City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the May 5th Acadia City Council meeting. We will begin with the invocation by Reverend Jolene Ketterbach from the Acadia Congregational Church who will also be leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Everybody please stand up.

Let us pray. We call upon you, O God, for your guidance and wisdom as we deliberate the important issues before us this evening. We place the needs of our citizens as the most important consideration. As we vote for our proposed operating budget and capital improvements and equipment, may we do so with the spirit of responsibility. We wish to keep Arcadia as a wonderful place in which to live and conduct business. But we also realize that it requires financial resources. We pray, oh God, that you guide us toward making the right decisions and lead us in serving the needs of our beloved community. Amen.

Amen.

And now will you please join with me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Please be seated. City Clerk, may we have the roll call for City Council?

Council Member Cao.

Here.

Council Member Fu.

Here.

Council Member Kwon.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Chang.

Here.

Mayor Wang. Here. City Attorney, are there any reports from the study session tonight?

Thank you, Mayor. There is a report. The City Council held a study session today starting at 4 o'clock over in the EOC. And the purpose of the study session was for the City Council to receive a copy of the budget and to have a discussion with the city staff about that budget. So there was no action taken. The budget will come back at one of these meetings in the future. It'll be on June 2nd. And I will, while I have the mic, just note real quickly that our Mayor Pro Tem Paul Chang is appearing remotely using Just Cause. which you're able to do under the Brown Act. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. City Manager, is there any supplemental information for the agenda tonight?

Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the Council. I don't have any supplemental information tonight.

Thank you. I'd like to invite Kevin McManus of the Pasadena Human Society to the stage to present our adoptable dog.

Good evening. Good evening, Council, Madam Mayor. Everybody, I brought, even though yesterday was May the 4th, today I brought Princess Leah. So she's still celebrating Star Wars Day. Leah is a six-year-old German Shepherd. A couple weeks ago at Pasadena Humane, we were able to help our colleagues at LA County with a very large hoarding situation that they were dealing with. And in an effort to kind of continue helping them We've been able to transfer in some dogs over the last couple of weeks, and Leah is one of them. So she was at the Downey shelter, but now she's with us and available for adoption. And I brought her, well, one, because she's perfect, and two, she's definitely going to be great in nearly every home. We got some great information from Downey. She's great with other dogs, loves, loves, loves people, and will be perfect in any home. She and all of our dogs are going to be available for an adoption promotion, which starts on Friday the 15th. And any dog over the age of six months, adoption fee has been paid by one of our generous donors. So if you're in the market for a dog and you can wait a couple weeks, great time to get one. Leah may be gone, though. Thank you.

Thank you. Council, can we take the picture? Yeah. And Council Member Sharon Kuang, Council Member Dr. Michael Kao, and Council Member David Fu. Now, I would like to recognize the Rio Hondo prepared football and soccer teams for winning the CIF championship titles. Please come to the stage. Rio Hondo prepared football team won its third consecutive CIF football championship, defeating Redondo Union High School 29-7 last November in front of the over 5,600 fans in Redondo. The team then traveled to Carlsbad where they won the 2A state regional championship. Rio Hondo ended the season 15 and 1 and is the number one racket team in the San Gabriel Valley, a first for the school. So head coach Mark Carson was named CIF coach of the year. Entering the 2026 CIF Playoffs as number 14 out of the 32 teams, Rio Hondo prepared six teams, defined expectations, defending top opponents to win the schools, first ever CIF soccer championship. The soccer team won one to zero with senior striker Easton Hara scoring the game winning goal with under two minutes left in overtime. Coach AJ Corsini was named CIF Coach of the Year. Congratulations to both team on your outstanding achievements and proud representation of our community. Would the coach like to say a few words about the team accomplishments? Which one first?

AJ. Yeah, I'm AJ.

I'll speak on behalf of both teams. Coach Carson couldn't be here. We're thankful to be a part of the Arcadia community. Most of our kids are all around the San Gabriel Valley, and we're just proud to represent Arcadia. A lot of the football players were on the soccer team that won, so it's been a magical few months, and very thankful to be here again for a third time. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone want to talk here?

Thank you to the city for having us and we appreciate the honor.

OK, I would like to invite our council members, Council Member Sharon Kwong, Council Member Dr. Michael Kao, Council Member David Fu, since it's our Mayor Pro Tem Paul Chen still there. So thank you so much, Mayor Pro Tem Paul Chen. That's Coach.

Real Hondo football team.

Real Hondo prepare soccer team.

Who's the? That is the soccer. That's me. That's the football team?

Yeah. OK. Thank you. Let's take a picture together. OK.

We are now moving to public comment. I have to turn it over to City Attorney Mike Maurer to introduce how remote public comment will be taken at this meeting.

Thank you, Mayor. So we will do the normal public comment here in the room where you put the card in the in the box here and you can speak at public comment. But we also because we do have a council member appearing remotely, we also have to allow for public comments remotely. So if you are online and you want to make a public comment, please raise your hand. I believe you push star nine and that'll be the hand raise. And We'll call on you in order, so we'll start with the comments in the room, if there are any, and then we'll move on to raise hands online, if there are any. Back to you, Mayor.

Thank you. So since we have three speaker cards here, each one will have five minutes tonight. And first one is Mike Verweeseeman.

Thank you, Mayor Wang. City Council, good evening. I was wondering if I should come here to speak about something on the consent calendar. Is that worth speaking about? And it's yes, it's a yes, because 9C is not your normal consent calendar item. But first I will make a few little congratulations. First to Lisa Flores for being our new Development Services Director. She's been part of Arcadia for decades. So I don't know if you know, maybe I should first introduce myself. My name is Mike Vierman. I've lived in Arcadia for 24 years. I'm with CHOA, CHOA's Creative Housing Options in Arcadia. We're faith-based volunteers, housing advocates. building affordable housing and reducing homelessness in a loving manner here in Arcadia. So Lisa Flores, we want to congratulate her for being the new director. I also want to thank Chief Nakamura for his 30 years of service here at the police department, and also for him to send a representative to the CHOA sharing gathering every six months. We share to the faith community what's going on in the city in regards to housing. And he sent Lieutenant Tony Juarez to explain how the police department handles calls when they get calls for people who are unhoused. and choa and everyone in the room was pleased to hear how the police department handles these cases with dignity and perspective these are people first and always trying to improve the situation so we're grateful with this 9c item i also want to thank sarah samaji for responding to many emails, because Friday was the announcement that this was coming. So yesterday and today, lots of questions. Why are we changing from Lakota to another case management organization? I have been working with Lakota, listening to Lakota, learning from Lakota, I love Lakota. So the contracts that the city has made with them is good, even during the time when we lost the grant, during all the housing element part of it, the funds were coming out of general fund. So I thank council, and especially those who were there at the council at the time, to keep working with Lakota, because they're reaching out to the unhoused population, providing services, building trust, making improvement, each individual in a custom way, because everyone's different. So the question is, why would we move away from Lakota? And so that's why I'm asking Sarah a lot of questions, you can imagine. And if you look at the write-up, I appreciate the write-up from city manager, the differences are not very large, right? It's only about 2% difference, with a 3% added, 3.5% added per year. So it's gotta be, the new organization's gotta be good, because this is Arcadia, we are not, We want to have the best, right? What I'm slowly learning is the organization has hired previous Lakota employees, so that's good. So Matthew, in fact, spoke last year to the CHOA gathering. I like Matthew. He's on this new team, hero. If you remember, we had the homeless symposium two years ago. I still have this in my notebook. And you look at who spoke when we come to case management. It's Joshua Hensman. Joshua is on the hero team. So my trust is going higher with the new hero team. I hope they can match Lakota because whenever you build a new team and you're new, there's questions. There still needs to be improvement. I and Choa welcome the decision and welcome the change. Thank you.

Thank you. Next one, Eileen Chies.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and city council members. My name is Eileen Chase and I am a community outreach representative from LA Fire Justice. We are a law firm representing the Eaton Fire survivors. As you know, the Eaton Fire has displaced many residents into the surrounding cities, including Arcadia. Our office is in Pasadena, but we're here for all residents, wherever they have moved to. We want to make sure everyone who was directly impacted by the Eaton Fire knows their rights. homeowners, renters, adult occupants, and children, all of them who have lost their homes all have claims. If you sold your property or you moved, you still have a claim. If your home was heavily smoke damaged, you may still have a claim. Not only do we offer representation, but we help fire survivors understand their insurance policies. We have Mental Health Mondays on the first Monday of every month with professional therapists who talk specifically about the issues that fire survivors are facing. And our team is made up of community members and leaders who truly care about their community, like our CEO, who is former Pasadena Mayor and California Assemblymember Chris Holden. We will be at the Arcadia Resource Fair this Friday, and I'd like to invite anyone affected by the Eaton Fire or anyone who wants more information for their family or friends that have been affected to stop by our LA Fire Justice Table. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight.

Thank you. Next one, Sandra Menefen, Arcadia Chamber.

Good evening. Good evening, City Council and Madam Mayor. I'm a board member on Arcadia's chamber, and I am here to share all the wonderful things that the chamber is holding this month. One of the things we're very excited about is we have over 15 different chambers up and down San Gabriel and the 210 freeway joining them for the annual Big Mixer at the La Meridian in this month that's coming up, in addition to all the other events that they hold on a monthly basis. Personally, as a small business owner owning a pressure washing company that just turned a year old, we are grateful to what the chamber has done for us and what it does for so many other small businesses and how it unites different chambers up and down the 210 corridor. So I want to express my gratitude and your support of the chamber. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Do we have anyone on the phone for remote public comment?

We are being told that we do not have anybody on the phone.

Okay, that concludes public comment. We are now moving on to the consent calendar. Does anyone on the City Council want to put any agenda items for discussion? We will start from Council Member Dr. Michael Kao, no? Council Member David Fu, no? Council Member Sharon Kuang?

Yes, since we have a speaker for the 9C, uh so i think we should pull that for discussion so that um i think our city manager can elaborate on that to answer uh your question and why we've uh changed uh the servicing company are you ready madam mayor yes oh but i think so we saw um 9c can we make a motion for other items yes besides 19. is that okay oh may i pretend poor chin

Did you want to call anything else? No, thank you.

No? Okay. So can we just, yeah, make motion for, besides 9C?

Yes, this is Michael. I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent calendar for all items outside of what has been pulled.

Any second?

Foo seconds.

Thank you.

Please make roll call. Council Member Cao?

Yes.

Council Member Fu?

Yes.

Council Member Kwan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Chang?

yes mayor wing yes so now it's yes i just want our city manager to elaborate um on why we're changing the service and company so mike can have a chance sure yeah thank you i think

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this item for the public's benefit is consideration of a public services agreement with Housing Empowerment Recovery and Outreach Community Services, also known as HERO, for case management and housing navigation services in an amount not to exceed $289,185. So as Mr. Vierman indicated, we've been working pretty successfully with a company called LA Cotta or La Cotta. We had a prior service delivery for homeless services. We didn't get the greatest service. Part of that was because we only had one case manager, sometimes two, but the person was always trying to keep up. So we went to three case managers. Since we've had three case managers, La Cotta has been our service provider. They have been extremely reliable. They've been great partners. We have no complaints with Lakota. However, it's time to renew the contract and look at options and make sure we're getting the best deal and all of that. So we did a request for proposals. We got four proposals back. Lakota bid on it, as did Hero and two other companies. The prices were fairly similar, especially between Lakota and Hero. The rankings were very similar between Lakota and Hero. But at the end of the day, the city staff identified two points higher for Hero than Lakota, partially because the rate is a little bit lower initially and their over time increases are a little bit lower. But also, as Mr. Vierman indicated, The Hero Corporation is a new organization, and they are staffed by and owned and operated by former Lakota employees. And they're people we know. They're people who operated here in the city of Arcadia. They're the people we're very familiar with. So while it is a new company and it doesn't have much of a track record as a new company, the people operating the company we are very familiar with. They know Arcadia's issues. They know Arcadia's homeless population or unhoused population. So we have a high level of confidence that they will be able, we'll make that transition, we'll save a few dollars, but the service will be high and they'll still be able to, so it'll be a change, but a change kind of in name only because a lot of the same faces that we're familiar with will be operating in HERO and it'll be a pretty seamless transition. So that's why we feel confident in recommending HERO as an option. Specifically, their price was $289,185, Lakota's price was $293,000, so only a few thousand dollars. Over the course of a year, that's not much, but it is cheaper. And the other kind of intangibles when we reviewed their proposals, the understanding of the project, The future increases, those kinds of things. Hero got a 95 score, Lakota got a 93 score. So both great companies, both we'd be happy to work with, but we think Hero's a better company in this particular instance.

So how long is the contract?

It would be, let me make sure I get this right. It would be four years total. with possible renewals. It's one year with three one-year renewals. So if it's not working out after the first year, we can change. If things are going well, we can do annual three additional times.

Hope that answered your question, Mike. Yes. Yes. So if it doesn't work out, we have next year for these companies to bid again.

Yes.

I hope that answers your question. Thank you. Thank you.

So do we have another motion for 9C?

Who moves to approve 9C? Please, Michael, second that.

Please make no call.

Council Member Fu?

Yes.

Council Member Cao?

Yes.

Council Member Kwan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Chang?

Yes.

Mayor Wang?

Yes. Now, next we will move to item 10A, City Manager. Will you read the title and introduce this item?

I'll be happy to, Madam Mayor. I just need to find my spot. There we go. So this is a resolution, resolution number 7682, amending the fiscal year 2025-26 capital improvement program budget, authorizing a supplemental budget appropriation for the First Avenue arterial pavement rehabilitation project in the amount of $500,000, offset by a reduction in the Proposition C fund. and to approve a contract with Onyx Paving Company Incorporated for the First Avenue arterial pavement rehabilitation project in the amount of $1.428 million with a 10% contingency. At the conclusion of this item, we would recommend that you find this item to be exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act and would recommend that you adopt the amendment and approve the resolution. So long story short, this is a project we were doing street work on First Avenue and Second Avenue. Earlier this year, we split out the Second Avenue projects because the projects came in higher when we bid it originally as a group project. So Second Avenue is done. Now it's time to do First Avenue south of Huntington. And because of additional work that Kevin will describe or possibly Jonathan will describe, we're going to do more work than we originally anticipated. And the overall construction prices on both projects came in a little higher. So we need a supplemental budget. But there is money in the Proposition C fund, and that Proposition C fund is intended for roads kind of projects. So you can afford the increase, and we'll have a better project when all is said and done. So I'll turn it over to, is Kevin going to introduce this? Kevin Merrill, the city engineer.

Thank you, Dominic. Dominic, good evening, Madam Mayor Wang and members of the city council. Tonight before you is a capital improvement project. It's the First Avenue arterial pavement rehab project. rehabilitation project. As Dominic mentioned, it's First Avenue from Huntington Drive down to Doherty Road. The segment from Huntington Drive to California Street is in the downtown area. It's got diagonal parking on both sides and it's in the business district of the downtown. The area of our focus tonight will be First Avenue from California Street to Duarte Road, where there's some additional improvements that we hope to make and present to you tonight. So we'll be talking about additional appropriation, safety and speeding concerns, traffic analysis and design changes, and then ask for you to adopt and approve the resolution. So as was mentioned, we budgeted in our fiscal year 22, 23 to appropriate and budget $2 million of our Proposition C funds. To date, we've spent about $250,000 on administration of the Second Avenue project, as well as the design of the First Avenue and Second Avenue project. And then we recently completed the Second Avenue project for $650,000. with a current balance in our Prop C fund for these two projects at $1.1 million. We recently went out to bid and got low bids, just over 1.4 million. And so we're asking for an additional 500,000 in Prop C money. So let's talk about safety for a minute. As you can see here on the screen, the upper left picture there, is in 2016 where we had stop signs at Diamond Street and First Avenue and they got hit and knocked down and so we still had stop signs on the right hand side but it's a repeated problem where we have stop signs that are in the middle of the street get hit In 2019, we placed them again. 2021, we introduced two-way left turn lane and bike lanes to First Avenue, and you can see in the bottom left-hand picture there that they've been hit again, yet again, and we hope to solve this problem. Well, how do we solve it? And the way to solve it, we believe, is to narrow First Avenue from California down to Duarte. And so our design implemented narrowing the street from 64 feet approximately 20 feet on each side. to provide a little bit narrower, to shorten the crosswalk at Diamond Street, for example, and provide a little more safety for the pedestrian, plus we can, as a byproduct of it, we can move the stop signs to the right-hand side behind the curb, like a traditional all-way stop. So what are our needs for First Avenue? Businesses along First Avenue have requested more parking spaces. Residents have contacted the city concerned about speeding on First Avenue. There are no stop signs between Doherty Road and Diamond Street. Parents of students that attend First Avenue Middle School have expressed concerns with the crossing at Diamond Street. And it's now the third highest usage of bike lanes, only behind Huntington Drive and Colorado Boulevard. So with that, what are our goals? Well, we've got a few pictures here. On the left is a project we did a few years ago north of Huntington Drive, north of the tracks. between St. Joseph and La Porte where we introduced a two-way left turn lane and we put bike lanes along each side of First Avenue. So that's what we did a few years ago. The picture in the middle shows what was done in the Downtown 2000 project. several years ago where we introduced diagonal parking on both sides of the street. But as you can see there, there's no bike lane. The improvements that we'll make on First Avenue north of California will simply be to repave the street, redo the striping, and make improvements to the ADA spaces that are required for us to do. On the right hand side, the right picture there is between El Dorado and Fano, and we'll show you what our plan is for that segment. So basically the top three things are, we're looking to make it as business friendly as we can, provide pedestrian safety, and keep as much of the bike lanes as we can, the majority of the street with bike lanes. So the city hired Wildan Engineering and contracted them to analyze the potential of adding diagonal parking to study the intersections, to add all-way stops, and look at speeding along the corridor. One thing to mention about the speeding is as they looked at it, they mentioned that there's not a significant amount of speeding. However, due to a law that was passed in 2024, you can reduce posted speed limits, five miles per hour for bike and pedestrian improvements, and you can post the speed limit of 25 miles per hour in a business district. So that's one of the elements that we plan to implement. Another area is we looked at the diagonal parking design. We found that it was difficult to put diagonal spaces on both sides of the street, because what you would lose is the bike lanes, which we've found have have increased in usage since we put them in primarily for the students that go to First Avenue Middle School. So this is a segment of diagonal parking between Diamond and California Street. Then the next area that they, that our consultant looked at was between El Dorado and Fano Street and a design, a design called a chicane design was presented to us. And basically is what that means is providing diagonal spaces on an alternating side of the street. So between Diamond and California, we presented, or they presented diagonal spaces on the east side of the street across from the middle school. And here between El Dorado and Fano, we're doing diagonal spaces on the west side of the street. And so what that creates is transitions between two intersections. They're at El Dorado and at Fano. And so as a reason for also traffic calming, to slow traffic down, we're introducing, or our consultant recommended, all-way stops at both El Dorado and Fano. It's important to note that when we looked at other segments to try to add additional diagonal or on street parking, we found that because of alleys or driveways, it was very difficult to add parking spaces that would increase the amount of parking on First Avenue. So with this, and there were certain areas south between Genoa and Alice is one where there's a church on the east side of the street, and it has plenty of onsite parking. And so because of those two reasons, this is our proposal. It adds approximately 10, or it adds 10 standard parking spaces with eight, I'm sorry, eight standard parking spaces and two accessible for a total of 10 spaces added. Then just to summarize, we opened bids on March 26th. We received six bids. Onyx Paving Company was the low bid at 1,428,000. And our current balance in our Prop C budget is just over 1.1 million. And so lastly, why now? Why do we need to do the project now? And it's simply, the project needs to occur during the summer. during the summertime due to the proximity to the middle school when it will be out of session. If we were to do it next summer, there's the potential of increased construction costs as we've seen costs continually rise. And then construction in the future could conflict with future events that are on First Avenue. And then lastly, we would ask that you adopt and approve resolution number 7682. And I'm available to answer any questions.

Do any council member have question for staff? Council member David Fu.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Hey, Kevin. Did the city chat with the folks at downtown Arcadia about this plan? Was there any buy-in from them or talk about the change in the configuration of the street?

I believe we sent... a letter as well as I think it was introduced to the Downtown Association, but we also sent letters to all the businesses along First Avenue.

Well, I appreciate that very much, Kevin, and thank you for sharing that with me. And I apologize, I love it when people come along later and they start asking a lot of questions, but I guess that's my job. I applaud the project. I'm curious. What I've talked with in the past with Jason before was about this kind of lofty desire that we turn First Avenue into some kind of a walking street to try to improve that. And I know that we've invested a great deal of assets in that project. I don't want to slow things down at this point. I did want to make the observation that because we're talking about narrowing the street there, that it does seem to me that it's possible that there's an opportunity there to look toward more pedestrian friendly configuration. Maybe not today. because we're here and I understand the urgency of this project and to get it going for the summer. And again, I thank you for your hard work on that, Kevin. But I'd like to think about that more in the future. One thing that prevents us from having a more vital kind of walk street experience is, of course, the depth of the sidewalks. because you just don't have room for people and spaces and outdoor dining and things of that nature. When we're talking about then narrowing the street and changing some of the traffic patterns there, it does perhaps, maybe, kinda sorta, suggest the possibility that we could be thinking about that in the future to take the configuration of that street and now think about a team effort to work with the business community and to work toward a configuration that allows us to facilitate more outdoor activity, more businesses that would benefit from sidewalk dining and things of that nature. Again, not today, not now, not on the eve of this project, Certainly in the future, I think we would come back and revisit the site. Obviously, we're spending money on it now to make the streets safer. But I hope that in the future, we'll get the opportunity to look at it again and think, OK, we've narrowed the street. We've widened the sidewalks here and there for these reasons. We've got landscaping here right now. What else can we do to potentially make that more attractive and to try to draw in uh more users to businesses and then hopefully those businesses will be there for people to frequent so um you know downtown arcadia is very important to all of us there are very good friends they work really hard on advancing the interests of the city and creating a community for us i'm pleased that you spoke with them and that that they had some opportunity to participate i'm hoping that in the future we'll be able to have more conversation about that and I apologize for just jumping in right now, but I think there's an opportunity here potentially for us to do something that might facilitate a more of a feeling that some neighboring community has in its walk streets that might make that more dynamic environment for our businesses. So just put a pin in that for now, Dominic, and hopefully we'll be able to come back and talk about it in the future. But thank you again.

I think we understand that goal and would agree with that goal. Having a study and like you said talk about in detail later that kind of big Question and either whether you're talking about Huntington or first the biggest move you can make to encourage more outside dining Tends to take away parking in front of those businesses If people are okay with finding parking spots that are a block or two away instead of right up front you could do a lot of stuff with outdoor dining and outdoor spaces on those streets and So it's a push-pull of the available infrastructure, but it's absolutely a conversation we'd be happy to have if you're interested in it.

No, definitely. Thank you for that, Dominic. And I was speaking with Jason, that quitter, about the ideas on First Avenue. First Avenue is a great community. There's actually very little vacancy on that street today. The types of users that we have there kind of don't... necessarily promote a walk street feeling. And so that configuration may change over time. I just like for us to look at it. Since we're looking at the street modification, it does suggest that there might be an opportunity there to do something. And actually, we're increasing the parking because we have changed the configuration. It will be not as we have known it in the past. but actually there'll be more parking spaces there. And so hopefully that would be something that would resonate with the users on that street.

And our hope is that as more people live in the downtown and those units are realized and people are walking down from those units, Those small retail spaces will demand more space outside and people will understand that expansion is ready and thriving spaces are interesting and all of that.

And drive sales tax revenue and make everybody happy in the city. Thank you very much, Dominic.

Thank you. Council Member, Dr. Michael Cowne? No?

Council Member Sherman?

Mayor Pretend-Pochin? I apologize, I forgot. I always have you here on the phone. So Mayor Pretend-Pochin? No. No?

No, no. I was going to say, you don't have to apologize. Again, I'm sick today. I don't even know if you guys can see me, but first of all, it's kind of funny watching all of you on my computer screen, but I actually can see you closer than when I'm on city council. I'm so proud of you guys. Everybody's doing such a good job. It's really interesting seeing you because I feel so much closer to you than when I'm on city council. uh i i did want to say that i'm so proud of our city council particularly council member foo that has really been passionate about the downtown arcadia corridor i definitely know that there is always the feeling that certain portions of arcadia maybe it hasn't done as well as years past we've already done enough why are we doing more but i i just wanted to congratulate our city council each and every one of you that have really decided that downtown arcadia place to focus on and also our city staff as well that have really over the last few years, the six years that have been on city council have constantly talked about downtown Arcadia as a place where they want to create an even more vibrant community. And I definitely know a lot of the projects that are occurring in the area are surrounding the downtown Arcadia area. I definitely agree with Council Member Fu that we have to continually renew our focus and be renewed in our spirit about that area because I really feel good about it in the next few years.

And Paul, by the way, we've got cameras in your house, so we've been watching you too.

Oh, really?

Okay.

All right. Thank you. So now I will open it up to the City Council for any discussion. Council Member Michael Cowan, Council Member David Foo, Council Member Sharon Hong, and the Mayor, President Paul Chen.

Done.

Okay, so now, I don't have it. Please, City Clerk, please make roll call.

Actually, we need a motion first.

Oh, we need a motion, I'm sorry.

Foo moves to approve. This is Michael, second that.

Okay, go ahead for roll call.

Council Member Foo?

Yes.

Council Member Kao.

Yes.

Council Member Kwan. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Chang.

Yes.

Mayor Wang.

Yes. We have a motion by Council Member David Fu and second by Council Member Michael Kao. Yeah, we can record. Yeah, so the motion passed by five to zero. And now, let's go to the, now item 11, AB1234, reports from me and our city council. We start from Council Member Deca, Council Member Davy Fu, Council Member Xiong-Kuang, Mayor Potempo Chin.

NOTHING TO REPORT.

OKAY. I DON'T HAVE TWO. SO WE MOVE TO ITEM 12, REQUEST FOR FUTURE ITEM. DO ANY COUNCILMEMBER HAVE A REQUEST FOR FUTURE ITEM, AGENDA ITEMS? COUNCILMEMBER DECKER-MICHAEL KAO, COUNCILMEMBER

Question, I don't know, what is our ordinance for a data center? Because lately there's been a lot of cities preventing developers from building data center. Do we have an ordinance to address for that?

So we don't have specifically an ordinance for data centers, allowing them or prohibiting them like a lot of the conversation you're seeing regionally or nationally. We would have, if a data center tried to operate in the city of Arcadia, we would make sure that there was water available, we would make sure that there was power available, we would make sure that it's in industrial use, and we would make sure that it would be located in an appropriate industrial zone. But the ordinance as we have it today doesn't encourage them or doesn't specifically prohibit them everywhere in the city. But if you're talking about the kind of data centers that They're talking about nationwide where they're taking tens or hundreds of acres and and using the water equivalent of the entire town or those kinds of things We don't really have that land in the city available to us and the only place that would be Industrial zoned and large format like that would be at the very southeast corner of the city where we have a FedEx distribution center And as far as I know, FedEx isn't going anywhere anytime soon. So it is something we can talk about if the council is interested in doing such an ordinance, but I'm not sure that we are the prime market for new data centers like the Inland Empire might be or other areas that have large pieces of land that are still available.

Well, that's all. I just want to make sure the community knows, you know, where do we stand for these data center. But if we're not preventing or we're not encouraging, so, but as of right now, we haven't had any developers coming in to ask for those, right? Okay, then that's fine. Thank you.

Thank you. I have something I need to talk to you for e-bike. Last two weeks ago, I went to the participant with some coffee with mayor on one of the Tuesday morning. A couple of the residents addressed this e-bike for e-bike. middle school student and elementary student and high school student. So we, both the resident, the community member, and of course including me, we all have the concern about this e-bike, do we have the ordinance or do we have any policy or regulation for this? Can we add to?

Yeah, so before the council takes a stand on talking about it, I will tell you that the city staff is working on an ordinance for e-bikes and an updated ordinance for scooters and an ordinance for what we have in town more and more is large groups of bicycles that are riding very close together, social kind of cycling things. And we're seeing more and more issues in the confrontation. So A city attorney's office, development services department, the police department are all working on ordinances to identify what our rules should be with e-bikes and regulations, riding on the sidewalk or not, maximum speeds or not, those types of things. Scooters, where should you ride them, should you have a helmet, all of that. And also the sort of what we call pelotons of cyclists that are riding through town. Is there a maximum width they can have, a speed they can have, a distance they should be riding at? making sure they're stopping at stop lights and stop signs, those kinds of things. So without council input, we're already working on that. If you'd like to do something different or in addition to that, we're happy to amend what we're doing.

No. As far as our city staff working on that, We are happy for that, and we just want to make sure that every community member should know what we are doing to protect the kids, especially for younger students, because we always see a lot of students in the morning without helmet, riding the bicycle or e-bike. So anyway, thank you so much. And one more thing, I know because public service is so, so, so honorable and also it's tough because my mom, she was in the hospital right now since it's about 11.30, she got surgery. So I sincerely need to ask each of you and everyone here to pray for my mom because she's fighting with her kidney stone in the hospital right now. So thank you so much. And so the city council will adjourn this meeting to Tuesday, May 19th, 2026 at 6 p.m. in the city council conference room. Thank you, good night.

Thank you.