City Council Meeting_ Dec 17_ 2025

Put your right hand over your heart. Ready begin. I pledge our allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God in the visible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you so much to our Moneray Park Police Explores and to our Civic Superstar Xi-Jun-Jun. We have a certificate to present to you. Thank you for being here today to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

If any other residents or community members have children who like to be Civic Superstars, you're welcome to apply and to lead us in our future Pledge of Allegiance. Madam Clerk, may we have a roll call

please. Council Member Goat. Present. Council Member Wong. Present. Council Member Sanchez. Present. Mayor

Prutim. Low. Here. Mayor Yang. Present. All right. So under agenda revisions and additions, the City Council met in close session prior to today's council meeting to consider initiation of litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9D4. After considering the matter, the City Council voted unanimously to authorize the City Attorney to file appropriate action to render real property located at 2537-2543. Lee Avenue in South O'Monty to be marketable. This property is being sold to recover debt owed to the City. Do we have any other agenda revisions or additions? No, Madam Mayor. Thank you. All right. Let's move on to public communications.

Okay. So we have two public communications today. Number one would be David Goats. Goats. David Goats from the fire department.

Evening Madam Mayor, Council Members and City Staff. Here tonight, not as a captain of the Monri Park fire department, but actually as the newly elected Union President representing the 1014 members of Monri Park. I want to sincerely, don't put up the guards yet, it's good. I want to sincerely thank you for your leadership and hard work on two critical priorities for our community safety. First, thank you for the recent vote to purchase the parcel of land on Monri Pass for our new fire station. I remember 20 years ago when I started my career here that there was talks of a new station 62 and all the old guys said that was a pipe dream. Well, that's done and completed and now the first big hurdle on our way to a second station in my career has been passed and it's really exciting. That decision reflects a real and tangible investment in public safety and improved protection for our residents. And it shows you're planning not just for today, but for the community's needs, decades into the future. Second, really, I want to say on behalf of everyone because we did, I swear, I really swear we had everyone here and just as chance has it, there was three calls that came up in the city so they all had to leave unplanned, I promise, but when the city needs us, we answer that call. I want to recognize and thank council fire admin city management as well as HR for their diligent efforts to bring in the largest incoming class of new firefighters our city has ever had. Ensuring proper staffing levels means our firefighters can do their job safely and effectively. It also means we are as we're in the midst of this holiday season, we're able to go home and focus on our families knowing that our brethren that are here working are safe and staffed. These decisions don't happen by chance. They require commitment, tough choices and a willingness to prioritize public safety. So on behalf of all the guys that were here and all of 1014, we want to thank you sincerely and have a good night and happy and safe holidays. Thank you so much Captain Gats and thank you

to your team for all your service for our city. Our second speaker tonight is Anthony Wong on behalf

of the Monari Park Lions Club. Good evening everybody. Honorable Mayor you deserve again we have put them handy low. Councilmember Jose Sanchez councilmember Thomas Wong council member Wien Engel city manager and his other is city attorney Carl burger of course and city car Michelle ye city treasurer Amy Lee. The chamber looks familiar to me. Tonight I'm wearing a hair of Monari Park Lions Club. Monari Park Lions Club was founded and charter on December 29th 1937 which is exactly 88 years ago. So Monari Park Lions Club is going to celebrate his 88th anniversary in installation dinner of all the offices and directors. On December 27th at San Gabriel Hilton Hotel. So we expect with about 610 days and I represent the club to extend our invitation to all of you to join us to celebrate our 88th anniversary. Monari Park Lions Club has built the MP Theater in the back of Bans Park the Pavilion the service clubhouse the warehouse the Fountain's the bathroom all of those was built by the member of Monari Park Lions Club. And in the year 1978 the Lionel built the Lionel's Manor on 215 North Chandler. Right now we are having Christmas celebration there. So I'll be going there after my speaking to all of you to present my invitation to you. And after our celebration on the 27th Monari Park Lions Club will be chairing a hunger drive program to service about 1000 family those need food. So we'll be doing their drive on December 28th from 8 o'clock in the morning at W3 Hotel in a room on 8 Montibano Boulevard. So you're all welcome to join us to help those needy people. Understand that Mayor Elizabeth will be there helping us together. And you're all welcome and those are staying at home and who's are here you're welcome to work together with us to serve the company to out to serve the club and to serve our community helping those needy people.

So Montibano Boulevard has been serving the community for over 80 years and we decided and we are dedicated to continue our four fathers work these steps to continue to help whoever need help. And we work together with the MD for L2 under their district they are all together 61 line clubs of a total of about 1500 members working together. So we are dedicated to work with them and hoping that you will all support us and join us to work together. With that happy holidays

good luck good health thank you very much. Oh Mr. Wong you said it's on the 27th.

27. Okay what time. Give me a hug and from 6 o'clock. It looks okay. On the new crop there are a lot of programs.

Pre-join us. It's our on the road guest. Thank you. The dinner is on the 27th and the food

distribution is on the morning of the 28th. Yeah in the morning from 8 o'clock. 8 am. Thank you. Happy holidays. Thank you. Thank you.

All right I think that's it for public communications today so we'll move on to staff communications. Public works.

Good evening Madam Mayor City Council members and city staff. My name is Judy Weetragel. I'm an analyst here in the city of Monterey Park with the public works department and I'll be going over some staff communications from our department. Next slide please. The city recently launched an ongoing community transportation survey to gather feedback from writers and community members of Monterey Park. It was shared across city social media platforms, cascades as well as Ellis Barrett-Bess and MPK Transit Express Rites. The survey was also shared with local school districts for distribution, including East Los Angeles College and Cal State LA. The survey is available in English, Spanish, and Chinese, and is accessible by scanning the QR codes in the slide. The feedback will also allow us to improve future writer experience.

Monthly compost dates have been released for the first half of 2026. They take place once a month on Saturdays at Garvey Ranch Park between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. Bagged compost is available on a first come, first or basis, with a limit of two bags per customer for the first hour. Collection services will be delayed by one day for the upcoming holidays. Those holidays are Christmas Day, Thursday, December 25th, 2025, and New Year's Day, Thursday, I'm sorry, yes, Thursday, January 1st, 2026. With that, Christmas trees will be collected on your normal pickup days starting December 26th through January 17th, 2026, we've also included a few tips for residents or tree recycling. Please remove strands, ornaments, lights and tinsel, cut your tree in half if it is more than six feet tall, and place trees next to regular trash container.

The Public Works Department is currently in the process of updating AMI water meters throughout the city, and we anticipate the meter update completion between July 2026 and October 2026. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that presentation. Do we have any questions? Any questions?

Just a little quick. Thank you for the update on the AMI replacement sign-out. It looks like we've done a couple hundred already. If I'm reading that right. Any issues with deploying the new meters so far, or any, Sean is about to get up, but just curious how the initial implementation is going.

Yes, good evening, Mayor Mayor Pro Temesity Council, Sean, I'm a Public Works Director. So far, it's been smooth. We've done a slow rollout to test the waters. So far, everything's gone really, really well. I've had a couple of things come up here and there, but we've worked through those with the contractor and ready to start the new year.

All right, thank you so much. And our next presentation, item 7a, will be our SGV Council of Governments, welcoming President Ed Reese.

Good evening, Mayor Councilmembers.

I'm Ed Reese and I'm proud to serve the City of Claremont and serve as your new President of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments. Today, I'd like to show how the COG brings together cities to tackle challenges, deliver results, and make our region stronger. Next slide, please. The COG is truly a partnership. It brings together 31 cities, two counties to Prophets Royal Districts, and other, I should say, many local public agencies across the San Gabriel Valley. Our mission is simple but powerful to give our region one strong unified voice, to deliver projects that improve transportation, housing, and sustainability. And most importantly, to improve the quality of life, for nearly two million residents who, in part, called this great city, their home. The collaboration is what makes the sum, I should say, the collaboration makes us stronger than the sum of our parts. Next slide. Of course, a mission this big requires leadership and that's where executive committee comes in. I'm proud to serve alongside a group of committed local leaders, each chosen by their peers, to help guide the COG's priorities. They help set the direction, review policies, and make sure our work reflects the needs and values of our member cities. In short, the executive committee and the governing board keep us grounded in the realities of our communities while keep us focused on the future. Next slide. And that leadership, it extends outward through our policy committees. These committees are where real collaboration happens. They focus on issues that touch every city, capital projects, the environment, homelessness, and transportation. We also draw on the expertise of city managers and working groups so that local voices shape our regional solutions. And this is where you come in. If you haven't already, and I know many of you have, I encourage you to get involved. Your expertise and your perspective helps to ensure the city's voice is heard and your resonance needs are reflected in our regional decisions. Next slide. Of course, leadership and collaboration is only part of the story. That's where our staff shines. Under the executive, under excuse me, the leadership of executive director Mercia Creteur, our talented team takes the ideas and turns them into action. They provide the expertise, the project management, and the support that make sure that our city's priorities move forward. Next slide. Let me share a few examples of what collaboration has achieved. First, our construction authority. We're the only cog in Los Angeles County with this authority. We're delivering 19 major grade separation projects, each costing one to $200 million each, at little or no cost to our cities. And today, we're expanding to highway improvements, transit facilities, and active transportation projects. Second, SB 1383 compliance. This state law requires us to cut food waste going to landfills. And the cog has helped cities triple their business compliance rates. And at the same time, help food banks to be able to use the food donation they received by providing them with refrigeration and other necessary equipment. It's truly a win-win, where we're helping the environment and addressing food insecurity. And third, measure-em funding. Just last year, we directed $36.5 million to 17 San Gabriel Valley agencies for projects that make it easier and safer for people to go simply where they need to go. These are just a few snapshots. But they show the real tangible impact the cog has had in our communities. And beyond these regional wins, we also partner directly with cities. Next slide. I'd like to share a little bit about our partnership with Monoray Park. So, specifically, I want to talk about compliance support. The cog is proud to partner with the city and local businesses to help achieve compliance with SB 1383. In the past year, the cog has worked with more than 83 local businesses to recover over $193,000 of food. This program is currently funded through a state local assistance grant with the city receiving approximately $162,000 worth of benefits. And homeless outreach. The cog provides homeless outreach teams from the Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse to support the city's homelessness efforts. And in resident benefits, the cog manages several programs that directly benefit the residents of member cities. And through our GO SGV E-Cargo Bike Venture program, 59 Monoray Park residents were selected to receive $2,000 vouchers towards the purchase of new cargo electric bicycles all from local vendors. Lastly, I want to add one other thing. The Energy Champion Award. I'd like to congratulate the city of Monoray Park on winning the Silver Award at our recent cog Energy Champions Award. This week, the city was, excuse me, I should say last week, it wasn't track of my weeks. But last week, the city was recognized for its hard work in dedication to energy efficiency in the San Gabriel Valley. And I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your commitment to a greener SGV. I do have an award for you. I'll bring that up momentarily. But next slide, please. At the heart of all of this, is really what binds us together. Our shared love for the San Gabriel Valley. That is why I launched the I Heart SGV program. It grew from my deep belief that we are stronger when we celebrate our common values in the communities we call home. This program is about bringing our member cities and through them, our residents together and shared pride and appreciation for the San Gabriel Valley. For me, it's also personal. My love of public service, it's soul feeding. And this program is a way for me to show gratitude for our region, for our cities, and for the people who make the San Gabriel Valley, such a special place to live. The Cogn exists to serve you, your council, your staff, and your residents. By working together, our collective voices louder, our reach is farther. And we can deliver on projects and services that no city can do alone. As president, my number one priority is listening. I want to hear from you. Your needs, your challenges, your opportunities, so that we can make sure you're really getting the most from your involvement with the Cog. So please don't hesitate to reach out to me directly. I'm committed to working with you to keep strengthening the San Gabriel Valley. We all love. Thank you for allowing me some time today. And I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you so much, president Reese, for your service. I attend the Cog meetings and seal the hard work you and your team put in. So thank you for visiting us today. Any questions or comments?

Thank you, Ed, and good to see you. Happy holidays to you and your team. Thank you for making us a great partner of the San Gabriel Valley Cog. And thank you for providing the information that we can share with the rest of our residents in the city.

Thank you, council member.

Thank you, president Reese. Really appreciate you and the Cog team joining us today. And we've really enjoyed a very strong partnership between the city and the Cog over the over many years, over 30 years now. But also through the regional housing trust, which the Cog staff helped to implement and to operate. Really appreciate that continued partnership over the last few years as well. So thank you for looking forward to that and did not know with the last first time seeing that 59E bike vouchers were here from here. Or delivered, happened delivered here to residents in Marnie Park. So really appreciate that update and the Cog for helping promote clean electric transportation in our community. So thank you.

I also wanted to thank you for being here tonight and for sharing a lot of the hard work that the Cog has been doing. We really appreciate the work that you've done to help our city. We hope that that relationship continues to grow on a side note. But I really love the pins that you guys have. I think they're the best pins that I've seen any organization have. So hope you're not better than mine. But not better than ours of course. But I really appreciate all the work that you guys do to make the San Gabriel Valley. Just a much more pleasant place to live, but also address a lot of the needs that we have in this area. So very appreciative of the work that you guys do and looking forward to see that award that you mentioned earlier.

Yes. Well thank you, Councilmember. You know, I went to the staff and said, hey, I have this idea about really bringing the San Gabriel Valley together. And it's about loving our communities and our Valley. And out of that came the IRSGB program. So thank you.

Thank you. You know, I, I must say that I, the rest of San Gabriel Valley, I'm really proud of the caliber of the talent at the San Gabriel Valley Cog. I mean, I truly believe that we're probably one of the best Cogs in California. And that's because we were closely together. We collaborated and as my colleague mentioned, we've worked with the Cog on policy issues from housing to energy transportation in Monterey Park. And I'm certainly also very proud of those on your staff who actually live in our city as well, Ricky Troy. And again, you know, it's a partnership. And we look forward to working with the Cog. And again, thank you for the recognition of the Silver Award for our work and energy efficiency.

Mayor Prattam, your perception is accurate. We are the best Cog.

Of course we are.

All right. Shall we come down and accept the certificate?

As you come down here, I will hand off to the clerk that tonight, as a token of our appreciation, I have brought you your own lapel pins to wear both around town, around the San Gabriel Valley, and beyond to show your pride in your love for the San Gabriel Valley. So I have the pins for you. And then if you want to come down, my staff will come up and we'll bring the award.

Thank you.

I'll see you. See you. See you. Hi. Hi.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two.

One, two. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I remember go and myself are the ones that have conflicts. I remember going to go through the short stick. So he's going to sit in on this vote and Mayor Pro Tem will preside over this item. Council member Wong and I will recuse ourselves.

And Madam Mayor, members of the council just for the record, the conflict is a property related conflict. You're within 500 feet of the property or the project.

All right. Good evening, I'm Mayor Pro Tem, I should say. And council, Sean Ego Public Works Director. I also have Josh Cosper with our design team from Mark Thomas. And tonight we'll be here for us on the efforts thus far in our Garvey Avenue improvement project. And go through the conceptual designs the community has provided input on. We will also be asking council to provide staff and the consultant team with direction on what concepts they want to move forward with for the full design. And with that, I will pass it over to Josh.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and honorable council members for giving us the opportunity to speak about the Garvey Avenue improvement project. I do have a longer version of this that will be posted on the city's website by the end of the week. So it will go in a little bit more detail, but in the spirit of brevity, we'll go through this relatively quick. So what we're going to cover tonight is a little bit about the project itself. The initial community outreach efforts, the how the project concepts were developed and what they were. The concept focused outreach a second wave that occurred a little bit later and then get the next steps of the project. So to the left, you could see the limits of the project. There are three streets within the footprint, primarily between new avenue to Atlantic Avenue. Garvey Avenue in red is going to be the majority of the improvements we speak about, but we'll also discuss some bikeway improvements along Emerson and Newmark within those limits. The project is funded with SR 710 mobility improvement project funding through LA Metro. So the three main goals you see in the green are to enhance the traffic capacity improvements to improve pedestrian mobility for non vehicles and then how to enhance and improve the downtown community atmosphere. So out of that, the outputs that you would expect to see through the project would be vehicular improvements and roadway improvements, pedestrian safety, transit, bikeways, EV charging stations, and traffic signal and lighting type improvements. And then in the upper right hand corner, the timeline where we've just concluded the public outreach component of the project. We're cruising through the preliminary design and hoping to get the direction from you to complete the preliminary design now. And then moving into the final design such that the project will be construction ready by fall of next year and finished with the construction by the end of 2027. So the initial stage was how do we develop features to prioritize in the project or what are we going to include that meets all these goals and outputs. And so in no particular order, they included plaza seating areas, beautification and aesthetics, side amenities, planting, irrigation improvements, seasonal lighting and lighting safety improvements, what to do with the on street parking. And then this went into a big set of analysis and developed a lot of the framework of the vision boards and the presentation and exhibits that were used to start the actual initial community outreach. Again, this was to really help prioritize what to include in the project. So it started with some branding and project awareness that was including developing a project logo, fact sheets, door hangers, a website, interactive map, including you know how to partner with the San Gabriel Valley cog. They had a bus rapid transit project that spans a portion of our project that we'll talk a little bit later in the presentation. But a lot of this effort was to gain traction and make the project the public and the community aware. It included a survey, a 10 to 15 minute survey that helped ask several questions, both virtual and in paper. And also since that was going to be more of a community based type outreach, doing door to door canvassing. So within the actual project footprint, where we could talk primarily to the businesses and the residents right on the project corridor. Additionally, the project team attended the with the booth, the city's independence day celebration to promote the awareness we conducted to in person meetings. We'll meeting all in September. All of this was advertised through a lot of the cities, social media and other platforms. Some of the big major highlights, so it was multilingual. This was done in Chinese, Spanish, English. You'll see on the next slide. I'll start with the lower right hand corner, but over 400 surveys were received from the public. 175 business owners and occupants, employees, residents through the door to door canvassing. Spoken to and we connected with 50 people in the community meetings. So what were the inputs and from the actual, especially the survey, if you look to the left, there were two resounding items that we heard from everybody at the top two. Adding walking areas and really the pedestrian mobility, but also adding the site amenities and the features are going to enhance the downtown community. But kind of second tier to that that were really close, but a little bit behind maintaining the four lanes, bikeways, improving transit and maintaining parking. So when we, some of the other features we heard, especially from the businesses, is how can we improve the landscaping, especially the something more modern. But the parking is very vital to the downtown businesses and that create potential for dining areas. So we took all that, heard it as we were developing what to consider into the project concepts. And so looking at the left, what does Garvey Avenue generally look like? There's 10 to 12 foot sidewalks, four lanes, a median parking, revisiting the LA Metro goals of how to improve traffic. To improve traffic capacity, enhancing the non motorist safety and mobility and then the improving the downtown. And so really we bottled that up and it was okay, how do we optimize the sidewalk and those downtown amenities and all of the alternatives. So what can we do to make it as future proof in case the city has other projects that they're evaluating or likes the idea of maybe switching alternatives in the future because priorities change. So making a future proof. And so with that, we developed the first concept. As you can see, this is consistent with all of the alternatives on the outside, 14 to 16 foot sidewalks. That additional four foot is very big. It allows the opportunities we talked about previously with the dining, the more mobility. But how did we accommodate the extra footprint that came with reducing the roadway lane widths to something that there are several standards out there that will justify us slower or lower lane widths equal slower speeds equal better traffic flow equal more safe conditions. And so we also consistent with the city's vision zero plan as well. So this alternative was really maintaining the roadway and the sidewalk. I will note though that the sidewalk to fit within the budget that was allowed with the project for LA Metro, the sidewalk widening would only occur between Lincoln Avenue and Atlantic. And the rest of it would be more of a pavement refresh ADA compliance, you get things up to speed and improve to refresh. So then this is what it looks like in the actual plan view at the Garfield Avenue intersection. The main component you can see that then we'll talk a little bit about this as the presentation goes on. And other key features that we did is we improved the bus stops. Those will be a component of this but also adding what are called curb extensions. The idea is is the bulbs out into the road slightly that helps reduce the speeds. It helps reduce the the the length between the crossings for the pedestrian. So it makes safer crossings as well. So that is primarily the first alternative. The city the city partnered with San Gabriel Valley Coalition of Governments. They have a regional bus rapid transit project that they're preparing for and looking at in the spirit of looking at the 2028 Olympics that connects downtown LA to Pomona. There are several stops and Olympic events that will be along this corridor. But this is also to improve regional transit. So this alternative maintained those same wide sidewalks. Maintain the parking but rather than having four lanes it took the outer lanes and reduced those to bus rapid transit. So it's two lanes plus a bus rapid transit dedicated lane that you see in the orange red. This is a plan view of it. One of the key components though is as you approach intersections you see the dashed red striping that allows through traffic to cross over. It's conflict strapping. the right turn pockets, so there's still the ability to access the side streets easily. Lastly, heard about what to do with the bikes. Additionally, the city separate from this project is evaluate a parking structure project in the downtown area. So this was more looking at, okay, same sidewalks, four lanes, but converting the parking to class two buffered bikeways. To have a bicycle, a bikeway or a new bikeway along Garvey Avenue. Very compatible with that future parking structure project. This is the plan view. Nothing really different, but you can see some of the bike striping improvements we'll talk about from a safety perspective to help with left turns and connectivity. Additionally, with that, we adopted or we prepared three different aesthetic and architectural themes to evaluate with the public. This is what's called the urban vitality. This is like a colorful, fun architectural theme. Where you'll see this is the downtown arts district in Los Angeles, and you can see a lot of the vibrant colors. Then there's the more timeless classic, the urban serenity that's more earth tones, metal, stone, kind of blends in everywhere that you can see in the pictures. These are pretty popular, the playhouse district in Pasadena, also the Grove in Los Angeles. And then lastly, the contemporary oriental that takes a blend of the heritage and some ability to take ornamental architectural features and put it together. As you see, and where you see the blossom plaza in Los Angeles is probably the closest place is this to where you see this kind of architectural theme. We also developed a project specific planting palette that was consistent with the urban forestry plan of the city and the city's sustainability plan. But some of the key components of this is drought tolerant, also taking the street trees and what can we do to make them alternating from evergreen to flowering and colorful that might complement something seasonal like the Lunar New Year festival downtown. And then lastly, what to do to complement and improve the colors from the architectural themes we just talked about. Also, we talked about bikeways Emerson and new mark along the corridor those will be on all alternatives of doing what are called class three shared bikeways, which were the bikes and the vehicles share the traffic that those are usually done in kind of smaller two lane slower speed lower volume areas that will be common to all of them. Additionally, we will provide some bikeway improvements along Atlantic Avenue that will connect to the Monterey Pass road bikeway improvements that are going on in the design phase currently. And that you could see some north south connectors to provide some connectivity to Garvey Avenue all of this is consistent with the city's plan bikeway network. These are some of the features specifically and like I said that you could see pictures along Emerson and new mark or renderings at what the bikeways would look like for the class three. As you approach any kind of turn situations along the right there's the ability to add safety elements for bike boxes or two way are two stage left turns and then the ability for way finding signage and bicycle racks along the corridor, especially at the Garvey connections. Consistent with the city's vision zero plan pedestrian safety elements already talked about the curb extensions and the bullabouts the improved ADA sidewalks and making sure all the ramps are ADA compliant. The high visibility crosswalks that you'll have at the major crossing areas and any kind of striping features we can do to really alert drivers to pedestrian conflict areas. Lastly signals lighting improvements from a safety and operations, but also there's the opportunity with that seasonal features like lunar new year to do LED programmable lighting that might be able to complement any kind of city festivals along Garvey Avenue. So we took all that package it into several boards and exhibits and strip maps and whatnot and developed a second more detailed survey more focused on helping prioritize the concepts to the community as well as the architectural themes. Again, knowing and seeing that it was more community based folks participating in the the surveys we did a second round early November of door to door canvassing really targeting the businesses and the employees of the businesses. Did more community meetings and popups including the monster mash booth the farmers market shortly thereafter and two in person meetings early November. Advertised all through the city social media and so what did the public say as you can see not everybody of the 500 and 9 people participated in voting for the alternative some voted for done but the majority provided some sort of vote and alternative one and alternative three the roadway with the parking and the roadway with the buffered bike lanes were the two primary favorites by the community. But stepping back of those voters only 8% of the voters either work or own a business along the corridor so it was again more community centric. Additionally from the next the the architectural there we go the results overwhelmingly the urban serenity was the favorite from the community. Additionally it was the most flexible of the three alternatives with in terms of options that you can integrate with it and cost effective but also it's got the most compatibility with the existing and future architecture. You know we actually had more success with surveys many of which were new survey participants not just all old 509 166 businesses over 400 people connected with and discussed in person at the different various events all multilingual again same Chinese Spanish English between October November. So in terms of next steps what we recommend to the city council for direction is approval of alternative one. It seemed to have the most support when you consider both businesses and the community it also didn't have any kind of a proclusion to the ability to incorporate the bus rapid transit improvements that St. Valley Cogs team has been discussing with the city over the last month and into the early part of next year. Additionally it doesn't take away parking or impact any of the businesses so it would be the least impactful in that situation but also easily and agreeable with the future parking structure project. So option two the urban serenity from an architectural theme for your approval any input that we can receive from you at the end of this and any questions we're happy to answer again just from the re the refresh on the timeline we're trying to conclude the preliminary design so we can get the project construction ready by fall of next year and winter of 2027 complete construction. With that said thank you for your time really appreciate the opportunity to present this project and open it up to any questions or input you have.

Thank you staff for that presentation members to help a member's any questions or comments.

Yes thank you for the presentation I think I would be into like three of those in the market just and saw a lot of participants who actually were involved and they came with the second time third time they came with the markers pens and really drew up the diagram. I like the presentation I like what you guys have to focus on which is alternative one I mean again consistently for me my top three priorities here are safety flow and aesthetics in that order and I think you have that and it looks like it's consistent to what you guys are presenting so I'm I'm in support of what you guys got there.

Thank you customer go for some questions first of all thank you for the presentation I think it's very exciting to see what potentially the garbage downtown district will look like and I know a lot of people are very excited to see this project come to fruition but also what it potentially holds for us as a city I think it's going to be a great. Marker for us in terms of where where we can be in terms of so are we being asked tonight just to clarify to give direction are we are we taking a vote on a particular.

Plan I know that there was three options that were provided correct council members and just yes tonight we are asking for direction from the council so yes our staff and consultants made recommendations for the councils to consider however we're here to also hear your feedback but yes we are looking for direction with this direction we would move the project into its next phase which is actually to go through the design work so yes we would need.

Formalized direction yeah and just for my add that so the other benefit is Josh point out earlier is that going with the first alternative gives us the opportunity in the future should we decide that we want to add by claims to. This segment of garbage we can do that was simple striping there's not going to be a huge construction cost to redo sidewalk asphalt anything like that so this is a nice alternative that gives options for the future i'm additionally no judge pointed out that the construction cost. In the sidewalk at Lincoln we are actively working with metro to look at extending at the full duration of this segment along garbage to new so once we're back from metro officially then we can add that segment of sidewalk to the full portion of garbage.

Can we go back to the four the three options yes so the option they got the most amount of votes and I mean there was 400 you said 400 votes in total right and I councilman or go I also went to a lot of these and I like all of them but the one with the bike lanes which is alternative three is the option. Is that correct with it. I know that this council and has talked in the past about extending and adding bike lanes not just down the garbage district but throughout the city that would connect the city so I think this is a great opportunity for us to be able to add bike lane pass to our city especially in the downtown district district to be able to encourage residents to be able to bike down to the downtown district especially as this project comes to for the city. So I personally would like to see bike lane pass I know that I also serve on the metro council and service council and I know that the importance of the metro bus lane path or dedicated path but I had some questions about that I know we discussed this in the last council meeting but should the cog move forward with or should we move forward with the potential project encouraged by the cog to add a dedicated bus lane path.

Would that lane the all 24 hours a day be a dedicated bus lane path that's still up for debate so that's really going to be council's prerogative if they want to support that as an option there are other alternatives you could do durations during a certain periods of time if you want to you know have that during peak flow going toward a lay in the morning and coming from L.A. in the in the evening that is an alternative the cog would need to provide those statistics to show the benefits to either option.

And I know that the only drawback with adding the at least the way I see it the bike lane path would be the loss of the dedicated parking spaces that are already there right correct but we are planning to add a parking structure to this area.

Yes long term the goal is to add a parking structure again I think that's that's why we're recommending alternative one because right now we don't have a parking structure and so by doing alternative one it allows us to retain the parking that's existing and then in the future when that parking structure is built then we can look at and evaluate removing those parking spaces to put bike lanes back in. Okay and then Sean I'm not sure if you can if you might know this up to top of your head but when is our expected date for completion for the structure structure so we're we're finalizing our parking study to give the metro we've been just been given that Metro any time soon now once we get there okay then we can start looking at getting those funds allocated says to build the structure so then we'll go out to design. Then construction so I would say we're probably at least three plus years out before that would be completed.

Three years you said? Three plus yes. Three plus years okay so in three plus years if we moved forward with let's say alternative one which is what you guys are recommending we can come back and look at removing the parking if the council wishes to.

And adding the bike lane path correct that is correct and then I also might point out this the the the project that we have before you tonight doesn't preclude people from using garbage for their bikes now they can use garbage as a pathway for their bicycles additionally alternative one does have Sheros which is bike lanes in essence along a new mark and Emerson thank you so again there there is still bike connectivity along those through affairs and then also you have a thoroughfare. throwfarers that come down to connect from Emerson and also up from Newark to connect to Garvey. So there's still alternatives to use bikes for the Fort Conza for alternative one.

I mean, given that most of the votes, if I'm reading this correctly, were alternative three with the dedicated bike lane. I'm just, I'm wondering if we still need to potentially do more community input in terms of option one or alternative one in three.

I mean, I understand why the alternative one would be recommended, but I still feel that this is a great opportunity to add a bike lane path and given that the majority of the people who did complete the survey want the dedicated bike lane path. That is the, if I'm reading this correctly, is that right? Yeah, go ahead.

Mayor Pro Tem, if I may. Yes, thank you. So correct council member Sanchez, the survey results does indicate that the community members that took the survey, yes, alternative three had the highest vote. 8% to the bottom of the side, 8% of those respondents work or own a business in the area. So I wanted to ask again about businesses in the area and their responses to the potential of lost parking. Can you reiterate that portion?

Yeah, overwhelmingly of the 160 plus and both downtown canvassing efforts were against the bikeways and wanted the parking. It just, they didn't fill out the survey, so it's a little bit misleading when you see the actual results, but when discussed verbally and with them, there was a very adamant we want parking as part of this project. Don't touch our parking.

So just for clarification, we wanted to make sure that the recommendation tonight for alternative one allows some flexibility in the future to potentially either remove the parking and allow for bike lanes in the future or potentially allow for a bus rapid transit lane. So yes, they're mixed reviews from businesses versus community members and taking the survey. And so that's what we were trying to capture when we're thinking about the removal of the parking lane as well. So alternative one was recommendation at this time because it allows some flexibility as we're still planning for potentially the bus rapid transit lanes and potentially for hopefully the parking structure comes sooner than we anticipate and then there'll be some additional parking available on the parking structure. As a reminder, the parking structure is slated to be at the Lincoln Garvey area. So that's the only parking structure that we're looking at at this time. So there would only be that one access to that structure. So I think the businesses were concerned about losing that frontage parking. So I wanted to make sure that we're sharing that those comments back from the businesses as well.

Yes, I'm sorry. Do you still have any additional comments?

Yes, I had just one more question actually. Do we know, I'm not sure if you have this data, Sean, available, but how many businesses either have or don't have their own available parking space? Because I know that a lot of businesses on Garvey do have parking space. And I'm thinking like just the ones that I visit regularly, like Pronto Donuts, for example. They have plenty of parking there, right? I never have trouble parking in there, but I know that there are potentially some other businesses that don't.

Yeah, I don't have those numbers off top of my head, but why can't I tell you it's definitely mixed? Even some of the ones that do have parking, they're limited. So there are many businesses along Garvey that will only have a few parking spaces that don't accommodate for the needs of them. So people are parking on the street. So I think that, you know, again, looking at today's environment, alternative one, retains that parking, but gives us the flexibility with minimal costs to expand out. Should we, so again, I think that once the structure is built, then we can go back out to the, not only the community, but the businesses and talk to them about the structure being built, the additional parking that's available. Now we have additional sidewalk space where people can walk through the downtown area. So again, I think that, you know, either option would work, but ideally one gives us more flexibility down the road.

Thank you. And then just one more question on the, can we move to the next slide with the aesthetic options? I personally, because I have kids, really like the first option, because it just seems a lot more family friendly. But I do understand that the, I think it's the urban serenity, is that what it's called? The urban serenity is the one that got the most amount of votes by far. And the one that I like is the one that got the least amount of votes. So, but all of them look amazing and all of them look great. So I think any of those would be a great improvement for our city. But was there a separate page just for the urban serenity slide? Was there a separate slide for that one? Yes. Just so I can see a little bit more in detail.

This is urban serenity. Okay. And just so I understand, is there a lot more vegetation in this one compared to the other ones?

No, it's all gonna be a similar spacing of trees spacing of landscaping. It's more the accent features around, like the tree grates will be more of a copper or bronze, or it might be some sort of decorative earth tone type hardscape along the way. But the landscaping and the plushness is going to be the same regardless of the alternatives. It's more just the accent features around. What kind of colors, what kind of styles are gonna be?

I see. I just don't know why the one I voted for,

didn't get enough votes. I'm just kidding. But that would just be nice. But anyhow, they all look amazing. They all look great. I'm just more concerned about the parking situation. I completely understand where businesses are coming from. And then, yeah, that's all my questions for now. Thank you, Councillor Schatz.

Councillor Goube, yes? Thank you.

I have a follow up actually. Looking at the math right now, where you have helped me understand here. So if we went with alternative three, the bike lane would be on Garvey. Not on, that would be it. Based on that alternative, correct? No, the Emerson and Newmark will get the sheroes

regardless of the alternative. This would just provide a bike thoroughfare down Garvey. So there would be three bike lanes.

If you went to alternative three, now, if you went with alternative one, you would still have the two bike lanes on Emerson and Newmark. That is correct. And one thing to remember too, there's three streets, McFarron, Alhambra,

and Orange that will have North South. Sheroad connectors or class two. And then at those junctions with Garvey, that would be the most ideal place for wayfinding signage by cracks, any other kind of bike lanes. And then, if you're going to have a bike lane signage by cracks, any other kind of bike amenities too. So the idea is still to provide at kind of half mile, quarter mile intervals, connectivity such that you can still be very bike friendly with alternative one.

Okay, well, my mind didn't change. I just wanted to confirm that because it's still to me. The safety is the most important thing here. And I just worry with Garvey being such a heavy flow traffic route. If you put bike lanes there, unless you do dedicated, otherwise, you're just bound to have accidents. Versus you put them on Emerson and Newmark, I think it's probably a smoother ride, less car, less flow, and I still like the fact that, well, turn of one, you still have the flexibility. Should something happen with the bus lanes and the bike lane, you convert that later, you still have the flexibility. And I think we really need to consider the downtown area, business district area, with the parking, I know they have the parking lots, but in the scheme of things, that's not enough. That's why overflow to the street. And I've seen that. So, and I'm glad we still have time to do this. So I think we still go with what's flexible, but taking the order of safety, flow of traffic, and then aesthetics to me is nice to have, but not critical at this point.

So.

Yes, customer centrist, yes.

Can I ask one more question? For the alternative three, did you say that was a class three bike lane?

Class two, to buffered bike lanes. So there'll be a two foot stripe buffer between the bikeway and the traffic. And then we talked about curb extensions. As you get closer, those would bullbath normally where the parking would be into the roadway, but what you do is it's called a protected intersection where effectively in alternative one, they can act as additional ADA ramps, and maybe you could even take some of the parking and convert it to ADA parking. But in the ultimate, the cyclist would go through that. There's like a ramp that would effectively go or cut through that they can go and have their kind of protected zone as they're crossing through intersection. So it would be even the curb extensions we talked about would be compatible with both bikes or keeping it parking.

And then what would a class three bike lane look like then?

This would not meet state law for class three. Unfortunately, your volumes and your speeds are too high. Okay, class three where you share the traffic.

When you guys talk to businesses about extending the sidewalks, how did they feel about that?

They actually generally liked it. They thought the idea, the most, especially the ones that were more with food or dining opportunities were thrilled about the idea. But many thought about, you know, you start putting benches or lights or others and it starts crowding that 10 feet and really narrowing the walkway areas. So generally they were all in favor of wider sidewalks.

I see.

Okay, thank you. Any other comments, colleagues? Okay, thank you. I have some questions.

Again, I know it's in the staff report, but again, just so for public edification. This funding is coming from Metro funding for 710, a mobility put, right? Again, that was the money that was set aside for it can be like Monter Park with the elimination of what was then the 710th tonal project, correct? That's correct. Okay. And again, thank you for doing this with what seems like a very comprehensive survey. How have we also been conferring wood metro about these results? Have we been also communicating with Metro about this?

We update Metro on progress on these items, yes.

And the reason why I bring it up is because I know that under the previous project, which the council at the time ultimately rejected, I know Mitchell had concerned about that project. And so I think it's important that we also make sure that we are communicating with Metro. So they know and they get feedback. It says ultimately they are the grand tours, meaning that they still have to approve what we give to them in terms of getting the money to fund these projects, correct?

That's correct. And I will tell you that Metro is pleased with how far along we are with our projects. Okay. So definitely supportive.

Okay, no, no, no, no, good. And again, that's important to me because again, it, I think we have to be very careful to make sure that since Metro is the grand tour that we were closely with them. Having said that, I also wanted to ask, I guess, call it hypotheticals. In a hypothetical, if we were to say adopt alternate three, the buffered bike lanes, and then in a hypothetical, the cog who presented before a BRT project comes back and says, hey, we got the funding. What does that mean for alternate three? Should the call come back and say, we have full funding, we want to implement BRT with the city's blessing, but what does that also mean, though, given in a hypothetical, should we adopt alternate three? I'm curious, what does that mean in practicality?

Luckily for us, the parking is the exact same width as the bikeway. So it is entirely interchangeable. And ultimately, whether we adopt three and it changes to two in the future or one in it changes to two in the future, it is more or less just a restriping exercise, no reconstruction.

Well, it's a restriping. What I'm trying to get at is that, again, you're still striping, what is, I guess, now parking for the bike lanes, and in the event that we then had to restripe again for a BRT, doesn't that mean, though, that we would have to essentially remove the bike lane or at least minimize it because in favor of a bus? I'm curious.

No, the parking is the idea with the difference between two and three with respect, it's the parking or bikeways. It's the same difference between one and three. And so the width is exactly the same, the cross sectional footprint is exactly the same.

So think about it this way. There hypothetically could be an alternative for, which would include the BRT and bike lanes and One Through Lane.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait again, wait again. So you?

One through lane? Yes, so take alternative two? Wait, wait, wait, take alternative two with One Through Lane on Garvey, the BRT, and then remove that parking and add, yeah, each direction, so one in each direction, we're not one lane, but two lanes.

One lane in each direction for, but that does mean that you are essentially then. In order to accommodate a BRT and a bike lane, you would essentially be removing then a lane for vehicle traffic. That's correct. That's the idea of a traffic lane. That's correct. But one going west, one going east.

That's correct. You're doing that with alternative two as it is though. It's alternative two is one lane each direction and the BRT and the parking. So basically alternative two is already what you're concerned about in that capacity. It's one lane each direction, vehicles, BRT, on street parking. What we're saying is that on street parking could also be bikeways instead.

Mayor Prontan, if I may. So yes, spacing is the issue, correct? So right now with alternative one, this still allows for some flexibility for the future. So you maintain parking for now if the council chooses in the future because you're still having your sharrows on Emerson and Newmark. If in the future, whether that's for a BRT lane or potentially bike lanes on Garvey, that parking lane could be either one. If council, the community is interested in having both a bike lane and a bike lane and a bus lane, then that would reduce the space to just one lane for vehicle traffic.

Okay, I think that's something that the public need to understand as well. And reason why, and believe me, look, I support the pedestrian safety measures, I think that's important. Again, we all are told about safety on Garvey is important. We don't want it to be pedestrian friendly, however, again, I going back to the previous project which the council rejected, as well intention as a parking structure is, you are talking about proximity, meaning that if you're, say, devines and teak store, well, that parking structure is still a few blocks away on Lincoln. And that still means that someone, you know, either devines or even the restaurants close by, I mean, even if someone parks in this parking structure, it's still a couple of blocks of walking. And I think this is also probably why with the previous project, why those objections from those businesses who were further away from Lincoln and closer to New Avenue, and I think those, and right now, Garvey's still used by commuters getting through Los Angeles to the other thing in the United States. And so certainly, I, and I wonder to have the business understand that that, depending on what we choose, it could mean a reduction of, of a vehicular flow. And here's where I wish we had a better physical layout. So because we only six lanes, that means, again, depending on what alternative we choose, we are talking about taking away L-lane for vehicular traffic. Now, in neighboring Los Angeles, in the Commuter of El Sereno, they have adopted my understanding is a BRT and a bike lane. The difference though is that it is eight lanes. And so they essentially have the luxury of putting, basically, well, actually keeping parking, adding a BRT and a bike lane, and still allow for four lanes of vehicular traffic. We unfortunately, because we're six lanes, I think that's something that we need to be to think careful about, you know, and also because, so as I've said, the parking structure project is three plus years away. And therefore, depending on what we choose, there is going to be some impact to businesses. And I think that that's going to be very careful about thinking given that our businesses are still recovering. And not to mention, the uncertainty about some of the other development projects, which I know we've approved, but they seem to be lingering, like the Selodon project, like the other projects. And again, a lot of these projects, which I do support, they are centered mostly in Bobi Card downtown, which is an intersection of Garfield and Garvey. And yet, the further we go away, I think the impacts will be felt more. And so I think, and also, and again, you know, I do like what the call is presented with the BRT proposal. However, my interesting is that it's still not a done deal, just a question about funding. And two, even if we were to approve a BRT project, I don't know what roles we will do, because it will impact, and nor will near bring El Monte. And so I think that's something we need to keep in mind as well. What we decide, again, especially given that there are factors and externalities that are in some ways beyond our own control. And having said that, and again, look, I mean, I think we need more bike lanes. And again, I, as someone who takes the bus to work, sometimes I, I, I, I prefer actually having more alternatives. However, given some of these externalities, which I think we're still unknowns, I would say that alternative one gives us the most flexibility to be honest.

One thing I might add is that the idea to be behind the parking structure is also a potential transit hub. And so that could provide some interconnect with businesses that may be further away, with utilizing our micro transit program, or having other alternatives to get to those businesses. So there are opportunities to connect businesses to that, that parking structure that we have at our fingertips today. I'm not saying that that's the end all be able to fix the challenges, but it is an opportunity to utilize the things that we have at our fingertips today. So the other thing I want to talk about too is that we, we really have four lanes of travel through, through Garvey, the two outer lanes are not really lanes, right, they're parking, they're a potential bike lane. But to put a rapid transit lane through the parking lane is really not feasible. Part of that is because our goal for this project is not just looking at vehicular travel, but pedestrian travel and pedestrian safety. So these ball ballots that we were constructing, it's really to provide significant pedestrian safety to shorten those times that the pedestrians are crossing those intersections. And by doing that, that doesn't allow for a through lane for that rapid transit line. So that's the only thing the council members really need to think about too, is that really we have four lanes that we're able to use for vehicular travel, whether that's bus lanes or vehicular travel.

Okay.

Okay. Sure, okay. Well, I mean, again, well, thank you so much. I think this is actually really good for a bus conversation. And again, it, it, it, it, and again, I think it's important that we need to continue the conversations because look, the money is very scarce. I mean, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's not like a lot of money, but again, it's really limited because it's what was allocated by Metro for what was then a different project and it is also a reminder, it is being allocated to several cities and same of all these. So I think, you know, let's, I think until we have a lot of these externality issues resolved, I would say, I think that refer now to staff recommendation, there's something we should probably look at, given that we also have flexibility when we have more clarification on these other projects.

And with that, questions?

I'd be happy to make a motion to continue forward the project, given what we heard today, the most flexibility and safety being the key here. So I'll, I'll make the motion.

Okay. And I think as we move forward with this, I, regardless of which option is chosen, I think that we still need to come back and revisit this, especially with the bike lane paths because we also have to realize that that is the, alternative that received the most amount of votes. So we have to take into account that there's a lot of residents that came out and voted, wanting to add bike lane paths to the downtown district. And so some of them I spoke to, and you know, are really interested in being able to bike from their home to the downtown district and be able to bike back. But I think that we need to council, to Mayor Pro Tem's point. I think a lot of this stuff still needs to be answered, especially with the dedicated bus lane. I will say that that particular bus line, which I believe is the 70 line, is probably one of the most transited lines. If it is. And so it's very important for us to find a way to be able, if we can, but I understand losing a lane of traffic would be very troublesome, I think, or cumbersome, but anyhow, I would also second council member goes motion, but with the,

if we're going with alternative one, I'm assuming we're going with the aesthetic of the urban serendity, is that correct?

That would be correct.

Which I'm fine with. But and the, which is very nice. But anyhow, my daughters who were just here earlier, I think are going to be upset at me. Hopefully they're not watching at home right now. But anyhow, but, but I think my last comment is just to make sure that we find the time to be able to have those conversations with Metro about the, and the cog, but also with, with our community about those bike lane path.

So is that a second? Okay. Okay. Well, no further comments or questions. And I will motion may. It's been second members, please vote.

A proof of your down in the sleep.

Yeah. Oh, actually, I know we just approved it, but can I also make a suggestion too, is that as I mentioned, I know a presentation has been made to our neighbor say like Rosemite and I'm assuming a Monty. It would probably be helpful to us as well to know what they're thinking or whether or not we need to even entertain having some sort of joint conversation because again, I would hate for us to go through this exercise. And again, thank you, staff, for being thoughtful in serving businesses and residents. I'm just concerned also is that, you know, because again, you know, as much as we'd celebrate that the single value is 21 plus cities, but it's because it's 21 plus cities that we also need to make sure that we communicate more with neighboring cities to coordinate. And so I would strongly suggest that with, especially with the BRT, we have some conversations with the neighboring cities, which college proposing for this project, it would be helpful to me, and I'm sure my colleagues about what they're thinking, what their input is on that project, which will run through their cities as well.

And if I could say one more comment. The, I really appreciated by the way when we did the community outreach that we engaged the community. I saw a lot of people come out and share their thoughts, but I really appreciated the side family table that you had for kids. I think that was probably one of the first times I've seen us implement that, and I think that was very, very well done, and I think for parents who want to come out to a lot of these events and be able to share their voices, sometimes don't, because they don't know what they can do with their kids. So I really appreciate that we do that, and we take that example when we do our own community outreach. We could, you know, have potentially Sean Beck there, or the police chief. My kids came out earlier, and they were, you're looking to be engaged, so I'm just kidding. But I'm just joking on that part. But I think that was really well done. I wanted to make sure that I mentioned that to you.

Mayor Pro Tem, just to reiterate, we did note, speaking with Rosemede and Elmani, to ensure that if the bus rapid transit lane concepts move forward, I understand that the connectivity is important for Council, so we did note that. And just to reiterate, so the Council's recommendation was to move forward with staff recommendation for alternative one and option two. Alternative one, that's a traffic pattern, and then option two, which was the urban serendity. Perfect, thank you so much.

Thank you. We go.

All right, let's move on to the consent calendar. Item nine, do we want to pull any items?

No.

I'll pull nine B.

Nine B? Okay. Any other ones?

Sorry, I'll pull nine E. Nine E?

Yes.

And if there aren't any other items being pulled, I'd be more than happy to approve or make a motion to the remaining items.

And then just for Carl, for item nine F, I think there are Council members that have a conflict. Is that, I don't remember that. Is that, I think there are three of us.

I think we keep the straws.

Madam Mayor, members of the Council, I did look at the conflicts list. I did not see those were potential conflicts, not actual conflicts. So the fiber optics will be under the ground. Will not be triggering any of the requirements under the FBPC regulations.

Okay. All right. All right, so Council member Sanchez moves. Do we have a second? Council member Wong seconds, let's vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. All right, so let's discuss item nine B.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Proton and Council. Laura Borjan, Finance Manager with the CED Montery Parks Finance. the city's auditor, the Poon Group, an independent auditor and one of the nation's leading certified public accounting firms completed the audit of the city's annual financial statements. For the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025, the audited financial statements are incorporated into an annual comprehensive financial report or ACFER. It's my pleasure to present the annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year 2425. Today we'll be doing a brief review of the annual comprehensive financial statement, the General Fund revenues, expenditures and fund balance. I am proud to inform you that the city received an unmodified or clean opinion, which means our third party auditor is able to provide a reasonable level of assurance that the financial statements present a true and fair reflection of our city's finances for the reported period. Another achievement that I'm proud to present is a GFOA Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting, which we have received for 36 consecutive years, for confident that the fiscal year 2425 ACFER will be the 37th. The city's general fund revenues came in at 74.2 million of which 4 million was for TOT or hotel tax. 19.8 million was sales tax and 25.1 million was property tax. And expenditures came out to 70.3 million along with 0.7 million other financing sources. General fund balance for fiscal year ending June 30, 2025 is 46.5 million, which is 4.6 million over the previous year. This concludes my presentation. Staff is here and available to answer any questions.

Thank you for that presentation.

Any questions? As I find my questions, can you remind me because I may have missed it. So the ACFER for the, or first, appreciate staff in the audit team. I know a lot goes into making sure the full audit is completed and completed on time, in particular, the PUN group and all the work that went into this. Can you remind high level what are, what I'm trying not to call it, Sir Post because it's not. But what are net revenues were as fiscal year from the audit?

The net revenues were, sorry, was $3.6 million.

And then for, I noticed that in the ACFER, the current after as of June 30, 2025, the breakdown for the General fund reserve rate 40, that's about 46 million, or $1,000. 13, close to 14 million of that is for cash, traffic events. 32 million is assigned for capital projects, but are committed to capital projects, excuse me, for projects that are already on our syphilis. But those can be changed because we have a syphilis that's much larger than that, right? And then there's only about $650,000 on assigned funds. And does that General fund reserve already include the net revenues that we generate from that year, from the last fiscal year? That's correct. So those are just assigned to SIP projects, generally.

Correct. 3 million of the surplus was assigned to CIP projects. They are not yet allocated by Council.

Great. And then the, so I just want to note that, right? Kudos to the city staff, all of my fellow Councillors as well on the Council for achieving that net visit, right, the positive net position in terms of the ACFER and our financials and our budget here in Monty Park. Creative human particularly compared to some of our neighboring communities that are not doing as well or dealing with cuts. So appreciate that and our city hall workers and everyone that been working collaboratively with us on a very conservative and responsible financial management and a position to do that. But I'd also note, right, if you can help me to highlight our existing liabilities, right, our PERS OPEB and there's also other liabilities. Can you just detail? I don't know if you have a slide on that at all. I'm going to find the page where it's also listed and what I am able to, but if you can kind of just talk through our existing liabilities for the city, long term liabilities.

Are you asking about our debt service or just different liabilities because we have like workers' comp liabilities, we have, and then we also have debt service.

If you have, well, not debt service because we've got a function to pay that right down, but existing liabilities, right, we have the pension operation bond, but our liabilities still have net liabilities to PERS for unfunded liabilities or unfunded PERS liabilities, right?

We do have a UAL that which I will bring back during our budget workshop, but we are still, we still own over 90% of our pensions, which is we're really good standing. Yes, we do have a UAL, but I understand that with, because CalPERS is always two, three years behind on their interests and reporting, we are expecting a reduction in our UAL for next fiscal year and crossing fingers that that happens, but we are expecting a reduction on the UAL for other liabilities that we have that's non debt service. We have workers' comp and general liability, and we do provide that an actual, actual, number in our aquifer of potential. What it would be valued at a point in time if we were to have to pay everything out, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we'll be paying that out, but that liability amount includes workers' comp, it includes other general liability issues that we may have. So it includes quite a bit of things that's not, it's an actual aerial report, not that can go to fruition, but not necessarily.

Great, so I'm hopeful as well that the PERS-unfunded accrued liability will shrink, but also, and I'm hopeful that that stays the case. Of course, if the market changes, that may not happen, so we have to be cautious about that and continue to, I know PERS and we will continue to manage and operate as conservatively as possible, and we're obviously going to report the numbers in our re-race, essentially in our re-race. For op-ed liabilities, do you have an idea as I look for it as well, an aquifer, of what the scale 10, 20 million dollars in terms of what our op-ed liabilities are?

With our op-ed, we also have a trust that we also invest the million, and million general fund dollars a year, and it's through the budget process that we do that, but we are currently own probably about 40% of it, and I don't have the number in front of me to know what our current UAL is for op-ed, but it's still strong in our, based on our assumptions of possible calculations that we have. We still have a very strong ownership of our op-ed.

No, I appreciate that. So I'm looking at page 86 of the agenda. I don't know what page of the aquifer it is, but if I'm reading this right, please tell me if I'm not. For our current net pension liabilities, it's our listed at about 19 million dollars. Our net op-ed liabilities listed about 16 million dollars as of June 2025, and then there's also right, those claims. You mentioned kind of workers' conf in other claims. We have liabilities there. I'm just curious. So I just want to give one point I'm trying to make here is that we may have been net positive in terms of our annual financials, but there's still long-term liabilities that exceed even our existing general fund reserves. That's correct. Yes. We're not, there's still a lot of things we need to pay down in terms of long-term debt. That's correct. And then I'm just curious on the liabilities. The new detail, how that works, I actually don't know, and I'm trying to understand, so we have workers' conf in other claims against the city that have been made, right? Settlement lawsuits and settlements, but people, is that number that's listed as our liabilities, that existing settlements that we're paying out over time, or is that right now what we

own? It's assumptions. There are assumptions of, we do have current claims and other potential claims, but they're all, it's in their assumptions that are used. And then they have, or actual, aerials, you have a, a, a format that they use to calculate what that number is.

Okay, so there are claims in process. We just, we've signed potential costs, right, liabilities for some of those claims. Some of that is also claims that we have settled that we're paying out over time, is that right? Correct.

No, no, she's right.

We don't have any.

Christine saying that.

We just pay them directly. Hi, Christine, Tommy Cowell, Director of Human Resources and Risk Management. So, based on any of the city's open claims, that's what the actualials look at. So general liability usually has a shorter lifetime than workers' comp claims, because workers' comp claims usually go for the lifetime of the employee, even if they're no longer employed by the city. We still potentially pay out over time. So any, usually for general liability claims, once we settle a claim, we don't pay it out over time. We pay it out in one lump sum. So, but any open general liability claims that may be are litigation, or we're still working through, those are what are included in that actuarial number. So majority of that number is probably based on workers' comp liabilities.

Health, that's very helpful. Thank you. So majority of the liabilities listed in the Act for, in that sense is first comp. And the element is also, right, trip and fall, so it's kind of settlements that were hurt. And other claims against the city in terms of our infrastructure or other issues, external parties, right, not employees. Correct. So, we're assuming the city because of something potentially, we're estimating potential payout for some of those things.

Yeah, that would be the general liability, yes.

So one, helpful to make sure we're addressing infrastructure replacement and maintaining our infrastructure to reduce liabilities, future liabilities for those kind of incidents. And also, whatever we can do, obviously internally to continue address workers comp and other claims internally, that would be whatever we can do. And whatever we can bake into our budget for the next fiscal year and future fiscal year is make sure we're, I know we already, and I know staff are already thinking through what programs we can continue to implement. We have our insurers and others, the insurance pools that are making sure that we're in compliance and we're at the cutting edge of whatever programs we want. And we need to implement, reduce these liabilities going into the future. On the, so with the net revenue that we've generated this past fiscal year and I know we'll address this in the budget discussion for next fiscal year so that gets heat up in the next few months. We have certain amounts set aside for capital projects. I'd love to have a discussion at a future agenda item as we get into the budget to potentially set aside some funding for specifically the pool and pool design because I think that will be an accept that I think logically makes sense. I don't know if I need to throw out a amount or we can just see that up.

We can bring it up mid-year. We can bring a discussion at mid-year for that and it'll be either the first or second council meeting in February.

Great. So yeah, if there's a general estimate from an internal estimate about what a pool design might be, I know we're getting ahead of this because we're waiting for the concepts to come back from the consultant that's working on that earlier on in the new year. But if there's an idea of that, I think that would be helpful to guide a discussion in terms of where we want to go in terms of the mid-year budget. Potentially set aside some money for moving up a pool project forward potentially. At least having a discussion. I know this fiscal year we have 200 that we had. We have had $200,000 set aside for small business assistance fund for businesses. I'd love to get a report back when appropriate in the next few months on how that's going. I'd love to explore depending on the feedback from that program, either re-upping that or finding additional funding to either supplement that existing program. Or I'm actually more interested in potentially exploring a revolving loan fund or a loan fund for small businesses that just need more capital to do some expansions. But also having that be able to replenish the funds that other businesses can function and take advantage of that fund on an ongoing basis so that we don't have to put up the city just have to put up a cattle every year for a program like that, support businesses. But would be very interested to feedback from this program and this year's work. this year as we're seeing implementation for the first year of the grant program. I'd also, with the additional funding, I know that we're looking at a long list of capital improvement projects that we don't have enough funding for, but as the market continues to change and interest rates are coming down, maybe we can look at through the budget process as well. If there is funding available, what options there are to potentially pay down additional debt in long term liabilities, since we're not going to be earning as much on the market, going forward probably, if it starts to make sense to pay down higher interest loans or debt or liabilities that are generating the same amount anymore that don't make sense for us to be lever, or are recharging that way, maybe come back, we'd love to have, to have come back with potential options to pay down some debt and other existing liabilities that might make sense for us if we have a little money to play with, if that makes sense. With that, I'm happy to pass it on or make a motion.

Thank you.

Want to make a motion?

I'll make the motion to adopt the staff recommendation receiving file the DAC for.

I'll second.

All right, let's vote.

I'll prove it unanimously.

All right. Thank you. And then the other item we pulled was 9E, the Brugamire Library Project. Can we get a presentation on it?

If you would like, sorry, Councillor Member, if you'd like a report, we can do a report or we can ask questions or we can do both.

If you have a report, that would be great. All right.

Good evening, Mayor Proz, I'm as the council's Sean Langopovic Works Director. I also have Chris and other members of our librarian. So I will start off with the presentation. I'm the librarian by any means. So if there's any technical questions, she can chime in. But tonight you have a four-year item for architectural designs without the four-hour of the city library. The overarching goal is to evaluate the design for various spaces throughout the library. It would be more efficient for not only operations, but also for programming opportunities for the public. Services have evolved over time, and so this is an opportunity for us to utilize grant funding that we have available for these architectural designs to plan for the future and hopefully move forward with some additional work using utilizing grant funding. So part of these include new dedicated spaces for passport services, installing new multi-language signage throughout the library, creating dedicated spaces that separate not only public spaces but also staff spaces. So there's a clear designation on where the public and staffing can be. So with that, I will take any questions.

Okay, I just wanted to highlight some of the renovations that we're doing with the library. So thank you for, and is all of that being done in-house or are we contracting out?

No, this is the architectural firm. There will be contracted out.

It's a consulting firm. And then do we have an expected date in terms of when the project would start and end?

So this is really for the design. This is really to come up with concepts on how we move forward, opportunities to get me more efficient with the spaces we have. Once we have those, then we can actually look to go out to construction and have needed official engineering designs.

And will some of these concepts come back to Council for approval or to chair?

As we go to award some of these contracts, they would come before Council.

Yes. And then you said that the cost of this was all grant funded.

This for the architectural designs, yes.

Okay. So we have an estimated amount in terms of what this would cost.

Not at this time. Once we have the architectural designs, then we've all to be able to build some engineering

costs to work out. Okay. Anytime I see renovations for the library, I'm always very excited because I know there's a lot of great stuff that's happening in the library. So I just wanted to pull this item to highlight some of those. This progresses and you know, we get some more architectural designs. I'd love to be able to see some of this stuff.

Thank you. Thank you.

Do you want to make a motion? I'll leave it for Council members to the Sanchez-Lumayka motion. But really quick on the library project, one, I just want to appreciate the library staff public works. I know the ideas that are that germinated into this initial PSNE contract or award potentially today came out of the library strategic plan process and a lot of discussion that came out of that from the community and the stakeholders that were interested in just improving and improving the flow and the utilization of space. We know that things have shifted a lot more digital and less physical kind of things. But really, I'm really excited particularly to Council members and Sanchez in just creating more community gathering space at the library, which is part of this plan. So I really appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into this and all the stakeholders in the community that contributed to getting us to this point. I know there's been a little bit of a time delay between when the strategic plan was adopted and at this point, but really looking forward to the construction and hope that stakeholders will continue to engage in the processes moves forward. And Sean is going to make sure this gets as quickly as possible, I think.

Thank you. I'll go ahead and make a motion to prove this item.

All right. Council members, Sanchez moves. Council member, one second. So let's vote. Approved unanimously.

Madam Mayor.

If the Council members or the community members have not seen the library in the last few days, the painting project is about complete and it looks, I think, really nice and refreshed and new. So if you haven't stopped by to take a look, please do so. The library painting project is just about completed and the new carpet replacement is underway, not quite completed, but almost. So library is looking nice and fresh.

Amazing. Thank you so much. All right. And that's it for a consent agenda. No public hearing. So new business, 11 a. Atlantic Boulevard bike lanes.

All right.

I'm back again. I actually didn't go anywhere. But Sean, I go public works director. Thank you, Council. Mayor, Mayor Potem, and City Council. So tonight you have before you an item that is related to post bike lanes along South Atlantic Boulevard. This is going to be between Newmark Avenue and Harding Avenue. So this is the current configuration of Atlantic as it sits today. This is a four lane, two lane in each direction with the center lane and then also we have parking lanes on both sides. So this is again, this is the current configuration. The proposed improvements along this corridor would allow for a bike lane again from Newmark to Harding with that would come the removal of 56 on street parking spaces, which is typical for existing roadways whenever you add bike lanes. Typically you have a reduction in parking lanes. So this, many of you know, South Atlantic Boulevard is part of the regional bike network. This is part of the San Gabriel Valley Bike Master Plan and this is a critical north and South corridor along this plan. It also allows long term if we're looking to possibly extend for the full extension of Atlantic Boulevard would connect to Avenue of the Superstrabas and Reagan and then also first street then to Mednic and then LA regional bike lanes. Also this current project actually will connect to our Garvey project, which we talked about earlier and then also Monarei Pass Road, which will eventually Monarei Pass Road that bike lanes would cut through and connect to Mabel, which intersects at Atlantic Boulevard. Opportunities, so this is coming up for council because as you've seen we recently completed a water main project along Atlantic Boulevard. So with that comes resurfacing of the roadway and so now we have an opportunity to re-stripe the lanes as they sit today or we can put the striping back in this current configuration. So again right now if we do it today there's no additional cost and allows us to get this project completed in the near future. If we decided to further this down the road because we do have these existing plans then we would need to remove the striping which requires grinding, which damages the asphalt requires additional lane closures and impacts it's not only the public but businesses and then we'll have to pay for the re-striping costs for this segment of roadway. The current cost right now if we were to re-stripe this would be about $60,000 for today's cost. Down the road obviously you can anticipate escalation. So we did talk to the businesses along this thoroughfare of the section of Atlantic out of the 13 businesses that we had direct contact with, 54% of them express no objection or support for the bike lanes. And then the remaining percentage brought up concerns about not having it because not having bike lanes because of parking and then also safety concerns. So tonight you have before you two options. Option one is to move forward with the re-striping and add the class to bike lanes. Again the advantage of this is it allows us for the regional master plan that connectivity portion. It allows us to complement our complete streets commitment that we have within our current policies. The challenge is that it does come with a loss of 56 on-street parking spaces. The businesses do have parking, however they have expressed impacts to their businesses. Option B would be to keep the existing striping the way it is, however the disadvantage that would be it leaves the gap in our network for bicycle lanes. There's a cost savings obviously if we do it now as opposed to pushing it on the future. So with that I will take any questions.

Thank you Sean.

Yes. May I, Madam Mayor? Sean, quick question. If we put the bike lanes and I'm looking way ahead now, if we put the bike lanes between Harding and Newmark, that's 56 spaces in that little corridor. That's basically a block and a half. One gigantic block or block and a half depending on how you look at it. That would be for me, that would be the anticipation of making a Atlantic a bikeway all the way from the 10-3 way all the way to the 60. How many parking spaces we potentially lose if we went south of Garvey and North of Garvey, just for my understanding?

So generally speaking, it's going to be probably three to four hundred parking spaces. One thing to keep in mind is that some of these are called parking spaces that we would lose. They're not currently utilized because they're in front of businesses that like the gas company where they don't utilize a lot of industry parking. So you can anticipate a few being not really impactful to the community. However, it's a significant impact to the areas where we do have multifamily and even single family along that corridor. There are frontage roads that you see people utilize, not only the frontage road on Atlantic, but also Atlantic. So there would be a pretty significant impact along this throw-over. One thing to keep in mind as well that will be coming forward from the COG is the BRT on this segment. So there is a proposal from the COG which they will be doing community outreach next month, I believe. They're confirming the date on that one, but that will be to do a BRT lane along Atlantic. So again, same situation as Garvey where you could either lose a travel lane or the parking

lane. So that's my concern and I don't know what position I have today because part of me tells me is I'm driving down Atlantic during the day. Parking is being used by the businesses, not so much the residential beyond what I call the commercial strip. The residential toward past, hardening toward the 60 or before you get to Atlantic Square. However, as you're driving at night, the residential areas get parking because it's the overflow for the small streets that are parked in the front. So I mean, that's a lot of parking to lose 300, 400 all the way through. And I think what you said was we survey the businesses who are going to be impacted by just hardening a new mark. Have we survey the residents that will be impacted?

That's too early. We did not survey the residents in that area because again, this opportunity came to us pretty quickly when we looked at an opportunity for this. So the businesses we were able to contact and the residential property or property or property or multifamily that are across the street from the businesses. There's about 48 units that we did not contact. What I can tell you is that they do use Atlantic in the evening. So it doesn't seem like they're using it because you were seeing that usage during the day from the businesses, but it is heavily used by residential in the evening.

Do we know if the traffic commission is going to have hearing on this in terms of the business situation?

Are we aware of that? We have not presented the traffic commission. Again, this came up pretty quickly. So we have an opportunity to stripe it now as part of the paving project. So that's why we run it forward to the council.

Okay. I'll let my colleagues ask more questions. Let me throw about this a little bit more.

I am similarly kind of torn. I appreciate and very much appreciate staff bringing this to us. This is an opportunity to potentially save money if we're going to do something like this. I'm all worried about the lack of opportunity and ability to do some more robust communication case around this. Even though I know this was part of the regional bike master plan, we identified these things. I think a lot of people don't remember that I was on council at least then. I think most of the residents and businesses that were that may have participated in this process probably don't remember. And so I'm very hesitant to move forward on this even if it's what might cost us more if we want to revisit it without having done some more outreach to some of the folks there. But other question here and I think Council Member Goh brought it up as well, right? The cog has approached this with the BRT proposal at least for the design which my understanding right, we only have enough space for one of these things to really go through on Atlantic. So if we do a bike lane, we might, if the BRT moves forward and we move forward with the BRT connecting from South Atlantic to the North Garvey or whatever, that would probably take out the bike lane that we just paid whatever we need to describe anyway, right? That's correct. And then what we're looking at right now is just striping. It's not a protected bike lane class too, it's just to mark.

It's just striping shells. I'm sorry I'm not sure but Chevrons.

Which I'm also concerned with to the extent possible, if we're going to do a bike infrastructure, it makes the most sense to where we can physically to protect a bike lane just because I think that's what would actually make people feel safe to bike. I think even marking bike lanes is still going to be tough for most people who want a bike. And I think it's just, in my mind, likely going to just continue to push people on the sidewalk which they're doing now, which is healthy. Right bikes now for the most part on our streets, just because of that physical separation, which I think would be difficult if it's just a painted lane. So I'm convincing myself right now as I talk out loud to probably hold off on this. I'm leaning towards holding off on this opportunity even if it's potentially safe money, just because there's too many uncertainties here with the BRT and our timing of our Garvey project that might potentially bring some bike lanes that might connect to this, but we just don't know yet. And in the lack of right ability to do some robust engagement with the likely impacted neighbors and neighborhoods for this specific project, we can always revisit my costs a little more, but I'm as I talk out loud, I'm okay with that.

I have some questions, Sean, for you. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to be potentially safe so many. Is there a sense of urgency to get these, if we are adding, if we choose to add bike lanes to decide today, whether we wanted to move forward with that?

Yes, because we're ready to restripe with Atlantic now, delaying it, we would have to do some temporary striping which could push out until probably later next year. So talking about January later, like the end of January.

Okay, so there is a sense of urgency to... Such as some jury, yes. Yeah, and then I mean, I've driven since we've done the resurfacing after, and I know that there's a dire need to add some stripes there. Can we go back to the map that you had projected earlier? So this is going from Newmark to... You said Harding? Harding. And I'm trying to remember, so Harding is kind of where the Bank of America and... John Cabin and Chase. Chase, that's real, Chase. So that is like one very large city block? In essence, yeah. Okay, and I'm just trying to refresh my mind. Most of those businesses, because I've walked through that business district several times, most of them have parking. Yes, most of them do have parking. And then on the other end, which is where the apartments are at, and I think those are condominiums if I'm correct. Most of them have their own already reserved parking, right?

Like they have their own parking. I can't speak to that, but they should have garages in their own parking, but that doesn't mean that they utilize them.

They might have extra cars or where they might be extra need for the parking. So my concern with... So I sure some of the hesitancy with my other council members, but at the same time, I really think this is a very unique opportunity to be able to say whatever the 60, 70,000, at least at 60,000. So if we were to implement the... Or SUV bike lane master plan that we had worked on in the past. And part of the reason why is because I, in my district, we have a bike lane path that goes... And you're familiar with this on Reagan, which you mentioned earlier. And one of the constant reminders I get from residents in my district is they always tell me that this is a bike lane path that leads to nowhere. And that it's not connected. And so... And they constantly remind me that it just goes from Garfield to Atlantic and when are we going to connect it. And so to me, this seems like a very unique opportunity to be able to finally be able to connect that particular bike lane path to Atlantic. That said, if we head further south... And I know that's not the region we're looking at, but if we head further south... And I know we were just there like a Shannano, for example, last night... There are some dedicated parking... There are some parking in that area. And I know that if you head further south, there's some apartments. And in the mornings, I see a lot of parking in that area. But then as we head further south, a lot of the businesses on Atlantic have parking and there aren't dedicated parking spots on the street.

That's correct. It's typically going to be south of Brightwood.

Right. That's my district. So I personally wish we could have surveyed potentially residents, but I don't know that we necessarily... I mean, when was the San Gabriel bike lane master plan completed? What year was that?

I don't recall off the top of my head.

I don't want to... I don't want to misspeak, but I want to say 2014. I don't want to say 2014 about...

So 10 to 11 years ago, something like that? Yeah. So I guess what I'm trying to think is that bike lane... Or is that bike master plan outdated? Does it need to be updated? Or can we just say that that's still... I mean, obviously that's still what we're looking at when we're making these types of decisions, right? So if that is the case, and that is the master plan, and that is what we're doing, and if we're still trying to connect the city with the bike lane that already exists in the city, and the ones that potentially could exist, then I personally would want to see this come to fruition, and that's kind of where I'm at at the moment.

You can go down the mirror. Sean, question. Again, actually, it's a really interesting exercise and contrasting since we just spoke about another project on other major boulevard. Um, computer Garvey isn't Atlantic wider though.

It is slightly wider.

But into the lanes. Yes. Okay, so I think in that regard, and again, as far as I wish Garvey was wider, I think in that regard, I'd like to give us more flexibility to be able to accommodate a bike lane or a vehicle traffic and a BRT. And I would also just remind everyone too that we still have not gone, I think, a lot of clarity about, you know, is the money really going to be there for the BRT and timeline, you know, and as I said, also, remember that, that, you know, in a perfect world, you know, even we approve it, we don't know what our neighboring communities are. I feel about that project, you know, and I will say this is the, the, the, whether or not there are the BRT, it already, there already is public transit again, it's about 70, they run through Garvey, it goes down Atlantic, it makes right on Cesar Chavez into Boyle Heights in Los Angeles. And as come from Sanchez says, I mean, we already have existing bike lane or rigging, which rigging which becomes Cesar Chavez, you know, and again, that bike lane then continues on. And then, as Madenick and then the gold, a metro transit station, I think that, and again, ideally, yes, we, we, I wish we had more time to do outreach, but given that, you know, we, we had, we just had committed stuff to a bike plan and when it's now over a decade old, I think at some point, you know, we need to, you know, look at it actually, how do we implement it? And so I think that given Atlantic is wide enough, I'm okay with, you know, at least when we just project forward, and I would just say that, you know, we should continue to make sure that we outreach community, let them know this is happening.

So. I have some follow up questions. So if you go to the future slides, there was one that says most almost all businesses have their own parking, but not all right. Most businesses have onsite parking, which, which businesses don't have onsite parking, because I know this is where the NBC seafood is, LA fitness and on our park mall. So those all have their own parking.

Plus us. So if you look, I'll call it in the center of here. There is some parking that I think is in the back, and that's why I think people park on street.

As opposed to in the back. Right. All those businesses have their own lots. Most of them do. Yeah. Which ones don't.

I think it's the one. Well, I'm talking about frontage to the street. I don't think that they have frontage to the street, frontage parking. So, I think it's like here, the NBC like right, they have parking here that's on Atlantic where this structure here, it's in the back. So they have parking.

But not in the back.

Like the Mr. Beg head and just bakery, bakery, yes, correct. Yeah, John Cabobs as well. They have extremely limited parking for their property. I think they have two spaces.

Yeah, they have a lot of money. You can park in front of their property. Anyway, right? There is a spot there. Okay. Okay. And then on the other side of the street, I know Chase has their own parking lot. What about action sales? They do. They have their own parking lot as well. And right now the proposal is to strike both sides of Atlantic, right? I think we need to take out parking on both sides. Yeah, I feel like we need, I understand the urgency of the project. You know, we can save money if we make a decision right away. But I feel like this is going to have a pretty big impact on the community. And I feel like, like Council member Wong says, you know, whenever we have a project like on Garvey or similar big streets. And that's pretty impactful to our community. We usually do a lot of community outreach to see what the opinions are. And I feel like if we just make a rapid decision right now, we might get a lot of complaints. So I'm leaning towards holding off and doing more research. Maybe we can, you know, even have an idea where we can have bike lanes and parking. And we're doing for the Monterey Pass Road project. Or maybe like put bike lanes on one side and not the other side, you know, exploring different options to create a win win.

Any other questions or comments? I would just, if I can add, I just have to tell a little bit of that is we're having a discussion too. I'm a little worried about one, the lack, I, well, I agree with some of my colleagues in terms of, I think we do need to update the bike master plan. And especially the parts in Monterey Park. We're already working on these different segments right Monterey Pass potentially along Garvey. This one and there are other existing ones that don't really connect right now. It might be worth revisiting since the plan is more than a decade old to refresh this in some way, shape, or form for the community to have some additional input about what that might look like, especially as we're starting to build out segments of this in the next few years. So that might be something to take on on this particular segment of potential bike plan or bike route bike lane. I'm kind of worried that if we stripe this and create a bike lane on just this one segment that at this point and probably for the near term will not connect to other bike lanes. And so it'll become like outhammering avenue and other bike lanes that go from one place to one place, one other, but don't really connect anything could also draw one potentially we could upset some neighbors that are going to lose some parking without having done I think a little bit more outreach that I think would like to do. And then to we upset them here with the bike lane that doesn't connect anywhere might engender to me is not worth the potential savings here that might invite some backlash the bike lanes in general in other parts of the community that we really already have plans to want to implement. And I'm a little bit worried about inviting that kind of criticism and concern that we just put this money to build a bike lane when you get there and put doesn't go anywhere was wasting money on this or whatever when we know it will be part of larger network, but that network is not timed to connect to this one in the near term a little worried about how that might undercar efforts to build this wide network in a more strategic fashion too.

If I may add real quick so one thing to consider is as we discuss with the previous project additional outreach in the future to evaluate bike lanes. We could do the same thing as part of this and if you make that a larger reshrapping project then economy scales. Economy of scales, right? We could potentially reduce the cost on this portion if we add this to a larger re-striping project. So that could be an opportunity in the future.

I have some questions, Sean. So if we, oh, sorry, I think yeah, how's my nose?

If we don't move forward with this with the bike length, I'm assuming the striping is gonna be pretty much the same as we had before.

That's correct. We would go unidentically as it was prior to construction.

Okay, and then to councilmember, sorry to the mayor pro-temps comments earlier about Atlantic being a much wider street. If we re-striped, I'm sorry, once we striped again, to its former self, would there still be in a room to add a bike lane path without disrupting the other lanes without having another way to resurface the other lanes? Would it be, would there still be ample room, like let's say we would lose obviously the parking, but we would just add in the bike lane path without having to touch the other already restriped line.

So I'll give you a carl answer. It depends. So there's opportunity to do that. I will tell you the challenges that come with that is the way that current configuration is, we try to, when we do engineering designs, we try to narrow lanes to reduce speed. And so by doing what you're proposing, we would, in essence, widen one of the lanes, which would typically give the optics for people to speed. So we did something similar if you know, if you notice years ago, Marie calendars that curve where we added the chevrons, we did that as an color optical illusion to help control people's speed. So by pinching the lanes here and allowing for the future for the addition of that bike lane, you would probably see an increase of speeding.

I see. And then I had a question about the bike master plan that we have. So I know it's about 10 years old, but will we create master plans like, let's say like our park's master plan, for example, I know that at some point that park master plan is going to become outdated, right? Correct. And that's because our needs as a city might change, right? So would you say that our current bike master plan that we, and I know it's a regional bike master plan, right? Because I've seen it before. Would you say that it's outdated?

So not necessarily. So typically when you have a master plan, the idea behind a master plan is that you, your goal is to implement what has been provided within the master plan. And if you don't, it's not outdated until you've hopefully built out or designed most of those projects. For us, we have not done so. And so the master plan, although maybe our community has changed a little bit, the master plan is still a valuable resource for us and a guide to continue to move forward with the designs for bike lanes within the city.

Because I'm assuming that 10 years ago, I was in on the council then, they took the time to be able to create this master plan, along with other communities, right? To be able to connect it. So if we are saying we're not going to add these in, because you know, things have changed and we're not following the bike master plan, but let's say our neighbors rose, we didn't know, Amber still are following it. They were not doing them justice either by not moving forward with what has already 10 years ago been approved as potentially adding these, by adding these these bike lane, these bike lanes. Because then what I'm thinking is 10 years from now, every plan that we have, climate action plan or parks master plan or environmental sustainability plan, will people will people still be looking at that as guides. And if not, then you know, the what's the point doing these master plans if we're not using them to help guide our decisions like today, for example. So I'm still in favor of adding the bike lanes because I trust that 10 years ago, there was a council here that worked on this master plan. And they looked at this Atlantic corridor and said this is an area where we could potentially add bike lanes. And so I understand that some of there's some hesitancy to add them because potentially stuff might change. We haven't done engagement. On the business aspect, I feel like most of those businesses have already adequate parking to be able to sustain their clientele. But I think that if we are serious about creating a bike master plan in this region and in our city, then it's important and it behooves us to be able to use this bike master plan and implement it. And if not, then are we going to update it and create a new one or we're just not going to be a type of city that adds bike lanes. And to that point, if that's the case, then the corridor in my district that goes really nowhere between Garfield and Atlantic, perhaps we might need to revisit as well.

Thank you, Mayor. So Sean, outside of this strip, we anticipating, re-stripping from Atlantic, Newmark to the 10th freeway and then Harding to the 60.

Anytime soon on as of now, we don't have any plans to do so. However, it is within the master plan, the bike master plan to do that. Again, that would require because this would be a significant project to do some significant community outreach. So if we were to continue this down going south, probably where we're almost terminated brightwood unless we looked at eliminating travel lanes to connect it down to the city. If we were to do a city of 60, then we would need to do some significant community outreach. So the plan is not to move at any time in the near future unless council gives a direction to do so.

So it's mid-future or middle, well, not near term, but not approximately five to ten year time period.

It could be as soon as council gives us direction to evaluate that and put any aside.

Okay, well, I won't draw on that. We're I'm thinking on this is I'm I sure are very soon without the councilman Wang here, which is I rather have a comprehensive strategy to think through and build out the entire Atlantic from one end to the other end. What the bike lane if that is what we want as the city with the residents input business and council's decision. I rather do that if we kind of strategically think it out think it through then to kind of be penny wise pound foolish and say hey, we're going to save 40,000, 60,000. Stripe here and then this thing gets stuck for five years, seven years and then the expectation of the residents saying hey, what's the rest of the stuff. Conversely, you have the businesses and other residents saying we don't want to take away parking and then you're stuck in that conundrum. For me, I still think let's have the strategy laid out then to spend the will save a little money and then focus on doing something due to saving the money rather than having a food term strategy. So I kind of thought it out here just like councilman just talk myself through and I know where I am now.

I think to councilmember goes point we also have a strategic planning session coming up something to maybe add potentially in terms of future projects is maybe looking at how we can connect our city if that is the direction we want ahead in and how do we engage the community to be able to have a robust bike lane path in our city or bike lane connectivity in our city, which might include Garvey in the future. It might be worth looking at and then also revisiting the bike master plan and seeing what still works, what maybe doesn't work and what options we have. So on that note, I do agree with councilmember go on that as I reflect on this a little bit more that we perhaps start making that maybe a future priority.

Thank you. I have a question though. I mean again in a staffed on background it says in 2014 city money partner with bike SGV, say the bottom park, San Gabriel, Elmani, et cetera, et cetera to adopt this bike plan. And so I'm assuming that means that at the time we did do you know community outreach, serving and again it wasn't that long ago because some of the council members will adopt this 2014 probably were on the council to 2022. So not that long ago so I mean so to be fair to the work done before we did do serving we did talk to residents and so I so it's not so this is going to be surprise you know I mean I mean we did do the diligence and my concern too though is that we delay then that's up. Yeah, I will become all dated and I just think that you know it's also this opportunity as well.

So right now there's no striping between harding and rigging correct there's no bike lanes there. That's correct. So even if we did put striping in between harding and new mark it still wouldn't connect to rigging.

As as of right now we're not connected to rigging however there is a connection point with the Monterey pass road complete street project so that will eventually connect to Atlantic. So and then again long term you have what's being evaluated now and proposed as the connection on new mark with sheros so there there will be connectivity in the next year or two once those two projects are completed. So it just will end at harding.

Got it. Yeah I do agree with count mayor pro temp low that if there was a master plan you know in with community input we should follow it but I feel like it should be done all at the same time because if we're taking away parking for a year or two when it's not connected it's inconvenience in the residents. Whereas in one or two years when the other projects are finished and we put in the whole lanes then everything connects and the residents can still use the parking for the next one or two years.

Madam mayor if I may the so definitely cities have conversations about bike lanes all the time and how best to implement master plans around bike lanes so definitely cities that are built up like Monterey park do struggle with right competing spaces. I think a lot of approaches in installing bike lanes oftentimes go with repayment projects because it's it's a new you know new pavement so you're putting in striping it's the it's kind of the best time to to consider if you're going to make an adjustment to striping this is kind of the time. And then as other segments get repaved that could potentially be the the time when you add or connect bike lanes I get that conceptually if bike lanes look like they don't connect to anything. The truth of the matter is they connect to the roadway where bikes can be written right and so people are using them to commute you're giving them a space to ride where you can right as as we're following the bike master plan. And then when the bike lane essentially ends in this situation if the council were to consider adding it you continue riding your bike just in the roadway I get that it's just you know the you feel as safe I get the bike lane provides that extra filling of safety that you have a space to ride in the in the roadway. But essentially if commuters are you utilizing their bikes as a mode of transportation to get to and from work to get to and from school they're riding in our roadways regardless of there's a dedicated bike lane. And so if council would like us to prioritize this item to discuss it further during our strategic plan we can definitely do that we definitely understand this is why we're bringing it forward to have this discussion tonight because we do hear council's interest in. And having connectivity in our bike lanes but we're also being sensitive to our residents and to our businesses about the potential for losing parking so that that's why definitely wanted to have this discussion. So like I said from from efficiency standpoints the best time to do it is when you do new pavement projects because that's that's the lines are not there and so we're going to about to put those back in in addition let's say that there is interest from the council to to do the whole segment of Atlantic. If the other segments of Atlantic the pavement is is in relatively decent shape and we look at adding bike lanes today. The work that's done to the pavement has you have to scrape off the the essentially the striping and there is potential where to the pavement that could be in relatively better you know decent shape and so now you're grinding that off to fix the lines and the pavement might not be ready to be replaced. It can be done we're just trying to bring an option that's most cost effective at this time but we do understand if the council is not interested in moving forward with adding the bike lanes today in the segment. We can go ahead and move to just add the regular street striping and then come back at a later date with the rest of the the whole Atlantic segment if that's the interest.

Madam Mayor again just to clarify what's before us is a section from Newmark to Harding right it's just that not all it's just that section and again let's just visualize for a second. So right now on the west side, you have a bunch of town homes. And so mostly why we just park there. On the other side, you have NBC, you have 24 hour fitness, which has a huge parking structure, underground and surface to harding. And again, let's see, I mean, again, let's visualize so harding. I mean, we're talking about a motel, a church. Again, they have no parking already. So again, I guess, okay, yes, I have concern, it was all Atlantic, but it's just that section, right? So I don't think the impact is that large as the concern is, again, if you just, if I mean, in fact, after it counts, maybe we just go down and walk down that section. I mean, again, in my head, I'm visualizing their locations already have their own parking anyway, right?

Do you know how busy the townhouses side is at night? I know the, I'm not as worried about the businesses because they have their own parking lots, but how much evening parking spot?

There's a fair amount of parking in the evening hours.

There's plenty of evening houses.

No, there's people, quite a few parked cars all over the life.

Oh, there's quite a few parked cars. Yeah.

And again, I don't know the nuances of how many people are living or how many cars they have. I can't speak to that, but there could be three or four cars to one dwelling unit.

And, Sean, I have a question, and actually to the city managers, well, just in terms of the comments that you made earlier about when we resurface streets, it creates a good opportunity for us to visit, revisit the bike master plan and see if it's a good time to add bike lane paths. But realistically speaking, unless we are resurfacing the entire city, adding bike lane paths like in the entire city makes it difficult, right? Without having to spend a lot of money. That's true. In my head, I'm thinking that every time we resurface a portion of the city, that might potentially be the few times when we can actually add a bike lane path that already was decided by a previous council that was needed in that particular area. So to council member, sorry, to the Mayor Pro Tems point, actually 2014 was not that long ago. And I really think that, and I wanna trust, that the previous council and the city did some type of robust engagement of the city. And I feel like I wouldn't be doing them justice, because I don't know when, we're not on the council anymore and people start looking at all of the plans that we did, they're gonna be like, oh, Thomas Wong, Jose, I don't know, that happened 10 years ago. We need to revisit all of these plans and anyhow. And I know that a lot of time and effort is expanded on all doing a lot of these plans. So, and I'm afraid that unless we resurface the entire city again, we might not get another opportunity to add bike lanes. So I think that every opportunity that comes up like this, to be able to add a bike lane path that's already scripted in our bike master plan that was robustly researched and created for this particular purpose, then we should be adding those bike lane paths until the entire city's connected. If that's what the plan says.

And the $60,000 is the cost for the striping of that block.

That would be if we went back in and restriped. So if the council's direction today is to leave it as existing the way it is, so no bike lanes, then the cost to restripe at a later date, today's $60,000.

To stripe that one and a half block.

Yeah, that's correct. And can you remind me for context, but so we're redoing the street because of the sewer replacement, right? Waterline replacement, yes. Water pipe replacement. How much was the project cost for the sewer or the water pipe replacement and the resurfacing?

Off the top of my head I could not tell you because this is part of our project.

Yes, overall, between that and Garfield. So the striping, we're talking about a very small portion of what the capital project costs for the grads, anything's yes. And the grads you think, right? So I just say that to make the point, right? This is not, I am not saying, and I don't think those of us who are expressing some concerns around this are saying that we're not going to build or design or insert a bike lane. It's just, I don't think it makes sense at this point, given the cost savings and me at least speaking for myself, given the concerns around the lack of outreach to these neighbors. And I am particularly worried about these residential, right, those townhouses that to take a parking on the street overnight, that would lose their parking overnight. And I very much agree, right? I don't want very much recognized the need to, and the work that went into the bike master plan in 2014. Our master plan strategic plans that have been adopted just the last few years, but also just note, right? Even with the Parks master plan that we adopted, we're still doing specific outreach for specific projects like the pool and things like that separately from the master plan. And so I don't remember, I remember we did this bike master plan. I don't remember any of these specific discussions. I guarantee none of the people that are going to be impacted by taking out a parking lane or parking on the Atlantic remember the bike master plan process and all the outreach that went out. I would be very, I could not vote for this at this point without that outreach being done on a, right, what would be a significant input or significant impact on particularly those residential units that are there on Atlantic.

And you said in one or two years, the Monterey Pass Road project will be completed. And so Garvey will connect to this area, but it still won't connect down south to Rigen. That's correct. So it will still have a dead end where the, it'll go back on the street.

That's correct. And as again, against Kels gave us direction to evaluate that in that I've read.

Yeah. I'm leaning towards waiting until the strategic planning meeting to give further direction. Sounds like Council Member Goh and Council Member Warner leaning towards that as well. I don't know if someone wants to say any. Do we need a vote for this? Yeah, do we need to make a motion? Yeah. Good.

Oh, if you would like us to give us direction, I would, yes, we would need more specific direction, one way or the other. We just need to know consensus wise, if we're not leaning towards putting the bike lanes back today, or sorry, putting in bike lanes today, we are going to move forward though with striping the street. So that, yeah. Okay.

So, Member, I'll make the motion to go back and stripe the street to where it was before the waterline construction project. And then as a follow-up, put on discussion, the bike lane on Atlantic in our strategic session so that we have a more comprehensive review of that project.

I'll second that.

All right. So Council Member Goh moves. Council Member Wan seconds, let's vote.

Approved unanimously. Oh, no. Sorry. I forgot what I'm supposed to do. We don't. Council Member Goh, yes. Council Member Wan, yes. Council Member Sanchez, yes. Council Member Lo, no. Oh, sorry, Mayor Perten, no. Mayor Yang, yes. Thank you.

I just want to confirm for staff that that was clear direction.

Yes, that is clear direction. We will restripe as it was existing.

All right. Thank you for that thorough discussion. That's all we have for new business tonight. And city communications, future agenda items.

I'll start. I don't have any future agenda items. Just wanted to share. We had a great snow village on December 4th. It seemed like it was a long time, but that was epic because not only was there the train and Santa's village and the food, but there were also tons of snow on the, what is it, the slide, the snow slide. And then you also had the, I think there were three different areas of play area where they had snow fights. The kids can throw snow at each other, I guess. But three different areas for different age groups. So that was good. So lots of snow there. Also attended the holiday toy drive for the Congresswoman, Congresswoman Chu, and also Assemblymember Mike Fung, who represents our district. Got a chance to talk to the network and just on the side ask for money to help us fund city projects, such as items that we have needs in Barnes Park. And I won't say anything, pull. Also attended the Murray Park staff holiday. So again, wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday season, spend time with family. So we can all take a break and then come back with fresh after January. This past Monday, we wanted to also thank a nonprofit group in our city, the Cambodian Chinese ethnic association, who donated chocolate and also gifts in support of our first responders, our fire department and our police department. And they will also host a luncheon for about 300 seniors on Tuesday at the Langley Center. I wanted to give them a shout out for their continuing support of our city. That's all I have.

Dido, Councilmember, goes appreciation for staff. This is the last meeting of the year. I just really appreciate all the city staff that really put in so much work for to make this year happen. And for stay in day out, all the work that is being put in a dedication commitment to the city of the residents, the businesses, everyone here and everyone at the city really just make sure that the city continues to be one that's desirable for people to live in, to play in, to work in and as Councilmember Goh, when he was mayor and still as a Councilmember, likes to say the best place to live, to work and to play. So really appreciate all the hard work and the work that goes unnoticed by most residents and businesses here that rely on your coming in everyday, bright services just really appreciate all the city staff for the dedication that you have to work community. And just reiterate what brought up during the act for discussion in terms of budget items. And we have the mid-year budget review come back if we can tee up potential, potentially allocating some funding, whether that's this budget year or next budget year, I'll leave it to staff to put some sort of analysis and portals together in terms of potentially satisfying funds for pool design, but also re-velling loan fund for supporting small businesses in the city. And I can't remember the third one of paying down potential longer term or high interest, bearing liabilities and debt that we should consider potentially with some funding that we might have available. With that, I'll pass it on Councilmember Sanchez before my voice. Let's out.

I also want to share an appreciation of our staff, especially as we head into the holidays. I was at the snow village as well, so a lot of people showed up, including my family, so a lot of kids out there having a lot of fun. And I feel like a lot of those events, including our Santa's Jolly journey around our city, really helped not just connect our city, but help revive this idea of our community, a sense of community in our city. So I really appreciate all the effort that goes into doing that. I also wanted to add, because I know at our last council meeting, there was a lot of people here that were concerned about the data center. And I think when we've last left, we, the data center applicant, had shared that they would have town hall meetings. So whatever information we can get from the data center in terms of, and share with the public in terms of when they are planning to host this so that we can share with the public, I know that it's been two weeks now, so that we can share directly with the public in terms of when those events are happening, would be extremely helpful for all of those people who came out on that particular day. So if we can reach out to the data center people and the applicant and let them know to share those dates as quickly as we can, so we can, on our end, share with the public as well, so the public knows those items. And then on the bike lane path, because then we just had a vote in terms of, what do you know, in terms of the bike lanes, I wanna make sure to council member goes point to be able to add this to the strategic plan. If our plan is as a city to still move forward with this, with our master plan, or bike master plan, and make it a priority, then every opportunity that we have when we repave, like we just had a second ago, we need to be working towards adding those bike lanes. And if that's not a priority anymore or the bike lane master plan needs to be updated, then we need to do that as well. But obviously there are residents who still want a bike lane path. It was obvious in the surveys that we received from the Garvey improvement project. So I want to make sure that we do our diligence and we respect their voice and their concerns in terms of adding a bike lane. And then just wanted to share, because I know there were sad tragedies this past weekend, particularly a school shooting at Brown University. Just wanted to hope that we can end on that note and be able to send our regards and condolences to families and people who were impacted. Gun violence is still obviously an issue in this country. And we also had a shooting in Australia that we saw at Bondy Beach. So with the urgency of hopefully federal leaders, we'll take action to continue to push forward gun safety laws that protect residents and students as well. And I speak as a teacher and as a parent as well. This is a reality of things. And so it shouldn't have to be a reality. And I think that all of us, it takes all of us to be able to find solutions to ensure that whenever we are in public spaces, regardless of where they are at school. And I say schools because schools are meant to be safe places for people to be at, that we work towards creating gun safety laws that protect students, but all of us in general. So on that note, sorry to end on that note, but happy holidays and I wish everyone happy new year. And I know that we were not going to see each other till January 21st for our next council meeting. So until then, thank you.

Let's see. Well, since we had such a rigorous conversation about bike plan, can we get an update on our bike plan before a strategic meeting? I mean, at a future council meeting before strategic planning meeting, because again, I thought it was a participate. I mean, it is a couple of hours, but we talk about a bunch of subjects. So I figured maybe be helpful to have got an update on that bike plan since 2014 at some point in January. Okay.

Yes. Yes, we can do that.

Great. Thank you. I wanted to thanks staff for organizing a great meetup with the mayor last night at Shinano. It was really a popular turnout. We filled the restaurant and looking forward to hosting more of those in the new year. And I also wanted to close tonight's meeting in honor of one of our dedicated residents, Karen Soares, of the American Legion. She passed away recently, and she had just spoken at our Veterans Day ceremony last month. So we'll look to adjourn the meeting tonight in her memory as well. Thank you, everybody, for a great year. And happy holidays. Stay safe during this holiday season. And we'll see you next year. adjourned at 927.