted with our two previous mayors

were free and open to the public.

So yes, we are following that procedure.

But yes, we do understand that for future state of the city addresses or any other kind of

programs, events that

are led by council, we understand that we would be posting an agenda just to comply with that opinion. So absolutely, thank you for sharing that update and yes we have worked with our city attorney's office on that clarification. Thank you.

Okay, so this

past Monday, I was part of 25 professionals who attended the Garvey Intermediate School Career Day. And I also want to point out our captain here, Gus Jimenez, who also joined me

at the school. So we spent, we spent like three, four hours there. All 650 kids or students went

through different sessions. And the survey came out the following day. It was very positive. It It was a very good experience for the students, and I'm sure we'll be asked to go back again next year. The prior weekend we had, as many of my colleagues have mentioned, the Pride Parade, and kudos again to Parks and Rec for hosting the event. It's an event that kind of spearheads Pride Month, and we are very glad that we have the ability to do that in our city. last week we

attended

as many others here as well

Assembly Mike Fung's open house his new office in Alhambra and then that morning

I was privileged to be presented by a check from the

congresswoman congressman

That project will actually be in the St. Gabriel Valley, and we're looking at possible locations, Monterey Park being one of them. So that's on behalf of CSC. Also attended the Memorial Day Remembrance at the Post 397, as well as the day before, the Naval Officers from Fleet Week. and of course the

Public Works Open House

back on the 23rd

I think the hot dogs

and the burgers and the pizzas they sold out they were not sold but they were given out and I believe you ran out of them at the end so kudos and it's always great to have our community engaged to know what the city, the staff what we do, how city yard

actually looks like that is it for me

all right I'll just say ditto on most of those events appreciate all the staff and the work that went into putting those on and look forward to a lot more to come and I think it's gonna be a busy summer with that if there's no other comments we will we'll adjourn the meeting at 9 31 look forward to everyone coming to our next meeting on June 18th Tuesday not Wednesday

Thank you. ! Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.