City Council Meeting — October 15, 2025

! I didn't even prep her.

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

I don't think we heard someone that's good over here.

Are you coming in and talk to her?

Thank you.

okay

oh Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, good evening everyone. Let's call this meeting to order.

Let's start with the Monterey Park Police Explorers.

Please rise for the flag salute. Let's start with the Monterey Park Police Explorers. Please rise for the flag salute.

Upward face.

Upward face. Preset, colors.

Ready, begin.

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

Order, colors.

Upward face. Forward march.

Post colors.

About face. Dismissed.

Thank you. You may be seated.

Madam Clerk, may we get a roll call, please?

Council Member Ngo. Present. Council Member Wong. Present. Council Member Sanchez. Present. Mayor Pro Temlo. Here. Mayor Yang.

Present. We have a quorum. Thank you.

Any agenda revisions or additions?

Okay.

No, Madam Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, and we'll start with the land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was one known as Tovangaar, the home of the Gabrielino-Tongva people. We show our respect to the Gabrielino-Tongva people, as well as all indigenous people past, present, and future, and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. We commit to uplifting the Gabrielino-Tongva people, invite you to acknowledge the history and join us in caring for this land. Do we have any public communications tonight?

Yes?

Okay, it looks like we have one public communication by Don Rock.

Good evening, Madam Wonder Woman and City Council members and dedicated staff. My name is Dawn Rock, and I've had the privilege of calling Monterey Park my home for over 50 years.

First, I want to sincerely thank each of you for the many ways you supported last Sunday's swim campaign event.

Its success wasn't the result of one person. It was a product of a whole community coming together. From the swimmers, coaches, sponsors, and donors of every size, to the elected officials and volunteers, both on the front lines and behind the scenes, every single contribution mattered. My heartfelt gratitude goes to each and every one of you. This is just the beginning, and now the real work begins. Thank you, Robert, and thank you to the city staff for organizing the community meetings that invite residents to help shape the conceptual design for the revitalization of Barnes Park Pool. Holding a separate session specifically for competitive swimmers was such a thoughtful idea. These athletes and their families have unique insights that will be invaluable to creating a pool that serves everyone, from beginners to champions. And now on another note, a totally different topic. I'd like to share some of the work that I've been involved in as part of the San Gabriel Valley LGBTQ Plus Youth Advocacy Coalition in collaboration with Rainbow Labs, SGVLGBTQ Center, and the California Department of Public Health, All Children Thrive. Our purpose is to inform future policies that support the well-being of LGBTQ plus youth in the San Gabriel Valley. I was asked to be part of this amazing group because of my involvement with PFLAG, which I was introduced through Stacia Cato, president of the SGV API chapter. And so thank you, Thomas, for introducing me to Stacia. The coalition meets weekly for business sessions, trainings, and collaborative work. During a recent meeting, as we identified potential stakeholders, businesses, nonprofits, organizations, and elective officials, my colleagues proudly mentioned that their city council members support our cause. and so it made me think of my city council members here in Monterey Park and I felt confident that you two would stand by this effort so I shared your names as potential supporters for more information on the coalition please visit rainbow labs.org to read more about the organization and our cause if any of you would prefer that I not include your name please don't hesitate to reach out to me. And as we continue this work, if you can think of any Monterey Park businesses or organizations that might be supportive stakeholders for our LGBTQ plus youth, I would love to hear your ideas. I'm truly looking forward to continuing our work together on the Barnes Park Pool Project. Thank you, as always, for your time, your service, and your commitment to our community.

Thank you.

We have another public speaker, Margaret Leung.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members and City staff.

I just want to say what it was.

It was an incredible event on October 5th,

and we have over 65 volunteers and 70 swimmers from ages between 10 to 55 plus

who came together to make a splash to cause that united us all, saving Barnes Park Pool.

From young swimmers to lifelong athletes, everyone dove in with one shared purpose,

to help to preserve a place that has taught generations the value of courage, community, and teamwork.

In less than two months, our community organized, delivered in a truly successful event,

a reflection of passion, dedication, and unity. and the event was covered by ABC Channel 7 and World Journal,

and it was very well covered,

and I believe, my understanding, there was commitment for follow-up coverage.

Did you say?

Oh, okay. And I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to every swimmer, volunteer,

and supporter who made this moment unforgettable.

Together, we're proving that when Monterey Park moved as one, anything is possible. We are truly the champion of our youth and community.

We were honored to have Coach Ish Perez, the head swim coach for the Mark Keppel High School, as our emcee.

His energy, enthusiasm, and dedication to our youth set the perfect tone for the evening. Thank you, Coach Ish, for always leading by example and inspiring the next generation of athletes. And thank you, David Jones, who opened our event with a beautiful rendition of the national anthem.

I don't think we'll ever forget that.

Your voice inspired pride and unity from the very first note.

We were also very deeply honored to be joined by Coach Lee, 1988 Olympian who share his time, energy, and wisdom with our community.

Please join me in thanking Coach Lee in an inspiration to swimmers and...

and Cindy E.

We extend our appreciation also to Mayor Elizabeth Yang

for her leadership

and commitment to preserving this cherished space.

Council Member Thomas Wong, we really thank you for coming out,

swimming with the swimmers. That was wonderful.

but I just want to let you know that you didn't take the number one place. We will announce that in a later day.

And we also want to thank Council Member Henry Lo.

He did a really great inspiration speech.

And I've got to tell you this, we received a lot of feedback for that speech,

and most people said that was one of his best speech ever.

And I just want to thank Rick Romo, who did the t-shirts and whatnot, the t-shirts and the flyer.

Anita from the Acadia came out, President Booster Club came out and supported us.

And Adrian Ant, who did the professional photographer. And Jonathan Quine, who did the beautiful DJ and keep the atmosphere upbeat and joyful.

and most of all I want to thank John Neber

three time Olympic gold medalist

and the Rose Bowl the board member

and even though he wasn't able to be with us

he was in Europe his guidance and belief in this mission

continue to inspire us

and I just want to cover one more thing

and we talked about this Elizabeth on Monday at the CACA meeting, we talked about there was a striking statistic that was shared at the meeting about college admission. The general acceptance rate for the Harvard for last year was 5.3%. But if you are invited athlete, swimmer, diver, your chances of getting into a Harvard is 86%. I couldn't believe it until I looked into this particular statistic. 25% of the Harvard total admission are student athletes. And there is a rating for swimmers and divers.

The success rate are much higher.

And with this, there is also just to talk about this particular quality training

and facility like Barnes Park, who is so critical.

Coach Lee's program, diving program, is a living proof.

40% of Coach Lee's students have gotten into Ivy League school.

It's unbelievable.

His track record, 100% of his students all have gotten into the top 50 U.S. colleges.

So this swimming pool is not just only for the competitive swimming program. It's also giving the students an opportunity to have a better future.

So I just want to make that clear, make that point.

When we save the pool, we're not just restoring a facility. We're opening doors to opportunity, education, and lifelong success for our youth. and and also uh with uh coach ish and coach lee's um help we have put together a draft of the user requirement for the pool and i want to share that with you because this is in preparation of the city meeting coming up in talking about the design conceptual design of the pool i just want to making sure that we are prepared for that meeting and i'll share that with you guys

Thank you, Margaret. Yeah, we all mostly attended the fundraiser, and it was very well organized.

Yeah, I just want to make one more quick point. It's going to take me very short here.

I attended today the quarterly Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District meeting today. It was an eye-opener.

I just want to let City Manager know the grant that is available for 2026 is $58 million.

Fifty-eight.

So we went through the numbers that we have as of today that it shows Monterey Park has over $1.3 million available to us to use today, and we haven't used that fund. That's been allocated to Monterey Park. I was reminded by this organization that we still have the money we could use. And not only that, there's another quarter million dollars that's been set aside for facility. So I just want to know that this particular grant is due on October 29, 10 a.m.,

not a minute later than that from what I understand.

And this grant is going to be very competitive, and we've got to make sure that we follow the rules that have been set out for this particular grant. And not only that, in order to do so, we've got to make sure that the package includes a 50% construction drawing and the sequels requirement.

Thank you. $58 million is a lot. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

That's all for our... Madam Mayor, you have a comment.

So can I have staff kind of look into, I appreciate Margaret's comments. It's good to hear that your involvement with the LA County. Can we verify the 1.4 million? Is that, if it's allocated, is that our money? Is it in our position or is it something that we have to go request? And if we did, maybe we have a follow-up and explain where that money is going to be used for.

Because it is a Parks and Recs grant, right?

Correct.

our director of recreation is here

you could chat about it briefly if the council

is interested in hearing that we can have him

speak about that now if you'd like yeah just

clarification would be good

good evening Mayor

and City Council members

the 1.4 I think it's about 1.3 money that she was referring to is our annual allocation that is

an amount that is accrued over

multiple years so each year the city does get a portion of money that can be used towards projects or recreational projects so we do allocate some funding towards projects if you recall that is actually some of the money that we used for the recent park system master plan uh the other grant that was mentioned yes that is the uh at the last meeting the resolution that was approved that is for the measure a grant that was mentioned and that's where we'll be applying for not only the planning and development uh for the pool as well as a development grant for the pool and another

grant for planning and development for recreational trails.

And sorry, Robert, if you can just clarify also.

The allocation funds, those are not competitive funds. Those are allocated directly to the city, correct? Correct.

Each city gets a certain allocation.

So just to projects that we have coming up. So we have a resurfacing project that will be utilizing some of those funds, and that's resurfacing all of our tennis and pickleball courts here in the city. So these are funds that in the future we could use towards a pool project if we needed to fill any gaps.

That money absolutely could be used.

And one more clarification, Robert, just to be clear, the $58 million that's available, that's total funds available. So the grant applications, if I'm not mistaken, have limitations on what each applicant could request, correct?

Correct, yeah. So that's over three different grants.

So one grant is for planning and development, another grant is for nature, and then there's a final grant that's for regional projects. So the pool is what we would consider a regional project and not just services Monterey Park, but many cities. Take, for instance, Alhambra with Mark Keppel High School, and then the nature grant is what we're going after for the trails. So it's actually split between three different grants.

So one applicant, just to be clear, one applicant cannot receive the $58 million as a whole, right?

They can't receive one application, can't receive the whole $58 million.

Yeah, correct.

So just for instance, the planning and development grant is up to $500,000.

The grant that we're going after for the development of the pool is a limit of $4 million.

So we're going after both of those amounts.

So we're going after, for the pool project, $4.5 million.

Thank you

It looks like Margaret has some questions Maybe you and Margaret can talk on the side

Absolutely, yeah

So just

It sounds like it's an operating grant

For us to use for the city The $1.4 million

In past years we have also received that money

Correct

But that money is used for

Different various projects So the only thing is there was a couple years Where we didn't use some of that money

Because there was a lawsuit that was going on

And so a lot of cities didn't use their money during that period because they didn't want, if the lawsuit would have been successful, cities would have to pay that funding back.

So it accrued for years.

Typically, it's somewhere in the range of about $200,000 per year that we're able to then utilize. So we have a chunk that's been building up. We've utilized some of that funding towards the Park System Master Plan. And now we have a list of potential projects that we can utilize that funding going forward, one of those being the pickleball and tennis court resurfacing.

Can I ask how much of that $1.4 million has been already,

I don't want to say spoken for,

but already planned in terms of your budget from your operations standpoint?

$400,000 will be for this next coming project. Okay.

All right. Thank you, Robert.

Yeah, if you can talk to Marga, that'd be great. All right. That's it for the oral communication. Any written communications? No? Okay. Then we'll move on to staff communications, starting with item 6A, City Clerk's Office.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and City Council members.

My name is Helena Cho, Assistant Deputy City Clerk. I'm here to provide information on the upcoming November 4th statewide special election.

so I wanted to just let all the registered voters know that there will be ballot boxes that are currently open as we speak now.

They are open 24-7 all the way up to Election Day until 8 p.m.

So if you have your ballots, you can feel free to drop it off at either City Hall here or at Sierra Vista Park.

So the ballot box at City Hall is actually located by the driveway entrance entering into City Hall, and there are directional signs at both locations to guide registered voters to where exactly the ballot boxes are.

And also, vote centers will start opening.

The city has three vote centers here in our city. Union Church is the only one that will start on October 25th. Langley Senior Center and East Los Angeles College are four-day vote centers, so both centers will open starting November 1st. The early voting starts from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. All three of those locations on election day are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. When I check surrounding cities, a lot of the neighboring cities don't have as many vote center locations,

I think just because of the late special statewide elections. So luckily we have three. Most of our neighboring cities don't have three.

So we're pretty fortunate to have the three here in our city.

Next slide, please. So if voters want to find out more information about their election

They can always search for their own elections on the LA County register recorder site that is LA vote gov You can take a screenshot of the slide here

Next slide and if anyone has any questions They are more than welcome to call our clerk's office and we'll be more than happy to help them. I'm available for any questions All right, thank you. Thank you so much

Next we have item 6B, City Manager's Office.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and City Council.

Diana Garcia, Assistant City Manager. Just wanted to take a moment to inform the community of some upcoming meetings.

The first one that we have is going to be our meetup with the Mayor

coming up on Wednesday, October 29th at 4 p.m. at Litz Restaurant on Garvey Avenue.

This has been an ongoing program for the past year or so. So our mayor and city staff will go out to various businesses.

We invite community members to join us for some casual conversations and to support our local businesses.

So everybody is invited to that. It's a very informal, casual conversation.

You can come ask questions, get updates.

Staff can help with any questions you might have as well.

The second meeting that I would like to invite the community to is our community conversations. The next one will take place Wednesday, November 12th.

Still a little ways away, so you can put it on your calendar.

6 to 7 p.m. at Inez Elementary School Auditorium.

And that one will be with Council Member Thomas Wong.

Again, just an open conversation. If you have questions, concerns, our elected officials and staff will be there to answer them.

We hope community members can come out and get engaged. Happy to answer any questions. Thanks.

Thank you so much.

Moving on to item 6C, recreation.

Community Services. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Brotem. Robert Aguirre Recreation Parks Director. Ready for takeoff. So first, I want to start by thanking everyone that came out to this weekend's Electric Park. This is our fifth event with Electric Park. And just want to

thank everyone that came out we had an amazing amazing time this weekend great crowd this year we actually added a second stage in the beer garden area which was super successful happy to share that Alhambra educational foundation sold out so hopefully they were able to have done left to raise a

lot of money all of our food vendors also sold out so I know they raised a

lot of money and I saw tons of people dancing city clerk and included as well

was Margaret back there. I saw her dancing too. And so everyone had a really great time. So it's

just, this has been such a great event. You know, when it originally started was looking at kind of that middle adult group. And we've seen when you go and you walk around the festival, you see young and old people dancing together from babies up to 70, 80, 90 year old. I saw Joy, who's a regular here in Barnes Park out there. She's 90 plus and she's out there dancing, having a good time. So So it was just very awesome to see everyone out this weekend.

So thank you for coming out. Next slide, please.

So at the last council meeting, we adopted a resolution for United Against Hate Week, which is October 19th through the 25th. At that meeting, we shared that we had LA County United Against Hate Week lawn signs.

Here tonight to share that we do now have our own Monterey Park United Against Hate lawn signs.

These will be available both at the Langley Center as well as at the Brighamire Library. I have a few with me here tonight, so if anyone in the crowd would like to take one home, please see me and I'll make sure that you get one.

Thank you. Next slide, please.

And then definitely want to make sure this gets on everyone's calendar, not just swimmers,

but all residents.

We want everyone to be involved in this, just like we did with the Park System Master Plan. So coming up is our Barnes Park pool revitalization community meetings.

So please put these dates down on your calendar.

November the 6th, we have a community meeting from 7 to 8, and that's going to be at the Langley Center.

And then on November the 17th, from 6 to 7, we have a community meeting at the Burgermeier Library.

There's also going to be a community survey that's going to run the entire month of November,

where folks will be able to give their input and feedback on what types of amenities,

what types of things they'd like to see in a future project.

Just as a reminder, this is a planning and visioning project. We don't currently have funding for construction.

As mentioned earlier, we are actively going after every grant possible to try and get the funding to build this future project. But here is the first or the next step in this process to see what we vision the future of that barn spark pool to look like and all the great things that will come for the future. So please, please, please invite your friends, invite your neighbors, and come out to these meetings and let your voice be heard.

So next slide, please.

Just a few reminders of upcoming Langley Center events. So our Art at Heart activity is going to be on October the 17th. We also have a safety series with the Asian Youth Center. And our next, let's see, my eyes are on the 21st, Building Resilience Against Hate.

And then finally, we have our monthly themed dances.

This one will be Trick or Treat Dance Party with our seniors.

Stop by in your costume. I'm sure lots of our seniors will be wearing their costumes.

It's always a great time at these monthly themed dances, so please stop by on October the 23rd.

Next slide, please.

And then this weekend on Saturday, we have our annual community health fair. this is in partnership with Asian Pacific Health Corps from UCLA we've been partnering with this organization for over 20 plus years and so this there's

no insurance required all ages are welcome there will be translators on

site and that's at the Langley Center from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then also annually we have our Dia de los Muertos altar so anyone that has any past relatives, loved ones, pets even, please send your pictures of those loved ones into our recreation at montereypark.ca.gov email, or you can drop those pictures off at the Langley Center, and we'll make sure that those get presented on the altar.

The altar went up today, and it'll be up through November the 3rd. Next slide, please.

And then finally, the whole reason I'm dressed like this today, tomorrow is our annual Monster Mash event.

Always a massive success.

We look forward to seeing everyone coming out dressed up in their wonderful outfits and costumes.

You can see some of the great costumes from last year.

They've got the cheese and the mouse, as well as it looks like Gru, our finance director, is up there as well.

She didn't know I was going to put that picture, so I thought I'd get a little laugh out of that.

But come out. Lots of great game booths.

Tons and tons of candy.

I guarantee you if your child comes to this event, they'll walk away with a bag full of goodies.

Which means that you will walk away with a bag full of goodies because you'll get to reap the benefits of all those great candies.

Lots of games and then also free entertainment.

We look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow in Barnes Park from 4 to 7 p.m.

And I believe that's my last slide. As always, continue to follow us on social media.

It's a great place to stay up to date with all the upcoming activities and programs that we have going.

So available for any questions. Hi, Robert. Lots of good events.

And on behalf of all our dentists who are doing business in the city, they want to thank you personally and to thank the city.

But I think the kids will have fun. Looking forward to it.

It's an annual bash, and it'll be fun for everyone. So it looks like we're all in the spirit of HalLoen already, being that this is the last meeting we have before the end of the month. So good job on doing all those events.

Thank you. Just looking forward to the many events, and looking forward to your next costume, too.

Thank you, Robert, for all the work and effort. I know that a lot goes into planning a lot of these events and getting everything together. I was there on Saturday with my family, and we had a lot of fun dancing. In fact, our girls go to sleep really early, so as I was leaving, Ben was coming in for the real dancing part, I guess, I suppose. But a lot of fun happening I saw on Saturday night, so thank you for that. And I know my girls have been talking all week about Monster Mash, so I will definitely be there tomorrow in our HalLoen outfits. So thank you so much for everything the city does, a lot of family fun events happening in Monterey Park, And I know that it attracts not just Monterey Park residents, but everyone in the community. I see a lot of my students from Alhambra, actually, at a lot of our events. So that speaks volumes in terms of what's going on in our communities.

Thank you. Awesome. Thank you.

I just want to add, again, appreciation for your department and your personnel throughout the years for just providing great quality programming. And what I just thought of right now is, too, at the height of the pandemic, when we couldn't meet in person, yet nonetheless, your department was very creative. and I recall you did a drive-by HalLoen trick-or-treat at Grand Ranch Park and several parks. And again, people still came in a different way, but people were dressed up in costumes in their cars driving by. And so I just think that this just demonstrates that, again, to a thicker thin, up or down, that we continue to do our best for our residents.

Thank you.

Thank you, as always, for all the great events.

Love the costume.

Looking forward to Monster Mash tomorrow.

Are you going to do a demon hunter again tomorrow?

We'll see.

So those that didn't see Elizabeth and her group on Saturday,

they were all dressed as demon hunters, right?

Yes. Bring the K-pop out. That's very cool. Don't change yet.

We'll make sure we get a picture of all the costumes at the end of the meeting.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, moving on.

let's see how our police department is going to top that.

No, I'm okay. I'll be all right.

They look aggressive. I don't like that.

Madam Mayor, Member of City Council, Scott Weiss, Chief of Police. I'm going to go through a quick update.

Right now, we have a neighborhood watch meeting going on in Pebbledon tonight, but this is our current numbers based on your districts, so you kind of get an understanding of where we have our neighborhood watch. We continue to push out the requests. We follow up with victims of crimes. We put it out through our social media, and we try to encourage neighborhoods to become organized, and we go out and help them organize the people around them. We lead their meetings, and then we come back. I have officers assigned tonight to the meeting on Pebbledon, and we answer their questions, introduce them to some of the programs we have within the police department. But it's a constant, everyday kind of battle we have to try to get more and more people involved in the Neighborhood Watch program. Go ahead. This is an update for our Neighborhood Engagement Team, our NET team. So you can see the numbers up here. This is for September compared to September of last year, and then a year to date, which is July, August, and then September for us. Our homeless contacts and follow-ups are down from last year. Our criminal investigations are about the same. The NET team, because of their relationships they have with the homeless community in our town, they are assigned the follow-up investigations, and they do a lot of the preliminary investigations that involve homeless people. There's that trust we've talked about, and they build that trust up so our investigators are able to get information and kind of understand some of the nuances of these criminal investigations. So we try to assign those to those investigators. Go back. Yep. Repeat contacts, 38 to 64 from last year. it's difficult to tell how that pans out, whether it's less of the people we're used to talking to are still here, if they've moved on, if we're getting more people that are coming in. We get a lot of people that when we make contact with them, they decline services. And we offer them services not just from the NET team, but from any officer. Remember, we've got probably 50 of our officers that have gone through specialized training above and beyond what a normal police officer gets just to deal with homelessness. They're substitute net team officers. So we have net out seven days a week. It's not always the core group of four investigators that are in the net team. It's officers from all over the department that have been specially trained, and then they come in and work with the net team when the net team isn't on duty. to be able to help them.

So we try to obviously get people connected with services. We have a lot of services available to us,

but they have to want to be part of that system. And sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. It's hard to force them to do it. We've had 42 people decline services compared to 48 from last year. We sheltered two people in September. We've talked about shelter beds and the inadequacy of shelter beds in Los Angeles County. It's not just Monterey Park that's being affected by this, but every city that has not decided to open up its own homeless shelter within its jurisdiction. And even if we did that, even if you all decided, yes, we're going to put a homeless shelter right here, we would have to open those beds to every agency, every police department, every city in Los Angeles County, not just Monterey Park. We couldn't say, oh, no, only Monterey Park homeless can go to this shelter. We would have to open that to everybody in Los Angeles County. And there just aren't enough shelter beds. There's not enough mental health beds. There's not enough shelter beds. There's not enough programs to deal with all of the homeless that are out on the street. I don't know what we're going to do going into 2028 with the Olympics to deal with all of this issue here. But there's almost 100,000 people that are homeless in Southern California. and we don't have the places to put them, to help them, to help them get services. We just don't. Our mental health investigations, as you're aware, the NET team is specially trained in mental health. We have a mental health clinician from Los Angeles County that's assigned to the NET team, and this is her permanent duty assignment here in Monterey Park. She's on duty during the work week, and those are our mental health follow-ups. we still are doing mental health follow-ups all the time every day there's some kind of follow-up when i get on the radio in the morning at seven o'clock and i'm listening as i'm coming into work the net team is already out on the street contacting their clients trying to figure out if they can get people in the services with the rain that came in we were super worried about some of our people being exposed to the weather so we went out and tried to make sure that they were sheltered we will continue to do that as we as we go down the line it's really the only way that we feel that we can provide these services to the community. Go ahead.

Also, I want to remind you, it's Pink Patch, our Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Obviously, thank you very much for wearing the Pink Patch. We're in the middle of our program now. The next big event we're going to have is our Breast Cancer Awareness Car Show. It's our third annual one. It's going to be on October 26th here in Barnes Park. Hopefully, we have great weather. It's a really fun event. Then if you like classic cars and really some cool things, come out, take a look, walk around.

There'll be a fruit truck.

Monterey Park. There'll be Pink Patch Paraphernalia from different police departments that'll be on sale. It's a fun event. And last year the weather was fantastic. We had some really, really nice cars that came out. So if you're into classic cars, into that kind of stuff, come on out and take a look. And also I wanted to put back up here some of the things that we're selling to support the Pink Patch Project. Those are available at the front counter and you can reach out to myself or you can reach out to Officer Reyes, our pink patch coordinator for the police department. I'm available for any questions you might have.

Chief, thanks for doing all that. I look forward to the pink patch project and

again, you're part of the spirit because you're in uniform.

He is too. I mean, it's not official, but you know, stolen valor. He doesn't have a real patch. I'm looking forward to Chief, you're dressing up as a firefighter tomorrow. Oh, yeah. I'm not afraid of that. I love firefighters.

I've got to tell you. There was a time in my life where it was I stood at two doors and tried to decide which one to go through.

Not too late. Firemen don't have guns. They have water hoses. I'm a guy.

It's not too late, Chief. Yeah. I'm sure. I decided to be a cop because firemen need heroes, too. Yes. Oh.

It was good. You know, I worked on that.

On the net numbers, I mean, from some of the numbers and the comparisons, right,

it looks like at least engagements are down. I'm just curious. I know that things can always change, and the population being what the population is, it's hard to assign right meaning to some of these numbers in a short-term way like this but would you characterize this as the homeless situation getting better or is this

a more difficult kind of engagements happening and or people hiding more or what's just honestly what I think it is is we as a city established from the beginning that we would not allow homeless encampments to begin in Monterey Park. That we would create a program following the law

that would provide services to everybody in one fell swoop. That was what the Boise decision talked about. That we had to provide these services immediately. We couldn't parse them out we couldn't say well next week we'll have someone come and talk to you about this or this or this but you got to leave now that's not how it works we had to be able to provide services to the to that individual immediately we were really good at that we are still very good at that taking that into consideration when we offer the services they understand that either they either take it and move on or if they don't take it there's a chance they're going to go to jail And unfortunately, that's part of this. I think that that's gotten out into the homeless community of this area of the San Gabriel Valley.

And they come here because they're safe. They like to be here during the day, but they know that we're not going to allow them to set up a tent on Garvey and Garfield in the vacant lot. We're just not going to allow it. And we work with our private partners and our private property owners to make sure that our community stays clean. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we see different kinds of engagement numbers than other communities around us. It's encouraging. Appreciate the approach and appreciate the update on the homeless engagement numbers.

I know this will continue.

Hopefully the trend continues in terms of the numbers.

So do I.

We'll continue to offer services, but I would love to have a space where we could provide what these people need.

But I can't I can't fix it. I can I can try to you know my people are compassionate about it We just can't we can't seem to overcome it

Yeah, no, there's there's a lot more resources that are needed. I think yes board and regionally, but appreciate it. Thanks

Chief I have some questions about the net numbers as well but it has more to do with in preparation of what's coming in this coming summer with the World Cup and then also the Olympics.

What are you hearing from departments

in terms of how other cities might be preparing for this?

I know you just shared that

a lot of people come here

is because it's safe.

I was briefed by the federal government and briefed by the county on the Olympics.

It's more than I want to get into right here because it's extensive.

the World Cup will be only, the only location for the World Cup will be SoFi Stadium. That's the only stadium in Southern California that will have World Cup games is SoFi. The teams may use other facilities around the county for practice, and the hotels around here will fill up with people, but the only venue is going to be SoFi. We will have some of the trickle-out effect from that,

and there will be World Cup events around the county, but it's not going to raise to the level of the Olympics. The Olympics, in a nutshell, will be the largest sporting event in world history. They're anticipating selling 15 million tickets to the Olympics. the population of los can los angeles county will go up by five or six perhaps seven million people for those six weeks so the planning has already begun we've already started planning here but we don't know what it's going to look like until we get closer to that as far as the homeless is concerned i don't know what the city of la is going to do we will continue to offer services and do the best we can i don't know what la is going to do i hope they don't push them to us and bus them out. The hotels are already booked for the Olympics. You can't get a hotel room in Los Angeles County for the Olympics. There's 3,000 CHP officers coming in just to work the Coliseum area and the freeways. They have to stay on cruise ships in the harbor because there's no hotels in Southern California for them to stay in. And they estimate they'll need 70,000 police officers. There aren't that many in Los Angeles County. So you're going to see cops from all over the country. But we just don't know where they're going to sleep at night.

So not to be doom and gloom, because I'm going to be here. I'm not leaving. I'm exciting. I really am. I think it's going to be awesome.

We are a very organized and professional group here in Los Angeles County. We'll make it work, all of us collectively.

It's just going to be a long road. It's that big elephant you have to eat.

we're going to take it one bite at a time we've already started eating it

madam mayor if i may uh council member sanchez or your highness um we are definitely a staff

trying to um prepare we do have several staff attending some planning meetings so we have recreation staff involved in some planning meetings they're attending cog meetings as well We have some of our economic development staff attending meetings that are discussing business items. And definitely our public safety staff are attending meetings. I would still say that we have lots of questions just like you do. I think what we can do is plan an update, an Olympic update for the council, for the community, as we get more information.

I would say we feel very much still in the preliminary stages.

lots of questions around public transportation

lodging

safety in general so we're asking those same questions that you're asking so when we're ready we'll schedule an update for the community and the council we're just not quite there yet

you know as I just wanted to

thank the men and women of your force for day in

day out keeping our community safe and really I think

going above and beyond

You know, I mean, I've had the opportunity to do a ride along with your NET team. And, you know, it's very unique. And a program, in fact, is one that was recognized. And we got an award for our NET program. And, you know, I should add that we also do this without much funding from, you know, the county. You know, but this is, you know, us making sure that we're engaged with the community and that we are also treating those who are finding themselves homeless with respected dignity and also helping them with services. And I would encourage anyone who has never done a ride-along to do a ride-along. I mean, it's actually very eye-opening and to see how our police force does engage the community.

So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

I liked how the neighborhood watches were separated by district. I would like to challenge my fellow council members

to a friendly competition

because if you go back to that slide you saw the results, yeah

and district 2 is in the lead

so of course I will suggest that now but yeah, I would love to see those numbers go up in each of those districts so we can get more neighborhood watch groups because I think we can't only count on police the police does an amazing job but the city is pretty big so we rely on fellow neighbors to watch out for each other and report

any suspicious activity to our fellow residents. Just to chime in there, Madam Mayor, I wanted to

make sure that community members are aware that if they do sign up, we had heard that individuals might be a little hesitant to sign up to be a neighborhood watch captain because they're concerned about just hosting meetings at their home, you can still be a captain and not have to host your neighbors in your home. The police department will coordinate an area, whether it's a park space or something else, a community space, to have those meetings. So if that's why community members are hesitant, we want to reassure them that you don't have to open your own home for those meetings if you're not comfortable doing that. So we still encourage you to definitely work together. Neighborhood watch groups are very effective when they're communicating with each other and with our police department. So definitely please encourage your neighbors to do so.

Absolutely. And the city also has neighborhood watch stickers if any residents require those. And also because you mentioned that there's not enough beds for those in need, there is a shared recovery center in Monterey Park. Their schedule is mostly full. It's not that many bedrooms. But sometimes they do have no-shows. And so if there's a last-minute, someone needs a bed, that's one resource.

They're one of our resources, so we deal with them.

And they have some restrictions that we are aware of that we take into consideration,

but they're one of our providers also.

Awesome.

And when is the next homeless count event?

It'll be – they'll pick a time when it's really cold and really wet. It'll be next year in February.

We're not huge fans of the homeless count because it doesn't reflect the ebb and flow of the homeless activity in any community.

It's a one-time, one-night reflection of what it is.

It shows numbers, but it doesn't give us a lot of context. But it'll be in February.

We'll announce to everybody as we get closer to it.

Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much. Thank you.

And our final staff communication is from Public Works.

Sean.

I can't compete with the office. I apologize. I didn't come prepared. Good evening, Arnold Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and City Council. Sean Igoe, Public Works Director. Next slide. I'm excited to share with everyone that we are kicking off our advanced metering infrastructure or AMI project. This will entail the replacement of approximately 13,500 water meters throughout the city with smart water meters. This was approved by Council back in June, I believe.

Yes, June 18th meeting.

And our goal is to replace approximately 250 water meters per month, and this will take approximately 13 to 18 months to complete the entire project.

Some of the key benefits of the smart water meters

include leak detection, reverse flow,

and tampering notifications.

Eventually, residents will have access to their water usage history in addition to receiving notifications for potential leaks, potential high flows, and other notifications they can receive in advance. This is a great tool to reduce water waste in addition to promote water conservation efforts. Information on the project will be posted in our November Cascades. Additionally, we'll have information on our website. 48 hours prior to any water meter being replaced, we'll be issuing notifications to the property owners that will be in all three of our primary languages. And the goal is to obviously let residents know that their water will be shut off for a temporary period of time while the water major is being replaced. Work hours will be Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. And we can expect some noticeable breaks around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's

holidays. And with that, I will take any questions.

No questions?

Thanks, Sean.

I appreciate the update and really looking forward to the new smart water meters being installed. Have we heard any? I assume no notices have gone out yet because we haven't started replacing any. Correct. We start that next month. So we'll start in about two to three weeks. We'll actually start replacing water meters.

Yeah.

If we do hear any issues from residents and businesses as we start some of those changeouts, if you just keep the council apprised, I'd just be curious if we do experience any. But really looking forward to this project. extract the gold standard or whatever the standard for water meters now in terms of is moving from gold standard or whatever the standard for water meters now in terms of is moving from AMR to AMI. ! Correct. ! And this will improve our meter reading kind of capability and and and just being able to utilize ! the data in more effective ways to help promote water conservation, right? ! Yes. ! Are we looking at redesigning the bills at all to reflect water usage in this way or right where ! I think if I'm remembering correctly and I could be remembering very wrong. Since all of my conversations on a bunch of things are getting mixed up in my head. But we're we are looking at just setting up an online portal so people can check their check their life their real-time usage for water once these meters are changed that was that right

that's correct it won't be a redesign of the bill but it'll be a portal that the resident will have

access to yes and then do we bill monthly right now correct um cool not looking forward to it and would love to as we start i think doing some of the change out maybe we can do a demo of the online portal for for water usage yeah that'll come towards the end of the project but we can definitely do an update with council on what the portal looks like yeah I think that would be great and to be able to show I know I'm sure we're already teeing up in article or articles in the Cascades and other opportunities to help inform residents about the change out for the meters and new capabilities that people will be able to to utilize once the the change outs happen yes that's

correct perfect thank you all right thank you so much moving on to

Item 7 presentation or economic development projects update.

Good evening, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem.

Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Your Majesty the King, and members of the City Council.

Joe Torres, your Economic Development Manager, and I am here tonight to provide an update on the activities and key initiatives of the Economic Development Division over the past

couple of quarters.

Our division remains focused on supporting our existing small businesses, proactively attracting new commercial investment, and ensuring we position Monterey Park for sustained

economic vitality. Next slide, please.

Our primary focus has been the launch of our new Small Business Assistance Program, which is utilizing CDBG funds to provide critical support to our local entrepreneurs. This program offers forgivable loans of up to $25,000, providing a significant injection of capital for businesses facing challenges or looking to expand. We are grateful for our partnership with the Chinatown Service Center, which is administering the program, ensuring effective outreach and application processing within our community. To date, we have received a strong response with 19 applications demonstrating a high level of need and interest. I am pleased to announce that four businesses have been approved with more in the pipeline.

Next slide.

Our ongoing Monterey Park Business Alliance events continue to be a cornerstone of our business support strategy. The list here demonstrates the robust calendar of educational and networking events we have co-hosted through 2025. These events, ranging from the Women in Business workshop to the Small Business Resource Fair, are essential for providing capacity-building resources to our business owners. We look forward to the final scheduled workshop this year, focusing on workers' comp and risk management in October, which will help businesses manage crucial operational costs and compliance.

Next slide.

The Love Monterey Park Shop and Dine Local Campaign is designed to achieve two key goals. Build community pride and actively drive local economic growth by encouraging residents to spend their dollars here. We saw fantastic community engagement with our Community Choice Awards, which highlighted beloved local establishments like Ravello Osteria Restaurant, which was the winner for our favorite restaurant, and the Chinatown Service Center winner for favorite nonprofit. We also launched a Late Night Eats initiative responding to our city's visitors desire for more evening dining options by providing our local hotels with a comprehensive list of Monterey Park restaurants that are open late at night. This campaign helps promote the businesses that are open late, driving traffic, and supporting our nighttime economy when they need it the most.

Next slide.

The Taste of Downtown NPK Rewards Program has been a tremendous success, and we thank the Economic and Business Development Commission for approving its extension through the end of the year. The program's success is best summarized by its impact statistics over the last year, from November 2024 to this month. We distributed approximately $8,385 in local rewards. this amount generated a total economic impact of over $81,000 for our downtown businesses, a 10-times return on investment. With nearly 1,900 users participating, this program effectively demonstrates how targeted incentives can successfully drive consumer spending directly to the 37 participating downtown businesses.

Next slide.

We are excited to celebrate the recent grand openings of several new businesses that add diversity and vibrancy to our retail and culinary landscape. Over the last few months, we have welcomed Swank Salon, Einstein Bagels, Must Have Cafe, Kakura Japanese Restaurant, and Ihui Cafe, among others. The high-profile ribbon-cutting ceremonies, like the ones pictured here, showcase the City's proactive support for new commercial activity. We are monitoring the leasing activities at our major commercial centers, Atlantic Times Square, Atlantic Square, the Prado Center, and the Mars Shopping Centers, and maintaining communication with property managers to facilitate tenant improvements and occupancy.

Next slide.

Regarding specific projects, the mixed-use development at 338 and 410 South Alhambra Avenue is currently undergoing a developer redesign, and community development is working closely with the developer to ensure the project moves forward efficiently. We also have two significant commercial projects actively under construction, the new Starbucks drive-thru on South Atlantic and the new Tesla body shop on Monterey Pass Road. These projects demonstrate ongoing investor confidence in the Monterey Park market.

Next slide.

To ensure we are actively recruiting high-quality tenants, the Monterey Park team recently attended the International Council of Shopping Centers, or ICSE, at Western Convention in Palm Springs. This event is the premier regional retail convention in the western U.S., allowing us to create connections and advance our business attraction goals. Our team met with prospective retailers, restaurateurs, and developers directly promoting Monterey Park as the ideal location for their next investment. This effort is critical for reducing commercial vacancies and increasing our revenue base.

Next slide.

Looking ahead, as Chief Wiese mentioned, we are doing our part in preparing our community for the opportunities that the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will bring. A significant new focus is preparing our local businesses for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics small business procurement opportunities. We are launching In the Game MPK initiative, which aims to help Monterey Park businesses participate in the Olympic supply chain and secure contracts. The program will focus on four key program goals, increasing local business awareness of the procurement opportunities, providing capacity building resources, offering small business certification support, and facilitating procurement matchmaking. We are also excited about a new collaboration between the City of Monterey Park and the East Los Angeles College to form a new Center for Entrepreneurship, Incubation, and Innovation, which will provide our community's entrepreneurs with robust resources for business support and innovation. This concludes the update from the Economic Development Division. I welcome any questions or discussions from City Council.

Thanks, Joe. I appreciate that. There's a lot there going on. I really appreciate everything the team is working on and appreciate the leadership that the staff are working on with particularly some of the developments happening. And then I have a few questions on a few of the items. For starting backwards, so this ELAC partnership, this is, I assume, with their small business incubator program, entrepreneur program. Is that right?

They do have an existing incubator program, which will end this year. And this new joint collaboration will replace that program. Now, this is a little bit different in the sense that they're actually going to do coursework off campus, even though they are doing their main coursework on campus but they're doing off-campus work in our city to bring their resources closer

to our business community. Okay I'm just curious what what the program is and how it will work and

what are the city's role is in this in terms of the partnership I'm just curious how the program it's going to work. Yeah, it's basically ELAC's program, and our role in this collaboration is

providing city facilities to conduct classes and workshops. We are also promoting the coursework,

the program itself, to our business community. We are providing staff resources in administering

or in supporting those classes that are going to be held. But the main program itself is being conducted using ELAC professors. They're designing the curriculum themselves. It's being funded wholly by the ELAC Foundation using their funds. So the city has no financial skin in the game in this process

other than staff time and facility use for some of the off-campus programs.

But this, for the main part, is an on-campus program. And again, there are satellite programs that are going to be done. One of the things that we've asked for ELAC to do in this collaboration is to ensure that the graduates from these entrepreneurship programs are encouraged to open their businesses here in our community so that we're benefiting from all these entrepreneurs

that have these great ideas

or these existing small businesses that want to take their business to the next level and get them done here in our community rather than going to another city.

Okay, no, I appreciate that. And so it sounds like we're, they're going to have classes on campus, but also some in the city, which we're helping to facilitate in terms of the actual spaces, that we will host some in our city facilities. Is that right? Correct.

And part of that program, too, is utilizing our farmer's market here

for some startup businesses that may want to do. Oh, yeah.

It's kind of like what Leaflet Tea Coffee did. They did farmer's market for about a year and a half, and then they eventually opened their own break-and-mortar store.

Oh, great. So that would be kind of a working, you know,

real-life lab for this entrepreneurship program.

Oh, perfect. No, that's very helpful. And then are we – so in terms of how the program is going to work, do you have to be an ELAC student to participate in the program, or is this open to anyone? And thanks for bringing that up,

because that's one of the major differences between this program and their existing program. The existing program is only open to ELAC students and some residents of low to moderate income neighbors of East Los Angeles. This program opens itself to our community.

They don't have to be students of ELAC.

It could be an entrepreneur. And it's also open to residents of other neighboring cities as well.

So it's more of a regional project.

but it's primarily designed to open the doors for entrepreneurship, for incubation, and for innovation to our business community here.

I very much support this. Love that we are partnering in a very substantive way with this program. In terms of how it works, so if I have an idea for a business, small business, and I want to start that, I can go sign up for this program at Eglis L.A. College. Is it a set like six-month course with weekly classes or monthly classes and then resources to help with setting up a business? Or can you just talk through what the process would be?

ELAC is in the process of designing the curriculum, using their own faculty,

learning from some of the things that worked from their previous incubation program,

and putting in some new recommendations.

They love the fact that we're offering them the farm market opportunity.

We're also offering them the opportunity to work with some of our property owners with empty space so that they could host some of those new startups and maybe offer, and this is just a recommendation, new startups and maybe offer, and this is just a recommendation, maybe offer the first or first two months free rent, you know, so that they can be given a boost to open their business, those kind of things. ! And they welcome those new ideas, and that's why they're very excited to work with the city as well in this collaboration. Great. Great.

! I think when the program is ready to launch, we'd love to have ELAC or whoever's going to run the program from the foundation come in to present and help promote the program. I'd love to share this with many budding entrepreneurs, not only in our city but in the region, and I think that would benefit from a program like this. not only in our city but in the region I think that would benefit from a program like this I think a great idea to integrate into our farmers market potential vendors, very low startup costs, you just need a tent and whatever equipment for whatever business they're doing, you don't have to have a long term lease

signed or all that kind of stuff, so it's great

Yeah, and we're actually working with the interim president and

CEO of ELAC

and the president of the ELAC foundation, so we have

high-level support on this project. Yeah, no, I think if, I mean, going back to our discussions before around short-term permits for businesses doing work in the city, maybe this is an opportunity as well to, I mean, there are very nominal fees, but to waive some fees for businesses or small business and entrepreneurs that are participating in this program, if they are setting up in our farmers market maybe this is an opportunity to waive the city's business fee especially if it's a short-term kind of business and just getting started waive it for we're already waiving that for the first year for businesses anyway so it'd be a great opportunity to put that in a use for for a program like this and yeah again if when it's ready would love to have them come into launch and if there are other ways that the city can support this program going forward as it gets kicked off. We'd love to make sure that we're in the mix and trying to make sure that it's successful and bring more business to the city. There are a lot of vacancies in our retail spaces, not just here but outside the city, but of course we want to help fill and appreciate that. We're thinking through how we can do that. Whatever else we can do, continue to do, to help speed up businesses being able to open the city right from building permits and navigating through that whole process, I think this will be a great opportunity to to help highlight some of the improvements we made, but also to continue to learn and take those learnings to help speed up and streamline some of the process for smaller businesses that are trying to open up in the city improvement spaces to make that just process a lot easier. I know you've been doing a lot to kind of play ombudsman to help navigate people through the different departments they have to go through and health department for county and all that stuff to get open. It's great to put those muscles into work, and if we need a resource, something like that,

I'm hoping that at some point we will run into a problem, a good problem, of having to resource this more because so many businesses want to open up in the city.

So look forward to this launching. Really appreciate that.

We've been proactive and are going to engage in a very, very substantive way in this program in particular and look forward to seeing how we can support it. This will be a great business attraction tool for us, so we're very excited about it. Yeah, it's a great story to tell that the city is proactively helping small businesses really open up in the city and leveraging our asset that is East LA College in that way. On the LA-28 engagement, we appreciate that we are helping in terms of promoting procurement opportunities that are coming up, but not only for the Olympics. Is this with the LA Chamber and that whole group in terms of their procurement initiative? Correct.

Yeah, as you know, we're a small city, so we don't have that many resources. to tap into this opportunity, but we are tapping into our economic development partners,

one of which is the LA Chamber of Commerce,

who's also spearheading this LA28 training program for small businesses. We're also working with PACE. They're actually contracted to do all the small business certification and the capacity building training for small businesses. so we've asked for PACE to work with us as well and bring some of that resources to our community

so we're working on those

but more importantly we're always in touch with the LA28 committee making sure that we're able to

tap into whatever resources they offer the cities that are going to be

impacted or benefiting from these opportunities

Very glad to hear that I was going to say we should be leveraging PACE and others because they have funding to do this, and it would be great to make sure we're connecting them to businesses here that would love to take advantage of opportunities. They just need that help to get connected to what those are as they come up, not only for the Olympics, but also I know the L.A. Chambers Initiative is also around the World Cup and these major events that are happening.

Yes, that will be. And the goal, too, is not just for the Olympics, but for as kind of a legacy benefit for our businesses to help them prepare for other future opportunities, help them get certified, you know, making sure that they are aware of the contracting procedures and processes, signing up for with the right, you know, government channels so that they can be on the database for. These types of events that are looking for small business opportunity grants and contracts. And, you know, I'm happy to report that a lot of these events, the LA Olympics, the World Cup,

they themselves have the goal of passing on these opportunities to the small business communities

in the communities that they hold these events.

because they know that they would be the beneficiaries.

The big companies, they work with a major contractor. So these events, the LA Olympic Committee, the World Cup, they are focused on small businesses, and they want to support them as well. But there are certain procedures that our small business community have to be prepared for. Small business certification, minority-owned business certification, capacity building. just because you landed a contract, that doesn't mean that you can deliver on that contract. You have to have your capacity, you know, ramped up too as well. So all those would be included in the game MPK program.

Absolutely, and I really appreciate that. I want to highlight that and emphasize, right, what you're saying in terms of the opportunities that are going to come for the World Cup and the Olympics. there's a huge need for suppliers for all of the events that are coming and I think there I'm sure there are businesses in Mario Park that would stand to benefit once they can make that connection then as to your point too right once they're certified as small businesses or diverse businesses their opportunities for procurement from major major right contractors and and others that are ordering supplies and goods and services open up as well because most large institutions have diverse supplier goals in terms of procurement. And so once they're certified, that legacy kind of keep, they can keep going to that in terms of that certification lasts beyond the Olympics.

In fact, that's our primary goal is to get almost every minority-owned business here in Monterey Park certified and in the contractor database, procurement database,

because they need to be on that database in order for them to tap into those opportunities.

So that will be our primary goal is to get them in the database.

Absolutely.

I'm excited and appreciate hearing this and appreciate that we're working on this. I don't know if I'm sure this is already something you're thinking about, but if this is another topic for an upcoming business alliance convening, that might be something to do. And if there are other ways to help kind of continue to spread the word about this program being available and helping to connect Monterey Park businesses, especially diverse businesses, to these opportunities.

Yeah, we're already in discussions with PACE to schedule the first of those workshops beginning in January.

Great. No, perfect. Awesome. And then it sounds like from Chief Wiese's update, too, that we're coordinating with the other cities in the region around security, procurement, business opportunities, and economic development. I think some of our hotels are already coordinating and have contracts already for some of their beds for the Olympics and others, events that are coming up. Whatever else we can do, I think I know we're all, and I think Robert is part of these regional convenings as well in terms of opportunities for the different, especially the non-venue cities, to be able to participate in the Olympics in some way, shape, or form. I want to just encourage us to continue to look for opportunities like this, to participate and make sure that we don't miss out on the amazing things that are going to be happening during the Games and the World Cup, but also the opportunities that really our residents and businesses and the community can take advantage of and leverage. And I appreciate that staff are really keeping on top of this and helping to connect to make sure that it's not just traffic we're going to experience those couple weeks, that there's going to be a long-lasting positive legacy of the Olympics in the World Cup for our city as well not just in LA thank you on the small business assistance program said you said there's four already approved at the night of the 19 applications are are those 19 applications are they all are those all those are being vetted right and then I expect more of those 19 will

be approved is that right yes no not all of them are were qualified because we

We have certain parameters primarily driven by CDBG requirements.

It's only open to retail and food service businesses to begin with. We did receive some that were not in those industries, so those were automatic disqualified.

But we do have a majority of them within the parameters.

Because it's CDBG driven, they have to provide a lot of documentation,

and that's primarily what's holding their application process

because they're not either quick enough to provide those documentation or they're still working on putting those together. The great part about working with Chinatown Service Center as our program administrator is they actually provide guidance. They hand-hold the applicants.

They give them advice on how to package their application, how to package their financial statements.

As you know, we don't have a lot of business-savvy, sophisticated, small business owners.

So Chinatown Service Center is there to hand-hold them all throughout the process. We recently just received two more that they vetted. So I can safely say that we would probably raise that number from four to six.

I have yet to see those two that they told me that they've complete the

betting but it looks like with with the way that they're doing their their work

I mean it looks like we're gonna have six for now no it's great and to you

from preliminary I know things can change and a lot of the applications are preliminary until they're approved but are you pretty optimistic that we're gonna expend the allocated budget this year on this this effort oh yes in fact I'm hoping that we can get another round of funding for the next program go around of this program.

As you've seen with the 19 application, there is a definite interest and need for this type of support. And, you know, but it is set up on a first come, first serve basis. Most of the applications are going for the maximum loan. so you know given a limited number of funding initially that we have we can only approve so

many um but you know get based on the success of this program and the interest that it's

generated i i think we can do another another round so no i've really encouraged to hear that

uh and in my mind right this program at least this first kind of version of it was always meant to be

a pilot to help us learn and then take some of those lessons to expand likely expand the program

in my mind i would like to expand the program because i think they're i'm very clear there's more need than there are resources available right now that we've set aside um and right even 19 businesses will expend the funds pretty easily uh but there are thousands of businesses in the city smaller number of that are retail businesses that qualify under these this program currently but still probably in the easily in the hundreds of businesses that probably could use and would be qualified for for the current round of funding and so there's just a near infinite number of of need i think in the community and we're just kind of tackling a small very providing resources and support a very small portion of the wider business community that probably needs and could could use this assistance. So we'd love to see when appropriate and when we're ready to take some lessons from this pilot kind of phase of this and as we get towards the point of starting to think through what this program might look like going forward. I would love to make sure we're including this in our budget discussion going into the next fiscal year and seeing what lessons we can take in terms of improving the program, making it easier and more successful in terms of helping businesses in the city. And the concept for this program is that the assistance is zero or low-interest loans and then forgivable if they keep open for a number of years.

Is that right?

Yeah.

We do ask that they stay in business for a minimum of three years, and then after three years, the loan is forgiven.

If they close their business within those three years,

then they need to pay back the loan at a 1% interest rate,

which is still, you know, it's still a tremendous help.

Yeah, a very good deal. Are we, I don't know if CSC, Finn may know this, but I don't know if CSC is a CDFI or has those capabilities in terms of providing additional financing or does that for other...

No, my question was going to be along those lines, if they are a CDFI or if they aren't, partnering with one so that our program only goes to $25,000 per entity, their needs, I'm sure, go beyond that for most businesses. And so they can take advantage of our program if they qualify. They've already done a bulk of the work, potentially qualify for additional financing from a CDFI, so that if CSC is already doing that and capable of doing that, I think that's a great. great additional kind of resource for businesses that are looking for assistance and help to grow and improve their operations in the city. And so this is super cool to hear. And whatever else we can do, we'd love to take lessons. I don't know which four businesses were approved for these loans. I think maybe for the city manager down the line, when we have more of the businesses approved, we'd be curious to learn who's receiving the funding at some point. and then maybe when, I don't know, when the funds will be expended, but six months to whenever, at least before the next budget cycle, getting a kind of report out and lessons learned from this initial kind of pilot process so that we can inform our decision-making and discussion around into what the next round of this program might look like would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Joe.

I always look forward to your reports, mainly because it gives us an opportunity to look at what our city is doing in terms of promoting business. So it makes a lot of sense why we were awarded the Business Friendly Award. But we'd love to hear more as we get closer to the Olympics in terms of Monterey Park having some skin in the game, in terms of making sure that we're bringing businesses here or making sure that our businesses here are thriving and taking advantage of the Olympics and whatever else that means in terms of some of the – I know that it's not just your department. it's going to be Parks and Rec and many other libraries in terms of what events we decide to host or things that we decide to do to promote the Olympics. And I know there's other stuff coming down the pipeline.

Thank you, Joe. Thank you. Same sentiment again.

I appreciate these regular reports on what we're doing to attract businesses and to support businesses. I appreciate the late night dining list because I know that pre-pandemic, we were known as a place to go to, especially after a movie or hanging out at a hotel somewhere to go dine. And I realize that there have been challenges post-pandemic of having restaurants remain late. But I'm glad that some of our restaurants continue to offer late night dining. And I'd be curious, you know, if we're also asking them, like, what are the reasons why more restaurants are not offering late-night dining, you know, if it's a security issue or if it's other issues. But, again, you know, if we are finding out that might be useful to see what else we could be looking at to encourage late-night dining.

and then also

another thing that we did during the pandemic

which I thought was very useful we were offering

outdoor dining options

which again was necessitated by the pandemic

but I know that

after the pandemic receded most restaurants went back to indoor dining

with the exception of a handful

but nonetheless I think those who have remained offered outdoor dining options

I think it's very useful

and I think it's also

they seem to continue to thrive

and I think that's something that we should probably continue to encourage which I know we have but I bring up the outdoor dining because last week

the governor signed two bills

into law which I would like to ask the city to look at how we could maybe integrate these

into our own business code

but one is AB592 which in a lot of sense makes it easier for restaurant owners to offer outdoor dining in what's called open restaurant ways. In other words, maybe someone has a storefront and has a window that's openable on the outdoor and then rents a section of that space for someone to offer outdoor dining. And so it would make it easier if you're a restaurateur, instead of renting an entire space,

it's almost like a section.

Again, the bill's called AB592, and so I'd like to see whether or not it's something that we might want to see adopting for our own business code. The other one is AB671, which accelerates the time it takes to get restaurant permits, especially those who are offering outdoor dining.

And I think, you know,

given that we just had a conversation about how the Olympics and FIFA are going to bring millions of people, And I think that especially we're trying to encourage businesses, restaurants, to come back to the city, which we are. Again, I point to Atlanta Times Square, which it's great to see so many new restaurants and retailers opening that space.

But the governor, who normally does not have bill-siding ceremonies,

but nonetheless he had one, especially for AB 592. And I'd like to see whether or not this is something that we can apply to our own business coach. So I encourage you to take a look at the two new bills, which are now laws, and see if this is something that can apply to us.

yes we'll definitely look into it Mayor Pro Tem

thank you

thank you Joe and Tim for the great presentation we always look forward to seeing the economic development projects updates

it's

pretty amazing that Taste of Monterey Park

had such great results and we're

continuing to extend it over 1800 users that's a really high number so

really glad for its success

and of course really happy to see all the new businesses coming up in our city, especially the ones in Atlantic Times Square. In addition to Swank Salon there, there's also iWagU and Big Way Hot Pot that opened recently. My family and I dined there, both of those restaurants, and they were great. So, yeah, thank you so much, and we look forward to the many other businesses that I believe are moving.

Madam Mayor, I must mention that when our Madam Mayor was a member of the former BIDAC, the BID Advisory Committee, she was one of the biggest advocates for the states of downtown NPK. So thank you for supporting that.

Thank you.

All right.

Then that's all for item seven presentation. No old business today.

So we'll move on to item 9, the consent calendar.

Madam Mayor, I'd like to pull 9C just for a quick discussion.

All right, pulling 9C.

Any other items on the consent calendar?

There are no other items in our motion to approve

Subject to discussion on 9C

Okay, Council Member Ngo moves Council Member Wong second

Let's take a vote

Approved unanimously

All right, thank you

So let's get a presentation on item 9C acceptance of real property located at 1688 West Garvey Avenue as partial

satisfaction of debt owed to city and payment of related fees. I'd be happy

with I don't know if others are interested I'd be happy with very

abridged presentation. City foreclosed non-judicial foreclosure. City was the

only bidder so to speak on the property based upon the amount of the liens nobody else wanted to buy it so we now own it or it will own it if the council accepts this particular recommended

action happy to answer any questions thank you uh so city is going to take ownership with if the council approves this item tonight can you talk about uh either of you i don't know who the next what happens next in terms of this property and what the options are for the city

what oh sorry okay i was going to say it's a policy decision about what happens next with

the property once the property once the title is conveyed to the city and recorded the city will own it in fee unlike through an eminent domain action you have a choice of what you want to do with the property at that point so there are many different options as you know you could use it for You can try to sell it, whatever you'd like to do, but that is certainly a discussion for the city council.

And just to be clear, does the current owners or whatever, CII, no longer have any interest in it, and there's no action for them to be able to do anything? We would own the property free and clear, is that right? Correct.

We will close out the eminent domain action by getting a final judgment in that case, which will basically will encourage the court to say, well, we already have title based upon the nonjudicial foreclosure, so enter judgment in favor of the city. That means that the city will not have any obligations associated with the eminent domain action. And, again, it will be free title to the city, and you can use it any way that the city council wishes to use it.

Great. Thank you. Arja?

Yes, Madam Mayor and members of the council, if the council would like to provide direction to staff, you may do so as our city attorney mentioned. Definitely we understand, depending on council's direction, if the council chooses to try to sell the property, we can definitely market it to do that. In addition, we do know that there's potential opportunities for grant funds that we could explore if the council is interested in doing that for some kind of public use. So if the council wants to provide a specific direction, we're ready

to take that. Great. So I would say my initial thoughts on this, and I'm open to understanding this more, the current appraised value for the property is still well below the actual cost that the city has put in to stabilize the hillside, is that right? By $6 to $7 million. Yeah, the original

appraisal price, or the last appraisal price for the property was approximately $6.4 million dollars. The city

has, after

selling the South El Monte property,

brought the overall

debt down to around $13 million and change.

So the amount of

liens on the property was approximately twice

as much as the property is worth. From my perspective, and I think from taxpayers' perspective, who have fronted the cost of stabilizing and making safe the hillside, I think, in my mind, I think it makes the most sense to try to recover those costs to the extent possible. I think putting property up for sale just to see if it will sell for some price I think makes sense to help recover as much of that cost that the taxpayers bore up front to make it safe to recover that would make the most sense. And I think in my mind if that if no one wants to take the hillside because I think there's still I would imagine there's still significant costs to get that parcel to a place that's actually developable for anything to go there there's a likelihood that no one buys that property because it might be cost prohibitive to develop to make a profit off of that property at this point so if it doesn't sell I think at that point I would support moving ahead on potentially finding funds or going through a process to see what makes sense for the city to do with that property but I think first and foremost we should do our best and make every effort to recover as much of the cost that the city's taxpayers have borne to remediate that property I don't know if others have thoughts on that yeah so I'm

in the same line here with Council member Wong let's have staff and team

look into it to see if there's any feasible buyer out there given the

slope and given the location I personally I don't know if there's any buyer for that piece of property in the near future if there isn't then staff can recommend uptight obtaining a grant make maybe making that property a public

use for the city. And we'll figure that out as we go. Thank you.

I concur.

Madam Mayor, members of the Council, so the direction that we're hearing is first

step after, if the Council accepts the property tonight, first step is

to try to sell the parcel first. And then depending on that

what transpires after that, then

come back with additional

options for later use. So first market the parcel

and try to sell it to recoup costs. So understood the direction. I think there's consensus it sounds like. Thank you.

I'll make the motion with that direction to staff

to approve the item then. Alright. Council Member Wong moves.

I'll second. Council Member Sanchez seconds. Let's vote.

Approved unanimously. Thank you.

All right, moving on.

No public hearing today, but we do have new business.

So starting with item 11A, downtown bid number one, 2025.

Okay. Okay.

All right. Then the presentation, please, then.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and members of the City Council. Joe Torres again, your Economic Development Manager,

and staff liaison to the new Economic and Business Development Commission, or EBDC.

The EBDC is represented here tonight by the Vice Chairperson, Zen Wu.

Zen, would you please stand up and introduce yourself to our Honorable City Council.

Tonight, on behalf of the EBDC, I'm presenting the 2025 Annual Report and 2026 Budget Proposal for the Downtown Business Improvement District No. 1, which encompasses about 343 small businesses along Garvey and Garfield Avenues. Earlier this year, the city consolidated the former BID Advisory Committee, or BIDAC, and Economic Development Advisory Commission, or EDAC, into the new EBDC, creating one unified body to oversee economic development programs and the use of BID revenues. During 2025, the BID funded several initiatives that helped maintain and promote our downtown area. Holiday decorations continue to enhance the district's festive atmosphere during the winter season. The city transitioned to a new maintenance provider, CCS Facility Services, which maintain the same service level at a 32% cost reduction, saving the bid about $10,000 per year through 2028. The Taste of Downtown Monterey Park promotion has been a significant success, as we shared with you earlier during the economic development update presentation. Financially, the bid is in excellent standing. Actual expenditures for 2025 came in at roughly $47,000 under the approved budget of $52,900. As of September, bid revenues totaled about $56,000, and the reserve balance stands at almost $240,000. Given these healthy reserves and Lor ongoing expenses, the EBDC recommends keeping the assessment rates unchanged for 2026. For the coming year, the proposed 2026-bit budget totals $43,011, maintaining all key services such as street cleaning, holiday decor, and marketing programs, while continuing to operate efficiently. The EBDC will also work with the city on downtown initiatives like parking improvements, wayfinding signage, and public safety initiatives. In summary, the bid remains fiscally strong and continues to deliver visible improvements that benefit our downtown business community. The EBDC respectfully recommends that the Council receive and file the 2025 annual report and adopt the 2026 bid budget as presented.

Thank you.

Thank you, Joseph. Members, any comments or questions?

Thanks, Joseph.

Appreciate the update and the work that the now EBDC are doing in terms of helping to improve the downtown area and the investment starting you made. In terms of the, I believe we're approving the plan or the report from the last year, right? This is the annual report. And then the budget for, right? It sounds like with the janitorial cost savings for the bid that there's potentially some more funding available to do other things in the bid area, is that right? That's correct.

Council Member Wong, in fact, the bid or the EBDC took that savings from the street maintenance and added that onto the bid promotion budget.

Okay, great. And that will use all of the existing extra funds, right? Or are there other funds remaining potentially?

Technically, the EBDC can tap into their reserve fund for other promotional or whatever need there might be during the calendar year. But for now, because of the cost reduction on the street maintenance and the expected bid revenue, because we have had some new businesses open in the downtown district,

so they have enough financial strength to support the new calendar year.

Great. No, I appreciate hearing that.

I appreciate the commissioner being here as well. I know this is a new commission that we reformed and combined two different commissions into one. I really appreciate the effort to streamline our strategy in terms of economic and business development in the city. I appreciate the commissioners and the commission and really digging deep into this. I think with the savings here from the janitorial is also an opportunity. I know resources are always limited and understanding the business environment is still a tough one for our businesses, particularly in the downtown area. But wanna just continue the call for the commission and our staff and the bid members as well to think innovatively and look at what other bids are doing to maybe take some lessons to heart here in our downtown area. If there are cool things that we aren't doing that others might be, maybe we can take some lessons. And if that's a resource thing for us that the city should consider in terms of general fund support for some of these ideas, I would fully support that and would love to hear and be presented with some of those ideas to help continue to support others of our businesses in other ways in the business improvement district. in the downtown area. So we just want to kind of urge the bid and our staff and the commission to think outside the box, right, not just do things because we've always done them. If there are other ways that we can continue to support the businesses in the area and the economic vibrancy of our downtown area, I'm all ears and would love to support new and innovative ways and even enhancing existing ways that we can do that. I know janitorial is under contract to do that. I'm curious how often we do, well, one, whether this is city or the bid, this may be city funds, but would love to look at Main Street, I'll hammer up portions of other cities. I have moved to kind of trash compactor, trash cans as opposed to the non-compactor ones. That would allow for more trash. I know when I walk around downtown Monterey Park, some of the trash cans get filled up pretty quick before where whoever picks them up and janitorial picks them up. If there's an opportunity to look at putting in more trash or even I think the other benefit to the trash compactor kind of trash bins is that it's harder for people who are trying to sort through and scavenge through the trash. I think oftentimes people are going through our trash cans and they leave the trash outside the trash cans. after they find the recycles or whatever they're looking for. There's, I think, a security benefit to some of those trash compactor bins that maybe we can look at replacing some of the trash cans in the downtown area, particularly with more secure and higher capacity kind of bins if we're going to do something. The other thing would be, I know the bid usually goes out for the holidays, end of the year holidays for decorations. Maybe something since the most visited time of the year for the downtown Murray Park area, and the bid is really Lunar New Year Festival, if we can look at potentially some decorations that are Lunar New Year themed on an annual basis to help decorate the downtown Murray Park area for that occasion, since that's really when the rest of the region and the world really come to Murray Park. And it would be a great opportunity to help highlight and enhance the experience of Garvey Avenue and the downtown area during that peak period where a lot of people are coming. That might be an opportunity to spend some extra funds. And if that's something also the city needs to look at, let's look at that maybe in partnership with Wolf Journal. And if there are other holidays throughout the year to help attract, that might help to help attract more people or just make the downtown environment, particularly as we're moving forward on the Garvey improvement projects if there are ways to rethink and I think and I hope the bid members and the commission are going to participate substantively and fully in the Garvey project process but let's encourage the commission to kind of think through if we're going to spend a bunch of money redesigning Garvey what that means for the bid and what that might might pose in terms of opportunities for the bid and the Economic Business Development Commission to look at in terms of spending funding going into the future, whether that's more frequent pressure washing or even replacing trash cans, bus shelters, other things that the businesses would like to see is if we're going to do that, how do we integrate more of these other kind of ideas into making the downtown Murray Park area even more vibrant and what are some of the basic kind of infrastructure ideas and even smaller things like decorations that we want to make sure we're resourcing and investing in in the downtown area would love to i know this is the report from the last year the annual report but as we go into kind of budget for the bid into next year and as we look at these other projects that are going to be intersecting with the bid in the coming years would love to just see how how we can do more than just what we've been traditionally doing and i know we've and doing that with the Taste of Downtown MPK program and others. But let's continue to build on that and continue to look for other opportunities and new programs and new things and resources to bring to downtown Murray Park, support the businesses there. Would love to see that.

Thank you. Okay.

You know, I just want to thank Joseph for preparing this report and also for the commissioner, Commissioner Wu. Thank you for coming here tonight, representing your fellow BID members and business owners. This is our downtown for the city, and so certainly we want to make sure that we are giving the tools needed for those who are part of our downtown, our BID, to be able to thrive.

And so I'm in favor of this. And as my colleague Councilman Wong said, you know, if there's any way in which we can be innovative outside box thinking,

especially given the vision we have to improve Garvey Avenue as well as prepare and position ourselves to be ready for some international events, as well as adapting to the changing regulatory landscape here in California, especially with regard to, for example, as I mentioned, another item, outdoor dining. Let's make sure that we are there to make our downtown thrive. And with that, if I hear...

I'm sorry, yes?

So, Mayor Pro Tem, just for clarification, I wanted to make sure that the council is aware. So this item 11A, it is receiving and filing, yes, last year's budget report, but it's also approving the proposed budget for 2026. I just wanted to highlight that. Of course, the adjustments can be made, but I just wanted to make sure that that was clarified.

I will just be clear that I would love to see if there are ideas for adjusting the budget. I'm very open to it and would love to have those ideas brought to the council if they need to go beyond the existing bid budget. and would love a report back from the Economic and Business Development Commission and staff, as appropriate, if there are new ideas being implemented in the downtown area around some of this stuff. We'd love to just be able to promote that as well.

But I'm happy to...

Yes, if I could...

Hearing no further comments, if we have, then a motion to receive a file, as well to approve the business improvement district assessment and budget for the 2026 program year.

I'll make a motion.

Motion moved by Council Member Ngo.

I'll second.

Seconded by Council Member Sanchez.

Hearing no further comments, then members, please vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Madam President, welcome back.

All right.

Moving on to item 11B, consideration to reappoint Joseph Leon to the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District.

Madam Mayor and members of the council, before we get to this item, we did want to just make a quick announcement that Joseph Leon sends his apologies for not being able to attend tonight's council meeting. He had a conflict in his schedule, but he did want to share that he is definitely still interested in the position. So I know Diana, Assistant City Manager, is going to go through the report.

Thank you. Just a quick report. Diana Garcia, Assistant City Manager.

The item before you this evening is to reappoint Joseph Leon as the city representative on the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District Board of Trustees

for a term of either two or four years.

Mr. Leone has been the city's representative on the board since January 2010.

And again, I do want to note that you would be reappointing him

by adopting the attached resolution. I don't think that's clear in the recommendation.

So if we could get when we do the motion, if that could be made clear.

make that motion if that's the

agreed case. I'm happy to second. Maybe we can invite Mr. Leon when appropriate in the coming weeks to maybe do an update on the mosquito factor control. I know there were some recent actions that the district are taking around the Selle College area that might be of interest to the community.

Definitely. We can schedule that.

Madam Mayor,

and if at some point, I'm not sure if now is appropriate or or later if we can just for point of reference and information share because I think it starts tonight. In particular, my area of my district is usually yearly probably the most impacted in

Monterey Park in terms of mosquito infection. So I'm not sure. I think it starts tonight, right?

It got delayed?

Right.

So I believe it was two evenings of mosquito treatments in that district. I think it was the 12th.

And then because of the rain, it was delayed on the 13th and moved to the 14th.

So I believe that's concluded by this point.

All right.

Well, I'm okay with two years as well. So Council Member Ngo moved and Council Member Wong seconded.

So let's vote.

I move unanimously.

All right. And that's all the new business we have for tonight.

Let's move on to city communications.

Future agenda items.

All right. I'll go with city communications.

It's been since the last couple of weeks.

We had the celebration at our amputator for, I guess you can say,

happy birthday for Taiwan, which is the 10-10 ceremony,

which we've held at our amphitheater for a number of years. Also attended more than a couple of local nonprofits who did their mid-autumn festival at our Marri Park Capital Seafood Restaurant. And then on the 8th to the 10th,

many of you also joined me at the League of Cities

where we powwow for three-plus days along with many of the California elected officials in terms of learning about what's going on with the state, with the cities and planning from a strategic standpoint

what we can do going forward.

Then of course on the 10th I've attended the library gala at Luminaria, huge success. I know Bob Gin and Carol Sullivan are not here but they did a great job as usual. I think it was 42 tables of 120 people. I know there was some dancing that evening

speaking of which just

this past weekend Electric Park, now there was a lot of dancing and I want to say that was epic so thank you Robert and staff for doing that as Council Member Sanchez

mentioned he left with the kids, I arrived

but I was told that the mayor arrived

after when I was about to leave because there was more partying that night

and one last thing Go Dodgers

I wish I brought a broom but I brought a bat

so let's sweep the Brewers and look forward to another World Series win for

LA. Thank you I'll just ditto what everything that Council Member Ngo said and Go Dodgers as well. I really appreciate the library gala and the Library Foundation and the Friends of the Library really putting on another stellar event. Sounds like we did the event did really well looking forward to the staff update on the bookmobile whenever that's going to be ready and hope that we will be able to see that in action sooner than later but really appreciate the library and everyone that helped to support the library gala really another great convening of so many people from the community and so many supporters of the library noted earlier by public comment great to participate I think most of us were there and many community members and swimmers for the swim campaign event. I don't know. I guess we can't call it swim-a-thon, but whatever that was. I appreciate being able to get in the pool, do some laps. I think I did more than some of the high school swimmers that I think were lazy to that day, but they'll just have to make it up. But I did not do first, as Margaret noted. I did not do the most laps. On the Vision Zero action plan, Really appreciate that we were able to pass that on consent tonight. Look forward to that plan being implemented. I know there's a lot, and this council has had conversations even since before a few of us gone on council around how to make it safer for pedestrians in the city. Look forward to seeing the many actions that are part of that action plan really come into play in the community outreach that's going to be happening around that program. I just want to make sure a core part of that program it sounds like was is the safe routes to school right helping it make it easier and safer for Families and particularly students to be able to walk to their neighborhood schools I want to make sure that Keppel our Keppel is part of that plan and process since that's outside of the city of Mario Park but I'm sure and assume that that will be part of the planning in terms of whatever infrastructure has to happen to help make walking and biking for students to Keppel and including our other neighborhood schools even safer. If there are other actions, look forward to seeing this plan come back to council for approval and being able to work on a lot of those efforts. I know that I hear for my district and I know the other council members, I'm sure, for the schools in their district, especially at the start of the new school year here a lot of people right getting back into selling it back into having to drive and drop off and pick up and that that being a peak time for potential industry injuries and pedestrian safety kind of being top of mind just want to make sure we continue to address this and push this forward appreciate the council and the city staff really highlighting vision zero and pedestrian safety in our community and working towards even everything else that other things that we can continue to do and invest we can make to make walking in our city safe I would like to ask staff on Kind of relates to the bid update that we got an economic development update. I don't know I haven't heard a lot personally from businesses in the city But in terms of immigration actions more regional I know right this council is purchase or the city is participating in a loss one of the lawsuits around some of the immigration actions that have been occurring around the region and in the state of California around federal immigration enforcement. I'm curious. I don't know if we've heard. Maybe this is we can tee up an update as appropriate in terms of direct impacts to our businesses or what they're experiencing and feeling from some of the immigration actions. I don't know. I don't think we've seen a lot of very dramatic impact in terms of workers not showing up to businesses to work or kind of a downturn in businesses, but I just don't know. Maybe there is. We'll be curious to see if we can do, if we are kind of tracking that at all, if we've heard anything, and if there's any data to help kind of inform and guide the council on some of that.

Madam Mayor, if I may address that question.

So we did follow up briefly with our economic development staff.

in their business visits.

We've only heard that when the raids were happening more frequently

that businesses shared that they saw a decline in customers to the businesses.

We don't think that's currently happening.

It sounded like that was just the time frame. Heightened fear in the community potentially kept customers away.

That's some of the feedback, definitely just informal with businesses as staff has chatted with them,

with their business visits, but we have not done like a formal survey or anything like that. From our understanding from the businesses, they're not being impacted from workers not going to work. It was just mostly a decline in customers. So hopefully that helps.

That's helpful. I know and hope that we will continue to track that to the extent we can, knowing that a lot of this is just qualitative kind of informal surveying. I'm not saying we need to do any kind of formal survey because I don't know that we'd even get data back. But it would be helpful to continue to keep a pulse on this and see if there is a need for the city to provide resources or to intervene in some way, shape, or form with our local businesses. I think we just want to keep tabs on how our business community and our local community is doing in terms of these actions. Understanding that right now we're kind of in a lull, I guess, but I would anticipate some of the immigration actions probably picking up again. And so kind of keeping abreast of what's going on and how our businesses are dealing with it would be helpful, I think, for the council. And then just another item, I know part of the bid, I forgot to mention this during the bid update, But if there are latest public art projects, the that we unveiled this year earlier this year was in the downtown Monterey Park area, the mural, the greetings tour mural. We'd love to see us continue to look at opportunities for public art. And that's something to integrate into the bid thinking and economic development, economic business development commission. but also our other commissions would love to make sure that we've we're getting a pipeline going for public art projects at parks and public facilities and other places in the city would love to make sure that it's not a whole nother year or whatever to to see another public art project come up would love to to continue building a pipeline for opportunities in the city i think there are a lot of a lot of walls that could use some love and that could host uh a public art project and another mural or other things as well and we'd love to just make sure we're looking at the team up there but if they're it's fun make sure we're and encourage us uh and the team to look at building a pipeline of multiple projects to be able to be working on that's all yeah

all right um i wanted to uh first off thank our fire and police for their efforts in coordinating the National Walk to School Day on October 8th. I know Council Member Ngo and I had an opportunity to walk with police and students, I don't know, probably about 30, 40 students or so, to Inez Elementary School on that morning. But I know there was more other schools

that were participating.

I know Brightwood, I believe Robert Hill Lane, Monterey Highlands were just some of the other schools that were participating as well. So great to see a lot of kids and families walking on that day and promoting pedestrian-friendly streets. I think we need to do a lot more of that in Monterey Park, as Council Member Wong mentioned earlier, in terms of ensuring that our streets are safe for students and for all pedestrians. I also got an opportunity last week to attend the Community Connections to highlight Code Enforcement Week. So I know that there's actually quite a bit of turnout. Maybe it was because of the free bagels, but it was great to be able to be there and highlight our code enforcement and a lot of the work that they're doing in our city. and then this past Monday was Indigenous Peoples Day and I know that our mayor read our land acknowledgement so I wanted to also do a shout out to the Indigenous people that are from this area, the Tongva people and then lastly, this past Monday as well I had an opportunity, I now serve on the LA Metro Service Council and I wanted to highlight two important programs and one of them, I'm going to talk to Robert specifically is our metro offers a life pass program and the life pass program is for low-income individuals but it's also for elderly for a lot of our elderly youth who want to use la metro passes la metro will literally come out do workshops sign people up give metro cards and they get 20 free rides a month which is pretty cool might be great to invite them to some of our other city events in terms of making sure that a lot of our residents within the community who might not know about the life pass program are able to sign up uh and get 20 free rides a month uh it's completely free and actually there's about 83 000 la county residents are part of the la pass program so a great way to get not just our elderly but any uh individual signed up for that so i wanted to share that and just in terms of new um items i know that council member wong was talking about some of the efforts that we uh did in terms of supporting our immigrant youth and i think one of those items that we did was um approved fifty thousand dollars to try to support efforts to support our immigrant community that have been impacted by the ice rate so i know that i believe we directed staff to come back to us and with possible ways that we can use some of those funds uh so we'd like to just um hear a little bit more in terms of uh what we could potentially use in terms of supporting our immigrant youth uh not just our immigrant community sorry um i was thinking about youth but uh the other thing is i know when where was here where disposal um sharing um information i know it's been a one-year mark now one of the things I recommended was potentially doing a survey to hear from residents in terms of what residents feel in terms of where disposal any concerns they might have maybe we can

their activities, what they're doing, and just I hear that they have a new board, so would love to hear some of the stuff that they're working on and just kind of where they're at as a status update, if we can invite them. And that's it for me, I think. Oh, and just want to do a quick shout out for everyone to come out tomorrow for Monster Mash. All of us dressed up so that we could highlight and also promote the event tomorrow, so I hope to see

all of you guys there.

What do you dress up?

I dress like this every day.

I see Henry wear that every day.

That's how I dress up every day.

I also attended many events that my colleagues mentioned. I want to congratulate

some of us attended the ribbon

cutting for a new salon open Atlantic Times Square Swank and congratulations to the new business.

Again, as was mentioned earlier, locations like

Atlantic Times Square, they're slowly but surely also breathing life back into their facilities and their commercial centers and we really welcome that. Also attended the library gala and again, it's just wonderful to see this foundation that for years has been just attracts so many people from our community to support our library

because I think we all acknowledge the importance of having a thriving library, and it's just so great to see so many people come out.

And then as far as future agenda items, I'd like a future agenda item perhaps given some of the new housing legislation that's come out of Sacramento and has also been signed by the governor to perhaps a report to about how some of this new legislation may be of benefit to us as we meet our housing goals.

And yeah, that's it for me. And happy HalLoen, everyone.

All right. So a lot of the events have already been covered.

Many of council attended the League of California Cities

in Long Beach last week.

The SGV Pub fundraiser was a big success. All the volunteers did a great job organizing it on October 5th. Or Monterey Park Library Gala was a huge success last Friday as well at Luminaria. It was great to see staff, council, and many residents in our city come out and attend and do the hula dance. Some upcoming events.

There's quite a few this Friday.

Assemblymember Mike Fong is going to be at the Langley Center on Friday morning at 9 a.m. doing a stop senior scam session. And right after that, the Monterey Park Women's Club is having their annual membership tea from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the service club, 440 South McFerrin. And later on in the evening, the Weston Gabriel Valley Realtors Legislative Day

is happening from 5 to 7 p.m.

And October 25th, there's the APAVA Elder Law Day held at the Monterey Park Library. from 10 a.m. till 12 30 p.m. So busy October for us. And with that, we will go ahead and adjourn tonight's meeting at 8 49 p.m.

Madam Mayor, real quick.

One thing I forgot for city manager, I believe the SR 710 task force had a community meeting, whatever, a week ago, two weeks ago. I don't know if there's a way we can check in on what's going on with that task force. That was a bill that we were originally out of the legislature that the city council was opposed to, which was a task force that was set up for the future of the 710 stub on our end. And whatever happens to that stub, even though the existing stub isn't in the city of Monterey Park, if there are changes to the stub, those impacts will come into the city of Monterey Park. So we want to make sure we're keeping tabs on that process. I know staff have been in touch with the city of Alhambra. that is part of the task force. I want to make sure we're connected and connecting and aware of any plans and ideas that are going to come out of that process that may impact Monterey Park, particularly Chicoan, since that's the neighboring area to the stub, and to make sure that we engage as appropriate on potential changes to the stub that might impact the city of Monterey Park.

Madam Mayor, definitely. we are

Diana Garcia

our assistant city manager attended

that community meeting definitely made contact with the task

force and reminded them that Monterey Park wants to be involved in part of the discussions

definitely the update that we got is that the

proposed plan is still

about 5 to 10 years out so we are monitoring it we will stay involved and engaged um definitely there's many many different um entities involved and so i would describe this project is going to be slow uh to move so alhambra's proposed um stub improvement is you know it's a two-way highway um so it's still a street. There's still opportunities for vehicles to use it. But like I said, the construction, not anticipating any time earlier than five years. So we will continue to monitor it, absolutely.

Knowing that there's no actual funding available for any of the solutions that they may come up with, I think it's optimistic that we'll see anything within five years either. Yes, yeah.

Like I said, five to ten years is the update that we received from the

Consultant that's working on that task force. Yeah, whatever we can do to keep tabs obviously keeping tabs I think there's a lot of interest in the Highlands neighborhood in particular and corporate center around what might happen there with the 710 stub and it might be appropriate at some point if there if there's something or substance in terms of ideas that are coming out of the 710 task force It might be worth trying to get whoever's running according to 710 task force to maybe present to the Highlands neighborhood and the city on process and what's going on there. All right. Thank you. Anything else? Last call? All right.

We'll adjourn for reals this time, 8.52 p.m.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You