City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. do do

He's so quiet just yet. I'm still getting situated here, but.

So good evening everyone and welcome to the City Council meeting Alhambra City Council meeting July 27, 2026. We'll first start off with a roll call please.

Leigh. Here. Maza. Here. Wang. Here. Andrade Stadler. Here. Maloney.

Here. Next is the flag salute if you'll please stand and face the flag. Ready, begin. Thank you. At this time, we also read our land acknowledgement. We acknowledge that the land on which we are gathered is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Gabrielino Tongva peoples. We seek to prioritize respect for the historic culture and contemporary presence of the native peoples throughout California, especially in the greater LA Alhambra area. We come with respect and gratitude for the Gabrielino Tongva people who still consider themselves the caretakers of this land. It's through their examples that we are reminded of our greater responsibility to take care of Mother Earth and to take care of each other. We are lucky enough tonight to have with us this is our first ceremonial item on tonight's agenda. We have a delegation from the sister city of Alhambra in Japan and the sister city is Kirishima City Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan. Kirishima is a It's a town that's larger than Alhambra. It's relatively new. It formed a few decades ago based on smaller villages that were towns that were nearby, and they formed a larger municipality, and they named it Kirishima. And at that time, my predecessor on this council was Gary Yamauchi, his ancestral roots go back to that area. And he said, you know what? We should make Alhambra and Kirishima sister cities. And he really did this on his own effort. And it continues through this day. When I was mayor previously, I traveled to Japan, and I was welcomed very warmly by our mayor, Shinichi Nagashige. Mr. Mayor, if you could wave and say hello to everyone. It's a beautiful city situated in the southernmost main island of Kyushu, just across the water from Kagoshima. And it's a beautiful area. It's known for its national parks. There is recently a shrine that was named as one of the national treasures in Japan. It's attracted a lot of attention, and they're very proud of their... their beef, their black pork, their vinegar, drinking vinegar, and most recently they won first place in the national competition for green tea in Japan. So it's quite an accomplishment down there. And if you go there, it's so green and lush, you feel like you're almost in like a Hawaiian island almost and I think this time of year it definitely feels like the Hawaiian islands because it's very hot and humid so much so that when they arrived they said it feels great here right now this feels wonderful so they're glad to be here I would also like to welcome the chair of the Kirishima City Council Shuto Tokuda the director of general affairs department Yukihiro Ishigami Masazumi Suematsu, he's the Director of Citizen Environment Department. The head of the Municipal Administration Secretarial Group and Secretary of Public Information Division, Shinichi Matsushita. making sure everything's okay back there and then coordinator of international relations and citizens activity promotion division and as I said important on this trip she's our translator and that's Serena Lockney So I'll say a few words and then we have some special guests that would like to say a few words also. But the importance, I think, of sister city relationships, not just ours, but especially ours, is to make sure that people in different communities understand each other on a person to person basis. We have lots of agreements and alliances throughout the world with countries at the national level. but really it's the people that make these relationships special. In particular, Japan and the United States have a special relationship. It's an extremely important strategic alliance in the Pacific area. We share many of the ideals and goals and objectives with Japan in this country. So anything that we can do at the local level, on a personal level, to strengthen that relationship and to keep that going for future years really makes the world, literally makes the world a better and safer place. So I'm happy to play a small part along with my colleagues here and everyone who helped to pitch in today on this. It's really important. And in particular with Kirishima, we have had some exchanges back and forth. I traveled there in 2022. Former Mayor Yamauchi has traveled to Kirishima several times. And then the mayor actually came out in 2024 in October for a visit. There was the state prefecture anniversary from Kagoshima Prefecture, right? And it was their, I think, 150th anniversary or 125th anniversary. So he came out for that. And we remember this. It's a very important day because while we were eating dinner on the first night, that's when Freddie Freeman hit his home run, his grand slam, to win the World Series game. So we remember that night. And it was a memorable experience, and we're glad to have him, and we're very happy to welcome him back. And we hope that this leads to many more years of exchanges trips back and forth and cultural exchanges it will say for the record that this is all out of our personal pockets the city doesn't pay for anything it's part of the part of the rule we have for sister city associations we love to have this but we recognize that that it's it's up to individual members to keep this going we're happy to do that Today, we took a tour of Alhambra. We saw some businesses. We went to Le Mill Coffee, which is a wonderful artisan coffee roaster here in Alhambra. And we're still all hyped up on the caffeine from the samples they gave us. We took a tour of the beautiful Alhambra office complex. We had a nice lunch, and then we gave them a little break for a couple of hours, and then we had a small little reception before this meeting. So it's been a long day, and we have another long day planned for them tomorrow, so we're looking forward to that. But we want to welcome you here. We appreciate everyone who came out. Please, if you get a chance to say hello to them, please do so. They traveled a long way, and it's a very short trip for them, but we're really lucky to have them here, and we appreciate it. Thank you for being here. So I would like to welcome to the podium our lovely congresswoman from this district representing Alhambra in Washington, D.C., Congresswoman Judy Chu.

Well, hello. I'm Congressmember Judy Chu, and I'm thrilled to join the City of Alhambra in welcoming, for the second time, Mayor Shinichi Nakashige from Alhambra's sister city, Kirishima, Japan. And I want to thank Mayor Jeff Maloney and the Alhambra City Council for making this event possible. This is an important ceremony because Japan is one of the United States' closest and most important allies, with diplomatic ties going back to the 19th century. In fact, Japan is the single largest source of foreign direct investment into the U.S., and Japanese firms employ nearly one million Americans across the U.S. Now, as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over international trade, I know that we can make our partnership even stronger. Because despite the current administration imposing sweeping tariffs on Japanese products, Japan's commitment to the U.S. has not wavered. And I have had extensive conversations with the ambassador to the U.S. from Japan in Washington, D.C. And I know how much we could progress if we work together, especially in the area of critical minerals and shipbuilding.

But of course, our relationship goes beyond just commercial bonds.

I think of my district as such an important beneficiary of this friendship because we have such an incredibly vibrant Japanese American community here in Southern California. I've had the honor of visiting Japan, and I was so touched by the warmth and hospitality of the Japanese people. And that's why I deeply appreciate what former council member Gary Yamauchi did to develop this whole sister city relationship with the city of Alhambra and foster this relationship with Kirishima. And in fact, as an emblem of this relationship, three cherry blossom trees were planted in City Hall in 2016, which symbolized three important things. First, the bond between Alhambra and Kirishima. Secondly, Kirishima's commitment to promoting world peace. And third, Gary Yamouchi's three terms as a council member. Since then, the connection has grown only stronger with Mayor Jeff Maloney and a delegation from the Alhambra Chamber of Commerce visiting Kirishima over the last few years. And in fact, our local Alhambra leaders were able to connect with the local Chamber of Commerce and visit several businesses, including a shochu distillery and a traditional vinegar producer. So I truly appreciate Mayor Nakashige's visit because it underscores not only the growing strength and importance of the partnership between Alhambra and Kirishima, but between our two countries. I hope, Mayor, that you enjoy your time in Alhambra and throughout Southern California. And thank you, City of Alhambra, for hosting Mayor Shinichi Nakashige and our guests from Japan. The U.S.-Japan relationship is not only important to the world, but our local communities. And I would like to present my Certificate of Congressional Recognition to this wonderful Mayor of Kirishima, Japan, Mr. Shinichi Nakashige.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Congresswoman. Our next special guest is also somebody that is very important here in the local area, especially in the Japanese and Japanese-American community. It is the Consul General of Japan in Los Angeles, Mr. Kosei Murota.

Good evening. I'm Mayor Jeff Kojimolone of Alhambra, Mayor Shinichi Nakashige of Kirishima, city council members of both sides, and Congress member Judy Chu. And this same guest. It's my great pleasure to be here for this special occasion. Before getting on to my script, I wanted to share my heartfelt honor to have met Gary Yamauchi, former mayor of Alhambra, and who initiated all the process of friendship between the two great cities. Well, as for the U.S.-Japan relationship, the Congress member referred to all I should have pointed out. So I should focus on rather local side. Four years ago, Mayor Maloney contacted the consulate office with a request to have his letter to Mayor Nakashige translated into Japanese and sent to Kirishima City. Normally, our office does not do this. But an exception was made upon seeing Mayor Maloney's determination and dedication. And with our small support, a conversation between the two cities began about forming a sister city relationship. I only became consul general in LA in August last year, so I wasn't aware of this beautiful story just until last week. Maya Milani is my close friend in LA, and he hasn't mentioned this beautiful story. Actually, although we have met more than 10, or 15, or maybe less. There's not a lot of time left. But actually, well, the reason I mention that is I really want to share with all of you saying we, the consulate, sometimes do something nice. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the enthusiasm and dedication of both mayors, city council members, and staff from both cities. Thanks to the hard work and commitment, I am delighted the sister city relationship between Alhambra and Kirishima is being made official at the signing ceremony tonight. Sister city ties in so much more than a formality. Rather, they serve as a real investment in our communities. There are approximately 40 sister city relationships between cities in Japan and Southern California. Many of them have used these ties to enhance education, cultural understanding, economic development, and public infrastructure. I hope Alhambra and Kurishima will make the most of the new relationship as official cities. Please continue to strengthen these bonds for future generations with meaningful projects and initiatives. Please know that our consulates are always eager to support you in these efforts. Best wishes and congratulations to both cities and its residents on this special occasion. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Consul General. I do want to say that the Consulate of Japan in Los Angeles primarily is there to to help with Japanese nationals and to coordinate the ties between the Japanese government and the local governments. But they've also served as kind of a nexus for a lot of the Japanese culture and Japanese American community in this area as well. So the consul general has done quite a bit. towards that. And I want to say that the only reason I didn't mention that story is because I forgot it until you remember me just now. It was something that I was very interested in doing, and I really appreciated the help of the consulate at that time. So lucky for us, right? So without further ado, I would like to bring up the mayor, Mayor Kirishima. Shinichi Nakashige, who's going to be addressing us in English. So give him your full support in this address. Mayor Nakashige, the floor is yours. Thank you.

I'm very nervous. Good evening. My name is Nakashige Shinichi, mayor of Kirishima City. I am joined by our city council chair, Tokuda Shuto, as well as four other Kirishima City officials. For the six of us, it is truly an honor to be here tonight. Today marks a momentous day in the history of the cities of Alhambra and Kirishima. I am excited to celebrate the long awaited signing of our official sister city agreement. Thank you so much for graciously welcoming us here to your city council meeting to host our formal signing ceremony. Spanning across the Pacific Ocean 10,000 kilometers apart, the relationship between our two cities has its origins in 2007. Thanks to the esteemed efforts of Alhambra's former mayor, Geiri Yamauchi, whose grandfather originally hailed from the Kokubu district of Kirishima City. Through precious continued exchanges, such as friend Mayor Jeff Marley visited Kirishima in 2022. Our bond of friendship and mutual understanding has continued to deepen transcending borders, languages, and cultural differences. We have built up an alliance of trust, piece by piece, leading up to this day. It is my sincerest belief that this sister city agreement is both a manifestation of that bond, as well as a great step toward building a new, stronger future. A predictable world, it is vital for us to learn to understand and respect each other, human to human, but also region to region. Through this sister city agreement, we can look forward to new cultural exchange in all walks of life. from education to tourism and trade, granting new opportunities for the people of our cities to look to the wider world around them, particularly for the younger generations who will inherit the future of this planet. Let us join together. support each other and continue to foster this wonderful relationship of ours. With that, I would like to extend my deepest thanks to all who have contributed your time and efforts into making this signing ceremony a success. May each and everyone of you living in good health and good fortune. And here's to the eternal friendship and flourishing of the cities of Alhambra and Kirishima. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

as the mayor mentioned Kishima officials did prepare some documents that we will co-sign and we will each keep one copy of it one sides in Japanese thankfully one side is in English so we'll go ahead and do that and then we do have a plaque we'll present to the mayor after the signing ceremony so I will come up

Thank you. This is beautiful. Thank you. Mayor's Kanji looks far better than my scribbling.

I'll go ahead and read it, if that's OK. It says, the sister city agreement, the cities of Alhambra, California, USA, and Kirishima of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, hereby recognize each other as sister cities. The purpose of this reciprocal agreement is to further develop a relationship based on mutual trust and respect. The cities of Alhambra and Kirishima and their respective citizens through active exchanges in a variety of areas such as culture, education, tourism, and the economy will strive to further friendships and deepen their mutual understanding. We hope this relationship brings our communities closer together and enhances each other's cultural experience. This present agreement is created in duplicate in Japanese and English languages, both texts being equally authoritative and effective upon the date of signing, July 27, 2026. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'll take the, I'll take. Yeah, let's do, yeah, we'll do one of these.

Okay.

And then we have one more little formal presentation. We have the city plaque with the key to the city on it. This is presented to the honorable Shinichi Nakashige mayor. and the Municipal Government Delegation of Kirishima City, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. On today's date, in commemoration of the close and enduring sister city relationship between the cities of Kirishima and Alhambra by the Alhambra City Council, Mayor Maloney, Vice Mayor, and Delegate Stadler, Council Members Ross Mazza, Noya Wang, and Catherine Lee.

Thank you.

So this plaque is made out of a traditional form of tin making from Kirishima City. It's a very, very old tradition that spans hundreds of years. And so that's why we've chosen to present this plaque this time in this traditional form of tin.

And it says, in honor of the signing of our sister city agreement, city of Alhambra, city of Kirishima, hereby commemorating our wish for an eternal and everlasting bond of friendship and mutual understanding. This day, July 27, 2026. Very nice. Very beautiful.

Thank you.

Yeah. Okay. One more. OK, thank you. Thank you.

we have two more ceremonials and then we'll get into the to the regular business of the of the council so I just wanted to wrap that up and say thank you to everyone for for being with us tonight to commemorate that thank you to the delegation from Kirishima I should have also mentioned that they had the traditional tin the tin craft making and of course the the the Shochu is very famous in Kirishima also so but that's for after the council meeting okay so thank you for that we appreciate it please we have a couple more ceremonials and please stay for that and then you can I think there's the next stop after that so I would like to to move to a certificate of service for Joseph Iniguez Joseph was recently retired after 31 years of loyal service to the Parks and Recreation Department in the city of Alhambra. And I'm going to go ahead and present a certificate going up there.

Is it up there?

So in order to get these plaques, you either have to be sister city or you have to work for the city for 30 plus years, right? So, Joseph, thank you for your dedication to the city for all this time. If you've been in town and our delegation, I guess, got to see a little bit of some of our parks, but they are spectacular. They're always beautiful and ready for the community to come and enjoy. And it's such an important part of our town here. So thank you so much for that. We'll get a picture and then I'd like you to say a few words as well. You knew you had to give a speech, right? I kind of started it. Okay, let me, actually, before that, I also, we have a certificate of recognition on behalf of Senator Sasha Renee Perez, former mayor, council member here in Alhambra, too, so she wanted to make sure you had that as well.

Okay. Thank you. Very good.

All righty.

Well...

It's been a pleasure working here for the past 31 years. It's been a real pleasure. I mean, you meet so many people working with the city, not only with coworkers, but the public itself. I've seen so many changes in the past 31 years here in the city of Alhambra. not only within our parks growing and improving all the time, but the whole city infrastructure just growing and becoming a better city. So it's a hard thing to leave something like this when you see so much progress being done throughout the city. But now it's time for me to progress in my life and enjoy my life. So that's where I'm at now. And thank you very much for all the years I've had here.

Special thanks to my director, Mike Pasquale.

Sure. And I do have my family here, so everybody come on up for a photo.

So our next item, ceremonial presentation is a presentation of a certificate. to a termed out member, right? Are you termed out of the Alhambra Youth Commission? This is to member Natalia Rosales. Natalia, come on up. We do have term limits for the various commissions in the city. Most of the time, it's eight years. But in regards to the youth commissions, it's less than that because youth grow up, and you go off to do big, important things. So Natalia is graduated from a wonderful school up on the hill, Flemish Sacred Heart Academy. And I want to present this to you on behalf of the University Council.

And you get to say a few words. You ready?

OK. Thank you. And Ross wanted to come up.

And before the picture, I also want to thank Ms. Rosales and congratulate her for three years of service on the Youth Commission. Thank her family as well for allowing her to do this. You know, I know it's been a very busy four years for you, a very illustrious four years at Vashaw. Congratulations and wishing you all the very best in the next four years of the chapter of your life. And hopefully we'll see you back in Alhambra, serving in Alhambra a little bit more like your mom and other family has. But all the best to you. Congratulations.

Thank you, Mayor Maloney. Thank you, council member, for appointing me. Thank you to the other council members. I've just learned so much from being on this commission, interacting with the community that's so amazing, being a voice for the youth when you know, we need it, is such a life-changing opportunity. And I'm so grateful to be a part of this beautiful community that is so close to my heart. And I can't wait to continue to be civically engaged wherever, you know, life takes me. And I'm just really grateful. And thank you to my fellow commissioners, to my mentors, Rose and Bree, and to anyone that supported me and specifically supported the commission. So, yeah. Oh, I'll be studying journalism and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Thank you.

So that concludes our ceremonial. So if the delegation wants to move on to its next stop for the night while we stay here and .

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay we have next we have public comment period. If you've been here you know we have two public comment periods we'll do this initial public comment period for 30 minutes. The time limit is three minutes per person. Anyone who wishes to speak for five minutes can wait till after all the items are addressed or if we don't finish in time but I think we will today. So we're going to have up here first is Justin Love.

Thank you for having me.

I'm glad that the Japanese delegation got to go for this. My name is Justin Love and I reside in downtown Alhambra along the Main Street corridor near several commercial businesses. I'm here today to support a review of local statutes governing noise ordinances in mixed-use commercial and residential areas. I share a common wall with a restaurant kitchen that has an air intake fan installed just a few feet away from my living room. This fan operates seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Unfortunately for me, this fan falls just under the allowable decibels while my doors and windows are closed. I no longer open my windows on a nice day. Instead of opening my windows at night, I run my air conditioning. I used to appreciate how Main Street would quiet down at night. I no longer experience that. I like that Main Street is lively, and that's why I moved here. But I believe that it is possible for the commercial businesses and residents of downtown to work and live together as long as there are reasonable city statutes governing us. I urge the council to adopt a resolution reviewing the allowable noise and vibrations tolerated from commercial businesses along the East Main Corridor. Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Next is Colin Campbell.

hello hi um honorable mayor and city council members i am colin campbell ceo of adapts out of south pasadena former resident of alhambra and my children live in alhambra currently I'm here to request consent to build a critical infrastructure upgrade at 72E Glenarm Pasadena site for a smarter, safer LA County. Our proposal integrates a fusion reactor. So fusion is a different power source to power a dual purpose strategy, an underground desalination plant for water security and a dam behind JPL at Millard Canyon to protect our county. The hub will host Stargate AI, providing our police, fire, and EMS advanced real-time risk assessments and life-saving coordination. There's an incentivization plan for those who join this effort to enhance LA County's infrastructure, supporting the union's ongoing negotiations with Pasadena while providing safe, high-tech jobs. I propose this to Altadena, LA Board of Supervisors, Pasadena, South Pasadena, and Monterey Park. And I ask Alhambra if you'd be willing to join this initiative. I recommend focusing on reducing our highest tax on fossil fuels by moving to fusion. One gallon of ocean water is the equivalent of 300 to 600 gallons of gasoline. This move would also rebuild critical infrastructure, ensure clean water supplies, build life support, and provide high-tech jobs locally. We have a veteran-led capacity to execute this today. The budget has been secured. I urge the Council to endorse the project for a more resilient future to join the Alpha Team led by Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff of the White House.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you. We received your written public comment, too, so thank you.

Yes, that's part of it.

Yeah, thank you. Next up is Mary Hosokawa. Yet, Mary, yet.

Oh, lord, all person. Good evening, esteemed city council. First, I want to say, whoever's in charge of organizing those wonderful concerts at the park, thank you so much. They're so fun. And I think I've seen a couple of you out there shaking your tail feathers, so keep it going. Thank you so much. So I want to continue my campaign to bring a Trader Joe's to Alhambra and some better stores and nice family restaurants. I stopped by the Chamber of Commerce to see if I can get some advice or direction on how I can move this along. But they were having a water leak or something, and it looked pretty scary, and I think somebody needs to campaign for them, too. So that didn't go anywhere. I called the realtor, whose name is on a big banner at the property where Big Lots was, and... Party City. And just because I wanted to confirm a rumor that another Ross is going in there and Aditi's. And so I haven't heard back from him. I'm hoping that that's just a rumor and really my home goods and marshals are going in there. But honestly, another Ross, I think I said that last month. Why do we need another Ross and another discount retailer? I don't want us to look like San Gabriel with their monstrosity hotels and their crowded strip malls. But maybe we can take a page from Pasadena or even Pico Rivera. If you've ever been down Pico Rivera, we might learn something. They've converted former industrial complexes into open-air shopping centers and mixed-use office and retail zones. They've converted into things that can be used by their community. I'm no expert on designing a thriving business community, of course. But I do know that a city that does not bring in the kind of businesses that elevate the look of the city and make its residents proud to shop there and spend their dollars there, they will spend their dollars in another city that has those kinds of businesses. So in the meantime, can I at least get my Trader Joe's? And maybe someone can put some clothes on that male mannequin on Chapel Inn. Main Street, who's wearing the bondage wear. Thank you so much.

Thank you. If we could have a Trader Joe's go on, it would have been done years ago. So it's something we're working on. Thank you, Mary. Next is Yuan Yinzi. Do we need a translation for this? Are we ready to go on that?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. We are ready with that as soon as possible. We have Wen Xin, the Mandarin interpreter from the language network, is on the line. You may start interpreting as soon as Ms. Li begins to speak.

Yes. It's Mandarin?

Yeah. OK. Translator, can you want to start on that?

Thank you. Actually, I received a fine for parking, and then I came here to actually ask for a discount to lower down the fine, and I provide a reason. They just ask because I say that because I am a low-income party, that's why they asked me to fill out a form. They need me to wait for four weeks, and I will receive a mail for the determination.

. . .

Then I went back, and it was February, and it was March again. Two weeks later, he sent me a letter. I wrote a check on March 21st, and it was 70 yuan. I forgot the deadline he gave me. At that time, I was on my way back to China in early April. Before I left, I sent him the letter. I sent him the check as well. I left. Later, in May, he sent a letter saying he didn't receive it. He didn't say he didn't receive it. He said he was going to punish me. He said I didn't pay. He said he was going to punish me and add another 50 yuan. Later, at this time, my daughter was here. She called me and talked to me. I said, I have a record. She said, I'll pay for you. I said, no way. But after I came back, I looked at my statement, the bank account. OK, we'll let them.

After four weeks, I received a mail saying that they are not able to say that they actually know regarding the determination that I still need to pay for this $70 fine. And I got no choice. I just went there and put the cheque inside because I want to pay for that fine. But they say that they are not able to receive this payment immediately. I need to mail it to another department. I wait for two weeks, and I receive a mail, which is I need to pay this check and mail it again, which is I done this on March 21st. And then because I need to go back to China on beginning of the April, and I just mail it again with the cheque, and then I just go back to China. I came back about May, and I received a mail saying that they need to fine me again because they did not receive the cheque. And I need to pay another extra fine for $50. But after that, I received my bank statement saying that actually the $70 is being charged on May 14.

. . . . . . . . . .

I said I would pay in advance, but he thought it was all my fault. So I don't agree with that. Because I did everything as you said. I had to pay for it. He didn't let me pay, he had to let me remember. So this process, so the last responsibility was pushed to me. I said this is the truth. That is to say, this 50 yuan, I said I should pay. Actually, I should pay. You add that 50 yuan, you have to punish me for this 50 yuan. I don't agree with that. Right.

After that, last week, I checked again and found that $70 had already been deducted. Then my daughter paid again. I went downstairs to ask about it. They just told me they could only refund me part of it. I say that I had tried to pay in advance, but they refused. acted as if everything was my fault. I don't agree with that because I followed all of the instructions from the first of the beginning. I even came here to make the payment, but then they wouldn't let me to pay that instead. And so in the end, all the responsibility was placed on me. That's my point. I agree that I should pay that $70, but I do not agree with being charged of additional $50 of the penalty. That's why I'm here to discuss today.

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for coming. Can we have... Yeah.

Yes, it would be better for you to leave any email or mail for our staff to be in contact with you.

Okay thank you for that. Next up we have Christopher but I can't read the last name. Crespin. Come on up Chris. Thank you.

My name is Christopher Cressman as I said I'm a member of the Alhambra men's club. I've been there 38 years. I work at Almancer a couple Saturdays a month as a marshal. And I don't know how long Trune has been running Almancer but the course is horrible. The fairways are dry. The sand traps are in poor shape. We keep hearing that they're not getting approval on sprinklers or other things that they need to make it better. But when Jerry Whiz ran this course two or three years ago, it was immaculate. Immaculate. As I said, I work on Saturdays, and I get complaints constantly from golfers that come in saying, hey, what happened here? What happened to your fairways? What happened to your greens? What happened to your sand traps? And my answer is, I don't have an answer for you. June runs it, Fernando runs it, and it's just downhill. And we're trying to find out, is there anything going to be done to improve the course? I mean, you guys make a lot of money, whether it's good or bad, because it's always full. But we golf there every week. I golf there every Sunday. And I have been for 30-something years. And this is the worst condition I've ever seen it in. And the reason we're here is just to ask, is there anything you guys are going to do about this? I mean, we keep hearing words. We keep hearing words at our men's club meetings every month. But it doesn't look any different. Nothing looks different. It looks the same. It's looked the same for at least four or five months.

So, and you are, sir?

My name's Hector Arnelas.

Yes, you're the other one.

And also with the men's club, too. We hear that, well, one thing that we have to consider is that that course is not really for us. That course is played a lot by the junior members of a community and elsewhere. They have tournaments there all the time. And it's a smaller course, and a lot of kids come out and play on Saturdays, and they have tournaments, too. We're not... We don't want to lay blame, because there's blame everywhere. We want the course to be improved. It's sad to go out and play, because before, if you had issues, and we played other courses, we played Pasadena, we played Whittier Narrows. Those courses were long, and that's why people play them. They're regular. long courses, but our course before was immaculate. People liked to play in Alhambra. It was like a little jewel. If you're a golfer and you want to have a good course and have a good time, you'd come to Alhambra because it was shorter, it was immaculate, the greens were nice. And I know over time you need to keep investing in it and improving on it. One of the things that we keep hearing is that Issues with the city. When it comes to equipment, you're hesitant to spend the money. And they have, like, the equipment was like, we would hear, five years old. And it should have been updated sooner. The fairways, they improved half the fairway, not the fairways, the sand traps. Half of them, nine holes, were improved. They got new sand in them. The others are hardpan. So when you're playing golf, you go out and one's real fluffy, one's hard. And they said in two or three years, we'll do the other nine holes. It's like me painting my house, half my house, and then two or three years, I'm going to paint the other half. Now that golf course is special. It always has been special in this area. El Monte doesn't have a golf course. You can take South Pasadena doesn't even have a golf course, but we have a golf course, and it's a nice golf course, and we like playing there. But the conditions, and we're asking for your support. They say that you do help and you do spend the money, but it has to be more... Has to be more.

Immediate.

Yeah. Immediate. And can't be lost in the bureaucracy. And I know you have a budget and there's certain things that you have to spend on there. Maybe it's not a top priority. Before there was members that used to play on the golf course. So it was kept up. But now it isn't. So we are here to ask you and represent the members if you can continue to support the golf club. and improve as much as you can support them financially and improve the golf course for us.

Thank you both for that. I'm going to ask staff to give us the council some feedback on what's going on over there. It's it's honest it's not something we discuss all the time. But thank you for bringing it to our attention and we will get a report on it and look into it. Not to my knowledge.

No no no. Thank you. Well, thank you.

OK, next comment is from Mr. Toilet. All right.

Thank you very much. Amazing city councils. It brings me a lot of good memories that when we take those Japanese city council here and I want to thank our mayor and all of the amazing council members for that amazing presentation. I was originally want to talk about the public toilet in Almanza Park, but today I decided to delay that topic a little bit. Unlike you, all of you are amazing Caucasian Americans, and I am actually an illegal immigrant. I'm not even a citizen. So my great-grandmother was a comfort woman captured by Japanese military. And I don't know how many of you understand the meaning of a comfort woman. Maybe our city manager is an expert of that, or maybe our city attorney can help translate about that. But basically that means that a woman was captured by the military soldier for the purpose of providing sexual services to Japanese soldiers during the World War II. So because of that, I never get a chance to see what my great-grandmother looked like. I never get a chance to see that what my grandmother looked like. And the Japanese government did not recognize us as a comfort woman was a thing until early 2000, 50 years later. So that is definitely something I'm really happy about, that we are making a friendship, greater relationship with a foreign government. We can just completely forget about Pearl Harbor. We can completely about World War II. Unlike you, I actually decided to major in history with emphasizing war because of Japan, because of Japanese military. So I just want to communicate with our amazing mayor, amazing council member, amazing our maybe our city manager that maybe you can feel how I feel right now, Mr. Mayor, when one of your family, one of your wife, one of your daughter became a certain prestigious comfort woman. or maybe another time that one of your family members will be captured and as a sex slave. So you can understand how I feel at this moment right now. And then I definitely appreciate specifically this one, this council member, because I called him so many times that using a cell phone, playing a cell phone in the council meeting. I actually provided several times to the city attorney's office, but this time when we were talking about Japanese, he never used cell phone. I thank you very much for your amazing job today.

Thank you. We'll go, that's, unless we have anyone online. Okay, we'll go to public hearing. First is item number four. This is a public hearing to adopt an ordinance relating to zoning text amendments, municipal code, zoning amendment, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Do we have staff presentation?

Yes, Mayor. This evening's presentation will be given by Senior Planner Megan Wu.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. The items before you tonight are a zone text amendment, a zoning map amendment, general plan text amendment, and general plan land use map amendment, all of which are proposed in conjunction with the work effort to update the city's objective design standards and develop focus area design guidelines. Before I hand it off to our consultant to provide a presentation on the work effort and the deliverables, I'd like to briefly explain how these documents work together. As a refresher for all in attendance today, the general plan is the city's long-term vision or blueprint for growth of the city. And the housing element is the chapter within the general plan that focuses on planning for housing. The city's adopted housing element includes programs to establish design guidelines and objective design standards. Design guidelines provide recommendations that encourage high quality architecture and reflect the city's vision, while objective design standards are clear, measurable requirements that state law requires us to use when reviewing qualifying development projects. The zoning code is the document that helps us to implement the general plan and is where the objective design standards are housed. And the design guidelines are separately adopted documents, not a part of the zoning code. I want to make it clear that this work effort and the actions recommended today do not propose to change any physical development standards, such as density, setbacks, height, or parking. Those standards remain unchanged and are not a part of this work effort. And with that overview, I will pass it off to Jamie Williams of RRM Design Group.

Thank you, Megan. Good evening, mayor and council members. I'm very excited to be here tonight. It has been an awesome project and wonderful working with you all and staff and your community to produce the work product that we're reviewing today.

I think we need to start the presentation. We have a PowerPoint for you guys this evening, hopefully. We'll give it a second. Okay, no problem. It's in your packet.

We can probably go right along without the visuals, but if you would like to look at your packet. It's the last exhibit. There we go.

Attachment 6 on page 308. OK. So I'm good.

Well, thank you. So tonight, I'd like to give you a brief overview of the work product. As Megan mentioned, this is a set of design guidelines and a brief refresh of your existing objective design standards that are in your code today. It's very interesting and important to recognize that the city's gone through a lot of transition over the last few years. You did your general plan update. You did your zoning code update. That zoning code included objective design standards. But the final stage was really to develop these design guidelines. And so that's what this effort is. And we started off two years ago. And throughout the last two years, we have had a number of opportunities to engage with yourselves, as well as a lot of events and workshops and different opportunities to hear from the community. And they have really helped shape the guidelines that we are presenting to you today. As a reminder, this, as what Megan said, this is not changing any development standards. It's not related to single family housing or any of that. It is really focusing on these commercial areas within your city. So I wanted to start by just providing a brief overview and acknowledgement of what the purpose of this project is. The purpose is really to elevate the design quality of future development within the area. Objective design standards are driven by state law. Every city, if they choose to regulate future development, is required to have objective design standards in place. And that gives you a very focused, standardized way to regulate design in future multifamily and mixed-use housing projects.

Sorry, can I just pause you very briefly? I just want to make sure the members of the public can follow along in this presentation. I understand we can't pull it up on the screen, huh? The slides?

They're in the process of loading it. It wasn't, for some reason, they don't have it in the back. So they have a PowerPoint for item five, but not for item four. So they're in the process of getting it uploaded.

Can we maybe just point to the audience and people listening online where they can find the slides? Sure, absolutely.

So if you want to go ahead and just reference the slides that are available online in the packet, and then you can move us through and we'll go through our, do you need a copy?

I just don't know what the numbers are, but we can sort that out. Okay. So yes we can. I am currently on page 315 of the staff report or of the packet it's online. And that slide says objective design standards. And this slide describes what the requirement of objective design standards are. So they must be clear and measurable. They must have no personal judgment. Uniformly verifiable meaning that anybody who references them understands that they are standards and they're regulations and there's no room for interpretation. The next slide, 30, I think 316, talks about the difference between design guidelines and standards. And it's important to recognize that the standards will go into your zoning code and those are regulations Anybody, you, 10 people, 20 people, they would all interpret those regulations exactly the same. Where design guidelines allow for a little bit more flexibility, they provide direction, but they also allow for some design interpretation. Slide 317 is an example of a graphic that shows an objective design standards. They are already existing today in your municipal code. And they cover topics such as building design and site design requirements. But they have been freshened up a bit because some state law has changed since the original zoning code was adopted. Next slide. And they also incorporate some new topics that are of importance that came out of the community engagement process. Items like pedestrian orientation, building articulation, addressing design related to drive-throughs and service stations. Those have been now codified and they are available within that zoning section. The second work product that we developed over the last few years is design guidelines. And if you're following along, it's a big blue screen that shows the different territories and areas. The design guidelines are focus areas. They provide design direction for East Main Street, West Main Street, and Valley Boulevard.

The design guidelines are, Megan, I'm sorry.

I don't know how to tell the page number. Oh, there we go, 319. The design guidelines are prepared for multifamily, mixed use, and non-residential works future development. And then if you move on to the next slide that has a pretty building in the background, each set of the design guidelines is organized with four main chapters, crime prevention through environmental design, site design, building design, and utilitarian design. The next slide, 321, is talking about CPTED, which is just what I said, the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. And it's really providing design direction to deter potential crime by providing guidelines such as that promote eyes on the street, additional lighting, and similar topics. Next slide 322 site design the site design section in each of the three design guidelines has been divided up to include topics such as vehicular access where buildings should be placed how parking lots or street frontages should be landscaped and the like. Next slide. The building design talks about building forms, massing, roof lines, windows and doors, all things related to the actual building on the site. Next slide. And then the utilitarian design talks about all things utilitarian, so trash enclosures, recycling enclosures, ensuring consistent materials, ensuring mechanical equipment is screened, and the like. And then we go into a bit of an overview on the next slide, 325, which talks about each one of these design guidelines. And I'm going to take a couple of minutes to highlight some of the things that are special about each of those work products. The east main focus area is from Chapel to the eastern boundary, San Gabriel boundary, with two sub areas that are included. And that division happens at Granada. Next slide, 326. The reason that that sub area is divided into two different sections is because the development character is very different. So the area to the west of the center street, which now just, Granada, sorry. is larger lots, CVS there. So the guidelines really talk about something completely different than the more historic old town area. The next slide is the one with all the pretty plants. And we talk about landscaping and the different ways to improve through landscaping. The next slide shows again that the boundaries of the eastern Main Street subarea versus the old town. And then the next slide, which has the In-N-Out Burger, shows examples of how the East Main section promotes high quality design because there's a lot of commercial sort of chain commercial development there. So requiring a higher level of design for that type of development. And then the next slide shows the boundaries of the Old Town area. And in the Old Town area, we received a lot of community input and feedback. In particular, that was an area of significant interest. And all of that has been integrated into the design guidelines. So promoting pedestrian-oriented development and additional desire for some architectural styles. So the next three slides show the three styles that are the most preferred for that area and design recommendations related to that. There is the Spanish Revival style, There is the traditional Main Street style, and there's the Art Deco style. And then if you are to look at slide 334, you'll see an existing building located within the East Main Street. And slide 335 shows if that property owner decided they were interested in redevelopment. This is just an example, but it's a cool example because it shows that it now really embraces that Spanish Revival look and feel. So there's exposed rafter tails, there's corner tower elements, there's tile roofs and the like. The next example shows part of the block that's there today. And then if that property owner in the future decided to redevelop or remodel their property using this traditional Main Street design style, You can see on page 337 what it could potentially look like and things shown there are embracing the original stone finish, adding new lighting and updating the signage, removing the storefront coverings so that those nice big windows are captured. So that's the East Main set of design guidelines.

Then we go into the West Main I was just about to jump into West Main Street, so that's the very next slide.

Thank you.

All right, there's the East Main concept that I just described.

Good job, guys. So now you can advance to the next slide, please. So now we're getting started on a second set of design guidelines, and those are focusing on the West Main focus area. And as you can see, it goes from Atlantic to Chapel, and it covers a number of different zoning designations, CBD, CMU, specific plan, and high density residential. Next slide. It's in this particular area, it's very much built out. So there's a lot of building that's already there. So this would likely be more of a remodel or a refresh, but there is some opportunity for additional development in the future. So the areas of focus for the West Main area are pedestrian-oriented spaces, enhanced streetscapes, and really focusing on a brick as a primary building material. And the next few slides show what that might look like. So this is showing a vibrant pedestrian corridor with enhanced streetscape pavings. Next slide. This shows accent planting and new lighting, other additional public realm improvements. Next slide. And then this one is showing the design guidelines focusing on that brick building material. Next slide. This is again in a before and after example. So this is a building that is there today. And if that property owner decided to redevelop, next slide, you might see something like this where there is additional brick at the storefront, that there's additional windows and fresh and new awnings to make that building look a little bit brighter and nicer. Next slide. The final area is the Valley Boulevard corridor. And that corridor extends from either end of the city limits. Next slide. The Valley Boulevard area is really today has a lot of auto-oriented development. And so a lot of the guidelines are focusing on improving that auto orientation to bring buildings closer to the street edge, to creating a more pedestrian environment, to adding more landscaping. Next slide. So you can see this is talking just about those topics, some public spaces, buildings at the street edge. Next slide. We also write guidelines that are focusing on gas stations or fast food restaurants to really elevate the quality and the design of those building types. Next slide. There's also a reference to the adjacency to Cal State LA. And on that western boundary, an opportunity to create a university district. So the guidelines for that area talk about this being a unique area focused first to attract students and young professionals, potentially additional housing in that area, and ensuring that the future development is attractive to that particular district. user group. Next slide. So you can see that in these next couple slides, there's additional landscaping, pedestrian plazas and walkways, public art, gathering places. Next slide. Here's some more examples of just nice gathering areas that would be included in future development. And then the before and after. Next slide. is this is an existing building, and next slide, you can see if additional high-quality materials and building forms and additional window treatment was all improved, then you would yield something like this. Next slide, final slide. So then with that, that is my overview. I think Megan's got some more things to chat about. But just a reminder, we have your objective design standards in your code. You have your three sets of design guidelines. They work together to really enhance and improve the future development opportunity and quality of future development in the area.

So now we're going to move into the discussion on the various amendments proposed today and how they relate to the overall work effort for the objective design standards and design guidelines. Next slide, please. So these amendments include the elimination of the West Main corridor master plan overlay district zoning classification. This master plan was adopted in 2006 as a part of a redevelopment agency project. Over time, the functionality and relevance of the master plan have diminished. So the proposed West Main Street design guidelines are meant to provide updated guidelines that better reflect the city's current vision of the West Main Street area. Next slide, please. So here you can see the zoning map. On the left is the existing zoning map with the master plan overlay district. And then on the right would be the proposed with that master plan eliminated. Next slide, please. And then as well as here, we carried over some guidelines. The tree palette or the plant palette from the master plan has been carried over to the design guidelines. Next. as well as the street furniture. On the left is the master plan, and then the right is the design guidelines. Next slide. Along with that is the zoning text amendment. So there is a chapter in the zoning code just for the master plan. So that is being completely eliminated, and along with the updated objective design standards that Jamie discussed. Next. And on top of the zoning map amendments, getting rid of the master plan overlay district, we also are fixing some inconsistencies with a couple of parcels. So here on the left is the existing, and then on the right is the proposed. Next. Also to eliminate the master plan, we need to amend the general plan. It does impact three pages where the master plan or the specific plan is mentioned. Next. And like the zoning map, the general plan land use map is also being amended to eliminate that specific plan overlay district. Next slide. And with the inconsistencies as well, on the left is the existing and the right is the proposed for the general plan land use map. Next slide. Okay, so with that, staff recommends that the City Council adopt the proposed zoning text amendment, zoning map amendment, general plan text amendment, land use map amendment, and the focus area design guidelines for West Main Street, East Main Street, and Valley Boulevard. Staff and the consultant are available for any questions you might have.

Great, thank you for the presentation. Do we have any public comment?

We do have one raised hand on Zoom.

Okay.

Louis McCammon, you may unmute yourself.

Good evening. This is Lou McCammon, 105 North Cordova Street. Sorry not to be with you in person there tonight. I have a cold. Figured it best not to share my germs with everybody there tonight. On this particular item, I've been following it. It's had lots of presentations along the way, lots of public input. Basically, it's a very good program. I would urge you to go ahead and adopt it. If you get a chance, I would really appreciate it if you could, since they didn't have it loaded early, you missed seeing the first half approximately of those slides in color. In the online agenda packet, everything was in black or white. whereas color was involved in item five and the other items, which made it very difficult to really see things in the floral palette. They showed very vividly on the in-color board presentation here, but they are really very muted. You can't really tell the difference in the pictures in the online agenda packet. Ditto for the zoning code. map and the general plan land use map because those are color coded maps. When you go to black and white, it's really very difficult to see the gradations and the changes. So if you get a chance at the close of the discussion here to go back and just insert those first couple of slides in color for you to view before voting, that would be useful. I'm glad to see a lot of people appreciate the old town days of the nation coming in from the area from Granada to the San Diego border. I know there's been some comment about not just doing mission style, but also incorporating a lot of the styles that exist there from the 40s and 50s. And I think that's also covered in here. So thank you very much. Go ahead and go to the center slides for us and we'll be helpful for both you and the public. And go ahead and pass it after that. Thank you. Good night.

Thank you, Lou. Glad to hear from you. We were worried when we didn't see your face here in the chamber. So thanks for being there. Any other comments? Okay.

no comments in the room so council members any comments start to the left thank you thank you staff for this comprehensive plan I know it's a flexible plan because things are always flexible right we have to we have to plan or PROJECTING, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, THE REALITY SOMETIMES CHANGES, RIGHT? SO IN TERMS OF VALLEY BOULEVARD BEING IDENTIFIED AS THE UNIVERSITY DISTRICT, I ACTUALLY REALLY LIKE THAT IDEA BECAUSE WE ARE SO CLOSE TO NOT ONLY CAL STATE LOS ANGELES, BUT WE'RE ALSO I THINK THERE'S A KEK USC. And of course, there's also Griffles over to our, you know, just right to us. And I think those things are important for us to recognize that they're there. And however, I also know that things might change, you know. So I'm glad that this is a flexible plan, and I look forward to seeing it come to fruition. And I like the idea, I'm sorry, Mr. McCammon, I love the idea of the mission style. I just think that's so beautiful, and Alhambra is Alhambra, you know, right? It was... from Granada, so the Spanish style fits us so well. And that's about it.

Thank you. Council Member White.

Thank you, Mayor. First, thank you to staff for a tremendous amount of work to get us here. It's a very comprehensive update, and I'm really glad to see this. Before we get into the discussion, I would like to ask staff for some help here. This is a very technical topic and there's a lot of planning terms. I think a lot of us have difficulty understanding the different terms and how they interact with each other. So I'm going to ask staff to please explain as if you were explaining to a fifth grader the terms, the planning terms here. What is the objective design standard? What is the design guidelines? What is general plan? What is housing element? And what is zoning code? And how do they interact and work together for the city?

Hi, thank you.

OK, yeah, so I guess the best way to put a general plan is that it's the blueprint, the long-term vision for the city. And so where we want the city to go, it has different elements, the housing element. uh open space uh environmental justice and all those different um i think seven or eight different elements and the housing element is uh just one of the elements uh in the general plan and the housing element also contains multiple programs. And some of the programs do mention requirement of objective design standards and design guidelines. And so these objective design standards are required enforceable standards that developers have to abide by, while design guidelines are more flexible, kind of inspirational, aspirational guidelines regarding architectural style, and stuff like that, that Jamie just went over. Does that help?

Yeah, yeah, it does. Thank you. And a follow up on that one. So in this in this ordinance today, I know there's a lot of different things. There's amendments to general plan, housing elements, zoning code, and these are just changes we're making to some of our existing documents. I mean, our general plan, the blueprint for how we set up division for development for the city has been there for many, many years. And these are just some amendments to add to it. And can you also help us understand what changes or provisions in this ordinance are required by state law versus local policy choices?

Yeah, so I would say we would categorize the required by state law, the objective design standards. Those are the standards that are in the ordinance. More local policy decisions would be the focus area design guidelines. That's adopted separately in separate documents. It does not live in the zoning code. Thank you so much.

That's very helpful. So the objective design standards are required by state law. And that's what developers, if I were a developer, I'm coming in today, I'm looking at Alhambra to invest. And those are the rules that I have to abide by. Correct. And then design guidelines are this document that provides kind of a vision and what we prefer and recommendations for them. And it will help them kind of get a direction of what the city is looking at. Yes, exactly. Thank you. And then also big picture question. As I understand, the objective design standard is required by law. So we didn't have one. Now the state law requires us to have one. So we're establishing the objective design standard here. And with this objective design standard and also the guidelines that we're putting together and providing for whoever is looking at developing, how will this improve Alhambra's development in the next decade? And more specifically, how do these guidelines address trees, shades, green spaces, places for people to gather, for neighbors to hang out, and public arts? These are the things that our community experience every day. So can you share a little bit about that?

Yeah. So I'm going to go ahead and address it in two parts. So it sounds like the first part of your question is, well, you also mentioned that we don't currently have objective design standards, we do. So those were adopted as a part of the 2024 overhaul of the zoning code. But now we're kind of fine tuning and enhancing those objective design standards to make them stronger and to make them more objective, to make sure that anybody who reads the standard will read it, everybody who reads it will read it the same way, and they're completely measurable and enforceable. And for the guidelines regarding landscaping and trees and stuff like that, so the guidelines do address in each of the focus area documents. They do address those, you know, street trees and landscaping in different ways in each document, but also we still have in our objective, or in our zoning code, parking lot landscaping requirements, regular landscaping requirements, street tree requirements, so they're kind of Again, they work together, the guidelines and the objective standards, to support each other and help us see the vision that we want to as developers come in and want to redevelop projects or completely construct new buildings.

Thank you. I know that we have a tree ordinance, and I think during strategic plan session, we talked about this. We'd like to see how we look at options to strengthen our tree ordinance. How does the tree ordinance interact with this guideline or objective design standard?

Yeah, so they're completely separate. And I don't believe that they interact or coincide with one another. So both stand. But the tree preservation ordinance, well, it doesn't dictate what trees can be planted where. But it does indicate if somebody wants to remove a tree, if it's a mature tree or if it's a protected tree, then they would have to get the proper permits for that tree removal.

Okay, got it. And then how about places for people to gather in public arts? Is that addressed somewhere in the design guidelines?

Yeah, I would say it's most addressed in the Valley Boulevard focus area design guidelines. As Jamie discussed earlier, and it was mentioned in the presentation, there are in the university district specifically, it definitely incorporates a lot more of places for people to gather,

And this is in the design guidelines, but not the objective standards.

That specifically is in the design guidelines. But we do also in our zoning code have requirements for common open space. And we have a chapter just for art in public places.

Got it. So in the zoning code, that's a strict requirement that developer will have to meet. But in the design guidelines, we tell them what we recommend that they go in the direction yes got it okay thank you i i i i'm very happy to hear that and i think that that's where um i i think of myself living in the city as a resident that live here dine here shop here walk around the streets and take my kids all around the all around the city and i think about trees shades i think about white sidewalks i would love to see restaurants go outdoor and have you know lively outdoor space and people can dine there and there are places for neighbors to gather drink coffee have a chat and those are the things that I would love to see and I'm happy to see that there are incorporated in the in the design guidelines as well as the objective design standards. Thank you.

Other comments.

yes I want to thank you for the presentation great presentation I want to also thank staff for making this possible in a great investment in the city and moving us in the right direction I think it's been 2021-2022 since we last talked about it or we initiated the talk but again love the presentation love the concepts that were provided amazing to see what the possibilities are with some of these older buildings in the city The I guess my question are along the lines of what Council Member Hwang was asking. Like going forward like who I mean you know we kind of talked about enforcement of this and these are guidelines for developers. do we ensure that these guidelines get enforced I think I'd like to see maybe at some point in the future having our DRB designer view board involved and enforcing these obviously it would take you know some time in getting them up to date getting them familiar with the guidelines and of course just making them a part of every project how do we make sure that the DRB, if they are going to be involved in this, gets up to date and has a part in making sure that these guidelines get applied?

Yes. So the design review board will be involved in implementing these design guidelines or incorporating these design guidelines. So really, any projects that come through that are required to go to design review board, these guidelines and new standards will be implemented.

but as far as you know timeline it's that's hard for us to say because it is up to you know developers and what I would add to what Megan said is that design guidelines are unenforceable the city cannot force a private investor or architect to follow the design guidelines The guidelines are a tool and a resource for architects and contractors, builders, as an incentive. If you build to these guidelines that the community has adopted, there's clarity and assuredness that when design review board reviews it, we're able to say, as staff, it complies with all of the design guidelines plus more. If an architect decides, I don't want to build built or a business says, I don't want to have a brick facade in downtown. I want to go with an aluminum facade. As staff, we can't say no. We can discourage it. We can say, the guidelines say brick in the downtown. Ultimately, the design review committee has to evaluate it. We tell architects, hey, if you're not following the guidelines, we cannot guarantee that it will get through the design review committee. They might have some concerns. The meeting might get continued. We would encourage you to follow those guidelines. And so that's how we would implement and encourage the use of those guidelines.

Got it. Very helpful. And that's exactly what I'm looking to have happen. So yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

I'm glad that Council Member Mazza, you asked the same question I had in mind. How do we enforce the guidelines? Because as advisory, they're just tools for DRB. But I think hopefully that... Whoever the architect are, the developers, all respect our guidelines. So there should be no conflict by the time they submit their plans, designs, that it will just be a smooth process for DRB to to approve the design. I think I remember years ago, and I think it was 2021 that you remember, yes. I was not happy to hear some of our residents express their true feelings about Alhambra that certain parts of Alhambra were not very pretty. or they use the word ugly, quote unquote. So as a council member, I did not like to hear that at all. But I was very happy that this council in 21, 22, we, basically want to design guidelines in order for those remarks to slowly go away and that our residents will have more pride in the city and many of our residents have lived here for a long long time years 20 years 30 years and so i think this this document today i I don't know how many pages there are, but I think I read a part of it, to be honest. I think this document is definitely a very good start for us to push this city forward into a city that's transformed by our new designs. And there are many designs that are out there right now, I have to say, on Valley Boulevard, as well as East Main and West Main. Some of the designs, unfortunately, by my opinion, in my opinions, they're not conforming. They kind of clash in some instances. And we have so many beautiful craftsmen homes in the residential areas, as well as other Art Deco designs on Valley Boulevard, I think. So hopefully the guidelines will become effective tools that will be respected by the time the application goes through DRB and then eventually the Planning Commission.

And let's see, I think I have a couple questions.

So I think when you made a presentation, the word flexible, flexibility in these design guidelines, you said flexibility. So kind of walk me through that term. How flexible can we be with these guidelines? So let's just say a design applicant submitted something

Yeah, we'll use East Main as an example. In terms of flexibility, we originally in the earlier drafts when we had the neighborhood meeting proposed a mission, one architectural style, mission style along East Main. And it could be like mission beige red tile roofs or Santa Barbara tile, Santa Barbara style with white colors and red tile roofs. the public outreach from that, they started arguing at the public outreach. Because some people said, hey, if Bunnenberger wanted to do a facade improvement someday, what would they have to do? And we told them, if you adopted a design guideline and a standard that said mission all along East Main, then Bunnenberger's Art Deco architecture would have to go away. And they would have to transform into a mission site. And the neighborhood didn't like that. They said, well, we want to keep Bunnenberger's Art Deco. So we said, OK. Went back to work. RRM created a mission style for some of the newer developments. We created an Art Deco style for the Art Deco types of buildings. And then we created a traditional Main Street type of style that had large picture windows and displays. And just that old Americana architecture so that different buildings along East Main could fit within a certain style and not have to change or change the character of East Main. And that flexibility is available there. Related to other parts, like on Valley, Adele had mentioned University District. One person who was a former professor at Cal State LA attend some of the meetings, and she voiced opposition to having a university district. From a city perspective, we have no ownership over what we call it. In the future, if there is enough data and feedback and the university district isn't working, we can call it something else. We can call it a West Valley. village, or we can call it Emory Park neighborhood. We can make up whatever name the council and the community feels that it's the best identity and placemaking for that area. but the area itself we thought was so unique and special we should have created a district for it so that it can help residents and make it more pedestrian oriented when you're driving off the 710 and you're going down valley you can see there's a lot of bones in that area it looks and feels like it has so much potential we just have to wait for some of the automotive uses to go away some of the vacant service stores to transition into something else. There's a church there. But you can easily see the potential there for a little cafe or a little antique secondhand store. And so the plan allows for that flexibility for that transition of land uses.

OK. That was very informative. Thank you so much. I have a question. Just out of curiosity. So you know that building that is on Garfield and Valley in the corner, northeast corner, across from the Hats? What style do you call that? It's very decorative.

We call that a very nice, historic-looking building that needs to be preserved forever.

Okay, that's a very smart answer. It used to be a theater, I think. It used to be a theater. Okay. So that's all you can give me a very beautiful design. Okay, I'm just curious.

I've lived here long enough. I know I'm going to get my butt kicked if it changes into anything else.

I'll quote you. But I guess I would just curiosity. But I think that Alhambra, like I said before, there's so many beautiful architectures that over time have not been highlighted. Maybe layers of paint went over it and so on and so forth, especially Art Deco. styles. But I just have to say that personally, there's a couple of developments on East Main that I actually felt that they really have the architect and the developers have been very respectful to the city. And I don't want to mention their names, but I think that it's very obvious. I really like the architecture style they take on before these guidelines are going to be adopted tonight. So I do appreciate those developers that they took the time to really listen to the community as well as the council. I think this has been many, four or five years of lots of communication, lots of talking, people getting upset, people wanting something more. And I think that all that work and time has not been wasted, even though at times have been confrontative, unfortunately. But I think... You know, when you want something quality, it's going to take works. It's not going to come easy. So I like what we have today in front of us. And I thank the staff and the consultant and everybody that have put together this document for the council to look at tonight. And that's it. Thank you very much.

Thank you all. Can I ask a couple of questions then, too? Well, at least a couple. First is, we did touch on the historic preservation, historic buildings and the preservation ordinance that we have adopted now. So how will it work in real life? There's a building that's designated as historic or historic district, but it might conflict with the design guidelines or the objective standards. What happens?

That's a case where we'll probably have to finesse and massage what the homeowners trying to do with their historic resource and the objective design standards. They generally don't conflict too much. Because if you have a historic property, you're looking to maintain and preserve, and you're not really looking to add on and build new. And that's where the objective design standards would come into play. Same for the design guidelines. If you're looking to preserve and enhance and repair and maintain a craftsman home or a Spanish colonial home, there are other architectural books and resources that that homeowner is probably going to use. And if it doesn't fit within the design guidelines as long as they can show a frame of reference to the design review board they're going to be fine. A lot of these design guidelines is going to be to control newer development or large major remodels of buildings.

I think I get that.

So, I mean, it's a practical matter and we're going to have to look at each case as it comes up. But I think it's a good idea. I mean, I like the examples that we saw here of, you know, what has been and what could be with these design, with the guidelines and the new standards. And I think one of the things that I've learned over the years is that you know as the state essentially is kind of taking more discretion away from the cities that one of the things that we're left with is these objective standards as long as we have these objective standards in place we can sort of at least control and require these new projects that are coming in to to adhere to those standards. Right. I mean that that's our power and that's where we have I know we've come across that you know planning commissions had those issues and we've actually come across it here. You know the question is kind of what can we do. And the answer can pretty consistently has been well you've got to develop objective standards or apply the objective standards that you have now. So I'm really happy to see this going through. Obviously, a lot of work has gone into this, and it's exciting because it's coming on the heels of all these other planning documents that we've done. So it's timely. I hope we didn't have too long of a gap there where projects snuck in and are going to be kind of oddballs out there. But it doesn't seem like that, at least at this point. So that's good. I do want to shift. I have some questions in sort of a different aspect of this. I like all the building stuff. I like the zoning cleanup. I like... almost all of what we've seen here. The one thing that kind of stuck with me is the landscaping and the plant pallets and that kind of stuff. And I'll just go back. Recently, we've done, we've adopted a hazard mitigation plan. We adopted a sustainability plan. Been looking at a lot of different things around the city. And one thing that's shared between the hazard mitigation plan and the sustainability plan is a focus on native plants, native plants native to this area, Southern California. And here I saw a lot of the plant palates were, some of them were tropical, many of them were non-native. There were a handful of natives. I feel, you know, I love plans. It's very exciting to be doing a lot of these plans, but they also kind of worry me because of things like this that might be inconsistent and conflict with each other. And I don't want them to conflict. I was thinking about how are we going to implement these portions of the plan, like the hazard mitigation plan, and sustainability plan. And this is sort of more of an operative document than, well, maybe equally as operative as some of those. But it should be consistent. If we're calling for natives in two of the other documents that we've passed recently, we should emphasize that here. And I think that obviously landscaping and what trees you're planting was not sort of the primary focus of this. But I think it's a real opportunity for us to take seriously what we've done in other plans. I was first reading I don't know how we do it. I don't think that that this was agendized as a landscaping plan but I really would like to see that change with a with the primary focus on natives and the elimination of some of the suggestions for the non native trees and and vegetation including around the parking lot areas. I think we should really focus on appropriate native species And then if we just can't come up with, you know, we live in one of the most biodiverse regions in the entire world. And if all of the millions of species of plants that we have, we can't find one that fits, then maybe we can go to an appropriate drought tolerant non-native. But I really think we should take away some of the things that, you know, have been planted sort of without much, this is not a criticism of anyone here, but without much thought in history. We go around and I think, They must have had a package deal on crepe myrtles years ago because they are everywhere in this town. They're not natives as far as I know. They don't provide a lot of shade. They're very strong trees because a car crashed into my neighbor's house several years ago, and the only reason it didn't go through their front window is because the crepe myrtle is there. But for the city and street trees, I think we owe it. We should think about things like shade and suitability as a native species, drought tolerance. habitat for the bees and the birds and that kind of thing.

So how do we do that here?

So I just wanted to mention that we did consult with our public works parkway inspector who advised on street tree species to include in the guidelines. So the guidelines do indicate a few guidelines stress using drought tolerant landscaping and native trees. I think it does include other non-native trees just to be, that can be used as part of the palette, but it does stress drought tolerant and native species.

Right. And I appreciate that. And we have wonderful trees like the Western Sycamore. We have the Redbud and we have, I know there are some like an ash tree that's sort of native and Palo Verde is in here a couple of different times, but I mean, is there a big, Was there like groundswell of support for the golden trumpet tree from the rainforest or the Chinese lantern tree? I mean, what are we trying to meet with those trees that we can't meet with the native? I mean, why can't we just take them out?

I think it may have just been for variety of trees, just to provide a variety of options. But if it is the wish of the council to remove those from the guidelines, we can do that.

But I don't have anything against them other than they don't really, you know, they're involved in this environment and this biome. So, you know, we're trying to sort of get to this point where we have this, you know, we're being responsible in all sorts of aspects. Design stuff has been, it's beautiful. It's really nice. I would hate then for them to go out and have this, you know, wonderful design streetscape. And then you have a tree that requires, you know, 10 times as much water as its neighbor because it's listed as a tropical tree. or that simply doesn't belong and isn't providing support for the natural habitat here. So I don't know how to do that technically. I want this to move forward tonight, but I also want to sort of, I mean, can we do that with an asterisk to say, can we look for suitable native alternatives to the non-natives that are listed in here for the streetscape, the low-lying vegetation, and for the trees itself? Is that possible to do that without having to...

I think what you could do is just ask that where vegetation is called out in the plan and in the guidelines that the preference is for native and a non-native species may be used in the rare circumstance, or a non-native species may be used. I don't know how you want to qualify a non-native. But if you say the preference and priority is for use of native species, and non-native will be the exception to the rule, something like that in your guideline.

What's the teeth in something like that?

Well, again, these are guidelines, right? So when you're talking about objective design standards, it's this shape or it's not this shape. It's pretty simple. When you're talking about guidelines, It's going to be reviewing and approving body. It's going to make suggestions. Why don't you tweak this facade? Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? Why don't you change this vegetation, et cetera? And if the guideline clearly indicates that that's the priority and the preference, then somebody's going to have to make a really strong case for why you wouldn't do that in order to get approved.

As far as the guidelines go, I think that would be sufficient. It's the same thing as your aluminum siding versus brick, right? It's the same sort of model there.

Yeah, the other alternative we were going to offer up is the different species of street trees. The non-native stuff was referenced in the street tree public realm. In the guidelines, it's four pages. I mean, it's a carryover from the old plan. We can easily remove those four pages, and the document still is strong on its own and point to existing plans like the sustainability plan to use.

I mean, I think that maybe removing that carryover and referencing the preference for native trees just like we want brick in the downtown area and nice shapes on Valley Boulevard. I think that would be good. But I also understand, though, that there are objective standards for vegetation around parking lots and that kind of stuff.

Or is that also guidelines? No specific species for landscaping and objective guidelines. Next question would be, can we include that in there?

I don't know. I think it has to be a physical development standard.

So like I noticed around the Toyota parking lot, they did a nice job of kind of creating a bioswale. And I don't know that all of them are natives, but I know that some of them are natives. I mean, I don't know how they did that. And I don't know if that was pursuant to a particular objective standard but like do that I mean how do we can we require that can we urge that how would we do that we can look into it it's not part of this work effort okay okay so I I do want to put it put a pin in that then because I'm you know trying to think you know I don't recognize that not everything be 100% native all the time but that really should be kind of the trajectory we're going towards and whatever little tweaks in our plans going forward we we need to make I think that would be important to focus on that to be compliant across the board so maybe tying it together so if we have in the guidelines a stated preference for natives first. We remove the carryover for the non-native tree species in particular. And then any other area where they're talking about landscaping, just express a preference for an appropriate native plant palette. Is that OK? And take out the invasive species from our plan.

That's doable.

OK, so I'll put that out as a potential motion for my colleagues. Sorry to geek out on the native trees.

I will move to approve with the amendments or the changes to native trees.

I'll second.

OK, thank you both.

We have a motion and a second as this motion as amended.

Lee. Yes. Mazza. Yes. Wang. Yes. Andrade Stadler. Yes. Maloney.

Yes. Thank you. Great presentation. Thank you. I know there's a lot of what was one of the biggest reports we've seen in a long time. So thank you very much for that. Next presentation is a citywide street lighting master plan.

This evening's presentation will be given by Dennis Olin, Director of Public Works and Utilities.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. As part of the strategic plan, Council instructed staff to develop a citywide streetlight assessment master plan. Brian Gaze from EVARI Consulting, who helped develop the plan, will give a presentation on the methodology of the plan, what was assessed, and recommendations going forward. Also will be available for any questions afterwards. Thank you. Great. Thank you.

Thanks Dennis and good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the council. My name is Brian Gaze, CEO of VARI Consulting. We are a data collection and analysis firm based in San Diego. I'm joined today by my colleague Dan Sanders who is our electrical engineer on the project and helped develop some of the preliminary cost estimates that you see in the report. Next slide please. A quick overview of what this project entailed and we'll get into some of the details around some of the recommendations in a minute but essentially these are sort of the high level bullets. The first piece was a citywide data collection so One of the things that we do as part of these initial data collections, we go out and we physically visit every one of the lights in the city. So what we're doing there is we're looking for visible corrosion, missing hand holes, any maintenance issues that we might see. Other things are important to document, the wattage and the type of fixture, et cetera. That informs a lot of our performance analysis. What this does is we evaluate the lighting system's performance against some recommended practices developed by the Illuminating Engineering Society. to kind of get a sense of how the lights are performing. Are they meeting certain recommended light levels based on different land use types and activity areas and things like that? Another piece that we do is to, you know, I presented at a lot of these sorts of meetings, and one of the questions that comes up all the time is sort of, Where are the dark spots in town? And is there a relationship there between light trespass or 311 calls or crimes or vehicle collisions? So we kind of look at different layers and look for patterns. That's not a core piece of this project, but it is one of the things that is in the report and talks briefly about some of the findings that helped inform some of the recommendations for a recent grant that the city pursued. So I'll talk about that in a minute. What became very apparent to the project team early on was the focus of this effort was largely focused on what are called series circuits. So in the interest of sort of common language here, series circuits are like those old Christmas lights that we had when we were kids where if one light went out, you always warned, don't let this one go out because the whole string will go out. There are some lights in the city that are still that old series circuit. Most of the lights, and this is detailed in the report, are the more common parallel circuits. But these series circuits constitute about 15% of the total network. And about 90% of the total cost to convert would be these series circuits. They are generally higher voltage. They are generally much, obviously, more complex to repair because you have a whole, you know, sometimes 30 lights go out at once as opposed to just one if one burns out on a parallel circuit. Once we will talk a little bit about sort of how we prioritize which of these 30 series circuits to move forward with implementation and potential conversion, some high level cost estimates around that. And then we'll talk briefly about kind of next steps from here with regards to some potential ways to fund improvements. Next slide. So again, this is just a quick breakdown of what we found from our team in the field. Really, it's a very small print here, but you have about 7,000 lights citywide. And of that, about 1,300 are already LED. So LED are generally about less than half the cost of the old sort of high pressure sodium lights. LED, most folks have been to Home Depot before. You're familiar with kind of the different color temperatures and things like that. You do have some... The majority are these high pressure sodium. There are some LEDs, and I'll show you the location of those in a minute. Most of the lights in the city are those sort of traditional roadway cobra heads. Those are obviously. 20, 30 feet. They have a mast arm. They're great at lighting roadways. Generally not as good for lighting pedestrian sidewalks, crosswalks, that sort of thing. They're intended to sort of light the vehicle travel way. One of the nice things about the city of Valhambra is that you own the majority of your lights. A lot of cities in Edison territory, they are somewhat beholden to Edison in that Edison owns and maintains all of the lights. So because the city does own the majority of the lights in the city, it gives you a lot more flexibility in what you do with them. We'll talk about that in a minute. And then lastly, the lights are generally, sometimes in older cities, you see a little different types of concentrations. But for the most part, the lights are generally evenly spread across all five councils.

Next slide, please.

Again, you can't quite see the top line there with the closed captioning. But essentially, the series circuit, converting these lights, these lights that are currently high pressure sodium, The overwhelming majority of those lights to convert are parallel circuit, relatively easy to convert. I'm not going to make too much light of the engineering where it goes into, but it's essentially you unscrew the old, you screw the new one. A lot of times this happens as part of a corridor. Sometimes that replacement is put on a developer. Sometimes it's a result of a knockdown or a burnout, and then maintenance crews go and replace that. If you're replacing the series circuits, because of the complexity It's much more expensive. So even though series circuit lights only make up about 15% of the lights in the city, it constitutes about 90% of the total cost. So repairing this is a great way to save some money, invest in other priorities across the city. And these are just some quick highlights on what happens. One fault darkens an entire circuit. So a lot of these circuits are 20, 30, 60 lights. One of those goes out, the entire circuit can go down, depending on where it is along the series. Another thing that we see a lot more of in this day and age is copper wire theft. Right? When you have these older and any type of fixtures that are powered with copper wire, they're target of copper wire theft. So what happens is someone comes, steals the copper wire. The light goes out. Potentially multiple lights go out. Crews go out, repair the copper wire, and it works until it's frankly stolen again. And so in essence, what this process is doing is really treating the symptoms rather than treating the cause, which is the fact that it contains copper wire in the unit. And then for the most part, most of these series circuits It says here, past service license, out of code. So in essence, they're getting older. As they're reaching the end of their life, they're being replaced. But again, it doesn't really solve the issue that we're seeing with copper wire theft. And just as one other quick slide takeaway, there are about 831 lights on these 30 series circuits citywide. So a small number, but still not insignificant. Next slide. This is just a quick map of where those series circuits are, and you'll see those here in red. So again, relatively evenly distributed across the city. The purple there at the bottom, that particular circuit, I believe, is under final design or construction. Yeah, it's in construction. So that one is on the map for illustrative purposes, but really the focus of our series circuit prioritization effort was looking at kind of the characteristics in each of these neighborhoods with regards to community need based on collision histories or some of these other community factors that we use to help assign a weight. Because obviously converting 30 series circuits at once is quite expensive, so it's a way to kind of develop a phasing plan that reflects kind of a deliberate attempt to phase this in in a meaningful way. Next slide. And this just quickly is where the LEDs are located, right? So in essence, you can see that these were generally, these are already LEDs. These would not be lights that would be converted. They're already converted to LED. Gives you an idea of kind of where they are. And you can see that they're generally put in certain neighborhoods or a corridor as a portion of a corridor is redone as part of redevelopment. Those generally get upgraded. So it gives you kind of a quick idea of where those other, those existing LEDs are. Next slide. this is a one of two different sort of photometric models that we developed for the city in essence city staff will have access to this this is the sort of the way the light hits the ground in the city right this is basically based on the information from our inventory we also drove every lane mile of the city with a light meter that records a light reading from the center of the travel lane every second so we have very very detailed lighting information that is a maybe not the focus of this meeting or the plan but it is a deliverable the city staff has access to for subsequent work with developers or other projects as they come along. So it's a pretty powerful tool that is a portion of this project that staff will have access to. Next slide. All right. So really quickly on sort of why we're doing this. Obviously, energy savings is a pretty significant piece. I know the city, I believe, spends budgets about $900,000 a year for energy costs for street lighting. believe last year was eight hundred sixty eight thousand so right about that same number but it is a pretty significant cost another thing that I tend to focus on given that the city has recently adopted certain initiatives I know there's a active transportation plan there was a local road safety plan lighting is a proven safety countermeasure so a lot of times when I'm in these meetings one of the things that I say is you know keep an eye out for grants and you know maybe in six months you'll be ready we were fortunate enough to have the federal safe streets for all grant application call for projects be active during this project. So we're able and appreciate that the council's guidance to pursue that a safety grant for South Garfield, which I'll explain here in a minute. But one of the things here is that, you know, we do have a here's kind of a little bit of those corridors that we see these you know high rates of collision lighting is a proven safety countermeasure regardless of this current grant funding cycle but we encourage the city to think you know in ways to leverage outside funds the federal grant program I believe was an 80-20 I think it's 20% local match 80% federally funded so next slide and this just shows a little bit of those priority corridors and in essence based on some of the Staff input and some of the things that we looked at, you can see in red, those are the highest priority series circuits that we've identified throughout the corridor. Orange is kind of high priority, and then the slightly lower priority are green. This does not mean we do this in order. I think that's a very important takeaway, is that these are really grouped into three buckets. If the opportunity comes up, like you'll see on the next slide, please, to bundle a number of different series circuits, regardless of priority. This was a corridor that had relatively high crash histories. And so we said, we know that there are four series circuits here along this corridor. We have to develop a grant application that emphasizes pedestrian safety, but also makes lighting a big piece of that funding opportunity. So you can see there that was a way to, if we're successful in the grant application, potentially four of those circuits could be funded 80% by the federal government. Next slide. So I think the big thing here that we're talking about in terms of our recommendations, and again, I apologize cut off by the close captioning.

But in essence, there's a series of key recommendations here.

First and foremost, we were definitely recommending that continue the efforts to replace those 30 series circuits. And we'll talk a little bit about some of the costs and approaches to that in a minute. One of the things that came up in conversations with staff is the idea for a targeted solar pilot. I'll speak briefly about solar lighting and kind of where it fits into the sort of toolbox in a lot of these strategies here momentarily. There are a number of relatively low costs. Again, I don't want to make light of it, but unscrew the old light and screw in a new one opportunities for retrofitting of the parallel circuits. And a couple other just general recommendations that we like to include. kind of the right size dark sky compliant LEDs generally there's been a lot of discussion I think a lot of LEDs in the first generation maybe starting about 10 years ago were very very very bright white so most of the recommendations that we make now and that we see for residential communities are much more of a warmer light no more than 3,000 Kelvin which is considered warm white and the sort of the spectrum of color temperature so you know the bright white lights that you might see in other areas those are not recommended those are generally too bright for residential context and certain species and habitats and things like that and then lastly this is a pretty common recommendation as well so lighting has come a long way in the last decade or two and just like most of you have you know have a dim light bulb in your house you can you know adjust lights on a dimmer lights can now be controlled with you know controls now and you can dim based on different contexts we're not recommending any dimming per se here but making sure that any purchases of new lights are controller ready so that if there is a desire to in at some point in the future adjust dimming to save energy or potentially design a lighting environment that's a little more tailored to that specific location you're available to do it but it was a little bit outside the scope of this project to sort of recommend specific dimming profile things like that so next slide okay we're going to talk briefly about the some of the costs in essence the city City allocates about $500,000 a year for this program. I think the sort of high watermark in funding was in FY24-25 when about $890,000 was programmed for this particular program and this line item. As I mentioned, there are a number of different funding sources. I believe we're here today to touch briefly on some of the implications of a potential solar pilot, so I'll get to that in a minute. But this is just later parts of the project or later parts of the report outline some of the different funding sources beyond sort of local funds and how to leverage state and federal grants for helping offset some of these costs.

Next slide.

So talking briefly, this gets a little bit, and happy to go into a little more detail in question and answer. But in essence, there are a number of different ways to fund this program. We looked at a couple different scenarios to fund a, basically to fund this city-wide retrofit, so those series circuits and those sort of low-cost screw-in, screw-out replacements. Doing it over five years, we estimate it would cost just under $8 million per year for a total cost of about $39 million. Taking it out to 10 years, assuming a 5% escalation, you're looking at more like $5 million a year, $50 million total cost factoring in escalation of about 5%. Next slide. I want to talk briefly, though, because this came up in conversations with staff about what might be possible with solar lighting. Obviously, when you have solar lighting, you are eliminating a lot of the electrical costs. You're eliminating just a lot of the, and we can get into the detail here in a minute, a lot of these specific engineering costs. There's two scenarios that we looked at. The reality is that we're probably not going to go wholesale retrofit every existing pole. We do think that most of these concrete poles that we see have the ability to support certain manufacturer's design. So you would not be looking at really an actual cost would probably be between either one of these two scenarios. So retrofitting existing poles, if you were to retrofit every existing pole, you'd be looking at million dollars per year for five point two total over the course of five years do you see a pretty significant change there of reduction in costs ten-year program taking that this sort of the retrofit of all of the you know non LED lights citywide over ten years you'll be looking about seven hundred thousand dollars per year so a little bit more than is currently set aside and then a six point seven total after escalation If you did have to replace every concrete pole, which, again, I do not see that being the reality, but that's really the only way to cost it without getting into a detailed, you know, pole-by-pole analysis across all 7,000 poles, the costs do rise because you're putting in new hardware there to about 13.5 total, about a little under $3 million per. And then across 10 years, you'd be looking at $17 million, about $1.7 million per. for that. So you can see it's a pretty significant cost savings to go with solar. And I'll just talk a little bit about some of the solar options. Next slide. Most folks have probably seen the news that the city of Los Angeles is moving forward with a solar pilot. The city of Los Angeles maintains about 230,000 lights. And so they're actually looking at an initiative in part in support of the Olympics, to basically convert about a quarter of their lights to solar street lights over the next two years, largely driven by those same issues, right? Copper wire theft and broken or dark lights. In essence, you can see a little bit of how they funded it. And they do have pilots underway in a couple different neighborhoods. One of the ones that I thought was most comparable in terms of size and scope in Lincoln Heights, 91 lights. So that works out to about $5,500 a light to do a solar retrofit pilot. So next slide. These are just some examples. You can see essentially kind of a modern look, solar panel at the top, batteries. And Dane can talk a little bit about this during question and answer. But this is one manufacturer that sort of has that panel. There's some engineering analysis that goes into wind loading and things like that. But these are some examples of what's possible. You can see kind of in a couple different contexts there. Double Cobra heads in the median in the upper right, some other sort of more pedestrian scale lights, and then kind of a single Cobra. Next slide. There's another manufacturer where the solar panel is actually the pole wrap. So in essence, the solar here, the energy is collected from the pole. You can kind of see it there on the left. And obviously, it's a little less visible, I guess you can say, in terms of the panel itself. But again, same example of some different ideas and, you know, manufacturer options that are out there in the market today.

Next slide.

So, recommended next steps. Really, we're here to sort of discuss the funding path. As I understand it, there's a recommendation for a solar pilot, which we'll talk about in a minute. And we'll talk a little bit about, you know, obviously continuing the approach to safety grants and taking some of the data collected for this effort and leveraging it along different roadway safety grants. and then you know essentially start capturing the savings that can be generated regardless of if you move forward with solar or just a regular conversion. Really quickly next slide. Solar pilot and conversations with Dennis and his staff we had identified it doesn't have a very catchy name, but it's S 142, which is a series circuit 142. This particular circuit is in the sort of southeast corner of the city. It was a very high priority according to our analysis. One of the nice things we liked about this is it's a mix of roadway and land use types. It's not just a single residential corridor, a single commercial corridor. It'll give us an opportunity to evaluate potential resident feedback performance etc using a couple different scenarios in terms of the roadways and again sort of the land use context another nice thing there was minimal tree interference here so every one of these light every one of the lights in the city was sort of graded for tree interference or specific conversions like can you get a bucket truck in there effectively so there was minimal minimal tree interference I think actually zero of the 30 lights that are on this circuit had none of them had any sort of barriers to you know you have to call an arborist or something to delay the process you could just go up there and make the change relatively quickly the series circuit on the our cost estimate to do this the traditional way was about seven hundred and forty thousand dollars we believe that the potential cost at solar would be this is very back at the envelope math based on the sort of the la example fifty five hundred each you're looking at potentially about $200,000 if you were to do a solar. But that is a guess. Obviously, it would be part of a competitive bid. But potential for a significant savings over and above what it would cost would be the powered conversion. And next slide. And with that, I'm really open to questions. I know there's a lot of numbers here. We kind of threw a lot at you. Happy to answer any questions on the plan itself or discuss the merits or potential drawbacks of solar or just answer any questions you may have.

Well, I guess I'll ask you a question.

So you just said.

Is this just a question? There is a public comment.

OK, sorry. I'll defer to the order of operations here.

OK. So first, thank you for the presentation. Very, very eye-opening. Illuminating, maybe.

But first, we have Mr. Toilet back with a comment.

I didn't I rode that car wrong I was trying to do the 6 and 7 not the 5 and 7.

Okay you want to sit and wait. Okay. Fantastic. Okay so you have someone.

Mayor there is one raised hand on zoom.

Let's go to zoom.

Mr. Lewis McCammon please unmute yourself.

I'm pleased to see this presentation here tonight. It does involve substantial costs that will have to be. Born over a number of years, these are very important things. I remember back when I was doing an analysis. using the city of LA's record from when they instituted four street light assessment districts in Watts after the Watts riots in the 1960s. And they used a, there were two different versions of improvement laws that they could use. One puts the cost, those were for initial installation. We wouldn't be doing this here. These are retrofits and changes. On those initial ones, to put them in, the installation assessments are made on the individual parcels. They can be paid for either as part of your property tax bill, but that's not the way they're elected to go. They're elected to go with a different improvement act, which had them, people had to make two payments a year. One was for the The principal for the whole year had six months interest. The other one was just for six months interest. And the main difference was they could initiate foreclosure proceedings within a year on properties if they just missed the six-month interest payment, which in some cases was like a dollar. Over the course of time, they had instituted foreclosures on 20% of the properties and lots, and 6% of the owners there had lost their property over the first 10 years or so of that. Maxine Waters, it was them in the first year in the state assembly in the arts field, Board of Education campaign in Los Angeles, when you're going city-wide, you always carry the bill for us, which tightened up the notice requirements. Before you didn't even have to have proof of service, you didn't even have to mail a certified note. notice if people don't lose their hops or anything you should tighten up the notice requirements that a certain size print would in English and Spanish on the notifications and so forth but just what we have here I would say prioritize those circuits where if one light goes out the whole series of lights go out and I'm pleased to see the look at And I think we should definitely proceed with those as funding is available and pursuing grants that will help us out on this. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Lou. Okay, we were with Catherine.

Go ahead.

Oh, I just have a question regarding the program cost.

So you said that earlier you would recommend to replace the 30 series circuits with parallel circuits. OK. And are they going to be solar lights or just conventional lights?

Yeah so again the series circuits are essentially think of them as like contained networks right. So there's most of these circuits there are 30 series circuits citywide still to be converted. Most have about anywhere from 20 to 60 lights on each. As of right now this is a sort of a receiving file report and there's no specific recommendation. they can but it was more just to kind of give some planning level cost estimates to the cost of conversion whether it's a solar conversion whether it's a solar pilot whether it's just kind of a power to conversion essentially replacing the series circuit with a parallel circuit which is what's been what the city has been doing so far on a number of series circuits it's just kind of to give again planning level cost estimates for for consideration

Okay, so we are not really approving anything in particular, but I just want to go into more of the program costs. So five-year program, 7.8 million average per year, and it says 39 million nominal total after escalation. Can you explain that to me? What does that mean?

Right, so that is the 7.8 per year would be to do the... conversion with no solar so that is okay it's just kind of i don't want to say business as usual but it is sort of a continue the existing approach which is to retro or to replace the series circuits as you've been doing the estimate would be um if you were to finish those 30 circuits over the course of five years, so about six per year, you'd be looking at about a $39 million. And what that does, that takes the cost of a certain number of circuits and escalates it 5% a year for five years. So that's where the $39 million comes from, to basically retrofit all of the series circuits and all of the one-for-one replacements with HPS to LED. So that's that scenario. 10 years would be basically to draw out the cost of that same scope of work over 10 years. So what you're dealing with is essentially a longer time horizon, and that continued 5% escalation a year. So that's where the 50 million number comes from on that one.

OK. But these are not solar lights.

This is to do, again, a powered conversion. And solar, the same work for solar. you know, we sort of on the following slide, it goes from 7.8 per year to about 1 million per year, as the two scenarios, five years, at five years, or potentially as high as, you know, 3 million, but still obviously less than 7.8.

So it's a lot less, the solar opportunity. Significant.

Oh, interesting. In addition to, and again, I don't represent any solar manufacturers. I'm agnostic on the approach, frankly. But it's, you know, obviously there's significantly less construction costs and then obviously energy costs because it's solar powered.

Are there light bulbs to be replaced?

Solar versus the... Yeah, I mean, every fixture is going to have a surface life. So eventually, at some point, You know, those certain those solar lights would and the batteries and things like that would be.

Right. So without going through details, I'm wondering which which plan is less expensive for the city over time by saying 10 years. Solar versus the just.

I mean, everything that I'm saying is that a sort of a measured and this is sort of L.A.'s experience to sort of a measured conversion to solar in the example of L.A. know they they basically committed to about 25% of their system in two years which I think is somewhat aggressive obviously but that's the example that they're using so yes I mean solar does significantly cut cost based on everything we've seen from our research I know Dane has installed a number of solar streetlights across or supported the you know installation of solar streetlights and kind of can speak to specific use cases but everything we've seen from the planning level cost estimates it's a significant upfront savings, construction savings, operations, maintenance savings, and then energy savings as well.

I'm curious as far as the energy savings as well, how much that would be, how much savings will generate?

What would you say, about 50%? Well, the energy savings would be, yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's right.

Okay.

So any light that you convert from power to solar would be 100% energy savings at that location.

So what would be the average lifespan of a solar fixture?

I can paraphrase. The batteries are seven years, and the panels are about 20 years for their service life.

Oh, then you have to replace the battery. It's always difficult when you look at two different options. And which one is really least expensive is difficult, just like you're looking at EV versus gasoline-powered cars. So I'm just curious to see. I actually like the solar lights. I think overall, it's just less energy will be used. Plus, if there's a power outage, there should not be an interruption in lighting the streets.

So, okay, thank you very much.

Thank you. So I've got several questions for you as well.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation. One of the first things that really stood out was the fact that we're considering the temperature of the lights as well. Again, going back, I know a lot of lights were very cool and almost with a bluish hue to them versus what we know of with the incandescent bulbs, which is more of a warm tone. So I'd like to see that, of course, if that is an option. Sure. or some type of adjustability on lights. Because this is steelware, I'm not sure if you can speak on the reliability of solar lights or the use of streetlights.

Yeah. Dane, maybe you're a little... Dane does this stuff day in and day out, so I'll let him speak.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm Dane Sanders, president of Clanton & Associates. We're lighting designers and electrical engineers. So solar has been around for quite some time now, obviously. I mean, the solar panels have been around since the 70s. But solar lighting with LED has already been around for more than 10 years. We have projects that have been installed for seven years and have not failed or had any maintenance on them to date. So they are very reliable. The battery life, like I say, is probably around seven years. But when we're talking about installing something new, where we have to put new conduit and wiring in the ground, the solar lighting is, as you can see, it's about a third of the total cost. So even with battery replacement over time, it never catches up to the cost of hardwired powered lighting.

Got it. Thank you. The ones that you said you've had installed for about seven years already, are those outdoor lights, street lights? Yes, they are street lights. Street lights, okay. Appreciate that. So that's obviously a concern. I'm glad to hear that. Now, where you have circuits, obviously that's the area of priority. One of the speakers called and said that would be the prioritized area. By installing solar, would circuits just be eliminated completely?

Yes. They were just abandoning the wire and conduit that was there and disconnected from the transformers. So it still exists in the ground, but it's not powering the light anymore.

So really the whole component is the pole, the battery, and the light. That's it.

And the solar panel. And the panel, yeah. Yeah. And at least as far as we have heard so far from Los Angeles, is that these concrete poles that you have throughout most of your city are so strong and stout that they don't need any modification to hold the additional structural load for the solar panels.

Got it. Thank you. And that was my next question, is actually we talked about retrofit versus new poles. we probably wouldn't need new poles than if that was the case, right? I mean, we retrofit, which is a lot cheaper.

There will still need to be some structural analysis to make sure, and there are metal poles, so the condition of those metal poles and what the wind loading on those would need to be assessed.

And just was surprised to see that the post tops, you have some like real vintage looking post tops on some of the streets in Alhambra still. So those can be modified to solar?

Yes, with that solar wrapped pole and still look like a decorative pole. And that solar panel is flexible. It can be retrofit as well as put into a new pole.

Okay.

Yeah.

Any experience in the, you talked about the ones that have been installed for seven years, any experience with vandalism to this equipment? Is it easier to vandalize?

It's harder to vandalize because they're at the top of the pole. So you have to climb all the way up to vandalize them. It's much easier to steal copper wire out of the ground. The solar-wrapped pole... As a self-healing technology, you can actually cut it with a knife, and it will not affect the performance of the solar panel.

Okay.

On the pilot area that was chosen, I'm just curious as to why that area was chosen. That's actually in my district, and glad to see that that's happening. Can you explain again why that area was chosen?

Yeah, maybe you can a little bit more, Brian. Thank you.

Yeah this was a couple factors went into it I mean I think first and foremost I think the thing that we looked at chiefly was sort of ease of implementation so the number one thing we looked at was we wanted to make sure that if it were a pilot that it were relatively easy to implement with regards to tree interference so we didn't want to have to you know it has 30 lights on that circuit I believe we didn't want to have to call an arborist for all 30. Right, so sometimes the tree canopy is above the light, below the light. We were most interested in the tree canopy right at the light, because that would potentially necessitate an arborist, which would delay the implementation and would potentially increase the cost. So that was a component of it. We also was identified as a very high priority from our plan, which looked at a number of factors around vehicle collisions in the area, a couple of 311 calls in the area, that sort of thing, just sort of what's happening in the community. We also liked it in that it was not simply just a commercial corridor or a residential street. It was kind of because it was a a square and it touched on a couple different types of, you know, roadway types and we could evaluate performance and develop a, you know, ask the manufacturers to kind of consider different land use types as opposed to just sort of giving us one service offering and saying, hey, this is what you're getting for the entire circuit. It allows them to kind of design their best and kind of take into account, gives you the opportunity to kind of test out a couple different scenarios with one pilot, right? You can test out it on a commercial corridor, you can test it out on a residential, et cetera. Got it. Thank you.

It's also, I think, if I'm not mistaken, it's a 55 and over community near there, so they'll be happy, because there's always issues with lighting there in that area, so that'd be nice. I don't know if you can answer this, or maybe Dennis, but with regards to the cost, the The city's cost on electricity per year, I think $900,000 roughly was mentioned earlier. Do we know how much of that potentially is for street lighting, parks, things like that? Is that an easy breakdown?

Yeah, that $900,000 is specifically for streetlights. Oh, just for streetlights. Yeah, it's in the public work maintenance and streetlight district, and that's where that funds go directly for the streetlights. Got it.

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's almost a no-brainer. I think the cost of what we're saving in electricity is almost based on itself. But yeah, love the presentation. Thank you. Very informative. Sorry, love the presentation, very informative, very helpful, and can't wait to see the pilot program going into effect, and hopefully the entire city eventually converted into solar power. Thank you. That's from Wayne.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. I do have some questions about the slides. I'm trying to understand what was presented. It's very nicely color coded, and there's a lot of data there. And I just love reading them and look at the patterns. I'm looking at slide number seven. And ideally, I would like to look at slide number six and seven together, but I'll start with slide number seven. So I see orange and blue colors here. Can you explain what does the color mean and how is it the brightness of the, and then I also see like the different shades of blue. Is it the brightness? Can you just explain that a little bit?

Sure, of course. So in essence, this is essentially, and I'll try to keep this about a lighting 101 level of, In essence, this is the amount of light. This is a model of the amount of light that hits the ground from each light in the system. Orange are higher foot candles. So foot candles are the measure of light hitting the ground, basically. It's a measure of brightness. Foot candles there. So orange would be brighter. And you can see, obviously, that you have brighter light in along some of the major roadways and commercial corridors etc. And then the residential areas generally are bluer. That's not because there's a blue color temperature of light it's just a lower foot candle reading. Right. And so in essence these are evaluated to look for any sort of again kind of pardon the lighting pun but glaring imbalances with regards to you know land uses obviously light levels on a major road. It's appropriate that they are higher than light levels on a on a local street. So, you know, we look for there's no right or wrong to this. It's just a kind of a quick assessment. And this is a city staff will have access to this as a GIS map and a layer they can zoom in and get down to the parcel level and evaluate this at a much, much more detailed level. But this is just sort of a citywide summary of that.

Understood. So if I'm looking at like Fremont Valley, Boulevard, just south of Valley, Fremont, I see like more blue. And then if I go east near Robona Convent, that area, that's like darker blue. Does that mean that it's brighter on the side that's closer to Fremont and darker?

Darker blue is fewer foot candles.

OK.

Right. And so, yeah, so I guess I think a color ramp legend here would have been helpful. But yes, darker blue, it goes from sort of dark blue is the fewest foot candles, generally getting down to almost the level of moonlight, essentially, in some areas of residential areas where you have sort of lower need for light. And then it goes from dark blue through to sort of brighter blue, then into yellows, and then into oranges. So oranges are the greatest amount of foot candles along a particular roadway.

OK, got it. So now, if I look at this one together with slide number six, which is existing LED streetlights, because one of the things we're considering today is whether we'll convert everything to LED lights. So if we look at slide six right there, And I'll point out some locations. I see the patterns. I really want to understand why. So if you look at Elminster, east of Elminster, between Elminster and New, like just south of Elminster Park, above and below Valley Boulevard, that area, you see a lot of LED lights there, right? Very concentrated. But then if you go to... slide seven, and you look at that area in slide seven, thank you so much. You're switching very, very effectively. That same area is a lot darker.

Right.

And I see the same pattern in other areas. Is there a reason why that LED lights are darker than other lights?

It's not so, LED lights are not by themselves lighter or darker, right? It's a measure of wattage and some other electrical energy. In essence, I'm not sure. I'd have to look at this like on a very sort of zoom in and look at this. I would say that good to go back to the previous slide why you asked about sort of these patterns and what I can't speak to what predates my time on the project, but generally these are sort of retrofit when an old HPS fails, like one goes out or a series go out, City Cruise will come along and replace it with a modern LED. So that's why you see some sort of spots here and there. This also happens when there are vehicle knockdowns, so a car knocks over a pole or something like that. Or the city has been converting a number of series circuits. So that's why you see certain neighborhoods have already been converted in kind of a grid pattern. So to your original question about the, you know, kind of the LED output, I think that's more of a correlation than anything. I don't believe that it would have to look at the specific sort of photometrics at that location, but it's generally not. You know, LEDs, while it is lower wattage oftentimes for the same brightness, it's not like a hard and fast rule because you can have super bright LEDs. It's just the power of the actual bulb itself.

Okay. Okay. That's fine. Thank you. And then if we go to slide number nine. And so this is the prioritized series circuits. And it's color-coded. So... Red means it's the most.

That's the highest priority.

Orange is the next priority. And then it goes down to green. And then purple is the one that's already in the works. What factors goes into the determination of the priority?

So what we did there was we looked at some, and they're in the report, not necessarily in the presentation, but we looked at a series of, we collected historical records from the police department around vehicle crashes. So we pulled a number of crashes. So we look for high crash corridors with the idea that priority should be given to locations with a higher number of crashes. we also had access to some what are called index crimes these are essentially violent crimes or you know crimes that they could you know a lot of times this comes up at sort of at then these sorts of discussions that there's a belief that there's a correlation between lack of lighting and crime that doesn't really bear out but we do always sort of at least put it on a map we also look at 3 1 1 calls around lighting so neighborhoods where maybe they're seeing a certain a higher rate of outages and then residents calling in to report outages or to call to call in issues around you know flickering or dim lights that sort of thing. So we kind of look at these other sort of neighborhood factors and then assign a little bit of weight to the different series circuits based on those the sort of rate of those those incidents over you know 5 10 years.

OK, understood. Thank you. And then regarding solar, I understand that if we convert to solar, we will be saving our energy costs. And then is there any flip side for solar if we convert solar? Is there any downside that we should be aware of? What if we have rain for like a whole month? And what does that mean for the solar?

Yeah, I'll let Dane. You want to speak to that? Because I've said the same thing.

What's the catch?

So the solar panels and batteries would be sized for those worst case scenarios. So it charges and holds that charge for a longer period of time. And that is done with historic weather data and latitude of every location.

So what is the maximum time period that it can store battery for?

You can actually put that into the specifications to say we'd like to have one week of full autonomy where it will last for a full week with no exposure to sunlight at all.

Got it. So if we do that, let's say we spec it out to say we want this to last for a week or two weeks. Does that mean that it could potentially become a heavier battery that has to be installed, bigger panel, heavier battery. And then that further would translate into retrofit cost, because when it becomes heavier, then you have to evaluate the wind load on that, and then also potentially foundation work as well. Meaning the more time we need to sustain, the more cost it can be for retrofitting the pole.

In general, yes. But it's very common to have this kind of autonomy built in because people don't want the streetlights going out.

Yeah. OK. Understood. Would you say that solar panels with the battery and the panels is heavier than our street lamp right now?

Yes, absolutely.

OK. So that's why we needed to retrofit the pole.

That's why we looked at the possibility of retrofitting the poles. It seems that these concrete poles that you have have much more structural capacity than many of the metal poles. So often we would have to, in cities with just metal poles, you'd probably have to replace all of those poles to put solar on them. But the concrete poles that you have are already designed for much more structural load than is on them right now.

OK, got it. And then with the energy savings and the maintenance savings that if we convert everything to solar, to what extent can we offset the cost of doing this upfront?

Are you talking about series circuits or citywide?

Do you have both? Do you have answers for both?

I might be able to get there. We certainly have the cost analysis for the series circuits. So the series circuits will reduce the first cost by 60%. And then you have no energy bill. You're not paying any of the energy on it, and you're not. And the maintenance, you do have some maintenance costs that may be a little bit more than just LED. But I think your payback is immediate, and you never see a escalation to where you get back to that powered circuit. The cost of actually installing the powered circuit, it will always cost more when you're installing a new circuit. For the existing parallel circuits, that can be converted one for one for the LEDs, that is probably more of a cost benefit analysis and a payback period. Because you would go up and replace the LED. Well, now you're replacing an LED and adding solar, so you're adding cost. there. I haven't done that analysis as part of this because we kind of the solar part came late in this process. We realized wow there's a whole lot of potential here. So we applied that to the series circuit costing and have not done that like one for one replacement cost analysis yet.

Okay, that's fine. And that's very helpful. So basically, if we replace everything, convert everything to solar for the serious circuits, we're getting a 60% off.

Yes.

For the cost, right? And then have you done like a breakdown for the cost? If we're just doing that? How much does it cost? Because I think the numbers that's in the slides is the citywide you know they're in the millions and it's citywide but if we are just doing solar alternative for the series circuits what does what's the cost do you know all the costs that are in there right now is about replacing the series circuits so like there is in the full report we do also have the led conversion of all of lights but i think that those are

The costs are all related to the series circuits replacements.

Let me confirm my understanding. So slide 14, that you've laid out the program cost for solar alternatives, and that includes five-year, 10-year programs, retrofit existing pole, replace it with new poles. That's only for series circuits? That's not a citywide solar conversion?

Correct. Yeah, I just did some back-of-the-envelope math based on the LA unit cost. So again, LA has, it was in the presentation, it was about, again, this is very back-of-the-envelope math, but it was $5,500 per solar retrofit per individual location. Now, there are 830 lights in the city on series circuits. So 830 times 5,500 is 4.56 million. the total cost of those replacing now again this I would not obviously we'll see what the you know if a pilot comes out or it goes to bid etc but like for planning level cost that's just take the LA unit cost per light apply that to the 830 lights that are on series circuit citywide it comes out to four point five six billion in current dollars with the advanced calculating tool of the iPhone on Excel

And which number is that here on slide 14?

That one would be closest to the retrofit existing poles. But the math I did did not include the escalation. So you can see the escalation there brings it to 5.2, which is the upper left of the four cells there. So the math that I did there is based on the LA example. The math that we did independent of the LA example, because again, this came up kind of late in the process, came out to 5.2 for the same scope of work. So 4.5 using the LA back of the envelope, and then our number was 5.2. That included an escalation for five years, whereas my back of the envelope math just multiplied x times y. OK.

So slide 14, retrofit existing pole five-year program averaging $1 million per year, total 5.5. $2 million, roughly. That's to replace, that's to convert everything to solar for the street lights on slide number five. That's basically all the red. In slide number five, it's not citywide, it's only the red.

It's only the red, and that assumes no, so to Dane's point from earlier, that doesn't include, because we did not get into an individual poll analysis that would come next as part of subsequent costing. There would probably be some polls that would be retrofit, but right now we can't, you know, we didn't assess each one of the 830 polls. Some of those would probably be on that.

Got it. And then with the energy and repair savings, we're getting a 60% off of the $5.2 million for that one, right?

You'd be getting a 60% off the energy costs of ? Yeah, go ahead.

That 60% was basically the comparison of replacing the circuit, the series circuits, with standard electrical. Instead of doing that, doing it with solar.

So you have 60% reduction of cost from that electrical conversion to doing solar.

So either you have to replace the existing electrical system at 39 million, I think was the number on this other slide number was that?

$39 million on slide 13. So it's $39 million to replace the entire electrical system.

For the series circuits.

To make them parallel circuits, right? OK. But then if we go solar, then we don't need the circuits anymore.

Correct.

And that becomes the $5.2 million for five-year program.

Yeah.

OK. But it's, oh, I see, the 60% reduction is not the 5.2 million, it's the 39 million.

It's the, yeah, did I do my math correctly? Is that 60%? But it's a reduction, my intent there was the reduction of the 39 million to the 5 million for solar.

So then if I'm looking at the $5.2 million for converting all the series circuits to solar, what kind of reduction are we looking at for cost?

I'm sorry, say again.

If we're looking at converting all the series circuits to solar. getting rid of all the circuits, just convert it to solar.

That would be just reducing from 39 million to 5 million.

Is there any reduction? But is the energy... Energy...

It's already incorporated. Energy costs going forward.

Correct. To what extent can energy savings reduce the upfront cost?

Well, you're saving 100% of the energy because you don't have to pay for energy with the solar. Correct. We know that you're... What percentage? I guess it's like the series circuits are 15% of your lights. Total, you spend $900,000 on energy. So 15% of $900,000 you would save.

I would have to drill down into the energy cost per circuit of what it does. What I came up with today was what we spent on a total on all the streetlights. So I would have to go in and look at each circuit to see what each circuit is costing. I can get back to you with that. Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for all the answers. That's very helpful. So looking at this whole presentation, lots of information. You can have a seat. I'm done with my questions. There's, you know, I think this is a great plan and it's good work. Thank you so much for getting us here, for us to look at all the data and all the information. I see several important objectives here. We're trying to improve energy efficiency. We're trying to improve reliability of our street lights. We're trying to explore solar alternatives. We're trying to replace aging infrastructure, the light poles, and all that. But I think there's one issue that stood out to me that's fundamentally different in nature than the rest of the issues, which is the series circuits. So if we could go to slide five.

If we could go to slide five. Thank you so much.

There are large residential areas, particularly those near the I-10 freeway. So there's an area, Alhambra Hills, above the I-10 freeway. There's the area down below I-10 freeway. And you can see those are large residential areas. They are on a single loop. And what we experience living there is that when one light goes out, the whole neighborhood goes pitch black for weeks and sometimes months. And that to me is a very serious public safety issue. And I think I would like to see if feasible, that I would like to see that part being separately scoped, being separately analyzed, cost, and give us what it takes to address the series circuits. And those are the neighborhoods that people cannot walk home at night. They can't take walks on the streets. There are seniors, there's children, there's a lot of people. It's completely dark. And that's a very serious issue for me. And I just would like to see that we can take that piece out of this big, massive project and let's address the safety issue first. And I know that these are big numbers that we will have to consider financing options. And I think we will have options to consider. But can we first understand what does it take to get those streetlights not on the single loop first? And what does the most cost-effective option look like? How long does it take? And I think that's worse. separating from the rest of the projects, if my colleagues agree.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor?

sure thank you so thank you so much for this broad very broad plan here I appreciate all the work that's gone into it I have to agree with council member Wang because it's also her district and my district that are that are actually impacted by those series lights and so I have a couple questions they're just very simple you mentioned that they're out of code right why wouldn't we work to put them into code? That's one of my questions, because it's sort of like kicking the can down the road. I'm just saying it a little differently than Councilwoman Wang here. But you also said that it's susceptible to copper wiring theft. So We have to replace that copper wiring theft, right? We have to replace that copper wiring every time it's stolen. That is just something that is just, that's got to be expensive, is copper. I know where copper comes from. You've got to mine that. There's not a whole lot of it. So I'm just very simply asking why we wouldn't work on these out of code circuits.

That is the intent of this whole project. here is to replace all series circuits. And the cost analysis that we're showing is to replace all series circuits. The only separation we've made is that the solar pilot would be in one area. But we'd be interested to understand if that solar pilot should be expanded.

How long will the pilot project take? Do you have a.

We haven't really assessed that.

You guys are going to just do a short not short term kind of a long term to get an idea of how much your savings right. I'm just curious.

We would immediately get into the design of it. The reason we took that area, like we said, it's a small area, relatively cheap. We have the funding. We're going to have to go into the fund balance a little bit to fund that project in order to do it. We can, as soon as we do, we can evaluate what it looks like and then start moving into the design of the other areas that are in the priority.

That's correct.

Or in that red part of it that are showing those are the priority circuits that need to be replaced.

So the big goal is to have us go solar all the way? If this works. I think it's going to work, but our biggest goal here is to actually have that. I appreciate that. Thank you for answering that question. So are these, the work that's going to be done on the series circuits, are there, is it tiered? So, like, where are we working first? Where are we working second? Where are we working third to get some of these things accomplished or completed?

They're not, there is a list of priority circuits that are the highest priority, and on, which slide was that on?

it is slide nine okay page nine yeah okay and so can I just make a clarification your budget is done for this year and so we wanted to provide this information we wanted to get direction from the council on the solar pilot and then it is staff's intent that we would bring this back in the spring when you are conducting your strategic plan and just before we undertake the budget process to have another conversation about how we might want to break apart the work or other funding options that may be available to the council to implement the conversion of these series circuits. So all of the ones that we've been discussing tonight as priorities.

Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that. So do you think it's going to be about a year, more or less, just to watch what transpires out of that special area that will be converted?

I think we can move faster.

Oh, OK, great.

Go ahead. I think the actual engineering and studies will take longer than the actual construction support.

Very good. You know, we use a lot of solar.

We're going to need to go through and look at everything and get the specification and everything together. That'll probably take longer than the good part.

Thank you. Thank you, Dennis. Appreciate it.

Council Member, we have one quick follow-up.

I don't mean to jump ahead of you if you have questions. I just I wanted to follow up on city managers comment just now I think it's a great plan for streetlight although I would like to also say that right now we're in the summertime so it doesn't get dark until about 8pm. So it's been okay for us. But as we heading to the fall and winter, and I'm just getting very nervous about another, you know, four weeks of no lights for the entire neighborhood. And that's more of a pressing issue for me, I think, for a lot of our residents in those areas. And we're, you know, homes are getting broken into in those areas because it's so close to freeway. So I would like to ask that this issue of not the whole, not the entire city street light, but just the serious circuits be prioritized and put on a faster timeline than waiting to the strategic plan for next year.

I mean is that possible? I mean it sounds like the budget is set for this type of work. So what are our options there?

So I think that the larger conversation or decision would be if we decide that we want to proceed with solar lighting. I think we're trying to undertake this in a smaller project that is just 30 lights to be able to see how the solar lights perform in Alhambra, what the resident feedback is from that. we wanted to move forward with all of the series lighting again remember on slate slide 4 it talks about fit these in the series lights are 15% of the fixtures but they're 90% of the cost so when we're looking at 90% of our total lighting inventory being these series circuits if the council wanted us to prioritize all of them and wanted them all to move forward, we would need to know, do you want to prioritize them with solar, and we want to go with that untested? Or do you want to proceed with the current status quo, as we were told earlier in the presentation, and we want to go with a wired approach? And again, just making the differentiation between the two the long-term savings that we might be able to see if the solar option does in fact work in alhambra so i think we were trying to test it on a smaller area if i'm hearing council member wang maybe she wants us and i understand correctly you want us to do all of the series circuits and so if we do all of those if you look at the costing we would just need to know between slides we would have to have a much larger conversation and we could prioritize that for a council meeting before the spring but I'm not sure that we'll have those funding mechanisms available in total but there would be the difference between slide 13 and 14 so we're looking at some pretty large numbers there but we would just need that direction I think maybe we can finesse this a little bit that I think there

First, I think that the solar, especially in the series circuit areas, makes just a ton of sense. I think for all the reasons we've stated, money, efficiency, reliability, safety, security, all that stuff. I do think it makes sense to sort of maybe get out front with a more limited basis so we just kind of learn from the system but also maybe to address council member Wang's concerns which are 100 percent legitimate because there's big chunks of the city that that threaten to go dark with one light out maybe we line it up for those two areas right you know right on the heels of this of the pilot so so we're not we're not doing this and then waiting we're doing we're setting it up and maybe that one's first out of the gate and we figure out how to make it work within the budget. And if we have to wait to the budget, I mean, I guess that's one thing. But if we are anticipating a huge amount of savings over what our long-term spending and the immediate cost savings of going solar versus plugging into the grid, I think that does give me a little bit more comfort of maybe doing that within what we're working with here in this budget, because we're going to save. We know we're going to save. And unless we do the pilot program with 30 lights and determine it's a complete disaster and we pull the plug, then I don't think that's going to happen. So maybe we just set ourselves up so that we're ready with those scopes of work for the RFPs for those other two districts right away. Is that possible, doable?

So as Dennis mentioned, the design and the engineering is probably the longest portion of the project. I won't try to guess the cost on that, but we could put something together, have the consultants do their best guess on what we might be looking like. But we would just need to know from the council, is that something you want to do in solar, or is that something that you would want us to cost and get estimates doing a traditional wiring method?

Does anyone think it's... to double down on the traditional method. I mean, I think for all the reasons we've talked about, I think it makes a lot of sense to plan to do it solar in these areas.

Well, I think I do, I see the advantages having solar, but looking at program costs for Los Angeles, are they the first city Okay, they're not. I want to see if there are any other cities that have installed solar lights in the past maybe five years or ten and have some data for us to look at in terms of the reliability of the new lights as well as the energy cost savings. It's a pilot program, so I think it's very reasonable that a pilot program should come first for at least, I think, a year. Is that what we're planning for? A one-year pilot program before we roll out to real scenarios like Council Member Wong's and District 5's issues. I do understand it's very serious when you have the entire area being dark. But I do think pilot program is important. But I do want to know if other cities have some data that we can have.

There is data on reliability that we could gather for that. I think the pilot should go through a full winter so that you get that worst case scenario.

Full winters will be both three months.

If it would be possible, I don't know that the time frame would work out to get a solar pilot installed for this winter.

But that would potentially be the kid. So I mean discussing there's a lot of discussion about something that's not really agenda is like this but can we can we hear today this is a receiving file for the report itself and staff is asking for a direction on the pilot program. Can we can we say elected maybe we say thanks for the report. Great. We say go forward the pilot but also I don't think we need to come back with a plan at a meeting in the near future as to these other two districts how we might get our hands around that I don't think we need to come up with a plan on the fly up here but if you can if staff can come back to us and say here's what we're looking at with the pilot and here's what we're thinking for these other two areas that are on the circuit system in the southern part of the city

I don't know, leave it to you, soon-ish.

Yeah, as soon as possible. I think that would be great. And then as staff bring it back, maybe just give us the options, the cost and timeline for converting everything solar versus just fixing the wiring to be parallel instead of series.

Do we need a motion for that or is this...

No, just if there's, if you could just make a motion to move forward with the pilot, that at least clears up the direction on that.

And then staff has heard what you want them to bring back. Okay. Well, I'll make, I'll make that motion on the pilot with the other comments that.

I will second that.

Yeah. Motion and second.

Lee.

Yes. Mazza. Yes. Wang. Yes. Andrade Stadler. Yes. Maloney.

Yes. Thank you all for that.

Okay. Next is consent agenda. We have items six through 21. We have a speaker card for six and seven, Mr. Toilet, and then a few more that just came in. So come on up.

All right, so six and the seven I will start with number six Mmm The number six is about strategic plan. And specifically, I want to talk about that is point number Six, the goal six, improve housing opportunities. Recently, and I believe that earlier this year or something, I believe there's a new housing project in Alhambra. I believe that it provided, if I remember the number correctly, 20 affordable housing. And then in the city population, 80,000. It reminds me that with neighboring CDC of Los Angeles, a population of 4 million, and Judge David O. Carter asked that how many homeless residents did you permanently house, and they said 1,600 compared to a city of 4 million. I think Alhambra is doing Very similar, it's just in a smaller scale, but it's similar appropriations. It is actually is kind of a shock for me to see more housing opportunities on this agenda because number one, I don't hear much about it, and number two, affordable housing was never one of the priority under the mayor, under the city manager, under the city attorney, or whatever, because we can spend 20 million, whatever, of five to three million a year on the street lighting, that's okay. That is much more important than some people who are struggling, who are about to leaving on the street, who are about to be kicked out of their apartment. So obviously, street lighting is 100 times more important than someone who can no longer live inside of a room anymore. I kind of have a different opinion with the priority, with the direction that Alhambra is moving towards to. Because I believe that under any, some sort of government entity, I thought people's life, people's quality of life is considered as number one priority over your city infrastructure. But obviously, I am the uneducated one. You guys are the PhD master degree. I am the high school dropout. So obviously, I do not know any better. That's just my opinion. And then also, I want to talk about number one, enhanced public safety. Enhanced public safety... I want to talk about the traffic light. So we just talk about the street light, but my public safety concern is the traffic light. I don't know if that's under the category of street lighting or that's kind of independent of street lighting. There are certain things that when you ride a motorcycle or when you are, or sometimes when you drive a smaller car at late night, 2 a.m., when you are in the intersection, and then you are trying to make a left turn, and then the light just never turn. And then after, let's just say, five or six minutes, after several cycles, the light still doesn't change, and then you decide to run the lights. And then that's where that car almost hit me. I was trying to ask that driver. I said, you don't even see the lights? And then the driver told me he has been waiting right there for nearly 10 minutes. And then somehow I am the one who wear a black hoodie. So I am at fault. I am at fault because that 10 minutes the traffic lighting doesn't change. I am at fault because I wear a black hoodie in the city of Alhambra. Obviously that's illegal. So I really wish that after our mayor spend I don't know how many million after you figure out your street lighting, you can take some time, maybe you can take like $200 out of your city budget to figure out the sensor issues about your traffic light so those people doesn't have to just run me over all day long, every single week. And then also want to talk about public safety. I want to talk about the e-bike because what I see that maybe the city manager probably is the expert of this because she drives all the way from Orange County because the Orange County District Attorney started to prosecute the parents of those e-bike teenagers. Because those e-bike teenagers in Orange County, they killed a veteran. And then the DA from the Orange County, they decided to, that's the ignorance and the negligence of the parents. So they started doing that. But in the city of Alhambra, when I'm on the bus, or sometimes when I'm riding my bicycle, what I see those e-bike, they are absolutely ruthless. They have no sense of law and order. They have no sense of fear of police. You know, police, Alhambra police doesn't mean anything to them. So typical people like me, like when I see the Alhambra police are coming, oh, I slow down. I'm making sure I wear a helmet. I'm making sure that, you know, You do not take the whole lane. You share the lane. That's how people like me, I'm a coward. I'm afraid of the police. But all those ruthless, you call them illegal, e-bike riders, I'm concerned about public safety because they come out of anywhere. They are not a motorcycle. You can hear the motorcycle from... 200 feet away, you can be prepared. Those e-bike does not have a sound. They just appear like on your left mirror, on your right mirror, out of nowhere. They do not care about the signal lights. They do not care about a stop sign. They do not care about the traffic laws. And then Humber police were just never there. So that's the problem about public safety. And then I forgot to mention when we are talking about housing, one year ago I asked the city, I asked the city that can you give me a data that how many of your city workers are actually living, either renting Alhambra or either own a house in Alhambra. Obviously you never give me an answer because the answer is It's very sad. I already know that. Let's just ask our Alhambra police officer. Every single one of them are $100,000 minimum. Some of them are $200,000, $300,000, $400,000. Like our city manager, $450,000 in benefit, retirement, salary packages per year. How many of your police officers living, renting Alhambra or own a house in Alhambra? And ask your city manager that with a $450 benefit package per year, does she live or own Alhambra? If those kind of super big moneymaker, high salary, million dollar salary, if they cannot, find Alhambra considered as affordable, then how do you expect a $20, $18 minimum wage grocery worker, a $20 Uber driver, or $21 per hour toilet cleaner to be making sure, to feel that Alhambra is actually affordable? If the $450,000 per year does not believe this is affordable, Now how about a $30,000 per year salary, which is a typical low-income fast food worker or maybe just a part-time college student? That's the public safety portion. Now let's, do I have anything left for the seventh? Pedestrian improvement, that is the item number seven. Pedestrian improvement that I feel I generally feel safe to walk in Alhambra generally generally But for the people have disability with me the problem for me to walk in the city of Alhambra is that It is a safety concern, actually. I do believe it's a safety concern that I do not have access to a toilet a lot. So I don't know if you can walk in the city of Alhambra in a safe manner if you just cannot find much public toilet. I was trying to talk about that every night, Alhambra, Almanza Park, public toilet, they typically close at 9 PM. And after that, I just have to do that on the sidewalk. But it's a public safety manner, it's a public safety issue because once the Alhambra police sees I do that on the street, they're going to put me in handcuffs, arrest me, put me in jail and all those kind of stuff. But why is that my fault? I'm just taking a walk at 11 p.m. on the street of Alhambra. Why is that a crime? And then for the city does not provide enough toilet for people to use, then there's no surprise that you have dirty streets. There's no surprise you have homeless people living on the street. You have no surprise that... people find unpleasant, all the pedestrian find it's unpleasant to walk right here. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Next up is Joseph Ramos.

Good evening, Joseph Ramos speaking on item 19. Joseph Ramos for the Department Association of Greater Los Angeles. We urge you not to pass tripling no-fault relocation fees without first addressing a major flaw in this ordinance. At a minimum, the city should extend the exemption to make it applicable to small owners with nine or fewer units and include major system repairs just as the City of Claremont has done. Major system repairs, also known as substantial remodels, must be allowed to take place without increased relocation fees or small owners will not be able to afford to make such repairs. Small owners do not have access to Wall Street investors or multiple properties to borrow against. Every dollar in relocation fees is one less dollar available to make the costly major repair. This is why Claremont has excluded owners with nine or fewer units from all increased relocation fees, not just owner move-ins. These are the very owners who provide much of Alhambra's naturally occurring affordable housing. These older buildings will eventually require expensive plumbing, electrical, and roofing repairs or replacements. When developers buy these properties for demolition and redevelopment, the rents will be much higher or they will sell them as for sale condominiums. Either way, low-income renters will permanently lose a source of affordable housing. The council should not punish small owners for being responsible and trying to make needed repairs so that the existing building can continue to exist as affordable housing. If new owners are wrongfully targeting existing renters, then the ordinance should be limited to those new owners that are easily identified when the deed is recorded with the county tax assessor's office. This ordinance is a hatchet to the necks of small owners for harms inflicted by others. The ordinance should be narrowly redrafted to only punish those that deserve it and exclude all others. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next up is Amy Wong for 19 and 20. You'll have 10 minutes. You don't have to take 10 minutes, but you have 10 minutes.

Good evening, honorable mayor and city council. My name is Amy J. Wong, District 1 resident. I'm speaking tonight in support of items 19 and 20. For item 19, many renters live paycheck to paycheck, and the cost of living keeps increasing. So providing three months of assistance would be meaningful to renters facing no-fault evictions. For item 20, I do urge you to support a data center ban ballot measure. This is something that I championed in Monterey Park, and we deserve that here in Alhambra as well. I read the supporting argument, and I'm pleased that it matches Monterey Park's. It communicates the benefits of a data center ban very clearly. A ban will protect our air, our water, our neighborhoods, our health, and our quality of life. Alhambra residents deserve the choice to vote on a data center ban this November. Thank you.

Thank you, Amy. Next is Andrew Yip. Same two items.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Andrew Yip, also a resident of District 1. As a resident of Alhambra, I urge you to vote yes on agenda item 19, supporting increasing relocation assistance. Renters displaced through no fault of their own can face thousands of dollars in deposits, moving expenses, and other costs. Stronger relocation assistance will help families remain housed and provide greater stability for a community. And also a quick mention, today you had a Japanese delegation here tonight, and I just wanna mention that Japan as a whole country has very strong tenant protections, including where rate hikes must be negotiated between both parties. So tonight you have an opportunity to approve and further protect our Hamburg tenants. I also support item 20 on the data center ballot measure. In Monterey Park, the ballot measure was named NDC, no data center. But it was very confusing because you had voters vote yes on no data center. So I encourage the city to consider a different acronym if possible, maybe BAN, ban, so people know to vote yes on a ban. But either way, appreciate the city for bringing this forward. Thank you and have a good night.

Andrew, last one, at least in the room, is Bertha Rivera.

good evening council members I'm mayor Maloney see the time and it is late I'm still in the shadows about this ordinance about about people being relocated can someone explain it to me shortly sort of the

sort of self-explanatory in the agenda item this is second reading so we did have quite a bit of discussion at previous meetings on this happy to to have someone walk you through it okay afterwards yeah um yeah because i i realized it's late and i was waiting for it no thank you i mean i appreciate i appreciate that if yeah maybe i can contact someone in the morning or something OK. Maybe if there's somebody that can work that through, I'd appreciate that.

Thank you. That would be great. OK. Appreciate it.

Thank you. OK. Any comments on Zoom?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. We have one raised hand. Louis McCammon, you may unmute yourself.

Thank you again. Lou McCammon from 5 North Cordova Street. I'll be speaking on three items tonight, 19, 20, and 21. I realize I have 10 minutes to cover all three. Definitely vote yes on item 19. This will provide substantially more protection for. In the future, once this measure becomes effective. There was already some concern put forward by small owners of small properties for less units. about wanting some exemption from this some of that was incorporated as an amendment in this as it stands here before you now it does not provide an exemption for them if the units are to be demolished or substantially remodeled but it does in other cases and all this applies to no fault evictions. This is a case where if somebody hasn't had a lease breaking party or something like that, they've been paying their rent and they are being asked to move out. And what this is really occasioned by is a situation at 110 South Chapel Avenue where you have a developer He plans to come in and build a six-story, 78-foot, 60-unit, for-sale-only condominium project. Only six of those units will be reserved for lower-income families. To do this, he's taking the current court style arrangement. It's eight separate houses and one duplex in the back, 10 units in the back. occupied by low-income families, many of whom have been there for decades. They've been paying their rent. This is a no-fault eviction. Under state law, they're only given one month's rent to move, but they are facing a situation where they have to pay. If they can find a new property, which can be difficult in Alhambra, The first month's rent, the last month's rent, normally a damage deposit which is limited to another month's rent, but they only give it one month's rent to move out. So three months' rent total, one month is already required by state law for that and an additional two would make them whole to where at least they can afford the location cost while still be out money because they still have their moving expenses. But at least it makes it better for them. It's something that's been done by many surrounding cities. And so I'd urge you to move forward and finalize that here with your second reading and adoption tonight. Item 20 is the one on data centers. I was glad to see that you had in there as part of the agenda packet the proposed argument in favor of it to be printed in the information and materials signed by all five members. I think it's important to hand this. It would By having a public vote on this, over 88% of the Yes to Man base that was there, they were facing a very serious situation. It was an enormous amount of the city's electrical supply. And so that's why. And what we're doing here is to just have a public vote on this. It won't change that they're banned, but it will make it harder to undo the ban. Item 21 makes a lot of sense. We're having a problem with a proliferation of short-term amendments in LLM. Again, this is a second review and adoption to place this on the ballot. Currently, our hotels and motels are required to pay a 12% transient occupancy tax, which is a tax that helps support the city services that must be provided to the people who are that transit occupancy tax, TOT, is not currently applied to the Airbnb type roommates in the area. And this would bring them equivalent in tax rate to what the hotels and motels are charged. And I think we want to see as much as possible We have a few short-term rules. We have a proliferation of it. It hurts our man, but it hurts our city schools because those kids won't be enrolled in our city schools. It's important. It reduces the supply of housing for people who otherwise wouldn't be here long-term.

Thank you, Lou. Okay.

Any council comments?

I want to speak to item number six before we vote.

And Mayor, can we pull item 19 and vote on that on its own? I need to recuse myself on that item. Sure.

So go ahead, Catherine, six.

Okay, I just want to post number six and vote separately. I still oppose, I think this is the third time I oppose item number 6.7, which is review zoning for Main Street.

Okay, do we want a motion for seven through 18 and 20 and 21?

Everything but six and 19, right?

Moved. Second.

Okay, motion and second, please.

Lee. Yes. Mazza. Yes. Wang. Yes. Andrade-Stadler. Yes. Maloney.

Yes. OK. We have item 6. This is just a receiving file, so there's no actual vote on it. So noted Councilmember Lee's opposition to that one item. Item number 19. Councilmember Mazza, do you want to announce what you got to announce?

Yes, due to some potential conflicting interests on personal property that I own in the city of Alhambra, one to four units, I will need to recuse myself on voting on this particular item, item number 19.

Okay, and you can wait in the back, or? You don't, just, there's no discussion. Okay. Unless there's discussion. So item number 19.

Move item number 19.

I'll second. Motion and second.

Lee. Yes. Mazza. Oh, sorry. Mazza. Wang. Yes.

Andrade-Stadler. Yes. Maloney.

Yes. OK, that item passes. That's it for the action items. Any brief council comments? Very brief. Any others?

I think I pulled number six.

Yeah, there's nothing to do on number six. Okay. Your opposition was noted, but it's a receiving file.

Okay. All right. Thanks.

Okay. So if no council comments, thank you everyone for a good meeting tonight. Appreciate all the support for the sister city stuff. It's been great.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. you