City Council Meeting — January 15, 2025

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm working away. Thank you.

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Outward face, breeze and colors.

Place your 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-colored.

About face. Dismissed. Dismissed.

Thank you.

we would like to acknowledge that the land we inhibited today was once known as the Tavengaard, the home of the Gabalino Tongva people. We show respect to the Gabalino Tongva people as well as all indigenous people past, present, and future and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. We commit to uplifting the Gabalino Tongva people. Invite you to acknowledge the history and join us in caring for this land.

Roll call, please.

Council Member Wong.

Council Member Sanchez.

Present.

Council Member Lo. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Wong. Here. Mayor Ngo.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Okay. Public Communications. Two speakers.

First speaker. Sorry, before we do that, if we can do agenda additions, deletions, changes.

We have one, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. We'd like to add public works and also recreation departments to staff communications for quick updates.

I think we're okay.

Thank you.

First speaker, Joseph Leon, discussing the San Gabriel Valley mosquito and vector control.

Good evening, Mayor. the council members, staff, and of course residents. My name is Joseph Leon, I'm a resident of the Monterey Park,

and I'm also the representative for the city and the St. Gabriel Valley Vector and Mosquito Control Board.

I just want to say it's a privilege to be on the board,

and I want to thank the council for giving me the opportunity to continue to serve our residents on the board. And I'm here if you have any questions regarding the board itself.

Do we have any questions? I do have a question.

Again, thank you for being our representative to the Vector Control Board.

Given how, because of firestorms the past few weeks,

the area has witnessed a lot of drought conditions, but I'm curious, does that also have any impact on mosquito season? I've been told that it's always when the average temperature hits a certain level

that we start seeing, I guess, hatchlings, if you will.

But I'm just curious, like, with the change in climate,

is mosquito season starting sooner or later?

Usually the mosquito season is not starting yet because of the cold weather. They come out when it's usually warmer. That's why you see in the summertime they come out a lot because right now it's a time where they're kind of laying low and breeding. Even though they have the fires, it's still kind of cold outside. It's really warm. so we haven't seen on the board we haven't seen much activity I can't say because of the fires maybe there may have been some movement, disturbance among the nest and it may come up and if it does of course I'll let the council know right away and even then it shouldn't affect us because we're so far away from the areas impacted but you never know but if anything does come up of course we'd be the first to know of it and we have actually we have a meeting this coming Friday. The board has media coming for us. I'm sure the management will go over everything that's happening as far as affecting anything in the cities, especially the cities up north that have been affected because they're also part of the mosquito district.

Thank you. I just want to say thank you for all your years of service on the board. How many years exactly has it been now?

You know, I lost count on the mosquito board. I don't know. It's been a few, right? I lost count. I don't get track. It's actually

fun. I mean, I enjoy it. I know it's a little tough because it's 7 o'clock in the morning on Fridays. And that's

our regular meetings. And you also belong to subcommittees. None of us belong to at least two

committees. So we meet usually two other times. Not necessarily three times a month, but somewhere in between. But it's fun. And it's a great group

of people. And it represents almost the entire St. Gabriel Valley. All the way from Pasadena, Bradbury, you know,

San Gabriel, Hambra, all the... In fact, we're the most certain city. Everything else is north of us, which, of course, are the cities that have been impacted with the fire, too.

Oh, sorry. Yeah.

Thank you, Mr. Leon, for your service

and the continuation.

It is a chore, but it looks like it's a passion for you, so we appreciate it.

Yeah, and it's great, and a lot of people don't know about it. Also, just a reminder to all the residents and yourselves, it's a free service

because we pay through it. through our property taxes at the end of the year. It's an assessment. It's small, but it's there.

So it's a free service. If you have any issues regarding mosquitoes, vectors, please call the office,

and they'll actually come over to your residence or whatever to check things out. It's no cost to the residents of Monterey Park,

whether you're a property owner or not. As long as you're a resident of the district, it's included as part of the service. So if no more questions, I thank you again. I want to wish everybody a happy New Year's.

congratulate our new council members as I've been here for a little while.

And also, of course, my prayers to all the victims

of the fires. I'm sure of yourselves.

I have two friends at Las Homes here up north and also in Palisades.

It's really tough. So thank you.

Thank you so much. Have a great evening. Thank you.

Next speaker, Jose Villegas.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council Members. My name is Jose Villegas.

I just want to tell you a little bit about myself.

Personally, I actually grew up in the San Gabriel Valley in the city of San Gabriel.

I came to East Los Angeles College and transferred out to Cal Poly Pomona, where I was a city

planner with the city of South Pasadena for about almost 14 years.

I'm now here representing a local developer who has a project within your city

Currently the project is located in the central part of Monterey Park and we're doing a mixed-use project I'm here to speak on behalf of the IHO

I know you guys are gonna be voting on that whether you're gonna be postponing it. I'm just here to Sincerely thank you for your support

um this decision is giving a valuable time to assess and refine our plans however we are

respectfully requesting additional time for the property process for our project the real estate

development especially the large-scale mixed-use projects is no small task these projects bring a

vibrant energy attraction and new business enhance of city economy economic environment however as we require an extensive planning and efforts in bringing it in fruitation

additionally we must acknowledge the challenges we've recently faced with the devastating wildfires this is something we were not expecting fortunately as you know there's going to be a demand for construction which we anticipate will increase the cost of labor and construction

material.

Because of these demands with materials and laborers causing an increase in construction costs, we sincerely urge the council members

to consider extending and

postponing the IHO. This extension will allow us

and others the opportunity to develop

projects and align with the city's vision addressing current challenges. I thank you for your time.

Excuse me, Mr. Mayor.

Do you mind, sir, Jose, would you mind identifying which developer are you with Rykadan?

Tepton group.

Cityor. We're we're doing a project at the corner of Garvey and Atlantic. Okay, thanks. You're welcome. Next speaker, Bill Lamp. You could hear me, right? Okay, good, good. So, yes, this is Bill Lamp. I'm a long-time resident of Monterey Park. I hope everyone has a great new year.

so in the past means I didn't get a chance to thank the outgoing and congratulate newly re-elected and incoming because school work is really because I was so busy doing a lot of school work from the school that I'm attending Cal State Northridge because school work is really important for me so I could like finish it before the end of semester um i understand november 2024 election has already ended but um but one thing that comes to mind is

like my only question was why wasn't why wasn't uh how come there was no candidate form in the

2024 election the last time i was i attended there was a candidate form for you know for the before the election was like in March of 2020. Well, that was February technically before the March 2020 election until we have to move to November beginning in 2022. In my opinion, because with no candidate form before the election, people including like me couldn't, you know, couldn't get a chance to, like, you know, meet and interact with

candidates, running for local offices to see who the people are and what, you know,

priorities and other things, you know.

Sorry, I just need to, like, pause this because, like, you know, some mental health stuff, but But not having a candidate forum meant that people like me couldn't, like, you know, didn't have a chance to, you know, get to meet and interact with, you know, people running for offices, you know.

So, you know, in the future, because in the future elections, I would have to say, because if there was like an election in the future, there should have been like, you know, a candidate forum. A candidate forum, if people are running for offices and if people, I would say multiple people running for offices, then there should have been a forum in the first place because, you know, people can come over to attend the forum so that they can like, you know, meet and interact with candidates, you know, running for offices, running what their priorities are. I was hoping 2022 would have happened, but there wasn't.

Oh, sorry.

But in 2024, there still hasn't been a single candidate form before the election. I didn't even have a chance to meet with people running for offices, both in 2022 and 2024, because there was no candidate form. But yes, I don't know who controls it, but the last time in 2020, which was last controlled by the League of Women Voters, that hosted the Canada Forum in this room. That was in the 2020 election. but not having having it in 2022 and 24 which made me felt like how am i gonna like you know

meet and interact with you know people who are running for office so in the future i really hope

that there could be at least a candidate form before the election whether it's multiple people running or just like just running on the post there should be a can always a can always to have a candidate form before the election so that people can attend and then after that they get to like you know meet and interact with people what you know what they're running for and

what the priorities are you know so moving forward i hope there could be at least one in

the future before the election, not like the one in 22 and the 24 election. So I'm almost out of time. Thank you so much.

No other speakers.

Let's move forward to staff

communication, city manager's office.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. Diana Garcia, assistant city manager.

This evening, I'd like to remind our elected officials and our residents about the candlelight vigil happening next Tuesday on January 21st.

The City of Monterey Park invites our community to join together for a candlelight vigil to mark the two-year remembrance of the tragic events that took place on January 21st, 2023.

This will start at 6 p.m., and it will take place out in front of City Hall on the lawn.

we will have a program of speakers as well as several community-based organizations

that have supported the recovery efforts in the past two years that will be joining us

including Buddha Suu Kyi Foundation Chinatown Service Center

SSG Silver and AJ SoCal this is a

community event, it's open to all residents so we would encourage you to please

come by so that we can share together in healing, thank you

thank you any questions or comments for Diana

no okay

library

good evening mayor and mayor

pro tem and city council members my name is Kristen Oliveras I'm the city librarian at the Monterey Park Brighamire Library, and tonight I'm here to share with you some upcoming events at the library. To begin with, registration for the spring semester of ESL classes is now open. English as a second language classes, conversation classes, and citizenship preparation classes are free, and the 15-week spring semester begins in February. All students must complete a pretest before joining and must have proper personal identification. Anyone interested in registering for classes can visit the LAMP office to register or visit the library's website for the class schedule. Next slide. On January 22nd at 3 30 p.m., Chinatown Service Center's Behavioral Health Division will present an introductory workshop about autism spectrum disorder, how it affects children and valuable tools to support your child's development and well-being. Next slide. Next, celebrate Lunar New Year at the library. On January 23rd at 4 30 p.m., teens will learn about the Korean New Year while enjoying snacks. On January 25th, the library will host activities for all ages, including a Lunar New Year cross-stitch program for adults at 11 a.m., a Year of the Snake-themed craft for children at 3 p.m., and Red Envelope Decorating for Teens at 3 p.m. Next slide. On January 30th at 4.30 p.m., teens will learn the fundamentals of starting a business with Chase Young from Paradise Cookies and Ice Cream. After the

workshop, teens will take a tour of the food truck. Next slide. And then looking ahead a couple of

weeks, the library is very excited to host Stargazer's Day on February 1st, which will include a series of programs for all ages. From 2 to 6 p.m., visit the library to immerse yourself in the wonders of space in multimedia artist Elizabeth Wong's glorious soundscape installation, Voices of the Universe. At 4 p.m., the Los Angeles Astronomical Society will present an introductory talk on astronomy and what you might see in the night sky. And then at 4.30, children are invited to partake in space-themed crafts. And lastly, from 6 to 8 p.m., space enthusiasts of all ages are invited to visit Barnes Park to try out the library's new telescopes, which will be available for checkout starting in February. And that leads me to my last slide. The library's new stargazing kits will be available for checkout beginning February 3rd. Each kit contains everything you need to explore the night sky,

including a star-sense telescope, observing stool, flashlight, star guides, and compass,

all contained in a convenient carrying bag. These stargazing kits were provided to the library by the California State Library and the Southern California Library Cooperative under the Parks Pass program. And additional information about borrowing the kits can be found on the library's website. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions.

I just have a quick one. I'm a stargazer and I really like this. How many kits do we have?

Two. Just two, okay.

And then if people decide to check those out, how long can they check those out for?

They'll check out for three weeks, and then they'll automatically renew for three more weeks twice, as long as nobody else has placed a hold on them.

Oh, okay. That sounds great.

And then I'm assuming this is kind of a stargazing event on the first is a good way to kind of kick off this.

I think that's great.

I didn't see though, it might be great to also look into getting the observatory involved in some way.

Yes, so the Los Angeles Astronomical Society, who's out at the observatory on Wednesdays, will be at the Barnes Park program on February 1st to help us out with our new telescopes,

and then they'll also be the ones presenting the exploring the night sky presentation.

Are they bringing their telescopes too?

I believe they're going to have some volunteers bring out some of theirs, yeah.

Oh, great. Thank you.

I think these are some great events you guys have coming up. I'm going to bring my kids to enjoy some of these activities. Are the flyers available on Instagram and Facebook for residents to look at?

They may not have been posted yet. All the information is definitely on our website and the city's web calendar, and then we'll be pushing out information in the coming weeks about the events.

Sounds good.

Thank you, Kristen.

always full of activities at the library, really our center that serves the community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is community development.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Honorable Council Members, Joe Torres, your Economic

Development Manager.

I am pleased to announce the launch of a new citywide initiative, the Love Monterey Park Shop and Dine Local Campaign.

Next slide, please.

This exciting campaign, kicking off on Valentine's Month, February 1st, is an awareness campaign. While we are not currently offering specific incentives or rewards, we believe the intrinsic value of supporting our local businesses speaks for itself. This campaign fosters a deeper connection between residents and businesses, builds community pride, and drives economic growth. The Love Monterey Park campaign is designed to celebrate the heart and soul of our city, our vibrant local businesses. We recognize that our small businesses are not just storefronts. They are the backbone of our local economy. The cornerstones of our neighborhoods and the threads that weave together our community fabric. This campaign also supports several focus areas of our new economic development strategic plan, mainly focus area one, marketing and branding, focus area three, business retention and expansion, and Focus Area 5, Reinventing Retail. Love Monterey Park Shop and Dine Local is more than just a slogan.

It is a call to action.

It is an invitation to our community to rediscover the hidden gems in our backyard,

to savor the diverse flavors of our local restaurants,

and to experience the unique charm that sets Monterey Park apart. To achieve our goals, we will be utilizing a multifaceted approach. A dedicated campaign logo and branding will be prominently displayed throughout the city. A dedicated webpage on the city website will serve as a central hub for campaign information and business highlights. eye-catching posters, flyers and window decals will be provided to businesses to showcase their participation. Press releases and targeted media outreach will ensure widespread coverage in local news outlets. We will promote the campaign through newsletters. City City website updates. Social media. And Community Events. By harnessing the power of collective action. And Community Spirit. We believe the Love Monterey Park Shop and Dine local campaign. Will create a ripple effect of positive impact. Benefiting our residents. Our businesses. And our city. We invite everyone to join us in this exciting endeavor. Let us show our love for Monterey Park. By supporting our local business. businesses during February and throughout the year.

Thank you. Happy to answer questions. Thank you. Joe, excited about this. A couple of questions.

One, are we planning to do these kind of activations or engagements for other holidays throughout the year, or is this part of a larger kind of year-long campaign that we highlight businesses in, or is this kind of seeing how this goes and seeing if we're

going to do this, replicate this in other parts of the year? The plan is to keep it a year-long

campaign. So we're going to use this sort of as a key messaging for most of our events, most of our promotions. We're going to really brand this and promote this as a really more of an awareness

campaign. Just to remind our community that

we have our local businesses.

Again, they're not

just storefronts.

Because the way our

region is set up, it's so easy to just cross our city border and get onto our neighboring cities and start

shopping and dining there. We want to remind our residents that we have great stores,

we have great restaurants right here in our own

backyard. I appreciate Appreciate that.

And for this campaign, I know we're planning to engage press where we can. My thinking on this is I'm curious how we're going to choose, pick and choose which businesses we're going to highlight, what's going to make the list, essentially, and making sure that we can't highlight every business here.

We've got thousands of businesses.

and unfortunately if you just throw them all out there, it doesn't work in terms of highlighting specific businesses that we want to highlight. And if we want media to pick up on this and help to amplify some of this and particularly if we want influencers and others to maybe pick up on some of these as well, we have to pick out ones that people are actually going to show up to and want to, that will stand out as a business. I'm just curious if there's, what process generally we're going to go through to put the list together that we're going to highlight and then want to make sure we are, I'm sure we are, but I want to confirm we're going to engage with World Journal and other Asian media outlets. I think it would be worth using them in a more substantive way too to see if we can get them to, I don't think the World Journal, and Liz I think is probably the only one that maybe, I don't know if others read the World Journal other than my parents here, but I don't think they do like a restaurant review or kind of business spotlight kind of thing. Maybe that's something we can talk to them about starting up. And maybe that's something we can figure out how we can maybe join with other cities in the surrounding areas that have Chinese-speaking majorities or large Chinese-speaking populations that read the World Journal or other Chinese and Asian-language media outlets to see if that's something we can encourage them to begin, right, to engage their readership on highlighting restaurants restaurants and other visit-worthy amenities and businesses in our area. I think that would be a cool conversation to get started.

No, and those are great ideas. This is really the beauty of this campaign is it is a citywide campaign. This is not like Taste of Downtown MPK where we need to come up with a list of businesses that we're going to focus on and target for a specific period of time. This is a promotion for our entire city.

This is a citywide campaign.

We're promoting every retailer, every restaurant that is in our city. And we're asking our residents, we're asking our community, and even our visitors who come to Monterey Park, you know, please support our local businesses. And, you know, we can get a lot of mileage out of this. We can do specific mini campaigns, so to speak, and use this branding as a driving, as a key driver. It's kind of like what happened to LA Live. LA Live became more of a destination.

Love Monterey Park hopefully will become that,

that it becomes more of a destination for our community and our neighboring visitors and say,

hey, let's go to Monterey Park. We love their restaurants. We love Monterey Park.

We think it's a catchy theme. We can design certain logos, cutesy stuff that will really kind of use that theme.

The heart, the love, I think we can get a lot of mileage out of that.

But again, this is not just to support downtown.

We can use it for that.

we can really piggyback on this campaign and support maybe a particular retail segment or a particular shopping center, but it is a citywide

campaign.

Thank you. Joe, I had a question.

First of all, I really like this campaign idea especially starting in February with

Valentine's Day.

I don't know if any of the restaurants we're planning to highlight. I know it's a citywide campaign, so it's not just restaurants, but it's also retailers. But I know that some cities do, I don't know, like let's say Valentine's Day, they have like a Valentine's Day dinner. And if they have like some type of special deal going on, it would be great if I could take my wife out as well. But a lot of those are also great ways to highlight a lot of the restaurants and some of the food items that they particularly might be serving or doing all those special days or holidays like Council Member Wong was highlighting. But I also do like the branding part that you're speaking to. I personally admire there's a business on Monterey Pass Road that has a sign that says Monterey Park Proud, and they have the year that they started. And I really like that type of branding that really highlights businesses that are proud to be serving and to be within our city. and I think this is a great way to do that. So whatever we can do to try to brand that, as you were saying, would be great in terms of promoting a lot of our businesses here in the city.

Yeah, part of the goal of this branding campaign is we're actually giving our businesses

the opportunity to use this as a marketing tool.

Like you said, a restaurant could put together a dinner special

using this Love Monterey Park theme for Valentine's Day, for instance, or even beyond February. They can piggyback on this Love Monterey Park theme and use that as a marketing tool.

Yeah, I think that's great.

And my wife, we're here, she would tell you that's amazing. She genuinely feels that if you can't buy it in Monterey Park, then it wasn't meant to be bought.

So I really appreciate that. Mr. Mayor? Yes.

Thank you for sending this to the council and to the community.

And certainly I appreciate the work put into this marketing campaign.

I have a question.

Can you tell me more about, in the third bullet,

you specify that a campaign website and active social media presence. What is the social media strategy besides what is the state of that sentence?

It's not any different from what we're doing right now. We're constantly pushing social media posts to promote our events. We have our Business Connect brand as well that we've been running since January of this year. That consists of e-newsletters that go out every month. We have regular features on Cascades under Business Connect. We also have business visitations under Business Connect. so this is going to be the same campaign that we're going to use for Love Monterey Park. The only difference is that we're using this theme and hopefully our business community will jump on the bandwagon and use this sort of as a marketing tool as well.

But then the creatives for that social media campaign, I mean is it based on surveys or market studies? I'm just curious, what is the basis for the creatives

for the social media campaign? It's going to be using all of those. We're going to be

speaking to businesses. Was it based on any surveys or market studies? Well, we're going to be,

obviously, we don't have the, you know, the resources to do our professional marketing

studies, but we are constantly in touch with our business community. You know, we, you know, it's safe to assume that we kind of have the pulse or our finger on the pulse of the business and know what their needs are, their concerns.

So we're going to try to address

those, but at the same time, we're open for their suggestions to let us know how can we help you

thrive in 2025, basically, using this campaign.

And the ads you refer to,

I mean, are they

paid for digital ads, or are you just

posting on our sites?

We're posting on our sites.

Again, this is an awareness campaign for residents. We want to encourage them to support our local businesses. And if the businesses would want to piggyback on this as a marketing tool, we'll work with them, we'll support them, and we'll give them some marketing materials. We'll help them post on social media. We're already doing that with most of our businesses here that we regularly post on social media to promote their, whether it's a restaurant or a retailer or a department store.

Well, in that case, I would maybe also recommend, especially if the city is trying to use social media as a platform. I mean, I would say then perhaps consider a digital ad campaign. I mean, it doesn't cost that much money. I mean, compared to postage, which is why many use digital ad campaigns. but it can also be targeted because you just said that you want residents

and I get those who are in the area to be familiar with our business.

But what I'm saying is that on platforms like Meta, you can do an ad campaign,

again, relatively not too expensive, but it can be targeted, and you can also use it to see what are your demographic responses,

and I think that also could be useful, again, which is why I'm asking,

like are your creatives based on survey market data and so I would suggest you know again

you know instead of just passively

posting things to consider

you know putting some resources to

buying some digital ads to promote these campaigns.

Absolutely. They're great ideas.

So is that what you're considering doing?

We're going to really you know we're going to explore all these ideas that we're getting tonight.

Alright thank you. I just want to highlight

what Council Member Lo was saying. I am in full support not to put any words in Councilman Rouleau's mouth. I am in full support of spending money to help promote businesses here and to promote residents in Monterey Park and the area coming in. Just like the ongoing Taste of the Downtown Monterey Park MPK, if we have money and we do have money, we want to utilize this to support to support and leverage more people to spend more money in the city and if we want to spend some money on uh advertising social digital advertising and promoting kind of posts as well from our local businesses i'm all for that obviously within reason and i have to be able to justify it but want to encourage you and the staff and the team uh not to let i mean not that we have an enormous budget for this but spending some money right and digital ads are not are very I think cost effective ways to be able to promote and help some of our

businesses thank you we'll take the money so Joe you got the directive we're all

supportive of increasing awareness because I think in the economy that we're facing now many of our surrounding SGV cities are doing something like this and if you don't do something then you're behind but if we do something and we do a good job of it we're going to be ahead we're not only promoting within but we're also getting people from the outside to come in so you got some some work ahead of you it sounds like you got a plan start with that and then you'll get support here in terms of growing awareness so

Thank you, Joel. Thank you. Next up is Parks and Rec.

Wasn't sure if it was going to be me or Public Works. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and City Council members. I just wanted to come before you tonight to highlight a few things that are coming up. definitely this weekend. We have our Lunar New Year Festival happening this Saturday and Sunday, January 18th and 19th. On Saturday, the event is from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. That's on Long Garvey Avenue from Garfield down to Alhambra Avenue. And then on Sunday, it's from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. We have over 250 booths. 50 of those are food booths. So if you're a foodie, definitely come out and eat. There's going to be carnival rides. And just remember, this event is free admission. So come on out to this weekend's event. It looks like we're going to have beautiful weather, maybe a little bit chilly, but that's okay. And then I also wanted to highlight that there is free parking available here at Barnes Park, also at the Langley Center and at Inez School. And then we also all weekend run a shuttle service that goes from Mark Keppel to the festival or from Rapetto School to the festival. So if you're having trouble finding parking, definitely utilize our shuttle service. and that runs the length of the event. And so that way you can get back and forth with all the So that way you can get back and forth with all the stuff that you buy and the belly that's full

! from all the delicious food. There's tons of great entertainment. !

We actually just posted the entertainment lineup on our social media.

! So you can take a look on there. !

There is one entertainment performer that I'm really excited about this year, And that is the Changing Face performer. If you've never seen that, I highly encourage you to check it out.

I think it's a performance.

He's performing at 2 o'clock on Saturday. And if you've never seen it, it's a traditional performer. performer, but he kind of does movements and then all of a sudden his face changes, like right before your eyes. It's pretty incredible if you've never seen it. The other item I wanted to highlight is coming up on January the 25th, we're going to have our open house for the Park System Master Plan. This is our second open house. We just finished a series of focus groups with some folks in the community, and this will be an opportunity from everyone in the community to come out and provide some additional input on park amenities, park development, for the future, sharing their ideas on how we can utilize maybe some underutilized space in our parks, and then also kind of get some input or some feedback on how the survey is going and also updates on the process as it's kind of getting into the tail end of the Park System Master Plan. We're hoping to bring this back for adoption sometime around May, so just put that on your calendars. So right now, this is our second open house.

Hopefully, everyone can come out.

That's Saturday, January 25th. It'll be from 9 a.m. to noon at Sierra Vista Park. We put the open house in that area. That's one of our underserved areas.

And also, we've had a Lor response in the area.

So we really want to make sure that community uplift their voices in that area.

And so we're doing it at that park.

It also gives us an opportunity. It'll be outdoors on the basketball court. But if we have some change in weather or we need to go indoors, it gives us that opportunity to pivot really quick. So, again, that's from 9 a.m. to noon. But I will share that it doesn't mean you need to come for the entire time.

It's a drop in. So any time between 9 a.m. and noon, you can drop, come on by.

There's some snacks and some drinks and share your input with us. And we're looking forward to seeing everyone and getting their input on this park semester. So it's very important for us to have as many of the community involved in this process. And so those are just the two events and activities I wanted to highlight really quickly,

available for any questions.

Thanks, Robert. Appreciate the update.

Really looking forward to the Lunar New Year Festival.

Yes.

I'm just curious if we've had any, where we're at in terms of thinking with the fires and ongoing kind of emergency around us. I know it's not hitting us directly around Lunar New Year.

Everything's moving forward, it sounds like.

Everything's moving forward.

Thankfully, air quality has improved significantly, and everyone's ready and excited and just ready to celebrate. I know with all of the tragedies we recently have, I know it's always nice to have some opportunities to also have some positive things and celebrate together and remember it's a new year, And so hopefully that's also new beginnings for some folks as well.

Totally agree.

And we haven't had any, in terms of vendors coming, or we haven't heard in terms of potential.

We haven't.

I've been speaking with World Journal. We haven't had any vendors back out or anything like that.

We actually, you know, so we haven't had none of the vendors.

Everyone that's listed in the newspaper that was published yesterday with World Journal, all of those vendors are expected to be there on Saturday

as well as all the performers.

I definitely want to share, come out at 11 a.m. on Saturday. We do have our opening ceremonies. I know all of you folks will be there. And that will kick off the event with the Lion Dance as well. So I know a lot of folks always want to come out and see the Lion Dance. So 11 a.m. at the main stage along Garvey and Russell for the opening ceremony.

Great. Sounds good.

And then I know last year we had, I know it's not going to be an issue this year, but just confirming last year we had an issue with the shuttle service shuttle service are triple confirmed

all right thank you yes last year my staff had to jump right in and we were shuttling folks around so but uh no it's the shuttle service is confirmed all those locations all the parking lots have

been confirmed we're ready to go perfect thank you yeah absolutely all right thanks robert looking

looking forward to another fun-filled day.

My apologies.

Thank you very much.

And again, as our colleague will probably hear often when it comes to this department, it's epic, you know, everything is always epic, which we appreciate. I just want to point out as a reminder to everyone here that if you recall last year, I think there was a misunderstanding with some attendees who parked, I think it was on Lincoln Avenue, I think probably throughout the day some people may have removed the signs. I would just remind to minimize those misunderstandings again perhaps to make sure those signs are still up or maybe there are even other languages so that there is a clear understanding that the areas have been established to help set up, to help our law enforcement officers, our vendors to accident it out. that if they are non-parking, they are non-parking for the duration of the festival.

Just, again, to minimize any misunderstanding like we had last year

when some residents were ticketed. And, again, you know, I suppose they should have paid attention to the signs and, of course, they blamed us. But, again, just a reminder, you know,

because I remember we had some folks coming to the council complaining that they got ticketed.

Definitely, Mr. Mayor, members of the council,

in working back with our police department, public works staff in posting signage, We have also tried to post this time the map to show where no parking is alLod on top of it so that, you know, if the signs, we do post signs, sometimes they are removed.

Whether they're taken down by somebody who's parking there or by somebody else walking by, they're sometimes removed.

But we do also take footage of our postings as well so that we make sure that it is there. But as another option, we have where you cannot park posted on our webpage, and also we're posting it on all of our social media feeds so that if people went in doubt, they have other places to check it out. We will be watching, though, for those signs to be reposted over and over just in case they are taken down.

But we agree.

In addition, just want to let you know, definitely I know 2025 has been a rough start to this year. We know with the New Orleans situation, and so we've made adjustments to some of our secured areas just to be mindful of potential vulnerabilities in our event. Of course, as always, safety is our number one concern for all of our participants, our staff, our residents attending, our vendors attending the event. So worked back with both, again, police, public works, and fire to assure that any other areas that we could secure with more concrete barriers, try to provide as much protection as possible.

We also reevaluated that as well.

So in working back with police and fire, also wanted to make sure that if there is an incident, that mutual aid services are available to us in those cases because of the other fires that have been recent in the region. So those departments have double-checked, and everything is looking as planned for now.

Thank you, Robert.

Looking forward to a fair weather day on Saturday and Sunday and expecting a lot of people. just, you know, with all that's going on, this would be an opportunity for people to just, like you said, think for the positive and to come together, not just as individuals, but collectively St. Gabriel Valley as a whole to just enjoy and celebrate and just lean on each other's shoulder. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Public Works, Sean.

All right. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Mayor of Pro Temp and City Council.

Sean Igoe, Public Works Director.

Tonight, I just want to remind everyone of a cleanup event that we have coming up on January 25th from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. This will be at George Elder Park. At the event, we'll be accepting bulky items such as furniture, mattresses.

We'll also be taking e-waste.

One thing we won't be taking is hazardous waste, which is going to be batteries, light bulbs, oils, paints, things like that. We also are working with Salvation Army again to hopefully repurpose some of these items that are dropped off. So again, the goal is to be as green as possible and reusing some of this. So again, just a reminder for this event, we just want to encourage everyone to come out and drop off some items that they no longer need, and we can repurpose some of those. So with that, I'll take any questions.

Not a question, but I just wanted to give you guys a shout-out for your quick response rate on the GoMPK app. Anytime I see a bulky item on the sidewalk and I post a picture on the app, it gets picked up within a day or two.

Thank you.

So a good reminder to residents also to use that app for any bulky item pickups.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you for that information, Sean.

I did have a question.

Do you happen to know when we plan to have a hazardous item pickup?

We typically don't host those. Usually the county hosts those. So we partner with the county.

So we don't host those at all?

No.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, what we have done is in coordination with the county, again we're not the direct host

when county hosts

something very local we try to partner with them and then post that information whether that's in the Cascades or on the webpage

so often times

it's often not you know it's not us

hosting it but we try to find those partners so that there is places take hazardous waste

is that because sorry follow up question is that because where won't take hazardous materials

it's just the county usually

COORDINATES THOSE EFFORTS. SO THE RESOURCES, THEY HAVE THE RESOURCES TO KIND OF DO THAT. SO USUALLY OUR HALLERS HAVE NOT DONE THAT.

OH, OKAY. THANK YOU.

MR. MAYOR, SHAWN, APPRECIATE KUDOS, ADDING ON TO THE KUDOS. APPRECIATE PUBLIC WORKS AND ALL THEIR TEAM'S EFFORTS IN HELPING TO CLEAN UP THE STREETS. I KNOW THERE'S STILL SOME DEBRIS ON PEOPLE'S PROPERTIES AND THE PARKS AND STUFF, FALL ON TREE LIMBS AND THINGS LIKE THAT. BUT WE'VE GOT the streets cleared I think pretty quick after the the winds I know some of our neighboring communities are still impacted as well I know so we just want to appreciate all the work that our public public works team is all along with PD and fire and everyone else at the city have done to help and quickly making sure that the city continues to function and that we're able to get people going where they need to go thank you

I have no other questions so thanks Sean thank you okay let's move on to development update

Good evening again, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of the Council. Joe Torres, Economic Development Manager. I am pleased to present an update on the city's major development projects. We can all agree that land development is essential for our city's success and imperative for our community's prosperity. These development projects generate more jobs, bring desired curb appeal, unite community members, and maintain or increase home values, not to mention additional revenue opportunities for the city.

Next slide, please.

Before I begin my presentation, I'd like to take a moment to familiarize City Council,

including our new mayor pro tem and members of our audience,

with the city's project development process, which can vary depending on the specific nature of the project. So this is more of a general overview from start to finish. The process begins when a developer submits a formal application for entitlements and permits. This application typically includes detailed project plans, environmental documentation, and any required fees. This is called the entitlement process. The next step is a design review, which ensures the project's aesthetics and compatibility with the surrounding area. The timeline for design review may be concurrent with the entitlement process. The next step is plan check, which ensures the development meets the city's building, safety, and fire requirements. Once we complete these three steps, entitlement, design review, and plan check, the project proceeds to the permitting phase, where building permits, grading permits, and other specific approvals are issued. However, construction can only begin once all the necessary permits are issued. Regular inspections are conducted during construction to ensure compliance with building codes and safety standards. After construction, the city conducts the final inspection and, if applicable, a certificate of occupancy is issued and the development is now ready for occupancy and operation and ready to serve our community. Now, using these steps as our roadmap, let me guide you through the progress of our major project developments.

Next slide.

338 South Alhambra is a multifamily condominium complex with 65 residential units, including seven affordable housing units. It was approved in October 2024 and is moving towards plan check.

Next slide, please.

1969 South Atlantic Boulevard is a drive-through Starbucks with indoor and outdoor dining. The Planning Commission approved it in July 2024 and is currently in plan check.

Next slide, please.

This project, which houses the ABC Cafe, among others, in the city-owned downtown parking lot, is being rebuilt due to fire damage.

The project completed...

Director of the Plan Check and its permit was approved in November 2024. We are waiting for the developer to pull the permit, which we understand is conducting bids for contractors right now. So they're about to select their contractor and then pull their permit afterwards. Next slide, please. Celadon Mixed Use Project, as you know, is a transformative project that will take place in the heart of downtown. It's a multiple story commercial residential mixed use with

151 dwelling units. However, the developer is working on revisions to the originally approved plans. Next slide, please. 188 South Chandler is a 40-unit senior housing condominium project. City Council granted an extension in August 2024. They have been issued their permit,

but have not started construction yet. Next slide.

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

that will occupy the corner lot on Davidson and Monterey Pass Road,

which had been empty for many years. The project is now under construction.

Next slide.

Whitmore Villas is a two-story townhome with 63 units on 2.7 acres,

officially entitled in August 2021.

I'm happy to report the project broke ground October 2023

and construction is underway.

Next slide.

283 East Garvey is a 5,000-square-foot building

on the corner of Garvey and Nicholson.

The City issued its building permit in May 2023 and is also now under construction.

420 North Atlantic is the City's new hotel, As you know, the Holiday Inn Suites makes use opened in August of last year. It has 136 hotel rooms, 84 condominium units, and more than 5,000 square feet of retail space. Although it has been open since 2023, we still consider it a somewhat incomplete project

because one of their tenants include Fika Fika, which is still under construction.

Next slide, please.

According to HDL, we received 285 new business license applications between December 2023 and December 2024.

However, this number does not include new business license applications from contractors, short-term rentals, and other non-brick-and-mortar businesses. And again, this is just new business license applications, not new business openings. Some recently opened our Garfield Spa on Garvey, which is doing very well and is already thinking about expanding to the second floor of that same building. Leaflet Coffee House on South Atlantic opened just recently. Nagia Bistro on West Garvey and Fuji Omakasi Restaurant on North Atlantic Boulevard. Opening soon, our Jumpin' Lobster Restaurant at Atlantic Square. Yes, Atlantic Square. Light Cream Sandbags, Corporate Office will open in Saturn Park, bringing more than 100 jobs to our local residents. And Fika Fika Coffee, as I mentioned, inside the Holiday Inn Suites, will hopefully open soon, along with a Starbucks drive-thru.

Next slide.

This concludes the development projects update.

Thank you. I'm open for your questions.

Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Joe. Appreciate the update. Just a couple questions on some of the projects presented on the, going back to the East Garvey, the structure that's being built right now.

Do you know what kind of market that's going to be, or is that going to be open to lease to a tenant that hasn't been locked in yet?

um i let me have our um director of community relation or community development expand on that

thank you council member wong for your question um it's our understanding that the the builder is actually going to be the operator and it's going to be an ethnic market like a grocery

small grocery store oh wow interesting okay they're taking a long time i know yeah the The structure's been there for a while.

Glad that work is progressing towards something.

On the...

Sorry, if you go back another slide, Whitmore's good. Do you know, Whitmore Villas, do you know when they plan to begin... Are sales already starting? And then do you know when they're going to have move-ins?

We don't have that date available.

Make sure. So not this year.

They're moving quickly.

Vin has a across-the-street view.

I have a great view of it every day.

It'll look better soon.

Yes.

And then go back another one. Another one, sorry.

And another one. Another one.

So, yeah, this one.

So for the Lincoln Garvey, I guess, this is just the back area, right? Right. So they're not planning, it didn't come to council because they're not planning to change the core design, I guess, for the plaza. Is that right?

That's right. It's simply a facade remodel.

Do you know when they expect, it sounds like we're waiting for the pull permits. Do we have an estimated time for construction and do we know where they are in potentially pre-leasing or leasing any of the units?

We know that they've accepted bids from contractors, so we're in that process.

I would say from the time that they pull permit, we can estimate at least a year, a year and a half for construction.

All right.

Well, I'm glad to see, because that fire happened a little while ago, too. Glad to see that they are moving, albeit slowly. And I know there's potential for other things happening in that plaza. whatever I mean it sounds like they're moving ahead with Rebuilding existing kind of out Design of the they're part of the shopping plaza But if there's any way we can continue to engage them in a conversation. I think that whole plaza would be prime for potentially larger grander plans for redevelopment. I don't know what they're If we've tried to feel that out with them at all or not, but I would love to see I think that I'm in all four corners there, but that plaza, since they're trying to rebuild it anyway, how it would be primed for something more than this, but at least we want to signal that we're open to that conversation.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I can provide a quick update on that. we did talk with the owners of this property. And this is why some of the delay happened after the fire because there was considerations from the owner

about a potential other redevelopment project,

mixed use type of redevelopment project. After further consideration, from our understanding,

the last meeting that we had with them,

They were moving on now just facade improvements because they didn't believe that their mixed-use project would be feasible for them.

And so this is why they're moving on this.

But that's why there was some delay as well.

Of course, definitely, because it was a fire and there was some insurance requirements, they had to pick quickly. And, well, I know it took some time, but now they're moving on this update. so it sounded like from what we got in meeting with them and having that discussion they looked at it they felt that it wasn't feasible at this time for them and that they were going to just

do this update and reevaluate it in the future that's very helpful do we know if the i mean i

don't know what the plans that they're submitting or what they're talking about is this going to disrupt some of the existing tenants that were impacted by the fire like abc cafe and some of others further along are the facade improvements only for the units that were impacted by the fire or are we talking about that whole kind of area

the remodeling the entire shopping center strip so not just fire damaged it

won't displace tenants from what we know but it's gonna affect the entire

building so I mean to the extent I'm not sure they are thinking about this too but if we can encourage them if they're not thinking about to make sure they help to promote some of the businesses because they will look like if they're just if they're doing facade improvements they're all closed I want to make sure we're continuing to support the businesses that are going to continue to open there be open in the area and whatever we can do during the construction phase to help make sure people realize that they can still go to some of the businesses there would be helpful

thank you for the update on all these projects I know there's two other projects that weren't covered today that residents have expressed concern about I'm not sure if there's any information that we can share publicly

one is the Seven Leaves Plaza and one is the Atlantic Square okay, sure Regarding Seven Leaves, we can share that the builder has recently submitted plans to Public Works regarding some of their drainage systems that they needed to modify. And, you know, it's moving slowly, but they have shown recently some progress to move forward.

and once that building and shell the shell is completed and the parking lots completed then seven leaves is ready to jump in and start doing their tenant improvements right away so they have permits already for that and then uh atlantic square we have an um a submitted

application for the redevelopment of the north end and um you know that's what we can share

at this time city staff together with the consultant we're processing that application now

great thank you for sharing the updates

just very briefly thank you so much for the update it's always really good to see one that we're developing and that we're growing but also to know the status of a lot of these projects I did have like council member Yango just a quick question regarding the Prado

plaza um there is a the former carols um do we have any update about what's going on because i

get a constant questions about that yeah that's another good one to update you on uh city staff recently met with a potential tenant um that wants to occupy that space uh the owner is considering demoing the building and building a new building for this new potential tenant um a deal hasn't

been secured but um you know based on the conversations uh you know the tenant's highly

interested in that location uh if the builder builds the owner builds a new building for them so hopefully they can broker a deal soon and we can see an application but

it's all conversations at this point uh we don't have a pending application yet okay thank you

mr mayor members of the council if i could just follow up on 795 garvey which was referenced here is the seven leaves plaza at my suggestion is to refer to the 795 garvey there there's no permission for seven leaves to go there yet and indeed we're still in litigation with regard to that particular piece of property we do have a court hearing coming up on february 14th at which point we're hoping to uh obtain a court order requiring the property owners to comply with the city's directives to complete the construction of that particular improvement so we're hoping that that moves forward we as you well know have had challenges with cooperation with those property owners we've issued at least three different building permits allowing that property to move

forward all of which have expired and so we continue to face those challenges and come up with

means of trying to overcome those challenges i frankly am hoping that on february 14th we see a light at the end of the tunnel in order to complete the construction on that particular piece of property but i provide no promises because as all of you know somebody sitting in the in the big chair with the black moomoo can always do whatever he or she wants to do so we will see what happens at that point and i will update the council thereafter

mr mayor members of the council just wanted to clarify the reason we are we're discussing The projects that are further along is because we do have other conceptual projects that staff is receiving applications for, but those projects, we would look at them as being in their concept phase, and so that's why we're not sharing those projects or their progress out yet. also other times there's tenant confidentiality agreements or negotiations that are happening as well

and so there could be other

there is other projects in the pipeline all different stages these ones that we're presenting tonight we would look at them as much more along they're definitely past the conceptual stage they went through some of our processes already and so they're much further along

than some of the other ones that we didn't bring

tonight but not to say that there's not this is the only ones going on staff is working diligently to process everything else that is coming in but this is just

the ones that are further along in our processes just to be clear thank you up

again thank you I would I always am delighted to see update on these

projects one that are you know I live discussion right now regarding 100 to

120 North Garfield Avenue.

discussion about what are tools and strategies for our existing retail structures that either,

in my opinion, are either underutilized or have become neglected.

And I won't name names because I don't want to be singling out any places, but I'm sure all of our own observation or even talking to neighbors or residents know that there

are certain places that over the years have fallen to disrepair.

And I am kind of curious, you know, if at some point we're going to have a discussion about, you know, what are strategies to address underutilization or even facade issues? because I think that for all of us,

at least I'm all speaking for myself,

oftentimes I do get comments from residents like saying, you know, why are certain things on certain boulevards

look so shabby?

You know, what can we do? Because it is about the aesthetics of the community. And so I think I'd like to maybe perhaps

have a discussion down the line.

Well, to kind of dovetail off of that point,

I'm curious if we have any status on the business grant program. I know we're still working on the details for that. I know part of that was, part of the thinking at least, was potentially some facade improvements. I know there were some challenges there we've got to think about and work through. But we did set aside budget in this year's budget for a business grant program. I'd love for us to get that going before the end of the fiscal year if we can.

to

I think the larger point is a lot of businesses need support in the city and if there are ways to do that this council wants to prioritize that and we've done that through the budget and we want to I would love to see us get something going and

I don't want to waste the right time

and have to go to another fiscal year to launch a program to the extent we can address some of Council Rouleau's concerns around facade improvements or other things if we can figure out a way to to make some of these resources available. I know there are constraints and issues with public money and how we are able to utilize that and what's the best use of limited funds

to support the many businesses

that have many needs in the community. But wanna get some help out at least and then start to build off of that where we can. On this kind of larger kind of question on this, ditto what others have said in terms of appreciation this update. I always look forward to the development update because I'm always excited. I think a lot of the questions we get as council members is,

what's going to happen to that building?

When's that new business going to open up? What's going to happen with that lot? And this is very helpful to be able to provide updates to constituents, my parents included, about what's coming up and what's going to open and what's exciting kind of coming up. My kind of question or request is, is there a way, I know we're getting these, I think, about quarterly, and I know that there aren't always updates I don't know if monthly makes sense as a cadence but if there's something more regular we could get as an update on some of these development projects and businesses coming in and out I know city managers including some updates in terms of business new businesses opening in the city and her update to the council when appropriate I would love to see if if it makes sense I don't know what the the right cadence I DON'T THINK A WEEKLY THING MAKES SENSE BECAUSE IT'S GOING TO SAY THE SAME THING FOR A COUPLE WEEKS. BUT IF IT'S A MONTHLY OR EVERY TWO MONTHS INSTEAD OF EVERY QUARTER UPDATE ON I'D LOVE TO HEAR KIND OF NEW BUSINESSES OPENING. ALSO KIND OF BUSINESSES THAT ARE CLOSING. I DON'T NEED TO KNOW EVERY BUSINESS, BUT IF THERE ARE SPECIFIC RESTAURANTS AND THINGS LIKE THAT, LONG TIME BUSINESSES IN THE CITY THAT ARE CLOSING THAT WE KNOW OF, Updates like that I think would be helpful as well for the council and then kind of these larger development project updates

on a

By month every two month or more than a quarterly basis if there is something to report I think that would be helpful for for us to get Either through kind of weekly memo or or through kind of more frequent updates and presentations to the council I think would be I would find that very helpful at least

quick question on

the SPARK process. I know we're talking about development projects. I'm just curious if there's a timeline for when the, I know we

instituted or adopted

the ordinance for requiring or at least adding the definition of data centers for development agreements in our ordinance and our codes, but

any

timeline on when the potential for how we're going to approach expanding uses in the Saturn Park area might come back to council and what the process might look like in terms of our thinking on next steps for that?

Sure, absolutely. I can provide an update on that. We are evaluating proposals for moving that project forward and you should see a proposal for your consideration,

not a proposal, but selection of a consultant for that project in the next one to two months.

And so, you know, stay tuned for that. Also, to provide you an update on the CDBG grant program for the small business, that is a priority for us, and we are actively working on the structure for that program. You know, we've done some research. We've gotten some good leads on some programs that already exist out there that can achieve what we want to achieve. So we're learning from other cities on what they're doing to advance those types of programs. So that one will be coming before you soon as well. So stay tuned for that. And we definitely hear you as far as, you know, different strategies as to how to deal with vacancies, as, you know, Council Member Loll suggested too, you know, and there's different approaches to that. You know, rest assured that we are giving that some thought. It could be through the CDBG program. It could be a combination with code enforcement. It could be another program that can help with vacancies. And so we're studying all of that currently. And so we'll be presenting more information on that as it becomes available.

I'm very much looking forward to it.

And I don't want us to, I don't think this is the issue at all. But if it is at all, I don't want perfect to be the enemy of the good. I want to get some – I would love to see just us implementing some programs. We can do some trial and error. If some programs don't work, I don't want us to overthink and then take a year to launch a program because we were kind of trying to figure out what the best way to do this or that is. I think it would be great to just start rolling things out. If it doesn't work, find another thing who can try some things out. I want to encourage us to have a little bit more of that mindset and get programs out in a more speedy fashion where we can. And then kind of larger conversation on this, Carl kind of brought up the Garvey, I don't remember the address, 795 Garvey. Just especially since that site is in Council District 1, I think many of us have expressed our frustration with that property. I know we're in litigation with the property owner on getting that property going. We're going on, I think, over four years now where that structure has five, seven years. That has been sitting there half built and not able to take a tenant. And I will say, and I know the staff share of this frustration as well, but for anyone that might be new to this process or what's going on there, I have pretty much lost my patience with the owner there and the developer. It is insane to me how they are just allowing that to sit there. I want to encourage us. I know we are exercising every tool at our disposal to push and force some action there. I'm encouraged to hear there may be something happening, but we've heard that before as well. So I will believe it when someone a tenant actually moves into not just To both of the the spaces. I think there's two retail spaces available It's not just one for potentially a boba shop

but

Would love to see that filled in a lot of other vacancies But that is a prime prime intersection and one of those corners Being empty like that for for that long with a structure they're half built not ready to for a tenant is just crazy to me. And I think our residents expect and are demanding a lot, I mean, something to happen there. And there have been a lot of false promises over a number of years there. And I'm just expressing my frustration and venting a little bit. And I'm hoping that this gets back to the owner and lights a little bit more of a fire under them to get something going and to fill that space because people continue to drive there, continue to complain, and it's been years and years that it has not moved from the structure and the walls being up to, and we've seen because of that, graffiti and break-ins and a lot of issues with that space not being vacant like that and not being filled. So to continue to express my frustration and whatever we can do to continue to forcefully encourage progress on that site would be very, very helpful. and I would also say whatever we can do on all four of those corners, I think there are opportunities to support, but let's continue to explore whatever options we have and every option and tool that are disposable to encourage and support redevelopment and development on the four corners of Garvey and Atlantic, but also Garvey-Garfield that are huge, some of our main intersections in the city that are mostly underutilized for for what they should be so whatever we can do to continue to be innovative I encourage that and whatever tools we can continue to exercise that we aren't already would love to welcome the staff to bring those to

us to consider as council okay so thank you council member Wong and staff duly noted you You hear the positions, we know you guys are working on it. Again, just for those in the audience, there's public information and there's confidential information due to litigation, so we'll move forward here. The takeaway for me here is we had 285 new businesses licensed within the last 12 months. You think about where we were from December, just past December to the prior December, where the market, where the economy was.

That's a telling number.

and usually you see that number as business licenses, then it starts to contract work. So that's your pipeline to new businesses in the city.

So that's a positive sign.

Just wanted to, Mr. Mayor, members of the council,

just wanted to make sure that we're addressing the question about the expanded uses down at the Saturn Park area and the data center regulations. yes we're reviewing proposals that we received so we can select a consultant to help us overall though just wanted to reiterate we gave that update in november it will probably take us

about 12 months before we'll have that item ready to come back so the first step is to find the

consultant to help us with that project but you council probably won't see it in the in the next several months. It's just the next several months we were talking about, you know, bringing on the consultant first and then moving that project forward. So just to reiterate, that's what we

had explained back in November as well. Thank you. All right. No other questions and comments. Let's

move on to old business. Update on the work of the January 21st Memorial Ad Hoc Subcommittee

and consideration for further action. Thank you very much. That's me. Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and members of the Council, Diana Garcia, Assistant City Manager. This evening, I'm here to present an update on the work of the January 21st Memorial Ad Hoc Subcommittee and ask the Council to consider further action. So I'll start with a little bit of background. At the City Council meeting on September 26th, 2023, in order to help guide initial discussion and inform any next steps, the council was provided with preliminary research on memorials for six mass casualty events in the United States, including Sandy Hook Elementary,

Route 91, the Inland Regional Center attack, the Borderline Bar and Grill shooting, Pulse Nightclub, and the Virginia Tech shooting. So the city council at that meeting initially

considered the six different memorial committees. We talked about their composition, methods of

community input, responsibilities, timelines, and budgets for all of those. At that point, the

discussion was very preliminary. Mass casualty experts advised that it was very early in the

healing process to begin to make decisions on a permanent memorial. So we presented some initial

research at that point. In May of 2024, staff brought the discussion back to City Council

and an ad hoc subcommittee to further consider the issue of a permanent memorial was established.

The subcommittee is comprised of two members of the City Council, Thomas Wong and Henry Lo,

and since the establishment of that subcommittee, the group, along with City Manager Alvarez and

myself has met with individuals who have personal experience setting up memorials in the aftermath of mass casualty events.

The subcommittee has considered various topics associated

is CSC's chief behavioral health officer and who is then director of the MPK Hope Resiliency Center,

informed staff that CSC was initiating discussions with family members of the victims and the survivors, and they were seeking input about their sentiments on a permanent memorial.

As part of the feedback process, CSC staff also created a survey to gather additional feedback

from victims and survivors about the permanent memorial. So after approximately three months of discussions and surveying family members and survivors. CSC staff pushed the survey

out just this month in January 2025 to the greater community to gather input. And this survey will run through the end of February 2025. So the city has shared this survey as well as CSC sharing it

out, and we've shared it out via social media, city website, and promotion in our city facilities. and we will also distribute paper surveys at the library and the Langley Senior Center.

We have some initial survey results from that effort.

They indicate a general interest in establishing a memorial,

though 5% of respondents indicated that they are uncertain,

and another 5% are not interested in establishing a permanent memorial.

Our respondents largely support an outdoor garden memorial or a mural, memorial wall, or sculpture.

So, some next steps.

In a lot of cities that have been affected by mass casualty events, outreach efforts to establish a permanent memorial are often led by Resiliency Center staff.

Those staff maintain close ties to the impacted communities and family members.

And these efforts help ensure that the memorial reflects the desires and needs of those most affected.

so as we approach the two-year mark we felt it was timely to provide this update and ask for further direction from council also joining us this evening is Andrea Sang of CSC who helps run the MPK Hope Memorial sorry MPK Hope Resiliency Center who can provide additional information and answer questions so on this slide we've got some items for discussion and potential direction from city council. We ask that city council discuss and provide direction on further action. Some items for consideration may include, but are not limited to, terminating the ad hoc memorial subcommittee, designating a memorial committee, either providing direction regarding the creation of a city committee or delegating oversight to the resiliency center or another entity. City Council can discuss dedicating city property, fundraising efforts, either directing

a designated entity to do that fundraising with a set time frame, and then talk about next steps. And then additionally, Council may discuss and provide no further feedback until we can provide

an additional report in March of 2025 at the conclusion of the survey we could

bring back the results at that point and council can give further direction then

so that's my staff report again Andrea is here to help answer any questions that you might have and I'm also available for questions thanks any comments

questions thank you and thank you Diane I appreciate the team working on with Chinatown Service Center on getting the feedback from folks.

Look forward to the feedback.

Can you remind me again when we expect the data to be back?

So the survey right now is planning. We're planning to have that run through the end of February,

and then we'll take a look at the data.

We'll have that data in March, and we can provide additional information at that point.

Great.

And I would just say, one, we look forward to receiving that feedback. I think in reading the staff report and having thought about and being on the subcommittee initially, in my mind, the process, and I know we're having this conversation here, but I think in my mind, it would make sense to take the feedback from those that are willing to submit it. And I know we've had some CSC has helped to lead some conversation as well outside of the feedback session.

I appreciate you being here.

And have been hearing a little bit of preliminary feedback at least.

I think it would be helpful. Well, one, I want to kind of offer up front my commitment as a council member to pursuing a permanent memorial. I don't think I haven't heard any feedback that people are generally against of a memorial. So I do want to move forward. One, I think if we are moving forward, one, with the full input and feedback of those who are willing to provide it, make sure that's integrated into this process of the design and siting and all that stuff for a memorial. memorial in terms of a process to potentially lay out I think it would make sense for the city and maybe staff to identify a few sites right city owned or publicly owned land already in the city ideally in my mind that are in proximity to the star ballroom site so that it makes a little a sense and then if it's already publicly owned land or a facility would already where we don't run at issues in terms of land acquisition or property issues and things like that and then from there kind of move forward to some sort of process to solicit designs potential designs proposals for designs given those two or three sites potential sites just because I think if we kind of put it out there and ask for utilize the feedback and ask people to tell us what they want to see I think until people have something more tangible to kind of look at or provide feedback about in terms of site and potential design I don't think we're going to get a whole lot of specific feedback on whether this is good or bad or they like this or don't and what makes sense and so I think the further along we can get some tangible kind of

ideas

and potential designs I think the easier it will yet be for us to solicit and receive some more

concrete feedback about

what a permamoral can and should look like and where it should be.

I think to the extent

possible if we can move forward on the staff side

with at least some of the preliminary

feedback to begin identifying I think we can do this. Staff can begin identifying potential sites for smaller scale memorial I'm not talking about like a stadium or anything crazy but something or potential sites that city already owns right parks even City Hall front lawn Langley Center other options in the vicinity of the star ballroom as potential sites and then start going from there to outline a process for how we might be able to solicit potential designs and what that process might look like, maybe do some research on other memorials that have been done, what their process was to solicit designs. I know we've already maybe done a little bit of that preliminary

already, and start to outline a process. And I think along the way, if it makes sense to, I don't think, it doesn't sound like we need to make a decision right now. I think we wait for some of the feedback to be finalized. But my kind of initial thinking is also if there's a need for an advisory committee or something like that from a technical perspective to evaluate some of these designs once we have them or to help shape even the process for how we should perceive and select a design for a memorial and a site I think we can staff can maybe bring that process back to to the council maker recommendation those Those are my initial thoughts on how to proceed on this.

Any other comments before I jump in?

I'm just glad we're moving forward with this. I think, like Council Member Wong said, I'm eager to see the, I know we're in the early stages still, and still a lot of discussions I'm assuming will be had in the future. But I'm glad we're moving forward with this and that we have something to share out as we reach the two-year mark. so look and to Council Member Wong's point I think I'm also in favor of dedicating whatever it is land or city property to make sure that this happens and I think once we have a more once we have the data and we have a more Information about how we want to proceed and move forward I think we have the more detailed conversations about how that might look like yeah But thank you so much and thank you for being here to be able to thank you

Part of this process. Yeah, so let me chime in. I think I'm speaking and

And again, first, thank you, Councilmembers Wong and Lo for your continuing leadership in being on the subcommittee here. So I think where we are now is, and from what I'm hearing, we stay the course. We wait until CSC finishes the survey with more of the respondents of the family and also the victims of the folks who were there that night. meanwhile we like city staff to basically give us indication for sites of land potential that we can move for the memorial site when that time comes and then maybe we tackle this issue again in let's just say april because march by the time it'll get there be april so in a few months then we'll have another discussion so my my view is at that point we'll be in position to know what the survey says, what sites we have, and then we can terminate the subcommittee or increase the committee and designate a committee to be responsible for the memorial site. If that sounds good, we can have a motion

or file this update.

I'm happy to make a motion to receive and file and with that direction for staff. I just want to clarify, does staff need any clarity on that. I think that outline generally

makes sense to me. I think staff

yeah, we understand the direction. We'll work

back with CSC to make sure that we

collect the outreach that's going on, the survey

information back, report that back.

In the meantime, yes, staff will identify a few locations

and then we'll bring it back in April for further discussion.

Yeah, I think staff can, in parallel right to the

feedback that

we're continuing to receive and put together maybe reach out to other I know the 1871 Memorial in LA had a whole process for designs and soliciting that maybe we can reach out to the organizers there to see how they laid out their process and maybe we can look at other memorials in terms of how they they had their design solicitation all that process and bring back maybe some options or an outline of what potentially we could explore here

to. Understood. Actually, I have a quick question or suggestion. Given that our vigil is coming up for our second anniversary, and since we are collecting public opinion, you know, for surveying, will we have any folks at the vigil, whether it would question or something to survey, you know, those who are there at the vigil? I don't know if that might be constructive.

Who are the surveys being sent out to?

The surveys are open to the general public right now.

So CSC had basically a process of talking first to the directly affected family members and victims and survivors.

And then we've expanded that out. And now it's open to the general public.

And thank you for the recommendation. CSC is going to be joining us next Tuesday at the event.

they're going to be tabling and will provide those surveys as well. Thank you. Yes. And so can I add some information?

Because the survey before we develop the survey, we have the support group and advisory committee.

They have families and victims.

And then so we realize, because when we participate with our RC, we realize we are very unique in many ways. We are pretty much the only one and only the RC that's focused on the API. community. So there are two barriers that we have been working with. One is the cultural barrier, because a lot of the victims, they are senior, they have language barrier. And also, a lot of things that work with other RC and resources, we cannot directly transfer to our community. There is a process of cultural adaptation. And a lot of family, at first, they were skeptical and hesitate to participate, even if they are traumatized and victim. But they're very skeptical, but they observe, they try. It takes a long time, effort to convince them. So some of the victims, at first they were hesitant, and now two years later they become strong advocates. Because traditionally they see the memorial as like, some people see it as a tombstone, like just honor people pass away. But now suddenly come to some conclusion, the memorial is actually a very strong public message to advocate, to advocate for the community wellness, to advocate for anti-violence. So we, as RC, we see that change over time with the family and victims found, like how they, you know, like skeptical found a cultural perspective to actually recognize it's a community and group efforts.

So thank you for the counsel.

Council Member Thomas Wong, your sharing. And it's true because a lot of people want to know the idea very clearly. However, the whole process, actually, there's a whole process of advocacy and community awareness that we will be working with the community. Yes. So I'll make the motion to receive a file and provide that direction to the staff to proceed. Okay, so we have a motion. Do you have a second? Second. Second by Council Member Lu.

Hello. Take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next item here is discussion and finding on the city's updated inclusionary housing ordinance

feasibility study, the IHO.

Good evening, Mayor Ngo, members of the City Council. I'm Jessica Serrano, your Community Development Director. I'm here together with Beth Chow, our Planning Manager, who's going to kick off the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of the Council. Beth Chow, Planning Manager.

I'm here to introduce our next item as the discussion of the findings for an updated feasibility study related to our inclusionary housing ordinance.

For this update, we engaged with Economic and Planning Systems Incorporated, EPS, which is a leader in the economic research and policy analysis field. through EPS's expertise in market trends and data modeling. They'll provide valuable insights to help strengthen our housing strategies within the city. Julie Cooper and Chinmay Damli of EPS will lead the presentation and their findings, bringing with them their extensive experience and expertise to ensure a thorough assessment with some strategic considerations for the council.

WE'LL GO AHEAD AND HAND IT OVER TO EPS.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, MAYOR PROTEM, AND COUNCIL MEMBERS.

MY NAME IS CHEN-MEI DAMLE.

I'M A SENIOR ASSOCIATE WITH EPS IN OUR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA OFFICE.

I'M JOINED WITH MY COLLEAGUE JULIE COOPER.

WE CAN GET STARTED IN THIS INCLUSIONARY HOUSING FEASABILITY STUDY UPDATE. Next slide, please.

Okay, this is just our agenda. We can keep going.

Next slide, please. Okay, thank you. So just a little bit of background for the Monarch Park. For this study, we understand that the Monary Park inclusionary housing ordinance was adopted in August 2023 with inclusionary requirements of 9% low income and 6% moderate for rental development types and 15% moderate income units for ownership product types. The city had also adopted an in-lieu fee formula with desired a more standardized and transparent approach.

We conducted our first version of this study in late 2023, presented it early last year, and the City Council had paused implementation of the IGO for 12 months and then chose to reassess its feasibility in early 2025, which brings us to where we are today. Next slide, please.

Thank you. So here is a quick review of market conditions as of 2024. So since our 2023 analysis, there has been an increase in median household income in Monterey Park, but we've also seen an increase in housing values, both sale price values as well as rental values. Like 2023, we have reached a similar conclusion where the typical household within Monterey Park cannot afford a market rate single family home or even market rate rental. There was an increase across all the values. Next slide, please.

So for this study, we did a development feasibility analysis. What is a development feasibility analysis? It is an analysis to show whether a new market rate project can be financially viable or feasible. In this type of analysis, we look at market conditions like the cost and revenue associated with hypothetical generalized development. And a development is deemed feasible if it provides sufficient return on investments that would incentivize a go decision or a green light by developers and for investors. The assessment of the financial feasibility is based on calculating return metrics for the products and comparing them against the target threshold. So for example, what that means is for rental projects, the feasibility threshold metric is 5.5% yield on cost, which is calculated by dividing the net operating income by total cost development. For sale projects, the feasibility threshold is 15% profit margin, which is the profit divided by the estimated development cost. So if a project meets greater threshold than these stated metrics, then it is considered a feasible project. Because of the range and quantity of opportunities, the development will not occur if this is financially infeasible. Next slide, please.

So, why do we care about development feasibility in this context? That is because inclusionary housing programs affect financial feasibility of market rate developments. Inclusionary housing programs require that new market rate developments include a certain percentage of housing units at rent or sale prices that are affordable to Lor income households and require that new market rate development projects make them affordable for those households. So on-site inclusionary units must be sold or leased at a lesser value than market value, but typically cost the same as market rate units to develop. Alternatively, if in lieu fees are paid. That adds to the cost of the project, but the value stays down.

These options affect the financial feasibility of a project and may make an otherwise feasible

market rate project infeasible. Our study tests whether a new market rate residential development in the city can absorb the financial impact of inclusionary housing reform.

Next slide, please. Okay, so development prototypes. So the city has over 1,200 units in its development pipeline, ranging across 12 different projects at varying statuses. In our analysis, we analyzed two scenarios for our prototypes. One, we looked at citywide prototypes, which reflect products that would conform to citywide residential zoning designations. And we looked at a mixed-use scenario, which reflects products that would conform to the city's mixed-use standards. The mixed-use designation, specifically in the northeast portion of the city, as shown here, is expected.

It is an area that's expected a significant amount of future residential housing. And thus we thought it is particularly important to understand the impact of inclusionary housing ordinance in this area as well. Next slide, please.

So first, this is our citywide scenario. So these are generalized prototypes intended to reflect the types of new residential development projects expected to occur in the city in the upcoming years. And this is mostly informed by housing market research, recent and proposed projects, local developers, and city's development guidelines. So in the citywide scenario, we have two ownership prototypes, a three-bedroom townhome and a two-bedroom condominium. We also have one rental prototype, a two-bedroom multifamily project. And then the slide just shows the unit characteristics

as well as the associated rent or month, associated price or monthly rent per unit.

Next slide, please. And similarly, this is for the mixed-use scenario in which we have one ownership prototype, which is the two-bedroom condominium. It's a little different from the previous slide because this is at a higher density. And then we also have one rental prototype at a higher density than the citywide scenario as well. Next slide, please.

So since our 2023 analysis, there have been some changes to the prototype products that we looked at.

One of the changes was the parking requirement, which has changed from 2.5 parking spaces per unit to one parking space per dwelling unit as of the ordinance passed in 2024.

And then we are also looking at an increased density of mixed-use condominium prototype from 30 units per acre to 70 units per acre.

this increase in density reflects the higher densities that we're seeing in recent and pipeline projects in the city.

Thank you.

We're also seeing that aside from the products, we're also seeing the changes in market conditions from 2023 to 2024.

In land costs, we're seeing an increase in land costs, both in the citywide as well as the mixed use zone areas.

So in citywide, we went from 2.5 to 4. In mixed use, we went from 4 to 6 million per acre. And then we're also seeing an increase in market values for the multifamily rental units, as well as the multifamily condominium units.

But we are surprisingly seeing that the sales price for townhomes to be staying relatively still. Next slide, please. So, this slide shows just the market rate project feasibility for the citywide scenario prototypes. We're seeing the 2023 results as well as the 2024 results. In 2024, we're seeing that multifamily

condominium products is now feasible at a 100% market rate, and that's due to the increase in price that we just saw, as well as the decrease in development cost. And decrease in development

cost is also a lot of it factors to the decrease in parking requirements as well. We're also seeing apartment product feasibility improve slightly, although it's still in the red at 3.9%, which is below the 5.5% threshold. It has improved since the 2023 due to the decrease in development costs and increase in rents. The results for the condo and townhome prototypes are well above the profit margin, and that indicates that there may be sufficient feasibility to support an inclusionary program. Next slide, please.

And similar to the previous slide, this is for the mixed-use scenario specifically. And the multifamily condo product is all, again, feasible just like the previous slide due to an increase in price as well as a decrease in development cost. Again, the apartment product feasibility improves slightly but still remains below the feasibility threshold. and the results for condo prototypes indicate that there is sufficient feasibility to support an inclusionary program. Next slide, please. Thank you. I'll hand it over to my colleague,

Julie. Great. Thank you, Chinmay. Evening, counsel. So just going to quickly talk about the in-lue fee and then get into some conclusions and recommendations. So as indicated, your ordinance includes a requirement to have an in-lue fee should you decide to restart enforcement of the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance. And so we have calculated that based on the prototypes that

Chinmay just detailed for you. This slide just shows what the formula is for calculating the in-lue fee.

So if you look at that bottom line, what we're trying to determine in calculating the in-lieu fee is what is the financial gap or financial subsidy that is needed to support affordable units. So simply that is the cost of building the unit minus the value of the unit at affordable rates. So that differential is what the financial gap is and therefore the subsidy that's needed to support that development.

Next slide. This is just some sample calculations to show you how that looks.

So you can see there's the development cost per unit, there's the value, and you see the financial gap. And as you can also see here, even across the same prototype, that gap will differ depending on the affordability level because the values differ. So the in-lieu fee will be affected by what your inclusionary requirement is in terms of if it's for low-income or moderate-income units. Next slide. So this table shows the calculated fees for each of the different scenarios under your current inclusionary requirements. So as you can see, we're showing them in three different ways. The first is what is the subsidy per each affordable unit so that reflects what was shown on the last side. What is that financial gap for each new affordable unit to make it feasible? And then we convert that into a fee per each market rate unit in a project because the fee would be sort of if a project was paying a fee instead of by an on-site unit, you would kind of be spreading that cost out over all of your market rate units. And we also look at it per market rate square foot using those prototype unit sizes that were shown in an earlier slide. So as you can see here, the calculated fees in our updated analysis range from about $21 per square foot for townhomes up to almost just over $45 per square foot for multifamily condos. So there's a range there, again, depending on the type and the affordability. And then also you can see that in some cases, the fee has gone up since 2023. In some cases, it's gone down and that again relates to what chin may showed in terms of the kind of different the changes in both uh costs and um unit values next slide

so just to give you some context about the fee levels because it is at this the city's discretion to either kind of adopt those fees as we've calculated them or to adopt the fees at a Lor level if that's your preference. And we'll talk more about that in the coming slides.

But you can see we've included fees, in-lieu fees charged in several other cities, including

a number in Los Angeles County, kind of the top half of this table. And the fees that we

calculate for Monterey Park more or less fall sort of in the middle. They are higher than the fees that are charged for instance in Debra and Alhambra or in the city of Pomona, similar to those charged in city of Glendale, and then Lor than those charged in the city

of Pasadena and city of Long Beach. So just to kind of give you some context for where these fees sort of fit into the general regional picture, if these were the fees that you were to adopt. Next slide. Okay, so just jumping into conclusions and then strategies. So this is just a summary slide of everything that Chinmay talked about earlier, showing both the feasibility, the returns for each prototype, both if it's 100% market rate, if it builds on-site units, or if the project pays an in-loop fee. And what you'll notice about the on-site build versus the in-loop fee is that while we try to calculate in-loop fee so that the returns are as close as possible so that the developer kind of isn't incentivized one way or the other because it's always going to be more financially beneficial to build 100% market rate and pay a fee rather than have a certain number of your units at Lor than market rate, it's not always possible to get it exactly correct. But you can see in most cases, it's pretty close. And then you can, again, as we're showing, it is with inclusionary housing, we would estimate that attached townhomes and sort of in the citywide prototype and multifamily condos in the mixed-use area would be financially feasible, even with an inclusionary requirement. The other prototypes would be more challenged with it taking on the burden of an inclusionary requirement. Next slide. so we've come with five potential strategies that the city might consider and I'll just note that these are the five of these are not mutually exclusive so the city might the council may decide to go down one or multiple paths that are described here next slide so the first is the city may consider phasing in the inclusionary requirements over time So this gives the market some ability to adjust to new inclusionary requirements. And so, you know, so that prices adjust and projects adjust to the requirements. We've seen this happen in a few cities. We mentioned two examples here. City of Long Beach, which phased their inclusionary housing requirement in over a three-year period. So each subsequent year, the requirements were slightly higher than the previous year until they got to the full requirements. Another option is to adopt an inclusionary housing ordinance and then pause the enforcement of it for some amount of time. You've already paused it for a year. So you're kind of doing something similar to that, but you would be creating more certainty around your intentions for enforcement. Next slide. The other thing you might consider is many of you or probably all of you are familiar with the state density bonus, which gives developers certain incentives, both density incentives as well as other types of concessions if they provide a certain percentage of their units at affordable rates. Right now, your inclusionary requirement for rental doesn't actually kind of automatically qualify a developer for state density bonus because the Lost level is 10 percent low income and you are requiring 9 percent low income. So, you might consider maybe changing the distribution to something like 10% low and 5% moderate instead of 9 and 6, so that a project would then automatically qualify for density bonus and can offset some of those costs with the costs of the inclusionary with the incentives around the density bonus. Next slide.

But as I mentioned, the city does have the ability to adopt a new fee that's Lor than sort of that calculated fee that we showed.

What this would do would be to incentivize developers to pay the fee, but it would reduce the cost of the inclusionary requirement overall. uh so um and you know projects that pay the and luffy wouldn't qualify for state density bonus so you know that would be kind of a trade-off decision um perhaps uh the on the flip side of that you know for the city is that then you would be collecting a lot of fee money and you would have to you know kind of think through your strategy for how you would uh collect the money and utilize the money. You could utilize it, of course, to support other affordable projects in the city or to preserve existing affordable housing, but it does require some additional administration needs from the city itself. Next slide. So based on the analysis we did, as we showed the financial situation of ownership projects has improved a lot in the past year based

on our research and the kind of changes in city requirements. So we do think it could be reasonable

for the city to reinstate enforcement of the inclusion and hazard requirements just for ownership properties or ownership projects, and then continue to pause the requirement on rental projects. Another option is to also perhaps just reinstate it for specific geographies, such as the area under the mixed-use designation, where we've shown that projects are more feasible primarily because you allow a lot more density in those areas. And next slide. And then final slide or final kind of strategy is you could continue to press pause on the inclusionary requirements for another year and kind of come back and do a similar market scan a year from now and see if conditions have changed at all. So that's always an option as well, depending on your preferences.

And last slide. So as I mentioned, these strategies are not usually exclusive. There's ways that some of them could be used in combination. And while these strategies themselves don't change external market conditions, they can reduce certain costs, additional costs that are associated with inclusionary requirements. I'll also just note at this point that the analysis we do is, of course, a point in time analysis. We see already that there was a big shift between the analysis we did a year ago and the analysis we're showing you tonight.

And external market forces are very dynamic. And, of course, we're only starting to think about the long-term impacts of the disaster that we are facing now in our region and how that might have kind of ripple effects on all aspects of our economy and our region, including on our housing market. So that's just something to keep in mind, be aware of. We certainly saw it during the pandemic that had a severe impact on our housing market and those market dynamics.

So it's always just we always just have to understand that the market is always changing and these external shocks can happen. So we it's just something to be aware of. And I believe that's the last slide in our presentation.

So thanks for your time, and we look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Thank you, Julie.

Discussions, questions, comments for Julie first?

Thank you.

No, appreciate the staff work and the consultant on providing this updated analysis. It is helpful to have this context, and as you noted, the change even from one year ago to now in terms of the analysis for the economic and financial landscape for development is kind of crazy. But very interesting. And I totally understand the caveat that there's a point in time kind of analysis of conditions in the housing market and development and financial markets are all dynamic and could change. And we know that there's potentially a lot of change with the new administration at the federal level. we also just have a major fire crisis going on in our region as well that's taken 20,000 plus housing units off the market in an instant and we don't know what that will mean I mean we're already seeing in the rental market increases in costs and asking prices for for rental housing I imagine we'll see similar kind of pressures on for sale housing because scarcity of units and people trying to find homes. I know that's difficult to quantify in an analysis, and all this happened after the analysis complete even here. I'm just looking for any, I know this is almost impossible to answer, but whatever you can do to contextualize or add some advice on the current crisis we're going through, what those impacts might be on the market, and just help us in our thinking through potential next steps on the IHO as recommended here. But given what's going on currently in our region with fires and housing in the markets, And for me as well, I'm kind of on the fence on some of these, how we need to proceed on this, given potential challenges and other issues in the financial markets, right? Interest rates probably not coming down as much over the next year or this year, given where inflation continues to come in and all that stuff. just trying to to the extent possible any what's your thoughts what are your thoughts on

help us understand and advise us on what we might want to think about as we're thinking about next

steps sure um so i'm being very speculative at this point uh so please don't take anything i say as you know i don't i don't have a crystal ball uh it's not gospel um i think what we expect is that there will be a lot of pressures on development, the cost of development, you know,

cost of materials, cost of labor, that will sort of what we kind of what we saw in the

last year or so is that compared to the couple of years kind of during the pandemic, the cost of materials actually wasn't really going up very significantly.

it was kind of, you know, more normal, normal rates of increase. But I think in this, given

the current situation, and in addition, some of the potential policies of the new administration, we do think that some of those pressures are going to come back. So I think that

costs are going to continue to be an issue and whether or not revenues can keep up with that. Or, you know, we obviously don't want to, you know, encourage, you know, we don't,

it's not going to be great if what the result of that is, is that just, you know, the cost of housing goes up and up for residents, but that's also likely to be something that happens.

We also just don't know what sort of we've already seen, you know, the mayor of L.A. and the governor kind of coming out with these streamlining, regulatory streamlining and how that might continue to expand and impact policies like inclusionary housing or how they might try to continue to encourage the development of affordable units is very uncertain.

So that's all just to say that I do think you're what you're suggesting in terms of the picture that we're painting in terms or at least what we saw up until the end of last year in terms of feasibility.

The cost side, I think, in particular, is going to be the most impacted by coming trends. So I don't know if that's helpful. Again, I don't want to say anything. I don't want to claim that I know it's going to happen. That just is sort of what we might expect would occur.

Definitely understand, and it's helpful in that it helps confirm that my thinking is not totally off track, and understanding that no one knows what exactly is going to happen. I mean, at this point, I'm kind of inclined to continue to pause given what's going on. In my mind, it's a question of what to pause if we are thinking about phasing in or splitting this up in terms of not just lifting the entire pause on the IHO on all projects and then at what kind of what time frame we want to reevaluate this if we're going to move forward on that. And then my questions on some of the suggested policy considerations for next steps. One of the recommendations was to adjust the IHO requirements for rental projects so I'm going to qualify for state density bonus. I'm in full support of that. I don't see why we wouldn't do that makes total sense we're doing it for the owner occupied or the ownership

projects

If there's direction we could provide the staff to do that I think we can move forward on bringing that back I don't know if that needs to come back to council or if that's just direction to provide the staff to begin to implement so that when we do Whenever the ICO goes into effect that that is something that's already worked into the ordinance I think it's safe to move forward on that and putting that into place. On adopting the in-lieu fees at Lor levels than obviously equivalent of building the on-site units, is your – so help me understand. So the numbers that you're updating in terms of the recommended in-lieu fees, those are at costs, are those already at below on-site costs for units, right? Or is that?

No, they're pretty much, again, they're as close as we can get to what the actual cost is to a

developer to provide on-site units. They're pretty much, again, they're reflective of that subsidy

between what it costs to build the unit and what the value is of the unit at below market rate. So

it does reflect that cost to developers.

So we would consider that to sort of be the quote-unquote maximum fee that you would consider charging

under your requirement, and then anything below that would be at your discretion. Understood. That's helpful.

I mean, I know

there's this is a complex where there's a lot of complexity in terms of how we can approach this and a lot of potential options for how we want to if we want to implement this and how we want to and phase it in and all that stuff I mean my initial kind of thinking on this and very open and would love to hear what my colleagues have to say on this as well I'm generally at this point supportive of some sort of pause for six months or nine months or through the end of the year on the IHO, but also knowing that, well, one, giving direction to staff to move forward on the rental units for the state-tenancy bonus qualifications to make sure we're working

that in.

In terms of the in-lieu fees, I think adding a little bit of time for staff to work on

adopting final kind of analysis for what in-lieu fee is. Obviously, that would still have to be adjusted if we're going to reevaluate and when we evaluate lifting the pause is again but kind of doing a little bit of that work as well along the way the other kind of thinking and staff or others can correct me if I'm wrong in potentially approaching it this way all right all development projects over nine units I believe are already subject to development agreement requirements to negotiate that for for the city

throughout the city.

We could still use, we can still use the in-lieu fee listed as the starting point for negotiating

in the development agreement

for some sort of contribution to our affordable housing fund, right?

I mean, you're talking about that being the maximum level.

Developers and the city can enter our negotiations starting at that maximum level to somewhere below that to see where we can come up.

I'd love to see

that can be kind of a starting point for negotiations for where we can land in the middle point for what a contribution from a developer for more than nine units in a development agreement should be to support affordable housing development in the city.

Let me jump in here first. Let me see if there's any questions on the proposed or on the kind of like the separate plans that julia and chimmy went over and then i'll try to lead this discussion because this can take all night so i'm going to try to i i hear um councilmember wang's view i have a view on this but i just want to kind of just maybe try to help hurt the cats and dogs here before we kind of get to a a longer discussion so any questions first on the items

Just the items or just the recommendation?

Basically, I guess the discussion itself and also the five options, the five tailoring

options.

I do have, I guess for me, a point of clarification if I can. Jessica, so last year this council approved a housing project on Elhambra Avenue and as

There was a lot of people attending the council meetings.

Certainly it was a very robust conversation.

I thought it was a good conversation. That developer nonetheless did use the density bonus that there exists.

I'm curious, if the IHR was in place in full force,

would his development automatically have then qualified given the way it was designed and presented to us as a council? And mind you, that project was, I think, something like five years ago, but nonetheless, it had a corporate density bonus.

So would that have automatically qualified for the IHO?

It would have been exempt from paying in Luffy because they would have provided on-site affordable units.

Okay. And I bring that up because, again, I know it's also helpful that we actually have an actual example. And I actually do appreciate that developer for doing that.

Because I think it's important that, you know, again, I am going to, I forgive you, Mayor, but, you know, I mean, a little my opinion,

but that, you know, developers always come back and say, oh, you know, IHL are unfeasible, this and that.

But at the end of the day, and this was in presentation,

I mean, home prices are going up at the market rate,

and it is driving people, especially young people, on the market.

And that's something that I think should be a concern for all of us, whether or not what action we take tonight is how do we address equity issues. I would say, Mayor, that I'm also,

I think it's okay to maybe make that adjustment. That was in recommendation number three,

regarding the SDB. I think, yeah, perhaps making the adjustment for rental development, but keeping place

we have now for owner-occupied developments.

Okay, so let me, okay, I'm going to try to do this

because I got this little grid here that I have here. So I hear Council Member Wong is in favor of potentially,

I'm just going to throw it out there, potentially a 12-month pause. She said 6 to 12.

I'm going to say 12 because that's one of the recommendations.

Promoting rental.

I did not hear it in Luffy, although maybe I missed that.

No, well, one, I think.

Support in Luffy.

I'm very much in support in Luffy.

I think it's fine. Okay.

And what about the density bonus?

Yes. Yes. I mean, if it results in 4 weeks.

Because Council Member Lo, you started, and you actually had the promoting the rental, and also it sounds like you're in favor of the density bonus.

12-month pause?

I have a question.

So I'm in favor of many of these, actually, but I wanted to ask, are there any immediate negative impacts to any of these five proposed solutions, specifically the first four?

uh is it i don't know if jessica if you want to take that question or you want me to start um i don't i think the only i don't even know if i'd call that negative impact but the only

potential impact you might kind of see is if you um if you went ahead with just reinstating the inclusionary housing requirement for ownership only, you might see that, you know, it might

change how many ownership projects you get versus rental projects. But that's, you know, I'm being a little bit, I think, overly speculative here. I don't necessarily think,

I think the other thing that you should, you could consider with the phasing in, for instance, is anecdotally, so I don't have like real data on this, but anecdotally, I think what they saw,

for instance, in City of Long Beach is that you had kind of an acceleration of applications to get in under the Lor requirements, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're looking to, you know, see more development in general and more housing development. But again,

it would kind of incentivize some of that acceleration. And then, as I mentioned, if you adopt an in-lieu fee that's Lor than kind of that subsidy level, then you are automatically incentivizing payment of the fee. So you're going to, except for those, I think, with the exception maybe of projects that want to utilize state density bonus, you're going to see projects be more likely to pay the fee than provide on-site units. And so then again, it's money coming into your affordable housing fund that the city will administer and find ways to use as opposed to getting those on-site units with new development. So again, I don't know that I would say any of those are negative, but I would say they're creating certain incentives to new development.

it's just it's options i wouldn't say negative impact it's just options for the developers to come in because at the end of the day they may not build here they may build the next city but right now it sounds like they have plenty of options to build where the fire damages are because that's where everyone will be rushing to the to that area so council member low i i i got two of the four right what about the 12-month pause you

You want six months, okay

I think a year might be too long Okay Because we will also know

As things settle with the fire damage

And of course by that point We will know The

Luffy.

I don't care with making an adjustment to Luffy. Okay.

Okay.

How about Council Member Sanchez?

I'm okay with extending it up to 12 months. I think that gives us actually a little bit more time to kind of see, I think six months happens right away, and kind of see the type of impact that it has on developers. I think it also gives developers who might be considering building in Monterey Park an opportunity to kind of get in if they need more time to kind of wiggle through this. I expect that what's going on, not just with the market, but what's going on as a result of the fires, is that it's going to definitely put a lot of pressure on developers and just the amount of resources, building resources that we have available. But to Councilmember Lo's point, I think that we do have to be very, very cognizant of why IHOs exist and the issue with housing, particularly with the data that was shared today, the rising cost of housing, not just for ownership but also for rentals. And it's really pushing out a lot of working class, middle class families and people from being able to not just purchase homes, but even find an apartment that's affordable. So I think we have to be very, very cognizant of that and ensuring that whatever we are planning to build within the city is also accessible to most families.

Okay. So then what about density bonus in Luffy and promote? It sounds like you're in favor of promoting rental.

In Luffy? I'm okay with that.

Okay, and also density bonus?

Yeah, I'm okay with that.

All right.

Pro Tem Yang, where do you stand on some of these issues?

I think we should reassess in six months.

I would vote sooner than later, and if market conditions continue to change, then we can reassess in another six months.

Okay.

And I am in favor of the in Luffy as well as the SDB.

Okay, so I am in favor of promoting the rental in Luffy, density bonus. I am not in favor of phasing in, which many of us are, because we are not Long Beach and we are not San Jose. We don't have the size to basically phase something in. I mean, those cities are probably 10 times bigger.

It's different.

I actually favor 12 months because six months is going to be like that. And to me, 12 months actually is just at the precipice of seeing what's going to happen in the fire damage areas. Coming from my commercial estate background, this is probably going to be 24 months plus before you really know what's going on. So I think 12 months for me is sufficient, and then we'll probably end up extending that beyond that.

That's my view. But what we can do is we can at least give direction to staff to tweak the inclusionary housing for promoting more rentals,

adding an in-lieu fee in there so that it's more cost prohibitive, so people can't just say, I'm just going to pay the fee and walk away. And then the density bonus is always a plus.

So I guess the only item here is, you know, we're basically three and two on the six months, 12 months.

Do we have a discussion here or do we want to just kind of take the vote?

I mean, if I'm okay, I mean, I'm flexible. I'm not wedded to the sixth month, you know, but I do, even if we do a 12 month, I would

still like to have some report back, not wait until.

Well, I have a quick question that might help with this. I'm just curious what, if we wanted to update this analysis or at least the numbers in this,

how difficult is that? How long would that take? And how much might that cost? Staff?

Yes, I can answer that.

we engaged EPS in September was it? October, September

they just had enough time to finish it for this meeting so it takes about three months approximately and they really streamlined it for us and it cost approximately $12,000

cost is reasonable to me sounds like if it's going to take three months to do this analysis we should wait at least six months for for some of the economic indicators to be updated. So it sounds like, I mean, in my mind,

from a practical perspective,

we're talking at least nine months. For me, it sounds like, in my mind, it's like I think it's nine to 12 months at least, and even then, things are gonna change. We know nothing's guaranteed and things always change, and it's a dynamic situation.

I think maybe we provide direction to staff

around September timeframe to begin this analysis again and as soon as that's ready, bring that back to council to evaluate whether we extend this or not or what our next steps are. In that meantime, we begin to work on whatever we need to work on to integrate these recommendations into the IHO, even though we're not enforcing them, we want to take advantage of the time where we're paused to make these updates as directed by, as recommended out of this analysis, if that makes sense.

I'm in agreement with that. I'm good with September, yeah.

Okay, so basically it's 12 months, but we would like staff to bring in the report.

It probably is going to be October,

so that we'll look at it by year end. But this is going to take us 12 months when we decide because you're going to have the data after nine months.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I just want to make sure that we have it for clarification.

Okay.

So we understand while the IHO is paused, there's work that we're going to be doing to implement some of the recommendations. So we heard those. Staff, are you clear on those items? It was in the report. I'm not looking at the PowerPoint, but it was in the report. It was items three and four is what I heard.

is that is that what you have to and i also heard three four also two oh two sorry yes the density

bonus yeah two three four for rental units yeah yeah for the rental units and then uh pausing for 12 months but understanding that we will begin working again uh

right nine or ten months out so that we can prep the report to come back to council again about

this time next year.

But in the meantime, if there's anything substantial that changes, definitely we could try to report back as we follow the market.

But is that what we're hearing?

That sounds good to me. I think ideally

come back

to council December or January for action on next steps and La Paz goes through then.

In the

Meantime, too, I think if we're getting, for the purposes of negotiating development agreements, I think we can still point to the existing IHO when we update the numbers for the NLU fee and all this other stuff, or whatever we're updating with the IHO, that should be the basis of a starting point for the city to present to developers that are developing nine units and whatever as a negotiation for what should be in the development agreement.

Okay.

All right. With that said, do we have a motion? First of all, I'll be clear on where we are.

I did want to get clarification. So I definitely understand implementation number two,

but do you want us to look at a Lor in-lou fee as well

to incentivize builders to pay the fee rather than provide units?

No, the other way. We want to keep it.

We actually want the units to be billed. If we're going to do a new fee, the fee should be higher.

Okay.

Or it should be equivalent to building on site.

Building the offset.

Okay, perfect. And then the reinstatement of IHO for home ownership prototypes only.

We do not want that, right?

No, number four. Reinstatement of IHO requirements for ownership prototypes only.

No, we're pausing all. For all of it. All.

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

And do you need a motion or is that? We do need a motion to extend the pause. So I'll make that motion with all the additional direction we provide the staff to continue

working on the ITO.

Do I have a second?

Second. Pro Tem Yang. Let's take a vote.

I approved unanimously.

Great. Good. Okay. So we got some work to do on this.

Mr. Mayor, I just have a comment.

And I know that, again, because of what is occurring north of us. So, for example, I believe the state of Los Angeles is looking at streamlining approval processes. Well, given that, again, we are in an environment where we are competing with our communities. and although we are not in the burn area, but would it behoove us, but also because we are competing with other regions right now

as there's rebuild,

should we also be looking at whether or not it's possible for us to also streamline approval or process?

So great question.

I'm actually going to direct this to city manager or city attorney. my understanding is that the state has declared an emergency for how to explain this this is the permitting or sequel rights is there a recommendation a suggestion for our city to follow suit so that we are on equal standing and we don't get we don't become a disadvantage in this process with the competing cities

he's thinking that's a tough question

how do you think the tough question so

several things one is yes the governor issued a an executive order dated january 12th which

according to the order suspends sequa and it also and uh certain regulations of the california

Coastal Commission in order to accelerate housing or streamline house permitting for

replacing housing. That order also requires the Office of the State Fire Marshal to cooperate

with the Department of Housing and Community Development to identify regulations within the

California Building Standards Code, the Fire Code, Plumbing Code, etc. that can either be suspended

or removed from the model codes in order to accelerate that. According to that order, there's supposed to be some recommendations made within 30 days and potentially have new permits in place or removing permits in 60 days. All of that is for context. I think one of the things that the city manager and I have discussed just actually this morning was to declare a local emergency for several purposes. One is to ensure that we can accelerate the timeline for our CIP projects because Sean has a number of projects in the works. And our collective concern, I think, is that if we don't have contractors under contract now and have to wait for the regular process, that we are going to be far behind the line of both private and public projects that are going to be moving forward. all of this to say is that it's going to be on a future agenda for your consideration. So I can't give you a definitive answer now other than we are bouncing around some, I think, innovative ideas for you to consider probably as recent as Tuesday at 4 o'clock at a special meeting, which we have not yet put the agenda together for. But again, we're talking about these things and there are additional things. For example, Sean is also undergrounding electrical lines right now. And we've had some recalcitrant property owners who want to be compensated for some things.

And so we have some ideas about that.

I think much like COVID, as I think has been presented tonight, This is an opportunity for the city to utilize a crisis in order to advance some things and not be left behind in the dust. And that sounds perhaps callous, but that is also the practical reality that we're dealt with. The city itself can't suspend CEQA, and it can't actually suspend any of the uniform codes that are imposed by the state. so we'll have to stand by and wait for the governor's office to crack the whip with regard to the state agencies to see what what that looks like but to the extent that we have local regulations that we can bypass with the city council for example declaring an emergency that is certainly something we're going to put onto your agenda for consideration as rapidly as we can that's a very long-winded answer i realize but i don't have a definitive answer because it's really a policy call

So it sounds like staff's got some ideas brewing, recommendation, and then that's a future agenda item. And I think, you know, my view, and I think many of you would share the same view, is to make sure we're not left behind here if the neighboring cities are using an advanced directive here, given the situation, that we all trot along and be kind of par or equal footing with everyone else in terms of advancing.

to speed up development and infrastructure investment that we want to see happen, that the community needs to see happen, we are all for and open the options to do that.

Actually, I think in this case, we might be the ones sharing the ideas because they'll be stealing from us, which is fine. So, okay, we're good here.

We took a vote.

We're moving on to the next category here. Next on the agenda item is the consent calendar. Any items you want to have a discussion or pool?

Mr. Mayor, if we can pool 3G for quick discussion, for presentation.

For Council Member Wang.

I'll also pool 3F just for a status update.

Outside of that, do we have a motion for everything else?

Motion to approve remaining.

Motion by Council Member Lo.

Second by Council Member Sanchez. Please go on and vote.

Approved unanimously.

F and G.

Okay, so let's just a quick 3F.

Yeah, just a quick update. So, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council, Chris Thompson, Fire Chief. Our SCBAs that we emergency received, we got half of our order in last week,

and we're waiting for our next half in the next month.

We believe that we can get them all serviced, monitored, and put back in service by March.

So we're moving forward, and the guys are really happy that we got our necessary equipment.

So that's kind of my update on that replacement of our self-contained breathing apparatus. Any questions? Questions? I pulled it.

So I'm just going to say I wanted to pull this to kind of show that we, the city, the entire city is in full support of our fire department, first responders. And we want to ensure whatever is needed that you guys get. Because I know you guys are battling out there, supporting the community, the San Gabriel Valley, Southern California.

So thank you for all your work.

And I wanted to really appreciate and just point out that whatever you guys need, we're here for you guys.

So thank you. Thank you.

With that, do I have a motion?

Move to approve. Council Member Wang.

Well, with my motion, I know we already approved it on the consent calendar, but kudos to the fire department.

Thank you for your hanging report.

Really appreciate the update.

But motion, yes.

And second, and appreciate all of your service, fire department.

Second by Pro Tem Yang. Let's take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Okay, now let's go to 3G.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor of Rotem, and City Council.

Sean Igoe, Public Works Director.

Tonight you have an item before you for the Monterey Pass Road Complete Streets Project. This is an award for the professional services for the design of this project. and so tonight you have a brief overview of what that project looks like so that's this is going to be the basically the full area that's going to be completed from Fremont to floral along Monterey Pass so the idea is is that this will allow us to add bike lanes safety improvements and also to recondition the road so there's there's a lot of different improvements that come with this but But this is just the initial kickoff for the design of it.

We will be doing community outreach as part of this project.

So as of now, we have two lined up as part of the scope of work. And so this will give the community an opportunity to provide input on some of the conceptual ideas and some of the things they may want to see along this stretch of the roadway. So this is done through 710 funding. And we have, as of now, just over $20 million allocated for this project that will be for not only the design but then also for the construction.

so with that I'll take any questions questions

thank you really appreciate this I pulled this because I'm so excited for this project to get going and we've been talking about it for years even before I got on the council I think many of us have been talking about this project and then how it's going to link up to Garvey and we're going to initiate this process on Garvey as well

and will be

I think a transformative project for the city and a complete change THE LANDSCAPE ON THESE TWO MAJOR ROADS THAT SO MANY PEOPLE IN MAURE PARK BOTH RESIDENTS AND VISITORS DRIVE THROUGH AND IT'S THEIR EXPERIENCE OF THE CITY. SO AGAIN VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS. MY ONLY REAL QUESTION IS CAN YOU REITERATE THE TIMELINE FOR DESIGN AND WHAT THE NEXT STEPS ARE ONCE WE HAVE THAT FOR THIS PART? I KNOW IN THE STAFF REPORT INCLUDES COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT element as part of the process for this contractor once Kimley Horne's on board.

Looking forward to that.

So if you can lay that out really quickly for Maric Pass. Also, I'm just curious when we might be at this stage for the Garvey Avenue work and

when that might be coming.

Correct. So this project is designed in about a year.

We are competing with some other items, as Carl mentioned earlier. We do have an undergrounding project that's going on in this area. So we're waiting for that project to be completed. So we're still working out the the nuances with a couple of these Property owners once we get through that the design will be completed then we can move into construction for that So the idea is that the timing wise is that as we complete the design of this then we'll go into construction Shortly after that again pending that the underwriting project is completed So you know I would look at probably about two years give or take that before this project is fully completed between design and construction and then we can start rolling into

the rest of the projects. Two years is a lot faster than I actually thought. So looking forward to that. And I'm going to do my best to keep you to that, Sean, since you're verbally committing.

I make no promises. Construction is always up in the air. Especially as Carl mentioned earlier, there's a lot of projects that will be competing for materials as we look to rebuild areas around us.

Totally understand. One, would love to have when we're ready a groundbreaking ceremony for this when we're ready to go with construction and then two if you get this done if monitoring pass road complete street project opens in two

years I will buy you lunch or dinner or whatever so just as an incentive and Jose is going to do

more too very excited about this thank you yeah we're excited too okay council member Sanchez

Yes, I mean, every item on this agenda was very exciting, but this one in particular sparked my interest, and so much so that I had to share it with my wife. And the reason why is we travel through Monterey Pass Road every day to go to work to pick up our daughters, and actually my daughter's gym studio is on Monterey Pass Road. And so the other day, about two weeks ago, my wife had this brilliant idea that we should walk there from our home. And I told her, well, it might not be as walkable as you think. And we still tried it regardless. And so when I saw the plans, I mean, what the potential plans could be in Monterey Pass Road, I got really excited because I know that it will now be potentially walkable. and so very excited about what we can do in this area just like council member Wong said but also if we if I chose to walk to my daughter's gym studio it would be definitely a much more enjoyable right and then for everyone and I think that I think what we could potentially do there whether it's bike lanes making it a lot more walkable whatever that is I'm really excited to see this project going and and so you know I'll buy you breakfast lunch and dinner

you see how beautiful it looks now that we paved it and striped it actually yes very drivable now

too i always say my parents uh appreciate that we finally resurfaced at least a portion of of the long portion of maury pastor they were complaining to me about it for a while yes thank

you thank you sean we have a motion i'll i'll move here i'll second okay moved by

It's Council Member Sanchez and second by Council Member Wang.

Please take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

All right. Thank you. Moving right along. Public hearings, none. New business.

A resolution of the city of Monterey Park, California appointing Council Member representatives to specific organizations.

Are we going to that list?

Or who's going to take that?

Mayor, members of the city council, Cindy Trang, deputy city clerk. Before you is a staff report for adopting a resolution appointing representative to a specific organization. The city council generally appoints representative to various regional and community organization annually. Appointments are recommended by the mayor and confirmed by the city council. There are currently 10 association slash organizations requiring city council representative or designee. The L.A. County Sanitation District, usually the mayor is the council representative, and the alternate is usually the mayor pro tem. At the November 1, 2023 City Council meeting, the City Council appointed Joseph Leon as the city representative to the San Diego Valley Mosquito and Vector Control for two years, so that will expire 2025, well, this year. Attached for your reference is the 2024 resolutions with the list of the current appointees. Attachment two is the summary of the different organization and their meeting times and location. And then the third attachment is the resolution so that the council can make the appointment at this time, and then I will record it, and then we can finalize the resolution.

Okay. Let me kind of just lead through this process.

so does anyone want to take the St. Gabriel Valley Mosquitoes Abatement District? I know Mr. Leon was here. He's a proud member of that. I'm in favor of keeping him on. I didn't know if anyone wanted to take on that role or just continue to have him on.

Just a reminder that those meetings are at 7 a.m. on Friday.

Yes, it is, 7 a.m., so it looks like Mr. Leon is safe.

and we thank him for his service

we thank him for his service yes thank you

okay now other than

as

Ms. Trang mentioned the county sanitation district which is it's done I would say

everything else why don't we do this

we'll go down the list and see if there's anything that you are on now that you would

rather not be on or you want to do something else as a change

of pace

Well, maybe the other way, too.

I'll say I am interested in continuing as, well, I don't think, I don't know if I was a Skagg representative officially last year, but I am. So, one, there's a slight correction to the Skagg description. So each city appoints a delegate to Skagg for the General Assembly. So that's the once-a-year conference in the desert that happens. So every city has one the regional council members actually a different appointment process I'm currently serving in the middle of a set a two-year term for The regional council our district for regional council actually is Alhambra Murray Park and Montebello So I'm already that representative and that's outside of this process. I will gladly let you take that spot Yes, I'll take you're there. I got to go anyway. Okay. All right And then also the senior Valley economic partnership. I was the rep last year for the city technically I have to represent my employer my day job there anyway, so unless someone really cares I got to get those meetings anyway

And just also for clarification whether or not you're appointed these beings are open nonetheless

Other members can attend as well. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. Anyone in particular? I

Know Yvonne was the representative for cod so unless anyone else wants to do it. I'm happy to

We'll put Liz there.

For Cog, I just really quick, Henry, I know you were the alternate last year. I don't know if you're interested in going to those meetings as the permanent.

I'm fine with being the alternate. In fact, the board meeting tomorrow, and again, I was going to attend.

I mean, the alternate anyway, but yeah, I'm fine with that arrangement. Because again, I'm still alLod to serve on the policy committees.

It sounds like you don't want to go to the board meetings. But if you do, since you've been the alternate, I think some familiarity with cloud would...

So you're good with Liz being board member? Yes.

All right. You're the alternate.

Yes.

And I think it's also an opportunity for our colleagues to learn, actually, a lot of the issues that are discussed because, you know, but nonetheless, you also get to serve with a bunch of colleagues, you know,

who deal with the same issues that we do.

So California contract cities, Yvonne's roll off. So I think, Liz, are you okay to be the alternate there? And I think, Jose, you're the main rep.

or you want to switch that or no okay all right with the board out I'll be the backup because

I'm local here and then independent cities you still have Henry and Jose you guys okay there

so it sounds okay and then League of California cities so Thomas and I'll say alternate so

So Thomas is there.

Flipping on to the next page. So we just took care of St. Gabriel Valley Council of Government.

So that's Liz and Henry.

And then economic partners will be Thomas.

I'll be the alternate. That's okay.

We have Joseph on the mosquito abatement.

Sister Cities.

We don't need it? Okay, so we will cross that out. So that's gone.

And then Skagg we have Thomas and Henry and then LAX roundtable we have Henry and Jose

Is that okay with you guys

Okay, so we're gonna cross out Jose sounds like this to be the rep. I don't know if Henry

Up to you. Who do you prefer? Would you like to be the rep? I could be the rep. Sure. Well, here's the thing, though. Maybe you want to let her know when the meetings are. Well, here's the thing. Whether or not you're the representative or I am, I still actually attend,

given the salience of that particular issue

to both of our districts. So it doesn't... Actually, no. If you would like to be going... That's fine.

I mean, again, I probably would still log in

on the alternate anyway.

I'm okay, rep or alternate.

Yeah, we'll make Liz the rep and we'll make Henry the alternate for the time. But you're attending the meetings anyways.

So it looks like we, did you get that, Cindy?

That's pretty good because that went all over the place.

Thank you for catching that.

Okay.

It's okay.

I got it.

You got it? All right. Okay.

So I'll make the motion for this resolution with those names listed for the assignments.

All right. So do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Pro Tan Yang.

Let's take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Unanimous, okay.

6A is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Marley Park declaring the month of January 2025 as National Human Trafficking Prevention Month as requested by Council Member Sanchez. Council Member Sanchez, I'm gonna give you the pleasure of kind of reading the resolution if that's okay?

Sure. It's a pretty long resolution, so I'm just going to kind of try to keep it brief. But as we know, human trafficking impacts many communities in our entire country, including our very own. I wanted to share some of the data that's in the resolution. An estimated 27.6 million people are subjected to human trafficking globally, including cases of human trafficking reported in almost every state and territory in the United States. Human trafficking can happen to anyone but certain populations are disproportionately at risk including people affected by abuse, violence, poverty, unstable situations, social disconnection or discrimination. People can sometimes be trafficked in person and online in industries such as restaurants, domestic work, construction, agriculture, factories, and by strangers or someone they know, including employers, partners, and even family members. Human trafficking can be prevented by building individual community and societal understanding and resilience, reducing social inequities, and addressing the conditions that contribute to exploitation. And we know that, especially in communities like ours, immigrants are usually very vulnerable to human trafficking. And so given what has happened in Monterey Park and other communities that have been impacted by human trafficking, I think that it's important that not only that we be vigilant, but that we be proactive in terms of what we do within our city to ensure that we care for all people in our city and that we do everything that we can to combat human trafficking, not just in Monterey Park, but in our state and throughout the country. So hoping that you will support this resolution to declare in the month of January as National Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

We surely do support and have your back on this.

Do we have to take a motion? Is there a motion? I appreciate Council Member Sanchez bringing this.

I fully agree and thank you for making sure this continues to be on our agenda and in attention. I'm happy to make the motion unless someone wants to beat me to it.

I'll second.

So we have Council Member Wong with the motion and then Council Member Sanchez with the second.

No other discussion. Let's take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Unanimous. All right. Okay, let's go on to our city communications.

We'll start with Council Member Wong. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Well, happy New Year to everyone, and also very soon happy Lunar New Year. Appreciate everyone. Hopefully everyone got some rest over the holidays. I want to just express my and the city's condolences AND HEARTFELT THOUGHTS TO THOSE IMPACTED OVER THE LAST WEEK OR SO, WEEK AND A HALF, FROM THE FIRES IN THE LOS ANGELES AREA, INCLUDING OUR NEIGHBORS TO THE NORTH IN PASADENA, ALTA DENA, IN THE FOOTHILLS. THE EMERGENCY CONTINUES. THE FIRES STILL BURNING. AND I WANTED TO SHOUT OUT AND APPRECIATE OUR OWN STAFF HERE AT THE CITY, PARTICULARLY THE FIRES AND POLICE DEPARTMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN RESPONDING TO MUTUAL AID REQUESTS from those agencies and those impacted communities. So thank you so much to our police officers and firefighters, I believe some of which are still deployed to provide assistance in some of the communities, including the Palisades Fire and the Eden Fire in the area, to provide security and to help with addressing, help to put out the fires that are ongoing and continue to put lives at risk and our communities at risk. So thank you so much to our city staff who have been providing that mutual assistance in the area. But whatever we can continue to do as a city to provide support, we want to be there in their time, in the time of need for our neighbors, just as they were for us when the shooting happened and other emergencies have happened in our community. Our neighbors have come to pour in for us. We want to make sure that we're responding in kind to the extent we can. So really appreciate our staff doing that. I also want to Had a request from a resident To adjourn in memory if if my council colleagues and the mayor are oh my god, I just locked down my phone I'll come back to it when I can get access to this but I want to read off just a few notes Resident a long-time resident of my park that passed away recently at the age of 100 just to be able to endure in memory. But once I'm able to access my phone, I'll read off a few notes from that. Okay.

I also wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and Lunar New Year is just around the corner, and I know we're starting our Lunar New Year festivities this weekend. I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year. This is the year of the snake, and I know some of us attended the press conference yesterday for the Lunar New Year festivities this weekend. And as my students were teaching me, it is the year of the snake and it's supposed to be a year of transformation. The snake is the only animal that can kind of lose its skin and start fresh and start new. So hopefully we can kind of look back to 2025 in terms of what we want to change about ourselves

or as a community

and how we can transform for the better.

So wanted to share that

because something that I thought was very interesting about the snake. I also wanted to send condolences to all the people who the last week has been extremely tragic to not just witness but see on TV as well. I know many of us have been impacted, whether it's family or friends who've lost homes or were evacuated and drastically impacted by the fires in the Palisades and in

the Eaton fire.

I also wanted to thank our police and fire for all of that they that they did and continue to do to help support in those events I also wanted to make sure that like any event and I think Council Member Wong was talking about this earlier in terms of you know thinking about what other cities are doing but just you know taking this as also as a lesson in terms of making sure that our communities in Monterey Park are you know can learn from from what happened in these communities in Altadena and in the Palisades to make sure that our community is prepared for situations like these in the future. But wanted to thank, again, police and fire for all that you're doing, that are continuing to do to help ensure that other communities are safe. So thank you so much for what you're doing. And just one request. I know we just did our commission appointments, but the I know that we usually have for example ELAC come out and share out a little bit about what's going on on their campus maybe once or twice a year I think they come right be great to be able to invite also some of the local school districts to do that as well if they are wanting or willing to share kind of what's going on on their campuses as a district as well I know we have four different school districts within Monterey Park and some of them you know I know that on the morning, on Wednesday morning, I spoke to the principal at Robert Hill Lane, and I think it might have been one of the only schools open actually in the whole city. So, you know, they're LAUSD, so it's great to be able to have that type of connection to a lot of the schools because of the different school districts to know what's going on. But if we can open that invitation to the four school districts, whether it's a superintendent or a representative to come out and share what's going on in their districts, I think that all of us would be willing to hear, but also be interested to hear what's going on in their districts.

And that's it for me. Thank you.

Also Happy New Year, and I just want to, again, reiterate what my colleague already said. Just immensely grateful to our own staff during the windstorms and making sure that our communities were protected and safe.