City Council Meeting — October 16, 2024

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

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just drove back.

All right. All right, good evening.

Welcome to our city council meeting for October 16th.

I'll start with our land acknowledgement.

We'd like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today, what's once known as the Tovangaar, the home of the Gavileo Tongva people, We show our respect to the Gavaleo Tongva people, as well as all indigenous people, past, present, and future, and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. We commit to uplifting the Gavaleo Tongva people, invite you to acknowledge their history, and join us in caring for this land.

With that, we will begin with the explorers for the flag salute, if you can join me in standing up.

Thank you.

Outward face presents color Outward face.

Present colors.

Face the flag. Put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin.

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

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

You may be seated.

Forward, forward.

Outward, face. Forward, march. ! Forward march! Watch out!

Watch out!

Overpaste.

All right.

Thank you. I'll call the meeting in order officially, but if I invite the council members to join me in recognizing Aria June, a fourth grader from Monterey Highlands, who is our civic superstar tonight. Thank you for leading the pledge.

. . .

. .

This one first, one, two, and three.

One, two, and three. You have one more camera?

One, two, and... Okay, awesome. Thank you. Yay! Yay!

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. and the family for joining us tonight.

All right, so the meeting is called to order. If we can have the city clerk do the roll call.

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 items, additions, deletions, changes, or adoptions? No changes.

I will suggest, but we'll see if any council members have any concerns with this. Maybe we can move up 1B, the recognition for Nadine Phillips, to ahead of the staff communications. If that's okay? Yes. All right.

If there are no other changes, we'll proceed with the agenda, and we'll begin with any public communications on items not on the agenda.

First speaker, Tanika Shou of the Friends of the Library.

Hi, everyone.

Good evening, Monterey Park City Council. My name is Tanika Zhao, and I am the treasurer of the Friends of the Monterey Park Brighamire Library. And with me, I have Rosaline, our vice president, as well as our membership chair.

And then I also have Ellen, our secretary. And I'm honored to speak to you all today about the Friends of the Library, a 501c3 nonprofit organization that has been a positive force in our community since the 1962. Our mission is simple yet impactful. We support our local library through volunteer efforts and financial contributions.

Over the years, the Friends of the Library have helped ensure that the Monterey Park Brighamire Library remains a valuable resource for everyone. Through membership dues, donations, and proceeds from the sales of donated books in our Friends bookstore,

we've been able to consistently provide the library with much needed funding. These funds have made it possible for the library to offer a wide range of programs and services for adults, teens, and children, whether it's educational workshops, special holiday events, and technology-driven programs, our financial support helps ensure that the diverse needs of the Monterey Park community are met. We funded both one-time presentation and ongoing programs that span weeks, focusing on everything from literacy to cultural events. Our aim is to enrich the lives of our residents, whether it's through a child's first story time or a community-wide cultural celebration. If you'd like to support us, there are many ways to get involved. Membership in the Friends is open to everyone with an affordable due starting at $5 for individuals and $3 for seniors. We also welcome anyone interested in volunteering their time or contributing their skills to our efforts. The Friends of the Library play a crucial role to helping our library grow and evolve. We're always looking for new members and volunteers with fresh ideas and diverse experiences. If you share our passions for supporting the library and serving the community, I highly encourage you all to join us. If you have any questions about the organization, feel free to email us at mpkfriendsofthelibrary at gmail.com, or you can find us on the Monterey Park website. Thank you for your time. And then we're going to be passing around little goodie bags to everyone.

Thank you so much.

Thanks to the friends of the library. Next speaker.

Next speaker, Min Zheng.

Good evening, everyone. It's my first time to hear, so a little bit Lor. Just excuse me.

So my title is Our Kind of Community Life Happiness is Go Down. Here's reasons why, like six total. First reasons, I know people a lot every day. They've been here, they're in and out. And even we lock the out gate, but they still have an idea to open the gate, you know.

So we call this illegal and no license plate, the boarding house. It's my neighborhood. Because we are together, we're sure on the wall.

Second reasons why.

They use so many waters every day because every people come in here, they're not going to be a customer. They use anything and they just leave.

And we always call this waste of water. Third, test of assistance.

You know why? They always pay cash. They pay debt. They pay back. They pay by the room. And they're just leaving. That's it.

And the fire safety.

Before, our community is always good. But right now, all people come in, they're smoking, they're drinking, they're food everywhere. Drop, looks ugly, dirty. Nobody cleaning that. Just every two weeks, we have security to cleaning

that. So, you know.

Four, loyemakers. They speak loudly even after 10.30 p.m. every night. Music, DJ, pop, something and the indoor has so many locking like a fight. Last one is my

important things I'm talking about. Not a safety for the Kando community and my families because you know why I know people they lock up my my person on the

house and they say are you a family hotel we wanted to live here I said I'm not you need to go on the legs in the door please ma'am. And one more thing last

years in the evening they stretched the wall with the wood while my family was still eating the

dinner. I report to the police already but for now it's I don't know. That's one thing, my mom and the kids were so woken up when we was asleep so I need

woken up when we was asleep. So I need to stop my walking at night. Take my emergency room three times.

! As I know three times. So I might require just hope everybody help me. Help my family keep safe.

! And I hope our condos community is happy again. Thank you. !

Mr. Manager, do we have the information? It looks like maybe the chief is going to, if you can follow up with the chief, give him your address. We can have code enforcement follow up. Okay, thank you.

Yes.

Chief Thompson and Chief Weiss will get your contact information and the address that you're reporting so we can follow up. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much.

Next speaker.

Next speaker, Margaret Leung.

So good evening, city council members, city attorney, and city manager.

I'm here tonight to talk about an article that a group of Monterey Park residents shared with me,

and I thought it was important enough for me to come here and to share with everyone.

This is a Harvard Law Review article, and I think it's important for us to talk about it.

And I made a copy for everyone here.

So this particular article, so I just want to talk about Harvard Law Review.

Just so you folks know, for those people who doesn't know, Harvard is one of the most prestige law schools in this country.

Not only that, our former President Obama was the president of Yale Law Review.

So this is very important for us to take this matter very seriously.

There's been a lot of chatters in Facebook and whatnot, and a group of residents basically share this with me, and I came here tonight to share with you folks.

This is a Yale law review on one of our candidates for Monterey Park coming up.

And since the five of you, five city council members, has endorsed this particular candidate, I would like you folks to take time and review this article.

It's very important because Harvard Law Review published these documents

so that the next generation attorneys are taught with these things. And pretty much this is the poster child of what not to do for the country. So it's important, and it's kind of very alarming that they talked about very specifically that the office trademark database reviews that in 2020, that a single attorney named Elizabeth Yang

filed over 8,000 proposed trademark.

So I encourage everyone,

including the city, I guess the resident of the city,

to Google this.

This is public information.

All you need to do is Google

Harvard Law Review

Elizabeth Yang and this article will pop right up on your screen

so that's all I could say

everybody could read this article for themselves and I think it's very alarming because we have an election

upcoming. Thank you

Next speaker

We have one written comment received from Bill Lang

he'd like to discuss

the upcoming November 2024 election as well. He asked, will there be a candidate forum for all candidates running for local office before this upcoming election? The last time that there was a candidate forum for the Monterey Park City election, including all candidates running for local office, was on February 10, 2020. He's hoping that there could be at least one candidate forum for the November 5, 2024 city election. he hopes that you will consider running it for all candidates running for local office before the election because people would like to watch and attend the debate as well as meet and interact with all the candidates running for local office before the election. That way people can understand who the candidates are and what they are about.

Thank you for your time.

No other speakers.

Thank you, Felicity Clerk. Just in response to that, I'll just note really quickly, the city itself does not typically host candidate forums, but if there are community groups that are interested in hosting, we're happy to discuss venue, and the city might be able to assist with facilitating that. But typically a community group or someone else has hosted these in the past. So I'm just looking out here. If there's anyone interested in hosting, helping to put together a candidate forum, happy to chat with you. With that, we'll move on from public communication to presentation item 1B, Certificate of Recognition for Nadine Page Phillips, drama teacher.

Nadine is here with us today. Thank you so much for joining us. She's a drama teacher at Mark Keppel High School and was recognized.

recently recognized as one of Los Angeles County's Teachers of the Year.

We have a short video we'd like to play that kind of centers around Nadine.

I love somebody. Ain't that just beautiful?

Don't let that scare you.

Don't want to leave the single word to say. I like the way you think. Let's take this all the way.

And I'm tired of waiting. Cause this feels like something. Oh.

Tell me I don't think it's so

Ain't that just beautiful Touching everything I know

We can do this all night long Give me that, give me that heart

If you want it to break

Let me be honest Believe you're the one in a million states Ain't that beautiful?

Come on.

Why don't you try me? I thought it's all your ways

Don't look down, it's further than you think

You've got that style and grace Tongue tied and stuttering

Come down, I'm waiting

Let's run to something

All right, so Miss Phillips is the drama teacher and the visual and performing arts chair in her 21st year at Mark Keppel High School. In May 2024, she was named the Alhambra Unified School District Teacher of the Year, and in September 2024, just last month, the L.A. County Office of Education named her one of 16 educators as Teacher of the Year 2024-2025.

The L.A. County Teachers of the Year program is the largest in the state and part of the oldest and most prestigious honors competition in the U.S. for public school teachers. The selected teachers have shown exemplary dedication, compelling classroom practices, positive accomplishments, and professional commitment. Your outstanding contributions and unwavering commitment have not only enriched the lives of our students, and hundreds of our students, but also the entire community. Your passion, creativity, and enthusiasm have brought the visual and performing arts program to new heights, shaping a brighter future for all of our youth. The City Council extends our best wishes for your continued success in all your future endeavors, knowing that your work will continue to positively impact our community. And we have a small take of appreciation, but I want to open up, Council Members, if anyone wants to offer comments as well. Yes, congratulations.

As a fellow teacher and a fellow O'Hambra teacher, we congratulate you, and I know my wife teaches at Keppel as well.

But thank you so much.

I think the video and just you being selected as a teacher of the year is testament to not just how the amazing impact that you have in the classroom and in Monterey Park, which we really appreciate, but also the dedication that you have to your students. So we really appreciate everything that you do every day when you walk into the classroom. And we thank you so much for everything that you do.

Thank you.

Thank you. Well, I also want to share my colleagues' heartfelt congratulations. As someone who served on the Garvey School Board of Education for 17 years, and if I'm not mistaken, one-third of my capital high students are from Garvey School District. And, you know, your success is no doubt also because of the immense support you have for the work you do as evidenced by the people in this audience.

And so, again, congratulations.

You know, your success is our community's success.

Thank you.

I wanted to congratulate you. I really enjoyed the video because it just tell us a lot more about Mark Keppel drama program.

And so, yeah, I'm very proud of you.

And also I hope maybe the city council can help us to also do some video when we, you know, when we get away.

So just a thought. But thank you so much and congratulations. Thank you.

Ms. Nadine Phillips, congratulations on being Teacher of the Year. I think that is by itself a monumental task to kind of get selected out of the school, out of Marquepo, and then for the district. As a fellow Aztec, and both my kids are also Aztecs, congratulations again. We're proud of the school.

We're proud of you. We're proud of the school district.

Thank you. And again, congratulations, Ms. Phillips. really appreciate all that you do for all of our students in our community. You've really shaped, teachers shaped the lives and have a dramatic impact on so many of our youth, and you have obviously proven to be exemplary in your efforts over the years and look forward to many more years hopefully at least, of shaping Monterey Park students for the better in the years to come. So thank you so much. Let me invite the City Council to join me to present the certificate and also invite Superintendent and any any family members or others who may want to join in this picture

Five left. Good to go.

I will. Okay, ready? One, two, three, smile.

If you can't see.

Thank you.

We're going to let the kids go first.

And then we're all going. We're already told.

Wait, wait, Miss Lee. You sit down. You first. I have a better angle. You know I'm sending them to you. You can go in and I'll do the other thing.

Okay, now you.

I have a better angle. Without the stage. You guys went to the next one.

Thank you.

I'm a full service city attorney.

All right, we good? Good?

Oh, we got more?

I have two cameras. What?

All right.

Carl, can you go more? Carl.

Carl, just stay there for a moment. Alright, stay over there.

I got two cameras. Can you guys get that away?

I want to take like ten because there's going to be people with their eyes closed.

And I know Miss Lee is going to make Carl take care of her.

This is my special projects rig.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Good job, Carl. Thanks.

Thank you so much. It's such an honor. Thank you. Did you want to say a few words? You don't have to.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just want to say how blessed I feel to be in this community at large. Over my 21 years at Mark Keppel, the city council has often honored us by having us come in, some of our students, for performances, etc. And we always feel supported by this community, 100%.

I'll tell you a little story really, really fast. But when I finished my teaching credential and I was looking for a full-time drama position, I was in a writing class and someone said to me, I heard that Mark Keppel High School is hiring a drama teacher.

And I was like, what? Okay, who's Mark Keppel and where are they?

And they said Monterey Park.

So I drove by and I was trying to decide. It looked like, you know, I had only met a few people. And at the time there were bungalows everywhere, right, because we were under construction. And I didn't get to really talk to anybody who went to school there, but I just had such a feel for the place as I was walking around in early August.

And then I came across the baseball field, which is named Maynard Horst Stadium. And my father's name was Maynard, and it's such an unusual name that I said, yes, I have to work there. And I never looked back. It's been an amazing, amazing journey. So thank you again for this honor.

I really do appreciate it, and I love what I do, and I love my students and all my colleagues and everyone in this community.

All of you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Again, congratulations, and the whole city and the community celebrates with you. Thank you. All right, we will move to staff communications. The city clerk's office is up first.

Good evening, mayors and members of the city council. Cindy Trang, deputy city clerk. And here with me is Mayshao Yee, the city clerk. And we're going to provide you some election information for the November 5th, 2024 election. So the election is November 5th, 2024. and by now we register voters should have received your vote by mail ballots already

and your sample ballot booklet.

The last day to register to vote is October the 21st and October 26th will be the first day of the early voting. We have one 11-day vote center in Monterey Park and three 4-day vote centers in Monterey Park.

So what's on the ballot?

The city council position in District 2, 3, and 4 will be serving for a four-year term ending in November 2028.

There are also two ballot measures, Measure BE, which is the business license tax, and Measure LG is the transient occupancy tax. To download the Budget and Physical Stability Workshop presentation, you can scan the QR, or it's also on our city's website. So the vote centers, locations, and dates. Like I mentioned, there are four vote centers in the city of Monterey Park. The Garvey Ranch Park and Langley Center are four-day vote centers, so they open the weekend right before the election day, starting November 2nd through the 4th, and then on Election Day.

East LA is also the same thing as the four-day vote center. And then Union Church is on New Avenue, and that is the 11-day vote center, so they will open two weeks prior to Election Day, October 26th through November 4th. and then on election day all vote centers are open from 7 o'clock to 8 p.m. There is also two vote centers, I mean two vote by mail drop box in the city. One is right in front of City Hall on Newmark and then the other one is in Sierra Vista Park. They are open 24-7 and on election day they will close and so the county will have people there monitoring the boxes and close the box at 8 p.m.

You can visit lavote.gov, and they provide a lot of information as far as the closest vote centers to you, your individual ballot. If you need translated languages of your sample ballot booklet, they also provide that information there at lavote.gov. And that concludes my presentations.

We just, neighbors, we encourage all of you to come out to vote, especially as we near our Veterans Day, we want to honor their service and they're protecting our right to democracy and our right to vote. So make sure your voice is heard and you get out and vote.

Thank you.

If you have any questions, we're here to answer them.

Any questions?

Yes.

Out of curiosity, since ballots have already been mailed to voters, do we get reports where it's possible in the county, like, for example, how many ballots have already been returned? I'm just curious because I know in other parts of the country early voting has taken place, and I know it's been a news that Georgia, I know Georgia, but apparently the first day was like 320,000 votes,

which is great, but I'd be curious.

Do we get any updates so we have a gauge about voter interest right now?

We do not have an update. We have to obtain that through the county.

Okay.

And so they don't provide the updates.

They don't? If you ask, do they? Or do they normally give? If you ask? I can check.

I can call them and check to see if we can get an update as far as how many has been returned.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Usually I can obtain the report after, but during the process, I don't get that information.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anything else?

I had a follow-up question to what Council Member Lo said.

In the event that we do are able to get updates, if we can share those on social media, just as a way or a platform to be able to encourage residents to come out and vote, if the number is low, maybe we can tell them to come out. and if it's high, congratulate them for voting. We'll definitely look into that.

All right. Thank you so much. Really appreciate all your efforts and look forward to the remaining few weeks of the election and everyone kicking in a high gear for that.

Thank you.

Next up, staff communication from community development.

Hello. Good evening, Mayor Wong, Mayor Pro Tem Go, members of the city council. I'm Jessica Serrano, community development director, and we're here to inform you about

upcoming events that are organized by the community development department. First, beginning with our short-term rental workshop. It's going to be held on Monday, October 21st, this upcoming Monday, 6 to 7 p.m. at the Brighammeyer Library Friends Room. We're also going to have a virtual option for those individuals who want to join virtually. Our goal is to increase compliance with short-term rental operational requirements, and we also want to educate the community about the city's requirements if they choose to operate a short-term rental in the community. This is phase one of the city's efforts with enforcement of our short-term rental regulations, and there's more to come. We'll be working closely with code enforcement. We'll also be looking at our ordinance and potentially bringing back refresh and updates on the city's ordinance. So more to come on this. Next, Joe Torres, our economic development manager, will provide more information about another upcoming initiative.

Thank you, Jessica. Good evening, Mr. Mayor,

Mayor Pro Tem and Council members. Joe Torres, your economic development manager, this November we're launching an exciting new program called Taste of Downtown

MPK.

It's a collaboration between BIDAC, our Business Improvement District Advisory Committee, to bring more people to our downtown and support our fantastic downtown restaurants in the BID area.

So here's how it works.

from November 1st to the 30th, anyone who dines at a downtown restaurant can earn 10% back on their purchases through the Open Rewards app.

It's easy to use. Just download the app, and it will even show you all the participating locations.

Then, you can pay with any method you like. You can pay with a credit card, debit card, check, even cash.

and the rewards are automatically applied. You can redeem those rewards at any participating restaurants until the end of December or until all the funds are exhausted. The program is designed to be seamless for both diners and restaurants.

There's no extra work for businesses.

They'll all automatically be included. We believe Taste of Downtown and Piquet will be a delicious way to boost our local economy and encourage everyone to explore the diverse culinary scene in our downtown.

And I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you. Any questions from Council? Yes, a couple of questions.

Thank you so much, Joe and Mr. Arnold, for the report. I did have some questions about the Taste of Downtown MPK.

Are the restaurants that are participating in the Taste of Downtown only in the downtown district?

Yes, Your Highness.

They're only for the downtown restaurant that are within the business improvement district area.

Oh, okay.

So they're only the ones in the bid. So we wouldn't find any in other parts of the city?

No. Not for this particular program.

Okay.

And do you happen to have a list of restaurants that, or off the top of your head, how many restaurants are participating in this?

We have about 37 to 43 restaurants that will be automatically listed as participants for this program.

They don't have to do anything.

We'll do all the listings for them.

Oh, excellent.

And then one more question, Joe. So the app, the Open Rewards app, is there a fee for that?

It's a free app.

No fee. Oh, okay. So is there a way?

I think this is great.

I think it's a great way to highlight. Is there a way to continue to use this beyond the November, the dates that we have?

If it proves to be a successful program, we would love to implement it again, but we'll have to evaluate how this is received by the community.

Excellent.

I would love to see if it works out to expand to other restaurants within the city and highlight a lot of our other restaurants that are not necessarily in the Bidec area but in other parts of our city as well.

It will be a great pilot program for us.

So we'll definitely track the progress and the response rate.

Excellent. Thank you so much.

You're welcome, Your Highness.

Mr. Mayor? Yes. Hello.

Follow-up question, actually. Out of curiosity, so the end date to participate, I'm sorry, to make purchase is November 1st?

It starts November 1st.

Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. But to redeem, it's December 31st.

By December 31st or until all the funds are exhausted.

I'm curious, how did we come up with that date? Is it because of the funds available?

I'm just curious, how did we come up with that date?

Because the bid has limited funds for this, that they budgeted for this program year.

I see. I see. And the reason I bring it up is because, and certainly December is the holidays, But, you know, for this community, Lunar New Year is also a very important holiday. And, in fact, I would argue for a lot of restaurants in the downtown, Lunar New Year is probably a very important season. That's why I was curious, you know, why, for example, it wouldn't be extended to January or February. And if we could, that would be my suggestion, if it can be.

It's a good possibility, especially if we can get additional funding and the response rate is tremendous.

There's no reason not to. Okay.

How much is the funding? Do we know?

The bid has allocated $7,200 for the funding.

Okay, great.

And how about can we go to the same restaurant in the same day, multiple times a day?

Absolutely.

Now, there's a $10 limit per transaction.

Okay.

So when you sit down and dine and pay your bills and you participate and you have the app downloaded,

then depending on your ability, you get up to a $10 credit. Okay.

And then so 10% or to a maximum of $10. Correct.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Just want to add, let's publicize this. $7,000 budget, it sounds like a lot, but it may not be. And I think this is an opportunity to kind of just market the downtown area. And as you said, it's a pilot program. If this kicks off, then you can expand to the rest of the city.

I think it's great.

This is mainly for folks, residents in the city. But again, if this kicks off, we can also get others to come to the city and keep our restaurants vibrant this way.

That would be our ultimate goal. Thank you. I'd start off with saying I'm very excited about this, and I just have a couple questions for my own personal clarity because I'm hoping to download this as soon as this starts. So people, if they want to take part in the Taste of Downtown MPK, they'll download the Open Rewards app, go to a restaurant in the bid area, I have to take a picture of the receipt, or how do they track the transactions?

So, yes, depending on how you wanted to receive the credits, you can actually link your debit cards or your credit cards, and you will automatically get the credit based on the account number that you had registered within the app. If you don't feel safe doing that, you can actually just take a picture of the, you can pay cash, then take a picture of the receipt and upload it through the app.

Then you'll get credit for that. It'll know, because we are on the back end for the city, have loaded the restaurants, I guess, names into the app. it'll know as soon as someone takes a picture or they have to sign in through the Open Rewards app. Correct, yes.

So only the listed, and you will know as an app user which establishments are participating

because you'll have a handy list of all those restaurants, so you'll know exactly where to go,

and you'll know exactly where to go to spend your credit because there's two transactions here.

First, you've got to earn the credits, and then you need to go back and spend those credits.

because you can't spend it anywhere else.

So between November 1st and 30th, I would go to a bunch of restaurants in downtown Murray Park, try them all, spend money, and I'll generate credits, up by 10% of all of my transactions in the bid for restaurants. And then it sounds like between November 3rd, December 1st to the end of the year, I can spend the credits. So it's not a direct deposit into our account. It's a credit for spending at the restaurant. So it's a double help for the restaurants in the bid area, right? Because they have to go buy a meal and then generate credits, and they have to use the credits. Correct.

So that's the goal, is to generate economic activity by incentivizing our consumers, our residents,

to not only earn the credit at first and then go back to the same area.

Let's say they go to ABC Cafe to earn their credit.

And then the next day they go to a boba place to earn that credit.

So we've accomplished our goal because there's no saying that that person who ate at ABC Cafe, the next day they feel like having boba would have gone to the downtown area.

But because they have credits to spend, then they're more likely to go back to the downtown area and spend those credits rather than go someplace else.

I think this is a great pilot.

Looking forward to the results. I kind of wouldn't be surprised if the existing funding runs out pretty quickly. Well, that's why we kept it at $10.

Hopefully it's because it's just within those 30, 40 restaurants that it would be enough to sustain it for the two months that we're having it.

And, again, we'll see how it goes. But I don't think I've mentioned it.

The best part about this app, it's available in Chinese, Spanish, and English.

Oh, wonderful.

How are we? I really appreciate that and want to highlight that, that that's great and fits very well with the community. kind of to Mayor Pro Temgo's question, how are we planning to promote this and make sure people download the app? We will go all out.

We're using all our city communication channels. To minimize our costs,

we're going to go digital as much as possible, so social media.

We have a great partner in the software vendor

that we're using

that are going to partner with us in marketing this. In fact, the CEO of Blue Dot Technologies herself will be at Monster Mash, at our booth, to promote this. They're going to provide us with collateral material assets that we can use. So we're going to do social media. We're going to do it on e-newsletters, on constant contact, email blasts. we're going to go downtown and go door to door and, you know, promote this directly to the merchants and make sure they know that this program is ongoing and for them to leverage it as much as they can.

Yeah, no, I think it'd be great. And if we haven't already begun to put feelers out or to hint at this to the business owners in the bid or the restaurant owners in the bid area, it'd be great. I'm sure they would be happy to promote it because it's a free discount for

them. Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we'll make sure that they know, and we'll make sure that the entire community knows about it.

And you don't have to be a Monterey Park resident to download the app and to participate in the program. Absolutely. That's the beauty of it. Hopefully it will attract traffic from our neighboring cities. And it will be great to get a report out on how this pilot works out, and if we can get that data sooner than later. To Councillor Lo's point, it would be great to maybe explore how we utilize this for New Year and other kind of holidays throughout the year. Help promote some businesses, not just in the big area. If this goes really well, which I anticipate we'll take lessons from that and see how we can expand this to other businesses in the city as well.

Yeah, the app actually is a dashboard where we can track progress on an ongoing basis.

so we'll definitely know how it impacts the spending habits within this period. Great.

So, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, just wanted to add a few points. We are advertising this in the November edition of the Cascades.

Correct.

So there will be information there on how to download the app and participate. And then a point of clarification, Joe, just to make sure that when we start utilizing the app and collecting points, redemption can also start in November. It just ends at the end of December, correct?

Correct.

So it starts November 1st, and if you go at, again, ABC Cafe and earn your 10% credit,

you can go next door to a boba place and spend those 10% credits.

Now, depending on how you have set it up on the app, if you upload the receipt, there might be a little bit of time lag

before you can actually spend those credits. But from what I understand, it's within hours.

And if it's a credit card link or a debit card link, it's almost instantaneous.

Great. No, that's very, I'm really looking forward to this rolling out and seeing the results. We're excited about it as well.

Thank you, Joe.

So can you remind me, what's the name of the app again? Is that the Taste of Downtown MPK?

So we branded it as Taste of Downtown MPK,

but the actual platform we're using is called Open Rewards by Blue Dot Technologies.

Oh, Open Rewards. So when I look for it, because I couldn't find the name of it.

So can we start downloading now?

Not yet. Oh, okay.

Because we just executed the contract, and we're sending the check for the $7,200.

Once Blue Dot receives that, then it's up and running.

So the name on the app that we should look for is? Is Open Rewards.

Oh, Open Rewards.

Yeah, and when we push this out to the community, we'll make sure that they look for that Open Rewards app.

Okay, open reward, but then they also have a subsidiary of Taste of Modern, Downtown

Modern Park.

It's actually branded and promoted as Taste of Downtown MPK.

And then open rewards is kind of in the background.

It's just the name of the platform of the app itself.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Joe.

Quick question for Jessica on the short-term rental workshop and the potential ordinance. I just want to confirm boarding houses were brought up in the public comment period boarding houses technically would be short term rentals considered under short term rentals although depending on how they are would also be illegal no matter what but are boarding houses do they fall under that definition and how do they fit into the short term rental kind of regulations

yeah definitely short term rentals I mean, I'm sorry, boarding homes, we wouldn't consider short-term rentals.

But, you know, if the operator changes the mode in which they're operating

and we get them to comply with the regulations of a short-term rental,

potentially those could become short-term rentals if we get them to comply.

But right now there's a lot of illegal ones out there that are not in compliance.

Great. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? If not, we'll move. Thank you, Jessica and Joe. We'll move on to Public Works, staff communications.

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

Tonight I have before you a couple of items.

First, we have our community cleanup event. That's going to be on November 2nd, Saturday, from 8 to 12. Again, this is a normal event that we have throughout the year to Sierra Vista Park. And again, we encourage people to come out and dispose of their bulky items instead of on the street. This is a great event to donate those items. And then also we will be accepting everything except for hazardous waste, so no batteries, no light bulbs, and things of that nature. So again, we encourage people to come out and take part in that cleanup event on November 2nd.

Next, we have our curb painting.

So as you may have seen, we've been doing a lot of address painting for the curbs. We partnered with a nonprofit, Care for the Children. They've been going out and taking care of this for us. We partnered with them because it's a significant cost savings to the city. Typically, if we were going to go out to bid for an item like this, it would be well over $200,000. They're doing this as part of their donation program. So we encourage residents to take part in this. And, again, it's really just free painting for them if they don't want to participate in the donation side of things. Again, I know that we've gotten some calls about the donation side, but they're not required to donate.

It's just encouraged because they are a nonprofit.

So, again, I just want to reiterate that it's not required to donate, but they will solicit for those donations. So, again, this is going to be a before and after photo of the curb painting. We highly encourage people to take note of this because this is very significant for emergency services for fire and PD when they're responding to any type of emergency. So this is important for our community, and we're excited to get this thing started. So with that, I will take any questions.

I think we're good. Thank you so much. Appreciate the update. Move on to Recreation and Community Services. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council Members, Robert Aguirre, Director of Recreation and Community Services. Here to share some updates from Recreation and Community Services Department. Slide. I'm not monkeying around when I tell you that you do not want to miss our

annual Monster Mash event. It's going to be happening tomorrow evening

from 4 to 7 p.m. here in Barnes Park. As you can see already in the park, we're starting to set up. We're really excited about this event.

We know this

is always going to be a tremendous crowd. It's going to be tons and tons of candy. We actually purchased twice as much candy as we did

last year. So

definitely come out. We have some amazing performances from Kids Imagination.

I do want to also recognize

some of our sponsors for this event.

First, I do want to recognize

that all of the city departments are involved in this event, so this is a collaborative effort, and all the city departments participate with booths and provide games and really get out there and interact with the public. I also want to highlight some of our major sponsors, TransTech, our Community Participation Commission, the Friends of the Monterey Park Library, Monterey Park Library Foundation, Zoom Recreation, who may be familiar with it, we're involved with our new playgrounds, the Monterey Park Police Officers Association,

Children's Dental Fun Zone. That's kind of interesting there, right?

Dental, they're getting out ahead of it. I like that.

The Mid-Managers Association and Chick-fil-A. So we want to definitely thank them for their sponsorship and helping make this event another successful year. We're really excited about tomorrow and look forward to seeing everyone dressed up. Thank you, Council Members, for getting into the spirit with me tonight.

Love it. Next slide, please.

so we also wanted to thank all the folks that came out to our annual electric park event this is a newer event and we're definitely excited to see that every time we've had it in the last three years it's grown a little bit more and more this year we had the Grammy nominated DJ Richard Vision and he did not disappoint we had a tremendous crowd out there and everyone had a great time lots of dancing I know I saw you out there dancing and so it's just really awesome to see the community come together. We see folks out there from 80, 90 years old dancing next to little toddlers. It's just really beautiful parents with children on their shoulders just having a good time and really just speaks to the spirit of the community and that will not stop dancing and continues to live by the mantra

of United We Dance. Next slide, please. I also wanted to highlight

a few of the programs we just had with the Langley Senior Center. Last night we had our unveiling of the self-portraits that were done by our 18 seniors

and the teens from the West San Gabriel Valley Boys and Girls Club, led by artist Lalo Marquez.

This project was featured at the Vincent Price Museum about a month or so ago, and now the paintings have been transferred over to Langley Center walls where they will continue to live. So those seniors will get to see their faces, and then hopefully they'll stay there long enough so that those teens one day will walk those halls and see those pictures of themselves up there. We're also able to highlight a few new improvements at the Laney Senior Center. So recently we did some upgrades to our ping pong room. Ping pong room has a completely new floor now. Our public works department helped us with refreshing the paint in there. The ping pong club helped with some new tables in there. And then Garfield Medical Center, we got a donation from them to help with the barriers between the ping pong tables because we do have 10 tables in there, and it is used from morning to night every single day. And it's a tremendous way for our seniors to get some exercise and also continue to have that amazing hand-eye coordination.

We've also had some updates to our billiards room.

All of the six tables now have the champion blue felt on there,

and our players are really excited about that. They feel like champions.

And we also had a grant from the United Way, which we were able to furnish some new furniture in the lobby area. And then finally, in a few weeks, we won't do a ribbon cutting,

because I know restrooms aren't too exciting,

but we are in the process of completing a project for one of our restrooms. It's a complete renovation, all new. That restroom is as old as the building is there, and so it'll be a whole new restroom, and so we're really excited about that.

The other two items up there were some recent trips that we did.

We shuttled our seniors down to the Vincent Price Museum.

We're really trying to make sure and remind not only our seniors but also the residents in the Monterey Park

that we have this gem here in the city with the Vincent Price Museum. We want to continue to urge people and encourage them to visit the exhibits there at the museum. So we've been shuttling our seniors and we'll continue to do so. And then we also took 50 seniors down to the Aquarium of the Pacific down in Long Beach.

These are both free trips.

We try to offer free trips to give our seniors an opportunity to get out and experience some new trips.

Next slide, please.

Then I also want to encourage everyone, if you have loved ones that have passed, whether it be human or pet or alike, you can add their photo to our Dielos Muertos altar at the Langley Senior Center. You can do so either by dropping it off at the Senior Center at 400 West Emerson, or if you want to email it in, it's very simple, recreation at montereypark.ca.gov. Send those pictures in, and then staff will add it to the altar that's sitting there in our lobby. You're also welcome to visit the altar between October 14th through November the 4th during our hours of operation.

Next slide, please. This Saturday, we have our annual community health fair.

This is in conjunction with UCLA Health Corps. And it's this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. It is completely free, no insurance required.

All ages are welcome.

There's a number of health screenings and health services that you can drop in. There's also going to be offering flu shots.

So drop in, get some checkups.

We usually have about 200 to 300 folks that come through each year. And so looking forward to serving the community again this year with the annual health fair.

Next slide.

And then lastly is our fourth annual pickleball tournament.

This will be happening in November.

We're taking signups currently for teams.

It's only $40. This is very, very inexpensive compared to most pickleball tournaments out there.

I know there's more and more tournaments picking up and showing up throughout the area.

And this one, we're in our fourth year now. It's very well run.

Staff does an amazing job. It is, I won't say, the highest competitive.

It's definitely if you're a competitive player or you're a new player, we have three different divisions.

And we have mixed and men's divisions as well.

Sign up now. Come out and play. And most importantly, have a good time. Next slide.

and then lastly just as always remember if you are looking to keep up to date with all the wonderful events

and activities that the department has to offer you can follow us on social media at Monterey Park Rec

I'm available for any questions thank you I was wondering what the costume was Jose any questions

yes thank you Robert for all of that amazing programming A lot to look forward to in the coming days. Thank you also for, and I also, along with Council Member Lo, want to do a plug. We dressed up today to bring awareness to Monster Mash tomorrow. I know my daughters are really excited. We got our costumes this past weekend, so thank you for that. I'm expecting every year. It looks like it gets bigger and bigger, so families are really enjoying that. So thank you for all of the hard work that you do. It makes our lives as parents and just in the community a lot easier to be able to go out and have fun. in our community. So thank you so much, Robert, for

all that Parks and Rec does. Thank you. And I want to reiterate that sentiment

as well, because over the years I've heard from residents, especially those in neighboring areas like East LA, who realized, oh, we didn't

come to Monterey Park, you know, because they had

great programming. And I think that is something that we are, as a community, is having a reputation now, just having quality programming.

So that's something we should be proud of

as a community. We work so that you can play. Just a quick question. Do we have to buy tickets

tomorrow for the Monster Mash? Nope, you come. It's absolutely free. Walk around. This is also in conjunction with our farmer's market, so come hungry, come ready to eat, come ready to get some candy, and have a good time. It's great entertainment, and it's completely free. Great, thank you.

I want to remind Council Member you that there's still time to get an outfit for tomorrow for Monster

Mash. Yes, costumes are definitely encouraged for young and old. Everyone come dressed up.

Robert, how many pounds of sugar or candy do we have?

Do we have?

Oh, I can tell you, when we went shopping, it was a whole truckload, so it's a ton.

And do we have any issues getting the sponsors? You mentioned the number of sponsorships in the community, so thank them for it.

Yeah, absolutely.

No, it's been, I think it being such a tremendous outcome every year that they see the number of attendants, and so people want to support something that's really given back to the community.

So we definitely appreciate our sponsors.

All right, so next year, I'll go with you. We'll go hit up all the dentists for donations.

I'm sure they'll donate. Yeah, I like that they saw the future, right?

They need business too.

No, I appreciate all the work that the Recreation Community Services Department is doing. I really appreciate last night's ceremony. And just for the record, I'm dressed as my twin brother. But I wish everyone a happy HalLoen. I appreciate everyone, all the staff and everyone. I know not just the Rookavish Community Services Department goes into helping making sure these events go off without a hitch. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, it's definitely a village, and we appreciate all of the work and effort to support we get from all the other departments. And like I said, you'll see all of those departments out there playing games and interacting with the public tomorrow.

I think staff really has a tremendous, a lot of fun at this event every year. I'm looking forward to everyone else wearing costumes, too.

I think he's talking about you guys. Especially Chief Weed.

I think he's talking about those guys over there. The firefighters can dress as the police officers. There you go.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

All right. We will move on from staff communications to presentation item 1A. The San Diego Valley COG is here with us tonight. Welcome them up to provide their update.

I should have gotten the memo and dressed up as well. All right. Good evening, Mayor Wong and council members. My name is Nicholas Fru, and I'm one of our sustainably program managers with the Sanger Valley Council of Governments. I know it's a mouthful, but I'll just refer to my organization as the COG in this presentation. And we're here, again, because we are doing an annual roadshow to all of our 31 member cities to just let them know about all the work that is ongoing with our agency, what we have done in the past and what we're continuing to plan for the future. Next slide, please. So our COG leadership is made up of a bunch of different elected officials across our member agencies. So I'd like to highlight four individuals listed here. First is our president, Tim Peppern, who happens to also be the mayor for the city of Laverne. We also have Ed Reese, who is our first vice president, and he is a council member with the city of Claremont. We have our second vice president, April Vallado, who is a council member with the city of Arcadia. And then our third vice president is Corey Moss, who is the mayor for the city of Industry. Next slide. So our agency touches a lot of different topics, as you'll notice throughout my presentation. But first off, we would like to say that we are very active in promoting safe and clean environments. One program I'd like to highlight is actually one subset of our energy programs. through funding through an organization called the Southern California Regional Energy Network. Our agency is proud to restart a program called ESGV, which stands for Efficient San Diego Valley. Essentially, this is a free service that we offer to both renters and homeowners to provide what we call free home energy reviews. And this is a way to help engage residents to learn more about energy efficiency and to help them ultimately reduce energy and thereby actually save energy and money on their utility bills. Next slide.

So our COG agency is also really active in the transportation field.

One of our programs that I'd really like to highlight is our regional bike share program called GoSGV.

This program is great because it is actually one of the largest, if not the largest, bike share program in the entire nation.

And we have a fleet of over 800 bikes, or electronic bikes, that can be rented and ridden throughout the region. Next slide.

As your city knows and a lot of our other cities know too, providing housing is a very important issue for a lot of our residents.

We have a sister agency called the Regional Housing Trust. And this photo you see here is actually a photo of one of our tiny home bridge housing sites called Esperanza Villa.

And it is located in the city of Baldwin Park. Next slide, please.

and also going hand in hand with housing, providing homelessness service is also one of the cornerstones of our agency.

This photo here is actually in support of one of our programs called Village 143,

and this photo was taken with some of our COG staff but also with volunteers from the Chinese Women's Business Association,

and through their generous donations, they were able to provide a lot of different household products to people who are in need. Next slide.

So now that you kind of know a little bit of a breadth of our programs, I'd also like to highlight some significant accomplishments that we were able to accomplish in the last fiscal year. So we broke ground on two different road grade separation projects, which are really helping improve traffic safety and circulation throughout our region. We've also announced the openings of three food recovery hubs, which are really helping our cities comply with a mandate called SB 1383, which is ultimately trying to reduce organic waste and also to try to help provide food to those who are food insecure in our cities.

Through our regional housing trust as well, I know it's a little hard to see,

but through an organization called La Cotta, we've actually provided outreach services to over 1,900 vulnerable residents, and we were also able to house 88 clients as well.

And finally, also through our revolving loan fund, we were able to support more affordable housing homeownership opportunities.

Next slide.

So we have 31 cities in our COGS region, and our cities...

All Benefits. In many different ways. This is just a small sample of what I'd like to highlight for the City of Monterey Park. But first off, I'd like to say through our COGS REAP 1.0 program, we were able to complete an inclusionary housing ordinance study that the City of Monterey Park is benefiting from. I kind of mentioned this already in the last slide too, but Monterey Park alongside of many other cities is also a participant in our food recovery program. And that not only helps with state compliance with the bill called SB 1383, it's also helping reduce food waste and addressing food insecurity.

And finally here as well, our COG agency is able to help provide $10,000 in housing solution funds. And this is really to help people who are experiencing homelessness utilize different flexible expenditures. So if someone needs to get a hotel voucher or pay for a job application fee, this money was able to and is able to help that.

Next slide.

And looking forward ahead, we want to keep our continued streak of success.

So this fiscal year, we are actually trying to complete two different regional plans,

one that is focused on broadband and the other that's focused on wildfire protection.

Also, I think a lot of you know this already, too, but the 2020 Olympics are not that far away. And so through our program called Jumpstart, we're going to begin implementation of bus court improvements throughout our region.

Through our regional housing trust, we're also providing $6 million to help support the construction of over 120 affordable units. And also through our Rapid Housing Development Funds, we're looking to continue to provide more permanent housing

and supportive interim housing services across our cities. Next slide.

And beside our board president and vice presidents, too, we have a lot of different committees that are really important in driving the legislation and policy direction of our region.

And so it's a little hard to see, but this is basically our Policy Committee Wall of Fame. And this is just in recognition of all the different city council members, elected officials who participate in our various committees. So in particular, I know in the SGV RHT column, you can see that your Mayor Thomas Wong is an active participant in our Regional Housing Trust. So I just want to say thank you again, Mayor Wong, for your service. And next slide.

And I believe that concludes my presentation. So if you have any questions, please let me know. Otherwise, thank you again for your time.

Thank you, Nick. We'll start with any questions from Councilmembers.

I believe you are celebrating your 30th anniversary sometime soon?

Yes, that will be at the end of the month.

Yeah, and it's, we have a QR code too and we can share that with you.

I just want to take congratulations to you also, you know, thank you for all the tremendous work you do, not just for our city, but all cities that are in the St. Louis Valley. I mean, I've had the pleasure to serve on the Transportation Committee as well as be our alternate to Councilman U. And, again, it's really great to come together and to talk about regional issues.

And we are very grateful for your support for our goals and objectives for our community.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Nick. Really appreciate the update from COG on the many activities going on. and appreciate all the work that the COG is helping to lead in the region. A couple quick questions on the SoCal REN, the free energy audits that you mentioned. I don't know. I guess this is more a comment or question for staff as well. Are we helping to promote or can we, if we aren't already, helping to promote those audits or those audit opportunities to our residents and businesses? I don't know if it's just residents or businesses as well.

Yeah, we can definitely work with your city staff. That's actually been a very successful way to market our programs, and we've done that with other cities before.

Yeah, we'd love to make sure we get that out.

Yeah, we'll double-check that it's not on the website already. We have a lot of those resources, and if it's not, we'll make sure to add it. And then the food recovery hubs, do you know, it sounds like there are three actual hubs set up. Where are the locations? I'm just curious which one's closest to us. I believe it's Heart of Compassion in Montebello, but we have two others.

We also have Foothill Unity Center, which is actually located in Monrovia,

and then we have God's Pantry, which is in Pomona.

And so can you talk a little bit about how those food recovery hubs work? Is it restaurants and other grocery stores donating leftover food, or is that residents as well being able to donate food?

It's mostly through businesses. So our regional program actually utilizes a lot of state funds through CalRecycle,

and in coordination with these hubs, which are large nonprofits,

they work with a lot of different cities and different lists to work with businesses

and to ensure, one, they're in compliance with the law, that they can donate to our regional hubs.

And then the hubs recirculate the food. And some of them do drives, some of them do direct donations,

but ultimately they provide a lot of the food to people who are food insecure, like senior citizens, people who are low-income, things like that. That's great. I would love to support that. I don't know if businesses in Mario Park are already participating in this program at all. I imagine there's probably more we can do to help connect businesses to this program. Maybe something we can look at. And I'm looking at Joe potentially to utilize our list of businesses to make sure that they're aware of this program and the opportunity to provide additional extra food or other opportunities or other things, resources they may have that might make sense for the recovery hubs.

Sure thing.

And I'll just note as well, too, we can help provide services with businesses who, you know, English isn't their primary language, too, so like in Spanish and Chinese.

Great.

Let's make sure we connect on that.

And then on the GoSGV bike share program you mentioned, do you know where the nearest, I guess, hubs for the bikes are to us? I'm not 100% sure about that. I don't want to mislead you, so I can follow up with you after that. Yeah, I'd love to – I know that there's potential and likely grant funding to potentially expand that program beyond the existing locations. I would love to see how we can get that closer or even into Monterey Park at some point. and maybe that's just something to highlight for Sean and others to maybe keep track with COG as grant funding becomes available and funding to expand the program become more available. Okay, sure thing, yeah. We'll work with our appropriate staff. Thank you so much. And thank you. I know you mentioned the 30th anniversary for COG. I don't know if that's an – I know there's one celebration already scheduled and I know there will be more activities scheduled, but if there are publicly open, I guess, opportunities to celebrate that, maybe we can help. If you want to share that with staff, I think we would love to help promote that as well. Yeah, sure. We can do that. Thank you so much, Nick, and thank you to Ricky Choi as well, our resident of Marek Park, who's Director of Government and Community Relations for the COC. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We will move on from presentation items to consent calendar. Are there any items to pull from consent?

Mayor, if we could please pull items or item 3C and 3F, just for a quick highlight or just to make reference to them.

Any other items?

3G, just for a staff report?

Yeah.

Okay. Any other items? 3A?

All right.

Any other items? And if not, is there a motion for the remaining items?

Move for approval of remaining items.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Hearing none, call for the vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. All right, we will start with item 3A. Do you want a staff report?

Yes.

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

I want to report today, as of September 30th, invested funds for the City of Monterey Park is $90,005,821.64.

And I forgot my paper on the desk.

As for investments of that amount, under the L.A. County pooled investment funds, we have $25,720,689.04.

The local agency investment fund, there is $31,266,553.18.

Under Chandler Asset Management, we have $25,424,579.42.

And in our CDs, we are holding $7,594 even.

and we have a balance of 9,175,915.28. Do we have any questions?

I think it's good to hear from you periodically

and also wanted to ask you, whenever the CD mature, do we actually invest back to CD

or invest into other area? It is reinvested.

And also, do you haven't changed since we have Chandler, right?

You haven't changed any allocations?

No, we have not.

Chandler has been managing $25 million, and it's been doing well.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions?

If not, is there a motion for the item?

Is there a second, Council Member Sanchez? All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none, please vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. All right. We will move on to item 3C, resolution to carry the month of November 24 as Movember to raise awareness of prostate and other male cancers. Councilman, if you don't want it. All right.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council, Chris Thompson, Fire Chief.

The Movember Foundation is a leading global organization committed to changing the face of men's health.

The Movember community has raised over $1.3 billion to the date funded over 1,300 programs in 20 countries.

This work is saving and improving lives of men affected by prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and funding mental health programs. This foundation challenges men to grow mustaches during Movember, to spark conversation and raise vital funds for the men's health programs. It is recommended that the city council consider adopting resolution declaring the month of November 2024 as Movember and taking such additional related actions that may be desirable.

With that being said, that's in the report, and I'm available for any questions.

All right.

Thank you so much for bringing this to us. And I'm trying to check, are you growing out your mustache?

I am. It's taken a while, but I'm getting there.

Oh, okay. I'm assuming all the firemen and all the police officers are growing out their mustache. I'm not sure if I see the chief up there, police chief, see if he's growing up. But anyhow, I think it's acceptable this month. No one's going to, and the city's going to frown on that.

So make sure we're growing mustaches, including our mayor.

But thank you so much for, and some of our TRC officials over here. So thank you so much for bringing this to us.

I'm really expecting Council Member Sanchez to shave his beard and keep them. I'm actually gonna grow it out even further Just for this month. Yes

Any other comments? If not is there a motion? I'll move

Second

We move the second any further discussion hearing none. We'll call for the vote Approved unanimously all right. Thank you. Thank you chief for bringing this we'll move on to item 3d wait 3f sorry uh california state library zip books grant fiscal year 24 25 did you want to just a brief uh

good evening mayor mayor pro tem and council members uh kristin olivera city librarian the library was notified of a 5664 award from the california state library to be used to support our zip books program this is the third year the library has received this funding and we are looking for the council to accept the award and appropriate it to the 24 25 fiscal year budget

well thank you for um for um working on this grant and and for bringing this i'm sure the council would be happy to accept this but also because of the access that it provides in terms of books so So any opportunity we have to apply, obviously for grants, we always encourage our city to apply.

So thank you so much.

And then if you could just very briefly tell us a little bit about how the Zip Books program works.

Of course. So the Zip Books program allows community members or any library card holder to request books that are not already in the library's collection.

They fill out a form.

we place the order through Amazon, and the book is delivered directly to the patron's door. They may borrow that item for three weeks, and then once they're finished reading it, they return it to the library, where it's then processed and added to our shelves.

So it's sort of some community-centered collection development,

and allows us to fill some of those holes in our collection

based on the needs and recommendations of the community.

Great. I think that's a great way to get books out that are missing or might not be part of our collection. But thank you again for that report. And with that, I'd move to pass this up.

I have a quick question. Questions? Yeah, question.

Just out of curiosity, how many of these books or new books were requested last calendar year or fiscal year, whatever 12-month period?

So in the last fiscal year, we...

little gap, either the library funds it or my understanding is that the friends of the library, they

help pitch in and we're brought home. That's correct. The friends of the library have

supported the program and alLod us to fill that gap in the past couple of years.

Great. Awesome. Thank you. That was going to

be my question in terms of how much closer we are in terms of closing the gap, but my understanding is last year's grant was actually a smaller amount, so appreciate the state library and pass on my appreciation to our state legislature and the governor for providing more funding for this program and look forward to even more people making use of this wonderful program and helping to grow our collection as well through this process. With that, are there any, is there a motion? I'll move. I'll second. Moving second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Call for the vote. Approved unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll move to item 3G, urban forest master plan and resolution updating city's parkway and planting easement maintenance standards.

All right.

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

Director.

I also have Chris Reyes, our Public Works Manager, who will be giving the bulk of the presentation on the update on our urban forest master plan.

So with that, I'll pass it over. Chris. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Councilmembers, good evening. The item 3G, before you deny it, is a recommendation to receive and file the Urban Forest Master Plan along with the adoption of the

amended resolution 104.51. As laid out in the staff report, the Master Tree Plan, which we refer to it

internally, is a plan that at its fundamental level encompasses three things. It captures and

defines in detail all of our trees and all of our tree sites whether there's

trees there or vacancies number two it provides city staff and community members alike with guidance standards and practices that will maintain and enhance our current urban forest inventory third and last it provides us with data that will guide future city staff and future city council members

with maintenance guidelines for the future of 20 to 25 years this is a living document so it can be altered and changed but it does provide guidance for a great deal of time. So we have a couple of slides that were taken from the master plan. It's a very large document, but we put three or four slides together here. So as you look up on your screen, the first one there shows an inventory evaluation up on top at over $33 million. If you'd like to know how that's calculated, it's in Appendix F, which is page 19 of that appendix. It's a program that's used industry-wide, and it's called iTree Echo. so that is how the carbon valuation that you see a little bit Lor on the slide that's how all those dollars are applied so again it's an industry-wide software program that's done by by arborists all over the country so there you see the valuation as you can see the previous half of that slide I'm sorry Sean yeah there you go sorry inventory is currently over 7,000 trees recommended removals currently is three we oftentimes keep that at zero we're probably the Lost in the state of California, according to WCA. Nobody keeps it at zero, but we do. So these stumps, we do semi-annually. So you see a few stumps there. And the last one on the right is vacancies. Currently, our vacancies are just under 1,500. So next slide. Let me see.

I'm sorry, the next one after that. There you go. So vision, as you see on the right-hand side there, there's kind of a graphic that gives definitive, tangible benefits of a healthy urban forest while focusing on capturing and standardizing in great detail best management practices. Partnership with the community has already begun. We've done an event last year with cooperation with Assemblyman Mike Fong at Garvey Ranch, and we planted eight trees with about 20 to 25 students from Mark Keppel. It was very well attended. There was a few council members there as well. So that was the beginning of this, and this program has taken a while to put together. So at that time, we were just beginning stages of our master plan. In January of 24, we also had a council member attended playground opening, and we planted trees there as well at Bella Vista. April of this year, we had a tree planted on Earth Day over by the workout center in Barnes behind the amphitheater, and that was attended by the Environmental Commission as well. And we will have in November Eagle Scout Troop 329B planting five to ten trees at vacant sites that we have at Highland Park, possibly sequoia as well, depending. We'll have to go out there and audit what we have. But that's going to be taking place very soon. And then lastly, last year we brought to you an item in June that was a sidewalk mitigation program.

So we removed a lot of ficus on the boulevard and an additional two dozen trees. So we removed a total of 68, and our replant to removal ratio is high.

We're one and a half to one. We've maintained that for a number of years.

So those 68 trees that were removed as a part of that program, they're being replanted beginning this month. And a great deal of those were information. A great deal of those were ficus that were found on the boulevards that were causing infrastructure challenges with a lot of the businesses.

And education and outreach, I've already covered that. Okay, so yeah, educating and outreach is going to begin on the city website.

So we're going to have tree care and maintenance kind of cut sheets or guide sheets, and we'll put that on the city website, and those guide sheets are going to have care and maintenance details. It's going to have species details for residents and anybody who chooses to look at the large document, or they can just kind of look at what we put out there on the little sheet. So we're also going to put an article in Cascades with a QR code on it, and after this receive-of-file action, then that QR code is going to lead to the same cut sheets that I described on the city website.

And then the last slide is gulls.

So as you can see on the right, the tree that's there is called a golden trumpet.

Sometimes it's called a yellow trumpet. So that's what we're going to be introducing on South Atlantic, replacing a lot of the old-style liquid ambers. And some of them were infrastructure damaged, but a lot of them have been replaced. So when you will be replaced, when you see some of the ficus that are missing on certain sections of Atlantic, this is a replacement tree, which is an approved species that we brought to you last June as well. So if you want to see what the tree looks like, we don't have a ton in town, but we do have what's called pink trumpets, which is the same as that tree, only obviously it's a pink fLor. Those are on South Garfield, and those are part of the Garfield Village

beautification project that we did a number of years back. So they were babies back then, but they're doing really nice now.

So if you go in Garfield from floral to the city limits on the southern boundary, you'll see pink trumpets, and that's what these golden trumpets are going to be. So we'll be introducing those soon as well. And that's on the right-hand side. On the left-hand side, the goals, let me see.

Okay, so continuity of species, so we're going to be doing, we have 13 grids the city is divided into,

so we're going to be establishing via this document continuity.

Your same street, you're going to have the same tree, more or less, that we've already approved for that tree. So some trees that have not proven well in urban settings are not going to be continued forward. So again, the document's 20, 25 years. That's a pretty good maturity for a tree. So we have some continuity going. And if you live on X Street, Heather, let's say, you already kind of know what's out there and we'll be phasing out. We're not going to go chop down trees, but as they fade out, we'll be replacing with more viable, suitable species.

And let me see, develop annual planning program.

That's going to be something that's going to be up to you folks and a public works staff. We're going to be to see if we can do something annually with our budget or if we need to bring you another item at a later date with increased funding. It's totally entirely up to you as you kind of take in that document

and see all the possibilities that are in there and phasing one year, five year, et cetera.

And then the Tree City USA. So there's four components to become a Tree City USA. We already maintain three of them. So we consistently do that. The fourth one is the fun part because the fourth one is you guys. You guys get to declare a proclamation of Arbor Day observance. It's an Arbor Day observance proclamation. And Arbor Day typically takes place last Friday in April. Oftentimes it's in conjunction with Earth Day activities. So at some point in the future, you guys declare that day, and that's the fourth component, and we're a tree city after that because we've already met all the other requirements. So that concludes my presentation.

At this point, I'd like to introduce two people. Gonzalo Regalado is, for many years, our area manager for WCA.

He's a great guy. We've been working together for a long time. And tonight we have a master arborist here that I worked closely with for this whole plan. It's taken us over a year. But this is Jeff Crane, and he represents WCA, and he is a master arborist, amongst other things. So Director Igo, myself, Gonzalo, and Jeff, we're here if you have any questions. But, again, that concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Any questions from Council?

Yes, I have a couple questions.

First of all, thank you so much for this. I think that any opportunity that we have within our city to be able to increase our tree canopy, I'm all in favor of that. So if we can definitely, city manager, put it in our agenda when the time comes in April to bring back some type of resolution for Earth Day to declare Monterey Park a tree city, that would be amazing. and then the other questions i had were of the 1472 um available trees that we have or that that that could potentially we can plant on average how many are we trees are we planting a year

it depends this year we're planting a little bit more than normal because we removed some so i

would say rule of thumb would be between 40 and 100 and we do that within our budget so there's

the pricing goes by different tree size so again depending on how ambitious

council wants to be on this those 1,400 sites can be can be dealt with at your

at your orders and then on I'm not sure if you know this off the top of your head how much do we allocate from our budget to for the 40 to 100 trees that

we plant well the it's within our maintenance budget so that includes grid

trimming and normal maintenance the planting and removals are all encompass

within the same budget line item that you guys approved and the budget currently is 425 i believe

okay so if we wanted to increase the amount of trees that we plant um that is a possibility i think when we start looking at our budget maybe next year i would say if you want to increase by

more than 50 then that would be outside of the existing budget and you would have to make some

sort of adjustment as close as we can get to getting those 1472 i think would be great and I have just one other question.

I know that we

I believe we still have an existing program if residents want to plant a tree. I remember I did this years ago and I remember calling the city and you guys sent me a list of all of the trees that were available and the tree was planted in front. Do we still do that?

Well, you have an amended resolution before you as well that's jointly with this staff report.

So if a resident wants to plant a tree now by tightening up that resolution,

they have to have approval of public works. So that's going to be public works director or his designee,

and it's in the resolution that we're putting before you tonight. It can be done, but it's our tree, so we get to choose species and location and all of that.

Anything you do on the private side, you could use the master tree plant to decide whether that species is viable.

But if it's our parkway and our inventory, we have some control over that. Okay, great.

all in favor of that, but I think as we move forward and then later when we start talking budget, I'd love to see us increase the amount of trees that we plant, just

certainly in terms of the environment and our tree canopy. Thank you so much.

You know, I just want to go to sentiments. I know that this has been a long time coming.

It's certainly something that this city council, not to mention

many community, wanted to see, and so we're very pleased to see this

It's come before the State Council. It's something that I support.

And I also want to just express also just the efforts to get public input for this tree master plan because, again, we want to make sure that it conforms to what is the needs and the hopes for the residents. And lastly, I just want to thank you also for the attention to the growth of ficus trees and its impact to especially our local businesses. You know, I want to say that, you know, I know maybe a year ago, those businesses that contacted me on Garvey because of the impact of the tree on the sidewalk in front of this business. And I do appreciate, Sean, Public Works just coming out within a few days to address that. And so, again, I just show that, you know, we're responsive to our businesses and to our residents. And so, again, job well done, and I'm looking forward to voting for this.

All right, Sean and Chris, thanks for an update. on that. Just a question. It seems like we met three of the four to obtain, to get that Tree City

USA status. Did we complete those requirements a few years ago or just recently?

Those requirements are part of our normal practice. They're in the Master Tree Plan,

but basically off the top of my head, one of them is that you have to have a certain amount of

dollars dedicated per unit per person in citizenry residents and we're well above that I believe that at 400,000 I believe it was 105 or 120,000 for a city of our size so we're already above that

budget-wise and otherwise then we'd have to have this plan here and then we have to have a body

that more or less governs what we do with the trees and that would be the director and public work staff and again this is a document going forward for 20 years or so so it's laid out that way and that's a very common practice with other master tree plants okay well

I look forward to kind of getting that official with the proclamation and

celebrating as a city

Monterey Park. And then the second question I have goes back to Council Member Sanchez here. Was the about 1,500 trees and at the rate we're going right now it's going to be about 14 plus years. Two part question. The first part question is we're going about 40 to 50 trees. Now if we increase the budget it wasn't a lot of money. I think you said it was like 550 bucks or. If you are planting on the boulevards then it's going to be a larger tree. So it's going to be a 30 what they call in the industry a 30

six inch box. Those trees currently are pricing with WCA is about $1,400 per unit. If you go down

to a 24 inch box, the price greatly reduces to 580, 575, something like that. But the 24s are

more viable in parks and in residence areas. You wouldn't want to put a 24 on Garvey Atlantic or

Garfield. So there's going to be some expenditure for the larger type of species. So I'm definitely

for sure I'm supporting of that, but I like to see them more in the parks first than the boulevards because of just the maintenance factor of it. With that said, we can increase the budget. I think most of us would support that. Of course, you have to take it to a vote. And I think most of, based on the conversation today, we're supporting that. But would we need to add additional staff, or how would that work if we were to, say,

double the goals from 40 trees to about, let's just say, aggressively 80 trees.

So I'm going from 14 years. Let's make it, realistically, let's make it 10 years or less.

Yeah, in anticipation of that posture, I thought that the UN Form Master Tree Plan having a 5-, 20-year, 50-year plan wouldn't be suitable. People want to do things when they're still alive. So we can do any number you want, but we wouldn't require staff because what our staff currently does is administrate the contract. So I have a supervisor that you may have met below me in the Parks Department, Rudy Valenzuela. And he more or less is on a day-to-day with Gonzalo, and I'm more or less on the admin side with WCA management.

So we wouldn't need to add staff because WCA handles it.

So if you literally came up with we would like you to do 250 trees next year, it would be only a matter of funding. WCA is an awesome company, and they could handle that workload easily. It's just a matter of funding, to be honest with you, Councilmember.

Okay, well, I'd like to see you guys kind of put together a budget request. to start trim that from 14 years to 10 years and then maybe to seven years and then have a discussion with the director and in the city manager and I'm sure she'll bring it back to us for a discussion and then we'll kind of go

forward. Yeah we'll definitely bring those numbers forward during budget season we'll look at a seven year, ten year and then we'll provide you with those funding options and then you can make the termination during the budget cycle. Thank

Thank you. Kind of along those lines, I mean, so 1,400, we have currently 1,400, essentially boxes, 1,500 spaces already identified for trees in public right-of-way spaces, right? So that's sidewalks, parks, or just sidewalks? Anything that's in our inventory includes parks, sidewalks, and boulevards, yes. And then, so these 7,359 trees that were identified in the inventory, this does not include trees on private properties, homes, businesses, right? Correct. This is just private or public right-of-way areas.

The canopy for our whole footprint would be in the tens of thousands if you included that.

So just our tree inventory that we're responsible for maintenance and care is just under 8,000.

Okay.

Yeah, and I would love to echo what the other council members have already said. would love to get more aggressive in deploying more trees faster. I don't know what is realistic, but our current, I very much echo Mayor Pro Temko's point about the current pace of our plantings is not going to get us to fill these nearly 1,500 vacant spots as quick as I think any of us want. I think if we can start looking towards how, and particularly since we're going to be looking at programming some of the 710 funding for redesigning and rebuilding Garvey and Atlantic and all that stuff. And part of that is to reimagine potential treescape along Garvey and for redesigning the sidewalks and all that stuff. That's a great opportunity to make sure that we're integrating more street trees and urban canopy into that funding source, potentially. And I don't know what the maximum potential is for putting and installing trees as part of that and Monterey Pass Road and everything else we have funding for already to redesign streetscapes. Let's make sure we're being aggressive. I'd love to get to fill these 1,500 or so trees, spots ideally in the next less than seven years, even in the next four or five years if we're looking at these major infrastructure redesigns and projects in the next couple years anyway to see how much we can integrate into that and set a more aggressive goal for filling these spots and getting more trees into our urban canopy as possible. So whatever we can do, and let's start kind of figuring out how we can be more ambitious with some of these goals. It'll definitely be brought before you, Mayor. And then I'd echo what the other council members have said as well. I really appreciate it. I know this has been a long time coming. I know this tree plant itself was a lot of work and a lot had to go into this. Appreciate all the work the staff and our consultants and WCA had to put into this and appreciate bringing this to council. And I'd echo what others have already said. Would love to see the tree city designation come to council next year. I would fully support that and would love to make sure that we're doing that and seeing how we can continue to grow urban tree canopy and open and accessible green spaces. and particularly as we're experiencing the impacts of climate change, we know the benefits that trees and shade can bring, particularly during the summer and hot months, to our communities. So the more that we can do to integrate this into our day-to-day thinking and our redesigns of funding that we do have already in terms of redoing and redesigning kind of our public spaces and streetscapes, the more the better, and the more that we can start to get this going sooner and faster and more, I think the more our community will appreciate and be able to appreciate the benefits of more trees in our community. And then just in terms of, I know we're going to post some of this information on our website for residents and businesses that want to make sure that they're planting trees and they have plans to plant trees and they're wondering what kind of trees might make sense. will we have easy guides for someone who's building, say, redesigning or rebuilding a shopping center or building new homes in the city to be able to pick from a pallet of trees and other kind of trees that would be easy for them to kind of pick from? Is that something that we can make accessible to the website and make easily accessible for developers and builders and other kind of folks who are interested in learning more?

Yes, Mayor. We can configure those guide cards on the website however we choose and whatever seems to be giving the most information.

The document is very large, and most of the guides will be from that document as you see them in the guide.

There's also about 80 pages worth of just species alone.

Each species has its own page, and it gives you the characteristics and the root, moderate, high, low, all of that.

Very, very detailed.

It's a very detailed document. But, yeah, anything that's in there is a recommended species based on our hardiness rating and everything else that we have to consider.

I know this would also be a budget item, but our demonstration garden up on Orange, I don't know how many of the plants and trees there already kind of match with our what's in this plan currently but if there are things that don't match or if there's an opportunity to better match or improve or add kind of Trees that are in this plan currently that we would find that maybe aren't already in the garden that we can help point out So that residents can go there and see treescape in person and live. If those are opportunities that we can explore, I think that would be great too, and to help point people to a specific place to see what those look like in real life and what they might look like and be able to imagine them in their own yards and businesses.

We may be able to incorporate that, but currently demonstration garden was done recently enough

in 2017 to where the species that are there were already deemed as drought tolerant, and

That was the whole idea of the demonstration garden is to show items that you can put in your house that would be water-wise. Yeah.

And then I'm sure, I don't know if we still do this. I feel like we used to have, like, tree workshops or planning workshops for residents around planning. I don't know if we still do this or if I'm imagining this. L.A. County used to do something at their site at Garvey Ranch near the observatory and the museum.

They haven't been coming out as frequently since we came out of COVID.

but LA County would do it. It wouldn't be so much for trees, but it would be for plants and they would have a guy come out and demo on and it's pretty well attended.

They'd usually do it in November or December. But again, any of any of the council's wishes we can incorporate into what we do going forward.

Yeah, I think it'd be great to reach out to LA County, bring the plant workshops back if possible. Maybe this is something the water district could, maybe we could seek some funding from them to do as well. but maybe integrate kind of tree planting into the workshop or have separate kind of tree planting workshops and invite some maybe environmental groups that already do some of those education opportunities to come as well and do these workshops for residents. We can do that, and we can also incorporate it into Earth Day.

WCA was attendance in our Earth Day, so they can come out.

We can plant a couple of trees. They can have a workshop there.

There's a great many items that we can incorporate into Arbor Day with it being proclaimed by you guys,

and then we can do it during the Earth Week celebration.

There's a lot of things that can be done towards that goal. Great.

Yeah, no, and obviously I imagine, right, obviously we will, as we are planting and replanting trees in our city parks and want to make sure we're integrating this into our Parks Master Plan process, as we reimagine, as we're rebuilding some of our parks out of that process in the coming years or using best practices for right tree, right place, kind of. All right. Thank you. If there are no other questions, is there a motion? I'll make the motion. I'll second. I've been moved and seconded to adopt staff recommendation, right, to adopt the plan. If there's no further discussion, we'll call for the vote.

approved unanimously

thank you and again thank you to all the staff and the team for all the hard work that went into this really appreciate it and looking forward to improving our tree canopy in the city alright we are done with all the consent calendar items we'll move on to our public hearing item 4A public hearing to consider introducing an ordinance approving a development agreement by and between the city of Monterey Park and Lenox Square LLC facilitate improvements on and adjacent to the Black Square Shopping Center located at 2100 South Atlantic Boulevard. Is there a staff overview?

And are there any public comments? We'll go with the staff report and then we'll go to public comments.

Good evening, Mayor Wong, Mayor Pro Tem Go, members of the City Council.

I'm Jessica Serrano, your Community Development Director, and with me is Jeff Stewart from Wilden,

and he'll be leading the presentation tonight.

So, thank you, first of all, for letting me be here. This has been an interesting project, and I'm happy to do it. For those of you that don't know me, let me start with a quick overview of why I'm here. so I came through here at the beginning of the year I was contacted my staff to review a amendment to a conditional use permit that was granted 1989 to the Atlantic Square shopping center located at 2100 South Atlantic Boulevard so I give it a good look and I met with TRC the owner of the shopping center and after a couple of personal meetings I informed them that I didn't think this was something that I could recommend the city go forward with but I did think there was room for discussion and we carried on with different meeting we had three or four different meetings and ended up culminating in the City Council appointing an ad hoc subcommittee to consider recommendations for this and I think tonight when we go to the first slide tonight what we have is the parameters of the development agreement that came about as our discussions came about and the discussion with the ad hoc sub Subcommittee. And the purpose tonight is to a public hearing to consider and introduce an ordinance approving the development agreement by and between the City of Monterey Park and Atlantic Square LLC to facilitate improvements to and adjacent to the Atlantic Square Shopping Center located at 2100 South Atlantic Boulevard. This item in broad strokes, if approved, the development agreement would establish zoning for the shopping center by the enactment of the business recovery, Carl's acronym, business of Covering Development Zone or BIRDS by enacting that and approving the development agreement. That actually allows the city to meet its goals of filling some vacancies on the center and it obligates the owner of the center and developer, TRC, to make some improvements on the center that the city council and the community has been wanting to see. Next slide, please. More specifically, what this development agreement would do is first it would create on, and that's an overview of it on the next square center. Go to the next one, please, Jessica. Another one of the different uses that are existing there. So the development agreement would allow for a drive-through restaurant on the north side of the center. And to make room for the drive-through restaurant, the would require the demolition of building Building A, which is the northernmost building on the north side of the shopping center, and additional improvements to Building C, which is the building below that. In addition, TRC may add its own expense. Let's construct a new traffic signal where Atlantic Boulevard intersects with the northern portion of the shopping center. This would be needed if the drive-through, the new drive-through development goes through to provide ingress and egress from the center and make it easier to get through there. And last, the development agreement would be five years in length. There's a couple things I want to point out before we go the rest of this agreement is the development agreement is tightly written. It was negotiated between your city attorney and your city attorney.

attorney and the attorney, Matt Gray, from TRC.

Page 10 of the development I want to point attention to. It provides for a very tight set of deadlines and obligations by both the developer and the city to implement this agreement. Therefore, I think it's a valid agreement and it should work well in meeting the needs of the city. And next, Jessica. So there is an oversight of the placement of the signal. and where that would be, our company has taken a review of the signal. We believe that the signal will meet warrants going forward and that it would be viable for that intersection there. Next one, please. Just another overview of the building. This one is Building A, the one that's slated to come down. Next one, please. Building C, which is going to have some significant improvements to the building. Next one, please. And then the public benefits are listed there. We think there is a significant number of them, not the least of which is the generation of additional sales tax and property tax but probably most importantly we believe this will eliminate some of the vacancies that have been vexing the council and the community for the last several years. Next up please. So with that the recommendation is open the public hearing receiving public document testimonial evidence closing the public hearing introducing and waiving first read of the ordinance adopting DA-24-01 and amending the zoning map DA-24-02. The second meeting of adoption will occur November 6, 2024, and any other actions that the Council may seem desirable. With that, I'm here. The community development staff is here. Representatives from TRC are here, and we're happy to answer any questions you might have on this item. Thank you, Jessica and Jeff.

I will open the public hearing and we'll call any public comments.

First speaker, Byron De Araucol of TRC.

thank you good evening first of all council member sanchez thanks for the call out on the the mustache although you know it's been on my face for 47 years so it doesn't it has a lot to do with november but it's happy to be an ambassador for that important message tonight all right so um good evening uh mayor wong and uh mayor pro tem go and council members and staff. Thank you, Mr. Stewart, for the presentation. Tonight, we think presents an important opportunity for TRC and the city to move forward in partnership on a clear plan to remake Atlantic Square into the kind of retail destination Monterey Park

residents want and deserve. Atlantic Square has been

a fixture of daily life in Monterey Park for four generations.

In that time, the center has adapted to match

changes in the way consumers shop and the way retail tenants do business. In fact, the last time it underwent a major change was in 1989. As Mr. Stewart pointed out, a master conditional use permit was put in place at that time and the center was redeveloped from its original

configuration, which stretched back to the 1950s.

The agreement before you tonight provides a detailed

roadmap for TRC and the city to lead Atlantic Square through another important transition in its long history of serving the community. We are supportive of the agreement, and we hope you will be as well.

I do want to say we are very grateful for the work and the candor of the ad hoc committee.

Mayor Wong, Council Member Sanchez, City Manager Alvarez, Mr. Stewart, Ms. Garcia,

we appreciate the work of the City Attorney working with our Council on developing the agreement

over the last several months as we've collaborated on the best way to move forward

together to make Atlantic Square a better center for the community.

And that's kind of our overall message. We're excited to get to work. There's some very tight deadlines.

We're ready to go.

In fact, we're already running.

And so we thank you, and we're happy to address any questions that you have tonight.

With me is our EVP of construction, Scott Grady,

who will be leading the development of the various projects within the development agreement.

So happy to answer any questions if you haven't.

Thank you. Any other speakers?

No other speakers. If not, I'll close the public hearing. And we'll go to any council questions or comments. I have a question again.

Well, first of all, let me just say thank you so much for being here tonight. And I just want to thank the city staff, the attorney, my colleagues for, again, just the meeting of the minds to really bring about this important project. I don't know if it's premature to ask, but can I ask what kind of retailers you might be bringing to the area, or is that premature?

No, I mean, it's not premature to tell you specific tenants, but generally speaking, the industry is trending much more towards food and beverage, which is most of the tenant interest we get in the centers for food and beverage, or personal services, medical, dental, financial services, that kind of thing. So that's where the emphasis is.

Soft goods sales are not where retail is trending anymore.

Everybody's getting that in over the transom on their front porch through Amazon. So food and beverage services principally.

Any other questions?

Byron, thanks for having the planning done. So now we can kind of go to the specifics in improving Atlantic Square. I know it's been a main staple for 60-plus years, but in my lifetime, I've known it in the 70s and 80s as the retail area to go to in the city. We now have other areas in the city, but it's still Atlantic Squares, and I know the retails are there. So let's work together and kind of open up the corridor to get the right tenants in there so that we can support not only the residents in our city, but also surrounding cities because it's going to be a good corridor through Atlantic and the freeway to get shoppers and client base to come to the city and reopen up Atlantic Square.

And Mayor Proton, we completely agree with you. We've always thought that the center has a great long-term future to it. When you think about particularly the residential overlays you have across the street in your land use element, how they may become residential in the future, plus ELAC and its future plans to grow, Atlantic Square is going to be an economic hub for all that activity. So it's important now that we start planning and get the center positioned in a way that's going to be able to take advantage of those future land uses across the street.

I want to thank staff and also TRC for coming to the table and working through this. I know that the center Atlantic Square is in my district, and one of the constant themes that I've heard over the last two years as a representative of this district has been just the large amount of vacancies. And so it is a shopping center that I frequent because it's the closest one to my home. It is one that I visit often with my daughters, whether we get ice cream or pizza or whether we just do our regular grocery shopping. So making sure that we have a vibrant center that has a lot of services and offer to residents, not just in my district but throughout Monterey Park, is very paramount to me. And so I'm glad that we have found a path forward. And as we move forward, I heard you mention the ELAC students. there's a lot of potential in this shopping center to bring a lot of students and residents and just looking forward to seeing also and we recently did a survey just in terms of what our residents are looking for and you're right residents are looking for you know pubs they're looking for places they can go with their families they'll go watch the game or stuff like that so as As we look forward to the future, and I've shared those with you before, Byron, and your team, making sure that we have those types of venues for our residents, but also would love to see that shopping center be a beacon in our city in terms of where we're at in the future, potentially having electric charging stations somewhere in there as we continue to move forward and have a lot more changes and construction happening in that area. So I'm very happy that we are in a place now that we're moving forward, and I'm really excited to see what else will be opening.

I hope that you will come to our council regularly and share what's going on at TRC.

Invite us when there are new businesses that are opening to be able to share in that excitement with the community as well. and then also would love to see a lot more regular meetings. I know we had an ad hoc committee to kind of iron this through, but I think it is in our community's benefit to continue that dialogue and just to hear in a more convivial way and see how we can help each other out and ensure that that center is vibrant and generating the type of resources and obviously profit for you and also tax money for us as a city. But I also wanted to ask our city manager, moving forward, what things perhaps are in place in this agreement to make sure that both parties are moving forward in a timely fashion.

I'm sorry, city attorney, sorry. I was looking at you, Carl. I just wanted to make sure. There's anyone to presume.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council.

As Mr. Stewart indicated, we used one of the city's templates that we've used before

for these types of arrangements in terms of activating the birds overlay. There is, as Byron indicated, a tight timeline in terms of putting things together. The first thing really in the development agreement is the question of whether or not the traffic signal actually gets built. That's really upon the applicant or the developer in this particular instance to make that determination. But in terms of what are the teeth that the city has, this is zoning. So the development agreement is a combination of both the development agreement and zoning. So all the tools that we have at our disposal with regard to enforcing our zoning is also available for purposes of enforcing this development agreement. And in addition to that, we have the contractual obligations from the developer in it. So the failure to perform within the five years to actually tear down building A, correct? We changed the terminology a little bit. So it's building A and then revitalizing building C. Those things have to happen within very short order. And the failure to do so obviously will cause us to get into another kerfuffle like we were in November and December and bring this back in front of the city council for consideration and potential action. So I'm satisfied that the city council's direction has been implemented from the standpoint of being able to negotiate this development agreement and have those hooks within the developer. Otherwise, I wouldn't put my signature on it. I would be not coming in front of the city council making a recommendation that it indeed consider adopting this particular ordinance and development agreement. So I think the ad hoc committee certainly did an outstanding job in terms of sitting down with the developers' representatives to try to hash out exactly what to do to move forward, and certainly the team from Will Dan was very helpful along those lines as well.

Great. Thank you for that.

And I think as we progress and as in the next five years, it'd be very prudent for us, but also TRC to share with us where we are at and also share with the community. Because I think a lot of people, when they drive by, they see all these vacancies and are not sure what's happening. But even putting a simple banner in some of your businesses coming soon sparks interest in terms of what is happening and gives, I think, residents some sense of understanding or relief that something is happening or something is coming.

And, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, perhaps one of the things that we can offer up, I'm sure the developer's representative would be fine with this, is every six months come back in front of the city council simply for a presentation in terms of where we are with regard to the development agreement and the implementation of the proposed improvements at that site because certainly a tremendous amount of time and effort has been put into negotiating this, coming to an agreement, and being here tonight. Just think about the time period between January and now. That's 10 months of time for us to be here in front of the City Council for consideration. So if that's something agreeable to the developers, we can execute an operating memorandum along those lines.

That's something? That's fine.

And, Council Member Sanchez, I would just add that, you know, one of the commitments we made was as, you know, we have an outstanding leasing team. We're very well connected in the market, but you guys are on the ground in your community. We've committed to engage with Mr. Torres. If he has potential tenants that come forward to him looking for space, we want to hear about it so we can engage with them. And as we sign new tenants and those leases become active, happy to celebrate them coming to the center with all of you. and the community as well, so that's fine.

Great.

I know we just did recently ribbon-cutting for Daniel Jewelers, who was still already in Europe but just moved to a different area. So looking forward to seeing a lot more and a lot more frequent businesses come in.

I'm too old for more kerfuffles, so I don't.

And, Byron, just to confirm so that there's no doubt,

you're agreeable to entering into an operating memorandum, which is provided.

We come before you every six months and just provide an update.

Yeah, I have no problem.

Great.

Any other questions? That's it for me. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. I just want to add.

to this point, at least to this next step. And I know there are many more steps to come to make sure that we revitalize the Atlantic Square shopping area and look forward to that happening and rolling out over the next few years. But really, I think this is a huge step forward for both the property owner and for the city to really see this happen. I'm looking forward to really just getting going on this and getting the process moving on the next steps as well. But I just acknowledge all the work that went into this. Appreciate our staff team and all the resources that were put in to get us to this point. And just to point out again, the development agreement existing for, and the CUP existing for the LX Square Shopping Center is over 30 years old, and certainly uses in the economy and local economy has changed significantly in that time. So I appreciate being able to update this for what the economy is now and looking forward in the next few years. So very much looking forward to that and to highlight what Council Member Sanchez said. Both of us were on the subcommittee for this. I appreciate all the conversations and the work that went into getting us to this point and being able to be proud about reporting out to the community that we've gotten to this point after a lot of negotiations and conversations and work. And would love to move forward and, again, highlight what Council Member Sanchez said in terms of what we can do to fill the vacancies existing in the shopping center as soon as possible and signage, and what we can do to help the community understand what's going to happen there and what will be coming in so that we can build some more momentum and excitement for the community. It's been a lot of vacancies there, partly because of the pandemic and other issues outside of anyone's control, but there's been a lot of concerns from the neighborhood and community members about some of the lack of excitement kind of going on at the shopping center for the last few years, and we'd love to be able to reverse some of that community feeling in that neighborhood sooner the better. So appreciate that, and I know that the TRC team will be moving as quickly as possible, and whatever we can do on our end from the city side to fill some of those vacancies and whatever redevelopment plans might be in the works for the shopping center, we'd love to support that. And I'll reiterate what Council Member Sanchez said as well in terms of we'd love to see more EV charging and other amenities for the neighborhood and the community integrated into any redevelopment plans that move forward on site. And whatever we can do to take advantage of the East LA College daytime population in that area and the proximity to the Gold Line. I can never remember what the actual name of that line is now anymore, the L Line or whatever. And it's just a few blocks south of there. this area of town is so prime for a lot more than it is right now because of those existing assets, access to the mass transit with the train and the buses on Atlantic, the very close proximity to East L.A. College that brings thousands of students and faculty and staff on a daily basis to that area. There can be so much more happening and really appreciate the opportunity to really transform this space to something that's even better than it has been in the past. And then as TRC is looking at redeveloping the site and rethinking and reimagining it, if there are opportunities to make it a more active and engaging site as well, more walkability and more connections and being able to serve the student population and the neighborhood there too better, not just EV charging, but more walkable internal sidewalks, I guess, and parking and reimagining what parking spaces can be and just make that a more engaging site for people to be able to hang out at. Would love to explore that and would love to encourage the owner there to explore those kind of opportunities, to reimagine, not just rebuild, but reimagine how to activate this very prime property to even a better place. With that said, if there is a motion on this, we'll open it up for a while. I move.

Is there a second?

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion?

Hearing none, call for the vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. All right. We have no further items on the agenda, so we'll close out with any...

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I just wanted to note that Mr. Stewart's birthday is today.

He was here providing us with a presentation.

So rather than embarrass him completely, we won't sing happy birthday.

But I was glad I could spend it with you. This was fun.

And thank you, Mr. Stewart, for your help on this.

And happy birthday. Our gift to you is to end this meeting by 9 o'clock, right?

Yeah.

Can't think of a better gift.

All right. Any closing council comments?

Yes, since we're ending by 9 o'clock, I'll keep it short and brief. Just wanted to thank the Parks and Rec Department and city staff for the electric park on October the 5th. Had opportunity to visit with my family. Was really great, well attended. Ran into a lot of my students, former students as well, out there partying. So it was great to see all of them out there.

also last night

many of us attended the Life and Culture Art Unvealing

at the Langley Center great to see a lot of

students from our community

participate in this project

a lot of my wife's students were there

that's why she also came with me so it was very exciting to be able to

have this art installed in the Langley Center but also goes to our mission as a city to try to promote public art. So thank you so much to Robert and everyone else who participated in this, including the students. And then I had an opportunity this past weekend actually to go to Baltimore with one of my students who was accepted to Johns Hopkins University. So got an opportunity to visit with him. And I'll just share, it was a quick turnaround, so I didn't, I was there very briefly, so I felt like every minute was just paced. But I got to visit Fort McHenry, which as a history teacher was pretty exciting. If you didn't know, it was a major battle site for the War of 1812, but it's also the birth of the Star Spangled Banner. That is where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner after a huge bombardment by the British. and after the bombardment, the fort was still standing, the soldiers were still fighting, and the British had ran out of ammunition. And so that was the inspiration for the birth of our national anthem. So I just wanted to share that because that was a lot of fun. And then I know next month, just in terms of future items,

I know one last thing.

I think the next time we meet will be after the election. So I just wanted to make sure that encourage, because I think our next meeting is November 6th, right? So it will be the day after the election. So I want to encourage all of you guys to go out and vote and make sure if you haven't already voted early, vote early to avoid the rush at the polls, but also to exercise your civic duty. So I want to encourage you to go out and vote. And then future agenda items. I know next month is Native American Heritage Month. So making sure that we highlight the Tongva, which are the first peoples here in this community, keeping in line with our land acknowledgement and making sure that we have a resolution and perhaps something else. But thank you so much, and that's it for me.

Thank you.

And yes, again, in spirit of ending this by 9 o'clock, we also attended the unveiling of the self-portrait at Lining Center.

Again, congratulations to our community.

And again, the Lining Center is just a beautiful community center, and please visit it if you haven't. Also, I attended with many of my colleagues the opening of the permanent Hope and Healing Center. And again, we just want to thank CSC, Shantown Service Center, for just their partnership and help working with our community in the wake of the mass shooting and continuing to be there to help our community heal. Also attended last week the East LA College Foundation's President's Luncheon. Again, we are just very lucky to have a wonderful institution like East LA College and institutions that support our community, as well as the Fitton's Pride Art Museum. And then lastly, many of us attended a visit by Senator Lafonza Butler, who paid a visit to Monterey Park. And I was just thinking, you know, we've now actually in the past year and a half had a visit by the President of the United States, the Vice President, two senators, and several cabinet members. and I think probably that speaks a lot of volumes of the importance of Monterey Park to not just this region but to the country. So thank you, and have a good night, and happy HalLoen, and yes, everyone go vote.

I want to share a story with everyone. Yesterday my friend asked me where she could buy Gold Bar, and I suggest that she consider buying Gold ETF like GLD instead.

But she responded that in her opinion, physical gold appreciates more.

I point out that regardless of the investment vehicles that you choose, there's always be some form of cost involved,

like maybe a commission, markup, spread, price difference, whatever you call it.

But more importantly, I emphasize the need to prevent losses. I explain that by the time she buys the gold bar,

there's a chance that she could be robbed in a parking lot or even before she gets home.

So nowadays, when you consider doing investment, it's crucial to consider the risk of losing money, especially in our community. Just a thought. Thank you.

Sorry, I attended many of the same events that we did. I was fortunate enough to actually sit on Senator Butler's panel for discussion about community engagement and how our community is coming up together in leading and helping local residents overcome a lot of the stigmatism about behavioral health or mental health, mental well-being in the community here.

Also attended Electric Park, the Hope Resiliency Center, Advancing Justice Gala,

and again, Advancing Justice has been very important to our community in terms of helping to heal and helping with the process for Resiliency Fund as well as CSC, Chinatown Service Center. Let's see here, attended also the ELAC Presidential Circle, the foundation luncheon last week. And we were here also last week for the My Park Police Pink Patch Project out in the park here. Wish everyone a happy HalLoen, and please go out and vote. There's only one obligation for your freedom here in the U.S. Only one obligation, and that is to vote.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Attending many of the same events, we appreciate all the staff's work for putting on amazing activities for the community to enjoy.

and just wanted to announce the Dodgers, I wouldn't did the Dodgers they won today, I don't know when that game ended

so the Dodgers are up

2-1 in the series, looking forward to

hopefully a World Series win but again, reiterate what

council members have said, encourage everyone to vote I appreciate everyone participating with us tonight, with that we'll end the meeting at 8.57 p.m. Thank you everyone

Thank you.

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