City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening. Welcome to the city of Arcadia, 6 p.m. Roll of city council members.

Council member Cao.

Here.

Council member Kwan. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Fu.

Here.

Mayor Chang.

Here. Public comments, are there any public comments? All right, so we have two cards, five minutes each. I go in alphabetical order.

First person will be Arthur Fong and the next person is Diego R. I'm gonna double check, Mr. Mayor, if those are for the seven o'clock session or specifically for the city appointment of members.

Commander Fong, are you here for the main?

No, seven o'clock regular meeting.

Yes, sir. Diego R., are you here for the 6 p.m. or are you here for the 7 p.m.? Are you here, Diego? Yes, sir. Is there a specific item number or is it general public comment, sir? 10B. 10 Bravo, okay. Mr. Fong, are you here for the, it looks like you're here for the general public. General comment. General comment, yes, sir. And I just wanna make sure, sir, that I'm addressing you correctly. Commander Fong, correct? Okay, thank you. I have a blank. April's? April, are you here? No, no, it's okay, it's okay. Are you here for the 6 p.m. or are you here for 7? Both, okay, so. Okay, yeah, you're the only card for the 6 p.m., and I will have you for the 7 p.m. For those of you that are gonna be speaking for the 7 p.m. and you happen to be here early, if you could tell everybody to try to put in the cards as quickly as possible, only because we have a very huge agenda tonight. So thank you so much. April, you have five minutes.

Hi, good evening, City Council, Mayor. I just wanted to take this opportunity to basically, you know, Restate that it was my belief that you guys should have left the seat vacant. But now that you interviewed six, you just lost one, so now you're down to five. I think that it's imperative that you pick somebody. I think to put people through this process, to have the application, to have the interviews, You grilled people, you went through all this, and now you're not gonna pick someone and leave the seat vacant, I think would be a huge disservice to those that applied. I think it's a disservice to those in District 3 who are now anticipating that you're going to pick somebody. I think all the candidates that applied that stuck to it, the last six that interviewed, they were all excellent, and we would be lucky to have any one of them. So I hope that you will see through it to pick somebody tonight. And I will caution and warn you that if you don't pick anybody, it will make you guys look even more guilty that you had staged it all, put somebody in in District 3, William Wu, and then when he withdrew because he was outed by me, you guys decided not to pick anyone because it wasn't going to be one of your cronies or one of your buddies that you can manipulate and control and puppeteer. So caution you, warn you, you don't pick anyone, you're going to look guilty as hell. Good

Colonel, are you here for the 6 p.m. or the general public comment at 7 p.m., sir? Is it 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. that you're here for?

5 p.m., sir.

Got it, yes, sir. Thank you. So with that being said, I just wanted to ask all of our council members, I know last time that there was some requests to consider. There was a statement that if we were gonna move it, that you couldn't vote, but you were willing to vote last time. So I'm just gonna go around to make sure. Council Member Kwan, are you ready to vote? Okay, Council Member Cao, are you ready to vote? Yes. And Mayor Pro Tem Phu, are you ready to vote?

Yes.

Okay, great. So why don't we just go again round robin, open it up for just any council comments as it relates to just the people that have applied. We do know that Walter has has pulled the application. We wanted to thank and excuse him. And we definitely respect people, anybody that's applied, particularly for people that have said that they realize that being on city council is more than just going to council meetings. We have a lot of respect for that. So we really thank you for those that have applied, although they may not have gone to the very end. So Council Member Kwan, did you have any comments at all?

Well, first of all, I want to say thank you so much for all the applicants that came out here, have the courage to come out here and allow us to question and allow us to evaluate. I have to say, sincerely, you guys are all amazing, and I really like all of you. You guys were very much independent, and that's something that I was looking forward to. in picking my candidates. So it has been very difficult choice for me. But I have decided, you know, that my first top three. And so do you want me to give the names or what is the procedure?

It's totally up to you. So for those that are just joining in, What we are doing is we are doing council comments where we give our thoughts. It's voluntary whether we want to give our top three or not, but we're all voting at the same time. And the reason why that's important is we want, obviously, to alleviate any concerns, that there's any points that are being adjusted at the same time. And so it's entirely up to you. It's our council comments, and you can say whatever you think is best. Thank you.

Yes. So for me, how I would evaluate is just based on, you know, intelligence, integrity, independence and the sincerity and the commitment to serve Arcadia. So I think all of them have those qualifications. So I'm very, very happy. It has been very difficult for me to make my choices, but I have. So because the former mayor, Eileen Wang, She was a female, so I really hope that with the respect from the District 3, I would like to pick someone of my choice that's also a female. I think it's something that I think that it's good to have a diversity of different gender here, which is good. And the second thing I was looking forward to is make sure that the candidate has lived here long enough. So the years of residency is also something that I, looked at very carefully. And so I think that's the second concern that I have. But based on intelligence and integrity, it's so good that I asked the questions if any of the applications that would turn in that were influenced by city council members and they all said no. So I think that really eased my mind because it's so important that we start to restore public trust. knowing that they're very independent and they really are not influenced by any of us on city council. So yes, so my choices are based on these criterias. I have chosen Alisa Walton as my number one choice and she has, you know, did a lot for the community, a lot of community service. And I think very importantly is someone that understands Arcadia history. And so I really like that from her because she was born and raised in Arcadia. And so, and I think serving for the community, you really understand where the city came from and also how we got here and how we should preserve some of the principles and the missions of the city. So I really like that as well, too. So that's my number one choice. And number two choice is Cynthia Ng. She's also demonstrated those qualities that I have said at first. So I don't want to take too much time. And my third candidate would be John Hang, because I really like the background that you have. And I think, you know, it's very beneficial to being a city council member to have those kind of knowledge. So yeah, these are my choices, Mayor.

Thank you very much. Council Member Cao.

Thank you so much, Mayor. I have all these applications in front of me. I've been looking at them for the last two weeks. Two weeks ago, I said that I wasn't ready to make a decision because I really wanted to look at what the skill set is and to make sure that individuals who interviewed, applied, understand what the role of city council is. And I think that's something that's very important. Every candidate is phenomenal, whether they interviewed or whether they didn't interview. Every candidate brings something to the table. And really that's what we're looking for. We're looking for something that, we're looking for someone that brings uniqueness, value, not only to the council, but to our community more importantly. And when you look at the backgrounds, when you hear the interviews, I'm really impressed with everyone. And one of the things that I value is merit. It may or may not be a popular word nowadays, but I believe in merit. Merit meaning you earned it, you worked for it, And that's something that's important because I know that everyone in the community of Arcadia, they had to work hard to be in Arcadia. I know that everyone who has a family here wants their children to get the best grades, to get into the best schools, to get into the best professions. Everyone who's moved here is the same way. So when I look at these applications, I'm torn. I'm torn because everyone brings something to the table. And looking at this, when I look at it, I guess I'm gonna go opposite. I'm gonna go with the individual that will get the first, will get one point, and that's Beth Smiszowski. Why is Beth in my top three? It's because of the fact that she's a screenwriter. That is not usually some skillset that we have in our community. that really lends a perspective where she sees the world in a different view. We all have our professions, but Arcadia is not a hotbed of screenwriters. And I find that very amazing. And then the other thing that I find that she really understands well is communication skills. And that's something that's important. How do we communicate with each other? How do we communicate with our community? For my second point, and I'm saddened that this individual withdrew today, Walter Bersaki, I'm giving him two points because of the fact that how many applicants can say that they were the Vice Chair of the Parade Operations Committee for the Tournament of Roses. The Tournament of Roses is an international event. It's a national event. And for you to be able to be on the Operations Committee, it means you have great logistics skills. And the fact that he works for an incredible company like Ford Motor. I mean, how much more American can that be? So I know that unfortunately he withdrew today, but Walter, if you're listening, I'm going to give you two points. And then lastly, for my three points, I think John Hand is incredible. Why? Because of the fact that he's lived on three continents. He's lived here in North America. He's lived in Asia and lives in Europe. That gives a very cosmopolitan view. And that's what we need. Our city isn't defined by borders. Arcadia is not a border between one street to another street. Our city is defined by our residents and our community. What have people brought in to the community that we already didn't have? Most of us grew up in North America, some of us grew up maybe in two continents, but to be able to actually have experience in three continents, and to be able to not just live there but work there, it means you have to have an incredible skill set. Communication, organization, and I think that that's something that's important. So those are my top three. John, three points. Walter, two points. And then Beth, one point. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem Fu.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I, too, want to thank all the applicants for coming forward to put their hats in the ring. I don't want to repeat too many of the statements that were made by my colleagues, but I don't think you can adequately address the importance of participation in self-governance, that people should come forward, care about their communities, make a contribution, and be willing to expend the time and effort it takes to do this job, which, quite frankly, is very burdensome. Toward that end, I don't blame those that dropped out. It is a very large commitment, and I would imagine that perhaps the weight of that commitment was what eventually settled in and influenced their decisions to withdraw. But certainly, even though they are not going to serve on the city council, I would welcome them to continue to submit their names, to participate in other aspects, and support our city in other ways, because their contributions are always welcome. I too looked at the qualities of the candidates and they were very, very strong. I think I have different priorities from some of those that are expressed by my colleagues here on the dais. I think that independence and intellect are very important and the experience that these candidates have will inform their ability to serve the city with distinction. We do handle numbers. That's important. What's more important, I think, is to understand how budgeting and the impact that that budget has on the services that we deliver will then inform the quality of life in our city. And that's a very important issue. Life is not black and white. It's lots and lots and lots of gray. I was very, very impressed with Beth Simansky. Sorry, Simkowski, pardon me. I keep trying to rename her. Yes, the entertainment background is very intriguing. But I think more importantly, I was really impressed with the fact that she was thinking on her feet. And it was very clear to me that there wasn't kind of a canned presentation, that when questions were addressed to her, what she did was she stopped to think about it. And, you know, I like to tell my clients, you know, I don't have all the answers, but I like to know where I can go to get them. And that involves some thought. You don't need to know everything. You don't have to open your mouth all the time and say, you know, I have the answer to this. But you do need to give it some thought. And it's part of the role that we play here. We have to be deliberative. You know, city council is a unique organ in government in our country. Normally, we have all the functions, the legislative function, the executive function, the judicial function separated out. But actually, on city council, you do all three. So it's a very different kind of a skill set. Not only should you be somewhat academic, should you be thoughtful, should you be pensive, you should be philosophical too. At the same time, you have to have the kind of personality, and the kind of collegiality that's necessary to compromise when it's necessary for what's best for the city. So, quite frankly, I felt that Beth was the second best candidate for that purpose, and so I'm going to give her two points. I have to agree with Michael that I believe that John is the best candidate. John has an extensive background, and I had to go Google this, Apparently the INSEAD Business School is the top business school in Europe. He has a very extensive background in finance. He has worked in some very elite industries. And although our job here is not all about money, a lot of it is about the public purse. And so I was impressed with what he said about following the data. We're not here to impress upon others a particular agenda. We don't come to city council, in my opinion, having preordained what we're going to say or how we're going to feel about a specific subject. We should have an open mind. And I believe that John is capable of that. I think, and I believed his statements about following the data. I think that's very important, and therefore I respected that. That would leave my third pick, or one-point pick, so to speak, and that would be for Paul Van Fleet, actually. I really like Paul. He had a very kind of every guy quality that I think is really important for city council. It's something that people can identify with. He talked about his failures. He talked about running for city office. And obviously, the fact that he has done this a couple of times and has continued to put his hat in the ring illustrates that he has a sustained desire to serve the city. And that's a very, very important quality that I think that will be tested. if you are honored to sit on the stairs. So those are my three picks at this point. John Han was three points. Beth Simkowski, pardon me, was the two points. And then Paul Van Vliet was the number one point.

okay um you know i wanted to thank all of the residents that have applied uh john i wanted to thank you uh just you're the only candidate that wrote an email over to city council before you applied and a thank you email after you applied uh you remind me of myself when i first got on council you're very sweet very kind i still think i'm sweet and kind but but you reminded me of the hopes and dreams that I had when I first got on council. It was very sweet. Cynthia Monge, I want to thank you for applying. Cynthia, I think her background, particularly where she worked at JPL, we're very impressed by that and very blessed that you've applied. Beth, I really liked the way that she communicated. You know, she turned around frequently to speak to residents that were concerned about issues in the city of Arcadia. I thought that was respectful, although you were replying to us, but you wanted to connect with residents in the back. Paul Van Fleet, thank you so much. Those that are, that run for office, whether you win or lose, you are in a small very small group of people. And whether you win or lose, you are very much respected. And the reason why I share that is the first time I ran for council I lost. And in losing, nobody remembers that I lost. But I can be able to tell you that it was one of the best opportunities to get plugged in into our community. So I wanted to congratulate you. And Lisa Walton, obviously, Lisa's family is a generational family. It's one of the reasons why many new Arcadians, so I've been here over 20 years, but new Arcadians move into the city of Arcadia. And the reason why we move into the city of Arcadia is for families, the Shimmons family. uh that that name rings a bell that that name will be put up uh when we end up doing our whether it's the wall of pride or or the wall where we recognize residents that have made a difference and i've said this you know lisa is an individual that has served our community on a commission her family has served in every way possible and for lack of a better term she comes from good stock So my top three has pretty much always been the same. Lisa Walton at three points, John Hahn at two points, and Paul Van Vliet at one point. And so let us all submit after our, if you guys want a few more minutes to fill out, but I'm ready to go, there you go. So what the team is doing is we're all submitting our numbers at the same time. Obviously, you could give your own thoughts. I've already submitted my numbers. I think most of us have already spoken. Doesn't mean that you can't change your numbers in any way, but again, let's just all submit it at the same time. And while things are being counted, really wanted to thank the statements that were made earlier. Council Member Kwan saying that intelligence, integrity, and commitment to community is so important to serving the city council. And we appreciate those type of statements that having gender diversity is so important. And it is important to have gender diversity because I think women elected officials bring so much dynamic and perspective that I think men generally do not have. And we appreciate that. We really do. And I appreciate Council Member Kwan's comments. Council Member Cao saying that every council member, every applicant brings something to the table. He's absolutely right. And merit is important and earning things are important because right now there are so many people where entitlement is the priority and that is so important. Also council member Fu that essentially says that each and every individual can serve with distinction as well as budgeting being so critical and so important. So I wanted to thank all the council members that have made their comments. Have I been able to fill enough time for us to submit? Yeah? All right. So how are we gonna do it? Is it eventually gonna be posted? So the reason why we did a 3-2-1 point system is so that the net number of the person, after adding everything together, that will be our council member.

I think Mr. Mayor, the city clerk is reviewing what was actually submitted, but everybody kind of tipped their hands, so I think we have a pretty good running total of what the result's going to be here, but we'll let the city clerk do her calculations just to double check. Ready?

We have John Han with nine points, Cynthia with two points, Beth with three points, Paul Van Fleet with two points, and Lisa Walton with six points.

Six, okay, so John had how many points? Nine. Nine, and the next person has? Cynthia Mangi with two points. Two, Beth has? Three. Three points. Two points, Lisa Walton has six points. So it looks like based upon the net point total, our next council member will be Mr. John Han. So with that being the case, John Han is here tonight. We're gonna...

Yeah, if we could, I think the city attorney would feel comfortable if there was a formal motion and a vote on Mr. Han, just so we have it for the record and posterity in the future. Yes.

Thank you.

Can we have a motion to- Appoint John Han.

Appoint John Han.

This is Mike, I'll make that motion.

I'll second that.

All right, let's take a roll call.

Council Member Cao.

Yes.

Council Member Kwan. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Fu.

Yes.

Mayor Chang.

Yes. All right, so with that being the case, Mr. Hahn is here, and are we going to be swearing him in? All right, Mr. Hahn, yes.

Actually, so that's on the seven o'clock agenda. Do you want to?

We have a closed session. Do you want to do closed session first?

Yes, so Mr. Han, if you could please be patient, you're on the agenda for seven o'clock. We're gonna have a closed session and we're going to close the 6 p.m. meeting at this time, thank you. Recess. Recess this meeting at the time and go over to closed session, thank you. All right, let's have a call to order. We will have the invocation by the religious director Riaz Khan of the Mosque of San Gabriel, who will also lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. All rise.

All rise.

Good evening. In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful, we gather tonight with gratitude for the many blessings bestowed upon this community and for the opportunity to serve the common good. The Holy Quran reminds us, indeed, God commands justice, excellence, and generosity towards others. These timeless principles guide us, not only in our personal lives, but also in our public responsibility. We give thanks for the men, women interested with leadership in our city, We recognize the weight of their responsibilities, the difficult decisions they must make, and the countless hours they dedicate to serving the residents of Arcadia. Grant them wisdom to discern what is right, encourage them to act with integrity and humility, and to listen with open hearts. We pray to our first responders, city employees, educators, business owners, volunteers, and all those who contribute to the strength and vitality of this community. May their efforts be blessed and their service appreciated. We ask your blessings upon residents of Arcadia. May our city continue to be a place where neighbors care for each other, where diversity is valued, where families flourish, and where future generations inherit a community marked by safety, opportunity, and peace. Oh God, inspire us to seek understanding over division, cooperation over conflict, and hope over fear. Help us remember that we are stronger when we work together in spirit of mutual respect and shared purpose. Amen. Amen. 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, one God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Roll call.

Council Member Cao.

Here.

Council Member Han.

Present.

Council Member Kwan. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Fu.

Here.

Mayor Chang.

Here. A report from city attorney regarding closed or any study session items.

Thank you, Mayor. We did not have a study session, but we did open our regular council meeting at 6 p.m. today so that the council could appoint a new member. So as you can see, it's our new council member, John Hahn, was appointed by the council after some public comment and discussion. So welcome, council member. And then after that, we did go into closed session on the item as described on the agenda. There is no reportable action out of closed session. Thank you, Mayor.

All right, let's have the presentation of a $12,550 donation from the Friends of the Guild Museum of Arcadia Heritage for Programming and Supplies. For those of you that are just here, as the presentation is being made, we are moving up the general public comment right after the presentations. All right, let's have them come up. Come on over to the middle.

Yeah.

So tell us a little bit about this beautiful check that you have.

I'm going to give it to her because she's the president. Of course, of course.

No, well, OK. All right, first of all, I'd like to introduce, we are the part of the board of directors from the Friends of the Museum. So starting over here, I have Maria Leva, I have Esther Reynosa, I have Ginny Blitz, I have Robin Greeney, and Joanna Liang, and our wonderful person who leads us, Darlene Bradley. OK, honorable mayor and honorable city council, we are extremely happy tonight and be excited to be here to give you a check for $12,550 to keep all the wonderful programs going at our library and our museum. And this is for the museum. And Stevie and Lauren spent hours and hours and hours. And I don't know if you are aware, how many visited the museum this year? Good. I want you to know we had over 5,000 visitors. So if you haven't been there, do stop by. And it all started with Charles and Ruth Gilb, who saw a vision that we needed a museum. and then along came floretta lauber and she had a vision that we needed a museum education building so it's because of those people that we have this wonderful museum so with that honorable mayor we would like to present you our check for twelve thousand five hundred and fifty dollars

May we have all the city council just to come on down. For those of you that don't know Joyce Platt, she was a teacher for so many residents and now many of the children she taught are now parents in the city of Arcadia. Let's give Joyce Platt a round of applause. Come on Sharon, come on in. Come on in, come on in. You guys are the best. Thank you. Thank you. This is beautiful handwriting. If there are any kids, you have to learn how to handwrite, because there aren't too many people that can handwrite anymore. Thank you. Thank you. So our next item that we have is a presentation. Darlene? For those of you that don't know Darlene, she's going to be, when is your time going to be up? Darlene is going to be leaving us one of the sweetest people in the world. This is on the agenda, right? Because we're going to talk about it. Darlene, can you just share a little bit about the museum and all of that, and just also your time here in the city? Because we're going to miss you. And she's such a humble person. She's always the person in the back that nobody knows about. And so she's here. And if you could just share a little bit about just the presentations today, as well as just your time here in the city.

Thank you. The library and the museum have been so special. I grew up here in Arcadia. I live in Arcadia. And so it's been a passion to make sure that we have the best museum and the best library we can for our community. Raising my daughter, I always felt very held to a high standard. So all those parents and all those teachers coming into the library, we're getting the best service. The museum is something we've worked on really hard the last seven years so that it's a part of the community so that teachers and students and everybody can learn about Arcadia history. but how it fits into the bigger, the U.S., the international history as well. It's been a pleasure.

Let's give her a round of applause. So come on in the middle. Let's have you share just a little bit, and then Liz also come over as well, share about what this is.

I'm Ann Joseph, I'm the outgoing president of the Friends of the Arcadia Library and these are this year's proceeds which we are donating to the library and it primarily will be used for summer programming. This is the largest donation we've been able to give in many, many years so we're very proud of that. And this is Elizabeth Renfrew and she is going to be our incoming president.

May we have city council come on down. You know, I went over to the library, and in the catacombs of the library, they have all of these books, and I saw Liz organizing. The books are heavy, and she's doing it with a smile. So what a beautiful individual, and let's have, come on, let's have council come on in. Go ahead, John. Thank you so much. All right, thank you so much.

Mr. Mayor, before you walk away with all the microphones, you still do need to do the oath of office for our incoming councilor.

Yes, oh, John, yeah. So for those of you that don't know, John was able to join us in our closed session. He was sworn in earlier, but we're going to have him be able to be sworn in so his family can be able to see. So let's give John a round of applause. John, come on up. Rochelle's going to swear you in. I'm going to get out of the way.

Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, state your name.

I, John Hahn.

Do solemnly swear or affirm.

Do solemnly swear.

Or affirm.

Or affirm.

That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

That I will bear true faith and allegiance.

That I will bear true faith and allegiance.

To the Constitution of the United States.

To the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

That I take this obligation freely.

That I take this obligation freely.

Without any mental reservation.

Without any mental reservation.

Or purpose of evasion.

Or purpose of evasion.

And that I will well and faithfully.

I will well and faithfully.

Discharge the duties.

Discharge the duties.

Upon which I am about to enter.

Upon which I am about to enter. Congratulations. Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

so what i'm going to do is in terms of having john speak we're just going to have him speak but i also want the other council members to be able to just share their thoughts really quick because obviously uh it's it's brand new but but let's just start off with council member kwan cal mayor pro tem foo just to share your thoughts really quick and welcome our newest council member onto the city council council member kwan

I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for taking this position to serve the public. At this time, we're desperately in need of your help. And thank you so much for being independent. And also, I saw your resume that you submitted. You are amazing. the intelligence is there and as well as the integrity. So I'm really, really happy. And yes, there's a lot to learn. What I'm very happy is that you have a math mind. So that can help us with the budgeting part. So I'm very happy. And yeah, we will work together and I'm looking forward to this till November 2026. This is gonna be my term ending. So I'm very happy and get to know you better too. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Cao.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Hahn, we want to say thank you for coming and joining us, serving the community. It's an incredible opportunity so that you can bring to our community the value, the skill set that I always kind of harp on. I think that's really important. I mentioned at the 6 p.m. meeting that I'm a big believer in merit, and I think that's what you stand for. I think that your cosmopolitan experiences is going to bring a lot to our community, and On behalf of the entire council, we look forward to working with you, and once again, as a community member, thank you for standing up and being willing to serve. Thank you, Council Member Hahn. Mayor Pro Tempfu.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. When we returned from the break, I saw John take his seat, and I said, oh, boy, I'm glad. I thought you quit already. So I'm glad that you're going to stick with it, John. This is a wonderful job. It's very, very rewarding in ways that you'll find surprising. Service is important, and it will make you rethink about how you feel about serving a community, what's important, just showing up, answering questions for people, being available, as well as doing the job and using your best judgment and independence to help us to reach an informed decision and the deliberations that we enter into. So I'm certainly very confident of your skills and your ability to exhibit the function with superlative results. And I'm very, very excited to serve with you and look forward to working with you in the years to come.

Council Member Hahn, there was an elder statesman when I first got on council that basically told me the four legs of a good city are first responders, city staff, a great school system, and last of all, great residents. And I asked him, what about city council? And he said, that's not part of the four legs. He said, your job as a city council is to edify these four foundations so that all you have to do is sit. That is the foundation of our city. You will be so proud to serve because we have a classy city. You will be so blessed by our first responders, our police and fire. You will be so blessed by our city staff that answer emails seven days a week. You will be so blessed by our schools, by our school board, and you will realize that Arcadia residents, you may have realized it before, but you will realize are the kindest, sweetest, people that you will ever meet so with that being said let's turn it over to you you have the floor just to share your thoughts as your first speech as a council member on the arcadia city council go ahead sir thank you very very much mayor i'll try not to mess this up i want to

Thank you very much for the appointment. I'm very humbled by this. And I want to say I'm really looking forward to working with you, Mayor Chen, Councilmember Kwon, Councilmember Kao, and also Mayor Potemfu, as well as all the leaderships here we have in Arcadia and the staff. And also, of course, the people, the residents of Arcadia. So, and last word I want to say is I'm ready to get to work. Thank you.

All right, let's give a round of applause. May we check the box? After this check, there's no more public comments apart from 10B, all right? And so what I, thank you, sir. Thank you for coming up. It's gonna be a three minute. It'll be three minutes. I go in alphabetical order, alphabetical by last name. If you do not put a last name, it will be your first name. First person will be Chris Arzati. And the second one is Major Stewart Chan. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Chris Arzotti. I'm a resident of Arcadia, and I just came up to very quickly want to express my gratitude for the appointment to sit on the Senior Citizens Commission. This is my last month, and I really just wanted to express the gratitude and also just the experience that I had and tell the staff thank you. Candace has really been... great lead for the Commission she's taught me a lot she's been really helpful with a lot of advice and background had a great time getting to know the other Commission members and just learned a lot I thought it was a great introduction to the city the civic engagement and wanted to thank you all for and especially councilmember Cal for the nomination and to account for the appointment Thank you.

Thank you, sir. And then Mr. Azadi, you're also here for agenda item nine. Will you be speaking at that time or no, sir?

That was in relation to that.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Major Chan.

Yes, sir. Hey, hi everybody. Dear mayor and also council members, and welcome to joining the council, great city. So today I'm here to speak up for my fellow veterans. As I heard, there's some disrespect comment about veterans finding their medal. or military service is really an insult. So I'm a combat veteran. I serve in U.S. Army engineer officer. I volunteer. So I have every reason not to, but my family could pay for my tuitions. I don't need a green card. I already have an engineering degree. So I have options. I chose to serve because I love this country. I'm proud to be an American with Chinese descent. I volunteered to jump on a plane and went to war. I earned the right to speak about sacrifice because I have lived it. So I'm speaking today because somebody insults Major Cal, a fellow veteran, and my brother-in-arm. In the military, we never leave our brother and sister behind on the battlefield. And we do not leave them behind and attack one of us or you attack all of us. So the bond is something people don't understand because he or she never earned it. And my fellow veteran, like Major Cal, he earned it, and I earned it, and also my veterans, fellow vets, earned it. Well, Major Cal is the Air Force flight surgeon. I don't know if people know about it. He's a cardiologist. He lived in the in Afghanistan, and earned his right to speak about his service. He was there, he lived it, and this is his merit. Somebody accused that he was fond of the military service as an insult, not only him, but to all, every man and woman who raised a hand and volunteered. I've watched his pattern in my whole life. People never served at Tech II who did. It's not a criticism, it's an insecurity dressing up as judgment, a need to shrink people who courage remind he or she own absence. They didn't serve, they didn't sacrifice, they didn't bleed. So tear down who did. So Dr. Cao, do you have any cure for that sickness of heart like this? I mean, if you can prescribe them some medications. So let me say this plainly, being born on a military base doesn't make you a veteran. Breathing the same air doesn't sacrifice, like, make you brave. Honor is not inherent. It is not hand down through bloodline or base address. It's bleed for it, fight for it, and earn it. And Michael Kyle can name every decoration, you know, medal, citation he earned. So in my experience, so for the long story short, every veteran signed a blank check to the country, including our own life, but that person didn't sign that check. Major Kao did it, I did it, and my fellow veterans signed it. So that's all, thank you.

Thank you. Next one is Captain Arthur Fong, and then the person after will be Christine Leung, thank you.

Yes, sir. Good evening. Mayor, Mayor Poutem and Councilmember, thank you for giving me a chance to talk here. My name is Captain Arthur Fong, US Navy retired after 28 years. Operation Enduring Freedom and many operational veterans went to cemetery so many times. including a poor prayer for my shimmy uh... set up a case is is a role model in the saint david valley uh... i look up to you guys i cannot for the house you okay but i don't know why you guys have all these negative comment against the veterans on one hand last meeting you've you raise a fair for killing action you you place a twenty fifty years ago a presentation to the army And you should pay attention to those negative comments to our veterans, including to Michael Kao. I'm a veteran myself. I wear my medals today. Michael Kao earned his medal. He doesn't need authorization from any of your members to wear it. He earned it with sweat and motivation and dedication. He can wear it anytime, 24-7. He didn't need your approval. Don't criticise his year of service, his medals, his loyalty to the country. But I can say that, okay, I don't come here for politics. If he doesn't do a good job as a council member, roll him out, yell at him. But don't ever criticize another veteran's service and wearing his medal. It's so impolite, insulting. Again, I'm a senior military retired leader in the Valley. I'm the president of Chinese-American military support. So for Council Member Kao, I don't know why. Maybe you look different. You talk different like me. You always get this criticism as a veteran in the city of Acadia. I hope it will never happen again. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Christine Young, next person after is Kevin Mack.

Good evening, everyone. First of all, I would like to express that I do understand the concerns that Lin Wang's incident has caused for some neighbors. However, Please keep in mind that this is an isolated incident. Ailin Wang's activity does not represent or equal to all Chinese Americans' activities. There are criminals in every ethnic group, but they are a very small minority. We can now assume that all Chinese are spies. Technically, everyone here is an immigrant or a descendant of an immigrant, except Native Americans. Why did we immigrate to America? Because we want a better life. We believe that the US is a country with freedom, opportunities, and the same value that we believe in. The most important thing is the US is a country with inclusiveness. We bring the hope from everywhere in the world to chase our dreams in America. Let's take a look over some great Chinese American representatives. Steven Chen is an American political advisor. He has served as the White House communications director since 2025. Jason Huang, the founder and CEO of NVIDIA. Elisa Liu, one of the most amazing Olympic champion in figure skating. The majority of Chinese Americans are hardworking and kind-hearted. President Trump just visited China on May 14th this year. During a speech he gave there, he mentioned Confucius among the sculptural group in the east pediment of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. The designer of the sculptures, Herman MacNeil, has submitted the following description of his work to the Supreme Court Building Commission. Law, as an element of civilization, was normally and naturally derived or inherited in this country from former civilizations. The eastern pediment of the Supreme Court Building suggests, therefore, the treatment of such fundamental laws and the precepts as are derived from the east. Moses, Confucius, and the Solon are chosen as representing three great civilizations and form the central group of this Parliament. President Trump also cited a Chinese inscribed stone tablet inside the Washington Monument. Chinese admirers of President George Washington gifted a stone tablet honoring his memory to adorn the Washington Monument. It bears the words of a Chinese official who called the great general and the statesman a hero among men. The stone tablet was made in 1853.

Christine, I apologize, but you only have three minutes. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Mr. Kevin Mack. Next one after Mr. Mack is April Verlato. Kevin. Hey, come on up. How are you? Good to see you.

So good evening, Mayor, members of City Council, and Kevin Mack. I came up with an idea where they should add a left turn arrow at the intersection of Golden West Avenue and Huntington Drive. The left turn arrow one direction is turning left from the Golden West Avenue southbound to Huntington Drive eastbound. and the other one turning left from the Golden West northbound onto the Huntington Drive westbound. Because sometimes in both directions of left turn, there could be a long line of cars making left turn. And the area of Golden West for sure between the Huntington Drive and Duarte Road, I believe is zoned for condos. So even though there are single family houses there, they won't be there in 80 years. I guarantee like probably in the next like 20 years, they're gonna be torn down and replaced with condos. So it's not a matter of if there's gonna be a serious increase in traffic at that intersection, but a matter of when. And I think what would be a good idea is that if they put in left turn arrows in both directions and have the left turn arrow and the regular light be green at the same time and red at the same time, so people going southbound on Golden West, whether they're gonna keep going straight or turn left onto the Huntington Drive, don't have to wait. They just continue straight and driving through. Same thing with the people going northbound on the, Huntington, Golden West, whether they're gonna continue straight on Golden West or turn left to Huntington, they don't have to wait at all. And also I was thinking that exit out of the county park on the Santa Anita Avenue, I know that they have two exits that have signal lights. I'd like them to consider putting in left turn arrows, especially the exit that turns into Diamond Ave, and also turning left from Diamond onto Santa Anita, have a left turn arrow, so people who are either who are leaving Diamond Ave, whether they're gonna go straight to the park or turn left into Santa Anita, they don't have to wait to make a left turn and get worried about getting car crash. And people leaving the Santa Anita Park at the exit that turns into Huntington, I mean, that turns into Diamond, where they make a left turn at that exit onto Santa Anita, they don't have to, they can just like make a left turn without having to wait. Because what if some, what if they're worried about come traffic collision with cars from Diamond Avenue going to the park, the one right by the golf course entrance. I think with those left turn arrows, people will feel more at ease. Because sometimes people don't always signal and they turn or people, you don't even know if they're gonna go straight or turn. No, because some people aren't thinking, that's the thing. So I just hope that, I hope there's been no accidents, but if we put the left turn arrows, I think it'll make it safer. Especially that community where you're gonna get more condos, because I know there's like five or six condo projects. In 20 years, there's probably gonna be like a 30% increase in condos. Maybe 50% and there's gonna be way more vehicle traffic. We need to take action now rather than wait till we have like 15 more condos and there's gonna be car accidents and take action then, yeah.

Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. I'm going to have Paul Kramer. If anybody has any concerns over possible traffic improvements, where can, and Dominic can answer as well, who should they call at the city just to provide information on what they think would be a good improvement?

So the short answer is after tonight, depending on how you approve things, it will be the Public Works Services Department. But the city has a Traffic Advisory Committee that will review Mr. Mack's complaints and any other complaints. You just contact the city in any way and we'll get it to the Traffic Advisory Committee to review those traffic situations.

Well, for those that have always wondered, you know, who do you contact in the city? I can be able to tell you that Mary Budas in the city manager's office, she's my go-to quarterback. She knows everybody in every department. She's a sweetheart and just the heart of the city. So if you call the city, you can ask for Mary Budas and she'll direct you to the right person to be able to go to. Would that be a fair?

That's great, and if you like digital, just email citycouncil at arcadiaca.gov, and we'll get it to the right people.

Great. Let's have April Verlato come up, and the one after will be Commander Ryan Wong, and the last person will be Christine Zito. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and congratulations to our new appointed city council member, John Hahn. I wish you the best of luck in your public service over the next, what is it, four or five months. I'm here tonight to remind you all of the rules of decorum that you adopted, not just, what, nine months ago? At the last council meeting, it seems nobody remembered them. And when you guys don't follow the rules, I question whether I should follow the rules. And that's why you had outbursts from me. As a reminder, the rules of... decorum uh... under section two the city city the city council meeting agendas paragraph three c public comments and it states council members should generally avoid responding to public comments and should not discuss items that are not on the agenda in response to public comments Council members may nonetheless refer matters raised to the city manager for a brief response or referral to the appropriate staff member, and council members may give a brief response to matters of personal privilege, such as personal attacks, false information about a council member, or offensive or hate-based speech. I did not comment at public comment Nor did I say anything, well, I gave public comment earlier in the evening, but I did not at all ever make any statements that were racist. Nor did I give a dog whistle of racism. And why this council allowed Mayor Pro Tem David Fu to attack me, point a finger at me, accuse me of being racist when I said nothing. Why are you not following and adhering to your own rules? If I don't give a public comment, you don't attack me, okay? You can now attack me on your rules of decorum, the ones you guys adopted. Right? And make sure you know and understand that it is the Mayor is generally responsible for maintaining order and decorum at all City Council meetings. Mayor Cheng, it's on you. You are the one responsible. Please keep decorum. That means Mayor Pro Tem Phu, Do not attack me if I do not give public comment. Do not attack Tom Beck if he is not here giving public comment. These were only supposed to be for people who give public comment council members can address. So not only did you let him go on and on and on for I forget how many minutes, not brief, very long and extensive, and for those of you at home who didn't hear my comments as I was shouting from the audience, I couldn't help but make the comment, I live rent free in David Fu's head. And yes, when he goes to bed at night, he dreams of me. He cannot stop thinking about me. So I ask you, please adhere to your rules of decorum. Hold each other accountable. Don't make up rules as you go along. And then when you have Council Member Kwan try to do the same thing, don't cut her off and say, no, that doesn't apply. The rules of decorum say you can't speak up. Don't make it a double standard that you all can speak up but not Sharon. We're watching, we're paying attention, and my T-shirt says, I'm sorry I upset you. Next time, I'll try not to be right. Thank you.

Thank you so much. April Verlato is correct that we do have a rules of decorum. We've circulated the rules of decorum out to our city council. We approved it unanimously. It is my job to enforce the rules of decorum. I have to admit, Being mayor at this time has been challenging, at least for me. And if I have not been able to enforce the rules of the quorum uniformly, I am improving. It is my fault. It is not the fault of any council member. I think we're all doing our best. And I thank you for your patience and your voice. With that being said, we have Commander Ryan Wong. And then lastly, we have Christine Zito, who is the board president of the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce.

Mayor, City Council, City Manager, thank you for having me tonight. I had the honor of attending the Veterans Memorial Day event. And it was a couple of weeks ago and it was Arcadia Fallen Veterans Commemoration. And I was honored to attend it. And I just want to come up here and thank the city for supporting the veterans, Dr. Kao, Mayor Chang, David Fu, you were there, and also City Manager, I appreciate you there. Also, I was able to talk to the firefighters and the police officers. Thank you very much for supporting veterans. So with that, I just want to say, I'm kind of proud to be a resident of Arcadia, and the council members are supporting veterans events and veterans. We sort of, my event last fall, I'm a member of the American Legion Post 628, which is in Los Angeles. So I challenge Council member John, you're new to the council and American Legion. I know there's a lot of veterans in Arcadix, I've seen it. So I challenged the city to let's get all veterans signed up to support organizations. We can help veterans, veterans can help us.

American Legion, right?

Yes. So thank you, the city, for stepping up and supporting us, and I hope we can do more things in the future and we can partner up. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

We have both Christine Zito, Board President of the Academy Chamber of Commerce, and Fei Huang, USC Hospital Board Member. Oh, so you're not going to be speaking at the same time? I apologize. It's on the same card. Yeah. Okay. Understood. So we'll first have Christine Zito.

I'll just take, you know, an hour talking about the taste of Arcadia.

No problem. I was going to say, I'd love to hear you for an hour. You're awesome. So, Board President of the Arcadia Chamber.

Thank you. Christine Zito, the president of the Arcadia, the board president of the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce. I also own a business in downtown Arcadia. I design websites, do online video, and I have a podcast studio that I would like each of you to come on and be. Okay, so I am here to talk about some events. And by the way, Dr. Cow, I want to say thank you for your service. I highly respect anybody who serves. I'm a caregiver to disabled veterans, so I get it. So thank you for your service. Taste of Arcadia, are you guys going? All right, yeah, Taste of Arcadia is coming up September 19th, it's a Saturday. Tickets are on sale right now for $49 until August 1st. And then it's going up to $69 and then the day of it's $79. So I want you guys to be a part of that, get the tickets right now. So each of you guys raise your right hand, say I will. And also, if you'd like to be a sponsor, you could be a sponsor at the Taste of Arcadia. It's a great time. I mean, we did our first Tasting Arcadia podcast today with Outback Steakhouse. And we're going to be doing that podcast. It starts next Tuesday, so you can listen to that and then be a part of that. So that is my little announcement on the Taste of Arcadia. I hope to see you all there.

Thank you.

Right? Councilman Full.

We have Fei Huang. Fei Huang. USC Hospital Board Member.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council Members. Fei Wang, Board Member of the City of Arcadia Chamber of Commerce. I'm also the Manager of Community Outreach at USC Arcadia Hospital. I'm here today to share a few of the Chamber's upcoming events in July. They're great for community members to attend and as well as business owners. First one is July 8th. It's called Mix. It's from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Harvest Fertility. Second event is called Raise and Shine. It's scheduled on July 16th. It's at 7.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. And the location is at El Canton de la Patrona. The last event I would like to share with you all is the Networking at Noon. This is scheduled for July 23rd. It's at 12 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. and it's at the Derby. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we're gonna be going to item number nine, which is appointments to city boards and commissions. Now, Earlier, we were reminded about our rules of decorum. Now, what does that mean? Yes, it is my job to make sure it is done. So I want to remind everybody, I am not the arbiter of a violation of the rules of decorum. We have designated our city attorney to be the parliamentarian. So if for any reason you feel there is a concern, please just have a point of order. We will recognize you. We will address the issue to our parliamentarian, who then makes a decision. And from that decision, it'll be how the, essentially from the decision, is whether there is a violation of our rules of decorum or not. That is how we do it. And so I just wanted to remind everybody on how that is done. In terms of our boards and commissions, I explained to the seniors at the Coffee with the Mayor, typically I do a point order. It's a lot easier. However, we're not doing that this time around because we have a very big agenda tonight. So with that being the case, I'm going to go down the list of the different commissions, and we're going to just say who we'd like. And... Yeah, essentially just tally up the votes and move forward. So the Arcadia Museum Commission, we have four positions that are open and we have three applicants. Are there any objections to any of the three applicants or can we proceed on all three applicants being part of the Arcadia Museum Commission?

I'll make a motion to appoint all three applicants to the positions.

I will second that. Oh, I'm sorry.

Were you here for the... No, let me just comment one thing because you said something wrong.

Okay. Unfortunately, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Read your rules of decorum.

Okay. I appreciate you. Thank you very much, April.

You are the ultimate arbiter.

Thank you very much, April.

Not this parliamentarian. Reread them. Do you want them? Here they are.

The public comment is closed.

I know, but you're making comments about the rules.

The mayor shall make a determination. Please, thank you. Thank you.

I have them right here.

Thank you. Understood. Why don't we have the city attorney kind of explain the process so we can just have some clarity, because I did want some clarity for all the city council.

Thank you. So thank you, Mayor. I'm happy to. I'll keep this short. In general, what parliamentarian means is the parliamentarian is the one who interprets the rules and makes the recommendations on it. So I'm happy whenever there's a point of order to make a recommendation. And ultimately, as mayor, you make a decision whether a council member is in order or out of order. But I'll provide an explanation of the rules and make a recommendation so that you can make a final determination.

Understood. Thank you very much. With that being the case, we have the Arcadia Museum Commission. We've had a first. I will second. So I think, unless there's no objections, did you want to take a vote on it?

Yeah, I think normally what we do, Mr. Mayor, is get a consensus as we go group by group. It's faster so we don't have to vote on everything, and then we'll just move the slate at the end.

So, okay, we'll just do group by group, so we can just move it forward. Hearing, unless there's an objection, no objections. We have four positions open, three applicants. Human Resources Commission, we have three applicants for one position open. Council Member Kwan, did you have a specific person?

William Hsu.

Okay. Council Member Cao. I also will pick William Hsu. Okay, Council Member Hahn. William Hsu. Okay, and Council Member Fu, Mayor Pro Tem Fu, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, great. All right, understood. So we've all have appointed William Hsu from District 4. I'm so happy that more District 4 residents are applying, and that will be William Hsu for Human Resources Commission. We have two positions open for the Library Board. Council Member Kwan.

Jeff Chen.

Elizabeth Wing Fu. Jeff Chang and Elizabeth Renfrew, okay. Council Member Cao. Aye, same. Jeff Chang, Elizabeth Renfrew. Okay. Council Member Hahn.

Roberta Marquez and Elizabeth Renfrew.

Council Member Hahn, can you turn on your microphone and say that again?

I did, I apologize. Roberta Marquez and Elizabeth Renfrew.

Okay, Mayor Pro Tempfu.

Yes, Elizabeth Renfrew and Jeff Chang.

Okay. And for myself, a unanimous Elizabeth Renfrew and Jeff Chang. So Elizabeth Renfrew and Jeff Chang will be on the library board, which is an excellent, excellent board. You guys are going to love it. Planning Commission. Planning Commission, we have three positions open. So if we can be able to, Council Member Kwan.

I would like to continue to have Domenico and Angela Hui to serve. And I would like to add Johnny Say as the third positions.

Okay.

Is it Johnny Zhang? Is it Zhang? T-S-E-N-G, Zhang? Yes.

Okay. And just as the council goes through this, to be clear on the planning commission, you're looking at the list that includes Kenneth Chan at the bottom. We left that off of one version of this list, and I want to make sure you're listening, or you're looking at the updated list. Yes.

Thank you. Council Member Cal?

I would like to select Ricky Lau. Kenneth Chan and Chang Li. Kenneth Chan.

And who's your other, Chang Li, okay.

Kenneth Chan, Ricky Lau, and Chang Li. Understood.

Council Member Han. Domenico Tallarico, Angela Hui, and Chris Azate.

And Chris Azate, okay. Mayor Potemfu.

Chang Li, Ricky Lau, and Kenneth Chan.

Chang Li, Ricky Lau, and Kenneth Chan. Okay, I have Angela Hui, Chang Li, and Ricky Lau. So let's see, we have, with that being the case, it would be Angela Hui, Chang Lee and Ricky Lau on our planning commission.

Mr. Mayor, could you clarify that again?

Yes. Angela Huy has three votes. Chang Lee has three votes. And Ricky Lau has three votes. That's what I have. Is that incorrect? Can we go over the votes again? No? Did I miscount?

Well, I have Dominico, Angela Hui, and Johnny Shang.

Okay. That's my vote. Okay, hold on real quick. I'm just going to take the time just to do it right, just to make sure, because there are three positions open, Fu and Shang. Okay. Councilmember Kwan, who'd you have again?

Yes, so I'd like the two to be reappointed because they've been serving an amazing job, so I don't see any reason to eliminate these positions. Okay. And I just want to add Johnny Sang.

Johnny Sang. Okay, gotcha. Johnny Sang. Councilmember Kao? Chang Li. Chang Li. Chang Li, okay. Ricky Lau. Ricky Lau.

Kenneth Chan.

And Kenneth Chan, okay. Okay, and then Mr. Han.

Reappointment of Dominico Tallarico. Yes. Angela Hui. Angela Hui. And then Chris Arzate. Chris Arzate, okay, gotcha.

Chris Arzate. Mayor Pro Tempfu?

That was Ricky Lau, Kenneth Chan, and Chang Lee. Ricky.

Who's your second?

Kenneth Chan.

Kenneth Chan. And who's your third?

Chang Lee.

Chang Lee. Okay. I had Angela. I had Chang Lee. And I had Ricky Lau. So let me just confirm. Angela had one, two, three points. Cheng Li had one, two, three points. And Ricky Lau had one, Two. Three. So three, three, and three. Was there anybody that had four points? No. Was there anybody that I named that did have three points but I did not say?

No, you said Huy, Lee, and Lau were, received a majority. Correct. And I think that's accurate.

Okay, good. So the three planning commissioners will be Angela Hui, Cheng Li, and Ricky Lau. Recreation and Parks Commission, there is one position open. And who, Council Member Kwon? Johnny Shang. Johnny. Council Member Kao? Chris Arzate. Okay. Council Member Hahn?

Chris Arzate.

And Mayor Pro Tempfu? Chris Arzate. Okay. And I would have Chris Arzate on our Recreation and Parks Commission. We have Senior Citizens Commission. There are three at-large positions. Okay, there are three at-large positions. Council Member Kwon.

Johnny Tsang. Douglas Meyer. And Derek Young.

Derek Young, okay. Council Member Cao.

Connie Liao. Okay. Doug Meyer and Derek Young.

Derek. Okay, all right, got you. Council Member Han. Angela Lai. Angela Lai, okay.

Douglas Meyer.

Douglas Meyer, okay.

And Connie Lau, please.

Connie Lau, okay. Mayor Pro Tem Fu.

Douglas Meyer, Connie Lau, and Derek Young.

Okay, I have Doug Meyer. I have Connie Lau and Miriam Carter. Douglas Meyer, Connie Lau, Miriam Carter. So I have Douglas Meyer will be on the Senior Citizens Commission. Connie Liao and Derek Young, is that correct? All right, great.

That's what I have. And before you move on from that one, Mr. Mayor, one of those you have to identify which is filling the unexpired term, which is only a one year term. So two of those would be two year terms and one of them would be a one year term.

Two of those two-year term, Connie and Derek. Does anybody have any opinion on this? I actually didn't think about that. Anyone? no uh so basically what uh city manager had said is douglas meyer connie leo and derek young uh there are two of them that would serve two-year terms one person would serve a one-year term douglas meyer had five votes connie leo had four votes derek young had three votes are you okay with having derek young is just serving one year because of the fact that he is has the least amount of votes Are there any objections? No objections? Okay, great. That being the case, hearing none, the Senior Citizens Commission will be Douglas Meyer for two years, Connie Liao for two years, Derek Young for one year. We have two club positions open, and both of them are

So these are the positions that the club members nominate somebody and the city council basically ratifies the nomination. So you have one applicant for each position. You have Donna Salter on the assistance league and you have a reappointment of Doris Arbor. for the Golden Senior Club.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Are there any objections to appointing the incredible Donna Salter to the Assistance League? No objections? Doris Arbor will be appointed Golden Senior. Any objections? Hearing none, congratulations to everybody that's part of the boards and commissions. Thank you very much.

Mayor, I have something to add. We only filled three positions for the Arcata Museum Commission. So there's one more I would like to appoint Johnny Zhang for that position if he's willing to accept.

Well, I think that's a great idea. Does anybody have any objections to that?

Mayor, actually, may I interject? I would like to see if any of the applicants who wasn't appointed is also given the opportunity to, if they're interested, obviously, applied to the museum commission. So I just wanted to throw it out there. That's all.

Yeah. So two great ideas. One person has requested to appoint Johnny, a second one just to open up the application process. Does anybody, well, about this uh uh councilmember kwan are you okay with just having the application process open again just if anybody's interested and if nobody's interested then we'll just appoint johnny is that okay okay are there any objections to that You guys are great. Good job. Very good ideas.

So to be clear, are we extending the application period or are we just not calling on the people that have already applied and to see if they're interested in the museum spot?

So what we would do is we would reopen the process for a period of seven days to let people know that if they want to be appointed for the Arcadia Museum Commission, and if there is nobody available, then Johnny Zhang will be appointed, if he wants to, to the Arcadia Museum Commission. If not, on the next city agenda, we will have all of the applicants, we'll review them, and we'll get the appointment taken care of for the fourth position.

Mr. Mayor, may I interject again? Sure. I like our city manager idea as well, so that the applicants that have already applied, that the city staff also just reaches out to them to let them know that if they're interested as well, instead of them having to do a second application. Yeah, we will absolutely contact the folks that have already applied.

Great job, everybody. All right, we're closing this out. Let's move to the next agenda item, which is... Public hearing. We're going to go over public hearing 10A as an alpha. This is the resolution regarding the adoption of the operating budget. We do have for fiscal years 2026 through 2030, 31, capital improvement and equipment plan. We have our amazing, Mr. Amazing. For those of you that don't know, I'm almost 6'2". He's taller than I am. It's incredible. So every time I talk to him, I have to look up to him. So it's pretty awesome. Introduce yourself, tell us what you do, right? So that everybody really can put a name and a face and somebody that really manages the budget really well.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My name is Henry Chen. I am the Administrative Services Director. I oversee finance, accounting, payroll, purchasing, and IT for the city.

Thank you very much. You do have a presentation for two resolutions. There's a 7696 as well as a resolution 7697. You can go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Given the number of items we have on our agenda tonight, I'm going to go through this a little quicker than I normally do. If you have questions, please ask me. We can spend all night on this. If the city council wants to, I just am warning you, I'm going to sort of give you the CliffsNotes version. For the benefit of the public, the city council has sat through a study session about 45 days ago at this point where we talked about all this information. No information has changed. You've had the draft documents for about those 45 days now. So, Henry, if I can have the first slide. And I'm also vamping here. I'm going to cut off some of your presentations as well. But you can go to the next slide, please. So generally, if you're talking about where we're going with the budget, you have to know where you are in this year's budget. The fiscal year 25-26 budget is coming in stronger than we anticipated. We thought we had kind of a break-even budget. At one point, we estimated it was going to be a $51,000 deficit budget. It's now looking more like a $2.19 million surplus budget. Basically, revenues are coming in hot. We expected it to be a It's a flat year, but sales taxes especially are coming in higher than we anticipated. There is some softness we'll talk about, but the current year's budget is strong. That continues another three or four years since the pandemic where the budget's been stronger than we expected. So that's good for us. Next slide, please. Where are the revenues coming in? You can see that the difference between the budget and actual, if you look at that right column, sort of how far off were we? It's 2% better in taxes. Right in the middle you'll see 9.3% in fines and penalties are higher than we anticipated. We are a little bit down in the recreation department and the library department, but they're much smaller budget numbers. Overall revenues are coming in about 1.5 or 1.6% higher than anticipated. Next slide. So specifically in Texas, Texas is our big area. So who's coming in better? Who's coming in worse? Like I said, sales taxes are about 6.2% better, which is about a million and a half dollars better than we anticipated. Things have been going well at the mall. We just got our fourth quarter reports. We were better than most, almost every mall in the Southland, except for the South Coast Plaza is double or triple us always. But every other mall wishes they were the shops at Santa Anita. Property taxes are a little bit higher than we anticipated. It shows that the market's still strong in housing. Utility users taxes are higher than we anticipated. The one area that's significant that we're keeping an eye on is our hotel tax right there is transient occupancy taxes. It's looking about a million dollars under budget. some of that is the hotel here the hilton being open a little bit later than we originally anticipated but overall in the marketplace the hotels have been a little softer than expected we have to expect that that's because of uh things that are going on globally that people aren't traveling right now we hope maybe the world cup might change this but we're not anticipating it in the budget numbers you're looking at right here so again overall to the positive but the one area of concern is is hotel taxes and the next year's budget does continue to expect that So this time last year, we were talking about how many total reserves we had, and it was a number in the low to mid 70s. Now it's a number at almost $83 million. That column on the right is what we call our checking account, our general fund operating. Even though we transferred about $10 million into other funds this year, that still sits at $17.6 million, so that's fantastic. That red is our emergency reserve. The green is our long-term capital project fund, and the equipment replacement fund is the 19 million that you see there. We're building that one up specifically because we have some large pieces of equipment that are coming in the next few years in the fire department, and those are going to... take a lot of money pretty quickly also you see showing up now our pension stabilization fund and our self-insurance funds those are funds we put in after measure a locally was passed a couple years ago we actually had capacity to save for future pension costs and just small savings every year when we can find it is building up to when you put those two together 10 million dollars so when we have a surprise in the economy in in the future we'll have something to uh to be able to cushion those blows in addition to the four columns to the left. Henry, next slide. So where do we go from here, fiscal year 26, 27? Economic trends, I will turn it over to Henry. He developed these, so I'll let him speak to those.

Thank you, Mr. Lazzaretto. So as we were looking at the outlook for the economy as we're developing the budget, we were getting a lot of conflicting data. So we'll go through some of the stuff that we looked at. And generally speaking, I think the consensus is that even though there are strong information pointing in either direction, the general overall economy seems to be holding up fairly well. So we're looking at GDP. For 25-26, the GDP growth is expected to be about 2.4%. Unemployment, that's a very strong indicator of whether or not people have jobs and their ability to spend. The employment is a little bit higher in California than nationally, but the rates are expected to be fairly steady and wage growth has been fairly moderate so that even though The unemployment level is holding steady. There are signs that people have more purchasing power as their earning power increases. Inflation continues to be a concern, you know, based on the latest number in April, inflation was at 3.8%. There are a lot of factors that go into that. The geopolitical stuff in the Middle East, that has an impact on supply chains, the trade policy, and then obviously with the fuel prices, those are having their trickle-down effect into the rest of the economy. Retail strong, as we had shown in our sales tax, continues to be strong. Obviously, gasoline prices are up, so the sales for those are increasing as well. But generally speaking, all the indicators seem to be increasing as far as the retail sales are concerned. Consumer confidence is where there's a little bit divergent from what some of the numbers may say. The business conditions seem to be declining as well as the confidence of the consumer. So that's obviously something that might have an impact on our outlook going forward. uh home sales with the increase in interest rates you know home sales is a major part of the economy the the value of homes the the transactions that go through that obviously have an impact on the general economy as well as the city's um overall revenue numbers because you know property tax is one of our our larger revenue sources so those would have an impact and those have been a little bit weaker since the with the higher interest rate environment So given all those conflicting things and looking at things in general, our general consensus is that we should expect moderate growth. We don't anticipate any sort of economic trouble. The labor market seems to be strong or resilient, and the inflation, we'll see whether or not any impact of the current geopolitical SITUATIONS WILL HAVE AN IMPACT ON INFLATION. SO I THINK WE FEEL FAIRLY CONFIDENT THAT WE HAVE A MODERATELY STRONG ECONOMY THAT WILL BE ABLE TO SUSTAIN SOME INCREASES IN OUR REVENUES GOING FORWARD. AND I THINK WITH A CONSERVATIVE BUDGET OUTLOOK, I THINK THAT WILL IS WHAT WE SORT OF FACTOR INTO AS WE PREPARE THE BUDGET.

I THINK AS YOU LOOK AT THAT, Even though we are anticipating generally on balance, the economy is going to be fairly strong. On the spending side, we're anticipating some pain to continue. Gas prices remaining high, so we're building in high gas prices that we're going to buy our diesel and our other forms of fuel. Inflationary factors and purchases in general, we're adding a little more cushion for continuing high spending. So while we're being kind of optimistic on the revenue side overall, we're also counterbalancing that with reality on the spending side of things. So these are just some slides to show you historically what's happened and how incredibly stable the finances in the city have been. We've been very fortunate that even through a pandemic, for the most part, you see the numbers going up and to the right, which economists love seeing. Right in the middle, you see that jump on sales taxes. That's when Measure 8 passed, so it wasn't like a bunch of new businesses showed up. We basically went from a 1% local tax to a 1.75% local tax, but that extra .75 is actually operating more like a .9% add-on tax, so it's almost 2% tax just because of the way the rules work. It's been strong. It is flat, if you notice it, if you look at that 24.8 to 25 now. So while that number's a big number and it's certainly bigger than it was in 2017, it's been fairly flat, which is a little bit troubling on a macro sense. But at least it's not down and we've been anticipating decreases in that area over the years.

Next slide, Henry, please.

Poverty taxes is the one that you dream about, which is it just keeps going up, just keeps going up, just keeps going up. It's the home prices in the city, pre-prop 13 houses, transitioning, those types of things. We anticipate that to continue. It's not going to happen forever, but we have pretty good data that'll generally be what it has been.

Next one.

Utility users tax is a little more volatile. People work from home. You saw a spike. People went back to work. You saw a decrease. People are transitioning from cable to other forms of ways of getting on the internet, other ways of talking to each other. There's been some changes over the years, but prices in most of those utilities go up so we're maybe taxing less things but the cost per item is going down this is one area where cities as a whole are looking to change taxing because a lot of things in the digital age aren't being taxed right now and things we used to tax like hardline phones don't exist anymore so cities are looking on on a statewide level of thinking and knew about utility users taxes

Next slide, Henry.

The hotel tax, you can see that we got the two new hotels in the last couple of years. We've had some good growth. You can see the pandemic year in 2021 where it dipped. And then when people were allowed to travel again, it generally went up into the right, but we've seen some softness this year. So we're gonna err on the side of caution and say the softness is gonna continue. and we're moving into the fiscal year budget. So as we look at this year's budget, I've said for a while that we're about $100 million organization, but this year we actually are on the spending side exactly at $100 million. On the revenue side, it's trailing a little bit, but we have some transfers in. So when you look at just if you go to second to last line, you see that $761,200. I'm going to say a lot of words over the next 10 or 15 minutes, but it all points to that, that it's about a three-quarter of a million dollar surplus is what we're anticipating. If you remember at this point last year, I'll talk a little more about this one, Henry. When we talked at this point, I can go back one more. At this point last year, we said this year's budget might be in a deficit situation, but through management and paying attention and what's happening with the sales taxes, pretty much the same budget without much growth now turns into a positive budget because we know real numbers and we have reality on our side. And we expect kind of the same thing to happen when you look at next year's budget. It's showing some softness. It's showing a potential deficit. My team and I will continue managing towards a positive budget next year, but it is something we need to pay attention to. The budget does include full transfers to the replacement funds. In this case, 1.9 to the equipment fund and 2.9 to the capital fund. It's because you saw that equipment fund is extra funded right now. The capital fund is the one that's trailing. So on the whole, we put about a 10-year average into those two funds, but we balance what needs it more in any given year. So right now we would say put the extra million in the capital fund And this will give you an ending fund in that checking account of about $22 million. I will tell you, when I started in this city, that checking account used to sit at $4 or $5 million. So just through, and I started in this city in 2012. So we've scrimped and saved our way to quadrupling that number, or better. So what are we talking about on the revenue side of things? Again, taxes of 1.16% growth. Henry talked about a 2% GDP, so we're being a little conservative on that, but we like to be conservative when we don't control the taxes that come in, really, for the most part. Licenses and permits, we have a lot of buildings that are coming online. We expect those, some things that we expected to happen in fiscal year 25, 26 look like they're going to hit our books in 26, 27. uh... fines and penalties up slightly just through general activity stuff use of money and property is going down that's where interest rates are we're seeing uh... interest rates uh... decreasing a little bit we expect the fed to drop the interest rates a little bit so as a result of a a little less return on those investments and then uh... other things kinda trail we do see recreation going up about seventeen and a half percent That is not because Sarah and Candice and the team are so amazing necessarily, but they are putting on the America 250 program and there's sponsorship involved in that. Right now we're sitting at about $125,000 of sponsorships for that event. So that's where that revenue hits is that line item there. So good job for the recreation team on getting those sponsorships. So in general, overall revenue growth about 2.6%. Kind of follows that GDP number you heard earlier.

Next, please, Henry.

So specifically in the taxes, sales taxes kind of flat, 1.3% growth. Property taxes, that kind of up and to the right continuation of 2.5%. I will say in previous years we were seeing 4% and 5% growth. We've seen some softening, but it's still better than most cities are able to achieve. And then, again, I've talked about it, the softening of the hotel tax and everything else generally following inflation in some way. So where are we spending our money? We're a service organization. We tend to spend our money on people. So about 62% are employee services. Another 26% is supplies servicing those employees. 7% is buying things to replace pieces of equipment. And some of it gets transferred out to the water fund and other things for those kinds of costs. uh... which departments are we spending money on everybody talks about the mayor talked about the the tent poles of of our organization and public safety always comes up first when you put police and fire together you're talking at about a sixty percent of our total organizational cost uh... in the general fund only i should caution i always like to remind people that the public works department is by number of people our largest department and uh... most of its funding comes outside of the general fund development services also has a lot of expenditures outside of the general fund so it shows up as a kind of nominal department but both of those are generally more sized closer to the police and fire than they show up on this particular chart but as far as general fund expenditures police and fire is where we're spending most of our money and most of the other departments on the left side are the same percentage that they've been for many years generally continuing operations and keeping up What have we looked like over the last couple years? Where are we going? That's kind of this slide, and this is where I tell you when we look at the out year, if you look all the way in the far right column, the second to last line where you see the parentheses, 2.751 million, that's the sort of canary in the coal mine we need to pay attention to. We can manage a $100 million organization, $2.7 million deficit a year and a half out. We can plan for it. We can look for it. We can pay attention to it. So we need to know that it's there and we need to manage to it. But things are, you know, costs are rising and revenues aren't necessarily rising, so we have to pay attention. The middle column is the budget that you have proposed for adoption tonight. And, again, it sits before you add new programs at about three-quarters of a million dollars. So what do we look like when we look out and we do a stress test over five years? You see, when we showed you this chart last year, for the first couple years it was in the red and then it bounced up in the out years. We're not seeing that when we're doing the stress test right now. It's kind of staying under. It's barely under, but it is under. So it is, again, something that as an organization we're going to need to continue paying attention to. If inflationary factors remain high and our costs kind of remain where they are, the size of our organization remains where it is, we need to pay attention to our growth over time especially. So I can answer questions about it, but it is just, again, it's a stress test. And we're not as strong as we were two or three years ago, but it's not giant red flags and we need to change everything at this point. And this is why we have the reserves we have and we build those up.

Next slide, Henry.

So the new program requests, I will talk about all of these myself. If the council has any questions, I'll turn it over to the department heads when that time comes. But a lot of the requests this year are about technology and technology related to transparency and responding to public requests. and public interest in our organization. So the city clerk's department, we're looking for software to help us right now. Pretty much everything on our public records documentation is when somebody asks for a public record, we have to manually go through, we have to manually search things. This is using technology to help us with those searches, AI assistance, those types of things, $20,000 to do that on an annual basis. Document management, we have a record system in this city that's 20 years old or so. three or four generations behind on that software it's time to update it modernize it and it's where our agendas sit all of our old documents going back to the foundation of the city sit on the same servers and it's time to modernize those that's about forty thousand dollars of an ongoing contract for that the administrative services we're looking for this is actually the i.t coordinator is a contract position we would we would hire more time effectively with our contract IT department folks, but this would be specifically for program organization, putting in new software, identifying five-year plans, identifying replacement plans, those kind of looking down the roads. We have good services on the day-to-day help desk kind of situation, but where we run out of time and talent is in that long-term planning stuff. So this $30,000 a year would help us to be able to look down the road a little bit. The user and impact fee updates. We have a traffic impact fee. We have a parks and recreation fee. Anytime somebody's building in this city, we assess an additional fee for the impacts those new buildings are going to have on the future of the city. We want to make sure everybody's paying their fair share. It's been a long time since we've updated the impact fees. and it's been six years I believe at this point since we've looked at formally all of our individual user fees, everything that we charge people. We have to make sure they are reasonable and realistic and are tied to, we can't make money on our fees so we have to make sure that we're not overcharging and also we don't want to undercharge where we can charge more. So this $100,000 would be to get the consultant to do the work for both of those systems. The user fees generally and our traffic and recreation impact fees. In the police department, updating our digital forensics labs, a lot of our evidence these days is digital evidence, and we need to make sure we have the chain of custody and be able to guarantee to the courts that we're doing it the right way and it's reliable and responsible, and that $15,000 will enable us to upgrade the room, the equipment, and the technology that goes behind it. The Civic Plus document management program is very similar to what's happening in the city clerk's department. It's software that will help us research and identify documents when they're requested. A lot of these happen to come from the courts instead of the general public, but it helps both in all of that. It's about $16,000 for the startup costs there. In the fire department, every five years we have to update our local hazard mitigation plan. It is time again to do that. So this is $25,000 to do that work now. It's actually a great time to do it given that we had the major incidents we had last year. And this makes sure that it's not just fires, it's any kind of hazard that the city faces, earthquakes, wind storms, civil unrest, those types of things. It identifies all the potentialities and puts together planning for that. In the Public Works Services Department, we'll be talking about this a little more later tonight, but we're asking to add one position. This is a brand new position. It would be a dedicated arborist for the city. As the city's tree canopy has matured and we get more and more claims related to mature trees, what they do to our sidewalks, what they do in wind storms, all of that, we think rather than having it be a satellite responsibility for a public works employee it's time now to get a dedicated employee whose only job it is to care for our urban forest on the front end it's to make sure we're putting in the right trees and they're beautiful well main trained well trimmed trees and on the back end it makes sure that if we ever get claims we could defend against those claims because we've done whatever we need to do to make sure we're not putting ourselves at risk by not taking care of that tree community that we have in the city Development Services Department, so that's a $202,000 request. That actually includes a new vehicle. I think it's a little, I think that's a typo. I think in the next year it's not quite 200,000 because we don't buy the car again, but I could be wrong on that. But I think you take $35,000 off of that 208,500 in the second year. In the downtown parking study for development services, you know there's a lot of development happening around the downtown. We have two city-owned parking lots. This would allow us to, we have the metro line there. We need to kind of look at everything. What is the striping? What is the layout? What are the time limits? Do we need to consider getting more formal with our enforcement and all of that? This will help us to do all of that design and development work related to that so we maximize the available public parking in our urban core so it works the best possible, especially as our new developments are coming online. And in recreation services, there's a request to add a new program around Lunar New Year to have a red envelope program so we can give people sort of mementos around the Lunar New Year to celebrate that a little more formally, and that's a $7,000 request. So if you look at the total for new programs, it's $485,200 for this coming fiscal year. When we go to the next slide, you'll see how that... You can just skip through all of these because I went through all of them. But so that... about three quarter of a million dollar surplus if you add the 485 000 of new requests into that you see the second to last line you're still in the positive but you're closer to a quarter of a million dollars at two uh 276 000 of the positive so still in the in the green still uh comfortable um but not as uh not as much space as we had before but that has all been built into the budget you're talking about Moving on to the capital and equipment funds. These are our long-term projects are kind of bigger. We save over time and do spending all at once kind of programs. The total expenditure in the capital plan is $17,285,000. 42% of that comes from savings from The general fund that gets transferred over into the capital fund over time, that's about $7.3 million. The rest of it comes from various grants in the water fund and other sewer funds that are outside of the general fund, ultimately. But the big projects in this year, tend to be about streets and roads. Pavement rehabilitation of 1.5 million. The downtown parking lot rehabilitation of about 1.15. That follows that study we were talking about. And also, there's another city downtown parking lot that's affected by that. There's a project that is happening at the Arboretum within the Arboretum, but we actually have a project outside of the Arboretum that kind of feeds into that and connects to that. That's about a million-dollar project to make sure that our stormwater that comes off of the neighborhood doesn't improperly infiltrate into the dirty water, doesn't get into the Arboretum. and then about 12 or 14 years ago we upgraded our lights which was fantastic we we have low voltage lighting pretty much throughout the city unfortunately most of those lights we put in are now obsolete and they don't let us buy them anymore because they have a material in them that's that's wrong so we need to go from the gas filled tubes that we have in a lot of these things to led lights overall city-wide that's about a million dollar expense but we'll save on electricity over time and And we'll all look better on television. so uh that's that one this is a map i don't expect you to be able to read but you can see that the red lines are streets that will be completely rehabilitated and then the the dots are kind of where specific projects are and again these are all listed in the documentation for you the next one the the shaded pink area is the pavement rehabilitation zone for this coming fiscal year so that's generally if i'm oversimplifying it's it's district three and and parts of district four But that's where that is. And then all those green dots along Live Oak are a signalization project that we're doing with the county and county grant funds, or state grant funds. They're grant funds. So when we look at the out years on our capital fund balances, you do see it decreasing over time a little bit, but it's nowhere near what it was decreasing in years past. I think there's a graph on the next page that'll show you this information. Is it not there, Henry? There we go. The blue line is the expenditures by year and, excuse me, the blue line is the balance, the little green and blue are the incomes and outcomes, outflows every year. But what you see is that generally trending downward, but again, just a few years ago, that blue line would drop below zero in about year six or seven. So we've done a good job of balancing that fund by putting in those inputs every year. Next one is the equipment replacement fund. This tends to be large purchases, vehicles, computers, bulletproof vests, those types of things that you buy every five or eight years. It's not an annual kind of expenditure sort of thing. You see where we're spending the money. About 32% of it is vehicles. That's the big green wedge on the right. Computer and software is that peach up on the left at 30%. And then a lot of machinery and equipment and those kind of things we'll identify a little bit in a minute. But total of about $7 million of expenditures out of the equipment replacement fund. And where are we spending it? The biggest projects, water vehicles, street vehicles, police vehicles, those are the three kind of biggest ones. The asset management system is about $350,000. The CAD RMS is $1.5 million itself. That is how our police officers communicate with each other and respond to 911 kind of incidents. It's also where the records are kept. And it's time to modernize that. We talked at the budget study session. We'd love to do a kind of comprehensive drone program. We can't really do a comprehensive drone program until we implement that $1.5 million upgrade to the CAD RMS. They need to kind of work together. And so this is step one on the comprehensive drone program. The radio repeater tower, that $1.27 million, it was damaged from windstorms. It was damaged from the various fires we've had the last couple of years. We have had insurance claims that have paid us to be able to put those radio repeaters back up. We have to actually do the work now, so that's that $1.3 million to put that equipment back up on the hill. Those are largely redundant systems at this point, but since we're getting paid to put them back up, we will, and we'll have that belt and suspenders kind of situation. It's nice to have the equipment when we need it. So again, Henry, go to the next slide so we can actually see it. But the blue line is the fund balance. You see this one drops a little more quickly, which is why we said we needed to push more money into that fund this year to make sure that it doesn't drop below zero. You do see it climbing in the out year, so that's a good sign. But this is the fund we need to pay more attention to in the short term. to make sure we're not overspending. Things that used to cost us $200,000 or $300,000 are now costing us $1 million, $2 million. This is where inflation really hits us when we're buying things like fire trucks and ambulances and even software and computer equipment. These have gotten much more expensive in the last 8 to 10 years.

Next Henry.

So overall the budget is balanced. We haven't reduced services. We've kept them higher and in some cases we're asking for new position to enhance the level of service. We're not reducing, we're actually adding staffing levels. We're continuing to invest in the future. We're putting transfers into our pension fund, $750,000 into the post-employment, the medical benefits fund, $750,000 into the pension stabilization fund, and then the $4.8 million I talked about, transfers to those equipment and capital funds. So you put all that together and it's $6.5 million that are going into future sinking funds. which is great savings for rainy days. And we will continue to maintain our 20% reserve, which the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee has said is a good level to have for a city our size. So with that, we would recommend that you adopt the resolutions that are before you. This is just a reminder that we did have the budget study session back in May. And the next slide, I think, is the recommendation and questions. Yeah. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you all have.

Excellent presentation. We did have this in May. No new information since May. Are there any questions from any council members regarding any of the presentation? And then after the questions, we will go through council comments. Questions? Council Member Kwan?

Yes. So please educate me on this because I do my own family budgeting, and I'm looking at the general fund that we're bringing revenue of 96.6 million. Can you bring up the chart, Henry? Okay, and then see, you see the estimated revenues, and I'm assuming that the expenses that we're spending for the year 26, 27 has been very, So we've been very prudent about the spending, right? As you were saying that we only spend what is necessary to maintain the city and provide safety. I see that the expenses, it's about 100.5 million. So if we're bringing in 96 million and we're spending about over 100 million, And I see that supposed to be a negative. And that I see that you are looking at it, the revenue, it doesn't make up the expenditure. Can you explain what you're doing with the transfer to make that happen?

Excuse me, and Henry can expand on this. See, because I said transfer in. Yeah, the transfer in, so you need to keep in mind, remember I told you a few minutes ago that the Equipment Replacement Fund was about $7 million of transfers. Every one of those Purchases that come from every one of those purchases So if I buy a million dollar fire truck I take a million dollars out of the equipment fund and I transfer it into the general fund and I buy the fire truck technically from the the general fund at that point So where that hits in the balance sheet is that $1 million would be part of that 9.5 transfers in, and it's part of the $100 million of expenditures. So that is money in, money out on those kinds of expenditures. So when you look at how it all works, you can't ignore the transfer in. That's not coming from... The reserves in terms of like we're overspending, it's coming in from planned reserves and it hits as an accounting situation.

Yeah, because I see that's coming from general fund.

It's coming from the equipment replacement fund. Okay. Into the general fund.

Okay. So, but for me, it's just, I think that what you bring in and then you budgeted of how much you spend. And I see that number, you know, it's, it's bigger than what we bring in. So I just, I know we're doing transfer, but at the end, these transferring is not going to work.

Well, it will because if you look at, let's say it's $6 million are coming from the equipment fund. If I took that out and didn't move it into the general fund, we would lose $6 million of expenditures, we would lose $6 million of transfers in. So you would end up with a positive number that you see at the very bottom.

Okay.

Can you bring another screen up for the projection for the year 26, 27, 27, 28? I want to see that there's a chart, yeah. Yes, the other one. Yes, can we blow that up now? We can add? Okay, so as I'm looking at it, for example, for 27-28, okay, so you projected that revenue is growing about 2.62%, but the general fund expenditure is growing at 8.8%. So, I mean, I'm still seeing that, The expenditure, the percentage of that is much bigger than the revenues that we bring in. So that's why you see next year we're seeing a deficit over 2.7 million. About three years ago when I got into city council, I've seen these negative numbers after we went through labor negotiation and budgeting session like this. And then when time comes and then I see that negative numbers turns into positive number. So I don't know what kind of... I see that there's a lot of equipment that we delay. We didn't purchase and some of the projects we delay. So that's why we looking at it. It looks like it's very nice. We balanced it. But unfortunately, the city has. you know, sacrifice a lot of the things that, you know, that we need. That's what I'm looking at. I think it's important to focus on the expenditure. And it's when you have growth, it's 2.62, and then you have expenditure growing at 8.8%. That is kind of like three times the size. You know, it's, Yes, we're trying to make it look like it's budgeting, but as you can see, for next year and the following year and the following year, the deficit is going to, it's not going to be able to have you, like, doing this. trying to cut back on all these expenses to make it look like it's balanced. So I think we should really scrutinize of how we spend the money. That's my take at it, you know, because I know I understand that you said the general fund. We do, I'm looking at the general fund, it has also decreased significantly. Can you bring back the year before how much we have in the general fund? And can you show me how much that number decreased after we transferred that $10 million? I mean, I'm seeing that number as well that is being decreased. When I got in, that number was much bigger. And then the general fund just shrunk in size.

And I'm looking at it. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. Yes. So the $10 million you see at the bottom of the very left column, that was basically we had strong surpluses in the last couple of years. I asked the city council's permission to be able to transfer into long-term savings because we've had two very strong years. We're taking it out of the checking account and we're moving it into the long-term savings account. So we're not spending that money right now. We're saving it for a rainy day. We're making sure we don't leave it in the general fund so we accidentally spend it and we're not paying attention to it. So that $10 million didn't just disappear. It's still in the city's hands. It's just over in the capital fund and the equipment fund to make sure we can buy those big purchases when they come. And just to be clear on something you said a minute ago, we're not cutting... expenses right now or delaying purchases in order to balance the budget. We have balanced the budget because we've had stronger than expected revenues come in. We've had openings in various departments, so there's been salary savings. And when we've had transitions of employees, the new employees on the new pension plans are costing us less than the longer-term employees on the old pension plan. So we're seeing savings by having the same number of employees, but it's just they're costing us less because the pensions that we all agreed to rework Are costing us less so I just want to be clear that we're not cutting when we're not buying things It's not because we're trying to save money we're not buying things because it takes a long time to To replace a vehicle or we didn't need to replace that vehicle because it's still working fine. We will eventually buy that vehicle It's still in the budget to be bought. We're just waiting for the right time to be able to purchase it. So it lingers, but that expense is still coming.

Yeah, I see, because there's a lot of postponement. I see that. So if we budget it so accurately, so why would we see a deficit of over $2.7 million for next year? So, and that's also, as when we do budgeting, we're not just planning for the days that already happened, but we're planning for the future. So I've been seeing that deficit number for the following year every time that I sit here and I look at it. But then when we come to budgeting for the next year and that number, you know, magically turn into a surplus. I mean, I love it. I want to see surplus. That means we'll be very watchful of how we spend money. But I think it's just, it's important to explain, you know, in the general fund, you know, all this money that we expected to use. And we're very lucky that previously we've had a lot of reserve. But I do see that the general fund, the amount has been depleting. So it's not like it's growing. It's just, you know, we keep on transferring. And so this is my concern. I mean, I understand what you're saying, but just to be very simple form is it makes sense when we are spending less than what we bring in, then that is considered to be a surplus. so but if you have a growth of 2.6 percent and uh expenditure grows at 8.8 percent you know that's a negative number that's how i look at it and so um this is my concern and it's because that we've been very conscious of how we spend and and you know a lot of the EQUIPMENTS, YOU KNOW, WE POSTPONED OR MAYBE WE DON'T NEED IT YET BUT EVENTUALLY WE WOULD NEED IT AND SO THAT'S WHY YOU BUDGETED THOSE AMOUNT IN THE you know, equipment fund and the capital expenditure fund. So I see those numbers, but I understand, like, I see how you do it, but I just want the public to understand that it's just any simple term is just you bring money in and you cannot spend more than what you bring in. So that should be a healthy way to maintain a surplus. Yeah.

And that's what we do. Just to be clear, the general fund dollar that when you started with the city, if you go back and look at that number, the number you're looking at here is much larger now than it was before. The general fund has grown. Yes. You are correct. When we came out of the pandemic and Measure A was roaring and everybody was going to our hotels and to the mall and we hadn't yet grown our organizational size, we had... 10, 15% surpluses we were running. Now we're running half a percent, a quarter of a percent kind of surplus, right? So we have grown this organization. We have three-year labor contracts that were very, very aggressive, and we're now retaining employees and getting better quality employees and all the things we hoped would happen. But when we adopted those agreements, we said it's gonna hurt, it's gonna pinch, we're gonna have to manage to it. It's gonna take us from we have a big cushion to a more normalized cushion. We're at that point now. Every year since those agreements have been adopted, we've had a surplus. But we're at that point now where it's money in and money out, and we need to pay attention to it, right? You're 100% right, we can't keep growing the organization by 10% and only growing revenues by 2%. That's going to flip upside down pretty quickly. So your large point, and I'll take it as a question, yes, that's why we have that five year number, right? You want the green on top of the red, and right now in the out years, the red's on top of the green. We do have some reserves to deal with that if we needed to, but also the management can manage to it as well. And that's what we've tended to do. If you look at that five year chart when I first developed that chart when I got here, it was red every year and it was shooting in one direction on the balance sheet. Being close is a much better position than we were in ten years ago. Measure A has been fantastic. Thank you voters who voted for it. but we have to pay attention in the coming years, especially with a volatile economy.

Yes, yeah, because I see that your projection of growth is about two, you know, three percent, but that is not taking into consideration if we have negative growth, you know, if we have less in sales tax, less in property tax, and so those are the factors that, you know, we need to look at it, but now we're just looking at a very optimistic outlook. you know, a point of view. So that's one concern. The second concern I have is that it seems like, you know, yeah, it's great, everybody's talking about our surplus. I think what is most important is that with the city's revenues that we collect is to improve residents' lives. You know, they're more concerned about like public safety. I want to address that. I asked about the sworn in officers. Right now we still have seven vacancy. Like I'm looking at seven vacancy that's kind of like equivalent to about $200,000 per year with all the pensions, medical and everything. And if you times that by seven, that's $1.4 million. This is my rough estimations. And I think that's pretty close, right?

Not bad.

And so, you know, I really hope to see if we are getting a message out there that we're having a surplus. It's important that we have officers being out on the street to patrol it and to give residents a peace of mind. And I'm getting a lot of residents commenting is like, oh, We don't see enough police officers, and especially in time when they called, it's not an urgent matter. They're not getting taken care of right away. And so I would like to see we should really improve upon that, you know, use our surplus to hire more officers to fill those vacancies. I don't see like there's any, problem with hiring especially now it's not COVID so I think we should definitely have a more aggressive recruitment program to fill those spots I think that would really provide like a better safety for the residents that's how I look at it I think to use the surplus in a certain way I think that is good so that is the staffing part you know as far as the technology goes. I know that, I see that we're spending about 1.5 million dollars to upgrade our computers so that we can be able to more equipped to the drones later on. And I think that should definitely speed up the process because I think I've been asking for drones and the public has been asking for drones since the day I got in office. And I am pretty much, you know, done with my position. It's been four years and we still have not had any drones yet. So, I mean, it's great just to say it. It's like it's on the agenda. But I think implementation is most crucial that I feel because I think you can just talk forever and know we're great, we have this plan. But if there's no implementation, there's really no impact in people's life.

And I want to ask about the... Actually, Council Member, can I respond to that point? Yes. Because I didn't mention it when I talked about drones a while ago. The 26-27 budget does include funding for putting a couple handheld drones into the police department equipment. So these are more like it's in the trunk, the team rolls up on a scene and they can throw the drone in the air and be able to expand on their intelligence at the site. So the budget includes that. But what we're looking for in the long-term plan when we upgrade the computer-aided dispatch and the records management system is to be able to have a centralized drone system that would launch from the police department or some other place in the city and be able to respond from any point at any time completely without a driver here. It would be at the incident site that could be remote. So that's a much bigger sort of infrastructure type thing and staffing type thing. That is sort of stage two. But stage one is fiscal year 26, 27 does include a request. The budget before you includes requests for funding for two drones into the police department.

Yes, I think that would be good because everybody thinks that City of Al-Qaeda is a Class A city. So, you know, all our adjacent cities have been having these drones that are flying and, you know, saving lives. And I think that we need to catch up to that. As far as the flock cameras go, I think they're pretty useful because when you have a, a vehicle that's coming in from another city and then we're able to track them and then to inform our police officers that there's someone that is in our city so we can be more alert on that. Do we have enough flock cameras so far installed on every street?

So I'm going to call up the chief just to help me with this. So we have funding in the budget to continue our existing drone program, but we're in the middle of a four or five year expansion program that every year we put more money in the budget to expand the number of drones, or excuse me, plot cameras. So the chief can maybe remind us where we are in that build out and sort of what the next steps look like.

Good evening, everyone. So currently we have 51 with currently placed throughout the city. For this upcoming fiscal year, we are slated to have at least another dozen. It's a build-out plan of five years. If all goes well, then we should have about 100 plus within the city.

Yes, it would be really nice to increase those numbers so that residents get a peace of mind. In this, we have almost 60,000 in populations, and when we only have 51, it's not enough. So thank you so much that you guys are taking that into consideration. Thank you. And I also have questions regarding to some of the comments that I've heard regarding to the K-9 program, the electric bikes, the technology subscriptions, the equipments and the training and the vehicles, seems like the OUR POLICE DEPARTMENT HAS BEEN ASKING FOR THE POLICE FOUNDATION FOR THOSE ITEMS, IF I'M NOT WRONG. IT SEEMS LIKE THE THINGS THAT THEY'RE ASKING FOR, THESE ARE ALL, I FEEL LIKE THEY'RE ESSENTIALS, LIKE OUR K-9 PROGRAM. our electric bikes so that our police officers can use them to really navigate. And so why do we have to ask the foundation for those when those items are considered to be essentials?

Well, we can argue about whether all the items are essential or nice to have or need to have sort of situation, but the foundation exists in order to support the police department. So there's nice people in this community that want to help out the police department in any way they can, and they've formed the foundation with the intent of trying to be useful so it's not so much that we are having to go to them they say we bring in X number of dollars a year what chief can we do with this money in the best way possible let us know how best to use it so the canine when the when the foundation started in mid-15, 16, somewhere in there. When the foundation was formed, that's when we were underwater financially. We couldn't expand at all. We couldn't afford to expand. We had no ability to add a canine unit. But the foundation bought the dogs, and then the city paid for the staffing, the training, the equipment, everything that went on top of it. The dog tends to be a one-time cost, $25,000 to train it initially and get it ready to be an officer. And then the overtime of the officer and the paying of the upkeep and all of that ends up being much more overtime for us. So it helped us get started, but we're still funding from the general fund a lot of the stuff related to the canine program. And I think if the chief gets up to give you more details on all of this, the request that we're doing on a lot of these items are, yes, it's helpful. I will take any money. If the public wants to give me $5,000 for bikes and $2,000 for some other piece of equipment and they willingly give it and there's no strings attached, I will take it because that's $5,000 I don't have to spend out of the general fund. But almost always when the foundations give the city money, there are other things that the city ends up paying to keep those programs ongoing and to fully implement them. So it's a partnership more than just us coming with our handout to the foundation. But keep in mind again, the foundation exists because it wants to help the city and they help the city with their money. They can't spend it on anything else, so we might as well take it and put it to good use.

Yeah, I just would like to see, instead of hearing these negative comments, how our city just begs for these things. You know, it's like we don't have a budget for it. I would like to see it if these are, you know, ongoing causes. We should definitely put it onto the agenda just to make sure that we have enough funding for it, rather than just to rely on the foundation and for them to do the job. Anything that is extra bonuses is amazing, but definitely we want to take care of our police officers, that they have the equipment to do the job. I think that's important.

Yeah, it gets back to that statement you made five minutes ago, which is money in and money out. Yes, yes. So if I can get more money in, I can do more with the money I have on hand.

Yes, that's good. That's good that we all have, you know, on the same page. The last thing I want to talk about is, like, is since we have a surplus, I want to bring up about Wilderness Park. This is a very special place. how many cities have a natural park in the city it's really not much i would say probably not even in thousands so we're very fortunate to have that facility it has been five years or more that it's been sitting there and a lot of residents come to me and said, what are you going to do about it? I mean, we used to have a lot of events there. I think it's the summer camps, you know, for these kids, they go out there. The Boy Scout, the Girl Scout, And residents do go up there and hike and picnic. And I think we're getting some funds from the state to help. And I would like to see the reserves money to go into something that can... basically expedite the recovery of this park back into the original state that you know residents can really feel like you know the city has a place for them to go back again and that is the biggest concern that I've been hearing before I hear about the homelessness issue, now that we have an ordinance, they don't talk about that. But now they've constantly come to me about the Wilderness Park. So can you give me an update as of what is the timeline for that to get back to the original state? Or can we use some of these fundings, these surpluses, to help them out? And along with the state funding and the insurance claims that we have, so that we can bring a group of people together and really fix it up immediately and that we can get back and to enjoy our daily life. I think these kind of what the residents would like to see.

staff absolutely agrees with that goal yes um and if anybody's interested you can go to our city website look up wilderness park we have an ongoing update of what's happening and the timelines and all of that and i'm sure paul can give you uh updates uh after i stop talking but what i'll tell you is the biggest thing that's stopping us right now right now is that we have to wait for that bridge that goes into the park to be rebuilt the city doesn't own that bridge that's a county bridge and they now they have to design it so why haven't we done anything for five years When the Bobcat fire took out the park, The fire itself didn't take out the park really. It kind of only burned around the edges, but the rainstorms that followed that next year deposited between 8 and 20 feet of dirt in that park. The picnic shelter really doesn't exist anymore. It's mostly under dirt now. And every new rain and every new winter added to that, and then the next fire that we had has added to it just a little bit this time, fortunately. So we had to wait for everything to stabilize a little bit. even if we were able to use that bridge but we finally are at a place where the dirt has stabilized and we can regrade and remove the dirt and that's where our insurance money comes in and money from fema earlier this year the city council approved a design contract for that work so we're working on that and paul can give you an update on where that is and the timing of all of that But before we can even remove the dirt, we have to have a plan for the dirt and where does it go and most likely gets trucked down the wash to Colorado and out to wherever they need dirt. That in and of itself is going to be a year or two kind of project. And then we're going to have to wait for the bridge to be built. And we're also going to have to then rebuild the park, which is going to be tens of millions of dollars. So, stand by, I'm going to need money from the general fund and the capital fund and the parks fund to make that park shine the way this community will expect it to happen. And we're going to look for more grants and all of those things. It's going to be far more expensive than the other parks we've rebuilt in the last couple years. We know it's a priority of this community, but the first thing we have to do as far as now that everything's stabilized and now that the remember up in the dam, they had a big conveyor belt that went through that whole area. That was 2 years. We couldn't do anything because the county had to stabilize the dam before we, they needed our park to do that. So that works done. The mountain itself is not sloughing off anymore. So now we can start talking about removing the dirt and starting that process. But even that is going to take some time. And then we'll have to wait for the county to rebuild that bridge. So from a council and community standpoint, any pressure you can help us put on the county on prioritizing that bridge design and rebuild will be fantastic. Because I can build a beautiful park, but if people can't drive there, it's not going to be worth anything. So we control the park itself, but the road into the park, or specifically that bridge into the park, we don't control.

Thank you, yeah. If we prioritize that, that would be wonderful. Thank you so much. I think those are the questions that I have. Thank you so much, Mayor.

Council Member Kal.

Mr. Mayor, I just want to clarify, is this questions or comments section now? Questions. Oh, questions, okay. You know, a city manager, I was being a good student, I brought my homework with me. I bring it to every single meeting, the two binders. That is really light reading. Just several hundred pages. And then I was kind of looking over a section, I think it's called general government. And in the general government section, two areas I wanted to ask you on was first is that I noticed that under the city attorney's section that there was an increase in contract services, if you can explain that to me. And then the second, and I think you touched on this during the actual presentation, was about the document management system and why and what's going on, kind of that, as a cost.

So both of those kind of are related to the same kind of overlapping issues, but essentially we have had in the last, 36 months or so, a pretty significant and sustained uptick in public records requests and legal expenses and investigations and those kinds of things. So if you remember earlier this year, we asked for a budget amendment of about $300,000. That was these two accounts that you just mentioned. And then, so you see in the line you're referring to, you see that big jump in the middle of the year and then you see it kind of continuing because We have seen that we have work to complete, but also we used to get public records requests that were for a specific document, a specific item, something you could go to your shelf, pull off, copy for somebody and get it. In a digital age, we tend to get records requests that are, give me every document you have that includes this term, this phrase, and it's every iteration of that term and phrase I can think of on the planet. So instead of giving somebody a document, I may end up giving them 1,500, 1,800 documents, and every one of those documents has to be reviewed by the city attorney's office. Because if, for instance, I say every document that says a council member's name, Sometimes that's attorney-client privilege. Sometimes it's personnel related. Sometimes it's private for other reasons. And the city attorney's office has to go through and review every single document and decide, is it public, is it not? Is it public, is it not? And if we're doing it for one document, it's easy. If we're doing it for thousands of documents, there's effort related to that. And that's what you see in those two line items are public records act requests and litigation that has happened in the city where the contract services line item specifically tends to be lawsuits that have happened or investigations that have happened that may or may not have turned into something else.

So if I can ask then, Dominic, so for the public records request, are we getting like thousands of people that are asking in multiple different ways for documents, or is it more narrow in scope for a few people? Because I'm still trying to get a good grasp on this.

Yeah, it tends to be much narrower. It's a few news outlets and a few local residents are the lion's share of those requests, I would say.

And for the news outlets, it's something that we've had in the past. For the few local residents, is it like a handful of residents or is it still like in the hundreds? I'm still trying to get clarification.

No, I would say it's... Less than ten, probably less than five. And these... Sort of repeated requests, ongoing requests, those types of things.

And these documents that they're asking, are they asking for, like, one particular meeting, or are they asking for years' worth of, you know, letters from the, you know, words from the dictionary?

A little of both, and it's... Yeah, combination. Give me every time you have a meeting, I want one. Every claim that's come into the city for the last six months or something like that. Or the terms I was talking about where it could be go back five years and give me every time somebody's mentioned this thing, that thing, that person, that sort of thing.

So then... there's a few local residents that have been asking an increased volume of public records requests so we you know we obviously believe in freedom of speech we obviously believe that records should be accessible and transparent so by doing that we are increasing our costs because it takes more time from our staff to our attorney. It takes more machinery, more technology to be able to do that. Are you seeing a theme on this at all? Or is this kind of one-offs kind of requests?

They're continued and sustained. So Council Member Kwan said earlier we were talking about money in and money out. In the area of public records requests, We don't get to charge for most of the records we produce. We don't get to charge for most of the costs of the city attorney. The state law, federal laws want to make records accessible and free to the extent possible. So even when we can charge, it's like pennies on the dollar of what it costs us. But most records being digital these days, there's almost no recovery whatsoever because we produce the digital record and we eat the cost of the city attorney. We have seen a, to get back to the budget part of it, we have seen a significant increase in the costs in those areas and it hasn't gone down and we've only seen the requests get more frequent and more complex as time has gone by.

And then when you mentioned about the city attorney, the city attorney has to review public records requests, but then you also mentioned that a few months ago, you know, we had approved a new budget because of litigation. You know, obviously litigation most oftentimes we speak in a closed session, but what can you share with us in a non-closed session about litigation costs?

Well, the best thing I could say is we've had increased costs in the last couple of years, both with the city attorney and with contract attorneys.

Okay, because we've had more lawsuits?

Yes.

And these lawsuits, are they something that we typically see or are they like lawsuits that we haven't seen like 10, 20 years ago?

Little of column A and a little of column B. I would say that We had been as a city unusually lucky having a low number of lawsuits and claims against the city. For a city our size, the number of claims we got was unusually low, trip and fall, car accidents, employee mistakes leading to injury of some kind. We are in a glut of probably we're a little more of those kinds of things than we've seen or a city of our size should have. We're kind of on the uptick of we're a little above normal now on those things. But we've also had some very unusual things happen in the last 18 months that I think are once in a lifetime kind of moments for the city than those have all happened in the last 12 to 18 months.

Okay. I'm going to switch topics now. In regards to public safety the the question that I wanted to ask from a budgetary standpoint is you know when we when we adopted the budget three years ago to make Our city staff more competitive with the region with the state You know we had talked about that in order to recruit and retain personnel of excellence that are committed to our residents, that are committed to community. And this sort of gets to what I sort of believe in as merit, is that if you want good people working with you, you'll have to make that wage competitive. And so when we had initially negotiated for labor agreements, for the last three years, our budget has been balanced.

Yes.

And then have we had any services cut?

No, we've expanded services. We haven't cut any services.

And then from a public safety standpoint, whether that be fire or police, in your best estimation, do you think that It's a really small competitive pool that every agency has to recruit from to get public safety personnel. Or do you think that currently right now, given the environment since the pandemic, that public safety rose is very It's something that people would like to do more, or do you notice that the trend is actually the opposite? Less people want to take on the noble, brave role of giving your life for the common man and woman that you live with or work with? I think...

So absolutely in the police department in the last eight to ten years, we've seen a decrease in interest in people who want to submit themselves to the life of a police officer. Geopolitical issues and risk and all of that. In the fire department, we've seen some of that. I think the other thing you have in the fire department is most of the time you're hiring not just firefighters anymore, but you're hiring paramedics. And they need a much higher level of training and expertise and ability to learn, and the job has gotten significantly more complex. So while you may have a lot of people who would still like to be a firefighter, they don't meet the minimum qualifications or have the ability to learn. So you have a reduction either way on both sides of the ledger. You don't have hundreds of people lining up for these jobs like you did in generations past where there were seven year, ten year waiting lists, all of that. And so to getting back to your question, everywhere citywide we had vacancies coming out of the pandemic, huge vacancies, things we've never seen before. We have closed all those vacancies. Almost every department, fire department is now fully staffed, I think. almost specifically because the rise in salaries. Because it is a competitive market and there's only so many of us that are competing for the same top employees. In the police department, seven is a horrible number. You heard the council member ask the vacancies, it's seven right now. You asked me a year ago or so, it was 12 or 14. So it's lower than it was. still not where we want it to be. And it's just hard to find qualified people that are willing to submit to the life of a police officer, but also can pass the background checks and go through the stuff that we do, because we're also only fishing in the top tier. We're not going to mediocre or worse officers. We won't hire anybody but the best here.

Thank you.

Council Member Hahn. Just a quick question. Does the city have a continuous process to identify savings in IT, for example, in the consolidation of vendors or identifying new technologies that could help the city save money going forward?

I'm not sure I fully understand the question because I could barely hear you. We have identified in general what our IT needs are over time and we are talking about what is needed in every department and every function. We kind of have ongoing conversations about how best to utilize it. Is it local-based equipment? Is it cloud-based equipment? When it comes time to service that, do we have a contract IT department? Do we let them do it? Do we let the service provider do it? Those kinds of things. Beyond that, I would say right now it's very rudimentary, which is what that new position, the added hours are supposed to help with, is getting much more robust. If you were to talk to every department head here, their biggest frustration point on an annual basis is IT and IT related things. So, and mostly it's we bought a thing and we didn't really think about the seven steps that go with the thing and we forgot the budget for this or we forgot to plan for that. And so this position is supposed to, at the front of the project, before we ask for the money, sit down and say, what's the ask? How does the public works ask relate to the fire ask? And maybe we can consolidate those into a single ask and budget for it and plan for it in a comprehensive way. We're missing that kind of regularly from right now. We hope to fix that.

That's the IT coordinator, right? That's the IT coordinator. That's on the budget. Yes. Great. Does the city do the same thing on the revenue side as well? Because we've been talking a lot about expense side. Is there a continuous process that the city look at to see how we can generate even more revenue?

So we have a Citizens Financial Advisory Committee that one of their first job was to identify how we can increase revenue in the city and also decrease expenditures. And they came up with 15 recommendations. We've implemented probably 12 of the 15 recommendations. One of their key recommendations was to update the user fees and keep them updated, which is what, again, another request in the budget is we did the update five or seven years ago, and now it's time to re-update it to make sure it's modern. Some of the other revenue enhancement opportunities that we haven't fully pulled is our hotel taxes slightly below. We moved it up, but it's not as high as some of the cities around us. We don't have a property transfer tax that's local. And the reason we, so the hotel tax commission at the time wanted to be slightly below market to not chase people away. The property transfer tax is something that locals pay and they've been resistant, the community's been resistant to tax itself on that front. We were pulling other levels that were sales taxes that others paid, right? Beyond that, am I forgetting one of the big categories? Any kind of a like a pension tax or one of those kind of things but that becomes a property tax and that again hits the the local residents No, I think those were the main recommendations.

Yeah Thank you no more questions The hours growing late so I'll try to make this brief first Thank You member on for inquiring about the city's efforts to generate revenue and to cut costs. You know, I think back to Ronald Reagan's famous admonition, the eight most frightening words were, I'm from the government, I'm here to help. But what I'll tell you in my short time here at the city is we really have a great staff. And they are self-actuating, they're motivated. I like to think... I don't know about this Lazzaretto guy, but I like to think that we have inspired leadership here that allows people to be creative and allows people to work hard to find savings and to be creative in terms of maximizing efficiencies. Having said that, I'm sure that there's always improvement, and I certainly look forward to working with you on that to try to look at things that, you know, your background is what caused me to support you, and I certainly hope that we are able to capitalize that to make the city even better than it is today. I do want to address a couple things because these things tend to come up over and over again, and I'm not sure why they have to be explained to the council over and over again, but number one, today we're just looking at the 26 to 27 operating budget, correct?

Well, yes and no. So officially you're adopting. So the city charter, the only reason I say this is because it's in the city charter as a two-year budget. So you're considering, you're adopting the 26-27, and you are showing a snapshot of the 27-28.

But we're not looking at 28, 29, 29, 30. No. Although they appear in our projections. Yes. In part because we are looking at the capital expenditure and equipment fund budgets going out to 2031. Yes. Right? But part of the reason why we're really looking at 26, 27 and considering 27, 28 because there's a lot of variability in those assumptions yes correct so we really have to look to see what revenues look like when we get there boots on the ground actually happening and that's why you're telling us hey this could be a problem in the future we need to keep an eye on it if we need to tighten our belts then we'll need to tighten our belts but What we're telling you now is that we're aiming for a balanced budget in the next 12 months and hopefully in the next 24, but we will make those mid-course corrections as time goes by.

Correct. And we also, when we do those year-out projections, try to be conservative on the expenditure side and on the revenue side. So as a for instance, a lot of times we estimate 2% revenue growth and 3% expenditure growth, which puts us upside down if you go out long enough, right?

Which is another good point, because I think that there was a statement made that you're being optimistic in the forecast of the budget, but I don't believe that that's true. Actually, you're being conservative in that you're being conservative about revenue growth and you're being conservative, meaning that from the expense side, you're assuming more possibly than what you really anticipate in that same time period. Yes. Okay. So I just want to be clear that there's no smoke and mirrors here going on as far as I can tell, and that this observation that we're looking at numbers which are unduly optimistic, I think is misplaced. The other point that I want to make is that When we have a budget, every dollar we spend is featured in that budget, basically, right? So that includes capital expenditures or when we buy, let's say, a fire truck. Correct. Right? But those monies have been provided through the long-term equipment and capital expenditure funds, correct? Yes. Therefore, we've been saving for those things, and when it comes time to actually spend them, we have to transfer them from the capital expenditure budget and the equipment budget because that's why we saved it. It does show up on our budget because we're spending that dollar in that fiscal period, but the money is actually coming, at least in large part and maybe completely, from a transfer from the capital expenditure budget and the equipment fund because that's why we saved it. Correct. So there's not some weird kind of manipulation going on here. When we transfer this money over, that's what we save the money for. In a household, maybe you have a savings account and you have a checking account. You don't put all your money in your checking account because it doesn't earn any interest. When you have to spend money, you take it out of your savings account You put it in your checking account, and you expend it then, basically, right?

Correct. And the other problem is if you leave it in your checking account, you tend to spend it on more frivolous things, and you forget about the once every 20 years you have to buy a fire truck.

I find personally that that's all I spend money on is frivolous things. But, yeah, I think it's really important to stress this for our audience and for our citizens to understand that there's not – There seems to be some implication that a transfer suggests that we're dipping into savings to pay for something. Well, strictly speaking, that's true, but that's why we saved the money. We set aside money to buy a fire engine. When it comes time to buy that fire engine, we take the money out of the fire engine fund and we spend it and expend that through the general fund. So those things end up being transferred back into, quote, the budget, and that's why they're there, because we planned for it in advance. Correct?

Correct. What used to happen in most cities... still happens in very large cities and what I would say are risky cities, is they don't make that transfer. We make a plan that we're going to buy our fire truck in 20 years, and we save 1 20th of a fire truck every year. So when 20 years shows up, I have 20 20s and I can buy that fire truck. Cities used to just say, I need a fire truck. It's going to be $3 million. I'm going to cut $3 million out of the budget someplace else because this fire truck, I can't go another day without the fire truck. So the library is going to be shut down. We're going to brown out a fire station. We're going to do some shocks to the system because today, the most important thing is the fire truck. don't do that we do the boring thing of scrimping and saving a little money every year but the magic happens on year 10 and year 15 year 20 when you need to buy that thing you have this nest egg in the savings that you can transfer over into the general fund to buy the thing that you have to buy and meanwhile the library is open the recreation department is fully staffed and the fire department has all three stations open

Well, that's because the boring thing is the prudent thing. And that's what we're aiming for. Now, I certainly agree that we have to be good stewards and that we need to watch that. But I think that's what we're doing here is that you're telling us you should be aware that as we project out over the next five years, that there's certainly a potential that we could experience a budget shortfall. And so we will need to make those adjustments when those times come. And hopefully we will expect better revenue, as we talked about, these new projects coming online, very large apartment complexes. We're hoping that property taxes and sales taxes will continue to allow us to meet these obligations. But there's no guarantee because we can't read the future. We don't have a crystal ball. So from what I understand, Mr. City managers, you are telling us the truth today. You are telling us to be careful in the future. Right now, we're not sounding alarm bells, but we are telling you that If we are not careful in the future, we may have to consider cutting some expenses in order to meet our expenses if we do not see an increase in revenue from some source of some kind that hopefully will help us to maintain all those services, maintain all of our current expenditures, and even grow that because, of course, there's inflation. Hopefully we'll be able to do that. we just have to keep an eye on it correct okay yeah and so i thank you for that i mean i know this is very hard work in it and i really respect henry's work that i i don't think that what we try to do as a city is that we ever try to use any numbers which are not prudent they're unrealistic they're just pie in the sky that's not our job our job is to tell people the truth Our job is to speak truth to power. And part of that is saying, using conservative numbers, we still think we have potentially a problem. And so you need to know that today. And I thank you for your hard work with this, Dominic. And I know that we've been looking at this for a very long time. I thank Henry and, of course, the entire department for their hard work with this. I certainly am pleased with these results. And we will keep our fingers crossed and make difficult decisions in the future. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so we're doing questions. The questions that I have earlier, I found it to be interesting. Council member had talked about local residents that are increasing our public records requests. Do you, what, and you ended up saying that it was between around 10 and then it ended up being about five. These five local residents, Do you know what their goal is in terms of increasing our public records requests? Do you have any type of understanding exactly what their goal is?

I would say, again, generalization, but I would say that they all fall in the area of transparency or trying to identified potential problems that they perceive are happening in the city.

Okay, and what type of potential problems are you referencing?

I mean, some of them would have been related to what ultimately was the Eileen Wang situation. Some of them were related to police personnel situations, foreign influence. I guess that's still with the Eileen Wang situation, those types of things generally.

Okay, when you talked about unusual things happening in the last 12 to 18 months, what are you referencing?

Eileen Wang's situation and some other claims against the city. Okay. Council censures, lawsuits related to that, those are things that haven't happened previously, but we've spent time and money on both from the public records and the legal side.

Okay. And you talked about investigations. What are you referencing on investigations?

Again, police personnel matters and city council interpersonal matters.

Have you tried to reach out to these five residents, local residents of our city, to try to see if we can, you know, work with them so that they don't increase our staff time and public records requests? You know, because it at least feels like to me that it's become a very substantial amount. IN TERMS OF THE INCREASE OF WORK.

I WOULD SAY THAT MY STAFF HAS REGULAR CONTACT WITH THESE FOLKS TO CLARIFY THE REQUESTS AND TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY'RE NOT EXCESSIVELY EXPANSIVE AND TO STREAMLINE THEM WHERE THEY CAN. I DON'T KNOW WITH THE AREAS THAT THEY'RE INVESTIGATING AND THEIR VIEWPOINT ON THOSE SITUATIONS THAT THERE'S SOMETHING A MEETING WOULD SOLVE, A MEETING WITH STAFF WOULD SOLVE.

Okay, so we're gonna be going over, Sharon. Yeah, I have a question.

Okay.

Can you give me the numbers we have in our reserve for the past three years?

Give me one second. Thank you.

okay so um is it going to take you a little bit it's going to take him a second okay no two minutes okay so as he has two minutes i want to remind all council members we we were doing a round robin of questions but it ended up being questions and comments once we get to the comment section please don't repeat your earlier comments because it is uh it's repetitive Right, it's repetitive, it's unneeded. You've already made your point. So when we get to council comments, please, please, please limit it to new comments that you had previously not made so that we can be able, we are not even one third done with our agenda for tonight. We have residents here for item 10B, as in Bravo, they've been waiting here. And so if we could be able to limit it to new comments Why don't we do this? Since Henry is still looking, which is not a bad thing because he's a pro, why don't we go to council comments?

Actually, Mr. Mayor, you still need to open a public hearing and have that part of things.

I don't think anybody's here for public comments as it relates to 10A. Are there any comments for 10A? Okay. Hearing none, we're closing public comment for 10A. We'll let Henry just gather the information that he needs. Let's go to Sharon Kwan for her comments, if that's okay. And then we'll just go around the room like we usually do, okay? Thank you.

Yes. I mean, I just want to make sure that, you know, how we are disclosing to the public everything needs to be transparent. That's why I want to make sure that we asked how much we have in our reserve for this year and for last year, a comparison. Because when we are spending more than what we bring in and the only way that we are able to do that is to tap into our reserve. So I just want to make sure all the numbers are given out to the public so that they can have a um complete understanding of how much we're spending the money and so i think that's important um and i um also just wanna comment on um it's because that i'm seeing that um as if the numbers are very accurate. And I see that when you're making all these projections and these, especially on the spending side, that we've been very prudent. We would not put anything that we're not gonna spend. And all these expenditures are actually adamant and it's required to run the city. Am I correct?

We always give ourselves a little bit of cushion for surprises along the way, but generally we don't put it in the budget unless we need it and it's necessary to provide the level of service the community wants and the council expects.

Yes, because I'm just looking at it. I just see with the, Expense expenditure, I think it's just it's more likely to go up because of inflation, as you were saying, you know, with the rising costs. So I'm seeing that and I'm looking at it with this year budgeting with a very small surplus. and then looking at next year's number, a big deficit number, so that's my concern. It actually is a big concern because we've just been optimistic. So yeah, my take is that because of that, I am not in favor of bringing these new programs in because especially when we're talking about these programs uh the uh expenses is going to be ongoing and it's fixated on it and so it's not some time something that's one time um so i'm referring to the arborist position right so that's a every year annual uh a salary that we have to pay out and so i just don't think that at this time um i to me i think it's better to use a contractor whether than to hire in-house And to have that, um, um, you know, expense that salary fixated. So that's what I'm looking at. Um, and yeah, I mean, um, I, I would want to make sure that, you know, everything it's transparent. Um, you know, because of the time that we have, we're not able to go through line. you know, line by line of what we didn't spend on and how long we postponing for. So I mean, I'm just gonna be very brief and I just think that this is not a budget that I would approve because I do not want to approve a budget where the expenditures is three times more than the revenue we bring in. So this is my comment.

So I have, so for 23, 24, the ending fund balance is about 28 million and then 24, 25, it's about 31. And then, so we transferred 10 out, so. 25, 26? 25, 26 will be about 20. $21 million.

$21 million, right? So you see, I see a big drop. We have $31 million turning down to $21 million. Because we transferred $10 million. I understand. See, what it is is because I know numbers very well. When you have money that are having in this pocket and transferring to this pocket when you add up the numbers it should not be lower because you have 31 million dollar and then we end up with 21 million dollar in reserve there's 10 million dollar that are gone yes we move that 10 million dollar to the a general fund to pay for expenditure, that money will be gone. This is very simple calculation. I mean, you, what I'm sitting here is I'm hearing all these nonsense. It's just telling me, well, no, we're transferring. I understand we're transferring, but what we look at it is the complete financial standing of the city When you have $31 million in reserve and then you end up with a $21 million reserve, that means money is gone.

So Henry, do you have the numbers for total reserves for those three years? He's only giving you the general fund.

No, I'm just comparing from last year to this year.

Right, but he's only talking about one of those columns.

And the reason why we have to transfer the funds out of reserve is to pay for the expenditure for this year that we're expecting to spend. Is that correct?

specific pieces of equipment, not ongoing operation.

Yeah, so we are spending that money and that money we've been budgeting for. So I just don't want you to tell me something where it's so easy to understand, so concrete, where the money is not there anymore and you're telling people, the residents here, you're misleading them and saying that, no, we're transferring here and here and here. It doesn't matter where you transfer. Overall is how much do we have in our account? And the account has dropped significantly, and that needs to be disclosed. I mean, I don't care what you tell me, but I understand, but all these things you've been budgeting for, and so what I'm getting out of is we are spending more what we can bring in, and that is a fact. That is not a fact. I don't know if today you said, okay, we have all this money in the account, and then we didn't touch the reserve, or, okay, we touched the reserve, but if we add them totally, we have more money than we have before, then I would consider that to be a surplus.

That is a surplus. So if Henry gives you the total available reserves, you'll see that number again. I mentioned this earlier. It used to be in the $20 million total. Then it went up to the 60 millions total. When we were adopting the contracts, and you remember the police and fire contract was initially voted against because there were concerns about going into a deficit situation. We were talking about a number that was in the low 70 millions total. Tonight, the number we showed you earlier, I believe is 84 million. That's up, up, up, up.

Yes, I'm talking about now our reserve fund. I'm looking at the reserve fund. Those are all reserve funds. Yes.

Those are all reserve funds. Every one of those is a reserve fund.

You just told me that we have 31 million and now we end up with 21 million. Is that the number that I just heard?

In the general fund operating account?

In the general fund, that is our operating fund. That is the fund that I focus on as well. Because those funds that were in the previous reserve funds, those are the emergency funds. Those are the funds that have been saved throughout the history of Arcadia. So we should not even tap in. If we tap in in those, we are in trouble. So that's my basically understanding.

When the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee did its initial investigation into our total finances. They made a specific finding that we should have five to six million in our general fund operating account. Five or six. That's what we need to wait for taxes to come in, for annual transfers to happen, our cash flow kind of account. The one I always call the checking account. It only needs to be at five or six million. Anything over five or six million is an unused surplus in that account. The general recommendation is to either send that extra money off to PERS so we can prepay PERS funding, to save it for future pension funds, or to transfer it to our equipment and capital funds. Because again, like I said earlier, if you leave it in the general fund, you will tend to spend it on things that are one-time expenses and then you don't have that money anymore. If you transfer it over to the long-term reserves, your savings accounts, then you'll be able to use them for things that are generational in nature and you know you can only spend it once, but you don't rely on it for salaries and all of that. So when you see that account go from 31 to 21 million, it's because we intentionally took $10 million out of the checking account and moved it to our long-term savings so we didn't fritter it away. So you can't move money without the money going down. But the money still exists over here and it's earning 4.5% interest and it's waiting for the day that we need it. It didn't go away. We didn't have a deficit of any kind. Over here in the operating account, the amount of revenues we took in last year exceeded the amount of expenditures we had last year. The amount of revenues we have in 25-26 is about $2 million more revenue than the expenditures. We plan on about, even if you approve all the new items, about a quarter of a million dollars to the green, to the good, to the positive in 26-27.

Okay, so I'm just asking you, Are you concerned when we're bringing in money that is less than we're spending projected to spend for that current year? Is that a concern for you?

It would be. We haven't been in that situation in a long time.

So am I looking the numbers wrong? You showed on the chart that we are bringing 96.6 million and we are spending 100.1 million. Is that number not accurate?

It's an accurate number, but it includes expenditures that happen one time that are funded by those savings accounts that get moved over. So you have to look at both the revenue line and the transfers in line to get a full picture. So if you add the 98, look at the middle column, if you add the 96 and the nine and a half, that's 104 to your 100 of expenditures. So the 104, almost 105 is about $5 million more than the 100 million you're spending. So to me, that's a surplus.

Okay, that's fine. I think we just have different ways of doing the calculation, but I understand you have a job to do. You know, you need to balance our budget. I totally understand that. But as I look at it, you know, representing the community, I just hope that we spend less than what we bring in. I think that would be a healthy way to going forward.

Everybody on this diet has that same goal.

Yes, and when I see the projections for next year, the following next year, and the following next years, all in deficit with seven digits or more, that's a concern for me. And especially now, I'm not even looking at our unfunded pension liability, the amount that we owed to the state and to the employees when they retire. So those are the numbers that I factor in. But that's just my concern. I mean, I understand how you do your job, and I just have a very simple mind. I just want to make sure, like, how I do it in my house, how much I bring in. If my check I bring in, At $5,000, I don't think I can spend $6,000 because going next month, I will have negative balance. So that's my concern. So I mean, I'm just very simple. I think this is how the residents look at it too. We do not spend more than what we bring in. It's great that we have reserves before, but I think that's how I look at it. So I mean, thank you so much. I'm just taking too much time and the night is pretty late. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor.

Council Member Kell.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to start by saying that I think everyone here on the dais, we're all fiscal hawks.

I don't think anyone is really in the business of getting our city bankrupt.

I think we're all fiscal hawks. And the reality is that... Government is not meant to make a profit. Government is meant to have a balanced budget because what is our mission? Our mission is to provide city services that by the way we do here in Arcadia, excellent, phenomenal. And we're really lucky that we have a standard that is so high. And because of that, there is a term that was thrown out about transparency. Mr. City Manager, is this our first meeting about the budget? No, this is our second meeting about the budget. Alright. And every year we have at least two meetings about the budget, right? Correct. Alright. Then every year we have an audit, right?

Yes.

Alright. So I just want the public to know that no single council member can write a check, can cut a check independently, of what we do here in public, and it takes a majority. So we have meetings that are open to the public. All the data is on the website, or if any resident is motivated, which we encourage them all to be, to come and meet with our staff. But I guess what I'm saying is that every year for the last three years, we've had a balanced budget. It's because of the fact that our goal is to provide excellent city services. Our city departments, our city staff, we're really lucky to have them because they work so hard for our residents. And there's a saying, sometimes you don't know what you have until you lose it. I don't wanna lose it. I wanna continue to support our city because of the fact that when you look at the numbers that our city manager has said in the total funds, all of our funds, It's in the positive, it's in the green. That's all we can ask for. There's a lot of cities that are not so lucky in this position. So this year, our budget is a very conservative budget. Our goal, our mission is always to provide phenomenal city services for our phenomenal residents. So I just wanna say, once again, that we're lucky to have great residents, we're lucky to have great staff. Thank you so much.

Council Member Hahn.

Mr. City Manager, thank you for your hard work, patience, and candor. That's it. Thank you very much. Council Member Fu.

Oh, Mayor Pro Tem Fu.

I apologize, sir.

Demoted him.

You know, that really hurts, Paul. I don't think I've had anything to add. I think we already understand the math that if we save $5 million to buy equipment and then we spend it, it doesn't mean we lost $5 million. It means that we spent money that we saved to spend on something we saved it for. And I think that's your point, Mr. City Manager. So thank you. I think we've beaten this horse dead, if not really, really dead. So I will... I'll close, thank you.

I've been on council for six years. And every single year, our city staff does a stress test. Every single time, they always do conservative projections. So they always say that two years from now, things may not be that good. That's what they say every single year. And they do that because they wanna make sure that we spend wisely. And every single year, we have always had a surplus with record reserves every single year. I'm disturbed by what I heard today about words of nonsense and misleading. It hurts. It hurts because those are statements against people that we trust. Dominic Lazzarato is the longest serving city manager in Los Angeles County, period. He has served our city And the reason why other city managers across other cities throughout the 88 cities look up to Dominic as well as the city of Arcadia is because he does not put out nonsense and misleading statements. I respect each and every one of my city council members. Yes, it seems like we do look at numbers a little bit differently, but I can be able to assure the residents that each one of our council members cares and loves our city. In terms of what I've seen over the last six years, we have better services. We have higher quality staff. We have maintained a 20% reserve, unlike surrounding cities. We made the great and wonderful decision to pay our city staff in line with other cities. When I first got on city council, we were bleeding out. One third of our police and fire left. other departments had up to 50% turnover. The statement that is made that we are a service city, our residents deserve the best, is something that our city council has committed to. And since we began paying on parity with other cities, We have had very, very low turnover. So I'm proud of our city council, all of us, whether we agree or not, that we want to have a Class A city with Class A staff. Believe it or not, you have to pay for it. You just have to. In terms of the simplicity that we have heard earlier, that $5,000 comes in and we spend $6,000. The city manager has said that that is not the right analysis, period. And he, in my opinion, is not lying. Now I'm not saying other people are lying, but he is not lying. And so I'm proud because the only thing that I've heard from any one of my council members is that the only dispute is whether we should be hiring an arborist. Apart from that, I haven't heard anything on any line item that would tell me that the budget should not be approved. We've taken the time since May to go over the budget. If we had any comments on any line item, we could have presented it to city council to make the adjustment. So my recommendation is that we approve the budget But at the same time, we should do what our council members have said, is we always need to be careful. We always should be careful about the money of our residents. We are residents too. We, we're not in Sacramento, we're not in DC. It's our money too. We care about it too. And so I'm proud of our council members that have made statements that we need to be careful. I'm proud of our council members that say that we are fiscal hawks, but I'm most proud of our city staff that has made sure that all of our spending has been reasonable for the best city in LA County. So with that being said, I'd like to have a motion to approve the budget. Mr. Mayor, I'll make that motion. Do I have a second? Who seconds? Let's take a roll call.

And just to clarify, as the city clerk does this, this would be to approve resolution number 7696, which adopts the budget. Yes, sir.

Council Member Cao.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Fu.

Yes.

Council Member Hahn.

Yes.

Council Member Kwon. No. Mayor Chang.

Yes. And Mayor, we also need a motion to approve the Capital Improvement and Equipment Plan as well. That would be resolution 7697.

Second motion. This is Michael, I'll make that motion. Foo seconds. Roll call.

Council Member Cao.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Fu.

Yes.

Council Member Hahn?

Yes.

Council Member Kwan? No. Mayor Chang?

Yes. All right. We're going to go on to item 10B as in Bravo. I appreciate the residents that are here. I was told earlier it's better if I just start using first names versus last names because it does cause a little bit of confusion. With that being said, there will be an alphabetical order by first name. David... Evans, Diego R., Mike Vierman, M. H. Habata, and Susan Rogers, if you guys are still here.

We're going to... So, Mr. Mayor, this is a public hearing, which one of those ones is quasi-judicial.

Yes.

So you can move the public comment up, but normally we would allow the applicant to speak on their behalf during public comment first. And traditionally what we do is receive a staff report, ask the questions, and then have the applicant an opportunity to tell their story before you went to public comment.

Let me tell you why I wanna do public comment first. And yes, maybe I messed it up, is that the public Any developer that comes into our city, I consider to be residents as well. They wanna be good neighbors. And so I want the residents to be able to share so that the developer can also be able to hear how his or her neighbor feels. And so our residents have been waiting a long time. So unless I'm doing something wrong, if we can please just have the residents ready to speak, And then we'll have the project. And then we want the developer to be able to speak and essentially address the issues of our residents. However, however, I didn't make a mistake. And the mistake I think is I would like the city staff to actually present the report because, and I know it may be a little bit longer than the residents want, but I do think the residents also need to hear from the city staff. So let's have city staff make their presentation. Then we'll have the residents get up. Then we'll have the developer, the owner of the property to be able to get up or the representative to be able to get up because maybe the representative has some solutions as a good neighbor of some of the residents that are concerned. Would that be okay with everybody? Are you guys okay with that? Okay, hearing no objections, let's have our city staff present the report, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good evening, City Council. The item being presented is for the appeal of the Planning Commission's decision to deny the 514 Fairview Avenue project, which includes a subdivision and a tree removal permit in regards to a new multi-family residential condo development on that site. And some information on the project site, it's located on the south side of Fairview Avenue in between Baldwin Avenue and La Cadena Avenue on a 57,795 square foot lot. indicated here on this map with the red star. The site currently consists of two parcels, which are through lots that extend out to Arcadia Avenue. Another thing to note is that this project does not affect Fairview Park, which is located two properties to the west of the site. The site is currently occupied by three single family homes, ranch stables, and other storage structures. Historian has certified that the structures on site do not meet any criteria for recognition as a historical monument under a certificate of demolition application. The site is to be developed with 30 residential units, which are gonna be built as 15 individual buildings with two units within each building at three stories tall and 30 feet high. Access to the site will be off of Fairview Avenue via two new driveways, and each unit will have co-compliant parking at two garage spaces per unit, and with 15 guest parking spaces throughout the site as well. Additionally, all open space requirements are being met, and that's being provided via common open space at the rear of the lot and through the center of the site. A tentative track map application has been filed to combine the two existing lots into one and subdivide the airspace of each unit for condominium purposes so that each unit can be individually sold. Additionally, the appellant has requested to remove 10 oak trees and one dead sycamore tree in order to accommodate the construction of the project, as you see here on the screen. The majority of the trees are either located within the center of the site with the canopy significantly taking up a good majority of that site, or on the edges with canopy overhanging into the middle of the site. The certified arborists analyzed the potential for retaining these trees on site, but ultimately determined that their proximity to building foundations and driveway areas would prevent these trees from being kept on site and therefore it would make the project infeasible and the trees would need to be removed. A preliminary SB 330 application was submitted for this project on June 26, 2025. And the project was deemed to be in compliance with SB 330, which is a housing bill meant to streamline permits and limit local government interference on housing projects. And all the following requirements of SB 330, excuse me, all the requirements of the SB 330 were met and the following are being allowed because of that. Number one, that the project is vested with standards of at the time of the preliminary submittal. So since the project is vested to the date that they submitted the preliminary application, the city's inclusionary housing ordinance doesn't affect the project and therefore no density bonus is being pursued. That the project is limited to no more than five public hearings. Currently we're on the third hearing. And that the design is only subject to objective development and design standards, which the design was deemed to be in compliance with. And the applicant's request for waivers from the objective development standards were in compliance as well, which will be discussed a little bit later. additionally the project meets all other development standards including setbacks height density and therefore the design of the project is deemed consistent with sb 330 and is not subject to design review and only the subdivision and the tree removal are up for consideration excellent So at the April 28th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting, the Commission considered the subdivision and the removal of the trees to accommodate the residential development. During the meeting, the discussion focused on SB 330, the appellant's request for waivers from certain objective development standards, and the project's compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood. Several commissioners expressed concerns regarding the project's massing and concluded that it was incompatible with the surrounding neighborhood. Following discussion, the commission voted four to one to deny the project and directed staff to return with the resolution reflecting the action at the next meeting. And then at the May 12th, 2026 meeting, the commission was advised by city staff, including a letter from the city manager to the commission that if they chose to deny the project, that they would need to identify specific adverse public health or safety impacts and include evidence to the record to support those findings. This being highlighted by the Housing Accountability Act, which is a state law that limits a local agency's ability to reduce or deny the density of a housing development that complies with applicable objective standards, such as the ones under SB 330. Ultimately, the Planning Commission voted three to two to deny the project, and a reason for denial identifying any public health or safety impacts was not made. But instead, a denial was based on concerns related to the project's compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood in terms of massing. Following the denial, the California Department of Housing and Community Development contacted the city and have indicated that they are monitoring the project. So the appellant filed an appeal on May 15th and provided the following points as grounds for their appeal, which can be found in greater detail within the packet. But to summarize, they mentioned that the project is compliant with the city's applicable objective development standards, and therefore it's consistent with the Housing Accountability Act. That the subjective considerations were made in denying the project, which is against the Housing Accountability Act and state law. That the objective development standard waivers were approved subject to administrative review and were not subject to review by the Planning Commission. That the findings required to support a denial were not made in consideration of state law, requiring a health or safety issue to be identified. That the project is deemed complete under the Permit Streamlining Act. that the denial may conflict with the no net loss provisions of state law, that the denial could expose the city to financial penalties under state law, and that the applicant voluntarily proposed design refinements in response to concerns raised. So as part of the planning commission discussion, there was significant discussion as it pertains to a waiver from the objective development standards, which deals with the third floor setback waiver that the appellant had identified as part of the rationale for denial. particularly in this objective development center deals with the building's massing. As discussed during the planning commission hearing, the requested waivers are authorized under the city's development code and independent of any requirements of SB 330. The waiver provisions allow the objective development standards to be waived when strip application of the standards may not achieve the most cohesive project design. And applicants may request waivers with a supporting justification that's evaluated based on findings and criteria established by the development code and it's reviewed at the administrative level. So therefore we take a look at the screen. You can see that while the majority of the, this is the, sorry, excuse me, let me explain the picture. This is the third floor of the building and the second floor underneath it with the red dashed lines. So it's indicating how much of the third floor is step back and which portions are not meeting that three foot setback requirement. So while the majority of the third floor does comply with this requirement, you can see there are portions that are within one feet, six inches to up to three feet. And there are some portions that are greater than three feet. But overall the variation provided allows for architectural articulation and it avoids a continuous wall plane. The areas that don't meet the three foot setback still provide a separate articulation on the bottom floors or indentations within to the building. And therefore this request to deviate is minimal. Basically the portions that are flat at the north side you can see are because there are staircases that lead up to the third floor and pushing those staircase levels in would create basically unusable space. Next slide. And then per this front view rendering, you can see that the third floor is stepped back overall, resulting in a building form that doesn't appear boxy and basically is consistent with the intent of the standard. During Planning Commission, there was a discussion on the three stories and how it relates to the neighborhood, and that being the massing finding that was made. It ultimately, Planning Commission had asked how many three story buildings there were within proximity of this site. It ultimately ended up being that there were existing three story developments within proximity, and proximity being within 500 feet of this site. We were able to identify up to six developments that had three stories and there was additionally four others that had semi-subterranean but could be interpreted to be somewhat of a three story. However, this is a subjective issue to discuss the massing in terms of the character of the neighborhood and can't be used as a basis for a decision. therefore the waiver request was justified and approved at this administrative level so based on the city review of the project and the applicable provisions of the general plan development code and subdivision code the project complies with all applicable objective development standards and those modifications approved by the waivers No substantial evidence was able to be identified demonstrating that the project would result in an impact upon public health or safety. And accordingly, the findings necessary to deny the project under the Housing Accountability Act cannot be made. Because the project complies with the development standards, concerns regarding project design, neighborhood character, or compatibility that are not based on applicable objective design standards cannot serve as a basis for denial under state housing law. Next slide. Therefore, after making all of the findings for the proposed project, staff recommends that the City Council adopt resolution number 7699, overturning the Planning Commission's decision, approving the appeal and the proposed project, and find that the project is categorically exempt per sequa. And that concludes my presentation. We have Development Services Director Lisa Flores and our City Engineer Kevin Merrill, and I am available for any questions as well. Thank you.

Questions only, questions only, no comments, because the comments go at the end. Questions, Council Member Kwon?

So my understanding is that the Planning Commission understand that there's this law SB 330, is that correct? And then I think, is it the first tried, it was four one, four denial and one approval. And then the second time it was, Why there was a second time? I didn't understand. Can you explain that?

So when the project was initially presented to the Planning Commission, it was presented with a recommendation for approval. So the resolution was drafted up for approval. And after the Planning Commission decided to deny the project, a new resolution had to be brought back for reflecting the denial that they had voted on. But at that time, one of the commissioners switched their decision.

So they did try both time and there was denial?

Correct. At the second hearing, it was reiterated that the project was compliant with state law and that findings, again, findings for health and safety should be made if a denial was gonna be made. That wasn't identified, but one of the commissioners ended up flipping their decision.

Okay. And Do you believe this is good planning for this project? In terms of... Or you just think that legally we can't deny it for you to bring this back up?

Well, there's no subjectivity in terms of what we can do with this project. However, what's in our code is being followed in terms of density, height. There's nothing in our code that's being... modified for this project to go in. Technically it can be more dense, they can provide much more units on site, but overall it complies with everything that's in our code and therefore that's the reason we're recommending approval for it. And it's also compliant with state law, which is what's requiring this project to have some sort of health and safety issue if it were to be denied.

Did the developer work with the commission planning to understand the concerned and have any of these, their concerns been addressed or has it been modified of these mass development?

There were certain things brought up, and I believe the appellant can probably address some of those things that they had identified as potentially being changed on the project. However, as it was presented, the project was compliant, so we couldn't force them to change anything.

So they didn't address any of the concerns that commission planning brought to them?

Let me expand on that. So the concerns they had were not related to massing. They brought up other issues such as trees and open space and how to utilize that space as better open space and privacy. And so the applicant actually did make changes to it, but the planning commission didn't entertain those changes because they were going to deny it no matter what. So that's why they were never presented to the Planning Commission, although they did mention to staff that they would be willing to address all those changes. Again, the only thing at the end, after all those discussions, privacy, open space, trees, massing, they ended up only denying the project based on massing.

So with your expertise, do you have any safety concerned with this project?

None. None whatsoever.

Okay. Yeah, that's good to know. Thank you.

I have no questions.

Council Member Kal. Thank you. Council Kwan. Does state law supersede local law?

Yes.

And what is the state law? Could you remind the public what is SB 330?

SB 330 is a state law that streamlines housing if you meet certain requirements. Basically, the project just has to be a multifamily project, which two units or more. And if it's basically meeting our objective development standards, it's given the things that were listed on that slide where it vests the project. prevents the project from being subject to design review if it meets the objective of the loan standards, and it limits the project to five hearings.

And then, if I remember, the only exceptions for SB 330 is health and safety, right?

That's from the Housing Accountability Act and SB 330, which basically limits you from denying or reducing the density of a project if it doesn't have a health or safety issue.

So the only concern from the Planning Commission was about mass and scale. And Lisa, you had just said just moments earlier that it actually didn't violate any health and safety concerns? Correct, it did not. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Hahn? Have we received a letter from HCD in support of this project?

Well, originally they wanted to see what happened after the planning commission meeting, and they thought about submitting a letter prior to the city council, depending on what the action was from the planning commission. And then HCD had issues with their emails, and so somehow our email was blocked from their email, so they weren't able to have a meeting prior to it. So that's the truth. They weren't able to submit something.

And this development meets all objective standards and development codes?

It does.

Okay. And the penalty for the city for not approving this could be $10,000 per unit, correct?

Correct.

And up to $50,000 per unit if we were found to be, if we have acted in bad faith.

Correct. And in addition to any legal fees and challenges.

Right. So that's at least $300,000 to $1.5 million that we're up for, the downside.

Correct.

Thank you.

Mayor Pro Temfu. No questions. Okay, I have a lot of questions. Okay, so get ready. In your 10b, it says the project may only be denied based on specific identifiable health and safety concerns. Can you be able to explain that? Why it can only be denied based upon specific identifiable health and safety concerns?

The only reason the state says that we can deny a project based on those.

And so if we were to deny the project, we would have to identify health and safety concerns, is that correct?

Yes, along with evidence.

Along with evidence. Can you give me an example of what a health and safety concern would be?

Sure, underground contamination. The site has contaminated soil, for example.

Okay.

That might be an issue if it was previously occupied by use that had contamination. That's a continuation of that kind of issue that they would have health and safety.

Contaminated soil, are there any other examples?

There's probably a million of them. There's ingress, egress on a blind corner and somebody's gonna get hurt if you're leaving the site, if they're proposing to build it with inferior materials, if, you know, those kind of things could all end up being health and safety concerns.

Okay. And so right now we have an appeal from the Planning Commission and the only thing that they identified was a project, the project's massing. What is massing?

Well, it's the objective standard that states that they must provide at least a three foot step back or setback on any stories that are above two stories. So in this case, it's the third level that Edwin showed where the whole entire third floor has to be step backs three feet from the second floor.

And they're saying that that did occur or did not occur?

Well, they kind of veered off and then started talking about the height. No, no, no.

So as Edwin showed on the overhead, it's supposed to be set back from the third floor all the way around the third floor. The design partially steps back, but in certain spaces, it doesn't step back. And if I can anticipate your next question, that ends up being an aesthetics concern. That ends up being a privacy concern. It may even, you can argue, be a property value concern to neighbors, but that's not a identifiable health and safety concern.

I see. So aesthetics are not health and safety concerns?

No.

Okay. A letter from the city manager was actually sent to the commissioners. And it says, denial on subjective grounds such as perceived scale or neighborhood character is, bold underline, not supported under state law for SB 330 project and exposes the city to significant legal risk INCLUDING FINANCIAL IMPACT TO THE CITY AND TAXPAYERS. WHY DID YOU WRITE A SENTENCE INTO THAT LETTER?

SO THE WHOLE LETTER IS UNUSUAL FOR ME TO HAVE WRITTEN. I THINK I'VE DONE ONE OTHER TIME TO A BOARD OR COMMISSION AND MY CONCERN WAS THAT THE BOARD AND COMMISSION DIDN'T FULLY UNDERSTAND THE WAY THEY WERE ACTING AND THE CHECK THEY COULD BE WRITING ON BEHALF OF THE CITY ACCIDENTALLY. We wanted to make sure we took the time to explain to them the state of the law. Planning Commission used to have a lot of that latitude in this area and the state laws that have been passed in the last couple years have changed that. So I wanted to make it very clear to the planning commissioners before they adopted their final resolution that that aesthetics concerns, just like I said to you right now, are not health and safety concerns. And if they were going to deny the project, they needed to do so using specific and backed by evidence health and safety issues, not massing scale aesthetics kind of concerns, which is traditional, the bailiwick of the Planning Commission.

I was looking at the minutes from the two hearings. It says here, one of the commissioners said, under different circumstances, he would agree with the city manager, but the law must be challenged at times. What does that mean?

I think what you had was an activist planning commission that wanted to encourage you to take on the state law.

So basically, if we're wrong, do the commissioners pay the damages? Who pays if we're wrong?

The city. The city.

The residents. Yeah, the residents. Another commissioner said he was standing by his vote to deny the project despite not having evidence of a public health or safety threat and making his decision on a subjective standard. So the commissioner stated that he knew it was a subjective standard, but he was still denying the project based on a subjective standard.

Correct.

And you guys notified the commissioners that subjective standards are inappropriate to deny the project.

Yes, it was mentioned throughout the meeting.

Another commissioner said. He would be unhappy with the project if he lived in that neighborhood. Furthermore, he stated that his understanding about their role as the planning commission is to be strictly an advisory board to the city council and that their decision has no bearing since the final decision maker is the city council. What does that mean?

Well, he understands that it would be appealed and that we have a new de novo hearing, even though we told him that the project could end at the planning commission level, it doesn't automatically go to council unless it's an appeal. But we had to explain all that throughout the meeting.

Okay, so are commissioners making protest votes? Yes. No, I'm- Yes, I mean- Okay, no, no, I'm just curious because I wasn't there. I can only read the minutes and I'm just trying to figure out what is happening in the commission. Okay.

I think as I said a moment ago, the commission wanted to signal that they're frustrated with state law. I think staff is frustrated with state law. I think the city council is frustrated with state law, but state law is state law.

Mayor, I have a question. Don't we have a liaison for the Planning Commission? Was one of the city council members presented at the meeting?

We had a transition, didn't we?

I believe Mayor Pro Tem Fu missed the first one, but was that the second one?

So Mayor Pro Tem Fu, you go to a lot of different city, so do you remember this specific meeting? Oh, sure. Okay. Can you kind of share, because I obviously wasn't there, just kind of what you felt the planning commission was trying to do?

Well, let me first make the point that our role as a liaison to the commission is that we don't vote, we don't weigh in, we don't tell them what to do. frankly, sit there and then share a report about what's going on at City Council. So we don't actively participate in the Planning Commission's deliberations as the liaison. I will tell you the Planning Commission was dead wrong. What they did was dead wrong. This was against the law. And when I get a moment to express myself more fully, I will do that. But quite frankly, yes, this was a protest vote and sort of this idea that, well, we'll get it wrong and we'll have city council get it right or expose the city to millions of dollars in fines as well as attorney's fees. And I will express my opinion more fully when I have that opportunity. Yes, I was there. Yes, I heard what was going on. Yes, they didn't follow the law. And I'm kind of at a loss to explain that other than the fact that they think that the law should be changed. But that's not where you do that. You don't do that at the Planning Commission. You do that by voting. and going to Sacramento. So I was frustrated, but I could say nothing. Thank you.

Earlier Council Member Hahn talked about HCD. So what is HCD?

That's the California Department of Housing and Community Development. They're basically in charge of monitoring all the housing within the state.

It says here in the Report. The California Department of Housing and Community Development contacted the city regarding this project. A meeting was held with Ms. Flores and the Assistant City Attorney during which HCD stated that if a subsequent appeal is filed, it may submit a letter of support of the project HCD also stated that a denial by the Planning Commission could constitute a potential violation. What does that mean?

It's a violation of the law.

So California came to us.

and we had a meeting with them.

Visited us.

Did not visit us. We had a virtual meeting.

Okay, a virtual meeting.

They had questions for us to have a better understanding of what had happened, what our process is, in terms of the waiver that's handled at the local level.

Okay.

And then they said, okay, let's see what happens after the planning commission meeting. So they were on standby. And then, of course, afterwards, they had technical issues with their emails. And so they tried to coordinate another meeting. So we went back and forth in trying to do so. And then by the time they actually got through to us, the meeting is here tonight. But they still want to have a follow-up meeting regardless.

Now you had said earlier that the developer was willing to make changes. Do you remember what changes they were or is it better just to have the developer end up coming to discuss the issue?

We have, yes, I can tell you what they are real briefly. There are three items. There was an issue with privacy on the windows on the third floor. The applicant decided to go ahead and make them opaque and not transparent so there would be no visibility issue. They were willing to do that. The second issue had to make the open space in the backyard area more functionable, so they were going to add some benches and other amenities to make it more an active space. And the third one had to do with trees. I forgot how many more trees they were going to add.

Yeah, they were adding, they went up from four coast live oaks to 13, and then they added four California sycamore trees as replacements.

Okay, but because it was denied, they aren't gonna be doing this, is that correct?

Correct. Well, they would be willing to, but we didn't want to muddle things with confusion. We just wanted to take exactly what was shown to the Planning Commission to the Council tonight. But I'm sure they'd be willing to make those changes.

Yeah, if the Council was interested in that, I would encourage you to bring that up when they're here during the public hearing.

Okay, but I just want to clarify because it may be three and maybe less or more. I just want to hear it from you. Is that there's an issue of privacy. The neighbors were concerned about that and the developer said they'd be willing to consider it. The second one was about open space functionality. Was that in the backyard, the back of the property? It seems to be very, it's a north-south property, right?

Yeah, it was in the towards the center. There's like a center area where all the doors face and there's a back rear in the rear yard. There's a larger open space.

Okay. And they were willing to add in more trees from 14 to 13.

live oak trees like planted elsewhere or uh they were planting sycamore trees along the westerly property line uh it was five of them i believe one second four sycamore trees along the west side of the property and then 13 coast live oaks down the center and at the front of the property

Residents had concerns about limiting the time of construction. Was that issue ever brought up to the developer?

I think we indicated that they would have to comply with the city's regulation when construction could occur by hours of operation. So it never went any further.

OK. But that was one of the residents' concern was hours of construction. We told the developer that we have hours of construction and they need to comply. My question is, did we ever bring that up in terms of amending the hours of construction?

No.

Okay. And then another issue that people had was the parking situation. I know that area very well. And frankly, the... there's a lot of cars parked on the street and the residents were concerned just about, and I understand that it's not a health and safety issue, right? So I get that. I'm just asking for purposes of parking, Was that ever discussed? I understand there's 15 guest parking spaces. I feel like I'm the only one that read this agenda. Is everybody like fall asleep? I'm so sorry, guys. I'm so sorry. This is a very, very important, probably the most important part of the agenda. So bear with me, everybody. In terms of the residents were concerned about only having 15 guest parking, is that something that the developer, did you talk to the developer? Is there any way to have more parking? Or is it just, you know, or maybe to narrow the size of the guest park, maybe add one more space or two more spaces? I don't know. I just, I was reading the report, so I have to ask.

So per state law, they were, well, per the development code, they were compliant with parking. So state law limits us in asking for more than what's required. Therefore, that discussion wasn't had. So anything that were to change with parking would have to be voluntary.

Understood. Okay. So parking wasn't discussed. Hours of construction were not discussed. Great. So if we don't have any more questions, if we may have the develop, oh, residents, residents, you guys have been patient to come on up. David Evans, Diego, Mike Vierman, M. H. Havada, and Susan Rogers. So David, hello, sir. Hello.

Thank you. Thank you. My name's David Evans. I'm a resident at 530 Fairview Avenue, which is the property just to the west of the proposed development. I want to start by saying that I do not object to developing the lot to the east of our property. A tasteful development is better than a derelict lot with abandoned buildings. And just so you know, Particular units could be really impacted by both the construction and the new development. Right now we look out on a beautiful collection of live oak trees. Nonetheless, I do support some development in that lot. Having said this, I do have... Two concerns and one other issue that I want to bring up. I do think that traffic is a safety issue. As you mentioned, there's a tremendous amount of street parking on that street. morrow and it's often goes right up to the edge of the current driveways which blocks visibility for entering the street and cars tend to use the 500 block of fairview avenue to avoid the traffic lights at the intersection of huntington and baldwin And so sometimes days, it's just kind of perilous on that street anyway. And then trying to leave a driveway with very little visibility is a problem. So I would hope that something could be done to ameliorate those problems, maybe speed bumps, maybe red curbs extending farther from the existing driveways. And quite frankly, if there was egress from the development to the south onto Arcadia Avenue, it would also reduce the impact on the traffic. My second concern has to do with the common open space. So I was pleased to hear that the developer might consider modifying the common open space. Right now it consists of several small patches of grass, which I don't think, in my reading, satisfies the code. The code says that the common open space must satisfy certain criteria, including have amenities such as picnic and barbecue areas, outdoor gathering areas, recreational amenities such as athletic courts or playgrounds, and that it be visible from pedestrian walkways. It seems to me that the current design does not meet those criteria, and so would not be in accordance with SB 330, since it doesn't meet those objective criteria.

And I'm just gonna stop you only because we had it at three minutes, but you should be at five minutes. Oh wait, how many cards, hold on. I think we have five minutes. Well, it depends on the number of cards. One, two. How many is it for five? Sorry, Mr. Evans.

One to five is five minutes.

You have five minutes, sir. I apologize for that. You have an additional, it's running over, but you have an additional two minutes. I do have questions for you after though.

Okay, all right. I just need another 30 seconds. And because my final point is that I would encourage the council to consider the city's objective development standards, which allow applicants to waive up to three development standards This seems to me to unnecessarily constrain the planning commission and this council from influencing proposed developments so that they better serve all residents of Arcadia.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Evans. I just wanted to confirm. Earlier, there were three points that I heard because you were a little bit soft-spoken. My hearing's going as I'm getting older. One was traffic, second was open space, and third one was objective, the waiver of the three standards. Is that correct, sir? That's correct. Okay, may I ask you about the traffic? you said that you were concerned about the traffic um i heard speed bumps and red curb is there anything else oh you also talk about egress um can you explain just your three uh because I did understand open space, what you said that the picnic area, recreational amenities, I heard about the objective standards. In terms of the traffic, you talked about egress speed bumps and red curb. Can you just elaborate a little bit what that means?

Yeah, as I mentioned, there's times when entering the street on that block is perilous for two reasons. One is, Cars are using it to bypass the intersection at Baldwin and Huntington. So they can do that rather quickly sometimes. And the other is it's very poor visibility trying to enter the street because cars are parked within about three feet of each driveway. And so if that was extended, like a car length or two, then that would greatly improve the visibility when entering the street.

Is the, Director Flores, is the ingress and egress Is it both on Fairview Avenue and Arcadia Avenue? Or is it just one?

Just one side.

Is it on Arcadia Avenue? Fairview Avenue. Fairview Avenue, okay. Two driveways off of Fairview. Yeah, I know Arcadia Avenue is packed with cars. So it would be off of Fairview Avenue. And Mr. Evans is saying speed bumps and red curbs. I actually... Okay, I'm not here for comments. I apologize. Speed bumps and red curbs because of the egress on the Fairview Avenue. Is that correct, sir? Right.

Yeah. And the parking is much more dense on Fairview than it is on Arcadia Avenue. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah.

I didn't know that. Because I drive to work a lot of times, I go on Arcadia Avenue.

Oh.

Yeah, that's how I get to work. So, okay. Is there anything that I've said in summarizing your position that I did not hear you well? I want to make sure that we as a body have heard you. I think you got it. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thanks. Next person is Diego R. Diego, thank you for your patience, Mr. Diego. We appreciate you. Sorry, let me.

I think somebody might've dropped in a card a few minutes ago. So I don't know if you want to check that. I don't know if it was for this item or another item. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Diego Rubalcava. I live in district three, but about 20 minutes Southwest of this project. I think maybe in my lifetime, I've walked by once just cause I don't go there that often. But I should say, I'm also a volunteer member of CHOA, which is Creative Housing Options in Arcadia. We're a faith-based group that advocates for more housing for everyone in Arcadia. And I appreciate, I wrote an email with some written comments that you all may have seen talking about the benefits of more dense housing. For example, for the first time in a while, rents are actually going down in Arcadia. And I think typically you see that with supply and demand, when you have more housing units, the cost goes down. So that's good for existing residents. It's good for parents who may want their kids to be able to afford to move into Arcadia in the future to have those affordable units. Of course, housing is a very emotional topic, especially when you're used to a certain neighborhood feel and it's changing. And as CHOA, we do wanna invite all our neighbors who maybe have or haven't been to a CHOA meeting before to come to our meetings so we could discuss more of these issues and find common ground. I think what I wanted to focus on here is, I know it's also a change, not just for residents who see developments coming in, but also a change for people like the planning commission and city staff and yourselves and city council. I think there's been a history in California where these local agencies have a lot of discretion into which housing developments they can approve or not approve. And at first glance, when that discretion gets taken away, it may feel like a bad thing, like you lost discretion. I would counter though, as much as it hurts, and there's definitely, unquestionably, construction is inconvenient for the neighbors, right? Unquestionably, and I sympathize, but there are certain activities that I don't think it makes sense to have a city council have discretion over. For example, When someone applies for a driver's license, they don't need to come before the planning commission to get their driver's license. They just have to follow all the safety instructions at the DMV to get the driver's license. When somebody applies for a permit to install some minor components to their HVAC system, it usually doesn't rise to the occasion of coming before the planning commission or the city council. I say this because obviously, we might prefer not to have disruptions in our neighborhood. And again, I don't live directly near the project. I live about a 20 minute walk away. So if this project goes forward, it's not gonna affect me personally. But I think to the apartment where I do live, imagine if, it's an older apartment, probably built 20 years ago. But imagine if 20 years ago, a lot of neighbors didn't want that apartment to be built. then I might not be speaking here today because the place I currently live in Arcadia, maybe 20 years ago, a group of neighbors didn't want that apartment built. Maybe the apartments where people live now, they maybe even though maybe those apartments next to this one were complained about in a similar meeting as this one. And again, I know it's a, I'm just, this is just my opinion. Definitely like CHOA in general is open to meeting with other neighbors to discuss these issues, but I just wanted to give my perspective and I don't speak for CHOA. We do have another volunteer who's gonna speak on this issue, but again, I'm only speaking for myself and in general in CHOA is supportive of more housing for more people in Arcadia. And just my opinion as a renter who loves being in the apartment where I am surrounded by other apartments and condos, I don't think it's a bad way to live. I think single family zoning is luxurious. It's nice if you can afford it, but not everyone can. And I thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Mike Vierman. And then the next one will be, M. H. Habata. Mr. Vierman, you have competition. Mr. Diego is very, very nice. A very kind person.

Diego's great, right? Mayor Chen, council. I made public comment last night at Dodger Stadium, so my voice is not working today. So excuse me. Council Han, welcome. My name is Mike Vierman, mostly for Council Han. You probably don't know me. I have lived in Arcadia for 25 years. I am with CHOA. CHOA, as Diego mentioned, is Creative Housing Options in Arcadia. We work to build affordable housing and reduce homelessness in a loving way here in Arcadia. We're all volunteers. No one's getting paid. I'm here for supporting this project. Usually you would think that I'm only show up when it's affordable housing. There has zero affordable housing in this project. But bottom line, we just need more housing. So because Arcadia is built out, Land use is very, very important. So when we have 30 condos in one property or one parcel, that's very important. That means people don't have to compete with just 10 homes that are being sold in Arcadia. There's a lot of options. That's what we need. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. uh... and is it a major mw about are you still here thank you mister about uh... welcome to city council good evening uh... i may have to tell my classics point vision is not as good as it once was

My family and I live on the same block as the proposed development. We live across the street and two units over. We've been there since 2010. And we've seen a lot of development in this neighborhood. I'd say that almost everything that's gone up is not affordable it's in the 750 000 2 million plus dollar range and what we're really talking about i would see that the intent of sb 330 is to create affordable housing in california and not just more housing so If you're taking down a vacant property and putting up 30 units at three stories, that is going to be, I don't know what the proposal for the sales are, but if it's going to be a million dollars or more, then that's really not affordable housing. and i feel that we're talking about quality quality of life for arcadia and just increasing more making the city more dense and not making it more affordable is not increasing the quality of quality of life for anyone in the city um i don't think so i live in a 44 unit condominium complex and it's two stories and there is a parking level beneath but I know that we all got these flyers, but I'm sure that there's no one in our unit that wants to see this development built, and I'm sure there's no one standing or seated in front of me. If you lived in this neighborhood, you would want to see this. complex built. So I would just ask you to be in my place. And I think that if the law is wrong, it can be challenged. You can go to Sacramento and say, take the city attorney and say, we don't agree with this. This is something that's not right. And we don't agree with allowing this to go forward. Yeah, that's about all I have. Thank you.