City Council Meeting_ Mar 4_ 2026

The seats are open for everybody in attendance. So if you can just find a seat, that would be great.

Thank you.

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

Okay, good evening everyone. We're going to get the meeting started this evening. If you have an empty seat next to you, could you raise your hand so some of the folks. Yeah, there's a few empty seats in the front here. One, two, three, if anyone wants to come up to the front and grab a seat. So we do have overflow seating in the lobby. The meeting is being broadcast on the TV monitor. Restrooms are also in the lobby area. We have staff available at the back of the chambers if anyone has questions or needs assistance. We have a lot of speakers joining us for the first time this evening, so I want to ensure everyone understands our meeting protocols. If you would like to speak and make public comments, please fill out a yellow speaker card and give it to the city clerk. Please fill out one card per item if you wish to speak on more than one item. We have multiple items regarding the data center tonight, 12A, 12B, and 11B. If you want to speak on each item, fill out a separate card for each item. I will then call speakers by name, indicate it on the speaker card for each agenda item. And you would come up to the podium, speak into the mic. And like previous meetings, I usually call five names. So everyone can line up here in the aisle so that right after the first speaker goes, you guys can go right after to smooth things out. I want to acknowledge that the topics on our agenda tonight carry a lot of weight for our community. We are all here because we all care deeply about the future of this city. To ensure everyone has a chance to speak and be heard, I ask for your cooperation with a few ground rules. first of all please direct all comments to the council not to members of the audience please be respectful of each speaker regardless of what their opinion is everyone gets a chance to be heard we also ask for silence while others are speaking we're using a software called wordly for translation and closed captioning. And the platform using our microphones to capture audio. If the audience is shouting or speaking out of turn, the platform won't be able to capture each speaker's comments. So please remain silent while others are speaking so that Wordly can assist with translation. Please keep your comments focused on the agenda item at hand. we have we're giving the same five minutes for each speaker but depending on how many comment cards when we get to each item I'll let you guys know how many comment cards we have so that you guys can regulate the time amongst yourself that way everyone gets a chance to speak my role as mayor is to ensure this meeting is conducted efficiently and safely for everyone in attendance Thank you all for coming tonight. We will call to order now. And we'll start off with our flag salute with our Monterey Park, with Scout Troop 286, Color Guard. Please rise.

Hold on.

place your right hand over your heart ready begin

right face .

Apologies. Board, board.

Thank you, you may be seated. We do have a certificate of recognition on behalf of City of Monterey Park for for our scouts from Troop 286,

and we'd like to present it to Luke Littlefield. And yes, Robert.

So good evening, Mayor, Mayor Potem, City Councilmembers, Robert Aguirre, Director of Recreation and Community Services. And tonight with me, I have Luke Littlefield. Luke recently helped do his Eagle Scout project over at Garvey Ranch Park. So you'll see on the monitors here tonight, Luke's project was actually refurbishing the very old and tattered sign that was over at Garvey Ranch Park. I'm going to allow Luke to speak a little bit about that process. I know he also has some thank yous that he wants to give. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Luke. And I just want to also thank him and his troop for all of their work that they put into beautifying our city. So Luke.

Thank you, Mr. Robert. And thank you, City Council, for allowing me to be here today. So my project, as you know, is refurbishing the Garvey Ranch Park sign. And to get started with that, me and my scouts who volunteered, we helped make the pathway to the sign right there by clearing out the bushes and leveling the area. And we placed the pebbles as seen and the stones. And after that, the park helped us take down the sign and delivered it to my home to work on refurbishing the sign, where me and my scout sanded down the sign and repaired the broken wood and painted it. So I wanted to give a special thank you to Mr. Robert for allowing this to happen, as my first project idea was to be a flagpole at Garvey Ranch Park, and the plan didn't make it out. But because of Mr. Robert and his support, I was able to have a new project made, which was the Garvey Ranch Park sign. And I want to give a special thank you to Ms. Joanne and Mr. Paul, because without them, I would have been stressing over the Eagle Scout project and the flagpole. But thanks to them, I was able to get through it with the sign. So I want to give a special thank you to the scouts who helped out and my friends and a special thank you to my mom and dad for encouraging me through my journey. Thank you, guys.

Thank you so much. We'll bring the certificate to you. Thank you.

Mr. Robert, you should be in the photo too. He gave you a shout out, Mr. Robert. Let's go.

Let's go. Yeah, you do it.

Okay. I'm going to do it now. One, two, three. Oh, wait. Okay, wait. I'm going to take it. Yeah. She's taking selfies. .

Oh, thank you.

Look over here real quick. Oh, you have a good idea. All right.

All right. Thank you so much. No problem. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thank you again to Troop 286.

Madam Clerk, may we get a roll call please.

Council Member Ngo?

Present.

Council Member Wong?

Present.

Council Member Sanchez?

Present.

Mayor Pro Tem Lo.

Present.

Mayor Yang.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you. All right.

Any agenda revisions or additions?

Madam Mayor, members of the council, we'd like to request that the council remove item 9A from tonight's agenda. And we'd also like to request item 8A be moved before public communication if the council would like to do so.

All right, and I'd also like to move items 12A, 11B, and 12B up to be heard right after public communications. All good? Yep. All right. So we will go ahead and do...

So just for clarification, item 9A has been removed from the city council agenda for tonight's meeting. Item 9A.

Thank you. So let's start with the presentation for 8A. Then we'll do public communications. And then we'll do items 12A, 11B, and 12B.

thank you for the introduction good evening madam here council members and members of the community my name is Michael Cerna I'm an engineer at Metropolitan Water District and I will be giving a presentation to update you on our Garvey Reservoir Rehabilitation project here's my agenda I'll provide an overview of Metropolitan who Metropolitan Water District is I'll provide project background followed with project update and our next steps Metropolitan Water District was established in 1928. We serve as a water wholesaler with 26 member agencies. Ultimately, what that means is through our member agencies, we're able to deliver drinking water to approximately 19 million people in Southern California. So this right here shows an aerial view of the city of Monterey Park. The city boundary is outlined in orange. Highlighted is Garvey Reservoir and City Hall. So Garvey Reservoir is just southeast of here. This is, this slide shows the bird's eye view of the reservoir. You can see the blue highlight lines represent pipelines that are connected to the reservoir. And I've highlighted the outlet tower and the floating cover and liner, which are the major components to be rehabilitated. So quick background in this slide, or I'm sorry, quick background. Garvey Reservoir was constructed in 1954. Its maximum storage capacity is 1,600 acre feet. Ultimately, that reservoir provides Metropolitan with operational flexibility to run its water system. So why is this project needed? Firstly, it's part of who we are. It's in our mission statement. MWD wants to continue to deliver high quality water, high quality drinking water to the community. And also California Division Drinking Water, DW, the state agency that regulates public drinking water systems, requires all reservoirs to be covered to protect from contamination. The reservoir cover that you see here was installed in 1999 with a typical service life of about 20 to 25 years. This cover is at the end of its useful life. So project goals to summarize. At a high level, the goal is to improve major facilities. We want to maintain Garvey Reservoir reliability and improve operations and maintenance. Here's our project timeline. This slide really shows the progress of the project as well as MWD's engagement with the city of Monterey Park. Final design kicked off in 2023, and in 2024 we made two presentations to city council, similar to what I'm doing now. The first one was performed in January, followed by another one in June. The EIR for the project was adopted in November of 2024, and we completed design last year, and we awarded a construction contract at the end of 2025. The picture shown on the slide shows NWD's effort to engage with the city. I believe on two separate occasions we hosted members of the city council and city management, the mayor, public works director, and city manager. all visited the reservoir.

This slide shows our anticipated construction schedule. As mentioned, we issued a contract late last year, in December 2025, and we've been working with our contractor to get the pre-construction administrative documentation completed. Now that our contractor has satisfied some of that front-end documentation, they're ready to mobilize, and that brings us to where we are today. We anticipate the contract to mobilize later this month with active demolition to occur between April and August of this year, and ultimately construction through 2028. One thing I want to make clear and stress before we get to the next slide is Metropolitan will have a continued presence on site during construction. Garvey Reservoir is a critical piece of infrastructure for our organization so it's important for us to have full visibility as construction progresses we'll have a construction manager on site as well as other engineers and inspectors and operators to to ensure progress is being made so these are next steps and what to expect firstly there will be no disruption to your water supply city residents are not connected to the reservoir directly so our anticipated construction should not affect service to help mitigate and limit the nuisance noise we've directed the contractor to only perform during specific working hours as well as to mitigate the additional construction vehicular traffic in the area we've adopted specific truck hauling hours Again, the goal is to reduce a large truck traffic during morning and after commutes, and we want to keep the roads safe for our neighbors and limit the effect of construction on our daily routines. At the bottom of the slide, you'll see a map of our construction truck route. Working with the city, we established this route. Truck access should be limited to Orange Avenue, Graves Avenue, and Garfield Avenue. Lastly, before I close, I want to make note that we do plan on circulating a flyer, project information sheet to the community surrounding the reservoir. We're targeting the week of March 16th, and the flyer will include much of the information on this slide as well as what I presented to you today. That concludes my presentation. Thank you.

May I, Mayor?

Yes.

Michael, thanks for the presentation. Just a quick question, and if you can clarify again or just say it again, the timeline of the construction

Yes, timeline of the construction, again, we are set to mobilize later this month, so our contract is ready to move on site, basically. Basically, at that point, construction will go through the end of 2028.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation of the update. and you're beginning if I missed it I apologize you're beginning construction in a few weeks or months or what

yes so again our contractor will mobilize at the end of this month and shovels in the ground likely in April

and then through the end of 2020 is construction period

that's correct yes

So about two years and then can you remind if I'd miss it I apologize again can you remind us what you're actually doing at the site you're replacing the liner replacing all the pipe

Yes we're it's called the project we're replacing the liner the cover as well as striking the outlet tower there's a few other miscellaneous equipment mechanical electrical furnaces but that information will be part of the flyer that we intend to circulate and

then we're do we have a webpage already set up for this project towards informing the community we can definitely add it

to the city's webpage yeah I think that'd be good especially as a long-term

project whatever can provide us I think we can just upload would be cool and that's a cool rendering and then just to confirm there's there's no after the construction there's you're not changing capacity in terms of how much water is being would be able to store it there anything like that it would be the same essential kind of usage that's

that's correct yes we are not changing capacity

we're updating to make sure the equipment's up to date and all that stuff yes thank you

thank you for the update um you know i think it's been about a year since we toured uh i think the facility maybe longer yeah about a year and a half had been in june june 2024 was uh when we had tours yeah and that was my first time actually up at the garvey reservoir and i think one of the things other than the reservoir that's there it's just the amazing views that you have there that I remember anyhow I hope that you will come back as the project progresses and give us updates in terms of where you guys are at and and I think to to reiterate what councilmember Wong said whatever we can do to inform the public in terms of on our part to share information about what's going on with this project it would be appreciated as well yeah

duly noted um that will share as much information as we can city officials and we would like to extend that that in white again to for tour as we start to get into the heavy heavy parts of construction if if you guys are up for it you know I'll be more than willing to to twirl toward the second I think it's a beautiful part of

Monterey Park in terms of a lot of the the landscape that you can see and just being so high but also that particular area I'm not trying to encourage people go in there and walk, but it is a very nice venue. Thank you.

Michael, thank you very much for your presentation. I know you mentioned that your agency will also be doing outreach to the community. Can you describe more in detail what that entails? Are we talking about mailing letters or building electronics? And how wide of an area are we talking about?

So, yes, it is a flyer. It's just a project information sheet, and it does summarize what to expect during construction. Again, a lot of the information that I already provided today is kind of summarized in the flyer. I believe we're going to the immediate community surrounding the reservoir, but I can get clarification on that. I believe we are planning to circulate that the week of March 16th.

Okay. I would like to know, I'm sure so would my colleagues, because again, Orange Avenue is a heavily used street, not just for people commuting to work, but also using it as an access way to our shopping centers, not to mention the schools up there. So I think that it's important that, I mean, if it has to be citywide, then again, because of the heavy use of not just Orange, but also Graves Avenue as well. Thank you.

Yes.

Yeah, thank you for that presentation. I'd love to join a future tour since I believe the previous tour was scheduled before I joined council, so I haven't personally toured it myself. But I know the reservoir is much in need of rehabilitation, so thank you for this project.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, that's all for 8A. We don't have any public communications for 6 and no staff communications for 7. So we'll jump to the item that most people are here for tonight, 12A. Consideration and possible action to call for a special election on June 2nd, 2026, and adding a proposition to the ballot prohibiting data centers citywide. So let me just tell you guys how many speaker cards I got so you guys can regulate the time and know that more speaker cards come in throughout the night. So 12A, I currently have 55 public comment cards, 12B, 2, and 11B, 27. So it adds up to 85 speakers. So if everyone speaks for the five minutes, that's seven hours. We'll end at 2 in the morning. If everyone speaks for three minutes, that'll be over four hours. We'll end at 11 p.m. So I don't limit folks' time here. I let everyone regulate themselves. I know at one meeting, a lot of people took a lot of time, and over 20 people ended up going home and not getting a chance to speak. So if you've already heard someone say what you want to say, maybe you don't need to repeat yourself, but if you have something worth telling us, then use up all the time. So I'll call five names, and you guys can line up at the aisle. and then when the line gets short then I will call more names. So let's see. Number one, we have Joyce Vega. Two is Carrie. Three is Jeremy. Dave Jones. And Sam.

And I also want to make it clear that the proposed 1977 Saturn project isn't on tonight's agenda. So the city council will not and cannot discuss that particular project or any details of that particular project tonight. The item is for a ballot prohibiting data centers. Citywide. So it's a general ballot measure. All right. Joyce, yes. Joyce

Vega, good evening. City Council, City Manager. I've been a resident for over 30 years. Let me be clear, I don't want a data center in my community or the greater St. Gabriel Valley. I conditionally support 12A, but demand that the city close two loophole and also pass an ordinance banning data centers immediately as per the letter from CBM dated February 27, 2026. I'm fighting this fight for the future of my granddaughters. We are in an upside-down world right now, and I want my granddaughters to know that I fought to make things right. I'm fighting for our communities to have clean air, clean water, nature, and a world full of productive, creative people, not AI and robots. Our leaders, our city leaders and planners need to imagine a community that benefits the people of the community and not greedy billionaire corporations that only care about money and power.

My granddaughter, Noelle, eight years old, says, I want a world with no data centers here or anywhere where people live. I want a world with clean air and water to survive. Thank you.

Sorry, one more thing. I hope that you all make the right decision for your own legacies.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. So regarding 12A, I know you already have the letter from Attorney Doug Carstens. I'm sorry, can you please state your name? Carrie. Thank you. I'm very appreciative that he was retained and was able to give you his approach, which, as you know, is a zoning ordinance plus ballot measure. Regarding the zoning ordinance, there's some things I wanted to say to you in favor of that, arguing for that. As you know, zoning ordinances are legislative acts, and courts give wide deference to them. The city only needs a rational basis, which is the lowest legal standard. The city made the decision to adopt ordinance number 2253 to allow data centers in Saturn Park back in November 2024. It's clear now that the majority of residents were unaware of this. Now you're aware of how the majority of our residents feel about allowing data centers. You should not delegate this decision solely to the ballot box. When the city is aware of the aggressive PR campaign, you're well aware of the aggressive PR campaign that HMC has started waging in favor of the data center. From the hiring of multiple PR firms, there may be up to three, to Facebook and Instagram ads, to canvassing the neighborhood. So this is a call that you need to make to fix a problem that you caused.

Also, you now have overwhelming rational bases from the public welfare standpoint to support a zoning amendment to ban data centers. There's a wealth of evidence in the record that you can rely upon to show the detrimental impacts from data centers. You have the MND comment letters from SCAQMD, Advocates for the Environment, Creed and its experts. You have a January 2026 letter from Center for Biological Diversity, and you have a large number of resident letters and public comments from the December through February and including today's meetings. So you have plenty of evidence in the record upon which to base a new zoning ordinance to ban data centers throughout the entire city.

Now, regarding the ballot language and going forward with the ballot in June, obviously, I would wish to have this measure on the ballot as soon as possible. However, I do have several concerns with the language in the ballot measure. I did share some of them with you a few weeks ago when I told you that I felt that the definition of data center is problematic because it's applying only to properties, one or more acres of land. The other thing is that the ordinance only amends the land use element. And I feel that it is very important for all of the zoning amendments to be included in the ballot measure. Just to give you an example of why that's important. So the only definition being addressed is data center, but we have data processing facility, which is actually currently allowed within the office professional zone Monterey Pass Road. And if you look at the definition, a data center could come in under this. It says a building dedicated space within a building, a group of buildings primarily used for the processing, storage, and management of electronic data on less than an acre of land. Although it also says it typically involves data entry, a data center could come in under that definition. Typically involves doesn't mean it has to include data entry. So primarily used for the processing, storage, and management of electronic data. That could be a data center. So if you do this ballot measure that only changes the land use element and you don't go through and identify all of the municipal code sections that need to be changed, I'm concerned that a data center could be allowed in Monterey Pass Road area. So that needs to be fixed.

So I would say a cautious approach is necessary and a comprehensive ordinance that includes all of the municipal code amendments that are necessary to make sure that the council adopts effective regulations to prohibit data centers throughout the whole city. I would also actually suggest deleting the definition of data processing facility. I don't think that adds anything to our code. I think that current uses like office administrative or office professional can encompass the type of ancillary data uses, but any use of data processing facility would most likely almost encompass the data center so there's really no reason to have that definition the code at all thank you

mayor mayor if we could maybe interrupt real quick site think that some many of those concerns that were shared by this speaker right now were emailed I think I think to many of us multiple times. Maybe we could ask our city attorney to address some of those up front, just so perhaps we don't have to repeat all of those in the public comment going forward.

Yes, sure.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, we're happy to provide a brief staff report if that's desirable. I think many of these questions have already been addressed within the staff report. certainly comments that have arisen during previous public comment. With regard to the council adopting an ordinance right now, the council has always been able to adopt an ordinance under its own land use authority. It cannot do so tonight. It requires a 20-day notice. It requires it because it's a change to the zoning. And I think my recommendation on that is to wait until the voters have given you direction based upon the ballot proposition, assuming for the sake of my discussion right now that the council were to put something onto the ballot. If the council decides not to, that's certainly something that the council can direct us to bring back zoning regulations and an ordinance. What that would look like is we would draft something, we would notice it, and you would have a public hearing probably sometime in April. The current recommendation, however, is to put something onto the ballot, wait for the voters to decide about that ballot proposition, and then come back after the ballot proposition, again, presumably has been approved by voters, and the council can act under those circumstances. The moratorium, which is not this agenda item, but one of the other agenda items is actually a public hearing, gives the security for not processing any data center applications during the pendency of both a ballot proposition and any decision-making that the city council might make if it decided to, for the sake of this discussion again, if the ballot proposition didn't pass, if the council still wanted to be on its own authority to adopt something, it could certainly do so at a later date. What else was the question? Sorry, I didn't forget anything. One acre. The one acre, the definition that is being proposed is actually a definition that's already on the books twice. It is in the marketplace specific plan and it's also in the Saturn Park innovation and technology zone So there's there's no pride of authorship on that other than the council previously approved that definition For a different area within the city. You can certainly play around with the language At your heart's content Happy to answer any other questions

Thank you, Carl Dave

Thank you, Mayor Yang Honorable Mayor Yang, Mayor Pro Tem Lo, Council members and dedicated staff. My name is Dave Jones. I have lived in Monterey Park for the last 35 years plus and another 10 plus years before that so 45 or more. Who's counting? Since December, it's been clear the vast majority of Monterey Park residents and business owners are against building a data center in Saturn Park. And as our dedicated citizens have dug deeper into the issue, that sentiment has grown to a full-throated opposition to data centers anywhere in the city. We know the electricity used to power these data centers creates a gigandous amount of CO2. 83,000 million metric tons in the case of 1977 Saturn Street. And as I've noted before, absorbing that much CO2 would require a forest of trees 350 times the size of California. But just this week, I was able to determine the cap-and-trade costs of mitigation. And at California's current rate of $27.94 per ton, that cost would be over $2.3 trillion. That's seven times the entire state budget for 2025. Imagine having two data centers like that or more. Such an environmental impact cannot possibly be mitigated. We need to have no data centers. We also know the cost of electricity will absolutely go up. Goldman Sachs has reported electricity prices jumped 6.9% in 2025, more than double the 2.9% rate of inflation, and that data centers made up 40% of the demand growth. And Bloomberg reported electricity costs in areas near data centers have increased up to 267 percent compared to five years ago. This is so wrong, even President Trump in his State of the Union address said Americans should never pay higher electricity bills because of data centers. Yeah, I know, it blows my mind too. But that's not all. That's not all. The initial study for 1977 Saturn Street tells us the sound generated by the data center's cooling systems and generators will exceed the city's noise limits for residential neighborhoods. This is a consistent trend among data centers. In Great Oak, Virginia, residents complained of a persistent hum from cooling systems and fans that changed the character of their quiet tree-lined neighborhoods. In the Chicagoland suburbs of Aurora, Lyle, and Naperville, residents described the noise from data centers as like there was a helicopter on our roof. HMC's track cap spokespeople say they're going to use dampers and attenuators And they've modeled the noise, and it won't be a problem. But they couldn't say what level attenuators they modeled. And even dampened, based on production specifications, the noise would still exceed the city's limits. So I do support putting a permanent data center ban on the ballot with the following conditions. Remove the loophole that allows data centers less than one acre to be built in the city. No data centers means no data centers. And please change the language of the initiative so that zoning changes are implemented automatically upon passage or failing that, forcing the council to take action in less than one month. Now, most people here are aware HNC StrackCat held two town hall meetings this past Saturday. Meetings that HNC StrackCat couldn't even be bothered to attend. and reinforcing how little regard they have for the people of this city, their Actum spokesperson said her job was to manage the community. Later, No. Later, they said the city absolutely does have the discretion to determine whether or not the data center should be built. Yet, HMC StratCap's lawyer is already threatening to sue the city before a decision has even been made. HMC StratCap, by their very own actions, has consistently proven they don't want to be a good neighbor. They don't want to be part of the city. They want to exploit the city. Finally, I'd like to address the good union members here tonight. I grew up in a union home. I live in a union home. To me, being union means standing arm-in-arm with your neighbor against the bosses, not standing arm-in-arm with the bosses against your neighbor. There's a reason for that. Bosses lie. Bosses cheat. HMC StratCap has hired Rodriguez Strategies, which proudly brags about its anti-union work on its website. HMC StratCap doesn't want to help you. They want to exploit you, too. Don't stand with the bosses. Stand with your neighbors. No data centers in Monterey Park. No data centers in Monterey Park. No data centers in Monterey Park.

Thank you Dave. Let me call a few more names to get in line. Lorenzo Rodriguez, Angelica, Brian Marsh, Jim Pugh, Caleb. And when you come to the podium, please state your name. Thank you.

Good day, good day mate. My name is Jeremy. I'm on the board of directors for HMC and I just flew out from Australia. Finally showing up for you guys. We heard that Monterey Park is known for your bagels and local mom and pop shop. I signed to hers really good, delicious. When the board members said they wanted to build a data center, I was like, where's Monterey Park? And then I was like, wait, we could build a data center in a park? No, Monterey Park is a city, not a park. Okay, well, anyways, we want to emphasize how much we're looking forward to be your new neighbors, your very noisy, irritating, and extremely toxic neighbors. We'll be doing everything we're legally required to do to get this through. We made you a website. We made you flyers. It matches the color of the official Monterey Park website, so you know it's official. And you may be asking yourself, why Monterey Park? Well, I mean, the celebrities and CEOs won't let us build in Beverly Hills, Silver Lake, or Pasadena. And why 65 feet from the nearby homes? Well, because you didn't stop us. So there's not enough regulations, and it's a brand-new thing, so we're just going to go for it, and you have to catch up. So this is brand-new technology, and we're going to just, you know, it's a gold rush for us. So we had a lot of questions on, you know, what the data center will be used for. You like your iPhone. You use banking software. What about Fortnite? Everyone likes Fortnite. You've used ChatGPT to write an apology to your wife. Those are all the things that we can use it for. Think of the data centers like a black box. We don't ask questions of what AI companies are using it, like ChatGPT, Claude, Grock. They use this black box. We don't ask any questions. They're paying the bills on time. Data centers are like, they outpower school bombings in Iran, teen suicides, and surveillance data for ICE. but I can definitively say we at HMC bear no legal or moral responsibility on what goes on inside that black box or how the data center affects your family, communities, health. I'm going to fly back in Australia soon, so it doesn't matter. So I want to shout out our PR firm, Acton Rodriguez. Thanks for all the work you guys are doing. You're taking the heat for us at that little town hall. Those guys are nonpartisan mercenaries, so it's been great. They'll do a wildlife project one day and union busting for lift the next day. It's amazing. And we had a great meet and greet at the IHOP, another great local staple, love the pancakes there. And while I give you guys a little park, so you should be happy, we get a little mini park. Why aren't you thanking us? We're still working on the name, but I'm pushing for the Monterey Park Park.

For the record, this is all parody, so please don't sue me, HMC. One lawsuit against Monterey Park is enough. In all seriousness, letting HMC boss our city around isn't democracy. Having backroom deals for two years isn't democracy.

Don't hide behind your constituents to fix your mistake. Do a moratorium as well as a ballot measure. Listen to people in the community that actually know this stuff better than I do. So I can please stop coming up here and making a fool of myself. Thank you.

Come on, Sam.

All right. Good evening, Mayor Yang, Mayor Pro Tem Lo, council members Sanchez, Wong, and Ngo. My name is Sam. I'm a resident here from Monterey Park, District 3, with you, Jose. Yeah, I just want to say that with regards to, I know this is for 12A, but real quick on 11B, I do support 11B, but I don't think that's enough. It's like a Band-Aid. We're bleeding out here, right? So I do support that for 12A. I conditionally support 12A, but I do think that the ballot-only approach is too risky. We need something more, right? We need an ordinance from the city that bans data centers in the municipal code and in the general plan. So we need that citywide, and we need it now. Like some other members have said, residents have said, it's not our fault, right? Like, we were not informed of this. It's been two years this thing has been in the works, and you guys have put us in a real tight spot. We've got people out here canvassing in the street. We've got people out here who are spending their money on flyers and everything, their time and money to do this thing. And, you know, we all pay taxes. We all elected you as officials. It's your job to help protect the health and safety of your residents.

So I hear you, Karl. It is within the council's powers to be able to pass this ordinance. and that's what I'm here for tonight. That's what I think a lot of people are here for tonight. I also want to say that, you know, I know you got the letter and they have identified that HMC's lawsuit threats are meritless. There's no bite to them. These guys are all bark. So I don't know why you guys are scared to go forward with that. You guys have the police powers to protect the health and safety of your residents and HMC is not vested. You guys haven't approved their application. So you can go forward with that. I also want to point out that, you know, with regards to the one legacy thing that happened here before. They sued the city. They didn't win. Right. So don't be scared. Show up for for us residents who we elected you. And that's what that's what we want to see.

A couple of things I want to just highlight here, because I think it is important to to recognize our mistakes, you know, as we've been going through this process. January 2024, that's when the permit and design review application was submitted for this data center. That was two years ago. I've talked to many people in this community who didn't hear about this until December of this year. That's two years that we didn't get any word from you guys, any outreach. So let's own that. The SPARC, I wasn't personally a part of that, but I heard that there was probably the highest number I think I heard was 60 residents in attendance at SPARC. 40? Okay. Hey, I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even with that, that's about 0.1% of the population of Monterey Park. That's hardly representative of the people here of Monterey Park. And I think, you know, you see a lot of people who are showing up now because the public has been engaged. And I think that's a good thing. So let's own that. Let's take advantage of this opportunity. You see these people out here who don't want this thing built here. Additionally, I would like to add and I brought this up before and I passed out some information for you guys I don't think I've heard any one of you and maybe I missed it in other meetings mention anything about 1980 standard and I think that's a huge misstep if you're going to do any analysis on these properties you have to consider the cumulative analysis of both properties and I think it does us a huge disservice if you just completely ignore that as this property is here, this one is across the street and there's no way that there can be combined effects of these things. So let's own that. I think you guys have known about that for a long time, and that's evident in the documents I gave you. There's the purchase records. There's the LLC filings from HMC that were put out. Interesting enough, the LLC and the purchase of 1980 were done before the ISM&D for 1977 came out. In 1977, M&D came out before they even purchased the property. So it's a really weird timeline. Maybe you guys can help elaborate on that. But, yeah, so, you know, take a look at that. I talked to another community member. She put in a public records ticket with the city, and she never got anything back. And 1980 was discussed in, I think it was Ordinance 2246, and they didn't send that to her. She had to go digging for that on her own. And it's clear in HMC's investor documentations that they want to build two here. So, you know, let's not miss that fact. And it's on the record here that you guys know that that's their intent, is to build two of those here. So thank you.

My name is Angelica. I'm a resident of South San Gabriel.

Oh, hang on a second. Can we maybe Karl can or Inez can we just do a quick reminder again that there's no the topic of our conversation and the items and I are not on specific data center projects or proposals and that the items here correct me if I'm wrong that we're talking about our would deal with data centers uses in the entire city which would include 1980 and any other property for that matter address in the city just want to clarify that so that we're clear that the actions that potentially are going to be taken today have an impact on the entire city we're not talking about one specific project also why i can't actually engage on this item if if it was specific about a specific data center proposal i would not be able to engage on that item let me know if I'm wrong.

Correct So the item before Council tonight is it's not in regards to any specific project, property, or applicant. This is general prohibition on data centers citywide, correct.

Sorry, go ahead, Angelica.

Okay, hi, my name is Angelica. I'm a resident of South San Gabriel, but I will be minutes away from this data center. I came out in support of a no data center ballot measure. of course with clarifications as just as everyone's saying to make sure that we do not have data centers unfortunately I was not able to attend the so-called HMC town hall meeting doesn't sound like I missed much because they were not able to answer the one important question what are you using this data center for how have they not told us what they're using it for if it was anything good they would have told us because we have a little pocket park that we can all enjoy there okay I when I first found out about this meeting was Actually, the data center project was the night before in December 2024, just like a lot of people here. Ironically, and just as disturbing, I happened to find out last night that BlackRock has just purchased the electric grid of Indiana, the state of Indiana, and Ohio. What does that mean for us? If you do not know who BlackRock is, please look it up. But that means that they are in charge of the electric grid of Indiana and Ohio. How does that affect us? Monterey Park, they are willing to build this next to our businesses, next to our parks, next to our schools, next to our elementary school children, Hillcrest Elementary School. How far is it away from this proposed data center? And we're willing to build that for our children? Monterey Park can set a precedent right now, okay? Those private companies can go ahead and buy out whatever they want, but Monterey Park can take control right now and ban data centers, okay? We take a precedent.

Monterey Park is either going to allow these to be built everywhere. They are going to see what we are allowing here. We either set a precedent and say, no, we are not going to have this in Monterey Park, or we are saying that we allow it, okay? please Monterey Park, please City Council, set a precedent, okay? Do not build data centers. Please, no data centers in Monterey Park.

My name is Lorenzo. I'm a resident of East L.A. on the border of Monterey Park. I'm here in solidarity with my neighbors and fellow man and woman to speak And what I consider to be an environmental and class injustice, the air in Monterey Park is not just the air in Monterey Park. It is the air of the people all over this basin. It is of the commons. Much like the groundwater that eventually seeps into the water table, what enters this environment will eventually come back to haunt us, our children and our grandchildren. What enters this air will eventually settle back down under its own weight and become part of what we breathe on a daily basis. And the trapped gases will in turn trap heat and continue giving us hot summer days in February and March. and after some time there will be no break from what is pumped into our environment. Living here you may have noticed that we are in somewhat of a bowl surrounded by mountains and hillsides and by the air of the ocean pushing back. That is what gives us our smog. The air here becomes trapped and all of us in the greater Los Angeles area are victims of what pollution may come from cars, machinery, industry and now data centers which are becoming too common. I think at a town hall there might be some faction, typically of the population, who can say to themselves, I see the benefit of this. I understand why this is necessary. This could make my life better. I don't think that there is some such case today. I would just like to know who it is that is asking for this. If we needed a bridge or a road or a park project or an affordable housing unit, how long would that take? How much pushback would that receive? And yet here we are, completely blindsided by this initiative to forever alter this community and the one surrounding it, and if it weren't for the amazing people gathered here today, the data center would already be an unalterable part of our reality. This project here is selling your children's rights to clean air and quiet neighborhoods, and it is selling the right to a secure job to the billionaire class. They hope you are too ignorant and too placated to notice that the city and the billionaire class are about to get very rich off of what is rightfully yours, the very air you need to breathe. also someone who I guarantee was not fighting to get a data center in his backyard, can continue hoarding wealth and continue chipping away at workers' rights. I believe we are all very focused on the environmental aspect of this project, which might be the most immediate, alarming, and visible consequence of the data center. But what is the purpose of this data center? It is not to use water and make noise and pollute our air. It has a very clear purpose, which is just as consequential. It is here to power AI. We know what the intentions of the elite class are. They have been very clear. They are not shy about this. We know the endgame of artificial intelligence. It is not to make our lives more convenient. I think it is of no surprise to anyone here that the billionaire ruling class is not interested in making your lives easier. They are not known for their benevolence or their charity. The advent of AI has been presented as just one more tool. However, if you are paying attention, you know it to be the last tool. The intention is to make human labor obsolete and to limit its use as much as possible. Just recently, Block, the Barrett company of Cash App and Square, fired 40% of its workforce to be replaced by AI, and their stock rose 25%. And to me, that was the ruling class's way of saying that was the right move, and we are headed in the right direction, and that company was rewarded for their inhumanity. We are heading to an unprecedented future where human labor is no longer necessary, where human labor is an afterthought, the one thing in a capitalist society, unfortunately, that can provide a man or woman any real sense of dignity and belonging. Additionally, we know AI is increasingly being used as a weapon of war. AI-powered drones, AI-powered missiles, AI-powered decision-making, AI-powered mass surveillance of U.S. citizens. We are sprinting toward a cliff, and voting yes on data centers is saying, I am okay with that future which I have just described, where future generations are just an inconvenience to the job market, and rather than people, business owners would rather use AI agents which are enabled by the very data centers we are threatened by today. Where the people in this city are unemployed or underemployed or living in fear of being replaced by AI, where citizens are watched by their own government at all hours on all platforms, where speech and conduct is policed by artificial intelligence, the people on this city council can proclaim with their vote very loudly and very clearly what future they see for this city and the people in it. Please heed our warning. Nothing good will come from this. Five years from now, when the rest of the country is suffering from the ramifications of data centers and AI, when the cities that were too weak to say no to billionaire interests are watching the consequences of data centers unfold on their citizens, the city of Monterey Park can proudly state, We stood up to injustice. We represented the interests of our people, and we did not sell them out to the billionaires.

That is a reality worth fighting for. That is a city we can be proud of. As a final remark, I say to the people of the city council, the citizens of Monterey Park and its surrounding neighborhoods will not quickly forget what you decide for their future. Thank you.

Well, good evening, Mayor and City Councilmembers. I'm Brian Marsh. I'm with the HMC StratCap.

For several years, we have worked together in good faith with the city processing an application to develop a data center on our property at 1977 Saturn. During that process, the city provided assurances about the viability of data center development. We acquired the property and proceeded with our application based on those assurances. We participated in the SPARK process to determine if the data center use was preferred. The SPARK meetings were sponsored and advertised by the city and open to the public. The SPARK findings were overwhelmingly supportive of data center use. We then worked with the city to expand the permitted uses in Saturn Park and create new zoning regulations for data centers, which the city adopted in November of 2024. Following the adoption of the data center zoning regulations, we arranged a tour of a new data center in Vernon for the city council and staff, and we heard afterwards how the city would welcome a similar investment in Monterey Park.

Based on these actions and representations by the city, we then closed on the purchase of 1977 Saturn Street in December of 2024. We continued working with the city on our planning application until it was deemed complete and in conformance with the municipal code. The city completed its environmental review under CEQA and that found there were no significant environmental impacts.

We negotiated a development agreement with the city that will provide numerous community benefits for the residents. And the city scheduled our project for a hearing in November 2025, but there was no action. There was no widespread opposition at that time.

Now for the last few months, we recognize that the city has faced intense public pressure opposed to the data center. We volunteered to complete a full environmental impact report in response to that opposition. and to provide more information to help educate the community about our data center. We also recognize that the city may be interested in pursuing alternative land uses in Saturn Park. I'm here tonight to state that HMC, as the largest property owner in Saturn Park, is willing to engage in productive, good faith discussions with the city to explore those alternative uses that the city and the community desire. The goal would be to reach a mutually acceptable win-win solution for Saturn Park.

Our preferred path is not to litigate. We must, however, protect our legal rights. And we believe there may be a common ground solution. This is your opportunity to create a land use plan that works for the city, the community, and us. Forcing a ballot proposition with a special election in June 2026 severely degrades our ability to work together.

Therefore, in closing, I ask that you not proceed with item 12A on the agenda and vote to postpone a potential ballot measure until a later date. That will provide us the time for the city, HMC, and the community to create a mutually acceptable solution for Saturn Park. And we view this juncture as an opportunity to meet community's desires, advance the city's priorities, and avoid costly litigation between the parties. Thank you.

Everyone, reminder, please respect everyone who is speaking at the podium, regardless of opinion. That way we can all hear everyone's time. Thank you.

Good evening, City Council members and Madam Mayor. My name's Jim Pugh. I'm with Shepherd Law Firm and we represent the applicant for the Data Scent Project in 1977 Saturn. As you know, my comments will be very brief tonight. We prepared a letter that I have here in my hand that outlines the legal risk associated with items 11B and 12A that are on the agenda tonight. We'll provide it to the city clerk for the administrative record. It demonstrates, in summary, the city's actions on the moratorium and the ballot measure are fraught with legal risk. I expect the city attorney to say there's no risk. I expect the council will continue with its unfettered decision-making. But as the applicant said, I urge you to reconsider your path and work with the applicant to find a mutually acceptable outcome that pleases the community and that pleases the city and works for the applicant. I'll submit this for the record. Thank you.

All right, let me call a few more names while Caleb's coming up. Samuel, Alma, Tilda DeWolf, Kathleen Gomez, and Deborah Simone.

That is going to be a tough act to follow. I feel like they just gave you an out. They said they want to build something different, so just ban data centers.

Problem solved. Honorable Mayor and Council Members. Sorry, I'm going to read it because I'm not a good public speaker. Oh, and also, if you're watching on YouTube and you want to submit, go to NoDataCenterMPK. I think this is the camera. NoDataCenterMPK.org, and you can still write a letter. There's instructions for how to write a letter to get your voice heard because we appreciate the democratic process. So thank you so much, Mayor and Council members. I'm going to be kind of a broken record here. I think that's okay. I live in District 5, and I'm within 500 feet of the proposed site with my wife and three kids. We are not interested in being guinea pigs for a data center. I also want to point out that across the nation, data centers are popping up, being built by big tech companies who are at the forefront of this technology, and they can't make a safe data center. HMC is an asset manager. And I'm quite sure that their Dallas and their Kansas facilities were data centers that were bought, that already had renters, which is State Farm. So they're telling us they can build something that Tesla, Meta, Amazon can't build, which is a safe data center within 65 feet of our homes. I don't buy that at all. So I'm going to live edit my remarks here because Dave Jones, who I want to be when I grow up, already said most of it. So we learned about this project December 3rd after two years of sequel reviews. They could have reached out to us. They could have engaged us. The SPARK committee was brought up. I believe only people within 500 feet of Saturn Park were actually notified, and only 19 people voted on the data center. So that's not... I mean, there's more people here tonight against the data center, and you guys were willing to update the municipal code with 19 people. Wow. Just ban it. I also want to talk about the... What do I got? Two and a half. Their town hall. So it was just Acton and Kim Lee Horn were there, and I think a representative from Shepard Mullen was there as well. Then on December 3rd, when Mayor Yang asked the applicant to do a town hall and they committed to doing that, you said, and I'm not quoting, but you said, I hope that you bring, where did I write this down? You requested HMC include appropriate agencies. which I would assume meant Edison, Water District, Gensler, who designed the facility, and HMC. It would be nice if HMC attended their own town hall. None of those people were there, so they couldn't answer questions like, have the heat and noise generation from Edison's substation been studied? No. What about the seven to eight steel high-voltage poles that they'll have to put in residential areas to connect their substation to the Numark substation? Could they answer that? No. What happens to the e-waste when HMC has to replace their tens of hundreds of thousands of computers and servers as the technology continues to change? That is a lot of e-waste, and we know how fast we have to replace our computers. If they're going to stay competitive, they're going to have to replace their equipment very often. Let's see. I got one more thing I wanted to say. That's probably it. I would say yes on the moratorium, outright ban on data centers. They gave us the out. And I would say a ballot measure, but lose the acreage loophole, because the technology and the facilities that house the technology can get smaller with time. But that doesn't mean that their resource usage would decrease too. They could still use the same amount of resources. Okay, that's it for me. Thank you for your time.

G'day, I'm Samuel, and I'm a resident of Monterey Park. Unlike Jeremy, I'm a real Australian. But I don't work for HMC. The first thing I want to draw attention to is how HMC's handlers had to bring in support by convincing union members to attend the last City Council meeting on February 4th in order to satisfy their volunteer hours. The post on Instagram... Read volunteer opportunity for apprentices. It goes on to say apprentices can earn volunteer hours by participating. There is no mention whatsoever of the meetings agenda. They just wanted people to fill the seats and they sure did. Now I think I can speak for the majority of Monterey Park residents. Is this microphone bugging out? I can hear it. Yeah, it's irritating. Now, I think I can speak for the majority of Monterey Park residents when I say we are most definitely not anti-union. Some of us belong to them or wish we could.

You union workers have more in common with the community members across this room than with the corporation that sent you here. you were put in this position but you don't have to stay in it stand with your neighbors build things for the community and stand against things that will exploit it like this data center and any other data center there is no guarantee that the jobs on this proposed site i think it 200 or something like that will be filled by any of the resident union members. Look at how they bus people in from all around the country to build data centres in other cities. Last weekend, over a month of waiting with bated breath, we were finally given two clown halls. Sorry, town halls. In those two sessions, they failed to answer some very important questions regarding city resource usage and there was not a single SC representative present to guarantee that our electricity rates won't increase for a facility that is classified as heavy industry. How can you just power up a 33 megawatt facility without building any new energy supply? Sure, even if they pay for a new distribution, where does the extra power come from? We would need new power stations and you know who is going to have to pay for that? Don't you? Us. And that's not all. They plan on building an even bigger facility across the street at 1980 Saturn, which they declined to talk about by deflecting questions. That would bring the total energy usage to almost four times that of the entire city of Monterey Park. And now we're hearing that other buildings on the street are being looked at for future data centres. When concerned residents wanted to ask questions, we were told to scan a QR code or write them down. We had to raise our voices just to get follow-up questions answered. This after they gave us veiled responses or deferred to an absent HMC or the city. Why wasn't HMC there themselves to answer questions? It's obvious. They don't actually care about engaging with the community. In fact, the PR people running the town hall, and I'm jealous David already mentioned this, said outright that they were there to manage the community. Their words. Where were you, HMC? In the outback, drinking a can of Foster's, throwing another shrimp on the barbie? Or are you back home, avoiding accountability and watching Bluey? Tonight I'm asking the council to vote yes. Yes to extending the moratorium. Yes to a June 2nd special election for a citywide ban on data centres. Yes to a city ordinance that permanently bans data centres from being built in the city. And on that ballot, we're also asking to close two loopholes, prevent data centres occupying less than one acre from slipping through and commit to a one-month turnaround between the ballot and any amendments to the municipal code and general plan. Which brings me to something worth reflecting on. All of us here should take Mr James Pugh, HMC's lawyer, and his use of the word mob as a compliment. He represents an Australian company, but he failed to realise that he was using a word that First Nations Australians used to describe themselves and their people. In Aboriginal English, mob means more than just a crowd. It refers to your extended family, your clan and the community you come from. It's a word of connection and identity of kinship. To my fellow Monterey Park community members, that is us. We are the Monterey Park mob. Thank you for your time.

Good evening, Mayor Yang, council members. My name is Kathleen. I'm part of District 3. I'm going to keep this pretty short. Definitely an introvert. I don't really like to public speak, but I think at this point... Sorry. Okay. My name is Kathleen, District 3. I definitely consider myself more of an introvert. I'm not a public speaker, but I feel at this point if we do not say something we're complicit with everything going on around us

I Attended the town hall that was hosted by HMC two things that stood out to me Their number one talking point is this little pocket park. It's not the red part here It's not the yellow part of this little tiny pocket park last time. I checked No one wants to take a leisurely stroll around a data center Thing number two that stood out to me is they were trying to justify the diesel generators in comparison to a hospital and fire station. In the event of a big power outage, what do we want to support, a hospital or a data center? I think it's pretty clear. So I'll just end this by saying that I support 12A conditionally, of course, as long as we adopt a citywide ordinance that prohibits data centers. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Tilda DeWolf, and I've lived here over 50 years, and I consider this the most destructive proposal I have heard in these 50-plus years.

I live very close to where it would be and they will be and I would very much consider moving. Thank you.

Hi, good evening. All of you, it's great to see you. I'm Alma Marquez, and I live here in Monterey Park. I have lived here for the last 13 years. And when I was in college at East L.A. College, I dreamt of moving to Monterey Park. So it was a real different kind of community than where I grew up in. I grew up in Huntington Park. I'm a proud product of Huntington Park. And during that time, when I was in high school and transitioning to college, there was a toxic waste incinerator that they were trying to build 500 feet away from our high school. And we organized and we stopped it. And never in a million years would I or could I imagine that something similar would happen in my dream city. And I own a business in Monterey Park. We are a communications and community engagement firm. So we know we are experts in community engagement. What has happened here is not community engagement. So I want to say yes to the ballot measure. We want to make sure that we add a moratorium. We also are very clear that language matters. Please do whatever you can to change the language because it is very confusing. So yes means yes, no means no. Now, as a communications expert, and I've talked about this with our team, we're offering our communication services pro bono to the city to help support the efforts of keeping our community clear and safe from any and every data center that is even thinking about coming to our community. I also just want to say that the present industrial complex is the same complex that is the technology complex that we're dealing with. The tech bros are absolutely the Epstein class. They are not the working class.

Let me say a few more names. Bosco, Bosco, Ben, Lance Williams, Elijah Lim, Antonio Martinez.

Mayor Yang, Mayor Pro Tem Lowe, members of the City Council, it's great to be up here again talking with you about the concept of data centers in our wonderful town. I'm going to go back to what I talked about at the first meeting last year, and that's vision for this city. And I'm asking you again, what's your vision for this city? I'm here to support 12A. I'm here to close the loopholes and support what everybody else has said in our letter from Doug Carstens.

I would like you to think for a minute, 10 years down the road, when Monterey Park is the city that said no to data centers, when Monterey Park is the city that has pride in its past, faith in its future, and it's a place for people to come live. and you know we have supported I am not against development down there in Saturn Park I'm not against using union work to do it they can wire up some mixed-use residential they can plumb mixed-use residential they can do all those things they comply all their trades I am a member of a trade union for over 30 years I was vested in October of 1994 and I gotta say I and And that work has allowed me to finally buy a home here in Monterey Park at the wonderful young age of 52.

And part of what's wrong with this country right now is the average age of the home buyer now, do you know that, is 50. 50, Gen X for crying out loud. Give me a break. I mean, I love it. But anyway. So, you know, I just want you all to think about that, because you have all these wonderful people who are so media savvy and so civically minded. One of the wonderful things about going out and canvassing with these people is I have met neighbors who speak Cantonese, neighbors who speak Mandarin, neighbors who speak Espanol, and everybody. And we have gone out and met the people that actually live there. Who are the people in your neighborhood? If you're Gen X, you know that song, and now it's in your head. I mean, I think let's make this town a place where people want to come live, where people want to do real things, where they're not relying on a robot or a program or an app to run their lives. Let's put our faith in the future. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. My name is Bosco from District 5. We all hear how the world's wealthiest corporations like NVIDIA, Meta, X, Amazon, and OpenAI are pushing their agenda that AI is necessary. The AI race is resulting in a rush for constructing more and more data centers around the country. These massive buildings are packed with GPUs consuming huge amounts of fossil fuels to power and cool them. Journalists are reporting on how data centers are being rapidly constructed next to residential areas without a responsible level of concern for the health and welfare of those living nearby. A quick Google search provides resources for anyone to learn about the negative impacts that data centers have on nearby residents. I attended HMC's town hall last Saturday at the Barnes Park Clubhouse. HMC's hired publicists and consultants were there to provide information about their project. When I shared my concerns, my questions were not answered. I asked if HMC had taken into consideration public health disorders related to constant noise exposure to low-frequency noise and infrasound. The representatives answered no. However, researchers at UC Davis highlight how chronic exposure to noise can cause increased stress, hypertension, sleep disturbances, anxiety, depression, as well as behavioral and emotional disorders in children. A study from Harvard has shown an association between long-term noise exposure and an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. Researchers at Caltech and UC Riverside reported that data center health impacts have tripled in only four years. The number of cases could rise by another 72% by 2028 if mitigations are not enacted. On another note, we discovered that HMC purchased both 1977 and 1980 Saturn Street properties at the same time in 2024, with 1980 being 25% larger. At HMC's town hall, many residents, myself included, asked what their intentions were for the 1980 property. Obviously, some sort of plan must have been in place when they... The UN purchased. However. HMC representatives refuse to answer any questions related to 1980. Yeah. Let me be clear. Data centers of any size are not wanted anywhere in Monterey Park. But. But. Before I support a ballot measure the city must first pass a strong and clear ordinance that prohibits data centers citywide in all forms and sizes. The ordinance must ban data centers in Saturn Park, Marketplace, Monterey Pass Road, and Corporate Center Drive. Once an ordinance is passed, the ballot language must remove acreage as a factor. The ballot results must directly enact changes and bypass council as a middleman. Rushing incomplete ballot language without full community protections just to meet a June deadline is not acceptable. I am in support of the 10-month and 15-day extension of the moratorium, which would expire in January 2027. All eyes are on Monterey Park right now. Neighboring cities, including Montebello, City of Industry, Hacienda Heights, Roland Heights, are watching. Amazon's recent purchase of a property in Eaton Canyon with a probable plan for a future data center may very well be affected. So big money interests are waiting to see our outcome. We can either be another victim of corporate abuse or the leader with a plan for other cities in California to follow. We, the residents, have rallied together to ban data centers in our city. It's up to you, the city council members, to join us in support of the health and well-being of our community. Thank you very much.

Hello, members of the Monterey Park City Council. My name is Lance Williams. I'm a resident in District 2 here in Monterey Park. I've been able to call Monterey Park my home here for the last five years, and I'm here in support of the ballot measure. I'm originally from a little town some of you might have heard of called Memphis, Tennessee, where facilities like this have become all too clear in the public eye how much of a problem it can become for the community. I'm proud to call both of these communities my home, especially on days like this where today we're proud to be out here making our voices heard. As a city and as a country, we're currently at a crossroads. We're facing an unprecedented moment in politics where people are emboldened, engaged, and the opportunity for community organization, like what we see today, reflects that. Every day, we witness the wishes of corporations pursuing profits over people manifesting both here and abroad. At times the ability to change these things may seem hopeless, but in defiance we stand here today hopeful for a future for our community. Members of the City Council, I hope the biggest takeaway for you all today is that the wishes of the residents are clear. We want to ensure a future where the wishes of the people are honored above those of corporate interest. The future of developing technologies, there's a conceivable future where a facility like this will require no human operators, but we will still be here. I leave you all with a quote from a song I listened to on the walk over here from my house today, Gotta Serve Somebody by Bob Dylan. But you're gonna have to serve somebody. Yes, you're gonna have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody and the question today is who do you all serve? Thank you

Hello, good evening Hello council members mayor. My name is Antonio Martinez resident of MPK for 20 years For the record, I am against the data center installation. I wrote my following words just moments ago and as some of my neighbors just found out about these plans so this is only a minimal opposition on my part. From what I'm hearing it is evident there was a lack of communication. I am not a contractor, cannot read blueprints, but I do believe in building strong relationships and following principles for everyday good life living. Having a data center does not provide that. A leader must be the chief servant and practice proper use of power. I highly encourage you all to be good servants for all residents of this beautiful community. Life is a gift to be enjoyed. How can a data center provide this for these residents? It cannot, and it will not, and it must not. Every individual plays a critical role in advancing the larger mission of the world by contributing their own part to do right by the residents of Monterey Park. And let's ban the data centers.

I would like to hear next steps on what the council will do to stop the data center machine for being constructed. Yes, on the ballot measure. Thank you.

Let me say a few more names. Andy Wu, Robert Castro, Karen, Luke Skywalker, and George Boonegram.

Good evening, honorable mayor, council members. My name is Ben Steckler. I'm here as a planning professional to remind you of one thing a data center is an industrial use it does not belong anywhere near a residential use and right now the proposed data center the proposed data center and the one that is presumed to go across the street will be too close to residential uses do not reenact the industrial revolution do not allow for an industrial use to contaminate the lives of the people of your city. It is not something that belongs here. Monterey Park is a mostly residential community. It does not belong here. The uses should be restricted outside of residential areas. I would encourage you to continue with your path in order to enact legislation within your city and stop the construction of this and all data centers in the future and I would encourage you to do so post haste so that you don't have to worry about lawsuits coming down that will occupy your time mostly and a funnel of muddle the waters I would also encourage you to bring back the data center for consideration at 1977 Saturn and to deny it outright. It is your right as it is a basically civic duty that this council has to protect its residents within the city. And I'm trying to abridge my original comment, so forgive me for stuttering just a little bit, but I'll keep it short. you do not want an industrial use in any sort of adjacency or proximity to residential uses because it will encourage more and more stronger industrial uses to do the same thing. And all you're doing is putting your citizens at risk if you allow them to move forward with any sort of an EIR or any other sort of a process. You have the right. It is a discretionary approval. And all you have to do is call them back into a forum with proper notice and deny their request. Thank you very much. Have a nice evening.

Hey, everyone. My name is Eli, and I live in Monterey Park. I grew up here, and it's a pretty awesome place. I want to call for a permanent citywide ban on data centers and to speak out against AI as a whole. While it has potential benefits, the way that it's been developed and employed is anti-human and extremely destructive. It is a means for billionaires to extract more wealth from people like us, as well as exert more influence through disinformation powered by AI. It is pushed by evil leeches like Peter Thiel, who says things like, freedom and democracy are not compatible. Technocrats want to pursue freedom, and democracy is a barrier. AI is being forced on us with our consent, being integrated into search engines and our devices by default. It's eroding our critical thinking skills, teaching us not to question where our information is coming from. In dark times like this, our day-to-day interactions with each other within our community are a guiding light and drivers for real change. algorithms fueled by AI push controversial content and divide us intentionally. They want to poison our interactions with each other. And to allow this beautiful city to be pushed over by these billionaires is to stomp out the potential for real change. It starts in places like Monterey Park. Thank you.

Good evening, City Council. My name is Andy. I grew up in Monterey Park. I went to Mark Keppel, and I may or may not be skipping studying for midterms at USC to be here. And I support Measure 12A, banning data centers throughout our city. And on that note, I'd like to address some of the proposed economic benefits of building a data center and comparing them against the economic benefits of building your average McDonald's. So the average data center has around 20 to 30 permanent workers in it. This one has 26, while the average McDonald's franchise employs around 50 people. It takes around three years to build a normal data center. Well, in comparison, the normal McDonald's takes around six to 10 months to build. As for taxability, data centers do not provide any tangible service to local residents, while a McDonald's sells burgers and fries, which can be taxed and generate revenue. Long term, 20 years from now, people are still going to be eating burgers and fries at McDonald's. Not even three years from now, the economists predict that the AI bubble is about to burst like the dot-com bubble did. And then as for energy use, one McDonald's consumes roughly 81 kilowatt hours a year, while this data center would consume about 434 million kilowatt hours a year. So overall wrapping it up, to build a McDonald's compared to a data center, a McDonald's would bring twice the jobs built in a quarter of the time with more taxable economic output with longer industry stability in much less land area while also using 0.0000002% the amount of energy. And lastly, I would like to send a message to union workers. Monterey Park absolutely loves you guys, and we would be willing to welcome you all here to develop Saturn Park into something that is actually beneficial to Monterey Park residents.

For example, walkable mixed-use zoning that may or may not include McDonald's. Thank you.

I'll call a few more names. Teddy Yoon, Madeline Ocampo, Stephen Kuhn, and Yolanda.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, honorable council members and city staff. Thank you for allowing me this chance to speak. I would like to thank you, first of all, for listening to the Monterey Park residents and to coming up with solutions to address our concerns. What was your name? I go by Luke Skywalker tonight.

Please continue to be patient and listen to what we have to say as we move forward on this matter together. For the record, I support all three items being discussed tonight. Not much to say, but I want to use my time to share with you why I don't support this project. besides the environmental concerns that has been spoken about quite a lot. The implication this has on how we live is at stake. Data centers are nothing but support infrastructure for tech companies to continue to collect our data, monitor our behavior, and influence our thoughts and actions. At the core are opaque algorithms that serve content based on the user's data. They customize these content based on past behavior. Some have said that, oh, these are very convenient. They're good for us. But it might seem convenient. But taken to the extreme, it can decide what we read online, what we think, what we buy, and for how much. Already, there are evidence that even the price we pay for food and services are customized to us. You and I might not even pay the same price on eggs or milk. There's a study done by Consumer Reports using Instacart that shows that the prices that each person pays for the exact same items are completely different, even though they're in the exact same location and purchasing the items at the exact same time. You and I might not even be paid the same wage for the exact same job because of our level of desperation for money. An example is ShiftKey. It's a gig-based app for nurses. from data purchase to data brokers that's collected illegally. The number that these nurses pay is determined by how much money they have in their bank account and how much debt they owe. The lower the money they have in the bank account and the more debt they owe, the lower their pay actually is determined. That's very criminal. You and I might not even own the things we pay money for. Examples are HP printers. These printers don't really work for us even though we pay money for them. If we want to use cheaper ink, we cannot. It will not allow us to use them without buying ink from Asia. These are just a few examples of things that are being poisoned in our daily life. All of this is possible because of the data being collected on us, data we give away for free in the name of convenience, data being hosted in data centers, data that is not being protected, data that is leaked every month, my email, phone number, address, and social security numbers, as are all of yours, were leaked, is leaking, and will continue to leak, they are sitting in some database in a data center somewhere waiting for cyber criminals to exploit. I don't stand here with a mask because I enjoy wearing one. I wear it because I have to protect my privacy. I don't turn off my phone and put it in a Faraday bag because it's cool. I do it to protect my privacy because these companies won't. So no, I don't support my data being used without my consent to enrich the capitalists. I don't support the means to continue to enable them. I don't support data centers, period. Thank you.

Good evening, council members. My name is George Bocanegra, and my brothers and sisters are here tonight, and believe it or not, we do live in the community and the surrounding communities around here. I did want to share some information and speak on this, on the proposing a ballot initiate to ban all data centers citywide. Data centers are an important part of the California economy and provide many high quality union jobs throughout the state. By banning data centers citywide, the city is precluding the opportunities for union workers that live in this area a good paying wage. Our union members, along with our brothers and sisters in the other trades, are voting members in the city of Monterey Park as well. If the city puts a data center proposition on the ballot in June, then we will mobilize the full strength of our voting base to ensure the ballot measure fails. It is also important context that even proposed laws at the state level do not ban data centers. Those laws are more about balancing economic growth and environmental protection. The city's proposed data center ban is over the top and will result in depressed economic conditions in the city and the lack of good paying union jobs. We urge you to propose a citywide data center ban and vote tonight to not advance a ballot initiative. Thank you very much.

Honorable Mayor Yang, Mayor Pro Tem, Henry, City Council. We're a small town, and I look at all of you, and I see you guys as friends. You're part of my community. You're my neighbors. I was at China Bistro about a couple weeks ago. I was staring at you, handing low, like a creepy guy. But I wanted to say hello, but I knew he was with family. And that's my point, is that Monterey Park, we know each other. We have relationships with each other. We're friends. We're neighbors. So when HMC, StratCap, their lobbyists come into our town, they don't belong here, and we don't want them here, and they're going to lose. They're going to lose badly. so i have a speech and it started with going to the town hall and i wanted to ask some questions and all i got met with was a lobbyist game plan to control the audience. So here's my question. If Monterey Park's five-year forecast shows no deficit, health-free reserves, and stable revenue growth, what exactly are we being asked to sacrifice our infrastructure, air quality, and long-term planning for? A data center that adds less than 9, 8, 7, 6, 5% to the budget. Why should residents accept environmental risk and increased utility strain for a project the city does not fiscally need?

So the fiscal case for this data center falls apart the moment you examine its numbers. The city is being told to expect $5 to $7 million annually. How many of you folks have seen this flyer that's been going around $5 to $7 million annually? Yet $2 million of that is attributed to sales and use tax. According to the report itself, it's collected once every four years. Calling that annual, quote, annual revenue is not analysis. It is misrepresentation. Another way to say it is a revenue stream collected every four years cannot, under any definition, be called annual. The report further inflates property tax projections by treating servers, racks, and IT equipment as real property, despite California law clearly classifying them as tangible personal property. As a result, much of the recurring revenue being advertised does not legally exist. You are being asked to approve a 24-7 industrial facility based on projections that do not withstand the basic scrutiny. Monter Park deserves transparency and honesty, not accounting tricks. And I don't know if I mentioned, but I'm 412A. I see this as a figurative headshot. They got about three months to at least try to convince the community. They're probably on their heels right now. They have no idea what they're doing. I went to IHOP. I saw their Actum. They're Rodriguez lobbyists. They're green. They don't know what's going on. I went to the town hall. They're also, they quote unquote said, we're managing the community. Okay. That's, you guys are going to lose. So please just go home.

Hi, good evening. My name is Madeline Ocampo. I'm a Monterey Park resident. I've lived here for over 25 years, and I'm in support of 12A, but I want to mention if you could remove ballot language loopholes that would allow for data center development and approve the ballot and adopt the citywide ordinance that prohibits data centers of any size or type. Finally, please ignore HMC's lawsuit threats as they are meritless. You know, this is the third time I've come to these city council meetings, and I'm just tired. I'm tired of fighting our own government and trying to convince you to care about people instead of corporations.

It's just like...

You want to hear something sad? You know, many people don't even want to have kids anymore because, one, it's too expensive. Two, they don't see a future for them. They don't see a future for them, and could you blame them? Look how many billions are being poured into mass surveillance, prisons, ICE, ICE detention centers, wars, defense contracts, fossil fuels, weapons, and AI, which is growing faster than it could be properly regulated. And guess what's behind all this? What's going to be fueling all this? Data centers. More and more data centers to feed into this egregious obsession of the billionaire and ruling class to control and subjugate people. And what's funny, they don't even see us as people. To them, we are products. We are cogs in their machine. Do you really want to form part of this bleak future? Do you want to accelerate the exploitation of our already dwindling natural resources? Did you know the UN announced that we're in a global water bankruptcy, meaning we're using water faster than it's being replenished? Do you want to give in to this endless destruction and construction? just to make a quick buck? I thought educated people like you would know better.

Please be on the right side of history. Please do the right thing. Do not neglect the wellbeing of our community and planet. I mean, say no to data centers. Come on, abolish ICE, free Palestine.

Good evening. Xin chào, ne ou. My name is Theodore Chow. I am a proud resident of Monterey Park, District 5. I'm also a professor of mathematics education at Cal State Fullerton, and I'm also a union member. I'm pro-union. So as a professor, I focus often on knowledge and long-term movements. The way history doesn't always repeat, but it rhymes. For instance, I just taught my students this week about the Chevron refinery fire in Richmond, California, that targeted a Southeast Asian population. The Phyllis refinery here in Los Angeles. Asthma, cancer, sickness, death, targeted at communities of color. History doesn't repeat, it rhymes. I'm very proud to live in Monterey Park. I'm also very proud of my ancestry that comes from Hong Kong. And the history of Hong Kong is one that involves very similar ways of powerful groups coming into communities of color and exploiting their resources. Slake promises, spin, exploitation. The British used opium to destroy the mental will of the people to allow takeover of their sovereignty. Similarly, we see companies like HMC that see us a proud community of color and working class community as similarly easy pickings. They don't need opium in 2026. 2026, these lawyers, Instagram ads, bogus surveys, performative town hall meetings, and the threat of litigation to manipulate and gaslight us, giving us easy answers and feel-good solutions to ease our pain. But what happened in Hong Kong? Our people lost their country. And if we allow these data centers, we'll lose our community. Communities of color and working-class communities are continually targeted by predators like HMC, using the same colonizer playbook we've seen for centuries, to sell short-term solutions that end up destroying us all and stealing our natural resources. Data centers and companies like AGMC are going to keep coming, and they're going to keep coming because they think we don't know. They call it what they say, yeah, right? I'm here tonight to ask for three things, a three-pronged approach. The moratorium, a ballot measure being clear to close any loopholes about acreage, data center definitions, and location of any future data centers or data processing units, and adopting a permanent ordinance banning data centers in our city to show the world that we in Monterey Park are not going to be colonized. Thank you.

Buenos tardes. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. My family has been living in Monterey Park for four generations. What's your name? Yolanda.

My parents moved here in 1969. I am 74 years old, a retired MUSD teacher, and a longtime resident. I am impressed at the turnout of community at these council meetings that are focused on the data center. I wasn't aware of this project until I read it on Instagram. It's obvious that these cities' citizens do not want this data center in the neighborhood. I certainly don't want it in my backyard. The data center will have ill effect on all human and animal life with its low frequency noise and pollution. The cost of homes will go down as utility costs go up. No es bueno. At the first meeting, I saw the HMC representatives stay mostly silent and observing angry citizens. Yes, we are angry. This seems to be a David and Goliath situation, and the community is David. This Goliath is calculating, restrained, and professionally trained for opposition. At the second meeting, HMC had union workers join and speak for them. This is the oldest strategy of corporate 101. The strategy of get the working class people against each other until one tires out the other.

This is meant to divide us while corporate sits back and waits. It's about their money. They will threaten us, they will sue, and call us narrow-minded and rude as we fight for the well-being of our families. We are not trained in manipulative-

angry. But if you don't think a small being like me can make a difference, then you've never been in bed with a mosquito. Call us unruly and misinformed, shame.

We are not against working class people because we are trying to make a living to feed our families. We are against the HMC data center in our community. This is not a fight against union workers. Skilled labor is to be appreciated and honored. This center will provide temporary employment. We are not against progress and education. Data centers are necessary and aren't going away. Artificial intelligence is here, and as part of our lives, we are involved with AI daily. If you have a computer or a cell phone, what we are against is putting our families' health and well-being at risk with this data center so close to our homes. Put this center away from our neighborhoods, not our family-friendly city, Monterey Park. Not here. If you do your research, see that these large data centers are in working-class neighborhoods, not where the affluent live. So who is profiting? Not us. Este es nuestra casa. Este data center no se pasa. This is our house. This shall not pass.

Let me say a few more names. Jesse Damon, Emily Chu, Harag Balian, Alan Rosso, and Eleanor Lee.

Hi, I'm Stephen J. Kang, Mayor Yang, council members and staff. . HMC has behaved very poorly and proven themselves to be dishonest, unreliable and a vindictive partner serving you a smorgasbord of reasons to reject their projects under your discretionary powers. They acted in bad faith from the jump when they submitted their application as a data processing center, then submitted a sloppy MND rife with inaccuracies. They threw a sham town hall where they would only take written questions, delay follow-up questions, and gaslight us. They've threatened legal action against the city for their own failures to cheat the system. And spoiler alert, they're going to sue us anyway. They've recruited unions to intimidate us. And I want to take a second to talk about these unions. There are two types. There are unions that fight for labor and unions in the corporate pocket. I know because I'm ashamed to be a member of the Directors Guild of America, which cuts backroom deals with the studios, but I'm also proud to be a member of the Writers Guild of America.

The WGA was at the vanguard of the hot labor summer of 23, a sweeping nationwide labor movement that includes SAG, Teamsters, Lifeguards, sanitation workers, the United Auto Workers, traffic officers, nurses, fast food employees, but you know who I didn't see out there? You guys? You may co-opt our rhetoric, but your alliance with Rodriguez's strategies betrays your corporate end game. Rodriguez led the successful campaign for Prop 22, which prevents Lyft and Uber drivers from unionizing. This was opposed by the service employees International Union, United Food and Commercial Workers, and the Teamsters. So your siding with a union-busting lobby exposes your hypocrisy and indicts your credibility. Now we, the residents of Monterey Park, will show you what true union cred looks like. Note the entire coalition of union members here who are anti-data center. We come from the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild, the Animation Guild, and a panoply of IATSE locals. We also have the Teamsters, the nurses, and the teachers. Even our lawn signs are printed by Mitchell Publishing, a union house. We are endorsed by the DSA. We have more unions represented and more union residents. And we work here. A lot of us out of our home offices, which would be threatened by the presence of a data center, We are protesting, and you have crossed our picket line to take our seats in this chamber and jeopardize our labor. You lack solidarity. You're scabs.

And we do not tolerate scabs in Monterey Park, and we do not tolerate corporations that bring them to our city. So tonight is payback. And it's time for the City Council to step up to the plate. We have called upon you to close two loopholes in the ballot measure, loopholes so gaping the residents of Monterey Park arrived at them independently of each other. Let's make this ballot measure airtight. Let's also draft an ordinance banning all data centers. It would provide immediate and maximum protection for us and send an unequivocal and official message from both the people and the government. An ordinance is the most common and effective means of banning data centers, as shown in Gordon, Atlanta, Peculiar, Lordstown, Big Rapids Township, Warrantown, and Palmetto. Literally the only places where residents have resorted to a ballot measure are towns where the city council doesn't listen. You cannot distance yourself from this fight. You're in it because HMC has dragged you into it. And as our elected officials, you need to own this messaging with an ordinance. You have every reason to do it and no downsides. Not only is this the right thing to do, it would be the ultimate clapback and karmic justice for an applicant who has acted in bad faith. HMC, Actum, and Rodriguez know that with only a ballot measure, they still have a path forward because they can outspend us. We can shut that down tonight. Remember the night of...

Remember the night of January 21st when y'all passed the temporary moratorium? How great that felt. I loved watching James Pugh storm out of this hall. And I loved the look on Liziza Lambert's face when she called her boss and told him that everything had gone sideways. Let's show these parasites that we are done playing. After all the threats, misinformation, and disrespect to the people and council of this great city, let's deliver what they've got coming to them. Find your voice, stand strong, and pass an ordinance. They've fucked around, and now they're going to find out.

Robert Castro, resident, District 5. I don't know that I get more weight. You know, it's going to affect the whole San Gabriel Valley if they build a data center. You know, a new topic, the inherent danger of electricity, a lot of heat. you know I don't see the UA here the other union was here last time and I wondered plumbers plumbers well no it's fire suppression and there's a lot of talk about the Edison power and the generators but they're also going to require battery backup you know there's that UPS system so they're talking about water, heat, electricity yeah I want a job like that to be done by union labor but not here and I support that ballot with amendments here talking about five generations here in Monterey Park. And I don't know, that gives me more weight. I worry about all the people that live in the community. So please do the right thing, and I can have faith in the future. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, council. My name is Jesse Damon. First, shout out to Bob Castro. Thank you for not making me go after Steven. Hey, HMC StratCap. Unlike anyone from your company, we attended your sham of a town hall last Saturday. Your strategists and technical experts interpreted community engagement as refusing to answer verbal questions. You could probably talk to Alma back here. She would help. You heard about managing the community every time one of us has to listen to that nonsense, a new activist is born. Thank you to the city staff who did stop by our booths. Your intimidation campaign seems to have lost some steam. Your baseless threats of litigation are overpriced posturing. Your last-minute letters are hilarious and pathetic. This mob is quite informed.

We won't be threatened by the unions you're exploiting and we will welcome unions back when we have a project worth fighting for. I hear you. You need the work. We all need the work. Look at the world right now. Your work cannot happen on our backs, and you deserve work with dignity. Hypersteel AI is not it. Council, the community has found its courage, and it's time for you to find yours. we can have your back on this with a ballot measure it is very clear that you care about this community but we also need leaders with values and vision and those have both been thin on the ground the last few months i understand and appreciate the need for caution but it is not readily apparent what this council believes in or what values drive your leadership in fact it's hard to know how informed our leadership even is. At least two city staff and electeds have attempted to absolve themselves of responsibility by saying, I'm new, I wasn't here when this started, but you are here now. You submitted the mitigated negative declaration for approval. You have the gavel in front of you, so you have the power and the responsibility. Our attorney has asserted that an ordinance and ballot measure carry the same minimal level of legal exposure because the applicant has no vested rights. If you're ready to start rebuilding trust with the community, initiate a ban through an ordinance, put this on the ballot, and start engaging with us meaningfully.

I've spent the last decade of my life as one of the leads of the California Reducing Disparities Project, a statewide initiative to address mental health disparities. Locating data centers in communities like ours are prime examples of why these disparities exist. My work is about ensuring that communities have a voice in the systems that exist to serve them because there is no about us without us. And let me tell you about this community. The depth of the talent in Monterey Park is staggering. Within a 10-minute walk from my house, there are dozens of geniuses at research, communications, visual storytelling, organizing, legal strategy, rhetoric, environmental justice, engineering, and art. These folks have put in hundreds of hours of work to protect this community while raising families, going to school, paying mortgages, working full-time, caregiving. These people here tonight are the leaders this community deserves, and your courage and integrity are now part of the history of Monterey Park. To all the neighbors who are nervous about public speaking, to all the introverts like me, we see you, we love you, we need to hear you. people have found their voice because we cannot look away from this fight, because we are fighting for our neighborhood, our health, and our livelihoods. This jewel of a community is worth protecting, which is why it behooves us to do everything we can to keep data centers out of Monterey Park. Council, it is time for you to take the wheel, adopt an ordinance banning data centers like dozens of cities before us, then close the loopholes, make sure the ballot language is airtight, and ignore the threat of frivolous lawsuits. Like it or not, Monterey Park is leading the fight for the entire San Gabriel Valley.

Montebello passed a data center moratorium because we passed one first. Our fight inspired Sasha Renee Perez to take the data center fight to the state level, and our families in City of Industry, La Puente, Hacienda Heights, Roland Heights are looking to us for help. I know we will win with a ballot but relying on it alone is craven and irresponsible. It is time to lead. Pass an ordinance now.

! Applause!

Good evening, Council Members. My name is Emily. I'm a resident of Monterey Park in District 2 and a co-founder of No Data Center MPK. I am here tonight to conditionally support item 12A. The city's approach right now seems to be pushing the ballot forward and hoping for the best. The reality is that there is too much risk to rely on a ballot alone, and the community deserves stronger protections. A ballot should be one part of a two-part plan to provide the maximum level of protection for the community. Before I go further, I want to assure everyone that this two-part plan is designed by an expert. No data center MPK has retained Doug Carstens, an attorney who specializes in environmental, municipal, and land use law to make sure the community is fighting for the highest levels of protection possible and that we don't leave any loopholes for future data centers. Here's what Doug proposes. In addition to the ballot, the council should also adopt an ordinance immediately to ban data centers citywide. This is what is referred to as a belt and suspenders legal strategy, which mitigates risk. The way it works is that the city would first pass an ordinance to provide a permanent baseline level of protection. This is the belt. Then the ballot measure acts as the suspenders that reinforce the ordinance if it passes. And most importantly, if the ballot fails, we will still have the belt and suspenders in place, which means that we have the protection of the ordinance. This is about mitigating risk. With the city's current approach, we don't have this fallback protection. In fact, there are cascading negative effects if the ballot doesn't pass. I want to paint a picture for everyone and just bear with me because this is not pleasant. But imagine we move forward with what the city wants today. We have a ballot in June and a temporary moratorium. And imagine this isn't hard that HMC starts aggressively campaigning. And we know they have tons of money to essentially buy the ballot. And despite our best efforts, the ballot fails. So what happens at that point? We only have a temporary moratorium to protect us, which needs to be renewed in January 2027. And we have two council seats opening up in November this year. So it's in HMC's best interest to back pro-data center candidates and try to influence our November city elections. Now the community is fighting HMC for two elections back-to-back. And if they win, they end the moratorium in January 2027, and they restart their application.

So coming back to the belt and suspenders, an ordinance would take effect right away. It would provide durable protections if the ballot fails. And very importantly, it would demonstrate the council's commitment to protecting its constituents. As a community, we are not feeling the council's commitment right now. And we are seeing a lack of accountability to fix this situation and earn back public trust. The ordinance is an opportunity to do that. And to be clear, as other folks have said before me, there is nothing legally blocking the city from passing an ordinance. The council just doesn't want to do it.

Before I wrap up, I want to touch on the ballot language. There are two loopholes in the current language that leave the door open for data centers in the future. They need to be closed now. First, allowing data centers under one acre. and second, not specifying timing for zoning update implementation. Campaigning for ballot is not a casual thing. It requires a lot of time, energy, and money from the community, and it is not worth doing for a ballot that isn't as strong as it can be. These loopholes need to be addressed now, and I strongly urge the council to please listen to your constituents and adopt an ordinance immediately to ban data centers citywide. The council's current plan is to gamble on the future of this city, and that is not acceptable. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. My name is Hrag Balian. I'm a resident of Monterey Park in District 2 and also one of the founders of No Data Center MPK. I support a ballot measure to ban data centers citywide, but with the changes that others have been asking about. In addition to a ballot, I also think that you should ban data centers citywide by ordinance. A month ago, you all said that you were going to consider all options to ban data centers. Over the past several weeks, it became clear that you all became singularly fixated on a ballot. You really don't seem to want to ban data centers by ordinance. And I've noticed a troubling shift in how this council has been talking about its option to enact an ordinance. Specifically, I've heard several claims. A, that you don't have the power to ban data centers by ordinance, and that doing so would be undemocratic. B, that if you do ban by ordinance, it will expose the city to devastating litigation. C, that even if you pass an ordinance, a future council can simply undo it. So why bother? D, that you're very confident that a ballot will pass, so an ordinance would be a waste of time. And from these four claims, a conclusion. E, that a valid measure is the only way to ban data centers. Now, no data center MPK has retained Doug Carstens, as you've heard, to fact-check every single one of these claims. His assessment is unequivocal. None of them are accurate. And frankly, he is deeply puzzled and concerned that the city appears to believe otherwise. So let me take these claims one at a time. A, you don't have the power. This is very clearly false. The California Constitution grants you the authority to enact ordinances. That is not some extraordinary measure. It is a core function of your office. This is called representative democracy. We've elected you to represent us, the people. So land use, zoning, public safety, these are your domain. A. Passing ordinances isn't exceeding your authority. It is your authority. B. You'll get sued, and it will be devastating. Also false. Our attorney has confirmed that since HMC has not secured the vested rights to proceed with their project, any lawsuit they file would lack legal merit. HMC-threatening litigation is nothing more than intimidation, and they're free to make these threats under their First Amendment rights. That threat will exist regardless of whether the ban comes by ordinance, by ballot, or both. A ballot measure does not make the city lawsuit-proof, so don't let the threat of meritless lawsuit paralyze you from doing your job.

C. A future council can just undo it. This argument is defeatist and puts into question why you'd pass any ordinance on any topic or why you have a job at all. It also misunderstands the law. Yes, a future counsel could attempt to repeal an ordinance, but doing so would trigger CEQA review and an EIR, creating significant legal, financial, and procedural hurdles. It would also require public process, public hearings, and public scrutiny. And as you can see, we are here. We are engaged. We are paying attention now. An ordinance repeal would neither happen quickly nor quietly, especially with an engaged and organized electorate. D, it would be a waste of time. Also false. Even if you're extremely confident that a ballot will pass, passing an ordinance would mean taking HMC's deep pockets seriously. It would mean building a second line of defense against a well-funded PR campaign. And it would mean showing your constituents that you hear them and that you take some responsibility for the decisions that got us into this mess to begin with. Are you going to get behind this community, or are you going to hide behind a ballot? And E, a ballot is the only way. Also false. I refer you back to points A, B, C, and D. This conclusion does not follow from the facts. At this point, many of you have publicly voiced support for data center regulation. Every single one of you have signed the letters backing state-level data center rules. You have the legal authority. You have the public mandate. The only question is, do you have the will? Thank you.

Let me call a few more names. Chris Dolly, Jessica Ju, Felicia Marquez, John N, Mike Romero.

Good evening, everyone. First of all, I apologize if I can't talk, but I'm very nervous.

To me, first of all, I am a resident of El Monte, where there is also a data center being proposed across the street from my mom's store. her pride and joy um so this is i mean all these folks are given fantastic facts uh i can't top any of anything that's been said but this is going to be personal so i'll try to keep it short and sweet to me anyone who in any way supports funds or builds data centers is no better than street thugs that kill with guns. At least with them, death is quick and you can see the face of your killer. You are not constantly bombarded with chemicals and noise by a company on another continent until your body can no longer take it. A vote for a data center is a vote for poisoning people and the environment. I just found out, I mean, I'm not as informed as half the people here, but I I just learned today that since 2024, nobody had known about this. That's a huge red flag. Another huge red flag for me. Who will be providing power to the data center? One name would be Edison. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I may be wrong, and I apologize if I am wrong, but I believe Council Member Thomas Wong works for Edison. That is a huge, huge red flag for me. Huge red flag. And I wouldn't be surprised to find other red flags sitting in front of me right now.

Like I said, I would keep this short and sweet. This is all just food for thought. Thank you.

Mayor, if we could interrupt again, maybe I could call on the city attorney to do another reminder of what item we're actually talking about, what items we're talking about tonight. Just to be clear. Excuse me. Just to explain why I can't engage on this item, what my conflict of interest was on the specific proposal on the data center, which is why I recused, and what we're actually talking about tonight, and the reason why I can engage. Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the Council.

The FPPC decision with regard to that is posted on the data center website, so anyone can read that. This is 12A has to do with all data centers. It is a policy decision that is on a citywide basis made by the city council. It does not involve any particular project. I realize that many of the commentators are talking about a particular project. That project has not made it to the city council. This decision tonight or this consideration of a decision has to do with a ballot proposition and any associated direction from the city council to the city manager myself with regard to city-wide prohibition on data centers. It is not specific to any particular data center. Happy to answer any additional questions. Hi, I'm

Eleanor Lee, resident of Monterey Park from 1966 until I got married, moved out, and I'm back in my mom and dad's house. So I've watched Monterey Park grow from this little town into a thriving community. And I found out about the data center back in December. My daughter says, you know, we're putting a data center in. I'm like, really? I was a little surprised. And I don't want to repeat what everybody else has said here because I got an email I sent the email and forwarded all of you council members here and I hope you read it because actually the attorney who was hired did his research and has pretty much shown us what we need to do so I'm just asking you to take that seriously and take a look at what has been said and also I've gone to three of these council meetings and this is the first time I got to speak all the other The other times there has been so many people that I went home because my daughter has to go to work the next day. So I was looking at some of the things that pride in our past, faith in our future. I hope you have faith in our future. I don't have grandchildren. I have granddogs. But I want to see Monterey Park be even better. that we're going to be showing the world what we stand for and being set a precedence that we are not to stand for having data center being put in and that's all I have to say thank you

just you Jessica Jew City Council I am a lifelong resident of Monterey Park District 4. I'm also representing multiple family, friends, and community members that couldn't be here in person tonight. I stand with my fellow residents and neighboring communities in support of a June ballot measure that would prohibit data centers citywide with the caveat that one language is modified to remove any loopholes regarding size exemption and definition and two to make explicit the time frame to ensure the measure takes effect immediately upon voter approval. Mayor Yang, you said at the top of this item that we don't have to repeat what other people have spoken about or to reiterate points, but to you and the rest of the City Council it seems like we do because every time you kick the can down the road or you put the buck back on the residents to ban data centers, you erode the trust of this City Council and of the government democratic process. I just want to make it clear for me there is no quote mutually pleasing solution unquote that we can come to that does not include an outright prohibition on data centers citywide by both ballot and ordinance.

A ballot would be one very necessary important step of a level of protection but I do want to speak for the many residents who may not be able to vote, such as my 98-year-old grandmother, who is a resident but not a voting citizen, or my dear friend's one-month-old baby, who obviously also cannot vote, especially as our voting rights seem to be threatened more and more each year. Illegal ICE kidnappings on citizens and legal residents alike, policies like the SAVE Act and other voter intimidation tactics coming down the pipeline, including early reports from the Washington Post of all places about a draft executive order possibly circulating that would, quote, unlock extraordinary presidential powers over voting. So I believe in voting. I believe it's an important step in our democracy to voice our community, but we also have to consider the residents who may not have that privilege, that right, and I believe they deserve to have their voices and their rights protected still.

And that's why, in addition to this ballot, I also support at least a two-pronged approach to band data centers, again, by ballot and ordinance. And I urge you once again, I will keep coming to every single council meeting on this item until I don't have to, to remember your oath. Remember who you serve. Not AI, not corporations, but the people of this community. Thank you for your time.

I have a lot of stuff, sorry. Lots of junk. Thank you. Hi, City Council. Hi, Mayor. Hi, Mayor Pro Tem. Nice to see everyone today. As you know, my family has been in Monterey Park for over 60 years. I ask you tonight, City Council, to vote yes on the moratorium to expand to January 2027, to vote yes on the June 2nd special election for the city ban, and yes to the city ordinance ban for forever building in Monterey Park. No data centers. And to also close the two loops that we've all been discussing tonight. As you know, I'm very passionate, as we all are, about our power, water, health, and home values. We don't want this data center. You know it. Mayor Yang, as relentless as you were to get my vote, and we've talked several times at my home, we will be a trillion times more relentless to put this data center in a cement grave. We don't want it. I want to point out that if we want a strategic approach as a democratic process here, you must do better. Spark was not democratic. We all want you to lead by example and not by knowing your best friends and who you're going to dinner with. We want you to lead by example. I challenge you again to be the change we need. Be the change we need. Don't be the reason we have to change. Also, to HMC and all your PR firms, don't waste your time. I've already been to where you're going, and no business owner believes your bullshit. it. Also, while I appreciate the small headline and the cascade paper today that I saw when I came home from work, we can do better. Don't just provide a link. We don't want some, we would want you to take a good space out to explain what the hell is going on in our city. Last, I want to say you are all not benefiting our lives. You're not helping us. I felt guilty this weekend to fly Idaho for my niece's wedding versus going to the town hall. What a terrible position you are putting us in. No data centers. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Let me call some more names. Yvonne Juan, Adalie Marlin, Mary Marcos.

Good evening, Mayor Yang, Mayor Pro Tem, and council members. My name is Crystal Lee. My family has lived in Monterey Park since 1966 when my grandparents purchased their first and only home here. I've been coming to these council meetings, like it's my third time. So I am going to be quick and just kind of reinforce what we've been hearing. I am asking the council to pass a citywide ordinance that prohibits data centers in all forms and sizes and applies citywide, not just to a specific area, and also address the ballot language to make direct changes to the municipal code and general plan by number and section rather than directing the council to promptly implement changes later, whatever that looks like. And then close existing loopholes in the current language that could allow smaller data centers under one acre to proceed. And I'd just like to close my comment with this. Notice how everyone who's for this project has a moneyed interest if it gets approved. But everyone against it has a wide range of nuanced reasons. There's nothing ethically wrong with builders wanting to build in general, so don't mind the unions being here, but building where or what the community doesn't want to build shouldn't be okay. You are violating our trust and neglecting your responsibility to serve the community by allowing this to drag on and on. No means no for our neighborhoods. Thank you. Thank you.

Mayors, members of City Council, City Manager and City Attorney, thank you for listening to your community and working with us towards the Ban on Data Center. What's your name? My name is John. I actually, I appreciate Mayor Yang's openness and availability to us, your constituents and council members for their serious consideration of our concerns. I recognize the involvement of city council and staff in our community, not even realizing some dine at my family's restaurant right off of Garvey Avenue. But today I'm here because I want to bring awareness to you about, unfortunately they're no longer here, but paid agitators here working against us, specifically by weaponization of union association or membership. I want to pretty much emphasize what Stephen Cone was saying in the sense that these paid or accredited union members, guilt trip city council and the community claiming that we are anti-union when the outcry or our outcry is due to, without exaggeration, concerns with city residents living very close to the data center sites, plural. If anything, it's anti-human for these union members to focus on their own desire for cash when plenty of construction work exists in the county, and we'll speak on this later. Even as I speak now, I can feel the resentment towards my words. I'm actually a Unite Here Local 11 member, a union representing hospitality and entertainment workers throughout L.A. County. We recently demonstrated at Universal Studios because of ice presence in various areas surrounding the park. We are also not getting fair wages while bringing a record profit year after year for Universal. Our protest is for our own livelihoods, specifically the lack of scheduling due to the lack of tourism due to ICE presence, and the members of the community affected by ICE raids. Not greed and drive for contracts to make money at the expense of other humans just trying to live. These so-called union members don't deserve our collective respect because their presence alone is their admission that profit is more important than our people. Not to mention their additional motivation to be here and get credit towards their apprenticeship or simply be paid, though they claim otherwise. Residents must be forced to listen to the repetitive pleading for a data center that will provide nothing to the community, tax revenue against increased electricity and utility costs, and nothing to these contractors after they complete this project. And what's worse, they'll move on to other data centers in other communities, like the City of Industry, Puente Hills Mall, and do the same thing again, selfishly and without any acknowledgement of the humanity of the residents affected. To conclude, City Council is actually doing a great job right now in advocating for our community. I really believe that all council members here actually make themselves available and want to hear what the community has to say, and I really appreciate that. I also want to say I actually really appreciate the city attorney's personability and willingness to sympathize with us residents. Lastly, I had a great experience meeting the city manager at my family restaurant the other day. I really, it brings me hope to see that people in council, people at the city are supporting businesses in the community, and that really means a lot to me. It gives me hope in the midst of this chaos to see that council is working with this and dealing with the frustration that HMC continues to fuel. Thank you so much.

John, what's your family's restaurant?

It's going to be the Yat-Trang on Garvey, right off of New and Garvey, the main intersection. But if you're coming off of Newmark and you go up Orange, it's going to be the restaurant right over there on Garvey. What's it called? Yat-Trang.

Mayor Yang, Council Members, I am Yvonne Wong. Let me reiterate the following before I state my position. The proposed massive hyperscale data center is the size of more than four football fields and is as close as 65 feet from the nearest residences. It belongs in a heavy industrial zone, not an innovation technology zone like Saturn Park. The air, water, noise, and light pollution from this project will be detrimental to the health of residents. Killer diesel exhaust from 24 backup generators is proven to cause cancer, respiratory, and many other diseases. PFAS, known as forever toxic chemicals, are used in closed-loop cooling systems to control corrosion and bacteria growth. Any leakage will contaminate our soil and groundwater. Barriers and wars are not effective to buffer the 24-7 nonstop humming noises and vibrations from the chillers. Data centers strain vital resources like electricity and water for our daily survival. Their presence will invariably lead to rate heights as shown in other communities. municipalities across the country are stopping data center projects, including our neighboring city Montebello. We are being watched closely, locally, nationally, and internationally. The Monterey Park Sustainability Plan adopted in April 2024 to mitigate climate change will be completely undermined and negated by the proposed data center, which is neither green nor sustainable. Monterey Park is in a seismic zone, sitting on top of the La Ponte Forest Fort and close to the St. Andreas Fort. Data centers will pose unnecessary...

State tax exemption for certified data center will reduce any optimistic projected revenue. There will be barely 26 permanent jobs created by this project. Regardless whether the two-day certain street properties sit idle, property tax will still be paid to the city. Vacancies in certain parts have not posed serious financial burden for the city since 2019. The city has a $1.23 million surplus per its latest mid-year financial report. I applaud our city for responsible fiscal management. We are not in dire need of revenue for services, programs, or improvements. improvements. Monterey Park belongs to all the residents. It is totally undemocratic for merely 19 people in Spark to decide on the future of Southern Park for the entire city population of 66,000. We should take our time to plan better use and development like housing and retail, which will do us no harm but bring vibrancy to the city. Residents are blessed with 17 parks in Monterey Park. We do not need a pocket park from the data centre requiring city maintenance to enjoy our city. We do not need a foreign conglomerate to sway and dictate how we should run business here and force-fed us with data center. Data center will definitely dissuade potential homebuyers, residents and businesses from relocating here. In conclusion, this project is a total misfit for Monterey Park. We, the residents, have the absolute right to determine our own destiny. So I urge our city council to go ahead with the ballot measure and tighten up the loophole and also have the ordinance to ban city center in the city. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Hosung Mary. And I thought I would forego the speech because. Did you submit a comment card? Wonderful job. Hosung, did you submit a comment card? Yes. I don't have it. Yeah. Okay. I think you said Mary. Yeah. Oh, you put it under Mary. Yeah. Okay. Okay. but after hearing HMC Representative and their lawyer I decided to come up here and Speak to you folks on February 4th council for HMC referred to concern residents of Monterey Park as an uninformed Mob to pressure City Council's decision making He repeated those same words at the meeting that night. That language alone shows how little regard HMC and its representative have for the people who actually live here. In the same breath, he has threatened legal action in order to get counsel to render a decision in his client's favor. If they truly intended to listen to the community, they would have held open, well-organized town halls long before now. Instead, some of us only found out about last Saturday's so-called town hall. And even then, no time was provided. it took me many hours to figure out where to go. And I texted my neighbors with the information. And unfortunately, because it was a short notice, they couldn't attend. The meeting itself was demeaning, dismissive, uninformative. Panel members spent more time shushing the residents than answering the questions. And no HMC representative was present. It was not a forum for transparency. It was an attempt to control the narrative. Meanwhile, HMC stated an unmitigated electricity demand of 434 million kilowatts per year, the equivalent of 40,000 households, which significantly differs from industry standards. However, even with their stated usage, Monterey Park only has 22,000 households. This data center would consume nearly twice the electricity used by every household in the city of Manoy Park combined. In order to meet the demand required, requires major grid upgrades and those costs fall on rate payers. Residents will face higher build with greater grid instability and increased vulnerability during heat waves and shortages. And while the industry research also shows that facility of this size can use up to 110 million gallons of water per year, HMC claimed it will only use 12 million, a number that raises a real question about accuracy and transparency. But even at their stated figure, this project adds additional pressure to already stressed water system in our city. Also, Monterey Park is home to some of the region's strongest public schools. Monterey Highland, Monterey Vista, Brightwood, and others. Our teachers, staff, family work very hard to give our children the very best possible future. So when HMC Council calls educators and unions opposing this project as mob, it's not only disrespectful, it is disconnected from who we are as a community. Can a data center improve our children's education while exposing them to increased heat, noise, and environmental factors? why would we place our children under such circumstances and at risk has the data center okay all right has the data center meaningfully addressed these concerns with the community if they have most of the residents are excluded from those conversations their actions make one thing very clear they have not earned this community's trust nor nor do they appear to have any intent of doing so and that was clear by the last weekend's Town Hall meeting which led to my going even with my back injury I went to house to house in my neighborhood with the help of one of my one of my neighbors and ascertain signatures as asking what MP No Data Center MPK has proposed I sent you an email, but some of the residents who are elderly, they have no access to computer or know how to use it. Therefore, I printed the email and had them sign. And it's... So, lastly, I just want to say we expect projects that will strengthen our community, not the ones that danger our infrastructure, raise our utility costs, and dismiss our voice. Our message is straightforward. We deserve better, and our children deserve better, and so does ourselves. Thank you.

Good evening, comrades. My name is Marcos. I do not live in Monterey Park, but I'm from Alhambra. I come here to remind everyone that this issue is not limited to Monterey Park, but every community around it. If you don't believe me, ask the eastsiders how bad the cleanup is at the Exide Battery Plant. If you still don't believe me, ask the northeastsiders how bad the cleanup is at Shoal Canyon. These are environmental disasters close to home and allowed by greedy capitalist politicians. I am here to address the masses in Monterey Park. You aren't alone. You have friends all around you. We laud your work. We uplift your struggle. We support the People's Agenda Item 12A. We support a vote, and we support a full citywide ban.

We stand here with you at the United Front because these politicians maintain the system of colonialism by taking the land and using it for capitalist gain. When they could actually give the land back or listen to the endless list of possibilities the residents have put up. So I stand here not to beg or plead with the council, but to demand them listen to the community. We need to organize against the capitalist land exploitation and the business owners who are looking to divide us. So now I ask the council, Berger, Alvarez, Yang, Lo, Sanchez, Wong, and Ngo. who do you represent because the residents of monterey park have spoken in defiance they have even suggested what they want housing and food and yet you push this slop this is the cycle of colonization you don't need to be a white person to uphold white supremacy and all of you up there who are all people of color you reveal who your masters are So I am here to remind you that you have nothing to lose but your chains. It's clear now more than ever, entertaining this idea of a data center here in Monterey Park is highlighting the fact that Democrats continue to fuel capitalist endeavors. Instead of using the space for community resources, it's for private exploitation of people, land, and resources for years to come. these politicians work to secure themselves instead of those they swore to protect they work to protect the lining of their pockets and get their names on plaques instead of the lives of their neighbors they are literally putting a price tag on our lives so this is what separates us socialists from capitalists we are defiant we defy capitalism we defy white supremacy, we defy patriarchy, we defy colonialism, and we will defy it to the very end. We organize every possible way and exhaust every approach, and if these statements linger with you, then answer the call. Denounce the politicians who play fast and loose with our lives for their personal gain, who sit themselves higher than us. Join a socialist organization like the Peace and Freedom Party and vote these politicians out or join a socialist organization that defends the community and the land because that's what we're doing up in Alhambra. We are putting the capitalist politicians in the hot seat for selling us out to the colonizers just like this council wants to sell you out. Our heat runs hot and it mounts even the thickest block of ice and if you want to remove these people seek us out seek the peace and freedom party out on instagram we have candidates running everywhere and we will front you don't settle for the crumbs these politicians push on I have not done on you. You have revealed the power you possess. Put the council, the mayor, the city manager, and the city attorney in the hot seat, because it's no longer a fight of the left or right, Democrat, or Republican. It's a fight of socialist party against the capitalist party. It's a fight of the working class against the capitalist class. These politicians have revealed what they prefer more, and so have we. We loudly releve the power of the socialist party against the capitalist party. It's a fight of the working class against the capitalist reveal ourselves, and we hold these out accountable, and we will challenge them to do better. Good night. Thank you.

Do we still have people outside? Maybe let them know there's a lot of empty seats in here if they want to come inside. Thank you, Robert. And while people are coming in, I wanted to see if my fellow council members wanted to make any comments or share any thoughts or let them finish. No, no, we're about halfway through.

Let's keep going. Yeah, keep going. Okay, all right, then let me call some more names. Dominic Jaramillo, KCW, Andrea Vega, Tom Salones, Okay. And Cameron Rush.

Do we have to go this way or can we come straight up? Depending on names. Yeah, you can go. And also, these are names that I called earlier but didn't come, so I just wanted to call them again. Teddy, Karen, Mike Romero, and Adeline Marlin. All right, go ahead.

Hello, council. My name is Domino Caramillo. This is actually the first time I've come to one of these meetings, and I have been meaning to for a while. I think like many of us we are afraid and worried and it seems like we are not being listened to I know people have brought up before but these companies are coming for land and it's a big issue that all of us are dealing with I as a college student fear that every day that while trying to build something in Monterey Park it will be cut short so please listen to us all and thank you for giving time to us today. Thank you.

Good evening, council members. Good to see you again. Sad that we have to be here again on this issue. My name is Casey Wong. I am a Los Angeles City community member. I did grow up in this district. I lived here for over five years, and now I work in this district very fortunately.

Not to repeat what other folks have said, I want to point out that hundreds and thousands of people have been activated by this issue. It's purely through the grassroots efforts of concerned community members who are doing this on their own free time. Imagine if the people who are paid to do community engagement on this program, on this project, were actually trying to do community engagement, what they could achieve. With all the capital behind them, if they really wanted to, I'm sure they could outreach every single resident in Monterey Park. And yet, they only managed to turn out 40 people and only 19 people in support of this project. So it doesn't seem like they were trying to actually engage with the community, despite all of the funding they have to propose suing the city. I'm sure that's a lot of billable hours that our friend here has sat through.

The city and the people elected to represent this community to engage with the residents, you all know how to win elections. That's all you got here. You know how to engage the community. You know how to garner votes. You know how to win support. And yet, only 19 people supported this project when you all were doing the community engagement, when you created the SPARC. If you really wanted to engage the community, I believe that you would have. And yet somehow most folks here didn't find out about this project until December of last year, just a few months ago. You're all somewhat successful politicians, but you have gained these seats. and I'm curious how you're gauging all of this community support. If I were a politician, I would see that this is a really salient issue. This is an issue people are really excited about, that we're really passionate about, that hundreds of people have shown up here, given the time and the notice, that when they know there is a platform to engage on, they will show up. And I'm sure there are many people who wanted to be here tonight that could not be here as well. So if this HMC capital really wanted to engage the community, they could have. There are plenty of ways, and the people would have turned out to voice their opinion and learn and engage on this program, on this project. I'm going to end on this to expand on my comrades' words earlier. In the words of Ashada Shakur, it is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win, which we will. we must love and support each other, and we have nothing to lose but our chains.

Hi, my name is Tom, Tom Salonga. First time doing this here, but a little background on me. I worked as a graphic designer for the film industry, and I finally achieved my dream job for about a year and a half. That is until the strikes of 2023, which were spurred by the proliferation of AI and image generators like Mid Journey, Stable, Diffusion, and the like. So just to cut it short, I support any sort of ordinance that would ban the construction of data centers around the city just because I'm aware of the massive health effects that affect people that live right near them. And I just want to also point out, I mean, we here in Los Angeles have lived under nearly a decade of drought. Like, we were in the orange level, and we were told to be water-wise about how much water we consume. What was it called? Like, be conscious of how much power we also use, like flex hours. Yeah, our flex hours from, like, 4 to 9. These data centers, they run 24-7. I mean, think of an array of, I mean, I'm a PC gamer, so think of an array of thousands of PC games rendering 120 frames of just information, like, nonstop. These machines get really hot, so they require a lot of water to stay cool. Not only that, but then just last year, we had that huge fire that happened back in the Palisades as well as Altadena. So what sense does it make to construct several of these water-hungry centers? I mean, the whole fire department was at a strain in trying to deal with, like, just these massive fires that had broken out in our neighborhoods. So I think if we were able to – I mean, if we go back to just building these data centers, we would just fall back into the orange level, and it would just put many – many homes at risk. Not only that, but these diesel generators emit a lot of pollutants, which would affect the health of many citizens. It could cause cancer and then also COPD. So, yeah. There were a lot of good arguments that were put out here and were really well formulated, but I feel I have spoken my piece, and I really hope that you act with your conscience. Look out for all these people. I know a lot of, I have so many friends here, so many friends that live around Monterey Park, and it's been a big part of my life as well. I attended Cal State LA. My wife, her family lives here, and we want a future. We just want a peaceful future. And that's, yeah, that's it. That's all I have to say.

Cindy Alvarado, Heng Ha, Mimi Lee, Alex Leon, Luca Urebe.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council Members. My name is Andrea Vega, and I'm here representing the organization Food and Water Watch. Yesterday, we sent you a letter signed by over 20 climate organizations throughout California urging you to reject HMC Capital's data center project and enact a permanent citywide ban on data centers.

The expansion of data centers poses major environmental and economic threats due to rapidly increasing demands for energy, driving more fossil fuel pollution, straining our water resources, and rising electricity prices. 56% of the electricity used to power data centers is fueled by fossil fuels, and the HMC project alone specifically would require 24 diesel generators. the project is estimated to almost triple Monterey Park's electricity use to about 434 million kilowatts per year, which would lead to skyrocketing electricity costs for residents. At a time when electricity rates nationally have increased 21.3% from 2021 to 2024, drastically outpacing inflation and driven in large part by the rapid build-out of data centers, a project like this would have a negative impact on already burdened rate payers. And it's clearly not just environmental organizations that are identifying the dangers that data centers pose to communities. I mean, this room has been packed with residents who are very clear in demands. No data centers in Monterey Park. And honestly, let's be clear, the promised economic benefits of this project are highly misleading. Food and Water Watch's analysis recently found that when it comes to data centers, there's a limited amount of long-term employment opportunities. And this research, which was based on the historic data center hotbed of Virginia, found that investment needed to create one permanent data center job is 100 times greater than what was required to create a job outside of that industry. These data centers, they benefit developers and utility companies, not residents. So pass an ordinance banning all data centers.

All right, tough act to follow. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Councilmembers. Much has been said tonight about the environmental impact, the community impact of these data centers. I wanted to talk a little bit about something else. I wanted to talk about what we're getting in exchange for all of that sacrifice and all of that cost if this data center were to be built. I wanted to talk about what they're actually going to use this data center for, because data centers have been around for a while and are used for lots of different things. But this data center is specifically being constructed here because AI is big right now. There is a big boom, a big demand for data centers all over the country. That's why they're having to try to get these in like residential areas and places where they shouldn't be in the first place. And I want to talk a little bit about what AI actually is because to put it bluntly, AI companies think we are stupid and are engaged in active disinformation campaigns to keep us from understanding what it actually is. So what is AI? So you know that little like row at the top of your phone keyboard that tells you like the next word you're going to say? you're going to say, what that is is a language model. It is built on like a bunch of words and phrases and sentences that are basically, it's just a database that it pulls from and it gives you the statistically most likely next word you're going to say. And as you use your phone, as you type more, it starts incorporating your language into its training data. It's a small language model that just predicts the next word you're going to say. And sometimes it even gets it right. What big LLM, LLM stands for large language model, what those are is that on a massive scale, It is trained on the entire internet. So basically what it does is it gives you the statistically next most likely word after the one it has just said. It thinks one word at a time, and it gives you the most generic, soulless thing, version of what you asked for. So the point I'm trying to get at is that AI does not think. It is a statistics machine, and it is being marketed to you as something that thinks. It is being marketed as the path to superintelligence. It is not at all. It is a statistics machine, and due to the very nature of it, you can throw more training data at it, which actually you can't really. It's already trained on the whole Internet. But you can throw more training data at it theoretically. You can throw more compute power at it in the form of these data centers. The fundamental problem of these AIs, that they have no concept of truth or correctness or morals, and we'll just... that lie to you without even knowing about it, that cannot be fixed by more compute and by more training data. AI is a statistics engine that tells you what is the most likely thing to say, not what is true. It has no concept of what is true because it does not think and it never will. We will never have super intelligence. So, and when more people realize this, we will realize that AI, one moment. Thanks. Once we realize this, we will realize that AI is a bubble that will soon pop. It is a technology whose returns are already beginning to diminish. We are destroying environments all around the country, all around the world, and AI is only getting marginally better, marginally better. OpenAI actually had to write into its code that there are three R's in the word strawberry because it kept telling you that there were two. Because that's how we discuss it on the Internet. It's like, oh, is there one or two? We're talking about the end of the word strawberry, not the whole word strawberry. And honestly, if you have to write in answers to questions into the AI's code, it may as well just be a book.

My point is that we should not be allowing these corporations and the Epstein class to enrich themselves based on a lie. They are lying to you and they know it. We should not allow them to destroy our environments, contaminate our water, contaminate our air, disrupt our communities based on the promise of something that we will never have. We will never get what they promised to us, so why should we give them what they want? Thank you.

Hi, my name is Mimi. I'm a resident of Monterey Park, and my family and I have been here for about 30 years or so. You may or may not remember me from the past few meetings on the data centers where I urged you to say no to data centers. so here I am again to urge you this time on I think it's number 12A yes to put it on the ballot and yes to closing the loopholes as some people have mentioned and I probably won't stick around for 11B but yes to that as well that one's for a moratorium I believe it was something like 100 or so days, and I would like it to be forever.

So again, I urge you, please protect our communities, protect my family, and hopefully we won't have to draw this out again. Thank you. Thank you.

Let me call a few more names Oscar Uribe Dykeland Frumento Dina Lau Victoria Rivera Macy

Right good evening mayor City Council members. My name is Hung Ha I've lived in Monterey Park district 5 for 31 years. I I share the same concerns as a majority of Monty Park residents and strongly support the proposed approach of using ballot and ordinance to totally ban day centers in our city. You have listened to and read about many great reasons why we should support the ban. I'm not going to repeat all of these tonight, but I'd like to focus on the concern regarding the negative effects of these data centers will have on our property values. So, you know, big corporations, they're all about big profits, big money. So today I'd like to talk the financial side of our argument. The presence of data centers so close to residential areas will undoubtedly lead to one of two scenarios. A drop in property value at best, no rise in property values relative to the market. Both of these scenarios are bad, right? So when my wife and I first heard about this project, the second thing that I said to her was that the price of our house would drop a bunch and that even I wouldn't want to buy our house because we live within a mile from the project. You can probably guess what the first thing I said to her was, but I'm not going to repeat that here today in public. So anyway, I'm going to make some what I believe to be reasonable assumptions and present the math to you. I've had quite a few discussions with my neighbors, and one of them is a former real estate agent, and we feel that our property values would drop probably about 10% if we ended up living near a data center. Given the average single-family home in Monty Park is of around $900,000, seems a bit high, but I'll use $900,000 for now, each homeowner that are affected would stand to lose or not gain $90,000. I'm also going to assume that at least 10% of the single family homes in Monterey Park would be affected especially those who lived near 1977, 1980 Saturn there are approximately 15,000 single family homes in Murray Park so some 1,500 of the homeowners would suffer the loss so I'll do the math So 1,500 homes times $90,000 per home, that works out to be $135 million. So that's $135 million is what these homeowners would lose collectively, right? So meanwhile, the C would get about $5 to $7 million, if they're lucky, in revenue each year or every four years from HMC. So this is a terrible deal. It's a fantastic deal for HMC, not so much for Monterey Park.

But here's a punchline. So ideally, the city would use the five or seven million to do something great for all residents, right? In some fashion that would enhance the quality of life for all of us. You know, plant more trees or plant a forest of trees. And hypothetically, that five or seven million would be evenly distributed among the 60,000 Monterey Park citizens. That means each of us would reap a benefit of a little more than $100,000 a year. So in my case, my wife and I would somehow be benefited by about $200 a year in some form. Our house, in the meantime, would suffer a drop of $80,000, $90,000 in its value. So this is insane. At this rate, my wife and I would have to stay alive for the next 450 years in order to break even. So perhaps AI can help us achieve this goal in the next few years. you know so HMC would point out one study done by George Mason University in the cities in West Virginia or inside in Virginia that says data centers might improve house prices but that's for communities that never had good infrastructure in the first place so data center would likely raise or improved infrastructure so the house fireships could be a little bit higher, but that's not the case for Monterey Park. We are an established urban city community. We have all the infrastructure we need, so it does apply if they happen to bring this up. I have more, but I'll be brief.

The Monterey Park net positive financial position is over $80 million as of June of last year. Someone fact-checked me on this, but I think that's the case. Do we really need this terrible deal? So I know that three of the mayor and a couple of the council members have stated their opposition to this data center publicly, so I hope that you will actively campaign to ban data centers in the upcoming ballot, right? Please reach out to your constituents. Use your influence to encourage them to show up to vote to ban this thing in June. Make phone calls, go door to door, whatever it takes, because we will do the same. So do the right thing. You sleep better at night. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Alex Leon, and I am a resident of Monterey Park. I'm here tonight because this city matters to me. Monterey Park is not just where we live. It's where families build our lives, where small businesses fight to survive, and where generations of residents have created something meaningful together. This kind of community does not happen by accident. It exists because leaders make decisions to protect it. Yes. And tonight is one of those moments. I want to start by saying that I support placing a citywide ban on data centers on the June ballot, Giving voters a voice on something this significant is the right step. If we are going to do this, we need to do it the right way and the strong way. Right now, there are two areas that should be strengthened. First, the current ballot language includes an under-one-acre exemption, and that creates a loophole that could allow smaller data centers to move forward if the intention is to keep data centers out of Monterey Park, this policy needs to apply to all data centers, regardless of size. Second, the ballot language should include a clear one-month timeline for implementation after voter approval so that the measure takes effect promptly and avoids unnecessary delay or legal uncertainty. And just as important, the city should pass an ordinance now prohibiting data centers citywide while the ballot measure moves forward. I also want to address something that I heard earlier. I overheard a comment suggesting that concerns about health and community impact were quote-unquote bullshit and that the city shouldn't worry about them because the data center could bring in more money through tax revenue. If that's the way this issue is being framed, then we have a deeper problem because the health, safety, and quality of life of Monterey Park residents are not bullshit. it. They are the very reason local government exists. Economic development matters, of course it does, but it should never come at the expense of the people who actually live here. The purpose of this council is not simply to maximize revenue, it is to safeguard the long-term well-being of this community. I understand that the city is facing the possibility of a lawsuit that is real. Cities across California face those pressures when they try to protect their communities but threats of litigation should not dictate the future of Monterey Park.

If legal challenges are coming, then the responsible thing to do is to put the city in the strongest possible position. Passing an ordinance now protects residents immediately, while voters have the opportunity to decide the issue in June. That approach is not reckless. It is responsible governance. Because the people who live here live with these consequences. and these decisions are not corporations. It's the residents of Monterey Park. So I urge the council to take three clear steps tonight. Approve the June ballot measure. Strengthen the language by removing the under-one-acre loophole and adding a one-month implementation timeline. And pass a citywide ordinance now that protects Monterey Park while voters still have their say. This is an opportunity to act decisively and to protect the community that all of us care about. That I care about. That my daughters care about. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Victoria Rivera. And I'll keep it brief because I am not a resident of Monterey Park even though I love this city I would like to remind you guys that we are all so close together as neighbors that as a resident of Los Angeles, I am impacted by the things that you do here in this community. As a person who studied in Montebello, who goes to Cal State LA, who worked as an educator in your schools, who serviced your children, you owe your neighbors more. You owe the people that your city employs more. You owe the residents of this community more. more when you make your policies than what would enrich who? Not the community that lives here, not the people that live here, and not the children that are living here who have no other options but to breathe this air and drink this water and learn in these schools. And if a project that isn't on the ballot goes through, that would be forced to listen and be polluted by all the noise constantly. I just urge you to think about outside of your community and the impact that you guys have and the future generations that are living here. Thank you.

Let me call a few more names. Roxanna Farahana, Farahani, Samuel T., Robert Miranda, Eric Chen, Christine Park.

Good evening. My name is Dyke Lynn Fermento. I am a resident of Monnery Park going on 30 years. I'm here tonight representing my children, my husband, my father who's 93, and many of my neighbors who are too old. They're too old to be here tonight, but they are not too old to vote. So you guys all need to remember that. And yo, Carl, you need to wake up and look at us. Have the respect that we have for you here. I have things to do, too. I have to go home, take care of my five kids, wash the dinner dishes, and do laundry. So you're not the only one stuck here, okay? We're here for the lives of our children. And this is just insane that I'd have to come back here again to do this. Oh, are you awake? Thank you for joining us tonight. Okay. So one thing that I have in common, like me and my neighbors, we don't speak the same language. We're different age brackets. We are so very different on so many different things, food, everything that you can think of. But one thing that we do agree on is we do not want a data center. These are older people who have no idea what a data center even was, much less that we're going to have one in Monterey Park. I had to explain this to them. And some of them, I don't speak Chinese. I speak Portuguese, but that's very, a far cry from Chinese. And I had to explain to them what it was, what a data center was, because these people had no idea. They're lifelong residents of this city, and they had no idea what's going on. So that's that. So right now, what we hear, what I'm here, again, representing myself and all these other people who, again, I remind you, are not here tonight. But they vote. They voted all of you here. Okay? All of you here are voted from the citizens in this city. Remember that. Okay? We demand, and it's not just me, we all, we demand that this matter be placed on the ballot in June. Not next month, not next year, not two years from now. We want it on June. And then we also, we demand it, we don't want any of this less than one acre. What does that mean? Is that less than one acre, is that going to be in your backyard? Is it in your backyard? I don't want it in my backyard. Does anyone here want a data center in their backyard because it's less than an acre? What are you guys thinking? Do you not all live here? If you don't, then you need to let us know because that's going to be a whole other kettle of fish to fry. Because, right? Like, I don't care because it's not my city. A lot of people have mentioned it before. Why aren't they building this crap in Beverly Hills? Why aren't they getting their water cut during the summer? I can't water my damn grass because, oh, every three days we have to cut the water because we have to save water. Someone else pointed out, I can't dry the freaking clothes for my five freaking kids at the time when they need them because I have to wait until after 10 o'clock at night because we have to save energy. But apparently a data center that comes from, what is it? HMC, right? The HMC comes from a different country, and they're going to be sucking in everything from us. And what does it get? And again, 5 to 7 million. People have said that again and again. I thought it was 5 to 7 million a year. It's every four years, maybe? That's insane. Okay, so that's what I have to say about that. And I don't know if there's any more of the union members here, but shame on them. Because if this crap is going on in their backyard, I'm sure I'm not the only one that would go and stand by them to help them. To keep these data centers out of our neighborhoods, in our cities. Thank you. Good night.

Good evening, Mayor and the Council members. I am Macy. I am a resident in Monterey Park since in and out since the 80s. Tonight I came because I found out from my neighbors about the data center. I was not informed about this project until literally last week. And I quickly look up a lot of information and try to learn what I have to learn about the data center. And I am amazed and just very proud with residents in Monterey Park. They have so much passion and so much compelling knowledge, information about this issue. And I have learned so much. and on top of that, I have also come to do some research before last week, so when I learned about the data center. And what I have come to the conclusion of that, this kind of data center has been going on across the backyard in the United States from Virginia, Texas, you know, coming to California. and it is a thing to be popping up left and right. And the reason a lot of these centers are being built so quickly, so fast past the legislations is because they are under the crux of secrecy, this entire operation, because they are under the trade secret, so they don't have to divulge any information. And as little as possible, so they try to pop them up very quickly, very fast. It's a race to get who gets the most centers. And it absolutely has no place in living cities, not in this residence or any other resident nearby. And it is so true to cooling this kind of systems. It's a 24-7 energy, resources being poured, water, power grid. is so true. Also, the health impact on people and the buzzing, the noise 24-7. Everything is 24-7. Constant, constant reminder of what a huge impact on human life. And you are here sitting in your seat voted in by the resident of Monterey Park. You have a duty, responsibility to answer to your people. We are the people. We voted you in to represent us. Here we have tonight, a lot of people spoken the truth. I was spoken about everything and pleaded, demanded everything in shape and form against this building, this mega structure. There's no place in a quiet, quaint little town. Didn't we get some kind of top five city, you know, as one of the most beautiful cities? And, you know, you are going to destroy this. You are destroying us if you're going to go through with this. So what's the business resident recommended? A very clear, precise, and you have to act on it. There's no time but now. You have the power. You have the responsibility. and above all, you have all of us here in Monterey Park to beg you in the neighboring city from Almonte, from East LA. You are touching the part of life. You know, either you're going to kill it or you're going to make it work, make it, you know, a brighter day tomorrow. And you have that power right now. Please exercise that. Please do not be shying away. whatever that you need to be supported by us, we are here. So please, please think clearly and be courageous. Don't back off because someone's trying to bully you. Using money or power, that's never the right thing to do. Do the right thing, please, okay?

Don't worry, I'm not going to read all of this. My comments will be brief. Mayor Yang, Mayor Pro Tem Lo, members of the council, my fellow residents, thank you all for staying so late. My family and I have been residents and homeowners in District 3 for nearly 16 years.

What's your name?

My siblings and I... What's your name? Oh, Robert Miranda. Yes. My siblings and I attended public schools in Monterey Park and in Montebello, and we have volunteered and participated in different civic events and the library over the years. We are proud of our residents in this city and want only the best for us and our neighbors, as do many of us here today. Therefore, I am proud to stand here with the overwhelming majority of residents, not just tonight, but over the past two months, to urge the council to take all action necessary to band data centers completely in Monterey Park. I am in favor of the moratorium through January 2027. I am conditionally in favor of a ballot that will take place at the June special election. However, with all the changes that my fellow residents have already outlined, I won't do so again. I'm also in favor of statements of support that are issued to the state legislature because all the eyes of not just the Sanguero Valley, but California, and I'm sure the nation, are on us, as they are in so many other places from Virginia to Arizona. I do want to touch on something. This is my fourth city council meeting. I have not spoken before, and I've heard a lot of really, really great points. There is one point that I want to bring up that I don't think has really been touched on in full, which is our history. If we look over there, the city was founded in 1916, and for what? To ban a sewage treatment plant that was proposed in this area by the residents of Pasadena and Alhambra. The reason we are able to be here today and we have the privilege and luxury that areas that are unincorporated do not and that we are able to speak to you, our elected officials, is because of the legacy that the residents of this area had 110 years ago. If you want to see their legacy, look around you. This is what we're here for. The first thing that this newly formed city council passed 110 years ago was an ordinance to ban sewage treatment plants in the city. This is our history, and it is a history I am very proud to be part of, and I'm proud to be sharing with the overwhelming majority of my neighbors here. It is important for us to focus on that. I want to ask the council a question. What does pride in the past and faith in the future mean to you? Because for me, pride in the past means pride in what our city was originally founded in part four. Additionally, there have been lots of mistakes. There's been a lot of tragedies in our past. One thing that I do want to touch on that hasn't really been touched on is the OII landfill, which is still within city boundaries and which is still an active Superfund site. I want to call out that the landfill was only in operation for 36 years. years. However, the North Parcel, which is now the marketplace, took 32 years of federal intervention and Superfund funding to turn into a usable site. Imagine it took almost as long to clean up that site, and only half of it, because we still have the Southern Parcel, which is completely unusable for land, for housing, for retail, for anything, because of the mistakes that prior generations made in approving such a landfill. I don't want to see that happened to Monterey Park. We have Montebello as well with the oil rigs, which are now luckily being turned into housing, but we don't know what the effects are going to be. As many of us have said, we don't live in a vacuum. Monterey Park is not an island. We have East LA, which is where I originally grew up in. We have Alhambra. We have El Monte. There are other areas like the city of industry, which are also, unfortunately, I don't think heeding the needs of the residents who are around them and roll in Hustanda Heights. We have an opportunity here to look back at our past and take pride in the successes we've made, but also look at the mistakes or failures that past generations have had. We also have three freeways that encircle the city, and they can be convenient, but in my mind they also represent a lack of vision or a lack of imagination that developers of the 60s and 70s had. I live on Fernfield Drive just a block away from the Pomona Freeway, and I go to sleep every night hearing the sounds of roaring traffic. I wake up every morning to it as well. I do not want to wake up in the future to the pulsing sounds of this data center. So again, I ask you, what does pride in the past mean? But more importantly, also, what does faith in the future mean? Because currently, I feel like any faith in the future I have in this city does not currently lie within our elected officials, but it lies with my residents, my fellow residents, whom I am proud to stand in solidarity with against this data center. With that, thank you for your time.

Come on, Roxana. Hi. Good evening, Mayor Yang and city council members. My name is Roxana, and I'm a resident of District 5. I know this is 12A, but I want to just quickly say yes on 11B and 12B. Sorry if that's not appropriate. Okay. HMC asked you to reject 12A. They have not engaged this community on this project, at all. They will not start now. We do not believe them and neither should you. I support Council Member Valle, conditionally. I sent an email stating this and the specifics, which you have heard at length already many times tonight. I won't go into it. But what I heard earlier is that this council is not really entertaining the idea of an ordinance and relying primarily on the ballot, which puts a lot of the, passes the buck to us, really, the residents. And I'm very curious, what's the deal here? Because the residents have worked really hard. We're not sitting here throwing a tantrum for an ordinance. We have receipts, we have research, why you can adopt an ordinance now. Many of us have talked to multiple lawyers as to why it's legally defensible and why you should not fear litigation. I have three lawyers in my own family who all have said I don't understand. What are the grounds? Do the applicants have a vested right, which we heard they don't, what's the issue? So please enlighten us here tonight. What are we missing or what are you not telling us? Like the gentleman who spoke earlier, much earlier in the evening tonight, I think he made a really great point. You changed an ordinance or did whatever you did. It's late. I know you guys are here too, very late, but to allow a data center to just come marching through on the say of 18 people, maybe 40 as you like to say. So you can do it again on the say here of hundreds, okay? So I am thankful that you have time and time again sat here for hours listening to us and not cutting us off. I do really appreciate that because other city councils do. So I do want to say thank you. But we are, but I also want to be clear. We're here doing this because of the decisions you have made. We are here because of that. So what we are asking in 12A is plain, simple, and clear. Pass an ordinance banning data centers that is within your jurisdiction. Don't leave your constituents hanging. Close loopholes in the ballot so we will show up and we will vote, and we will not leave this city hanging. Thank you.

Sorry. I just wanted to say also the woman who came up to speak earlier she asked if I can make this comment the one who handed the she went around to the seniors she wanted me to say that she forgot to mention that 99% of those seniors did not know what was happening so thank you

hello hi good evening my name is Christine Youngmin Park I am a resident of Monterey Park in District 2. This is actually my first time here, but I also wanted to share that I'm really strengthened by my neighbors today. And yeah, but this issue actually hits really close to home for me. As a local 839 member in the Animation Guild, many of us were hit really hard in our industry due to many issues, which includes AI. To try and build this data center and advertise the falsehood of more jobs, even though we have now learned that that would only bring 20-something jobs, is a painful jab at those of us who have lost so, so much. So many of my friends are out of work, had to move away, are displaced because of this issue. Data centers have, as we've learned as well, have shown to be more harmful than good at all. Please see the irony of this proposal of a data center. We community members and workers in the LA area do not want this. I am in support of a special election, but I still urge city council to use the powers given to them by the people to serve the people and pass an ordinance against data centers. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Yang, Mayor Pro Temp, and members of the city council, city attorney and city staff, city clerk, Madam Treasurer, and everybody and everyone here tonight. first of all I just wanted to say that this issue will not only affect the city of Monterey Park, it will affect all of San Gabriel Valley because we know the air you know the pollution, the air pollution created by the data center, it's going to fly all over this community. So you know even though I'm not a resident of the city, I am a resident in San Gabriel. It will affect all of us in the San Gabriel Valley. I mean, Thomas, your Instagram account says Thomas Wong SGV, right? This is going to affect the entire San Gabriel Valley. So I think this will affect all of us, all the children, all the families in Alhambra, the Alhambra School District. San Gabriel Unified School District, Garvey School District, Montebello School District, San Marino School District, San Gabriel School District, Arcadia School District, LA Unified. All these families, all the children will be affected by it, not just Monterey Park. So that's the first point. And the second point is that, you know, we're talking about the risk of litigation. Well, a gentleman earlier talked about how even eventually the monetary price still became a dumping ground, right? And we're still cleaning that up. Well, I read an article in NBC that there was a lawsuit, and it cost $600 million, okay, in damages. So if we do pass this data center, and years later, we all know everybody's going to get cancer from it, and then the city will be sued. So all the money, $5 million, $6 million a year, will not pay, will not cover the legal fees and all the damages. By then, with inflation, it'll be billions of dollars. People will be suing the city. This data center will make the city bankrupt. You are literally going to bankrupt the city 20, 30 years from now. Because we know the air pollution causes cancer. So who's going to be liable for the cancer that everyone gets?

The city of Monterey Park. So, I mean, you're going to say, yeah, well, it's going to be litigation. Yeah, there will be litigation. There's going to be litigation one way or the other. So there's litigation for HMC, or do you want to risk bankrupting the entire city? So, I mean, we already see that for the cleanup, for the dumping sites, it's already $500 million. $500 million. So for this, by the time this all is said and done 20 years later, billions. The city will lose billions of dollars. So five, six million dollars a year, will that cover the billions of dollars? I don't think so. And lastly, I think, you know, data centers is obviously a new thing, right? It's not like nuclear waste, you know, which we all know about. It's very new, so it's understandable. We don't know where it's coming from. But it really is, just think of it as having a nuclear waste facility in our backyard. So, you know, every time you think about it, I just want to plant that seed in your head. Data center equals 21st century nuclear waste. Okay. So, it's okay. I mean, we understand that, you know, maybe it's all new. Obviously, data center, AI, it's all a new phenomenon. And the past is the past. But we can all do something. You all can do something today, right? Let's forget about the past, right, because it's all, you know, we didn't know, right, it's new. But you can do something today. Every day, Mayor Sanchez, I mean, Council Member Sanchez, you can, I hope that every day in your classroom, you're telling your students about the data center and how evil it is. And mobilize your students. Mobilize all your students, your L.A. County winning decathlon students. Mobilize all your family, all your friends, all of you. You guys can do it. Put it on your social media. Do everything you can in this moment to ban the city data center through an ordinance and by the ballot. Thank you.

So I have a bunch of the comment cards where the one came up. So has anyone submitted a comment card for item 12A? I know we still have 30 some comment cards for EVE 11B and 12B, but has anyone submitted a comment card for 12A that hasn't been called up to speak yet?

Damian, is this for 12A or another item? Okay, then you'll be the last speaker for this item. I don't have one for you. No, it must be 11B or 12B because I don't see your name in 12A. All right, Damian, 12A.

Evening, council and fellow residents. My name is Damien I've been in Monterey Park residence since the late 70s

Regarding this past weekend data center impulse seminar held two sessions on Saturday. I was there in one session

Basically yes HMC was not represented a lot of the questions that were asked were related to environmental environmental, energy.

So basically they didn't have the South Coast Air Quality Management District, Metropolitan Water District, PUCs, the public utilities were not involved. So unfortunately, yes, there was a good number of representation from the residents expressing those concerns. Unfortunately, they could not address those questions. Basically, since this is related to data center for that 12A, my main question that was not answered by them was, even though one of them could have answered it because he says that he visited over several throughout the country related to this question, but He didn't answer it. Basically, it is the existing data centers that are operating within incorporated or within populations of those, what major impacts have arisen related to environmental health, cost of living, and utilities, such as electricity and water, of course, and energy requirements and improvements in their infrastructures. So that's what we have to consider as well.

And if so, local governments impacted, did they have to pass ordinances basically addressing those concerns or problems if they have them? And of course, civil litigation on the part of the populations who are affected.

There's quite a few criticisms regarding our city council and government. I've been a resident for many years, and I know that all the council meetings, committees, public forums, even like last week's Bruggermeyer library, not Bruggerymeyer, Broadway Elementary had their police and fire open forum safety for the residents to attend unfortunately it was only attended by about less than 20 or so but anyways for those of us who have concerns about not being informed actually online all the council meetings all the All the committees, all the schedules, it's always listed in advance. I don't think we have a problem with our city. We should be proud of our local government and our city, the residents being active as well, that we're well informed and good representation as a result like tonight.

Regarding the environmental questions and energy use and so forth, a lot of the information, our council does not have any regulatory enforcement regarding those laws that are passed by the state. South Coast Air Quality Management District, MWD, OSHA, and I mentioned PUC as well. Their websites are comprehensive in terms of the state laws that affect those factors. A lot of us have concerns about. And of course, because the data centers that's considered that's going to be incorporated within our residential population. Yeah. You know, Monterey Park is the president for all San Gippo Valley, if not the entire state or nation regarding data centers. One thing about on a personal note that I've learned from attending conferences, seminars, and lectures, is a lot of our concerns are regulated, especially in California, as we know. And so to blame our city or even our local government here that they're not being transparent or they're not being understanding or listening to us or favoriting corporate businesses or favoriting another group and so forth. You know, we all have opinions, but, you know, they were elected to serve. And so not every issue that they're addressing is going to be favorable towards only one group. they have to look at it long term wise and address not only the immediate issues but the long term effects for the quality of life mainly for the residents and the businesses. So thank you.

Catherine Torres.

Good evening. It was with Henry, Jose, Thomas, and Vin. I wasn't going to speak tonight, but I just, after hearing everybody speak, I just want to speak about that the residents did deserve the transparency and a responsible planning that our community, you know, that we truly, that you truly were to serve our community. and when I spoke last time in January, we were speaking because we were, I mean, most of the people were, I think, were expressing a lot of anger, anxiety, and stress because we were blindsided. We found out about something that maybe come from my son or from Vin or wherever, but it was something you already knew about for quite a while, it sounds like. No? Now, I read different stories, but I think Vin told me, or told everybody at the Democratic Club meeting that the corporation here, HMC, had bought the property in 2021 and it wasn't news that it had been in discussion for three years. You said that. So I'm thinking it's old and that you've had time to really figure things out for us, you know, to put it in plain language. But we were just finding out, like, December, January, February. So the shock, the trauma, and not only that but the stress. We already have a lot of stress in our lives. You know, living right now in this time, there's a lot of stress coming all the way down from the federal government down to our local government. We are living in tough times. But to add this to our grocery bill, our gas bill, just every little thing in life is something we didn't want. I don't want. I don't want to be here tonight. I want to be home relaxing with my great granddaughter, enjoying life. but I'm here and to say that I'm not your enemy and I hope that when we see each other we can say hello just hello would be nice because I went to a meet and greet just recently a couple of days after I spoke and I was I mean you ignored me yes you did you came to the table you said hello to everybody but me And I'm okay with that. I mean, I don't have to be invited to all the social events. I'm okay with that. But I think that when I go to a meet and greet, it's supposed to be meet and greet. And you didn't say hello to me. Elizabeth, I went up to you, and you snubbed me 100%. And then when you came to our table, you said hello to everybody one by one, but not me. And it hurt. It added a lot of stress. I slept every night thinking about that for days until I finally said, you know what? That's just the way it is. But I still have to get up here and talk because I know for a fact that we were blindsided. And we didn't know what's going on. And the only thing I was trying to say that last meeting was, if I'm around you because I'm involved with the community why didn't I know? And most of the people I talked to don't know, still even now. There's a lot of people. Compared to 63,000 people in our community right now, there's not that many people here tonight. And I thought it would be a lot more. But anyway, I have a lot written down, but I am in favor of the moratorium. I am in favor of the vote. But what I heard tonight is that you all can vote this audience right now, today. So, well, I guess my question is, why don't you?

I mean, you don't have to look like down, Henry. You can look at me. Thank you for looking at me. when I'm talking because I'm not trying to be mean or anything. I'm not even trying to be non-friendly. I'm just wondering why you don't. Because everybody that knows about this project, I mean, there's only a few people that I've ever heard that are in favor of it. So what is stopping you? I mean, is there any way that we can find out what stops you from, why does it have to go back to us? Because that means that we're going to have to canvas. We're going to have to grass roots. We're going to have to canvas to let people know what's going on. We're going to have to walk the streets like we did when you were running for council. I walked the streets for you and I have bad knees. I have osteoarthritis and I walked those hills for you. Could you do, and you came to my house and I said I'm going to vote for you. Can you do that now so people will know what's going on out in the community? Knock doors. Send flyers. Put it on the radio. Put it on social media. Let people know. And then when they do their own research, then they can tell you. I mean, they can make their own decision, the best decision for their own family. Is that fair? that you go all out with us because we went all out with you?

And is it fair that you decide tonight that we will not have a data center at all? I don't know if it's 12A or 12B, and I don't care. I just don't want a data center in Monterey Park. Thank you. And the next time I see you at a meet-greet, can we say hello?

I said hello to you that day, Catherine. But I do want to say that every community member that's reached out to me, I've talked to, I've been to residents' homes, I've been to strangers' homes. Every single person who's reached out to me, I responded to emails. They can all vouch for it. But when community members attack us, I don't mind. But when a friend comes and attacks me without even a phone call, I don't consider that person a friend anymore. So I still represent the community. Right. But I didn't attack nobody I was I'm always asking why why we were we didn't know

Maybe I know the time is as far for the yes Your time is up Catherine, but I would like to ask for a quick pause Maybe we could ask the city attorney again I know we at the beginning of public comment. We had the city attorney I asked the city attorney to reject interject to answer I think some of the specific questions that were asked by this this past speaker maybe we can remind the folks here just so to refresh people's memories I know we've been here a long time about without giving away potential legal strategy and all those things what got us to this point of the specific items that are here and why we are pursuing a ballot measure as opposed to direct ordinance for now

Madam mayor members of the council so let me try to address everything and forgive me if I get too verbose because I'm an attorney and I tend to do that in any event so I apologize ahead of time first of all you've everyone has heard several times now both in writing and verbally that the applicant for 1977 Saturn has absolutely threatened to to file litigation against the city my job is to protect the city so we have come up with a litigation strategy. I frankly, and I've told this in writing to the council for that applicant, that I think it's highly unusual that any court would intervene with the city council's legislative decision-making authority. That would be a separation of powers problem, and I don't see how council can overcome that problem. There is no vesting right that that applicant has for that particular piece of property, so there is no property right associated with the uses that are that are allowed for that particular piece of property so let me just skip over that part with that brevity oh and i have no idea what was submitted tonight as part of the record this is a habit of trying to get things in last minute i try to respond to those before i i inform the city council about those types of items so that you're fully informed about the types of items rather than trying to respond from the dais. So as you can see, there was a stack of letters. They were not distributed to the City Council because I haven't had the time to review them or absorb them or inform the City Council about that. Let me talk about the ballot proposition just for a moment. The Council directed a ballot proposition be brought back to tonight's meeting for consideration. That's what we're considering on this particular agenda item. The reason for a ballot proposition is twofold. One is the ballot proposition amends the land use element to the general plan. If all of you recall, Major JJ last adopted a new land use element. The city council doesn't have legal authority to amend the general plan itself. That's reserved to the voters. So the only way that that general plan can be amended is with an additional ballot proposition that's approved by voters. So if you view the land use element as the land use constitution for the city of Monterey Park, which is what legally it is, that needs to be amended in order to ensure that the prohibition on data centers takes effect on a citywide basis. In addition to that, the ballot proposition authorizes the city council to implement the ballot proposition, assuming that it were passed by voters, by ordinance, which means that after the ballot proposition were adopted, assuming that it were adopted, well, let me go back, assuming that it's put onto the ballot and assuming that it's adopted, then the city council has the authority to go through the process for amending all the zoning within the city to ensure that it's consistent with that general plan amendment that the voters approved. That takes more time. As I mentioned at the outset of this meeting, the city council can certainly direct us to bring back an ordinance doing it now before a ballot proposition is considered by voters that requires a 20-day notice so certainly if that's what the council wants to do we can do that it will require a 20-day notice and we'll be back in april with some recommended language in an ordinance that would amend the zoning within the city of of Monterey Park. That doesn't mean, though, that it is the best strategy from both fulfilling the wishes of your constituents and also ensuring that the city's flanks are protected, not to put the ballot proposition onto the ballot. That should also occur in order to make sure that the general plan is properly amended, that everyone knows that it's a citywide prohibition, and that it's preserved in the general plan according to the voters wishes finally let me mention the moratorium which is not this agenda item but it is related to this agenda item the moratorium was was put on tonight's agenda because we have to have it properly noticed it has to be a public hearing so that the initial moratorium was 45 days this one was properly noticed 11b will be a public hearing once you get to that particular agenda item and the proposals to extend the moratorium into january of 2027 because that accomplishes two things one is assuming for the sake of argument that there's a ballot proposition that allows that ballot proposition to go through the process and then assuming that that ballot proposition is approved by voters that also allows the city council to implement the zoning changes that are necessary pursuant to that ballot proposition One last word about... One second, make a last word about... Yeah, the definition is up to you. I mentioned that from the outset that the definition was taken from existing zoning regulations but certainly you can play around with the definition. Folks were talking about removing the one acre requirement. That's certainly within your power to do. It doesn't have any, there's no downside to it. Let's put it that way. and so if the council believes that there's only upsides then then certainly take that action happy to answer any other questions I think I covered everything but if I miss something please don't hesitate to tap me in

thank you Carl hopefully a quick question what practical or real effects or difference would there be between if we were adopt a moratorium that extends through January and adopting ordinance not can't do it tonight as you pointed but 20 days from now or whenever that nearest next council meeting is in terms of not allowing data centers but my understanding is there would be no practical difference

Well some of the speakers have talked about belt and suspenders approach as you know I like a belt suspenders and girdle approach to most things just to make sure that everything's buckled down so the the the ballot proposition is the reason that's theirs is for the reasons I mentioned the moratorium extends the time period and it preserves what prohibits the city from processing any pending applications accepting any new ones or advancing anything to the city council for consideration so from the standpoint of prohibiting data centers within the city of Monterey Park as a practical matter the moratorium takes care of that that said the girdle can certainly be an ordinance that the city council adopts on its own authority after proper noticing and we can certainly bring that back to the city council for consideration.

The one caveat on that is even if you directed me to do it right now tonight and I went in the back and I drafted something up, you would not be able to adopt it tonight. So I throw that out there as a caveat. I do want to make one last observation about data centers. there's been a lot of talk about that when the city council adopted the spits that affects Saturn Park, that data centers were added as a land use. Certainly that is technically accurate that it was added as a land use. One needs to remember, though, that the data processing facility land use category already existed pursuant to voter direction from years ago. And so what the City Council did when it added data centers as a land use it made it a discretionary land use meaning that You're exercising legislative authority when considering any types of projects like that You have to adopt or develop an agreement that is an absolute legislative function of the City Council So rather than a land use coming in as for example a data processing facility Which would be a ministerial use which neither the Planning Commission or the City Council would ever see instead the city council changed those land use regulations to add in data centers and made that a legislative decision by the city council meaning that any applicant throughout the city that wanted to go into Saturn Park any data center as as defined would have to be approved by the city council through a legislative process have to answer any other questions

I appreciate the clarification because it I despite council and the city staff continuing to explain that I think it continues to come up as a complaint so appreciate that we're continuing to offer clarification around that and what actually happened and transpired out of the spark process in those conversations and what ultimately made it into the spitz the zoning for Saturn Park and I'm sure we will continue to remind people about what happened and the the factual kind of context around where we're at. I don't know if we want to, I know there are still, I think there are still speakers.

No, that was the last one. Yeah, so we can make comments now.

I know. That was the last one for 11B as well?

No, no, we should vote on 12A and then we'll move on to 11B and 12B.

So Madam Mayor and members of the council, if I can quickly just reiterate that the city council is requested to consider for this item 12a adopting resolutions 2026 r5 through r8 those are attached to the staff report and appropriating budget adjustments and appropriations in the amount of 310,000 dollars for special election costs as well as anticipated litigation costs in addition the other requests that's in the staff report as well is city council may discuss and determine whether the city council should submit an argument in favor of a ballot proposition to be included in the ballot booklet for the June election, if that's of interest. And then there's a timeline in the staff report with key dates for reference of when those items are due. So we're available to answer any additional questions.

May I, Mayor Yang? I'll just try to keep this simple because there's still a bunch of speakers and a bunch of items. I mean, first, thank you for our speakers or residents for coming out. You know, your passion will be shown, and this is the third, fourth time now, maybe fifth if I lost track. So I thank you for coming out, and it is a critical issue. It is a pertinent issue. That's why everyone's so passionate about this. And I want to kind of keep this simple, and, you know, you understand we also have a duty of care, And I think Karl explained some of that to some of the clarifications on how the issue, you know, how we got to this timeline today. I actually have just one question in terms of the one anchor question on the ballot measure. I mean, I did a quick Google, and it basically said data centers are approximately 100,000 square feet and higher. And, you know, one anchor is a lot smaller. but I'm okay with tweaking that language as needed and I'm going to rely on our city attorney to help with crafting out language so that we cover data centers that are smaller scale I don't know what the square footage is but if we can

tweak that and madam mayor members of the council I think it's it's easy editing I think we actually have a PowerPoint somewhere that shows the language can we edit that so everyone can see what we're doing that's the ballot question you just have the ballot question okay you can take that down the

ballot question doesn't help so do you have a staff report on on that computer I'm wait actually it comes from just before we continue it's almost 11 do Mayor, do we need to extend? Yeah, would you like to make a motion? Sure, okay. Let's see, I make a motion. Don't kill me. We extend the council meeting to 1230. Oh, okay.

I'll second.

Okay.

All right. Council member 1 seconds. Let's vote.

Approved unanimously. Unanimously.

Plenty of time for the further public comment.

so while we're working on putting up the actual language let me just verbalize it and then we can hopefully get that up fairly quickly so right now the draft language which reflects again i mentioned at the outset it simply reflects the definition that already exists within the municipal code so that's where this language is derived from right now it says all data centers are prohibited throughout the city period data center means a building dedicated space within a building or group of structures located on one or more acres of land so we would strike that particular language used to house large group of network computer systems and then the definition continues and then the last sentence says this definition does not apply to smaller data processing facilities that are located on less than one acre of land and where such facilities are accessory or incidental to another primary purpose so you could take out that sentence as well if there were unintended consequences that we weren't aware of at the time that that this were to go on to the ballot be approved by voters that's why there's also a 40 within the proposition to allow the City Council to clean up any ambiguities through its own zoning regulations that it could could adopt after the the ballot proposition was adopted I think that answers your question and perhaps once we get it we can we can show what I'm

talking about it does so I'm in support of kind of allowing Carl to treat that language after discussion for council of course on that square on that one acre

language so maybe whoever's controlling this can just highlight what I mentioned so it's that last sentence correct that would be taken out and then after the in the first or in the second sentence where it says structures located you take out located on one or more acres of land and strike out that language

Carl while we're on that language I just want to make sure it to your point around unintended consequences right we we have servers here at City Hall there are businesses that have servers. I just want to make sure schools have servers. I can imagine East LA College having computer science classes or whatever and having some sort of compute thing there or something else on Corporate Center, Monterey Pass Road, Saturn Park potentially in the future, somewhere else in the city. I want to make sure we're not going to automatically exclude potential businesses or other uses that we do want, would want to have come to the city, and that even already exists in the city. And from my understanding of what you're saying,

there's flexibility for the city to make sure that that's not going to be the case. Correct. So remember, going back to my description of the land use element as being the land use constitution for the city of Monterey Park, if you put that in the context of any other constitution that one is familiar with, it gives you sort of the broad scope, and then whichever legislative body is responsible for implementing that constitution is able to come up with the nitty-gritty, so to speak. I'll use the term ritty-gritty. So that would be the delegation of authority to the city council to come up with zoning regulations to make sure that, for example, we don't have to shut down the police servers here in City Hall because it's a data center. We don't want that to happen. So that allows the city council to have a public discussion because, again, even after this were to be adopted by the voters and the council were to consider the zoning regulations to implement it, we would still have to go through a noticing process that takes noticing of 20 days and have a public hearing and have the public input for all of that before we made a decision with regard to those zoning regulations. So that's already built into California law from the standpoint of those next steps. I did remember one extra thing that I wanted to mention about the ballot proposition, which was we were directed to put this together on February 4th, and as you can see from the staff report, we wanted to give you the opportunity to consider putting this onto the June ballot rather than the November ballot and give you that option. In order to do that, we had to accelerate the time frame within which this came back to the City Council. Ordinarily, as some of the speakers have mentioned, I don't want to have the Council or the public have the impression that this was a rush, which is why I mentioned that the definition that's in this ballot proposition already exists within the zoning regulations, and all we've done is taken that definition and put it into this ballot proposition. But in order to meet the statutory deadlines, and these are not deadlines that we can change, The last day for putting anything onto the June ballot is day after tomorrow. So this was the last opportunity for the City Council to have to consider putting something onto the June ballot. And to some of the other speakers' points, the longer that you have to consider a ballot proposition, let's say you want to put this off until November, that's certainly up to you, and you certainly have that ability to do. but it also gives opponents of any ballot proposition additional time to try to convince voters not to vote for it. And that's the democratic process, but we wanted to give the city council the option, once again, to consider putting it onto the June ballot.

Thank you. Appreciate the clarification. I don't know if you had anything.

Yeah, let me just finish up. I mean, my position is pretty clear on this now. We'll vote on this. depending on how the council kind of fuse on here and I'd love to submit an agreement in favor of the ballot proposition on behalf of the city when we get there.

All right.

You've answered most of my questions. If I find any others, I'll pose them to you, Carl, and to the city staff. But I'll just note, well, one again, I want to join Council colleague Ngo in thanking everyone who came out tonight and previous meetings as well. I'll express my appreciation for everyone who's engaging in this process, taking time out of your days and your schedules, your lives, to engage in something that you really care deeply about. And also encourage you to continue to engage on many other issues that come before the City Council and that the City has to deal with. This is obviously a very, very important issue. There are other very important issues as well that this council has to deal with and would ask for more of our residents to continue to engage on these other things. We'd love to have your feedback on many, many other things that the city has to take action on. But thank you so much. It's encouraging to see so many people show up and such a diverse spectrum of the residents here in Monterey Park and beyond really engaging on something that you care deeply about. I'll just note up front, I support the items here that are presented before, support putting this on the ballot for June. I plan to vote for it when it's on the ballot. On item one, I agree with Council Member Ngo. I'm okay and agree with taking out or striking the one acre language in the, in the, you know, whatever, the ballot language. And to the point that many speakers have made in terms of closing that loophole. On number two, I fully support and would love to have Council Member Ngo be the lead author for the ballot argument in favor of this ballot measure. assuming it passes and gets on the ballot tonight. I'd be happy and would be proud to join Council Member Ngo in signing that ballot argument. I believe there's up to five that can do that, and that would be printed along with the ballot, the sample ballot that was sent out to all voters, I believe, and then would support the approval of the $310,000 for both the election costs and for potential anticipated litigation costs. At least, hopefully, we don't have to expend that, But we'll see.

And if I could just jump in on the litigation issue. This seems like a great time for me to report out of closed session that the city council authorized me to initiate litigation against anyone, specifically HMC StratCap, in the event that any litigation was filed against the city and has authorized me to expend what is necessary in order to defend the city in that matter. Thank you.

To address kind of the other point that was made by some of the speakers in terms of adopting an ordinance sooner than the ballot measure potentially, just to be clear, right, the moratorium, which is not this item, but the previous item, if that were to pass, or the coming item, I guess, were to pass, right, there would be no, a data center could not get built or even start the process of potentially getting approved in the city as long as the moratorium is not going to be able to pass. in place at that rate.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, that's correct. And, you know, there is no, I mean, there's an application that's on file, but there's no pending public hearing date. It was voluntarily taken out of rotation by that particular applicant. This goes back to my overall observation about the threats of litigation. So I, the city is not processing anything. There will be no public hearing scheduled during the moratorium. will be no further action taken with regard to any application that is filed or is currently being or on file.

And then one of the other speakers I think mentioned the need to, well, many speakers, but one in particular mentioned talking about if this goes on the ballot, helping to educate voters or residents in the city about this. Can you remind us about the rules around what city resources, public resources can be spent on elections and what we can and can't do.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, let me first preface that with most meetings are great because you never hear from the city attorney, which means they're going very well. So again, I apologize for hogging the floor on this one. Yes, once the proposition is put onto the ballot, no public resources can be made for advocacy. And that includes, for example, ballot arguments being drafted by whomever you authorize, whether it's the city council or whomever. Public resources cannot be used for that. Campaigning is not allowed during, for example, public comment, during next regular council meetings after it's been put onto the ballot. And those caveats will be announced during those meetings just to remind everybody what the rules of the road are.

But the council or the city can educate residents that there is an election coming up and what is it?

Yes, I'm sorry. It's to Council Member Lo's point, it's getting late. So, yes. The public resources may be used to educate the public, providing objective information about how the ballot proposition is voted upon, what its implications are. There simply cannot be advocacy for or against any particular ballot proposition.

Thank you. Assuming, if this passes tonight, I hope, would hope to direct staff to make sure that we're doing that communication and that we're doing that through whatever channel is available to the city to make sure that residents are aware that there is a measure for the city on the ballot for June in a special election. Obviously, the need is clear from the speakers tonight and from the past council meetings as well that we need to do, and we're always open to improving, but whatever we can do to continue to and to expand our communication and education efforts with the community that this is going to be up for a decision by voters in the city let's do that whether that's cascades electronic communications others would love to make sure we're doing that in terms of the the trying to adopt an ordinance before the ballot measure appreciate the legal argument there in your explanation, trying to offer some clarity. Totally understand that from a practical standpoint, at least correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding, the moratorium, if extended tonight in the other item, would not allow, right, we've already said, wouldn't allow any data center proposal to be submitted or to be processed. And then that would take us through the current timeline in the previous item, the other item, beyond the June election, so we'll know the outcome of that election, which is three months away. It would take almost a month to do that and to effectuate an ordinance prior to the election anyway from that timeline. I'd rather direct staff to, if this can work, if this we can do this, I'd rather direct staff to begin working on ordinance language to be adopted as soon as possible after the June election. so that well as you we've already laid out we can't adopt anything tonight and there's nothing to do for probably close to a month so I support directing staff to begin that or drafting that orange language I don't know how long that actually takes and to begin to do the work to bring that back to the city council as soon as possible after the election, or if there's an election, to make sure that we're effectuating that as quickly as possible to address many of the concerns that were laid out by the speakers as well in terms of if this passes in June, there's as little delay as possible to make sure it's implemented. But I also want, Karl, if you can clarify that there is no, if this measure does pass in June, that doesn't mean there's an open period right between then and when an ordinance is actually adopted that a data center could sneak in. Madam Mayor, members of the Council

to answer that question first no because the moratorium would be in place we wouldn't be processing anything in any event as we're spitballing here though you could conceivably direct us to draft ordinance language in anticipation of the ballot proposition passing go through the process to adopt it and have the effective date be the same date that the election results are certified and that ballot proposition becomes effective. That would sort of be cutting in the middle of what has been advocated tonight by many of the speakers versus your observations on the timing of things. So something else to consider, not to muddy the waters, but at least then we could commence the process and it would cut down on the timeline after the ballot proposition were presumably adopted so we wouldn't have to go through the noticing provisions afterward to further extend the timeline for the data center regulations. So we would have those, in essence, adopted, and they would take effect the same day. So that's something else to consider. All right. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you, Karl, for all of that clarification. I also wanted to thank everyone who came out tonight. In particular, I saw a lot of kids. I noticed there were some kids over here and some more over there. It really goes to show that a lot of parents and a lot of families are very interested and are very concerned about what is happening in our city. So I really appreciate the parents who came out tonight and made that time and brought their kids with them as well. I think for me as a parent of three daughters but also as a teacher, it gives me hope that not only is civic engagement alive and well, but that families really care. And I think that's important in terms of maintaining our democracy. So I wanted to thank you guys tonight for doing that. I'm also in favor of item 12A, putting a ballot proposition with the amendments that both Councilmember Ngo and Councilmember Wong have already mentioned. And I did want to also share, because there's so many people who came, and there was a person who spoke earlier, and I jotted down her name. Her name was Jessica Jew. And she talked about the people who can't vote, the people who are young and don't have a voice because voting gives you a voice. the elderly who can't make it out because they can't. And so, or undocumented people, people whose citizenship status is dubious and can't vote. And so I wanted to thank Jessica for sharing that because it made me think of, and I wanted to thank all of you guys who emailed us hundreds of times because it gave me a lot of things to read at night. But there was one letter that I got that I wanted to read to you tonight very quickly from a fourth-grade student. And she emailed me, and she said, I had to write a persuasive essay, and I decided to write it on data centers, and I hope you'll listen. And she said, she titled her essay, Data Center. She said, have you ever heard the sound of a data center? It's like the sound of a very large vacuum cleaner. but non-stop. It's a vacuum noise every day and every night. Many people dislike the noise going on non-stop. I don't think we should have a data center in Monterey Park. Many people think the same thing, and here are the reasons why. The first reason is because it takes up a lot of energy! We need energy to power our lights, heat our rooms, cook dinner, and lots of other things that are key things to our survival. If we didn't have as much electricity as now, we might have a blackout, become super cold at night, and have to eat cold food, disgusting food. The second reason is because it takes a lot of fresh water! We need water for many things. We need it to wash our clothes, wash our hands, wash ourselves, do the dishes, boil food, and stay hydrated. If we didn't have enough water, it could cause a drought. It could cause our plants to wilt. We could get sick from not washing our hands. We could get an infection. If we don't clean our wounds, we might become dehydrated as well. The last two reasons are because it takes up a lot of space and it makes a terrible noise. The noise sounds like a large vacuum cleaner, as I mentioned earlier. It's like there's a large vacuum machine in your backyard every day and every night it uses up a lot of space as well we could use the space for lots of different things that are better for our city we could use that space for things we don't have that we desperately need i hope that you will consider these reasons that i have stated today and i think about the consequences of having a data center in our city thank you for thank you for reading this a very concerned monterey student named eva It reminded me because of my daughter. My daughter's in third grade, she's not in fourth grade, but I think that's something she would probably write to, and it hit home for me. I think if we're already considering, and I want to touch on the, so separate from 12A, if we are already thinking about potentially drafting ordinance language to have whether the ballot measure passes or not, whether it's in June so that it's ready to be passed. If we're already heading in that direction, I don't understand why we would want to do it later rather than earlier.

I think we're already heading in the right direction. I think we're all on the same boat. I can imagine we're all on this Noah's Ark boat here. But we're heading in different directions. But I think we can steer this the right way. I personally would like to see if we're already drafting an ordinance in the future for it to come back to council with haste. So I think the earliest would be in 20 days, so possibly.

for the council to consider. And I think to Karl's point in terms of the, I know you said not just the belts and suspenders, but the girdle as well. The girdle. I think that any, if we are very serious about banning data centers in our cities because it's not a right fit for Monterey Park, then I think that we need to take every possible precaution to do that. And I think that's what we said. So I would like to entertain a motion to also consider an ordinance that can be prepared by staff to be brought back to the city council for consideration as quickly as possible.

That's it for me. Thank you.

Are we going to, is it part of 12A? Are we, are we?

I did 12A, but I'm just banking on a different recommendation yeah.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Well, I do also want to thank everyone for coming out tonight to speak their mind about this issue. And let me say this is that, you know, certainly, you know, as also members, when we make land use decisions, we, you know, we do have to weigh in, you know, economic benefits as well as the quality of life issues long term and short term and whether or not Also, you know, what we're bringing in these industries, whether or not they will have a positive impact, and whether or not they're sustainable. And I think that a lot of comments have been made, and I think these comments are very valid, that, you know, you're talking about an industry, from what I've researched, has looked at an industry that has, by some estimates, spent up to $4 trillion of AI-related infrastructure. And, yeah, this is probably very reminiscent of the dot-com boom in the early 2000s. We know how that went. Not to mention the market valuations, which also have soared probably in the trillions of dollars. Again, whether or not these are investments for actual realized growth or they're just numbers on a piece of paper. And again, we all know how a lot of these speculative investments go. Not to mention, you know, there have been reports about whether or not AI has had actually meaningful impact on earnings, performances, and frankly probably why there's a lot of skepticism. So I think that given that we have an industry which I think has cast much doubt, so then, at least for me, you know, I can't see whether or not this is something we should even consider. And that's why I support 12A, certainly putting this on the ballot as soon as possible. And I would also say, too, that, and again, thank you, Karl, and my colleagues for bringing up how we can inform and educate the residents as well. And what I would also say is that I think, as Catherine said, it's true. I mean, when this is on the ballot, I mean, this is something where the community doesn't have to come together, work together to make sure it's passed. I mean, again, that's something that's not new to the city council. In the past, we've made a decision to put ballot measures, you know, from Measure JJ to Measure MP to ballot measures from 2024. Again, these do not just happen in a vacuum. I mean, they are done through organizing. And I do agree that this is a clarion call for us to work together on this item, you know, which I sound like we are going to put on the ballot. And again, that is something that certainly I think all of us are willing to do.

Thank you, Mayor Protem. Well, residents across Monterey Park, as well as community members around the San Gabriel Valley, have spoken loudly and clearly over the past several months. Many of you have written to us, attended meetings, and shared your concerns about the potential impacts of data centers in our community. I want you all to know that I hear you, we hear you, and I appreciate the civic engagement we are seeing from our residents. It's our responsibility as council to represent our constituents, and my priority remains in protecting the health, safety, and quality of life of the residents we serve. As a result, I am also in favor of approving the June ballot measure, including closing the two loopholes and instructing staff to immediately give 20 notice to pass a city ordinance.

So I would like to second Council Member Sanchez's motion and put it to a vote. and just FYI a little thank you does go a long ways thank you John thank you Roxanna and everyone who were nice to us it does go a long ways it's not easy sitting up here alright let's vote

approved unanimously

We still have more agenda items, so let's have a seat. I still have a stack of more public comment cards.

Actually, before we continue, I also want to make a comment. Again, to our friends from the different labor associations, Again, understand that we still want to work together because we're all in this together regarding economic development, and hopefully that we can continue to work together, our friends in labor. But I will say, though, that when you make threats like, well, our members will walk, I'm like, well, I think so will the other 10,000 residents plus for this ballot measure. Just remember that.

Madam Mayor. Sorry. Okay. Okay. There's a few other items that we'd like to make sure that the council votes on. It's in the staff report. It's under the consideration. So we understood you want us to bring back the ordinance in 20 days. We want to make sure that we're also adopting the resolutions as attached to the staff report and also approving the budget allocation.

Yeah, everything in 12A.

And the amendment to the language that was on the screen that removes the one acre.

Correct.

We want to make sure. So we need a follow-up vote, I believe, to grab the rest of the items that we didn't hear. So we just want to make sure that it's being inclusive of everything that's in the staff report. All right. And the amendment to—

Council Member Ngo moves. Council Member Wong seconds. Let's vote again to encompass everything.

Approved unanimously.

Okay, now we can move to 11B. So 11B, I think I only have two comment cards. Is that right? 11B? Oh, there's more. Okay, more came in since the beginning of the meeting. All right, let's start with, let's see, George Boca, L.S. Sito, Joyce Vega, John Shavira, and Paul Lang.

If anyone is still here, please come to the podium.

Good evening, Council.

I am here to talk about the mitigated negative declaration and why it's important to put a moratorium on data center. I don't know if you guys read it, read it in detail, 152 pages um mayor please look this way I'm talking to you it's 156 pages dated October 2024 and what was missing from that is this magic word called power usage effectiveness PUE that standard was established in 2006 to deal with data center it is to find out how much energy a data center uses in this case if you look at the report from Kim Lee Horn they claim a number of 49.9 which is understated and the reason why is understated is any usage over 50 megawatts has to go through the approval of the CPUC the California Public Utilities Commission the California Energy Commission California Independent Grid Operator so basically it would have required an environmental impact Report the reason why this MND was produced the way it was and you guys all fell for it Was because it was to avoid an EIR and with it would have picked up all these environmental issues One of them would be an urban heat island and what that is is the energy Emitted the heat emitted from electrical usage would have created a heat cloud which would be approximately five kilometer or three miles from the data center so it would have impact as far north as Hillcrest and into Montebello so now inadvertently you guys have dragged Montebello into this okay additionally they claimed this air chiller chiller project would have reduced the air they based those number on a cooler environment modern part is is in a dry Mediterranean climate. We're in Zone 10B. Our ambient temperature is approximately 75 degrees a year. There is no possible mechanical way that they could admit the 49.9 megawatts. I did a calculation, and it was consistently over 54, and on hot days, on heat wave, it was close to 64. And we do have heat wave. Councilman Boe, last year and August 21st, 2025 you tweeted out, heat wave Monterey Park, come to landing center cooling center. Well that day it would have hit 64 megawatts and with that said this project would have never bypassed an EIR so that was the reason why this MMD was projected I don't know how you missed it I think you all need a master class on energy consumption data center and technology I used to work for Edison I'm also in public policy I'm in Sacramento, San Francisco and Council Member Thomas Wong just told him that's who I am and currently I'm trying to get you money for a pool and you never call me back so see this is what I do I've also interned for a law firm, Munger, Toz, and Olsen, which is a competitor to the attorneys that just left. So where's their army now? They want to sue? Let them come. You guys have the power of a joint power authority. You guys can educate yourself to defend yourself. What is happening here is that they gave you information. and it's called material misrepresentation. That's a legal term. You have two attorneys up here on the dais. You know that this is defensible. But thank you so much. I've got to get home because I've got to get to work.

And just to clarify, this is for 11B. Consideration and possible action to conduct a public hearing to extend and amend urgency ordinance number 2272 to place a general moratorium on data centers.

On 11B, on item 3, taking such additional related actions that may be desirable. Mayor Yang, Mayor Pro Tem Lowe, Councilmembers, my name is John Shavira. I wish to speak on additional related actions to be desirable. You are not alone. There are a multitude of other communities that are currently suffering right now due to data centers that we have data, measurable data on, that the community members have all been doing on their own. And what's upsetting is that there is multiple data that other people could have used to research the city of Monterey Park and other low-income, diverse communities that you may have been targeted. I wish to address that this is an attack. this was a planned attack that is continuing inside of this United States by not just our administration which is actually pushing for data to overwhelm our citizens but also it's a promised attack by data itself. Data states that it's going to replace all labor but then where do our children grow and learn? where do we teach a youth how to become electricians in their own right, how to be CAD engineers or specialists in their own fields. But then, in correlation, there is another thing that's currently happening inside of these exact same communities, which is ICE, which has been actively stealing our people, buying up detention centers, concentration camps, all across the United States, something to the whole $45 billion worth, which this is legalized slave labor, which is going to fill the gap when data, when AI bubble pops, because it can't do the work what people do. And this is what AI is. It is a constant theft. It is a theft of images. It is a theft of ideas. Even the most innovative things that tries to promise itself that scientifically has discovered things over seven years, has used the amount of energy of that seven years' worth of water that could have gone to our lungs, our breath, our lives, and it is stealing it. Actively and adamantly. And when you hear everyone so mad, it's just because it's obvious. I have tried my best to speak personally, and it is very difficult to speak to you all now because you are my neighbors. Because you are my council members, because you are my community. I am. The third generation resident of Monterey Park. My mom is a mile from the carcinogens that will kill her. And I don't know how to be calm and clear in speaking that we are under attack. And this is what I'm here to say. I'm trying in my best effort with what voice I have to clearly admonish this this administration. and the technocrats that are targeting you and your children and all of us. This is abhorrent behavior that is trying its best to say that it's just a cloud that's not responsible. You know, AI is just going to be the next thing, a multi-trillion dollar race. But it's not. It is trillions that billionaires are doing in their best effort to contain and control us, our labor, our rights, our water, our land, our earth, and all we can do in our best effort is try to find the legalese to protect ourselves. This is the year of the horse. Your steps are supposed to be fiery. You cannot be timid in your capacity to save yourselves and your friends and your neighbors and your loved ones. This is not a simple measure. but I'm saying that you're not alone in efforts to try and speak out against these detention centers. I implore you to reach out to the other communities that have been affected actively, to the other communities that have been targeted. What data is there that has been targeting each and every one of you currently by these data centers, by this administration, by the billionaire technocrats that are trying to own this world? I'm asking you to not look lightly at what's happening and to call this terrorism for what it is. This is technocrats against the working class. This is us, the people, trying to hold close to our future, our water, and our rights. Please, just consider helping.

Thank you.

Let me call a few more names. Macy Godfrey Washira, Jose Pina, Sam Mao, Tommy Zayalomsky.

Paul Lang, Monterey Park resident. I'd like to thank all of the people that spoke before me on behalf of our community for saying everything I wanted to say much better. The only thing I'd like to add at this point is two meetings ago, residents made it very clear that they did not want just a 45-day moratorium. They wanted a permanent ban. It sounds like the mechanism to do that, in addition to a ballot measure, was also an ordinance rather than an extension of the moratorium. While to respect the attorney's metaphor of adding the girdle to the belts and suspenders approach, I like the image, it's funny, I do wish that we had not delayed the opportunity to call for an ordinance two meetings ago or last meeting, both of which would have allowed that 20-day notice. A lot of us in the community are still learning the process that has to be followed for these meetings. I'm willing to be educated, not just by our council, but by our community. I'm listening to what everyone has to say, including sometimes people I disagree with on the other side of this issue. But let's not miss any other opportunities, such as we could have already called for the ordinance in time for it to be voted on this meeting. I don't know what else can be done to strengthen the case, to add another layer of clothing to protect our community. But please, if the council knows of any other mechanisms, don't stay silent about our options. And for everyone in the community who hasn't stayed silent, you have my immense gratitude, as well as to everyone who spoke from our neighboring communities. Thank you.

Good evening. I am back. I resonate the same thing basically we have already talked about what we have talked about and it is not what to do, now it's how to do it and I think that you have the tools, you have the knowledge you have everything that you know and you heard all of us where we stand about the data center issues so now what left to be done is just for you to take action and we're going to pull ourselves together and get that going and be transparent. If you come into any kind of roadblocks, let's have a meeting. Let's have a conversation so we can get to where we need to be. Okay? All right? And I appreciate your time. I appreciate you listening to us, giving us a forum to talk about this. We care about this outcome because it will change us forever. It is something so urgent, and normally I don't come to these council meetings, but I made a point to be here tonight because it is impacting life. Not just my life, but the next generations and the ones after. So let's be very clear-hearted about this, and I appreciate you for being here and representing us and getting this going. And I think bending the loopholes is more important to have this moratorium to contingency of having them to put a foot in. I think it's clear cut that we need to get them out completely forever so we don't have to deal with it. So we can focus on making something for the city. That part of lands, there's a lot of good things that can go into it. other business, and we can put our heads together and try to figure out what would be beneficial to the city. Something good, not something that's going to destroy this and many generations to come. So thank you, and thank you tonight.

Good evening, council members. My name is Jose Pina with Creed LA. We support responsible, community-benefiting developments, projects that come with strong rules and enforcement, and trust in the process. We need to have trust in the process, and that's perhaps the bigger issue. The city initially directed the applicant down an M&D path. Then came political pressure, and the city shifted to a full EIR. After that, a targeted moratorium was adopted, and now tonight we've moved on to a special election. From a certain perspective, that looks like moving the goalposts. This uncertainty and inconsistency hurts planning and investment, especially when a project is attempting to do things the right way. If the city believes the project is incompatible, then say so through the entitlement findings. What doesn't build trust is requiring an applicant to spend time on an EIR while simultaneously advancing policies that would make that EIR pointless. It can feel like the process is being used as a tool, not as a good faith pathway. We need to have a consistent entitlement process that the community can trust and that evaluates each and every project fairly and consistently. Thank you.

Let me call a few more names. Robert Miranda, Alan Rosso, Jessica Ju, Sylvia Koss, Juan De Lara.

My name is Godfrey Washira, and I'm also with CREED LA. We maintain our position on no on the moratorium, and yes, on an EIR for the certain project. The reason why we're on the moratorium is because there was a data center project that was proposed, and that's why we're here. So inherently, we'll talk about the project. And we are here to ask you to provide leadership on this issue and allow the entitlement process to proceed because it's the fair and just thing to do. For such a highly subjective issue, the process should play out so that decisions are made based on substantial evidence within the record. That's the legal standard. That's a good policy standard that is adopted. and not calling you out, Madam Mayor, but in the January meeting, you said that you made your decision based on the evidence in front of you, which was just one side that had presented. But there was another side that was never given a chance to speak. The voice has been shut out, and it's your staff. It is the planners and experts who spent hundreds of hours using their expertise to establish the facts, put together the record, and make recommendations. And I never had a presentation by staff on that project at any one time, not in the December meeting, not in the January meeting. And based on the substantial evidence, that is facts, reasonable inferences from facts, and expert opinion based on the facts, which is the legal standard, the staff in the December 3rd staff report actually did recommend approval of the project. Right. And we support that position because the reality is that there are many data centers in Southern California. There's actually one very huge data center in downtown LA. hundreds and thousands of people walk by that data center, walk near that data center, live near that data center. There's been never, I've never read a report of cancer clusters that have been found because of that data center, right? I've never heard of reports of noise pollution coming out of that data center, which is way larger than the one proposed here. And the one proposed, the certain one was technologically way more advanced with the energy consumption and water consumption being way lower. The air emissions were being controlled a lot more with this one. So with an older one, we haven't even seen electricity. I haven't heard of electricity bills by downtown residents complaining that their bills have gone up or that their water bills have gone up or that people are lacking water, yet there is a huge data center. and it's not one. Downtown LA alone has very many data centers there. I'm just talking about one very huge one. We'll share one or whatever it is. Those are the facts. When we are making decisions, make decisions based on facts, not on speculation, not on narratives. And it's clear, and actually, these I'm quoting the staff report for December 3rd, that you make decisions not based on narratives, not based on speculation, not based on arguments. You make decisions based on facts, right? Evidence within the record. And that's why my colleague also was talking about the EIR, about the entitlement process. The entitlement process is there for that. Like he said, if there was substantial evidence in the record that this project was not a good project, you could have simply denied it, right? wouldn't have had to go through all this. You could have simply denied it because that's the process. That's the institutional process that we have put even for projects like this because I know you guys have gone through other highly controversial projects. You didn't go banning high-rise buildings or a building that people are objecting to because that one thing was presented. There is a process. Let's follow the process. We don't have to go changing the rules along the way. Trust the process. It's there. And I'll say these partly as a policy scholar, who I used to teach introduction to public policy. And as a political scientist, it's about institutions. Institutions is what brings stability and makes society predictable. That's where there's a process. Let's follow it. Thank you, and God bless you. Thank you.

Creed LA wrote 50 pages disparaging the data center, and then agency paid you off. That's why you have no credibility here. That's it. The water repart doesn't want a data center.

Hi, good evening. My name is Sylvia Klaus, and I am here speaking from my son tonight. He is currently working a job in fat food job that he does not like much. He found out about this opportunity to become a union, an apprentice in the city we love and live in. He understands that working in our city is only temporary, but it's a way to work. The President has a way into the union that will create more opportunities in the future. Right now we are only renters but his goal is to purchase a home here in the future. Please say no to the moratorium. Thank you. Thank you.

I'll be brief, I swear. Let me call a few more names. Patricia Poon, Yvonne Wong, Andrea Vega, Cindy Alvarado, and Ben Steckler. May I? Yes. Hello. My name is Juan and I'm here asking you to oppose this moratorium. Considering this is not a public land, I think the proposed project benefits outweigh any speculated negatives. This is an opportunity for the city to get the tax revenue that might not be available ever again. Please oppose this moratorium and thank you so much for your time. Bye.

Good evening. My name is Ben Steckler. I was asked by some of the representatives here of your community tonight to come in as a planning professional and give my opinion to them and to you. And after hearing the discussions between the shock and awe campaign that happened earlier tonight and this current proposal, I'd say that it worked. And all that they've been trying to get done is being done. So I thank you for that, each and every one of you. And I'd like to say that in support of some that had to leave tonight, please continue the moratorium. Stop the data center process. Stop the potential for them to come into your community. And thank you very much for the efforts and the discussion that we heard earlier tonight, and I will continue to help them understand that you are doing the process that is required by law. And thank you for doing that. Have a wonderful night.

Laura Coiler-Morish, Mimi Lee, I think we did Macy already, Samuel N., Kerry, and Vito Basuto.

Hi, Mayor and Council Members. I just want to let you know I do hope you will support the moratorium because that will be a foolproof way of not letting any other data centers to come in because I have found out that three more parcels of land in Saturn Park is being now marketed as potential data centers. So it's very disturbing. So I think by the moratorium, you will be able to stop it, and that will do our city good. Thank you.

Good evening everyone, my name is Vettel Pasuto, I am a representative of Anchor Church. From our perspective, data centers are powerful tools of stewardship and service from schools, education, work, family connections and community. Even charitable works for data centers allow communications across the world to connect and grow prosperous. These resources centers, when guided by responsibility and compassion, can be instruments of service, wisdom, and a powerful force for the common good. Let's work to keep our hearts and minds open to building projects to help people thrive. Thank you, and God bless you.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Samuel, and I'm a longtime resident of both Alhambra and Monterey Park, 46 years. And I'm here today because I don't support this monitorium. And some of the things I see out when I'm out in town is I see lots of kids on their tablets, tablets that their parents bought on them. What are those kids doing? They're streaming. I also know that lots of residents in this area buy and sell online. I see the trucks delivering all the items daily. And I know for sure that everybody uses digital services here, right? Everybody uses them. So I support this project, and that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Good night, everyone.

Richard Choi, Dave Jones, David Hanson, Kathy Wilson, Brian Marsh, Jim Pugh, Amar Marwaha.

Hi, Council. I'm Carrie, Marnum Park resident. So I know it's late, and I'm really sorry to be getting into the weeds with the language of the moratorium extension, but with my legal background and detail-orientedness, I just feel I need to express these things in order to strengthen the ordinance as written.

So what I did was I compared the 45-day moratorium ordinance to the one that we have today, and I also found some other issues. The first point is on Section 2C. If you could amend that language to be consistent with Urgency Ordinance Number 2272, I thought that language was helpful at the end of Section C to say, to add, such regulations were first considered by the City Council on November 6, 2024, and should be reexamined to protect public health, safety, and welfare. The city requires additional time to study which regulations are in the public interest I think that's helpful language that we had before that somehow was deleted The second point is in section three I think there are additional bases that we could use for sequel not applying And we could also request a staff file a notice of exemption What the notice of exemption does is it reduces the statute of limitations to raise a secret challenge from 180 days to 35 days. So the things I'm asking to be added are at the end of section three is that under SQL guidelines sections 15307 and 15308, that the ordinance is adopted to protect natural resources and the environment by preventing potential environmental impacts associated with new data center uses, including impacts upon energy use, noise, and air quality. I took those from the findings. while the city studies what regulations are appropriate and it does not authorize any physical development.

Next on Section 4C, this was what I had mentioned at the time of the last moratorium adoption was that at the end of Section C, that language that directs a city manager or designee to require that any applicant with a pending data center application prepare an EIR that that is Inconsistent with the purpose of the moratorium which is to place a pause on all the processing of pending and acceptance of new applications So we would want to delete that and that was the language the council did delete at the last meeting from the prior ordinance Lastly in section 4e regarding what the city manager and city attorney are being asked to do Last time the the language I have there in strikeout was stricken out and I think the language indicated something about considering the ban I Drafted this before because I thought this item was going before 12b, but You could either say city manager and city attorney are directed to consider regulations I'm going to change it based on council's action in 12a to consider regulations needed to ban data centers within Saturn Park as well as citywide to protect the public interest health safety and welfare and you can see those other little changes there thank you

Thank you, Mayor Wang. I knew I would need this. Honorable council members, I promise I will be brief. But I just want to say I'm here to support the extension of the moratorium. The facts are the initial study in MMD were deeply flawed. The facts regarding the 83,000 million metric tons of CO2 alone prove that. I won't go over the details. As far as the data center in downtown Los Angeles is concerned, DWP electricity rates just went up 17% year over year. So if Creed hasn't heard people complaining, it's because they haven't bothered to ask them. I also want to thank the council for listening to the voice of the people and voting unanimously to have staff prepare an ordinance to ban data centers in Monterey Park. I also want to thank the council members who have spoken to me both publicly and privately about this issue and the future of our city. I have great faith in all of you and that our future indeed is so bright. It might be so bright I will have to wear shades. Finally, I want to say that I participated in the SPARK meetings, and I can say unreservedly they were not an attempt to sneak data centers into the city through the back door. They were an attempt to figure out what the future of Saturn Park should be, and it is a future that we will have to take up as soon as we get through this process and ensure that data centers are not part of that future and I look forward to that as well thank you very much council for listening to us tonight and for doing what's right for the city

Evening, Councilmember. My name is Richard Chow. I'm a member of the Sheet Metal Workers Local 105. I was born and raised in Monterey Park, and I still live five miles from here. Enlisted in the Navy back in 1998. Served six years, two of which deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Iraq Enduring Freedom. I'm a disabled veteran, and the sheet metal trade was a great option for me due to a lot of the disabilities that I had. And it's a great opportunity, just like the lady who got up here. I appreciate everybody not heckling me tonight like the last meeting, and it's nice to see how my neighbors treated me. I was called a traitor, but it's weird because when your city buildings, ACs don't work, who do you call? Us. So everybody loves the juice, but they don't like how it's squeezed, down to that $1,000 information machine sitting in your pocket that was built by slaves in China. So it's very odd, this argument that people have. I looked it up on AI of a data center. Ridiculous. I was one of the people who built some of the data centers in downtown. And yes, at what expense? The same thing. The same thing, the capabilities of everybody getting on ring when spectrum's not operating at the speed that you desire or when Mr. Gamer Guy's ping rate is under 15 milliseconds. Like, what are we doing? This is insane. All I'm asking is to say no against the moratorium. Have options. Give people opportunities. College isn't always the option for everyone. Labor unions, this is what we do. And as a member of my labor union, I'm going to fight for my members to have a job to work at. Thank you very much.

John, Deb Simone, and Rene Palacios.

Good evening, Council. My name is Amar, and I oppose this moratorium. I run an organization called The Fighting Chance, an LA-wide nonprofit. We work with system-impacted youth, young people leaving gang life behind, some who have been through the justice system, and many who have aged out of foster care by providing MMA as rehabilitation. That's mixed martial arts. So these young people work incredibly hard to turn their lives around, but if real opportunities aren't there afterwards, all that work can go to waste. programs like ours can help them change direction, but we can only do so much. What they need are real pathways, apprenticeships, jobs and careers they can build a future on. That's why this project matters. It creates opportunities for at-risk youth and young people aging out of foster care. And at a time where many companies are turning their backs on people with records and communities of colour, the contractors behind this project are doing the right thing by opening their doors to people. for often shut out of opportunity. Please oppose this moratorium. Thank you.

Honorable Mayor, members of City Council, thank you for giving me the time to speak again. The reason I wanted to come up here and why I put a last-minute comment is Mr. Washira, the representative from Creed LA, makes a good point in acknowledging that facts and evidence should shape Council's opinion, But what he fails to realize is that new evidence comes out and affects council's opinion, specifically reported health effects and environmental damage in cities throughout the country. He may be right, but that is under the assumption that HMC provided well-rounded evidence and acted in good faith. Instead, HMC tried to circumvent environmental reporting by submitting an NMD instead of an EIR and then volunteered to do an EIR after public outcry. This moratorium should be permanent, and from what I understand, Council is initiating legislation in 20 days to outright prohibit data centers. To that point, if there's potential clarification for why the moratorium would be needed once we pass that resolution in 20 days, I would appreciate it. Other than that, thank you.

Yeah, right? Not me. Honorable Mayor, Honorable Mayor Potem, all members of the council. This is just a point of information. So I'm on onewilshire.com on my $1,000 information device. And I just want to point out that I'm going back. This is their website. Ten diesel-powered standby generators for 21.6 megawatts of capacity. So that's not even close to what we're talking about here. as an example, and by the way, 1977 Saturn and 1980 Saturn are just examples of projects, and we can discuss them as examples because we've been presented data on those locations, at least one of them. So I just wanted to make that point too. I am in favor of the moratorium, and this says that it's 32 megawatt capacity at one Wilshire with the potential to expand 16 Megawatts to a four total of 48 megawatts, which is not as big as even the first project that's being introduced for Saturn Park So, you know look that's just from their website. Maybe it's wrong. Maybe it's out of date but I support the moratorium because In addition to the gentleman's point from the sheet metal workers Union once again great trade I could really use the sheet metal guy in my kitchen. I it's it's a It is, you know, I have absolutely no problem with the need to build data centers in this world of information. I have a problem with them being built 65 feet from residential development. It's just.

Moreover, to the gentleman's position from Creed about one Wilshire. I mean, it's one Wilshire. It's downtown. I think it's the former AT&T building that used to connect all the calls and stuff, because it's also what they're selling here is that they have fiber and carrier access for phone calls and stuff like that. And I'm sorry, I haven't been able to do full research on one Wilshire, but it's downtown. The background noise level in downtown is probably 75 decibels, maybe more. It's not. I mean, I walk past, I walk through Saturn Park every day, and it's not that loud. Yes, the freeway gets loud at traffic hours, and occasionally there's a train going by, and the LAX flight pattern is there, but it changes. None of that is 24-7 noise, and therefore I support 11B, the moratorium. Thank you.

Okay, good morning. Good evening or good morning? What is it? Let's call it good morning. Good morning, Mayor and Council members. My name is Rene Palacios and I'm a 37-year member of the Ironworkers of Local 433 and I currently serve as a business agent for my union. I'm here today to urge you not to pass the proposed urgency ordinance, placing a moratorium on data centers in Monterey Park. I want to be clear, putting a moratorium on data centers is not just a policy decision, It's a decision that directly affects people, their families, and real local jobs. Every time a new project is delayed and blocked, we lose opportunities for skilled workers, many of whom are members of this community, these high-paying union jobs that support families, fund schools, and strengthen the local economy. Our members are proud to work hard and safely, and we take care and ensure that every project is done with quality and integrity. The moratorium doesn't just pause development, it pauses economic growth and prosperity in Monterey Park residents, for Monterey Park residents. I respectfully ask the council to consider the economic cost of this ordinance, and I, we, or Local 433, strongly encourage you to allow these projects to move forward so that our union members and the community at large can continue to thrive. Thank you for your time, for your service, and your thoughtful consideration.

All right. Any other folks who submitted a public comment card who I haven't called? Because there's a lot who I called who didn't show up. I'm guessing they all went home. All right. Then we'll close the public hearing and move to a discussion.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, Tim does have a very brief presentation on this item, just for context.

Mayor Yang and honorable council members, I'm Tim Howell, Director of Community Development. The item is urgency ordinance number 22XX. hearing to extend and amend urgency ordinance number 2272 to place a general moratorium on data centers within the city of Monterey Park for 10 months and 15 days. As background, on January 21st, council adopted ordinance number 2272 establishing a 45-day moratorium to prohibit processing land use applications for data centers within Saturn Park. If not extended, the initial urgency ordinance and moratorium would expire on March 7th. The proposed urgency ordinance would extend the moratorium at 10 months and 15 days with an expiration date of January 21st, 2027 and would establish a more term on processing data centers within Monterey Park and allow staff to analyze and formulate new regulations. At City Council's direction staff implemented following measures identifying which zones allow data centers within the city discussing potential revisions to zoning and modified the urgency ordinance to include a city-wide prohibition on data centers on february 4th council directed staff again to return today with additional options to prohibit data center uses and for future land use planning CEQA, in terms of California Environmental Quality Act, we adopted draft urgency ordinance is exempt from further environmental review because it establishes temporary rules and procedures for minor alterations in land use. The ordinance, therefore, is categorically the ordinance therefore is categorically exempt from further sequel review under guidelines section 15305 further the adoption and extension of the urgency ordinance is also exempt under sequel pursuant to guidelines section 15061 b3 because the ordinances for general policies and procedure making. It is recommended that council consider one opening the public hearing taking testimony and documentary evidence and after closing the hearing and considering evidence adopt urgency ordinance number 22 XX to amend urgency ordinance 2272 to extend the general moratorium on data centers within the city for 10 months and 15 days and take such additional related action that may be desirable. That concludes staff's report. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you so much, Tim, for that presentation. Any questions or comments?

Tim, thanks for the orderly timeline and discussion. Appreciate that. Just kind of level set in making sure we go through the procedural process. I think it's already after midnight, so I thought the train has already left the station on this We extended to 1230. I know, but we're already after midnight. The train already left the station for this vote, but we're going to have to vote anyways.

I don't know what to say anymore, but I support this item. Appreciate it. I want to make a comment because one of the, Paul, I think is still here. I see him in the back. I support this moratorium. Sounds like it'll be moot once we, I assume, adopt an ordinance, and then I assume also when the ballot gets passed in June, but support making sure we have continued protections. Obviously, this existing moratorium expires just in a few days. Paul made a point, one of the speakers, Paul, made a point earlier about additional potential measures to protect our community against data center development. I will say we're doing, I think, everything we can from a policy perspective. I'd also note, and I echo and encourage and welcome the folks that have mentioned making sure that we build something there and particularly at this point very likely I think the only thing that will probably get built there is housing so would encourage folks the most solid way to make sure nothing gets built there is to build something there and so hope that and it sounds like we will see the results in the next few months especially with the election the community can you speak clearly many have spoken tonight and in the last few months as well about their community's opposition to data centers and to specific developments here. I ask all of us, those of you that are here and those that were here earlier as well, to also ask what we do want to see, what we do want to build here, and encourage you to join me in that conversation and to hopefully have a productive conversation in the coming months about what we do want to get built in this area and in other parts of the city as well and hope that we can have a robust quality conversation about moving something forward and building something positive for the community so with that

I'll just add my my my vote when we're ready to do that for this item same here thank you Tim for the report and the timeline as well I think councilmember Wong makes a really good point in recommending that whatever we decide to build there if data centers is not one of them that we really start looking at how what what else we can build there and I think housing is from what I've heard a lot of you guys say housing is an important one and we know the housing crunch that we're already in as a community and as a city so I think that's going to be our next big battle, but I think we can do it. I support this item as well.

Same.

Yeah, and I echo Councilmember Sanchez when we have the second battle later on this year. I hope everyone of you are as passionate and do come out and support that as well. Alright, so let's, I'm also in support of 11B, so let's go ahead. Madam Mayor.

Oh, actually, yeah, Carrie's edits. So we looked at the edits and Tim will. I'm happy to elaborate that. Tell you which ones we're in support of. Okay, thank you.

We received recommendations on some amendments to the proposed moratorium, the language of the urgency ordinance, and staff would recommend a comfort level with the amendments to Section 4C, essentially which is omitting the sentence starting with accordingly the city manager designee is directed to require than any applicant prepare an EIR to the end of that sentence in section 4c as well as the recommended changes to section 4e regarding language with what the city manager and city attorney would be doing would be accomplished.

And  madam mayor members of the council we are in discussions with with mr. how with regard to the mechanisms for filing notices of exemptions so correct that that's

actually something that we will be doing also With that I'll make the motion

I'll second.

Thank you. Let's vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. Thank you. There we go.

All right. We have one more item. We have one more item. Yeah. One more item, and you guys will probably leave us, and then we'll continue our business.

I'm staying.

Okay, okay, you're welcome to stay. 12B, consideration of letter of support for California Assembly Bill 1577 and California Senate Bills 886, 887, and 978. Let's see how many comment cards we have. Oh, okay less than I expected. Laura Queller-Maurish. Ben Steckler. Samuel N. Sam K.

Good evening once again and thank you for your patience with us this evening. again we support the item 12b and your approval thereof in order to make sure that we solidify no data centers in residential areas and support for the state in making similar actions to what the city is doing already this evening so thank you very much for your time and your consideration have a wonderful evening

any other yes

hey everyone I'm Sam I know it's been a long night I'll try to be quick on this one first of all I just want to say thank you guys for everything you've been doing tonight just your patience and everything really appreciate everything I think we're really moving in the right direction so I appreciate that and I will personally commit to being a part of you know what does go into Saturn Park and I know that will bring jobs in for the unions and things like that So there's that. So on this one, yeah, I just, I think, and then also thanks to the No Data Center Monterey Park people, too, for, you know, they had to, you know, put an attorney on retainer to come and send out a letter and all that. So appreciate those folks, and it's been great to meet people in the community. But, yeah, for the state-level legislation, all I really want to say is, you know, there's a lot of things that have happened here in this community, and there are other neighboring communities and we all share the same power grid. And so what happens in one community affects us over here. So I just really hope that we think about what happened here and try to wrap that into the legislation. I've read a little bit about, I think it's 579, something about maybe a council or utility or proposed applicant notifying the community and maybe surrounding communities as early as possible, maybe on permit application submission, something like that. Somebody's got to take accountability and notify people. And I think I was talking with Kerry, there's like a 500-yard requirement or something like that. These are bigger projects. This isn't just like a mall or something like that. These are much bigger projects with much bigger impacts. So I think there needs to be a little bit tighter legislation on that at the state level. And also there's the 75 megawatt limit there where, you know, I'm probably butchering this, but where, you know, they would have to pay their way or something like that. So if we look at this project specifically, we had, you know, 49.9 or whatever megawatts in one building, 49.9 megawatts in another building. But that's all load going in at the same place. Right. So they would be exempt from the 75 megawatt, you know, thing at the state level. So things like that. I think we should just really be smart about, you know, what we're putting in at the state level. So, again, appreciate you guys. I'm going to wrap it up. But thank you guys so much.

Carrie.

Hi. Sorry, I didn't want to talk again. But on Senate Bill 978, one of the things I was concerned about was the fact that it only applies to 75 megawatts of electricity. for large-scale energy users and i actually called the staffer of for the senator perez about this and the reason they wrote it this way is because they didn't put a definition of data center even though that was the reason that they proposed the bill they just wrote large-scale energy users but i was just telling them that this wouldn't actually help us i know the council was especially a council member low mentioned at a prior meeting how important it is to have the state give us some direction and this actually wouldn't really help us because our facility is 49.5 so I don't know if that's something you want to put in the letter that you know looking at lower thresholds such as you know in our case I mean I know the investor documents say 33 so if you say 30 but part of the issue is that they didn't define data center because she said that would be difficult to define so they were worried that by you know when they put a lot large-scale energy users they knew that there would be other legitimate large-scale energy users that would be cut off and that's why they made it such a high threshold but in terms of it actually helping us it wouldn't really help us because ours is a lot lower so just pointing that now.

All right. Yes. Okay. So again, thank you for everyone's presence and passion in speaking about this topic. And I actually want to just kudos, give out kudos to Councilmember Lo for bringing this up a couple of sessions ago. So we do need the state to step in to set guidelines so that we and every other city and the state can follow, because that's how processes get done in the federal government from the federal level to the state level and into the local level. I'm fine with the bill. I mean, this is Senator Perez's bill. I'm fine as presented. I heard one of our speakers mentioned that maybe we want to tweak that. but it really doesn't apply to us because there's no data center in the city so I don't know if that's that it may be applicable to other cities but in our case I'm fine as presented I was just add to that these are not our bills that

we don't author them we don't edit them we don't write them I would encourage you to as you have already reached out to senators office legislators that they're the ones that are authoring these but I would add my support council where goes for these items my only caveat is that we know the legislative process these things can change very quickly to things that we didn't necessarily sign on to so maybe we can I'm happy to sign on to these as as as written currently but just making sure Townsend our consultants in Sacramento know that we're monitoring these and if there are changes substantive changes these bills that should be brought back to council for additional consideration.

I also support these bills, and I know that, to Council Member Wong's point, a lot of these bills we can't edit, but I know that the senator's office is taking letters of support and you can always voice your concerns and opinions. I'm just happy and glad that there's legislation that's moving in the state level addressing data centers because it helps us here at the local level to be able to address a lot of these concerns. Quite possibly what happened here today wouldn't have happened if we had state legislation already in place. and so I think that in saying that I'm hoping that not just our state but our federal government and federal leaders will take a much stronger position on data centers and pass legislation Thank you.

.

report, right? Oh, yeah. We're reporting it. We want that. We should take a break. It should come on any second. Yeah.

We should be like the people. We try it. We're very excited.

Thank you. All right.

Again, thank you, staff, for putting together this list of bills. And I also appreciate that, according to the staff summary, we're not just sending it to the authors, but also to the committee. Because to the point of one of the speakers, if there are any amendments to be made to the legislation it would most likely be through the committee process and that's where I would say you know if we are going to you know take the suggestion by the constituent then probably the most relevant would be when the bill goes through a committee because most likely the consultants would recommend any amendments to the legislation legislation both in the House of Origin and as well as the second house of consideration

Thank You Mayor Protem I'm definitely in support of item 12b and I also wanted to thank assembly member Mike Fong and Senator Sasha Perez for fighting up the fight for us up in Sacramento. So let's send the letters and I hope community members like Carrie has contacted them but it helps when everybody sends them letters. Madam Mayor just as a note

our consultant Elisa from Townsend is on the call so she's hearing your comments she will continue to help us monitor these bills and if there's anything in addition that comes up she understands that the data center legislation topics is a hot topic for Monterey Park and she will help bring forward any other additional legislation that might be brought up in the future

just a point of clarification on that for this particular session these are the four bills the deadline for submitting legislation was February 20th so these are all the data center pieces of legislation that will be in the session we'll keep an eye out for anything that may be of interest in future sessions

Thank you I'll make the motion all right I'll second it all All right, let's vote.

Approved unanimously.

All right, that concludes our-

Madam Mayor, sorry, just a domain to interrupt. I know we have still other items on the agenda. Oh, go ahead. I know you've got to extend the time. Sorry.

I'll extend the time until half an hour. Is that good enough? Hopefully not, but yes. I'll second. All right, let's vote.

Approved unanimously.

Madam Mayor and members of the council, I just wanted to circle back. I heard that community members I know are very anxious and excited to hear the ordinance come back in front of council. It requires a 20-day public noticing period. There is timelines for publication of those notices that we don't set. So we were looking at a calendar to try to figure out how we have the draft ordinance language. So we're looking to bring that item back potentially for April 15th. We will, if we could make it sooner, we will. But to give us time, April 15th is when we think we can bring that item back. I just wanted to clarify that, you know, the 20-day noticing period is the requirement, but there's other dates that we have to comply with to get the notices in the publications. And we have to draft ordinance language. So didn't want to be confusing that we can get that back, you know, at the next council meeting because we won't make the noticing requirements. So we're going to shoot for April 15th. We definitely are not trying to delay. We just need a little time for all the legal notices. Thank you.

All right. So that concludes our new business. I know we have one public comment card come in for a general public comment. Joy Rowe, are you here? She left? Oh, okay. All right, then let's go back on our agenda to...

Thank you.

You're still welcome to stay, Dave.

I know, I know. And my boss is welcome to go to work at this point.

Mayor, I know the consent calendar is the item remaining. Yes, consent calendar. I do want to pull item 10G for a very, very quick question or a few questions. All right, 10G.

I don't need the staff report, though.

Any other items?

If not, I'll move the remaining consent calendar. All right, Council Member Wong moves.

I'll second.

Council Member Ngo seconds.

Let's vote.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. Let's do a presentation on item 10G, community transportation updates and amendment to Via Transportation, Inc. for on-demand services.

Unless others are interested, I'm okay skipping the presentation. I can just ask some more questions. I really just want Sean to have to walk down. but appreciate the staff work on this and appreciate that we're extending this to really approach our community transit options in a more comprehensive way. It looks like we're going to go out to RFP in the next few months and we just need some time to kind of bridge us to that. Everything I've heard in terms of the via the Monterey Park Transit Express program has been great and the report obviously is showing that it's very well used. As we look to We've got to consolidate some of these services in a way or the delivery of Dallaride and Transit Express and potentially even the fixed route services. What are we can do to find efficiencies so that we can expand services more? Clearly there's need and a desire to do so. I know we're still in the process of adjusting our spirit bus routes and that will be a constant evolution I think as people continue to change their transportation routes and what they do. But clearly on demand micro transit is a that options are very much in demand, and let's see how we can continue to expand that with the... dial ride if there are opportunities to be able to offer more on-demand services by combining dial ride with Transit Express via and other options let's look at those also wanted to note but really appreciate staff I know this was a pilot project with via for the Transit Express and really from kudos to staff the VIA team, everyone that helped put together this, I think, successful pilot. I look forward to expanding this going into the future. On the zero-emission bus requirement that the state has, I know that it looks like from the staff report, and correct me if I'm wrong, you have my understanding of this, as we contract out for these services going forward, we'll start to phase in and transition in zero-emission options. I want to make sure that we're looking at that for both the fixed route services and for the on-demand services to the extent possible where the technology is feasible to make sure we're phasing in zero emission options for those as well. Sean, it looks like you want to make a comment there. I don't know if you do, but if you do, I'm happy to hear any comments.

Yes. So as part of the zero emissions policy, we will be implementing that for the buses. That's a requirement. That's part of our mandate. And then as far as the microtransit, we can incorporate that into the RFP.

Great. No, I appreciate that and would love to make sure we're doing that. I know we tabled the item on EV charging, but if we need to look at making sure we have the infrastructure support, integrating zero-emission buses and other continuing to electrify more of our city fleet, including the microtransit on-demand service fleet, let's make sure we're integrating that into our capital project plan and capital improvement plan going forward in the coming years. And then whatever we can do where it's economically feasible and technologically feasible, if we can transition faster than the timeline that's laid out in the state requirements for zero emission fleets to transition our spirit bus, our fixed route, and our on-demand kind of vans and transit vehicles more quickly to zero emission, let's absolutely do that and see how we can pursue that and expedite that.

We can definitely evaluate that. And just real quick, I do want to point out that we do have Alex from VIA who has stuck it out here through this meeting. So just wanted to highlight that.

I appreciate VIA and thank you to the VIA team. I think the residents in Maribor have very much been from the microtransit program and really appreciate it and look forward to seeing how we can expand that. With that, I'm happy to make a motion. Actually, I also want to make a comment as well.

No, I also want to thank city staff and VIA for, I think, a very successful piloting program. I know that since its launch, I've used it several times. And I also appreciate that VIA has been receptive to comments about improving the service and improving the geographic reach. I think certainly there's more fine-tuning, but I think there's a lot of potential to, I think, more wisely maximizing our dollars and resources. is, you know, again, addressing what is often called the first and last mile and trying to encourage folks to use ride-sharing or public transit in our city, as well as utilizing the regional, the expanding regional transit system that there is. And so I support continuation to see how we can strengthen our public transportation systems.

And with that, I'll make a motion to adopt staff recommendation here and I think clear to staff in terms of potential direction for the RFP when that comes back.

I'll support it.

Thank you. Let's vote.

Approved unanimously.

All right. And that concludes our consent agenda. Moving on to city communications.

Okay. Just

11. No. Wait. Wait. Yes. Yes, 11A, I believe we're continuing that to the next hearing, so we won't cover that today.

Do we need a vote to continue that? I'll make the motion to continue item 11A.

Second.

All right, let's vote to continue 11A.

Approved unanimously.

Thank you. All right, now city communications.

I will start. Lots of stuff this past two weeks. With the Lunar New Year celebration, many of us just celebrated the Chinese American Museum Camp Gala last night at NBC. Also did the Chinese American Military Support Dinner. Also in the Maya Park Restaurant on Atlantic Seafood. I think many of our council members were there as well. Then we had the May Cafe ribbon cutting on Saturday, this past Saturday. We also did our Hamburg Unified School District's Asian Alumni Association dinner last week, also at NBC. Then we also did the police town hall at Brightwood. That was probably two weeks ago, how time passes. Then I wanted to also give a shout out to the Golden Dragon Parade in Chinatown this year. There were definitely a lot more people than last year due to the fires, but I think people went out and celebrated the Lunar New Year in Chinatown this year. Last but not least, many of us also attended what I think is a really important dinner sponsored by the city for the volunteers that volunteer for the city of Martin Park, including folks in our commissions at Langley Center in the library and supporting the parks and recs want to give a shout out to staff for coordinating that and really to the volunteers for continuing to volunteer for city making our city one of the best places to kind of volunteer for that's all I have

appreciate all the staff for the work over the last few weeks attended many of the same events appreciate being engaged be engaged community I just have a comment on one of the items we passed on consent 10e on the design for fire station 61 renovations what are we can do to exploit that obviously would be great and look forward to hopefully that being completed in the next or soon so we can get the firefighters at our headquarters Asian into proper more proper accommodations sooner than later I'll pass it on thank you I just wanted

to mention one one future potential item I know it's getting late and some of us want to go home the mark couple academic decathlon team did really well this season and they got second place so at some point we would probably want to invite them in the near future to recognize them for their achievement. I know they're preparing to go to state so they we can bring them in. Council member, who was number one though?

Mark Keppel did really, really well. They got second place I believe first place went to Alhambra High School and I'm their coach who is their coach how many years in a row was that three and we won by three points which is like a quarter of a question

we will reach out to Mark Keppel and coordinate a time to recognize them

Since we're on the theme of education, I believe also another one of our schools in Monterey Park is reaching a milestone, and that's Monterey Vista Elementary School, which I believe will be celebrating their centennial. And so I know we've reached out to the school district, the Garvey School District, but certainly, you know, if there are any doing, any events, you know, let us know. But also, I think it'd be also nice to perhaps invite the principal and PTA for a presentation just to congratulate Monterey Festival for, again, the milestone of reaching its 100th anniversary of its founding.

All right. I think my colleagues covered most of the events. Just a few more. The Monterey Park Pony Baseball and USA Softball had their opening ceremonies on February 21st in the morning. And some upcoming events. I know Friday, March 13th is the Monterey Park Clippers Night. I don't know if tickets are sold out already, but they are sold out? Okay, so that's sold out. Another sold out event is the Monterey Park Library is hosting a Bridgerton-themed tea party at El Encanto on March 14th. That sold out in less than one day. And I got a ticket, though. And then we're also hosting Monterey Park Walks on Garfield Avenue, Atlantic Boulevard. That's open to the public, right?

That's correct. I can pull that up in just a second if you'd like to.

Give me just one second. Sure. It's held on four different days. I know Garfield Avenue is held on March 14th from 12 to 2 p.m.

But basically for those couple hours, we'll be walking down the street to see what needs to be worked on.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, there'll be some information on our city's webpage if it's not there already, and we'll definitely put out some information on social media. This is part of our Vision Zero project, Complete Streets Walk Audits. So there's going to be a walk on Garvey Avenue Wednesday, March 11th, on Atlantic Thursday, March 12th, Garfield Saturday, March 14th, Floral Monday, March 16th, and Wilcox Saturday, March 21st. The community members are invited. They're different times of the day, but they're invited to walk and discuss potential pedestrian improvements, safety improvements to that corridor. They're asking individuals to RSVP. There's a link available on our city's webpage, and we'll post it also on social media. Shawn ran down, so I don't know if I missed anything, Shawn

You got it all.

Okay.

Great. All right. That's all for me. Anyone else? No? All right. then we will adjourn the meeting at 1242 AM.

Thank you.

Thank you.