City Council Meeting — November 20, 2024

Thank you.

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All right, we're going to get the meeting started if everyone wants to take their seats.

Thank you.

All right. We're going to get the meeting started. If everyone wants to take their seats,

call the meeting to order for our Wednesday, November 20th, regular city council meeting. I'll start with our land acknowledgement. We'd like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was once known as the Tova Anghar, the home of the Gabriela Tongla people. We show our respect to the Yavalu-Tongwa people as well as all indigenous people, past, present, and future. Honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. We commit to uplifting the Yavalu-Tongwa people, invite you to acknowledge the history, and join us in caring for this land. With that, we will start with a flag salute. We'll invite the Monterey Park Police Explorers to present the colors.

Thank you.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Right hand over your heart. Ready, begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Order colors. Outward face. Forward march.

Post colors.

A bell face. Dismissed.

Please have a seat.

Thank you again to our Monterey Park Police Explorers. Appreciate it.

we'll go to the city clerk for our roll call.

Council Member Sanchez.

Council Member Lo.

Present.

Council Member Yu. Here.

Mayor Pro Temgo. Present. Mayor Wong. Present. We have a quorum.

Thank you.

We'll see if there are any agenda additions, deletions, changes, or adoptions.

Hearing none.

We'll move on to any public communications.

Looks like we have some.

First speaker, Edward Wong of Wong Tai Sen Center.

Mr. Wong.

Good evening, Honorable City Council of Montreux Park. My name is Edward Wong, and I lived in this city for almost half a century. And I'm always very proud to live here, because I always consider Montreux Park MP as mighty and proud. and today just like many other days in the past many years we like to extend our appreciation to the city of Montreux Park and to all the staff the council person and the police and the fire department for giving us such a wonderful environment to live here and I I am managing two charities in town on Atlantic Boulevard. And for the past 20 or 30 years, the police have been supporting us by sending the black and white during Chinese U.S. to help us to take care of the traffic. and of course I always hear the sirens from the police from the fire department they go all the way to save the life of the people in need and we thank them for every year and I hope we can do it again and I like to take also the opportunity of thanking the city council especially during the COVID time and we are very honored and thank Yvonne Yu for helping us during the period she came all the way to support us help us to dispute face masks and help us to arrange sending food staff to the food bank in Los Angeles area and we are very proud that we are one of the top food bank contributors in Los Angeles County. And also, oh, there are so many things Yvonne have done for us. Anyway, thank you, Yvonne. And also another council person, our Honourable Wingo, he is the one who helped us to arrange with our city manager to do a lot of work that we are able to do nowadays. I'd like for... Monterey Park. For example, we are giving a lot of gifts at the Landry Center to Robert Aguirre, our director, and I'd like to thank him too. So here, once again, if I want to thank people, there are so many people I have to thank. But anyway, just once for all, thank you very much. And we are very proud we are living in Monterey Park. Thank you. all of you. And I'd like to introduce my fellow people. We have Dora Leung. Most of you know her. She's the president of the Greater Monterey Park Chamber of Commerce. And hopefully that we can work together. And I know, oh, I shouldn't say that because she's very young. I know

her more than 30 years. Dora. Thank you, Wong Taisin Center, Edward Wong, and thank you for giving us an opportunity to represent our business community also. I'm on behalf of the Chamber of

Commerce. My name is Dora again as a president. I would like to present this certificate of appreciations together with our regime some with one Tyson Center at what Wong together together we will have three department I represent to present to certificate of appreciation for the exemplary services and dedication to Moray Park community for the police department and regime will be presenting to our fire department and our veteran at what one will be presenting to the city manager for the city staff. Oh, so... Oh, I got it. Okay. Sure. You can help.

No, I just want to say I'm proud of sending this to the city of Monterey Park, the city staff, for Happy Thanksgiving and for your service, for dedication for Monterey Park community. This is presented from Ed Wong, from the Chinese Buddha. campus in Atlantic.

And may I have the honor from the mayor to come over?

Yeah, let me invite my fellow council members,

when we take a quick picture,

and let me invite our police chief and maybe our fire chief

to be recognized as well.

and I'm also very proud to say that this year,

we are able to contribute 350 dinners, vouchers,

for the staff of the city of Montreux Park,

as well as our police department and our fire department.

And I hope you enjoy some dim sum or even turkey dinner next week. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.

We'll get an idea.

Thank you.

really appreciate the generosity from the Wong Tai San Center and appreciate our ability to be able to partner between the city and the services provided at the center. Next public comment.

Next speaker, Jessica Alvarenga.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of the council. My name is Jessica Alvarenga, as some of you may already know.

I'm a new public affairs manager at SoCal Gas,

and I'm simply here to introduce myself formally so you can put a face to a name.

I brought some business cards. Make sure that you all have my contact information. I've already met with some of your city staff

to ensure that we have proper communication and collaboration,

and I just simply want to tell you that I look forward to working with you all. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And welcome to Monterey Park.

Any other public comment next speaker Vincent ting of right hand do done

Good evening Honorable councilmember as you can see I'm very stage fright so First of all, my name is Vincent. I represent right can in series of five LLC We have a project on the corner of Garmin Garfield for the McSuse project.

And we really want to appreciate the entire council team.

On the past Saturn Park meeting, I finally get to know Mayor Wong, Mayor Pro Temer, and of course we work with City Attorney Karl Berger and Ines.

and all I want to do today is just to provide we have some information for our project that we just want to pass on to the team and I don't have anything to present today but we just wanted to update because through a conversation we have with the mayor and mayor pro temp I believe that they would like to know what's going on with the project so we I might not look like I might not look like my age but I have been in part of Orange Park since 1983. So not

half a century, but maybe 40 years. Really love the city. I couldn't imagine me living in another city. This is a very wonderful town, and I believe we have a very wonderful team to bring the city to the next level.

So all I have is we put this together for the team, and I'm just going to go ahead and give it to the city clerk,

and hope everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

One last written communication from Natalie Vega. She wrote to ask what the city's plans are for creating more diverse shopping selections. She feels the city is in desperate need of an upgrade to drive more businesses here. With the new Topgolf close by, it would be a shame to not see the city try to get more trendy restaurants and stores. stores that are beyond the Asian demographic as well Trader Joe's routes restaurants of different cuisines Castro pubs breweries she often finds

ourselves having to drive out of Monterey Park for certain stores she

loves the city and wants to see it compete with neighboring ones no other

comments thank you all right we will finish off with public communications WE'LL MOVE ON TO STAFF COMMUNICATIONS, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT SERVICES FIRST.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council members, and our esteemed members of our community. I am pleased to announce two very exciting updates this evening. One is on the Taste of Downtown MPK program, and the other one is on our upcoming Monterey Park Business Alliance. I am pleased to announce that the initial response to the Taste of Downtown MPK program has been very positive. The program is showing signs of stimulating economic activity and growth in our downtown district. Based on the success of our previous MPK Rewards Program, we anticipate even greater engagement over the next two to three months. To maximize this potential, we are extending the Taste of Downtown MPK Program by one month. Through January 31, 2025, this extension applies to both earning and redeeming credits. Since the initial credit earning period ends on November 30, this extension will give our residents and businesses more time to engage and benefit from the program. We will announce the extension beginning tomorrow and continue to monitor the program's progress and provide further updates. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Mayor, Pro Tem, Council members. I have another exciting update to share with the Council, but open to answering any questions about this extension.

Any questions on the extension?

I don't have a question, Joe, but just kudos. I appreciate that, and in my mind, it makes a lot of sense to time it with the Lunar New Year Festival that's going to be happening in January in that specific area. So I think this is a great idea and really appreciate our thoughtfulness.

Thank you.

I'm very excited to announce the upcoming launch of a groundbreaking initiative that will reshape our city's economic landscape.

the Monterey Park Business Alliance. Next slide, please.

What is the Monterey Park Business Alliance, or MPBA? Simply put, it's a city-led collaborative effort to empower and support local businesses to foster a thriving and inclusive business environment

in Monterey Park.

The MPBA will offer a comprehensive range of programs and services, including mixers and networking events for businesses to forge valuable connections with peers, stakeholders, and suppliers. Access to resources to help enhance and sustain business operations and support growth. Educational workshops on crucial business topics such as finance, marketing, and operational efficiencies. advocacy efforts to represent business interests at the local and regional levels and to have their voices heard in shaping the city's economic policies and future.

Next slide, please.

The Monterey Park Business Alliance is structured to be accessible and collaborative.

Membership is free.

All licensed businesses in Monterey Park are automatically members. Initial MPBA events will be funded through sponsorships demonstrating the community's investment in our businesses. A steering committee of internal and external stakeholders will provide valuable insights and direction to ensure the MPBA's programs and initiatives align with the needs and aspirations of our business community. Starting in November and December, we will be sharing exciting news about the MPBA with the business community through e-newsletters, emails, and social media, culminating with the official public announcement at the next business event or business expo and networking event on January 23, 2025. We are incredibly excited about the potential of the Monterey Park Business Alliance to foster collaboration, innovation, and growth within our business community. We invite all businesses to join us on this journey as we work together to build a stronger, more prosperous future for Monterey Park. Thank you. Happy to answer questions.

Thank you. Any questions?

Yes. Well, first of all, I'm really excited about the Business Alliance. Joe, and thank you for helping create this. I think this is a great opportunity for Monterey Park, but especially for our businesses to come together and see how we can support them. So thank you so much for the effort in putting this together and your team. And we look forward to seeing all these events coming forward.

But thank you so much.

Mr. Mayor, again, Joseph, you know, thank you for always just thinking of innovative, way for us to bring our community closer together.

Remind me again, this is not just limited to businesses, but like

business organizations are alLod to join as well?

Or institutions? All businesses that are licensed in

Monterey Park that are located in the city

are automatically...

What about workforce development programs?

Or even, for example, we have East LA College and they have an incubator

program. I guess my question is, is it only business or do we have anyone that has a business interest who can participate in the alliance?

Yes. The alliance, as it develops and gains traction, will actually develop into collaborative networking partnerships with...

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excited about this launch. I know this was one of the items mentioned in the economic development strategic plan. Excited to see that this is, we're getting going. I know we kind of had a soft launch with the summer networking mixer at the Holiday Inn. Really appreciate our efforts to continue to support the business community. And I know you didn't mention it tonight yet, but in line with the LADC's, LA Economic Development Corporation's recognition of the city and much of your team's work for efforts like this to help continue to support the small business community and the business community as a whole and improving the business environment in the city where we were recognized for many of these efforts and efforts that are in the pipeline like this one with the most business friendly city award two weeks ago so really appreciate that we're continuing to build on the strong foundation we built over the last few years and we're looking forward to I'm very much looking forward to and I think all of us are looking forward to more to come and more programs and resources that we're going to be ready to unveil and implement in the coming months and years to continue to ensure a vibrant business community and business environment here in the city so thank you so much kudos to the staff and the team for getting this kicked off and encourage any businesses that are here or listening to make sure you take advantage of your free membership in the Business Alliance and our Business Connect newsletter that's already going out helping to share resources for businesses to be able to grow and thrive and to do more of to be successful in the city of Mario Parks.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right.

We will move to Recreation and Community Services Communications.

Oh, and we have a special guest. Oh, oh, oh. Yay.

I was expecting a turkey, but.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Potem, City Councilmembers, Robert Gary, Director of Recreation and Community Services, here with a special guest, Santa Claus. I know we're right up against Thanksgiving, but we did want to make sure and come tonight to share and get on everyone's calendar for all the upcoming activities.

We do have, so if you can start the slideshow, please. Next slide, please. Sorry.

So we are already taking letters to Santa as we go into the December season. We have started taking letters to Santa. So we do have a special mailbox over at the Langley Senior Center. And so that's available for folks to drop off letters to Santa every day until 5 p.m. and also on the weekends. So you can drop off your letter up until December the 6th. I want to remind everyone to make sure you include the name of the child and also a return address so that we can make sure Santa and his elves return a letter back. Santa will personally respond back to every child that submits a letter to Santa. And so, again, just want to remind everyone the deadline for that is December the 6th.

Next slide, please.

Holiday Snow Village is coming up on December 5th.

We will have Santa's special mailbox out there at Snow Village.

As you can see, Snow Village is a good time for folks of all ages.

I see a familiar face up there.

So this year's Snow Village will be on December the 5th from 4 to 8 p.m. That's on Thursday in conjunction with our farmer's market. We do want to thank our sponsors, the Monterey Park Marketplace, Raising Canes, and also Wear Disposal. I do want to share, we already have 1,500 folks that are signed up for our snow play activities. So the pre-registration is full, but I still want to encourage folks to still come out. We usually will try to gauge the lines and if there's availability to release some additional wristbands so folks can enjoy the snow, we do try to do so on site. There's also additional activities. So if folks didn't get a wristband for the snow activities, we do still have a free trackless train.

We have pictures with this gentleman here.

There's this farmer's market will be going on. There's also lots of fun, games, photos. So I encourage everyone to come out between 4 and 8 p.m. on December 5th.

Next slide, please.

And then finally, this is a new event we started last year. This is Santa's Jolly Journey. This fine young gentleman will be going out with those great folks out there, our fire and PD.

We'll be escorting Santa through all five of the districts along our designated route to wave and spread holiday cheer.

to all of the folks in the community.

So that'll start at 6 p.m.

On the city's website, on the Jolly Journey site,

there's actually a link to Santa Tracker,

and that'll show where Santa's at in the city at all times.

Last year, we had about 1,200 folks that utilized the Santa Tractor during the event. So we're excited to see how that number grows

for the second year, now that more folks are learning about it and remember the event from last year,

seeing Santa drive through the city and wave to everyone. And last slide is just, as always, reminding everyone to follow us on social media at Monterey Park Rec.

It's a great way to stay up to date with all of the, one, fun activities that we have,

some of the activities we share here, but there's also tons of things going on in the day-to-day operations at our daycare, at our Langley Senior Center, and all of the wonderful fields we have throughout the community.

So I move all for any questions.

Thank you. Council.

yes i just wanted to tell santa that i've been a very good council member this year and um thankful uh robert for all of the amazing activities that um the parks and rec department does and i know that um santa's jolly journey was of success last year and we're always talking about doing more and epic being more epic so uh really looking forward to that i know my daughters are already saw it on i showed it to them on social media they're gonna be excited to see a picture that i met santa tonight so that he's getting ready for this so thank you there's a way to do for santa to maybe do a quick little video plug and we can put it on social media to

remind parents or anything like that that would yeah absolutely we'll do something appreciate it

yeah absolutely thank you and oh i'm looking forward to the snow village as well i i would bet i bet yeah yeah that's me and my daughter uh racing nice yeah that's him with the hands up

yeah yes so you tell me who's having more fun yeah thank you um you know i've this is this is

is probably our signature event, and I know for residents who are watching and

asking, you know, when's it going to happen, and, you know,

here's the information, and we're doing it to, again, bring our community together

for the holidays, and so, you know, thank you, Robert, and your staff, and everyone

at Parks and Rec, and for Santa, for, you know, bringing in good cheer

to the holidays.

Yes, thank you.

Well, I'm glad

Santa's back, and I know the Sloan Village is a big hit every year in, year out, just like monster mash and we'll compare the two because you're back that means we've been nice so thank

you so much thank you no appreciate the update looking forward to the events and looking forward to both a turkey soon and santa to celebrate at these absolutely thank you thank you if no other

questions yes you can come take a picture yes

All right, thank you. We'll move on to our presentation items, updates.

1A World Journal Lunar New Year Festival coming up. If I can invite the World Journal.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Portain, and all the council members. My name is Alan.

I'm representing the World Journal team to share some updates with you here today for the upcoming 2025 Lunar New Year Festival in Monterey Park. For the 2025 event, we have confirmed that Disney will be participating again in our event. We are also inviting many different kind of business, including post office, California lottery, and a lot of various vendors from all the industry to join us. For food vendor-wise, we are already fully booked. We have over 40 different food vendors, including barbecue, tanghulu, and boba teas and Taiwanese fried chickens, and also including the stinky tofu, if you like them, and much more. And for the merchant vendors, we are about 80% booked. and many of these vendors are from different areas. We also have some vendors coming from Northern California, Sacramento, and San Francisco as well. For sponsor-wise, we are currently at a 30% compared to 2024 event. Every year, attracting sponsors into the event is the most hard. It's not an easy job. It takes a lot of effort and time to get a sponsor to participate. However, we are still working very hard to get more and more business to support our event.

Also, if any business and organization would like to be a part of the event, please feel free to contact us. We'll be more than happy to help them out.

For the stage entertainment, we have invited many different dancing groups and bands.

We also would have two of the Dragon and Lion Dance performing groups this year. We also have invited a face-changing performer that is dancing and then a face-changing that is from Chinese drama, I think. it is a very special face changing experience performance into our event so

lastly I would like to take this opportunity to share our appreciation to the city of Montreux

Park also all the departments and staff that we have been working with we all know that it takes a lot of effort and time to host an event like this.

The Lunar New Year Festival in Monterey Park is definitely very unique and very different from all the Lunar Festivals that is happening around the area. So we are very excited about the event, and

then we will work our best to get more different kind of the business, also the performers into our event and look forward to another successful 2025 Lunar New Year Festival in Monterey Park. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much. Sounds like a lot

of progress made on planning for the upcoming festival. Any questions from Council?

No real questions. Just thanking you for helping organize this. I'm always very proud that Monterey Park has the largest, and I always like boasting that we have the largest Lunar New Year festival, and that we're usually the first to help kick off the Lunar New Year. So looking forward to the festival this year.

I always bring my family.

So I know it's a very important event in our city and in the San Gabriel Valley.

So thank you so much.

Everything that you guys are doing to organize and make this, as we like to say in Monterey Park, a lot more epic.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor?

Yes.

Again, I want to share the sentiments that I thank you for the update and the progress report. So it sounds like it's going to be a great event, which, of course, the region comes to expect, because as I often tell people, that the Lunar New Year season actually is kicked off by Monterey Park. And so certainly it's, again, thank you for the progress report.

I do have a question, though.

Again, I know a lot of your update was pertaining to vendors and entertainment.

but like

will we also be offering

any type of arts and crafts

for especially like people with children I think that's something again has been

brought to my attention by some folks that again

appreciation for the vendors

especially those that provide information and performances but I think there's been a suggestion that we do some more arts and crafts

is that a possibility?

Yes, thank you um council member though to bring up this question so yes we do have some vendors that they are um

having um they're selling the children's um painting products so and also we will get her

some few of the this kind of the vendor to create uh arch and craft area so yes we are we are planning

to have one of these um area into our event as well okay okay and i mean um perhaps that should

also be part of your advertising as well.

I think that, you know,

people are also aware that there are family-oriented activities like that. I think that would also help to draw more folks

because you are trying to drive

more attendance to the event as well.

Yes, absolutely. We will. So once this area is confirmed, we will definitely

advertise this before

the event and also hoping that many

parents, they will bring out their children

to the arts arts and craft yeah so this will we will focus on it thank you

any other questions if not again thank you we the city and I personally really appreciate our partnership with the World Journal and hosting this event we're looking forward to another very exciting kickoff to the Lunar Year festival season in the region and really appreciate World Journal's leadership on this and look forward to our next update on this with everything is booked Director of the Spect

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or the World Journal will be promoting this event very heavily, I'm sure, in the coming weeks.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, we're very excited, too.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and wish everyone a happy holidays. Yeah, no, thank you so much.

Thank you.

With that, if there's nothing further,

we'll move on to presentation item 1B,

East L.A. College updates.

Good evening, everyone. Mayor Wong, thank you for having us here. Pro Temer Ngo. Honorable Council Members, thank you for having us here. We're glad to be here again visiting our Monterey Park colleagues. On behalf of President, Interim President Perez, I am Miguel Duenas, Vice President of Student Services, representing our team, and we have with us Steven Wong from VPAM. We have Niem as our interim vice president of administrative services. Then we have Martha and Michael that are partners with our HED designs. We'll share a little bit about what's happening at ELEC since the last time we came to present. A couple slides to demonstrate some of the growth and some of the progress that we've made. One of the slides here is identifying that ELEC was identified as one of the sole community colleges in the state to be acknowledged as the recipient of the Diversity and Equity Award for the John D. Rice. This is based on the work that we've done in closing the equity gap that we have in English

and math in our community. For us, we pride ourselves in working with our community, working with our students to ensure that we open our doors and ensure that our students feel comfortable and safe when they come to our campus. Next slide, please. With this, as you see, our former president,

and now interim chancellor, Alberto Romano. That's why he couldn't be here today. He's the interim chancellor for our district of nine colleges. But you see also our student there, Maria, that went and represented East Los Angeles College when they received the award. And this is a very prestigious award in the community college or in the college world. So we're very blessed to have been acknowledged for this. But this is not where we end. We continue our work to ensure that our students and our community members feel and understand that East Los Angeles College is a safe place, a place for them to come in to learn and advance in their community. With this, I will transition over to Stephen Wong to give some updates on VPAM. Good evening, everyone. Honorable City Council. My name is Stephen Wong. I do recognize many of you, and I wanted to thank you for your continuous support of not only ELAC, but the Vincent Price Art Museum. Next slide.

We are really, we're on the border as ELAC on the western side of Monterey Park, on the border of East L.A. College.

And what we really want to do is showcase art that resonates with our communities, with our student population, but also with the population both in Monterey Park and East L.A. So they can come to our museum and see stories and voices that are part of their own community.

Next slide.

So many of you know that some of you have actually been on tours to our collections. We have a collection of over 9,000 art objects. And so we just finished a strategic plan,

and one thing that we want to do is diversify our collection by collecting artists,

hopefully local artists, but artists, again, that reflect our communities and our stories. And so as we move into the future, we're going to be diversifying and ensuring that our art objects are accessible to the community and the public, and so you have access, the people have access, and our communities have access to our educational tools.

Next slide. And part of our strategic plan that we just finished, it took two years,

is that our primary focus is our students, and our students are often made up of our Monterey Park residents.

But it's more than that. We are a community college, and so we also want to reach out to our K-8 schools

to make sure that they actually can start to come to museums

and feel comfortable in museums, because that's always been a challenge. We also want to reach out to our local high schools.

We do have a robust dual enrollment program, and we want to help support that.

But also, we want to reach out to our lifelong learners. And that could be anyone who's not a student. Our folks from Langley Center, they've been visiting us more recently. We've had a collaboration, and this is actually an image from a collaboration

that we've done with Monterey Park and the park and recs with the help from Robert and the help from city manager Alvarez. And so these are some things that we are looking forward to. And I think this is the last one. Okay.

But, you know, I'm happy to have the support of Monterey Park and the city council. And I myself, I used to live here 50 years ago at the ripe old age of two.

And so, you know, I'm honored to actually be here in front of you guys on behalf of not only ELAC, but the Vincent Price Art Museum.

Thank you. Thank you for having us. My name is Ni Nim. I'm the interim vice president of administrative services. And one of our most, I say, nice projects coming up is our facing project. We call it QUAC, but stands for Kinesiology, Wellness, Athletics Center. So it's a whole project. It's more than just a building. What you see here is the face of our building off from Cesar Chavez. So this is what you'll be seeing as you drive by our college. Tonight I have our architects from HED Architects to give you some more details on what you'll be seeing. Thank you, Neem.

Good evening. My name is Martha Ball, and I'm a principal for HED Architects. We have also McCarthy as a contractor partner in this endeavor. We're really excited to share this project and, you know, quack quack, that we call them, kinesiology, and also a center for wellness and health. We think this is including 110,000 square feet of new facility. It would also be a two- and three-story facility, but it's going to be located along the southwest corner of the campus. We believe that this is going to be a game-changer, not just for the ELAC students, but also for the surrounding community. And I'm going to tell you why. I think because the purpose and the vision for this project, it's about creating a facility that focuses on wellness and health and also connecting the ELAC community to the surrounding area of the neighborhood. And so one of the things that we have is some core principles that have guided the design for this facility. First is putting students first. First, we always put front and center of the students every time we make a decision. So we have inclusive spaces for them to feel welcome and also cater the diverse needs of the students. Second, this is going to be doing a display of best of the art for sustainability. It's going to be a net zero energy. and is going to be using eco-friendly materials and also renewable resources. But the most important piece, I think, is this community engagement. We know that connection to nature is very important for wellness. So this facility is providing a concept of a village on a park. We know we're very limited in the city with parks, so this one takes it to the next level, and my colleague architect is going to take you through, but it's the idea of bringing a wellness walk along the facility so the community can actually experience nature. And the next slide.

Yeah, good evening. My name is Michael Bulander. I'm a design architect with HED. And as you can see in this rendering, the building is really configured to connect the community to the campus. you can see at the center of the building is a three-story glass facade that leads into an atrium space that connects the different activities. What you actually saw in the first slide was like an event, a game night, where the community would come on campus, go into the building, and then really enjoy an athletic game that might be going on. But during the daytime, you can see that the park is configured to connect Cesar Chavez to the center of the campus, the promenade, with a wellness path that allows a lot of wellness activities on the way up there. So you can see this project really puts community back into community college. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And with that, we're open to any questions you may have. Thank you. Very exciting. We'll start with any questions, comments. Yes, well, first of all,

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING BACK AND FOR GIVING US AN UPDATE ABOUT THE COLLEGE. IT'S DEFINITELY, I KNOW A LOT OF US COUNCIL MEMBERS TALK ABOUT HOW IN THE COMMUNITY HOW EAST L.A. COLLEGE IS REALLY A GEM AND ALONG WITH THE VINCENT PRICE MUSEUM SUCH AN AMAZING RESOURCE FOR OUR COMMUNITY AND FOR STUDENTS THROUGHOUT THIS AREA. I ONLY LIVE TWO BLOCKS AWAY FROM EAST L.A. COLLEGE SO I DEFINITELY WALK THERE WITH MY FAMILY at least once or twice a week through the campus. And it's already such a nice campus to walk through, but I'm really excited about the new building and especially the focus on the environment. And so really appreciate that for the people who live in Monterey Park, but especially people who live within that area that are walking distance that can really appreciate the campus in that type of fashion. So I also want to thank you for all of the events that you host. I know that sometimes we drive or we can hear, and we're always very curious to hear what's going on. So I know that I really enjoy hearing the emphasis on community and community engagement because I think that's so essential and important for colleges to be connected to the community.

So I really appreciate that.

I know my daughter and I went to the Dia de los Muertos event that you had at the Vincent Price Museum just recently.

So thank you for that.

And I know she got face painting. We had churros and champurrado while we were there. But also got to see a lot of the students there showcasing their exhibits there as well. So thank you so much for all the work that you do, and I hope that you continue to come to our City Council meetings and share a lot of this information and continue to engage our community.

Thank you so much. I also want to just echo sentiment.

It's really commendable that in terms of designing physical space that it's also inviting to the community and so that it's an integrated part of the community. And certainly this project is very exciting, and I think it's an exciting one for our city.

and the region.

In fact, just last weekend,

I took a friend who had never been to VPAM and I even said to her,

she is from LA and she came to visit me and she even said, oh, you want to go to the Norton Simon Museum?

I said, no, we don't want to go to the Norton Simon Museum. We got something better. No offense to the Norton Simon Museum, but I said we have something better.

So I took her to VPAM and Stephen Wong was there to greet us.

But yeah, she enjoyed the exhibit

regarding the environment in indigenous communities

as well as on the third floor

but yeah, she was very impressed and certainly I think that's something that we should be very proud of

that we have this institution

and if there are ways in which we can collaborate then I would support it.

Thank you.

Just want to say very proud of your new development.

I was your student 30 some years ago for a summer.

I really enjoy and a very high quality education.

So thank you so much.

Very proud of you. Thank you.

Thank you for coming here and showcasing, I guess, a new plan, a new vision for the campus. I, too, was there for a summer class many, many years ago. And it looks completely different than what it looks now.

Thank you. I'm really excited about this. This looks great.

I really appreciate and am really encouraged and excited about the integration of public open green spaces for the community. I really appreciate your nod to making sure that the community can access these amenities and the space on campus and creating an opportunity for especially the South Barnes Park area to have more access to green space like this is a huge benefit. Really appreciate you keeping the neighborhood in mind

in that sense.

A couple of quick questions on this. I appreciate this is super cool.

I don't know. This might be a question for staff.

I assume this is something that has to come to council or planning commission for approval in terms of the design,

or we're already past that.

Actually, these projects don't come to us. they actually are involved with the school education code, and so these projects don't come in front of City Council.

So no approval needed from the... No approval needed.

Okay.

On the...

So I was looking up on Google Maps, which may be outdated, trying to figure out what's there existing in the current space right now. It looks like some asphalt and then maybe some temporary classrooms, but I'm just curious what is existing there now.

So this is located in the southwest corner of the campus along Cesar Chavez.

So currently we have some bungalows and the existing gym. So we're going to keep that gym operational until we build a new building

and then demo the existing. So that's exactly where it is.

And if you can see there's the baseball field on the left.

if that gives you a little bit of orientation where it is.

Great. No, very helpful.

In the current location, when you see in the far corner,

the green space where the soccer field is at, that's where the current basketball gym, the men's basketball gym is located. And where the new building will be. UC

William ! William William William William William William William William William William William William William William William William William

pursue that there. I know we hosted at Weingart Stadium in 84 field hockey for the Olympics. If there's a way to showcase and participate more directly in that, or even hosting some of the teams that will be coming for practice facilities here at the campus. I don't know if

there's any news on that or potential for that. So with the interim Chancellor Roman that is now

in place, this is something that we will bring up with him. He's an advocate of community engagement

and partnerships, so that's something that we could bring up. And he's shared interest in this, so we could follow up and establish a communication.

Yeah, we'd love to, if the city can support those efforts, and if there's some way to participate in a direct way for our community to participate and East L.A. College to participate in the Olympics as they're coming in a few years, it'd be great to continue that kind of Olympic pride in the city

here. Agreed. We'll follow up. Yeah, no, absolutely.

We'd love to follow up, and I know the staff would be happy to continue to follow up too. And even if not,

I think it would be great

to host watch parties for the Olympics and events on campus, especially with this new space

that's going to be coming.

I'm curious what the timeline is for this build out

and the construction and all that.

Okay, so you will see construction starting the 26th in April,

you know, mobilization,

and then the facility will be first built

and that would be active in June 28.

And then you do the next one would be the field, the sports field, and that would be June 29th.

All right, so almost all of it done in time for the Olympics.

Yeah.

All right.

On VPAM, we really appreciate, Stephen, the work and the partnership as well between the city and Vincent Price Art Museum. What a treasure and asset for our city, not just East LA College as a whole, but the Vincent Price Art Museum. would love to see how we can continue to build on our partnership I I know we've been working on driving more people and helping people understand that VPAM exists here in the city and to help get people to from the wider community to participate in programs and openings and shows I'd love to see how we might be able to explore bringing VPAM as well into other parts of the city maybe looking at other city facilities where we can display our I know there's great space and a lot of space at VPAM but I'm sure I know your collection is larger than what you can fit in the current galleries if there's opportunities to fill some walls in some of our city facilities with some additional artwork or to do some different kind of collaborations to bring more more of VPAM's art into other parts of the city I would love to explore that and see that happen

yeah we could definitely look into possibly developing a loan program but you know we would love to collaborate again that collaboration that we did in July it was amazing and I want to

continue that um and you know who knows we can also do some pop-ups uh throughout the city of

Monterey Park but I would love to I really want to collaborate uh with the city of Monterey Park

yeah let's do it I'm looking at looking for for Robert uh let's keep let's keep building on that

strong partnership with the Vincent Price Art Museum and East LA College um I'm just curious uh on enrollment have you guys seen enrollment recover from from pandemic and all that stuff and

And how are we looking? Yes, we've seen an increase in enrollment. We've actually have bounced back from enrollment.

And so we have a greater foot traffic on campus, which is great to see our students returning to the campus, both for the credit and non-credit programs.

As the last time we shared with you all, we have a robust non-credit program that helps our community members with ESL, citizenship and other programs that have also yielded a great return on our investment there in time and effort.

In addition to our international programs have also bounced back as well. where we're seeing students return from various countries. Our current increase, students from China has returned,

but one area in Burma, we've seen a growth in our community and with students from Burma as well. So our international program alongside with our domestic enrollment has been increasing and sustaining.

Great. That's great to hear.

On that kind of related note, I know LACCD has a commitment to student housing on some of the campuses and sites. I don't know what those plans are, if they include East LA College at all or if there's potential to potentially look at opportunities for students.

There's currently a study being conducted by our district to identify what that will look like.

The plans have not been finalized, but there is a study being conducted.

We are always open to partner with our municipalities,

also organizations to support our students and our community when it comes to housing needs for our students.

Obviously, I look to the city as a partner if there are any potential plans to move forward on student housing. We're as every city is under mandates to build more housing and build more affordable housing I think this would meet both of those requirements Help both East LA College provide services and a resource to students that are in need and their families and also help the city meet its goals as well So we'd love to see how we can collaborate if there are

As the city is conducted we will share the results with the with the council great and I also encourage

I don't know if you guys have been in touch with the Atlantic Square

manager and owner

across the street. The council approved a development agreement with them to move forward on redeveloping a lot of their my hope, our hope is that they will continue to be able to provide

places to eat and shop for the

population that East LA College has daily there

and right across the street.

If there are ways to collaborate there to help them understand the needs of the students and faculty and staff that show up every day on campus would love to see.

It'd be great if an opportunity would arise where they would have a focus group or conversation

with some of our students to identify some of their needs as well.

We'd be more than happy to host at East Los Angeles College along with the council and the management company.

Yeah, maybe we can have staff follow up on setting some sort of conversation up with

TRC.

I know our staff and the staff at the college have been talking as well on potential joint use agreements for facilities, particularly athletic facilities on campus. I didn't take a class at East L.A. College, but I did swim at the pool and learned to dive and to do other things at the pool there at East L.A. College, so fond memories there walking through campus to get to the pool. And we would love to continue to explore that and see how we can build on opportunities to not just provide more green and open space for the neighborhood, but also make use of the facilities especially if if they're not being utilized to their full capacity for that neighborhood and the rest of the community to be able to exercise and utilize some of the athletic spaces as well if there are opportunities to further some of those conversations I know I think you guys know that we had to shut down our barns park pool over the during the pandemic because it's it's gotten to a point where it's no longer operable and so if there are opportunities to explore joint use and other opportunities to open that up. I believe Marquette already uses the East LA College pool for their practices unless I'm thinking of the wrong pool. But if there are other opportunities to open up some of the athletic facilities for the community to use as well and utilize, I think I would love to see

how we can explore that too.

I think that's what we really try to do. We have the partnership with the city. Right now, as you see, this project is pretty significant.

it will take out some of our current fields. And we've already started initial conversations with the city about Parks and Recs,

about possibly using some and leasing out some of your spaces. So obviously, when we have availability, we're here for the community too.

So we will be working on some partnership if there's a need and we have availability, absolutely.

We do have a nice pool. Pretty soon we have a nice gym and a nice field. But yeah, absolutely. That's what we're here for. Awesome.

We'd love to make sure those conversations continue and we figure out ways we can support each other in providing services to the community. Anything else from Council?

We'd really appreciate this update.

We'd love to keep this kind of cadence regularly and see how we can continue to support and partner with each other.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. And congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

All right.

We'll move on to Old Business 2A, adopt a resolution dissolving Sister Cities Commission and adding responsibilities to the Community Participation Commission. I believe there's a staff report from Robert.

Good evening, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem, City Council members. Robert Aguirre, Director of Recreation and Community Services. At the October 2nd City Council meeting, I provided a report summarizing the status of the Sister Cities Ad Hoc Committee. At that time, City Council requested that I return at a future meeting to address the responsibilities and provide a recommendation for the Sister Cities Commission. Tonight, I'm recommending that City Council adopt a resolution to dissolve the Sister Cities Commission and to add those responsibilities to the Community Participation Commission.

Now, this will not impact the individual Sister Cities Association or any of their independent operations.

And the Community Participation Commission already works to support cultural activities in the city and would continue to work with active associations to enhance cultural activities in the future. In fact, I've already spoken with Inachi Katsura about getting them more involved in the Cherry Blossom Festival in the upcoming year. And and keeping them active

As they're the only active nonprofit at this time so that completes my report. I'm available for any questions

Thank you. Any questions comments from council?

Yes, thank you Robert for bringing this forward. I just had a Maybe just one or two questions for you

the current

group that we have met with in the past, are they aware of this item already?

Sorry. Yes, they're aware. And then I've also notified them that if in the future they're interested in continuing to support and enhance or be involved in activities, cultural activities, then that we would be able to do so if this were to pass tonight.

Okay, and if they wish to, at some point in the future, whether it's this one or other groups, wanting to start like a 501C?

Absolutely, which is what the relationship will be with Nachikitsura, a sister city from Japan.

And if there's any other associations that get active, then we would have that same relationship.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions from the council?

Yeah, I just want to thank Robert for taking initiative here. I think for the last 10 months now of work, gotten discussions, worked with the various sister city commissions, and then finally got to the point where we are. I think the main thing here is the change in time. When the sister cities were created some three, four decades ago, it was a time where cultural exchange was needed. There was not transportation, mass social media. Times have changed now. I mean, the culture exchange is prevalent.

It's everywhere.

So that official connection is not as needed because there's just an ongoing set of people traveling to these countries and coming to the U.S. And I think the commissioners also understand that. So we continue to welcome the needs of the community. We will move the agenda to our CPC to have them kind of be involved with this. and I think with one of the commission,

one of the sister cities,

they're really heavily involved in this already. So we'll expand that for the Cherry Blossom Festival,

and then for the other communities, we'll look forward to their participation

whenever they need, we'll be there for them. So good job in getting this done.

Thank you.

And I'll just echo appreciation for those that participated in this process. I know it was a relatively long and very involved process to get to this point and appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into this recommendation. Thank you to the staff and the subcommittee and everyone that helped get us to this point. I'm looking forward to seeing how we can build on these efforts over the last few decades to build these relationships with our sister cities, but also to rebuild these for newer times.

Absolutely.

With that, if there's a motion to adopt staff recommendation or otherwise. I'll move I'll second then move in second any further discussion hearing none call for the vote

Approved unanimously. Thank you move to item 2b spirit buzz pilot program, and I believe Carl Has some instructions for us

Thank you, mr. Mayor members of the council

We discovered that all of you have a conflict on this particular item So under these circumstances, what the Brown Act requires is that we go through a random process. Your city clerk is using the cookie jar, and she has put all of your names on the individual slips. We'll throw them into the cookie jar. We're showing you the names, and then she will select who will select the names, and three names will be pulled so that those three individuals can vote on this particular item.

And just to be clear, the conflict is not that there's any direct financial interests, but that we all live close to the bus route.

These are property-related interests within 500 feet to 1,000 feet of the proposed bus route.

Tell us who gets a soda break.

Council Member Sanchez. Who gets a break or who we're picking the three that are staying. Okay. Yeah. We're pulling three names. So the three names that are announced and I suggested the Chicago's Bulls theme song for this but Mayor Wong.

Mayor Pro Tem no

Yes

Okay excuse us Thank you okay

Thank you

While they figure out where they're going to

hide out somewhere, I believe there's public comment on this item. Maybe we can take that and then go to the staff report after.

First speaker, Ricardo Martín.

Hello everybody. My name is Rick Martin. Hello everybody, I'm Rick Martin. I'm a small business owner. This is my wife Natasha. She is a nurse and this is little Ricky, currently unemployed. We just moved to Monterey Park in January and during the time that Natasha was off on maternity leave, we actually found out about the library and all the great resources that they have for kids specifically Thursday morning story time all the really really cool stuff and when she went back to work our aunt who is now our nanny caregiver full-time doesn't drive and we live up in the Highlands area and we were like oh we'd like to continue that he made a lot of friends during story time as soon as we found out about the spirit bus specifically route four it was like a game changer we you know he still made his story time now they go to barnes park events between my mom and my aunt they're there three to four times a week using the awesome spirit line you know so when we found out about the um route for potentially being cut or eliminated i just i understand i don't know if this is a cut cost cutting measure or what but if there is a way to make sure that i understand the on-demand program is going to be i i still don't understand how it's going to fully be done but if it's just a bus it might be an issue with babies and car seats or potentially elder like my mom if it's an app or something it's going to be real difficult for elderly people especially in that area where we're at, which is kind of where Ariba, Villa Verde, Copa, you know, kind of where that Route 4 is. There's a lot of elderly people there. And it may not make sense if it's technologically difficult. I just, if, I guess the ask is twofold to reconsider potentially cutting Route 4, making it, I don't know if there's a way to make it, but if it's going to be on demand, just try to see if we could make it inclusive to babies. And I know on our street, there's a lot of houses that are under contract. New families are coming, younger people with babies. We're trying to recruit our friends and stuff too. So we just want to be heard. We just want to put our opinions out there. But super preface it, but we love Monterey Park. We've had really great interactions with the city. It's really nice to be in a place where you feel proud, you know. So thank you very much, guys. That's it.

No, thank you. I don't know if the baby wants to say something.

Yeah, please. I love story time at the library. Don't cut Route 4, please. Thank you.

No, we appreciate it. A quick question before we move on. I don't know if there's another comment. but I don't know if

well one maybe we can connect and address the on demand service and how they might be able to use it I believe there is an option for people to be able to call in or am I thinking wrong yeah so there's an option for people who don't have smart phones to be able to call in for a ride to connect to Spirit Bus and other fixed route services so I hope that we can address that directly and then on the, that is a question I did not have in terms of accessibility for car seats and babies in the on-demand services. Maybe that's something, I don't know if that's already included or that's something they've thought about, but if not, maybe we can bring that up and have a conversation about that.

Next comment.

We received one written comment from Bill Lamb. He writes that he also shares concerns regarding the on-demand service. He believes that there may be issues with people not being able to book a ride because of high demand issues, as well as availability of vehicles. He's concerned with on-demand service in Brightwood Highlands and Garvey Reservoir area, as the children who use the service may not have

access to cell phones. Regarding Route 1, he suggests that you focus the bidirectional service

on Garfield Avenue instead, only starting from Mark Keppel High School to ELAC via Garfield, Elmgate, Wilcox, and Riggin. In regards to Route 2, he believes that the students at Bridewood Elementary and residents living in that area would be negatively affected, as they would be forced to walk very far to nearby alternate routes. His suggestion is that Route 2 is to focus on bidirectional services on Atlantic Boulevard, with the route beginning at City Hall, going on Newmark, Inez, Garvey, and Atlantic, and Floral, and going back down and ending at the ELAC Transit Center.

In regards to Route 3, he strongly opposes cutting service south of Graves Avenue

because he's concerned that this may negatively affect the Hillcrest Elementary students as well as residents living near the reservoir area. He recommends that you maintain the existing segment on Route 3. Regarding Route 4, he is also, in regards, as the gentleman previously stated,

opposed to canceling the entire line

because this would negatively affect the Monterey Highlands elementary students

as well as the residents in that area. He asked that you maintain the entire existing segment on Route 4

and modify Route 4 to actually travel on Arriba, Abajo,

between Copa and Verde Vista to serve Pine Tree Park.

In regards to Route 5, he supports the route change

by running from Cal State LA to Alonic East Line Station. He actually recommends that you extend the route from Alonic E-Line Station to Macausland Business Park

during the all-day weekday only service instead of peak hours.

He'd love to discuss this more with you in additional detail.

Thank you. No more comments.

Thank you.

And I know Sean heard all that. and to the extent you can integrate some of the I believe you will probably have some answers to some of those concerns already in your staff report if you want to handle those there and we can go from there.

Sounds good. Alright, well good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member. We just, Sean Igo Public Works Director I also have Sochi Tipan here who's our Administrative Manager for Public Works. Again, we'll be providing you an overview of our proposed updates to the Spirit Bus Fixed Route Program and throughout the process will hopefully answer a lot of those questions And give some more clarity on on what's being proposed. So with that. I'll hand it over to Sochi

Good evening mayor mayor pro tem and councilmember Sanchez Sochi's upon administrative manager for the Public Works Department So earlier this year the city completed a study for its fixed route transportation program spirit bus at the June 18th council meeting staff presented council with the proposed service improvement strategies that would improve our spirit bus to a more cost-effective system here in the city because of low ridership and increased costs in operations it was very expensive to continue running spirit bus with the current routes and so tonight's item is to consider the route restructures and to extend our contract with First Transit, our contractor, to implement these changes for a one-year period to go along with the pilot program with on-demand service that Council approved recently at our November 6 meeting with Via Transportation.

So to review the proposed changes for Route 1, which you see here on the map,

The proposed change is to change it from a one-way loop to a linear bidirectional route along Atlantic. So currently it goes one way only and it comes back as a, well, it doesn't come back. The bus returns as a different route, and so that causes some confusion with riders. And so the proposed change would make it a bidirectional route, not changing the service area, not changing the stops or the route itself is just the direction that is being changed. And so here on the map, you can also see the different points where this route connects with other regional transportation, including Metro Bus and Montebello Bus Lines.

The same recommendation is for Route 2. Again, this one runs on a one-way loop along Garfield, and so instead of going at one-way only, the proposed change is to do a linear bidirectional route.

for route three the proposed change is to restructure it by eliminating the loop around the garvey reservoir which is the segment along this route that has the Lost ridership so instead of continuing this particular segment the proposed change is to implement on-demand service or micro transit to better serve the community in this area so although we would be getting rid of the spirit bus here along that area, we would still be providing coverage

through Microtransit.

For Route 4, the recommendation is to eliminate the entire route, and the reason being is that this is the route in the entire program with the Lost ridership. The most recent data, the ridership data, showed that along the Monterey Pass and Corporate center segments there was about five riders or less per day and so it really wasn't as cost effective to continue servicing the community with a fixed route program instead we're proposing to to implement on-demand service in this particular section of the city we did do some follow-up community of surveys as part of our outreach for the proposed changes and there were some concerns

about Route 4 specifically.

We heard about some community members thinking that there weren't going to be any service provided to the Mark Keppel High School students who used Route 4, but Route 1 does service Mark Keppel High School, so they would be able to use that route to go throughout the city, and also on-demand service would also connect them to other parts of the city or to their nearest bus stop as well.

For Route 5, the recommendation is to eliminate service east of Atlantic and instead extend it down south to the Metro E-Line for better connectivity with regional transportation. And instead also cover the east portion of this route with microtransit service.

kind of connecting if you see on the map the Garvey Reservoir area and then the bottom section where Route 5 is currently servicing

and also providing service to the Marketplace Shopping Center which is not currently serviced or fixed route transit right now.

So these proposed route changes would work alongside a micro transit service that City Council recently considered. And so just to review what microtransit is, it's a more flexible transportation option than fixed route where you have a bus running on a set schedule and specific bus stops. The microtransit service would allow riders to book a ride using a smartphone or also calling in. So if there are people who are not technology savvy and are used to just dial in for something, they could book a trip that way as well. and so once they request their trip in real time there will be a vehicle that would be identified that would be able to do the trip for them they will get picked up at their closest you know it's a corner to corner um uh transportation service so at their the nearest corner they would be able to be picked up if there are other riders going in the same direction they would be grouped with

other riders and then they would be dropped off at their destination so like I I mentioned at the

November 6th council meeting council approved a micro transit service with via transportation for a 12-month pilot program and so in order for the route structures and the on-demand service improvements to work alongside the proposed program has microtransit running on the same days as Spirit Bus currently runs Monday through Friday

during the

Monterey Park.

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Monterey Park. Monterey Park. Monterey Park. Monterey Park. Monterey Park.

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Bia's platform is a one-stop shop for microtransit, so they would be responsible for all of the bookings, operations, so hiring, the drivers, training, vehicle acquisitions, app configurations, and also marketing. So we will be working with them to develop a marketing strategy to promote both the new microtransit service

but also the changes in the spirit bus routes this map shows the coverage areas

with both on-demand service and the proposed routes for routes one through five and we are working with via to maximize the connectivity between the two proposed on-demand zones and also with other regional transportation this concludes the presentation. We do have Steve from Arcata's IBI consultants who work with us on the study and to develop the service improvement strategies if there are any questions or comments.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll open to any comments and questions from Council.

Yes, I have a couple of questions. Thank you for the report. I specifically had questions regarding routes one and five. But before I do, I know there were some concerns about in one of the commentaries about transportation involving schools. But my understanding is the survey that we did to the community was shared with local schools and school districts so that students had an input in this survey. Is that correct?

Yes. Yes. The follow-up survey that we shared for the proposed changes was sent to all of our local school districts. Initially when we did our community survey to gain feedback about our transportation as a whole we also did a community wide survey and a student specific survey as well.

Excellent. And if you could go back to the slide that had Route 1 and just if you can help me understand Route 1 is now bi-directional because it was just going in one direction, right?

is that what yeah so it would start here at city hall and it would make its route and once it

completed it it would come back as route four and and where exactly i'm just trying to understand

the map so you said it starts here at city hall and then it would go it would end where well

it would it would start here and it will go down right and then come back as route four

what street would it travel on sorry atlantic down atlantic yes okay um south atlantic or north

well it covers this entire area so um so to clarify it would start here at city hall it would go up around come back down and then instead of coming back as route one it comes back as route four um and it would do that loop and then come back to city hall and restart a trip

When it comes back down, is that East L.A. College that it's going down to?

Yes. Okay.

Yeah, it did make a stop down there.

So now it's doing a whole loop.

Okay.

So if you were to go through to one direction on Route 1, you know that you can take Route 1 to go back that same direction instead of trying to identify which other route would take you back.

Okay.

So this just makes a lot more sense because if you would have taken it,

there wouldn't be a way to get back? Is that what you said?

Yeah.

And then can I see Route 5 again? Because Route 5, where does Route 5 go to?

This is the southern part of Monterey Park, right?

Because I see Riggin and Pomona?

Yes.

So originally, this is connecting now the Gold Line, is that correct?

Not the Gold Line, what is this?

the... So it would, the proposed change would

extend it to connect to the Metro E line. Currently it does travel along Riggin, and so it also connects East LA College up into Cal State LA and the J line.

That would, what you just described as what the

proposed line would be? That would remain the same. Okay, that would remain the same. Yes. So this line really would connect to regional transportation in a more broader way. So because you would be connected to the J line up into Cal State LA, you would be connected to ELAC, and then you would also be connected down below for the Metro E line. And this segment here along Riggin is a low ridership segment. And so instead of continuing the fixed route,

the proposal is to get rid of it

and instead cover this area with micro transit. And so this would allow riders to also book, you know, the midi vans, right, or this ride share option to go to the marketplace, which currently is not serviced.

Okay.

I'm glad that we're connecting with the Metro E-Line because I know that in some of our conversations with ELAC, that was definitely one of the desires from, especially from students, to be able to connect.

So thank you for that. and that we're listening.

I know this is kind of sometimes hard when we restructure lines because people get so used to them, but I think that there's some positivity in this in terms of new ridership that we might gain from changes in our lines, especially due to low ridership, I think. So thank you for that. Those are the only questions I have. And thank you for the clarification.

just had a quick clarification question i i believe it in the report it states that we actually spoke to all the riders and we got their input so from the from the folks who use it the most they share with us their voice and we heard it in the survey and thus the change in the route

is can you confirm that yes so the follow-up survey that we distributed to um hear from the community about the changes. We had 174 respondents, 70% of them were current Spirit Bus drivers, and the majority of them said that the proposed changes would make them more likely to ride Spirit Bus. There were some additional comments and feedback trying to understand more about on-demand service, what microtransit meant, and how that would work, but overall there was positive

feedback for the proposed changes. Yeah, and I think that makes sense. I mean, the point is to to make this more efficient and more viable for the community and it sounds like we did that. There's always gonna be exceptions because there'll be people who are affected just like one of our speakers here, but let's connect with them and make sure we fit them into that micro transit facility that we have so that we can support them as well.

Just to confirm I heard right.

Right, so Route 4, the ridership numbers were five or less per day riding the bus.

That's correct.

And do you have offhand kind of the per-person cost then given kind of that ridership for that line?

Not specifically for that line, no.

But I would say, I mean, roughly, that would be, I mean, from an economic financial perspective,

it doesn't make sense from a cost perspective to run a bus for five people running it every day.

Yeah, so the proposed changes that we're recommending would save the city about $300,000 a year. So that's for the restructuring and the proposed route cuts.

Thanks. on this right I'm comfortable approving or supporting the

item as proposed today my question is on what comes after this year of both the pilot and

this extension for

the spirit bus operation the fixed route operation for a year period is our plan to

take the data well obviously we will take

the data from the pilot for the on demand transit for fixed route are we planning to go out to RFP for these routes in particular or given additional data over the next year, potential other changes to

a fixed route system?

So during the 12 months of the pilot program, we are going to continue working with our consultants to analyze the data and see how both microtransit and fixed route ridership is the next couple

months.

And with that data, we're going to develop the RFP for a new contract, which may include a combination of fixed route and microtransit or just fixed route or just microtransit, depending really on what the ridership looks like and what the data is recommending.

Right. No, I appreciate that.

We're going to adapt usage patterns of both the pilot on-demand transit and the changes to the fixed route, and we're open and very ready to make changes again based off of how people are going to utilize it and feedback we're receiving from the community.

So I appreciate that.

So it sounds like we're actually piloting both fixed route and the on-demand transit. it so that's great it also sounds like we will have to analyze that data before the 12 months so I don't know if there's a way to get at least some initial data at the six month mark I'd be curious to see what the utilization rate is and whatever data we have on on-demand transit pilot and on this I know that that can change and it's not necessarily indicative of the usage because the on-demand will be free for the first six months and then we'll start charging a nominal fee. But I'd be curious if we're really getting a lot of demand for the on-demand transit, if we need to start looking at augmenting that and expanding that beyond the pilot program. I can imagine potentially two cars not being enough. And I'm hopeful that that will be the case so that we can have a reason to bolster the program. So I don't know if six months makes sense or if we're already thinking about at what point between now and 12 months where we would make this do this analysis yeah we will definitely be now analyzing

all the data and again to your point the idea is to analyze the first six months see what we're getting as far as ridership on the you know not only on the the changes to the fixed routes but then seeing what our on-demand services are microtransit because I envision that we'll probably see some changes as we start charging but we really want to see what that looks like You know, it could increase, it could decrease because they're the same.

So it would probably be around the nine-plus month mark.

The nice part about it is that, you know, because we have our PASIO GO system, we can see real-time data and checking to see how many riderships we're getting. And then obviously working with VIA, they can provide us with real-time data as well. So we can really crunch those numbers pretty quickly as opposed to, you know, previously we didn't have a lot of this information at our fingertips.

So now we have those advantages.

Great.

No, I appreciate it. I appreciate the analysis and thoughtfulness in getting us to this point. I think a long overdue change to make sure that both our residents and taxpayer dollars are being spent effectively to provide these services to the community and to just make a system that really provides higher quality, better service, getting people from where they are to where they want to go in a timely fashion more cost effectively across the board throughout the city. So appreciate that we're doing this and continuing that effort My only other ask here is that maybe we can do some outreach to our neighboring cities Rosemead Alhambra Montebello To see if they're looking at their fixed route system as well If there are potential opportunities to link some of our systems for maybe some of these routes or if we're going along Garvey or even Atlantic linking that into parts of Alhambra Since there are destinations. I'm sure that people in Monterey Park want to go to in Alhambra or Rosemead

even Montebello.

If there are opportunities, if we're going to be redesigning and reconfiguring and arping our operations in our system for fixed route and on demand, if there are opportunities to find ways to leverage our resources with our neighbors to provide even better service and take some other cars off the road and help people get to places they want and need to go,

I'd love to make sure

that we're exploring those opportunities. With that, if there's a motion,

I'll go ahead and make the motion.

I'll second.

Moved and second. Any further discussion?

Hearing none, we'll call for the vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you.

Can welcome back our colleagues from the wilderness.

Break time's over.

All right, we will take up our consent calendar. Is there a motion or are there items we want to pull from consent?

No, no, no, no.

All right, I'm gonna pull 3H just for a quick question on my end. I don't need a staff report

And then 3J has had a quick question, but also do not need a staff report Any other items if not if is there a motion for the remaining consent calendar items? I'll move

There are second

Councilman alone a second or council mayor pro tem go seconds. Any further discussion hearing none call for the vote

Approved unanimously.

All right, item 3H.

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but are there potential opportunities to provide flexibility for the floor to potentially even allow pickleball or other activities to be able to take place in the gymnasium?

Yes, we will incorporate that idea.

Great. So let the pickleball people know as well so that there might be more space for them to do stuff. I don't know if Ziad was coming up because he was excited about something else.

He was. He was just saying yes.

Okay. All right. So that's great. With that, is there a motion for 3-H?

I move.

I'll second.

Move and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Call for vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. Item 3-J, Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant Program. Don't need a staff report. Thank you, Sean. We appreciate staff for being diligent on this and helping to get us some money to do some of this fleet transition. I'm just curious, so this will help purchase four new electric vehicles for the city to utilize in its fleet. Do you know what we're planning or which departments or teams will be using these vehicles?

Yeah, it'll be a combination of multiple groups. So we're looking at code, code compliance, fire prevention, and then public works.

Great.

I'm just curious, maybe not an immediate question, but curious in terms of our fleet, total fleet for the city, all vehicles how many of those we are we have transitioned or are transitioning to zero emission or hybrid and how many are continuing to be internal combustion engines so not a whole lot

yet um so right now we have uh about seven uh we'll add four more um with this purchase and so we'll be about 11 we have about 150 or so um in our current fleet uh just what we'll call vehicles um and the goal is in the next hopefully six months is to come back to council with some additional fleet replacement to purchase more electric vehicles and make that conversion.

Great.

Now, looking forward to it. And also, right, the next step of that and next question for me is how do we make sure we start to build out the charging infrastructure we need as we continue this fleet transition? I know Zeon's very hard at work helping to plan that out and plot that out, both for city fleet use but also for public use at public facilities and parks and things like

that.

I know we're working on it. I would love to see how we're going to continue to help expand charging opportunities throughout the city, not just our fleet, but residents and those that are driving through our city are continuing to shift to zero emission vehicles.

With that, if there's a motion.

I'll move.

Is there a second? I'll second. Moved and second. Any further discussion?

Hearing none, call for the vote.

approved unanimously all right our final item 6a resolution declaring and recognizing november 30th 2024 a small business saturday is there a quick staff report there is no staff report the resolution language is in the packet i'll just note that uh this will be our last meeting before Thanksgiving and before December

traditionally

in the recent past, the Friday or Saturday, sorry, after Thanksgiving has traditionally been Small Business Saturday as a way to, as we have been highlighting and helping to support small businesses throughout our community I would ask my council colleagues to adopt this resolution for the city to officially declare Small Business Saturday on November 30th, the Saturday after Thanksgiving and and encourage our residents to shop local and shop small. And after everyone makes their big Black Friday purchases, look to local small businesses as well to support and to purchase gifts from. I'll just note there are many, a bunch of businesses, including our restaurants, many of which sell gift cards if people are looking for gift ideas for the holidays in December, or gift shops as well. Japan House we highlighted last night at the State of the City here. Great opportunities to shop here locally in Mallory Park for gifts to give to our loved ones and anyone else we want to give gifts to. With that, if there are any questions or if there is a motion on the resolution.

I'll move that we pass the resolution.

Is there a second? I'll second. All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call for the vote.

Approved unanimously.

All right. That's all our items.

We will close with council comments and future agenda items.

I just wanted to thank city staff and everyone, all of our residents here. and I know we're not going to meet back till after Thanksgiving. I wanted to wish all of you guys a wonderful Thanksgiving, hopefully a time to rest and connect with family. I know that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to be visiting my family.

But also November is still in Monterey Park and elsewhere,

Native American Heritage Month,

but also finding a way at the Thanksgiving dinner table perhaps to share with your families and maybe acknowledge wherever you're at the different native tribes that lived in those particular lines. And Monterey Park here, obviously the Tongva people. But wanted to wish you all well and have a safe holidays. And I know that Christmas is just around the corner. I believe the holiday season is already here. So wish you and your families and friends well.

Thank you.

Just real quick, I want to thank our neighboring American Legion Post for putting together, as always, a great Veterans Day event. Always great that we are one of the many cities that recognizes the valor of our veterans who serve and protect our democracy. Also want to commend our mayor for a great state of the city address, which I will let him review more. And again, happy Thanksgiving to all and to our community. may you have a restful

and safe holidays with your loved ones. Thank you.

I visited the data center at Vernon last Thursday. It's called Prime Data Center. I want to give you guys a little summary. 250,000 square feet and it's delivered up to 33 megawatts of IT power. So they said each megawatt requires six employees. so they have around 200 employees for that facilities.

So this fully leads to just two AI companies. One is Supermicro, which provides high-performance computing solutions. That leads to about 21 megawatts. And another one called Lambda, a company specializing in deep learning infrastructure, to at least 12 megawatts. So when we ask them if this affects human health

as we worry about the noise, air, and water pollution, then they said there's a lot of requirements. And they are using modern digital infrastructure to reduce noise,

utilizing clean energy to control emissions, and adopt cooling system and recycle water to conserve water. So overall, it was an eye-opening experience to tour an advanced technology facility. So that's all for me. Thanksgiving, everyone.

All right.

I actually just came back from a long-awaited vacation, so I'm glad to be back, a little jet lag and all. But I did attend the final installation of Meet the Mayor with Mayor Wang early on Monday, and then last night was the state of the city address, which I think Mayor Wang will speak to a little bit more. I want to also thank the Wang Taixin Taoism Center for donating the dinner certificates to our entire city staff and wish everyone a great Thanksgiving, long weekend for everyone just to relax and to enjoy the dinner. And then look forward to celebrating the holidays with Christmas and the Snow Village. Robert, another epic event. And then Santa's ride. So the year is coming to a close.

all right thank you uh attended some of the same events oh and just on councilman we used point on the data center really appreciate being able to see a data center to get a better feel for what they they look and feel like although I would say it was not operational yet so I think some of the potential impacts from terms of noise and other things it's hard to judge uh since it was about to open but still the tenants of the data center were not moved in in terms of their servers and all that stuff. So if there are other opportunities, I think we'd ask staff to keep on the lookout for opportunities to look for operational data centers that might mimic the ones that might be proposed here or that are being proposed and that might come into the city of Monterey Park just so we can better continue to educate ourselves about the data centers, their potential positives and drawbacks and potential concerns that we want to be able to be educated about addressing as we negotiate some of those details. um appreciate everyone who showed up for the state of city here last night uh a lot to be proud of in terms of accomplishments for the city i really want to appreciate our very dedicated city staff for all their work over the past year and for the last few years as well i know they've already got their mustaches on uh for for our picture in a little bit uh but really really i could not can't hard for me to overstate how much I appreciate all our staff and the entire team here at City Hall and in our city yard and everywhere else that help on a day-to-day basis day in day out helping to deliver and delivering services to our community to our residents and the businesses here and for helping to build a successful and a thriving community for all I know that there's still there There is still a lot of work ahead too. And I know this council asks for a lot from the city, from the staff, and we'll continue to keep those standards high because that's what our community and the residents expect. But we look forward to working closely as a team here in the city of Monterey Park to continue to up our game and to deliver the services that our community deserves and expects. I do also want to note before we take this much sashed picture the a quick thing and a relatively serious a very serious thing as well I know since our last meeting we've had a national election and a new president that will be sworn in come January 20th and I think we can all we've all heard some of the rhetoric in terms of what the priorities will be for this administration I for one am taking everything that's being said in terms of the incoming presidential administration very, very seriously. One of those being, one of those first priorities being immigration crackdown and a lot of adverse actions that will impact a community like ours, that is the city of immigrants, a heavy immigrant population here in the city of Monterey Park. And so I want to ask staff to begin to think and have conversations and encourage, and maybe if there's consensus among the council to provide some initial direction to the city staff to begin some of these conversations with nonprofits like Advancing Justice Southern California and other immigration resources and service providers in the area about what they are seeing and preparing for so that we can help and make sure that we are working to partner and collaborate in preparation for what may be coming in terms of crackdowns on employers in communities that have heavy immigrant populations and the potential and very likely impacts to many families and communities like ours that will be negative and detrimental to our local society and our communities. I also want to ask staff to look at, I know it's already state law, that local and state resources are not alLod by policy to be used for immigration enforcement actions. I want to reiterate that.

From a resource perspective,

Our police department and our city staff are doing a lot already to ensure a safe community, and we don't have, from my view, the resources to aid in those kind of efforts and also with state policy that we do not do that. Whatever we need to do on our end from the city perspective, to reiterate that for our own community as well, the city's resources will not be expended on immigration enforcement at the federal level here locally. if we can look at efforts whatever we need to do to make sure that we're enshrining that and that that will continue to be policy and how we operate here in the city of Monique Park I would appreciate that and look to see how we can make sure we're implementing that and socializing that not only here at City Hall but also in our community about how we will continue to provide services to all of our community members but on those fronts would ask the if there's consensus among the council, ask the city staff to begin some of these conversations with some of our partners like Chinatown Service Center, Advancing Justice Southern California, and others to see how we can be prepared and make sure we are prepared to act as needed and to provide services and support in the community for potential impacts that might be coming.

Mr. Mayor, again, thank you for bringing that up. That was something that I had a concern, and I'm glad you actually brought it up. But I would also suggest that direct staff, like our neighboring city of Los Angeles, has passed some resolutions and ordinances. And I would encourage us to look at what was done by Los Angeles, as well as neighboring communities, so that we are prepared, as well as we're on record, so that our policies are very clear.

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these efforts. I think that would be ideal too. Mr. Mayor, members of the

council noted and I do know that our city librarian is already reaching out to some of our partners to see what kind of workshops and other types of tools, classes, citizenship, deportation rights that can be offered so that we are preparing to the best that we can. So yes, we are reaching out to our partners. What we'll do as city staff is we'll report back with some of the items that we've been able to coordinate. I know AJ SoCal is on the list as well to see what we can do to bring them in for some potential legal services also. So we'll report back to council soon.

Thank you. And if there's a need to help to supplement existing programs that we have like the LAMP program and citizenship services that we already provide at the city or that we partner with nonprofit service providers to provide workshops and educational opportunities for community if there's a need for even the city to provide some resources to expand some of those opportunities and resources, I would, for one, on the council would be open to looking at that and seeing how we might be able to carve out some potential funding out of our budget to do so. And if there's support among the other council members, I think if staff can bring that to council to be prepared or at least have those options to be able to execute quickly.

With that said, again, let me thank everyone for joining the state of the city.

A lot to be proud of, including, again, I don't know if Joe's still here, but the city was honored and recognized by the LA County Economic Development Corporation as business-friendly city of the year for smaller cities. I really appreciate all the efforts from the city and every department that was instrumental in making that happen. and every department is instrumental in making sure that that happens and that we have a business-friendly environment. There's more to do to continue in that stead, and we're working on it, and we're working to implement these new tools and technologies and to make things easier for businesses to succeed here in the city of Monique Park, including as the voters, and I expect we will certify unless there's some crazy change. I don't think there's enough ballots left on county to change the results of the election two ballot measures that the council here placed on the ballot look poised to pass. I look forward to adopting both of those outcomes at the next council meeting or whenever at the appropriate next council meeting and to continue to improve the business environment for businesses and the city residents as well. With that, if there are no further comments, I'll ask everyone to

put on our mustaches. I already have one.

and invite everyone to take a picture if I can figure out how to do this

are we adjourned we and we are we are adjourned yes but let's take this picture

Okay, let's come on down.

Yeah, some of us can stand up on the step. And some of us can slow.

Come on in. I'll give you the first job. That's good. That's good. I got this right here. Yeah, everybody doing it.

Oh, that's cool.

Okay. Did you get it, Rob? Yeah. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.