City Council Meeting — February 5, 2025

Thank you.

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

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

It's called a meeting to order. It's 633. First, I'd like to recognize the land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was once known as the Tavangar, the home of the Gavarino Tongva people. We show respect to the Gavarino Tongva people, as well as to all indigenous people, past, present, and future, and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. We commit to uplifting the Gavilino town of our people. Invite you to acknowledge the history and join us in caring for this land.

Let's join me for the flag salute, and tonight we have a civic superstar.

Ness, please do the honors.

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

and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

You may be seated. Thank you, Ness.

so council if you'd like to please join me for a certificate of recognition for nas ramirez zoo who is our civic superstar from you name the school brightwood elementary

Tuy Tuy.

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. Okay, let's get together. We're going to take photos. We're going to look at her. Everyone's looking at me first.

Okay, one, two, and three. Everyone's going to look at her.

Okay, ready? One, two, three.

And then again. All right. Thank you.

This is for you. Take it back and she'll be fascinated. Yay, show your teacher.

Show your teachers

Madam Clerk will you please do roll call. Madam Clerk, will you please do roll call?

Council Member Wong? Present. Council Member Sanchez? Present. Council Member Lo? Present. Mayor Pro Tem Wang.

Present. Mayor Ngo.

Present. We have a quorum. Thank you.

Do we have deletions, additions, changes?

No, Mayor.

No changes.

Okay, first, before I get into public comments, I'd like to recognize a member of the audience, Mr. Jaime Rodriguez. He actually is on our commission for the environmental group. So thank you for being here and being recognized for all your support to the city.

Let's move forward to staff.

No speakers. No speakers.

Staff Communications, Community Development.

Next slide, please. All right. Good evening, council members and community members. I'm Janice Huang, Economic Development Specialist. I'm here tonight to briefly highlight an exciting event for our small business community. The Monterey Park Business Alliance is hosting its monthly mixer for February, a small business expo and networking event themed Thrive in 2025. This free event will take place tomorrow, February 6th, from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. at the Barnes Park Service Club.

It's a fantastic opportunity for local businesses to connect with each other, access valuable resources, and gain insights into how to position themselves for success in 2025 and beyond.

The evening will feature networking opportunities and panel discussions

with experts who will share their knowledge on how small businesses can thrive. Seeds are limited, so I encourage all our business owners in the community to register now by scanning the QR code on the slide. We look forward to seeing you there and working together with the Monterey Park Business Alliance to thrive in 2025.

Thank you. I'm here to answer any questions.

Questions or comments?

Looking forward to stopping by tomorrow. Really appreciate it. And my only question is, do we have a plan for how often we'll be doing these kind of mixers and events going forward?

Every month.

Great. Awesome. Wow.

Look forward to those, too. Thanks.

How many businesses have signed up so far?

We have over 65. Awesome.

Any other comments?

I mean, that room is going to look pretty small with 65.

Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to attend as well. But thank you for doing this. And I think events like this kind of show why we got the best business-friendly city. But I think this is a great way to get a lot of businesses out there networking. So thank you for doing this and looking forward to attending the next one too.

65 businesses, that's a lot.

That's a handful. We'll see you guys tomorrow night. Thank you. Thank you.

Next up is library.

Hi, good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of City Council. My name is Victor Castellanos, and I'm the adult literacy coordinator. So I'd like to begin by highlighting our events for teens celebrating Black History Month. On February 7th, come learn about how hip-hop and black culture influenced K-pop. And on the 21st, come join a listening party and learn about black history through music. Teens are also invited to Cross Stitch for Change on the 20th, and the Junior Friends, the library's teen volunteers, will host a meeting for teens on February 28th to learn about civic engagement. Other programs for high school students, in partnership with the Center for the Pacific Asian Family, is Love is Respect. This program, on the 6th, raises awareness about teen dating violence and healthy relationships. For adults, in partnership with the Asian Youth Center, are a series of WeChat workshops. Come learn how to use this popular social media app on Friday, February 14th and the 28th, and with more workshops coming in March. And coming up next week is the beginning of our ESL classes. These 15-week English classes for adult learners help improve reading, writing, and speaking skills. To register, please come to the literacy office or visit our library website or our class schedule. Lastly is VitaClinic. Beginning this month until May, receive free tax preparation help for low-income individuals and families. Tax preparers will be available to help in English and in Chinese. As always, please check out our library website and social media accounts for more ongoing programs and events.

Thank you.

Questions and comments for Victor?

I do.

Again, thank you for always just wonderful programming. and again, I appreciate the tax assistance program.

It's only one day, or is it, oh, I see, so February 2nd.

Oh, great. On going, yes. Now, also because of the recent wildfire disasters,

I know the state is extending the deadlines,

and so does that mean that the possibility

that we may also ask CSC and our partners to maybe also consider extending the tax assistance workshops

also beyond May,

if some people are still not ready to do their taxes?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, we can definitely coordinate with the Vita Clinic

to find out if they can stay a little longer.

Right. Of course. Okay. Thank you.

There's also a pro bono legal clinic held at the library regularly, correct?

Correct, yes.

Those are in the evenings, yes.

Yeah, I would suggest maybe putting it on the monthly updates as well to inform the public. But great job on the past month's events. including the Lunar New Year activities, as well as the stargazing events.

Yeah, thank you.

And I know the council's entertaining a resolution later for Black History Month, but I wanted to thank you for all of the Black History Month events. I wanted to ask, have we pulled in the library any books or sections for recommended reads for Black History Month?

Yes, in the middle of the library we have a recommended list of books to read, too.

Excellent. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you.

As always, great job, lots of events, and this is just a highlight of this month. I'm sure you guys come up every month, and we have a ton of events. So again, thank you for the library being a community center.

Great. Thank you.

Next up is police.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Pro Temp, members of the City Council. My name is Gus Jimenez.

I'm the captain with the Monterey Park Police Department. I'm here tonight to share some information on a municipal code that actually Council passed in 2023. It was the Safe Storage of Firearms Municipal Code.

Our city attorney successfully prosecuted a case where we actually cited a person for this actual section. So I'll go into a little bit more detail in the next slide. But I just want to kind of give an update to the citizens, the residents that are watching this tonight, just to remind them that there is a municipal code in Monterey Park that prohibits a firearm to be stored in an unsafe manner or not stored at all. So that section for their reference is 9.94.050 of our municipal code.

And it reads that no person may keep a firearm without any resident unless the firearm is either stored in a lock container or disabled with a trigger lock.

And again, that was put into place in 2023, obviously in an effort to keep our residents.

an adult family member, found the weapon and accidentally shot themselves in the leg. Thankfully, it wasn't a fatal gunshot. They recovered. But because of that, the gun owner was prosecuted, and they surrendered their weapon to the Monterey Park Police Department for destruction. They received eight hours of firearm safety, and they received 50 hours of community service. So, again, I just wanted to kind of highlight and share some information to you and show you that this municipal code has, in fact, has been, we have prosecuted a case with this municipal code, and I remind the residents of Monterey Park that our police officers aren't going to go knocking on doors to make sure this is happening, but if the police officer has a right to be there and they see something, they will get cited for this section. So, again, just a reminder to all the citizens of Monterey Park and residents, and then also just to give you an update on the municipal code that you all put into place in 2023. I'm going to move on to some stats in the next slide, but before I do, is there any questions in regard to that before I move on, or would you like to just ask questions at the end? Okay, perfect. All right, so I wanted to just share some information on some statistics for you, for the police department in December. I'm going to share some statistics for our NET team, some crime stats, and also some calls for service. So as you can see, our net numbers, when we talk about the homeless contacts, follow-ups, homeless crime investigations, repeat contacts, declined services, you can see the categories on the left. Most of them are up, and the reason why we attribute the stats to be up is we obviously are out there proactively trying to help our unhoused individuals. We have our police officers from our net team, from our host teams that are out there proactively looking for these individuals. The enhanced training that our police officers have had over the past couple years has alLod them to recognize these people and to get them the services that they need. So that's kind of the reason why we have an uptick of numbers and we've been able to provide more services. Not necessarily we have more homeless in the city of Monterey Park, but they're more easily identifiable because of the enhanced training that our police officers have had. which, again, it's a great resource for the city, for the police department, and we're able to give these individuals the resources and the help they need to get them unhoused. The next slide, please. So our crime stats for the Monarch Park Police Department for December. You can see on the left is all of our categories. Burglaries are down. Thefts are down. Grand thefts are down. Our vandalisms are up a little bit, 17%. But I will say this, that, you know, obviously with the work partnership with our public works department, the department head, Sean Igoe, and the graffiti abatement program, most of the time when these get reported by our officers, the graffiti is usually down within a couple hours. And, again, we have a great working relationship with our public works department that help us take most of this graffiti down. But there is a little bit of an uptick. but I do have some good news that our police officers and our detectives most of the time recognize the tagging that's going on. They reach out to different agencies around San Gabriel Valley and we've identified quite a few of them and have actually arrested quite a few of these individuals that have committed these vandalisms. So even though it is up a little bit, again, networking and being proactive, we're able to get these people, you know, at least arrested for the vandalism.

And could you get the next slide, please? So calls for service, as you can see, total calls for service are up for December or for the year up to date.

911 calls are a bit down. Medical calls are up. Homeless calls are up. Again, I think I touched on that when I talked about the NET team and our host teams. And then our animal control calls are down as well.

So that's kind of a quick overview of our statistics.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. And that concludes my presentation. Questions?

Thank you, Captain. I really appreciate the update. This is very helpful to get kind of the trends, too. On the vandalism, I don't know if we want to go back to that slide, but I'm just curious for some of the identifications we made of taggers and then the arrests, I'm just curious if we have any insight into what's behind that. Is that gang-related tagging, or is it something else, or are people just for no reason?

It's kind of a mix of everything. Some of them have been identified as registered gang members. Some of them have just been random vandalism.

Vandalism, and it can also be our unhoused individuals committing vandalism.

So it can range from different people that are being arrested for it.

So it's not one specific. I can't say that it's specifically gang-related.

It's just, in general, it's vandalism.

And we have made contacts with these people. And when we identify them, we do go out and we do arrest them.

Great. Thank you.

And then for the NET team, I know we had to reschedule the homeless count. If you wanted to do a quick plug for the homeless count coming up.

Yeah, so the homeless count, because of the fires, were moved. I believe the new date is in March, Chief.

Is that correct? February 19th. February 19th. So we're going to have our next count on February 19th. We're on our clothes.

I'm sorry to hear what he said.

You've got to say it louder, Chief.

Oh, yeah, it's going to be cold. It'll definitely be cold. Yeah, so February 19th will be the next. That's the rescheduled date for the for the homeless count.

Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you for this report. I just want to briefly touch on the graffiti part as well, because I know in my district we get quite a bit, but I did want to recognize and say how quickly our city responds to graffiti. I think maybe it lost a day or two at most, but they're very quick to act. So I wanted to just say thank you and appreciate the work that goes behind, because it takes a village, police, public works to get out there and make sure that all of that is covered up.

So I appreciate that.

I did want to go back to the safe gun storage,

not particularly about this case,

but just in terms of getting the message out to the community. I think that it's important that people who own weapons in the city know that this ordinance exists. So I'm kind of curious to know how we have or how we intend to make sure that we share this particular ordinance with residents, but also the importance of it. And I think that in any way possible, being able to partner also with school districts, because we know that any time guns are not stored safely at home, it increases chances for gun violence both within the home, possibly even in schools. And I think parents need to know this, that this ordinance exists in Monterey Park. And I think part of it, at least why I voted for it in favor of this, was because it's one way to try to help keep our schools safe as well and families safe as well. So I'm interested to hear also how we've partnered or how we can partner with some of our local school districts, because I know we have four districts in our city, to make sure that we share this information. And for parents who are willing, being able to share gun locks and whatever it is, especially information relating to how they can store this safely and prevent incidences like this from happening. But I do want to thank Carl for successfully prosecuting this case, too.

I would love to take the credit for it myself, but I would say that it's a team and mainly led by the Monterey Park Police Department under Scott Weiss and, of course, the captain.

So my assistant, Justin Tamayo, was instrumental in bringing this to a head.

All I really did was bless the settlement and the plea agreement.

So that was it, but I commend the police department and certainly my team for cooperating together to bring this to a head.

Yes, to answer your question, Councilman Vesantia, so yeah, we push this information out through our social media. We also have any opportunity we have to speak to our residents. We will let them know if they ask the question about firearms, firearm safety.

Also, whenever we have individuals that come and are granted a CCW license, that's part of their brief is to let them know that there is an ordinance in place. Weapons have to be stored safely. and again our detectives when they go out and make contact with victims of different crimes and they see that they do have they may have a gun lock or they may you know just from observation we try to share as much information as we can but in going back to the school districts kind of the same thing when we go out on calls for service at Markepel at any of our other

schools elementary schools middle schools we try to share as much information as we can with the parents but we will actually we will get be a little more proactive we will try to

send more information out via our social media. But yeah, we do actively share information about this ordinance and make sure that people know about it.

That's great. I'm

thinking if there's a way to create a flyer that we can share with the district that points the ordinance in multiple languages

and then

resources in terms of how to store their gun safe, where they can retrieve gun locks and stuff like that. I mean, I have kids in Elhambra District, and we get from the principal weekly messages from her, and a lot of it is flyers and information even from community organizations, local cities and jurisdictions. So if there's any way we can do something like that just to inform all of our parents in the community.

So, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, we will work back. We have put out information in our Cascades newsletter. Definitely we'll continue messaging that.

Gun locks are available.

Free gun locks are available at our police department all the time. And we're also listed on several websites as a location. So if individuals are looking for free gun locks through that gun lock safety program,

we're listed as a site as well.

We will do our best to work back to the schools to try to put out information. We utilize Cascades, but we can create like a flyer that is available

where we could have it as a resource

that we could occasionally pass out to schools, post on social media, and keep in the cascades. Every so often we'll rerun that ad as well.

I think that's great.

And thank you for all the work that you guys are doing. I think the more we enforce this, I think the less gun violence we'll have in our community.

So thank you.

Mr. Mayor?

Yes, please.

Again, thank you for a very important presentation.

Question for the homeless count.

Again, thank you for informing us about the new date.

Is it through LHSA that they sign up if they want to volunteer? Yes, they go through the website.

If for some reason they need additional information, they can always reach out to our neighborhood engagement team, and we can give them the resources if they call up. It's also on the website, so all that information is available.

And so someone has to sign up on the LHSA website. Can they just show up, or do they have to go through the LHSA website to sign up?

Yeah, we encourage everyone to sign up because in that way we know who we're getting

and we can accommodate them when they get here. If we don't know they're coming, then we may not be able to accommodate them.

So it's always easier for them to register ahead of time.

We know who's coming. We have a good head count. And then we can deploy them out where we need to deploy them.

For another that's watching and is interested, so go to the LASA.org website and sign up for the homeless count on the 18th or 20th, correct?

That's correct.

And click on Monterey Park, right? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Yes. Oh, and then second question.

And I know we've had discussion regarding the ordinance in the past, but remind me again, we don't have anyone in the city that sells firearms, right?

Or do we? We do have one.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, we do have two firearms dealers within the city, but those are pre-existing firearms dealers, so we have had no new ones.

so my question is and it's related to again

this ordinance and other ordinances we passed

as a city which again in light of the mass shooting in 2023 to protect our community

I don't know if either by statute or ordinance but

those two vendors do they for example if I go there and buy

a firearm for no store do they have an obligation to let me know

that, oh, by the way, the city has a safe storage ordinance.

Do we require, and if we don't, can we, through ordinance,

require the two vendors, the two stores to, at the minimum,

say if you are going to sell a farm here in Monterey Park, be aware that we have the ordinance.

Can we make them?

So, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, the one firearm dealer is appointment only

and I think only deals with law enforcement.

So the general public cannot go in there in any event.

I see.

And Big Five, the second one, stopped selling firearms in California. Oh. They sell ammunition only. They do not sell firearms any longer.

But to answer your question, assuming a hypothetical gun dealer were able to establish business

or Big Five reestablished their decision to sell firearms, the answer to your question is yes, we can require them to inform the public when they purchase a firearm.

We already require them to have a permit to inform the public about firearms are dangerous

and all the usual things.

We have those listed.

So certainly as part of that permitting condition, if that were to ever come back up again, we could add this as one of the requirements for notification.

Well, thank you. Thank you very much. That's helpful.

I mean, then can we preemptively then, I can I recall preemptively add an ex-counseling, I mean, A, future company, we have such an item where if someone decides to come and like a big five or whoever, that as an order, we require them to anyone that purchases the arms to know at least at the minimum that some of the orders we have like this ordinance

right here.

Frankly, I don't think that further city council direction is necessary. This is sufficient and we'll simply add it in as part of the usual condition.

firearms dealer that we have, I can speak to them tomorrow, and he'll post something up in his shop. The thing to remember with firearms dealers in California is anybody who purchases a firearm has to pass a hunter safety or firearm safety class before they're alLod to buy a gun, and that class talks about the rules, and no gun can leave any shop that's licensed in the state of California without being in a locked case or have a locked mechanism around it. You cannot walk out the door carrying a gun. It has to be in a locked case. And state law has quite a bit of restrictions that deal the same way with our municipal code about how to store, how to transport in a vehicle, and they all require firearms to be locked in cases or to use trigger locks. So there's quite a few statutes on the books, both locally and in the state that prohibit the

willy-nilly carrying of firearms and storing of firearms. So there's a lot there. I will reach out to the gun dealer tomorrow and I will physically take him a copy of our ordinance and in the size that he can post it up in his shop and he'll post it for us. Very cooperative. He's very cooperative.

I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. Thank you for the very detailed reports. Very helpful. And for members of the public, just a reminder that disinformation is available on the Monterey Park Police Department's website. You know, all of the statistics, even the addresses where the burglaries and robberies take place. Whoever's handling your social media is doing an excellent job. I love how you guys are sharing the stories of the recent incidents and the arrests. It's educational to the public on what not to do and what's illegal, so very informative. And I think it's great that we're sharing the cascades about the free gun locks and the ordinances for safe storage for the guns. One question I have is what are your thoughts about installing LPRs in the major residential streets, the license plate recognition cameras?

So we have license plate readers but on the vehicles and we also have a system in the city that's called, they're flock cameras, essentially do the same thing and they're strategically placed

throughout the city on the entrances and exits to the city. So we do have that technology that we use And the technology has actually helped us locate several suspects in different cases that we have. That system is linked throughout the entire state of California.

So the FLOC cameras, if we have a vehicle that we're looking for here in Monterey Park, we put the information in, and if it hit in El Monte, if it hit in Orange County,

it'll tell us the vehicle hit in these locations and allows us to track people down or vehicles down.

So we do have that technology, and we are using it, but we're always looking. The chief is always pushing us to be more innovative, always looking to get more technology.

So we're always looking to advance our crime-fighting skills. So we're obviously looking to enhance whatever we have now, but we do have that technology now.

So do you think it would be helpful to add cameras in the major residential streets?

It's something, obviously, the chief and the other captain and I, we can look at. We can speak to our detective bureau, figure out if that's something that there's a need for.

but we can look into it.

Great, thank you.

Really quick, Mr. Mayor, if I could follow up on that question real quick.

I believe we put it in the budget to add flock cameras.

Correct. Do you remember how many we're adding? 15 cameras.

We have 18 existing. We're adding 15 more.

They've passed permit stage with public works, with planning, and now it's just a matter of them going in.

And they cost roughly $3,000 a year per camera.

Do you know if the additional 15 are going to be in the commercial streets?

The detectives and Flock, the company, have sat down and they've looked at a strategic map of the city. And we try to put them places that can be the most effective and have the most vehicle traffic.

Some cities in Southern California put them in residential neighborhoods. And there are some cities, quite honestly, the city I live in, I dumped money into a pool.

And we're buying our own Flock cameras for our neighborhood. I don't know how I feel about that, but I like the cameras.

I don't know if I really want to subsidize the city. I think the city should pay for it, but that's just me as a homeowner. Pay taxes.

But some cities, like San Marino, for example, a cul-de-sac will pay for a flock camera.

And the people that live on that street will pay the bill for the flock camera for the city, and the camera will go in and will cover cars coming and going on their street.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, the additional flat cameras that were approved by the council previous, as the chief mentioned, the strategic location is to try to get us the best coverage so that vehicles coming in and out of Monterey Park, we're hoping to capture and have coverage throughout the city. That's the plan with those additional cameras. So yes, would they be placed in the residential neighborhoods? Not in residential neighborhoods, but we're hoping to catch them at any entrance point into the city or exit point, right? So we have coverage throughout the city. That's the game plan

with these additional cameras. Flock is really good at using GIS technology to determine routes,

and then they make recommendations of where they believe the cameras will be most effective for

cars coming in and out of the city. Think about your neighborhoods. What's the route you get into

your neighborhood where's the kind of the the funnel point for that to get to a main street

that's where we try to maximize the use of those cameras yeah i have a lpr camera at my house

personally it was like 300 from costco so pretty affordable but i've been telling the neighborhoods you know you guys can all chip in for a camera everybody pays like 10 15 and it covers the whole

street the the flock cameras are nice because the officers in the field the flock system uh

immediately checks the license plates automatically to see if they're stolen or if they're wanted, and then it sends an automatic alert to the officer's cell phone.

So the officer gets a notification of a stolen or wanted vehicle within seconds of it passing the camera,

takes a picture of the car and the license plate and determines where it's going, what direction, and then it notifies the officers, and then we start to canvas that area for the vehicle.

We will continue this discussion.

This is an interesting topic, and I just wanted to be clear that this is part of the police duties. We don't want to get into the civil liberties of all these items. But it is a police activity that we have the ability to do from a law enforcement standpoint.

Mr. Mayor? Yes. I'm sorry. We're talking about cameras.

I'd be curious if the law of agency, if you had the opportunity to hear the experiences of a neighboring city.

Because in 2023, I believe, the state enacted legislation, AB645, to run a pilot program for speed cameras. And again, I know currently there are restrictions in California, which is why legislation was enacted for a pilot program.

but I'd be very curious, and one of the cities in the pilot program is Glendale. And I'd be very curious if they've been added already and there's information because I know it's a pilot program,

but if there's any opportunity in the future, the city will allow more cities to enact it.

I think that's something we should consider, especially in the intersections.

And I know I personally get comments from constituents about speeding up certain speeds like Garfield,

down the south side past graves and I think that I'd be curious to see what the result of the pilot program which Glendale is participating because again if in the future it is not possible that it can be displayed to see why I think it's going to be considered looking at going to see cameras.

I know the Glendale chief I'll ask him if the program is operational and what the success is.

Sure, thank you.

Okay.

I actually have a question going back to the slide on, I think it was homeless count or homeless shelter,

the net team, house, okay.

It's 157 for house versus 86 from last year.

Just kind of walk us through the difference in those two numbers.

Yeah. Excuse me. So basically it comes down to the availability of the housing for our own housing individuals and then their willingness to accept housing.

Again, I think our NET team and our host team have done a really good job at educating these individuals and giving them the resources they need so they're more open to receiving the resources to be housed.

So that essentially is what I can attribute to the number being so high is just their willingness to be housed

and then our officers having that knowledge to explain to them the process, explain to them what's going to be needed of them, explain to them the benefits of receiving these benefits that are there for them, and to get them off the street. So I think it's a two-pronged, better training for officers, able to give them more information, and their willingness to accept it.

So 157 is the number of homelessness that we house in the year 2024.

Is that what that number stands for? Correct, for the fiscal year. Okay.

So just for my understanding, the information is that there's a lot of homelessness that comes into our city. That's a partially true statement because as we're going through this, we're housing them. We're housing 157 of them. So they're now, the houses are outside of our city. So we're helping them get housing access or shelter, and they're now sheltered elsewhere.

Correct.

But that doesn't stop or alleviate the homelessness that continues to come into the city, which happens, because that's just the natural environment we live in. But again, I want to just point out that our NET team is doing a good job helping the individuals who happen to be homeless in our city, and now they're sheltered.

Correct. All right. No other questions? Well, thank you, Captain Gus. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Next up is Rec and Community Services.

Good evening, Merico.

Council members, my name is Christina Alotori.

I'm the Recreation Manager for the Recreation and Community Services Department. So I'm going to tell you about a few upcoming programs we have. So at our Langley Center, we have some free health workshops and seminars upcoming. So we've partnered with the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, the YWCA, and Garfield Health Center to be able to offer these programs to our residents. Just a few to highlight are a health, wellness, and wholeness workshop on the 6th of February. The Department of Mental Health is also offering a jewelry-making class, and that will be held on February 19th. And our YWCA is hosting a seminar on depression and anxiety in March,

and that will be on March 10th. This information is available at the Langley Center.

It's also available online at our website, and it's included in our monthly newsletter that goes out to all of our subscribers for the Recreation and Community Services Department.

Next slide, please.

Also, so a couple of fun activities we have at the Langley Center is our Valentine's Day dance. This will be held on February 11th. And we've also partnered with our police department to offer a mature driving course. That is at a cost of $1, and that will be on February 12th. And on the 13th, we will be offering a free movie matinee, Welcome to Las Vegas. and that will be held again on the 13th, and that is free to anyone who attends the Langley Center,

and that's for folks ages 50 and over. Next slide, please.

So if our public works hasn't gotten enough praise, we also would like to praise them and thank them for all the hard work they've been doing in our Recreation and Community Services Department. They have completed the Langley East and West Wing Restrooms at the Langley Center. So one was a complete renovation, so that's the West Wing. And that's like, I'm going to say if you enter the Langley Center, it's to the left side. And then we've included a flooring project in that process. And then we've also updated some of the accessories within the restrooms. So again, we'd like to thank the Public Works Department for leading us in these projects and getting them completed.

Next slide, please.

They've also added new paint to the Garvey Ranch Park Observatory Museum, also community room area.

So if you notice in the photos and if you drive by, the Garvey Ranch facility is looking really, really great.

Next slide, please.

So in addition to that, so one project that has been ongoing at Barnes Park is the Barnes Park Gymnasium restroom indoors. So if you drive by through the front, you'll see some updated doors. Those are going to be automatic. And in the back of the gym, we have some newly renovated restrooms. We've also included all gender restrooms within that footprint. So you'll see all gender restrooms, which are completely renovated. And then on both sides of the gym for men and women, each side has been updated as well.

Next slide, please.

Currently in Barden's Gym, the gym flooring is under construction. So again, our public works has been working very diligently to get this project done, and we are right in the midst of getting the gymnasium flooring completed.

Next slide.

Upcoming in our department, we have our spring break camp, and this runs from March 31st through April 4th. This is going to be held at our daycare center. This information is available online. Actually, all of this information is available online and through our monthly

kind of highlights the 25 years of success of our Cherry Blossom Festival. And then lastly, we just want to make sure that everyone's aware of our spring egg hunt. This will be in Barnes Park on Thursday, April 17th. We have a QR code for residents to be able to register their children, to be able to access wristbands ahead of time for the free egg hunts. And again, the Cherry Blossom Festival and the spring egg hunt is free to all who attend. and this concludes my presentation if you have any questions or any concerns I'd be

more than happy to address those comments just thank you for all the programming looking forward to the spring and that's it thank you I think the bathrooms look great and we're excited for

the pickleball courts that are going to be built in Barnes Gym as well.

Oh, yeah. Definitely.

So I'm excited.

I mean, I wasn't really counting.

I just kind of scribbled it down. But I think you guys have just the month of February, there are over 10 events between Langley, the gym, and everywhere else. So that was epic, Robert. Library, I think you only had nine last for the month of February. but I know you'll catch up because yours is ongoing.

Again, I look forward to the gym.

I grew up in that gym, and it's long overdue with the bathrooms and the floors, so I look forward to that gym being reopened.

Definitely.

And just, Mr. Mayor, we work collaboratively with the library, so we know each of us have something very special to offer our community.

Thank you.

Next up is Townsend Public Affairs, legislative and grant updates.

All right. Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor of Potom, and City Council. Sean Igoe, Public Works Director.

Tonight we have Townsend and Public Affairs here to give us a legislative update. Townsend has been with us for a couple of years now. They've done some great work for us on the grant side and also keeping us updated on legislative updates.

Just some quick numbers.

In the past couple of years, they've provided us with about $5 million in grants. in 2023, about three and a half, and then 2024, just over one and a half,

and they have another million pending.

So they've done a great job for us, but they're here tonight to give you a quick update

on the legislative items. So with that, I'll turn it over to Elisa.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Elisa Arcidio-Cono with Townsend Public Affairs. We have the honor of doing your state and federal lobbying as well as your grant writing. So really just kind of want to give you a lay of the land going into 2025, specifically as it relates to the state, if we can hit that next slide. So the legislature reconvened January the 6th. We are now in a stage of bill introduction, and committees will be contemplating those bills come March. We're in the first year of a two-year session, so things are just getting geared up and getting rolling, so happy to chat with you all and with staff on any priorities going into this session. with the last election we had a 25 percent turnover within membership which gives us a good opportunity to really educate the legislature on issues of important to us so we are certainly seeing that as a positive opportunity the they changed the rules as it relates to bill introduction members used to be able to introduce 50 bills in that two-year session has now been reduced to 35 so members are being a little bit more strategic about what they are introducing and it's it's giving us a good opportunity to wrap our arms around each of the bills that are being introduced. We finally have the full committee leadership in place, so now we know who to reach out to for what issues. So we're just getting things started. It's kind of the calm before the storm in Sacramento right now. Next slide, please. So the governor gave an overview of his proposed budget January the 10th. He is predicting a modest surplus, which is good news coming from last year's deficit. Certainly lots in the mix around California and DC dynamics. The governor has allocated $25 billion to be utilized by the attorney general for anything needed in terms of potentially having to sue the federal government. We've already seen some of those things be moving forward in the most recent days. Certainly lots around the climate bond that was recently passed last November. There's about $2.7 billion that has been identified to start going out the door this year in a multi-year effort. Certainly lots around housing and homelessness accountability. The governor wants to increase transparency. Really on a local level, he has created a new website which outlines which cities and which counties are compliant with state measures and really just increasing that transparency for residents throughout the state. And then lastly, we are certainly seeing a significant public safety focus, not only related to police, but also fire. Next slide, please.

The governor actually has a couple of bills sitting on his desk right now as it relates to the extraordinary session. This has to do, again, with allocating resources on a statewide level to combat some of what is happening in D.C. So that's $25 million, again, to the Attorney General, really to combat some of these negative impacts on our communities, really going toward social services programs and making sure that our immigrant community has the resources necessary. Next slide, please. So the Legislative Analyst's Office has a little bit different numbers that they are running in comparison to what Governor Newsom is putting out. They are projecting a $2 billion deficit. it, he insists that he will not only deliver a balanced budget, but is also noting that there may be just shy of $16 billion in surplus.

Now that, again, was January 10, and that was prior to the fires, and we are seeing lots of resources going toward fire recovery and resilience throughout the state.

So we may be seeing some different tunes being sung come his May revise. Next slide, please.

Hi, everyone. I'm Anastasia Heaton, a senior associate at Townsend Public Affairs and the main grants point of contact with the city. We're giving a quick federal and grants update. So key federal issues on the horizon, of course, there's the numerous executive orders and new priorities coming out of the administration. But we are also wrapping up the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process, which has an expiration date currently of March 14th. There are rumors of a potential additional government shutdown after this date, but we are hopeful that Congress authorizes the fiscal year 2024 budget, which includes appropriated funds for the city. And then as that process wraps up, we'll be looking

ahead to the next round of federal community project funding. We're currently coordinating with city staff on additional projects to nominate for the next appropriations process for fiscal year

2026. Next slide please. So these are the city's current federal appropriations requests and their

statuses. So we have the two fiscal year 2024 requests that were awarded last year and then the current request for the fire for fire station 63 that is in the pending FY 2025 federal budget

hopefully to be approved by March 14th.

And then next slide, please. So this is a summary of all grants we've submitted on behalf of the city

since our contract began in February 2023. We're currently looking at about $1.5 million awarded and then another $780,000 pending. And the majority of that is the request submitted in December for new self-contained breathing apparatuses for the fire department.

Looking ahead on the 2025 grants landscape, so there is a lot of kind of wait and see with many of the federal programs in D.C. right now. We're hearing a lot of agencies have different approaches to interpreting the new executive orders,

so certain grant deadlines may be postponed as they rewrite their old guidelines to meet certain new administrative priorities. That being said, the funding authorized through the bipartisan infrastructure law has one more year of congressional funding,

So that will be up for reauthorization in 2026. So we have at least one more year of funding through the programs that were funded through that bill.

And then we also have shifting administration priorities, eliminating many of the Biden administration's Justice 40 priorities to send 40 percent of all federal funding to disadvantaged communities and similar pivots and administrative priorities. on the state level I know Lisa mentioned a continuous opportunities through proposition

four which was the climate bond many of those funding many of that funding is being directed

to wildfire relief but there will be additional electrification parks and recreation similar grant programs that emerge from that funding pot and then we will also potentially see some of the programs that were canceled due to the FY 2024 budget deficit be reinstated including you know potentially outdoor access, arts, and similar type programs.

Just a brief glance at some upcoming 2025 opportunities.

We'll have a planned resubmittal of the city's Arts in the Park grant that was unsuccessful in 2024 in the spring 2025 cycle, as well as some additional L.A. County and other funding opportunities for the city. Thank you so much.

Questions, comments?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Townsend.

Appreciate the update.

I know a lot's going on, and there's still a lot of uncertainty. Question, I don't know if there's an answer to this, but the government set aside $2.5 billion up front for wildfire recovery in the immediate term. I think a billion of that comes from the climate bond, Prop 4. The hope, I think, is for EPA to pay back all $2.5 billion. We'll see if that happens. If that does happen, the Prop 4 funding, that $1 billion for community resiliency, that funding will return to be distributed as the bond laid out, right?

Correct. So we haven't had ultimate confirmation, but we are hearing about $1.5 of that.

$2.5 billion is coming directly from the climate bond.

The idea is that, yes, if we do get those monies from EPA,

it will be backfilled into the climate bond to go out through competitive grants statewide.

Great.

And then for Prop 4, how much of the funding in there is potential for urban parks and urban resilience in there? I don't know what categories are included in that.

You know what? That's actually something I'll have to get back to you on. I know that it is a specific bucket, but I'll go ahead and send more information to staff

on exactly how much was included in that yeah I'd love to follow up on that for

potential funding opportunities as we complete our parks master plan in the next few months hopefully I think there will be a lot of interest in the community to see I would imagine as we get the plan a lot of interest for facilities and parks upgrades that we want to do and new facilities as well and if there's an opportunity to match up with potential grant funding opportunities out of prop four or other funding that might be available I think let's keep on on

the outlook for that. Absolutely. And then just I know you kind of detail a little bit in terms of

uncertainty of the federal and state level. I mean this might not be for you maybe more for staff but

last week we had for a brief moment a pause on federal funding. I know that was rescinded but

there's still questions about whether that pause well at the federal level they're still saying

that will happen at some point. I think we should all expect that to happen in some way, shape, or form. What's our kind of exposure risk in terms of how much federal funding we receive? I know we have HUD funding for CBG home grant funds. Well, those are block grants. But are there other funding sources? And this may come up in the mid-year budget forecast too. But what's our potential exposure to some of those? I know some of the federal and state funding we've received in the last few years through remarks and grant funding, that's pretty much we've already received all that money, so it's hard for that to be, that wouldn't be paused. But is there anything in flight that's at risk that we should be wary about in terms of grant funding at the federal or state level?

Sure.

Mr. Mayer, members of the council, we have Martha Garcia, our director of finance. She's going to make sure that I remembered everything she told me earlier today. So we have approximately $500,000 of federal dollars that we remember. A lot of the federal pots are reimbursable. So we expend the funds first, and then we get reimbursed on those funds. So $500,000 worth of projects that are currently in progress, that if we didn't receive that fund, that money is already being expended because we're doing projects with those funds. On the other side, funding that we anticipate receiving is about $4.1 million. And so some of that, and definitely if that funding doesn't come, if we think that there's going to be a pause or it's at risk, we could internally figure out what we're going to do to continue with some of those programs and then how we fund them, or we may pull back some of the programming that we have. So if it was through CDBG for some of our home programs, we might not have the same amount available. And the other item is the 1.5 for Fire Station 61 that we were not sure that we're, it's reimbursable. So we don't know if that's going to be impacted if the pause was to continue, if that makes sense.

Martha, did I miss anything? Thank you.

as possible, we should be managing that and cautiously, right? We don't want to be stuck with the bill with no, when we were expecting reimbursement or funding to come in from federal or state level or somewhere else and that funding not materializing, we don't want to be left holding the bag

to the extent possible.

So just keep the count, obviously no one knows, so we'll see, but let's add an additional layer of caution as we approach kind of federal funding and these potential risks.

And then, obviously, let's keep on the lookout

for other opportunities for federal funding. I'm curious, from the lobbying perspective,

what you're hearing. There's a lot of noise,

and I don't know if anyone has this answer or knows at this point, but we've gotten some federal earmarks over the last couple years,

or whatever it's called now,

district spending. What's your take from the lobbying advocacy perspective of whether, I mean, I believe Congress is still, members of Congress are still alLod to request

industry kind of project funding,

but your sense of the appetite in D.C.

given the very loud rhetoric about cutting back federal costs

and whether this is something that's probably not going to happen or going to happen in a different way going forward.

Yeah, absolutely.

So what we're seeing so far is that there is motivation to continue the typical federal community project funding earmarks process that we've seen in previous cycles.

Recent conversations in the majority party have indicated that there is enough support from Congress to move forward with the process we've seen from the last couple of fiscal years.

I will say that the priorities are going to be shifting a little bit.

So we are seeing more funding available in public safety accounts versus, you know, transportation, housing, urban development that we saw in previous cycles.

And there might be some changes in the guidelines. I know in previous cycles, museums were limited in their ability to apply for funding.

Certain nonprofits were restricted. So we might see some of those guidelines be updated again.

But up to this point, with the understanding that things are shifting and that the last fiscal year budget hasn't been authorized yet,

we we are seeing that appetite to move forward with the with the federal appropriations process as it's as it's been

Yeah

Great and then just on the federal funding pause I'm assuming that will probably come back in some way shape or form whatever we can do to

advocate and lobby for

That not to happen if we need to if the council needs to weigh in would count on staff and maybe take this as direction from the council if the others agree to be able to move quickly to weigh in on these whether that's issuing a letter or adding weight to Townsend to lobby in the halls

and on the hill and in the building around not having this happen and making sure to help share

There are stories about why we are in need of these kind of funding opportunities and what we're planning to do with these projects and the funding that's awarded and how critical they are for our city's operations, but also for our residents and the businesses and the community here. And so whatever we need you to help to make that case and help message that to not only our member of Congress, but other members in other states and on the Hill and to the White House as well, I want to be able to move quickly and to make sure that our voices are a part of the voices that are Expressing concerns around that moving forward and then also helping to express the need in our local communities for these kind of

funding opportunities

Just briefly I wanted to say thank you for helping us get so much grant funding Very appreciative of that and I know that there's a lot just like Councilmember Wong said there's a lot changing but whatever if you can keep us informed and in the loop in terms of especially in securing whatever items that are still pending that we haven't received funding for I think should especially from fiscal year from the last fiscal year would be I would think a priority I think

there was from the slide I think there was one or two items I believe I'm not sure if we can go back

to the, I think it was one of the earlier slides.

There's one pending federal appropriations request, and then there's one pending grant to FEMA.

So there's two total federal funding requests. That's what I counted.

So yeah, whatever we can do to make sure that we secure those and we get them in, and I know that Washington is changing a lot. So whatever we can do on our, just like Council Member Wong said, we can do on our side to try to move these forward, that would be great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Ms. Murray? Ms. Murray? Yes.

Thank you for that presentation. My only comment is that this week, and again, thank you for also covering all of the government, but I do want to point out that this week's special session of the state legislature, they did appropriate $25 million in grants to nonprofits that provide immigration-related services. and if there are any grants that are being programmed

that could be helpful to our non-profits in our own community or even to

municipalities, I think it would be helpful for us to know or even to disseminate that information to community-based organizations that again

provide any

immigration-related services since again the $25 million

is meant for the purpose of

of providing information and resources to that community that we all know is being targeted by the White House.

If we have additional grants, which email should we send to?

You can send them over to me, or if you want to just loop in staff, they'll connect appropriately to whichever it is.

No other questions?

So thank you, Lisa and Asesia, for all your help in the partnership with Townsend. As the chart shows, we have been appropriated $3.5 million, which is better than the zero we got if we didn't apply. And thank you for all your help and your partnership. And I know we still got some pending. We know there's some fluid dynamics with D.C. and the state, but, you know, it's good to know that we've been appropriated.

That's a start. So thank you so much. Thank you.

Old business? No old businesses? Consent calendar? 3A to 3K?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to pull 3A and 3J for presentations.

A and J for Thomas. Okay.

I'll be recusing myself from 3D.

Okay, 3D.

There's no other changes.

I'm having to make the motion for the remaining items on consent.

So we have a motion.

I'll second.

Second by Councilman Sanchez.

Let's take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Approved.

Okay, let's go specifically to 3A.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Council, Laura Bourgeon, Finance Manager. I'm here to present the Mid-Year Financial Report for Fiscal Year 2425. My presentation will include an overview of the general fund revenues, expenditures, five-year projection, and budget augmentation requests.

Overall general fund revenues received are at 40% of the original budgeted amounts.

This is because certain revenues have a delay in when they are received, specifically sales tax and property tax revenues.

Next slide.

General fund expenditures are at 43.5%.

Next slide.

the general fund five-year projection revenues are have been updated to reflect an increase of approximately four million dollars in the current fiscal year and this is because it includes

increased property values and utility services the passing of ballot measures and favorable trends

in use fee and interest revenue.

Next slide.

Our five-year expenditure projections include carryovers to show impacts to reserves. The city is controlling its expenditures in a prudent and fiscally responsible manner.

Next slide.

Currently, the city is requesting to increase the committed catastrophic amount by $500,000 from $8.8 million to $9.3 million.

The committed catastrophic and committed stabilization fund balances will make up the GFOA recommended

15% of the city's general fund operating budget. Next slide, please. General fund budget augmentation requests are a total $4,750,000, $3 million for the fire station 63 renovation project, $1 million for Capitol Street improvements, and $750,000 for city hall parking lot improvement projects.

Next slide.

Internal service funds budget augmentation includes of $355,000, includes $25,000 from building maintenance funds for the upgrade to the city hall elevator doors, and $330,000 of shop funds to cover the cost of fire department vehicle maintenance and the repair of two police vehicles.

City is requesting a major augmentation in the amount of $6,912,063 from various funds.

SR 710 funds in the amount of $6,049,115 for the Ramona Road Capacity and Adaptive Traffic Projects.

$149,881 in various library grant funds for staffing costs and library supplies,

business improvement area funds in the amount of $33,067 for maintenance services,

street capital funds in the amount of $350,000 for various street projects, and ground emergency transportation service funds in the amount of $330,000. The proposed staff changes consist of various add and delete and reclassifications that reduce the city's...

Oh, next. Oh. Okay. Next. Sorry.

So that includes my presentation. I'm available to answer any questions you may have.

Questions, comments?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to the finance team. Appreciate the update on the mid-year budget forecast. I think all in all, appreciate that we are managing the city's finances effectively and conservatively,

and we're pretty much on track from what I can tell.

A couple questions along the way and then some other things to point out. Now, property tax, I know in the staff report, it talks about how county rates overpaid our property tax last year, so we're essentially paying that back by receiving less property tax this year.

Is that payback complete,

or is that going to hit the next round of property tax revenue that's going to come in?

so what happened was uh the property taxes were repaid already so yes that is complete

and do we know i assume the error was on county because they pay out the tax do we know what happened there and is there anything being done to make sure it doesn't happen again

it was it was the county's error and it was uh uh they overpaid us for some abatements and we, they, originally they were just going to have us reduce, reduce revenue, but by the end of the fiscal year they asked for the rest of it back, so we paid them all in a

lump sum.

So it was good that we had money to pay them back with, but the, do we do any kind of gut checks, reality checks, when we receive revenue from different sources, just to make sure that we're kind of on track at least to identify these problems? if the payer of some of these revenues doesn't realize it over pays or does something else and we're not recovering or even under pays in some cases potentially are we checking that ourselves to make sure we're not going to be in a position where we're not going to have funding or something we're going to be in a weird spot where we may not have the money to pay something back so we

immediately noticed the anomaly and set the money aside we didn't use it so it was really immediately realized that there was something odd about that payment that we received.

So we quickly contacted.

We were the ones that notified L.A. County that they had made, that we believed that

they had made an error.

And then they checked out their records and realized they made an error. And then originally, like I said, they were going to reduce our moving forward some of

our revenues.

But then at the last minute, at the end of the fiscal year, they asked us to return the

rest. But we did not spend it. We set it aside.

But on top of that, we received some interest on it because we got to keep the interest

that it earned while it sat in our bank.

Good to know.

! Good to know and good that good to know we're on top of it and we're trying to keep an eye out ! for these kind of situations. ! Whatever we need to do to push county to make sure because I imagine if we got hit with

!

an overpayment someone else maybe got an underpayment so there may be other ripple effects to

!

some of these errors at the county side. what we can do I'm sure they're looking at this but if we need to do anything else to

encourage them to improve their systems or do some root cause analysis around this to

Council Member keep this from happening. Whatever we can do to help them, I think would be great.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, just wanted to point out that we don't typically see that type of error on LA County's part. Definitely we monitor as staff caught that error, but understand what you're saying. We want to make sure that, yes, the funds that we do receive in revenues, that those are correct and accurate, but we will continue to monitor it as close as possible. But this was definitely non-typical. We don't usually see that type of error on Alley County's part.

Yeah, absolutely. This should not be typical.

Otherwise, we would have some problems.

Just quickly on the revenue to date, looks like UUT is down from last year, this time

last year.

Just curious if we have any thoughts on why. I don't know if it was just a less hot summer and there was less electricity use or if we have any ideas on that.

I'm just guessing I have no idea it's it's it can fluctuate based on when the revenues coming in

sometimes our utility companies will might have to wait a little bit to make a payment or maybe it was when our staff might have registered it because we pulled the information on the 31st it might have December it might have come in on July on January 2nd so it's not a in in it's not significant. It's not really an anomaly and we are anticipating to receive the full amount.

Good to know. I'm in full support of staff's

recommendation for the budget augmentations for mid-year the $3 million for fire station 63, the capital street improvements

and city hall parking lot improvement projects. For the fire

station, one, my comment on that is whatever we can do to get that done faster I THINK THE BETTER. ALSO, RIGHT, WE'VE ON A TIMELINE IN TERMS OF THE STATE FUNDING THAT WAS RECEIVED FOR THE FIRE STATION 63

RENOVATIONS.

KNOWING THIS IS A COMPLEX PROJECT AND WE'RE TRYING TO MAKE SURE WE DO EVERYTHING EFFICIENTLY AND EFFECTIVELY WITH IT, BUT FULL SUPPORT OF THAT AND WHATEVER WE NEED TO DO TO ACCELERATE THE REPLACEMENT OF THAT FIRE STATION, I WOULD LOVE TO SUPPORT ANY OTHER ACTIONS WE NEED TO TAKE AND CAN TAKE TO GET THAT GOING FASTER.

I think the, I'm worried, well, one,

I want to make sure our firefighters have proper accommodations and make sure we're supporting our public safety leaders and the fire department in particular in this case. But two, just want to make sure we get ahead of likely construction cost inflation that's probably going to get worse in the coming years, and labor and all that stuff. And the faster we can get this built, I think that's also a cost savings and cost effectiveness. kind of value for us I think. On the City Hall parking lot improvement, I know this is just the budget augmentation to do this. The actual project will come back to Council, right?

Just confirming?

Correct.

And then I will just, as we, if this is approved today,

I want to emphasize we'd love to see EV charging integrated into City Hall parking. We've got one DC fast charger station with two ports.

You got I think all five all four most of the council members and many more

Members of the public drive electric vehicles. There's no publicly available charging at City Hall other than that DC fast charger

So that to the extent to the extent we can make sure we're we're meeting the needs of the community

I think I just want to emphasize that

on The reserves of fully support

Taking some of our likely, our expected surplus this year, truly isn't a surplus because there's plenty of need for us to direct that money to, which is why I support the augmentation recommendations today. But half a million dollars to add to our catastrophic reserve fund, right?

Correct.

The goal is to get to 11 and a half, 11-ish million in there. I would be in full support of doing more than half a million direct provide direction if the other council members are in support of this for staff to come back with another augmentation if if we can do it with funding to get to the goal of 15% of our general fund revenues Faster than the I think three years left on the schedule to get to 15%. If we can add additional money into that reserve account, I think faster, and this year in particular, since we have the room to do that, I think we should get there sooner than later. I would anticipate, and please correct me if I'm wrong

in my thinking on this, right,

our general fund revenues will likely continue to grow as we showed in the mid-year budget. So that is a moving target in terms of the 15%. So the more that we can put in when we can afford it

is when we should put it in.

and I think if we can get to 15% to 20%,

I'm worried.

We were just talking about federal and state grant funding risk and particularly on the federal end, reimbursement basis in terms of those grant funding. There's more and more risk in terms of the city's exposure financially to some of these costs. The more I am hearing that and feeling that, I think the more of a case that's made in my mind about the need for more funding set aside in reserves specifically for things like this. Because if some of these grants fall through, especially some of these contracts or these reimbursable grants and funding opportunities fall through,

we're left holding the bag.

We need to have money on hand for things like that. So if we want to come back or if staff wants to do an analysis and see how much beyond the half-million-dollar additional set aside for the catastrophic reserves we can do this year, this fiscal year. I'd love to bring that back for Council to take action on and add additional funding.

Council Member Wong, with our city attorney's guidance, we may today update the recommendation to include up to $2 million based on the close of the fiscal year and the surplus that we may have. And if we move it up by the $2 million, we will be at the 15%.

Great.

And council may make that motion tonight if our city attorney agrees.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, that's fine.

All right. Sounds good.

So I will include that in my motion when I make it. on the just for my understanding sake right our general fund reserve is basically made up of the catastrophic event fund and then there's the working capital fund which is only three million

dollars the catastrophic and the working capital are considered both committed for an event that working capital would be moving money around when we're in a catastrophic situation So they're both combined under catastrophic event. Then there's also $1.9 million for the Potrero Grande that's been committed before our Public Works Department can use it. Towards that CIP project, we would have to come back to council with a vote to release it from committed and move to a CIP project. The rest of it, and some of it is unassigned. The sign already includes the CIP projects that we brought to Council today. We put them there to safeguard the funds just in the event that it was approved by Council tonight. And it includes other carryovers, other CIP carryovers, and other items that we owe that we've already committed via contracts or other obligations that we have. And the unassigned is unassigned.

Right.

So in my mind, right, the cash traffic event fund and the working capital, well, do you know offhand, I'm reading here, and I'm not sure if I read it right or if there's a typo, the cash traffic event fund, I'm on page 22 of the agenda packet for the general fund balance.

Cash traffic event says, I believe it's at 5.8 million.

I don't know if that is supposed to be 8.5 million or if I read that wrong in the earlier part of the report.

So in our GL, in our general ledger, we have it split by catastrophic event and working capital. But those two combined would be in an event that we had a bad event. So in the report it's correct because it's based on our general ledger. So if you add the 5.8 and the 3 million, that's what we would have set aside for a catastrophic event. And then again the other 1.8, 1.9 million rounded up.

IS FOR POTRERO GRANDO THAT ALSO SITS IN THE COMMITTED LINE ITEM.

OKAY. SO THE WHEN I READ CASH ROCK OF EVENT AND WORKING CAPITAL IN

THESE PARAGRAPHS, RIGHT, BOTH OF THE PARAGRAPH SAY THE GOAL IS TO HAVE 15 TO 20 PERCENT IN EACH OF THESE FUNDS. I DON'T KNOW IF THAT WAS REALLY MEANT THAT COMBINED.

COMBINED.

YEAH. OKAY. SO IT'S NOT 30 TO 40 PERCENT. IT'S 15 TO 20 WITH BOTH ACCOUNTS ADDED TOGETHER. And then current so if we're at 8.8 right now by my reading add 2 million we're at 10. whatever right 11

That's about right 15% I think the closer we I don't want to stop us from saving either I think going forward I think we should still commit funding into the next budget here To continue to build this fund Right because I want I'd like I'd rather get to 20% than stay at 15 plus 15% of a growing general fund revenue, right, budget will continue to, that moving target will continue to grow. So we'll have to continue to add money into the reserve.

My other question here is, do we have, right,

this is just based on general fund revenue and expenses. We also have enterprise funds, right, the trash, water, sewer, everything else the city does, right, we're easily more than double the general fund in terms of annual expenses for the city. do we have any reserves set aside in enterprise funds or outside of the general fund expenditures that we make? Are there other reserves we need to access or should be setting aside for the other activities of the city?

When the Prop 218 was done for water and sewer, that was calculated in there to have a reserve of also 15%. So eventually once the revenues start coming in, we should be able to have a reserve of up to 15%.

So for water and sewer? Yes. Okay.

But that will be over the whole five-year period?

Correct.

Do we currently have, I mean, how significant are our reserves in the water or sewer account currently?

I'm just curious.

I don't have that number right now, but I know our sewers should be okay. Our water, we're monitoring it closely.

closely and in in the event of emergency though the water the air water enterprise fund could access general fund revenue or reserve account for

repairs or anything we make

All right, that's all I got. Thank you any other comments or questions

Comment again, thank you for

reporting this to council and to community and again I appreciate that you also mentioned in your report the stats of the SR710 funding and so the other thing I would emphasize is if there's anything we can do to accelerate the funding for the parking structures

you know we let us know because you know we as council you know have been

discussing since my previous term and so I'd like to be able to say we broke ground before my term ends

alright so

So my two cents here. First one is thank you, because at the end of the day, we ran a surplus of, I wrote it down somewhere, but my notes are so squibbly right now, roughly $13 million last year. This year, the surplus is going to be $3.37, something like that, which means we're saving money. We're going to put it in the coffers. we're getting close to the 15% on the reserves good news better news when we get to 20% so we're saving for the future because in the past we just didn't have that luxury that's my my takeaway and with that do we have a motion I'll

make them really quick though I have a quick additional question which I'm sure

Carl will have a very fast answer to potentially I don't know if we have any

ANY UPDATE THAT YOU CAN GIVE ON POTENTIAL RECOVERY OF FUNDS FROM ANY, I'LL MAKE THE MOTION TO ADOPT STAFF REGENDATION FOR THE MID-YEAR BUDGET AUGMENTATIONS AND CHANGES WITH THE ADDITIONAL CAVEAT OF THE ADDITIONAL, SOUNDS LIKE $2 MILLION TO SET ASIDE FOR THE RESERVE

fund.

Carl, do you have to

add comments to that or we're clear? No,

the motion's clear. I was

waiting for you to take a vote on the motion so I can answer the question that I anticipate coming.

I'll second. Second by pro tem. No other questions. Let's take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

All right. You want to add comments now or you're good?

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, did you want me to answer the question that I anticipate

you're going to add?

As I was formulating my question, I wasn't sure if this is a closed session item or...

No, it's...

status of the litigation is two of the cases have been dismissed mainly because the property owner

has fired their attorneys and failed to hire new ones and so as a corporation a corporation cannot

represent itself in court it's they have to have representation which is an attorney the eminent domain case had a hearing last week and was continued for 30 days to give an opportunity for the property owners to once again try to get attorneys. We don't anticipate that will happen, so we will see what the next steps are. For us, the next steps mean that because those two cases were dismissed, the court order that was preventing us from foreclosing on some of the properties where we have security interests has been lifted, so we are moving forward with a foreclosure sale on the South El Monte property, which is worth about $2 million. bucks so our office has given authority to the trustee to begin those procedures which were put on hold to pursue into a court order i don't have a date off the top of my head of when we expect that foreclosure sale to happen but the mechanism is in place and moving forward some of the rest

of it also all public it's as you know the number of abatement liens on the property far outweighs

the last assessment or valuation for that particular piece of property so whether we acquire it through eminent domain or through executing on the abatement lanes in either event we anticipate that this city will have title to the property we continue to have legal possession of the property present to a court order under the eminent domain action that's an order of possession and as you also know it's sort of a case of first impression from the standpoint of we deposited a thousand dollars with the state fund in order to ensure that all the boxes were checked with regard to our eminent domain action i don't know that anyone's posited the theory that i forwarded which was hey we have so much liens on the property that we've already in essence paid for it so that's where we stand in a very quick nutshell but i'm happy to answer any questions or certainly follow up in a closed session if that's what the council's interested

in talking about thanks carl appreciate it and i don't know if i missed this but uh what's the rough timeline for our eminent domain proceedings to potentially be finalized again it was continued

for about 30 days we're going to increase the heat on the other side from the standpoint of we're now issuing discovery requests including what are called requests for admissions which will basically make the city's case again i don't anticipate based upon the reluctance of the property owners thus far to replace their council with new council that we're going to be confronted with anybody anytime soon so we will see what happens but we're in a holding pattern at least

for the next 30 days and typically how long would a eminent domain proceeding take oh that's

difficult to say some some take decades but in this particular instance i'm hoping that we will

have a definitive answer by the end of the year

okay thank you Carl let's go to the second pool item which is 3j I'm going

to go with staff report first okay 3j I'm going to recuse myself okay

Good evening, Mayor Ngo, Council Members.

Again, I'm Christina Alatorre, Recreation Manager. I'm here with the Director, Robert Aguirre.

So we are hoping to adopt a resolution authorizing the City Manager to execute a façade easement

agreement with a property located at 153 East Garvey Avenue for community mural. So the greetings

tour is a nationwide public art project led by muralist Victor Ving and photographer Lisa Beggs. The project specializes in creating postcard style murals that reflect the unique character of each city it partners with. We'd like to share a brief timeline of where we've been and where the plans are for this project. On September 18th, 2024, City Council authorized the City Manager to execute an agreement with the Greetings Tour and artist Victor Ving in the amount of $40,000 from a fund that was undetermined at the time. On October 22nd, the Community Participation Commission voted unanimously to recommend the property located at 153 East Garvey Avenue for the Greeting Tour mural. With this, staff has been in contact with the property owners who are enthusiastic about the opportunity to host a community mural on their property.

On January 16, 2025, staff met with the Business Improvement District Advisory Committee to share the project.

Members express their support and will have this item on a future agenda to consider a financial contribution towards the project. Tonight, staff is recommending for city council to adopt a resolution authorizing city manager to execute an easement agreement. Staff is also recommending city council appropriate development impact funds for the previously approved $40,000 for the greetings to our artists. If approved tonight, we will begin the community engagement project in late February to gain input on what images the community would like to see represented in the mural letters. And this completes our staff report and we are available for any questions.

Questions, comments?

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to staff. I'm really excited and wanted to showcase that we are continuing to bring art and public art into public spaces in the city. fully support this project happy to see it continue and move forward and look forward to the process just can you remind us what the timeline is going to be I know she said that the community engagement will start end of February when how long would that take and then how long with the painting and when

would the mural potentially be up yeah Robert Aguirre director of recreation

and community services so we're looking at doing engagement so late February we anticipate community engagement going for about a month so we want to make sure it gets into the Cascades and that all the community is aware of the community engagement

has an opportunity to provide their input.

Shortly after that, Victor Ving will work on the design.

That design we anticipate coming back to Council sometime in April and with the, hopefully,

the art going up early May.

So it should be, hopefully, we're hoping to hit a mark that right around Play Days time,

we'll be able to celebrate the city's birthday and also a new mural that reflects and represents

the community.

great no I'm looking forward to it

also one thing to keep in mind working with the artists

they are looking

to get this hopefully

up before the summertime

due to the weather conditions

outside great and then

I forgot my question but I just wanted

to encourage us to I'm excited about this project would love to see us

do even more art in public spaces and if there are opportunities I think we were scouting out potential other sites to host this type of artwork I think those are also potential sites to revisit for other art projects I don't know how active our utility box painting program is currently if we want to revitalize that as well and if there are other opportunities to continue to look at spaces that we can partner with organizations like Vincent Price Art Museum or other local artists to showcase their work. We'd love to also, I know we did a great job, appreciate our recreation community services bringing art into Langley Senior Center and the Boys and Girls Club partnership and all that. We'd love to see us do a lot more to refresh inside spaces in our facilities as well, maybe even the gym once the floors are done, if there are walls that could host art and highlight local artists. I think that'd be great to start to explore some more too.

absolutely thank you yeah and we and just I do want to give a shout out to the

Langley Center I mean sorry to the library they are actually hosting so

after we did the Vincent Price show with Langley Center and the teens from the

Boys and Girls Club we also did a healthy habits show that featured fruits

and vegetables those paintings are right now actually being displayed at the

Brighamire Library so you can all you can go check out the art there and then

Obviously that the art is still up at Lingley Center from the first show

All right, thank you. Thank you. Yes

Robert thank thank you and to staff as well I think earlier in the year when we are last year when Council came to you staff about doing murals. I think you guys responded very well And I really appreciate the effort that's been put forth. I did have one just question about the location Can you remind us? why we chose 153 East Garvey?

I'm looking at it on the map.

It's kind of, can you just tell us the location, a little bit more about the location, yeah?

Yeah, so we actually worked with the artist and did some scouting of properties throughout the community.

There were some requirements that the artist was looking for, obviously size of wall.

Also, we're looking at east-facing or north-facing due to just kind of longevity of the art piece.

This is actually, for those that are familiar

with the area along Garvey Avenue, North Lincoln.

So that parking lot the city owns, that parking lot, and this is from Martin's Forest. So this is a high visibility area.

As we mentioned in the previous staff reports, a lot of these art pieces are usually in like

downtown business districts.

They're in areas where we get a lot of high traffic or they attract people to business

areas.

so they're used kind of utilized as a tool to not only get visitors but also to spark business and

commerce and hopefully revitalize an area with art so we look at this as an opportunity to not

just bring art to the city but also bring a spark to to the downtown district i think that's a great

idea and i hope it it does do that and it attracts more people to come to our downtown district and spend more money and visit a lot of our restaurants with also this new attraction and i think as we move forward just as council member wong said um you know as we look at other potential projects uh mural projects uh that we kind of keep that in mind the business aspect of it in terms of attracting people and attracting uh you know even visitors or tourists uh into our city uh but also ensuring that we're spreading the murals throughout different parts of the city

um as well absolutely yeah yeah and i will share that's that's also the reason uh the community

participation really supported this location was for those same reasons so yeah I would just

highlight kind of off of that right that's the that parking lot is also the site of during the Lunar Year Festival that's where the carnival is absolutely we've hosted some resource fairs there in that parking lot as well and there's potential to host other kinds of events in that area

absolutely yeah it's a very visible location

Thank you for the presentation. I'm excited for the project.

It is in my city council district and so it's a source of pride for myself as well as for the entire city as a whole.

I want to also just ask a question.

I think in my meeting with the manager she explained. So that sign or mural, it's movable, right?

It's portable?

Yeah.

So in working with the artists, we wanted, we understand that this is going up on a private property. So we wanted to also protect that investment. The city is, you know, essentially we're investing $40,000 into this art, understanding that, you know, things can change over time. And so we wanted to have the ability that if something were to be built in that area

or if there was ever an obstruction or just the property owner changed

or the facade easement agreement was terminated, it gives us the ability to move that same art piece to another location. We don't lose that art that the community has worked so hard to give their input and put together. Just sort of a reminder, when we do the community outreach, we're actually going to be putting,

what you're seeing here is the lettering and the font,

but there's going to be images within those letters that represent the community.

And the community input portion of this is really getting input from the community

on what types of images they would like to see, whether it's landmarks,

famous folks from the community, cultural elements.

And so some of those, there will be actually a website

where people can select different types of images. It won't be the exact image, but it'll be inspirations for those images.

I'll give you an example of like maybe cherry blossoms

or something like that.

And then the artists will kind of come up with a rendering

that will come back to council for that. So there will already be preselected motivational images.

and then also the community also is able to submit their own ideas

or inspirations for additional images as well.

Great. Thank you.

So I am curious to see what type of food items they'll put up there. And we'll know by April, right, because it goes to the CBC for review and then it gets to us, so I'm excited.

So thank you.

With that said, do we have a recommendation?

I'll move.

Moved by Councilman Sanchez. Second by Councilman Wang. Take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

All right.

So let's get the pro tem back to her seat.

Okay.

Okay, going on to public hearing, none.

New business, none.

So let's go with Resolution 6A, a resolution of the city of Monterey Park, California, declaring and recognizing the month of February 2025 as National Black History Month. Do I have any council members who want to talk about this?

We voted as a group, but if someone wants to. Yeah.

Equity and Transit Day. So if you missed it, make sure you put it in your calendar for next year because you get to ride for free in public transport, both metro and buses and everything. So it's a great way to also highlight the legacy of a civil rights leader, Rosa Parks.

I did want to share just very briefly

directly from the resolution,

just a couple of highlights. As early as the 17th century, Africans were forcibly brought to American shores to be enslaved, and black Americans have subsequently faced systematic injustices of lynch mobs, segregation, racist attacks, discrimination, and denial of basic fundamental rights. Despite said injustices that continue to exist today, black Americans have made significant contributions to the economic, educational, political, and artistic, literary, and scientific, and technological advancements within the U.S. So I just wanted to make sure that we highlight the contributions of black Americans in our country

and in our communities.

And I just also wanted to highlight that the theme for this year is African Americans and labor. And the focus this year is on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds, free and unfree, skilled and unskilled, vocational, involuntary, intersect with collective experiences of black people. So I hope that everyone will join together and commemorate February.

It's Black History Month.

And we heard earlier from the library in terms of a lot of the events. I've counted four events this month happening within our library. I encourage you to also share and go to the library and check out some of the books that are being exhibited in the library that commemorate and celebrate Black History Month. And I did want to say one last thing, because I know we recently had major fires this last month that, tragically, a lot of people lost their homes to. But one of the cities that was particularly impacted was Altadena, which is a predominantly black community, historically has been. And I know that black people in that community have been drastically more than any other group in that area impacted by those fires. So as we think about celebrating Black History Month, that we keep that in mind in terms of the many black families. And a lot of those black people who lost their homes in Altadena were also elderly, on average, over 65 years of age. So I wanted to make sure that we highlight that and also what they're going through and be mindful of what they're going through currently. So hopefully the council will support and and highlight and we continue to celebrate Black History Month Not just in the month of February, but throughout the year. Thank you

Do we have a so I'll move all right councilmember Sanchez second any second

second by councilmember Lo take a vote

Approved unanimously

All right, let's move on to the next resolution, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Monterey Park, California, affirming support for California's anti-price gouging laws. Council Member Molo, do you want to take the honor to walk through that?

Sure. Again, thank you, Council, for putting us on the agenda. As we know, and as my council member just mentioned, we've had communities that were impacted by wildfires, wildfires, and right now it is under a state statute unlawful for anyone to take advantage of misfortune and disasters, and not just because it will impact those seeking shelter after the survivors of these natural disasters, but also it has an impact on our own community

as well.

And I just want to make very loud and clear for anyone out there in our community that if you wish to exploit and gouge people for your own interests, we will not allow that

to happen in our city.

With that, I ask approval for the resolution.

I move for approval.

Council Member Lo, do I hear a second? Second. Second by Pro Tem Yang.

Let's take a vote.

Approved unanimously.

Okay.

Next item here is city communications.

We'll start with Council Member Wong.

No communications? Okay. Press member Lo?

No? All right. Well, I will say a couple of things to wrap this up.

It's been a week now with Lunar New Year, so there's been plenty of activities, not only starting with our festival, but also celebrating in the city of San Gabriel, Rose Meade, Temple City, Arcadia, just the festive events. I also attended the, a shout out to pastors, Greg and Julie Baez, along with Council Member Sanchez. The two pastors were ordained at Union Church, and also kudos and thank you to Pastor Greg Baez, because he also serves as a volunteer chaplain with our police department. We were all in unity. We were at the ribbon cutting for jumping lobsters just earlier this week.

And we can wrap it up.

I think you guys are all surprised.

So meetings adjourned at 821.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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