Council - Regular Meeting

good evening everyone thank you for being here tonight uh the date is august 19th 2026 the time is 7 0 6 pm i am now calling to order the baltimore park city council finance authority and housing authority meeting uh pastor jackson and pastor flores can you please lead us in the invocation for pastor flores uh for those of you who are able to stand if you can please stand thank you mayor

Oremos gracias, Señor, por esta noche, porque tú eres Dios y Dios tú eres bueno. God, we thank you for this night because you are God, you're still God, and God, you're good. We pray, Father, over this meeting, over our leadership, over our city. We thank you for the privilege and opportunity we have to live. We're mindful, Lord, that even in the hot days, Lord, and the dog days of summer, God, that your presence, Lord, and privilege of us living life here in Baldwin Park, Lord, is to be graciously accepted. Pray, Lord, for wisdom, guidance, Lord, over our counselor, our mayor, pro tem, and all those, Lord, that participate in this decision-making process, Lord. Lord, we're mindful of those in need today, Lord, those who have suffered from recent calamities and tragedies around the world, Lord, including Colombia, Venezuela, Lord. We know families indirectly have been impacted here, Lord, in our city. We pray, God, that your mercy and your grace would be found in your presence in this time of need. In Jesus' wonderful name we pray, amen. Amen.

Thank you for that, Pastor Flores. City Attorney, can you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Sure. If you could face the flag and put your right hand over your heart. Repeat after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you for that, City Attorney. City Clerk, can we please get roll call for Chief Deputy City Clerk?

Yes, Mayor. Mayor Damien?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Ayala? Here. Council Member Avila? Here. Council Member Estrada?

Here.

Council Member Lozano?

Here.

We have quorum.

Thank you for that, City Clerk. City Attorney, can you please report out of closed session?

Thank you, Mayor and Council. We had five items on the agenda. There was a discussion on each one. The Council gave direction, and there's nothing further to report.

Thank you for that city attorney right? We have announcements. The city council are also members of the board of directors of the housing authority and the finance authority, which are concurrently convening with the city council this evening. And each council member is paid an additional stipend of 30 dollars for attending the housing authority meeting and 50 dollars for attending the finance authority meeting. All right, we've got a presentation from the water water use efficiency practices presented by Jose Martinez, general manager of Valley County Water District.

Mayor, do you mind closing the special meeting?

Yes. Sorry about that. I will now close the special meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Sorry about that. Go ahead, Jose. Jose, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Is your mic, is the light on for the mic?

The blue light. There we go.

There you go.

Perfect. Thank you. All right. Good to see you. Great to see everybody. And always a pleasure to come and present tonight. I do have a presentation if hopefully we can get that fired up. Or I can wing it. hey david can you bring up uh the valley county water uh presentation uh sure thing stand by thank you all right there you go perfect appreciate that and let's see what do i hit and and just say next slide and okay just say next slide okay yes sir Thank you. I've done this many times, but it's always like the first time when I come up here. Just an update on water conditions. If we look at, we have a map of the state of California. The yellow does show some drought conditions, but if you look at the LA County area, We actually received over our historical average of 18 inches of rain. So we're about over 20 inches of rain that we received, which is great. And that graph to the right at the very tail end, you kind of see it shooting up. That's actually our groundwater level of where we check in our key well, which is located in the city of Baldwin Park of how that groundwater. So that was looking at your stock portfolio or your bank account. Things are looking pretty good right there. There are and I'm sure later on in the presentation I'll be talking about all the kind of the new splashes about water. And one we've been hearing a lot about the potential of El Nino conditions that are brewing in the ocean with warmer conditions and potentially additional rain. uh thankfully with the management along with army corps of engineers and the la county we're able to manage a lot of the water that hits the watershed in the san gabriel valley and capture a lot of that water as it comes down the san gabriel river so certainly if there is an in el nino condition uh we'll have uh the infrastructure in place to capture a lot of that water that hits our local watershed uh so with that next slide please So this highlights exactly where we're at with the aquifer. We're at 255 feet, the current elevation. Our historical high was at 295 with our historical low not too many years out was about 169. So again, things are looking really well as far as our overall water conditions in the San Gabriel Valley, as we depend on the main San Gabriel Basin. And a reminder, that little highlight, we share this resource with over 50 other water purveyors. And this resource is actually provided to over 2 million people. So this is a shared resource, a very important and crucial resource. So there's a lot of management that goes on, not only with Valley County, but the other water districts within the Baldwin Park City, as well as other water agencies. As I said, over 50 water providers throughout the San Gabriel Valley. Next slide, please. This does have a video. I don't know if it's going to play with sound, but I did pass out to all of the council members, and this went out to all 12,500 of our customers. It's an annual document that has the information of the thousands of water quality samples that we collect every year. On the back pages, I know it gets a little confusing, and maybe if you click next, it might actually start playing the video that we have associated with it. Never mind. We'll go back. So, but we do have a nice little interactive video that kind of helps explain the tables at the end of this. And as I said, it kind of gets a little confusing, but bottom line is that we met and exceeded all state and federal standards. And this document that goes out, we highlight some of the major activities that we had throughout the fiscal year, as well as highlighting that we met and exceeded all state and federal standards. Next slide, please. So if you do watch news, I know a lot of us kind of avoid the news because it's a little depressing here and there, but water certainly has been in the news lately, such as incidents of cybersecurity threats that occurred in the Minnesota area, as well as the main breaks. That is certainly something that was highlighted in the Hollywood area where that section of pipeline created quite a bit of damage. For those Disney adults, you may have heard about the low water pressure that shut down many of the restroom facilities at Disneyland and that kind of created a little bit of spark. Other things in the news such as data centers and other droughts throughout the world. So water certainly is in the news and this is not new to us. We have water leaks that we detect almost every single day. And we also are very proactive on these. Our agency has increased our overall protection from cybersecurity threats. We've had encounters with cybersecurity threats. So we continue to monitor this and to protect our critical assets, our infrastructure, to not have this be an issue within our service area. main breaks as i mentioned they happened but right now we're proactive we actually have installed listening devices and we are installing these listening devices throughout our service area which actually listen for leaks in the pipeline and they start recording at the early hours in the morning and we can start utilizing some ai software to really dial in to where these potential leaks might be throughout our service area to avoid situations such as this as well we have pressure monitoring systems throughout our service area so we've taken a lot of measures at valley county water district and i certainly have the full support of our board of directors i have all five members board president david muse vice president jasmine leos director galvan and pacheco are here as well as director vargas so certainly with their support and with our staff to stay on top of these conditions uh we're really trying to be proactive to avoid us being in the news as we've seen lately with other water agencies throughout the United States. With that, we'll go to the next slide. I can't thank the city enough. It is an honor for the district to participate in your amazing concerts in the park. You guys do a phenomenal job of bringing in some great talent, and it's a great opportunity for the district to to have a booth there and to interact with the customers. I enjoy it because I get to hear directly from the customers what concerns they have about water quality or other of the issues. And then we have really good insight. And that kind of helps us to prepare other documentations, our frequently asked questions, and also prepare our staff. These are the questions that we're getting from our customers. So this is what we should be prepared to answer in the event that we have this question or any public members has whatever's in their mind when it comes to delivering safe, reliable water 24-7 to our communities that we serve. Also on the bottom right hand, it was the first time I participated in the city's 5K. I'm still kind of recovering from it. uh but it was an amazing event we had staff and directors participate in that and we're already looking i got a bunch of ideas and uh and uh participating into the future so again you know kudos to the city and the great events and it it's uh always amazing the partnership that we have in the continued partnership that we will have into the future so with that i believe that uh covers everything i wanted to but certainly if there's any questions i'd be more than happy to uh to answer them

Yeah, Mayor, let's go ahead. So go back to that map where we said the water itself, because so we're not in a water drought in our region. Am I correct?

Yeah, if we go to the map, technically we're not in a drought and but droughts come in a cycle.

Right, right.

So even El Nino, there's some of the driest years on record have actually been technically an El Nino where the temperature in the ocean has been high and we've had abnormally low rainfall totals. Now, the average is that it's going to be higher than normal rainfall totals, but that's not necessarily good for the state of California because we depend heavily on the snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas. We don't have the infrastructure off the Sierra Nevadas to capture rain. So when it comes in the form of snow, that is our reservoirs, it comes to slip. So typically during El Nino, it's gonna be warmer weather and it's gonna come, the precipitation is gonna come in the form of rain. And that, to the north of us, most of that unfortunately will go out to the ocean. So it's good and bad that we may have a lot of local rain, but may not be good for the entire state of California as far as water resources.

Now these reservoirs that we have out here, Correct. So how long does that water stay there before it's actually filtered out?

You know, it really depends on the depth of the well. So the water that we manage up in the watershed, we'll release that periodically throughout there. There's still water up behind Morris Dam and the San Gabriel Dam up in the valley, which is rainfall from last year. So they release it. to allow it to percolate slowly into the ground. But as we the new rain season is going to start in October. So we're just finishing up this rain year. The new calendar will start in October and they start clearing everything out to prepare for the potential rains that are coming. So once that water is allowed to percolate again, depending on what the location, how deep your well is, it could take anywhere for a couple of months to a couple of years for actually pulling that water out of the ground. And it just depends on the location.

all right thank you appreciate that thank you mayor thank you for that councilman lozano uh does anyone else have any questions yes go ahead i don't have any questions i just want to thank jose again for coming on out and uh providing us an update uh i always appreciate uh you coming and and giving us the needed information we we appreciate and want to hear and i also want to thank the directors for coming out and joining us We appreciate you being here. We appreciate our collaborative abilities to work together. So I want to thank each and every one of you for being here. So thank you, Jose. Thank you, Mayor.

I've been trying my best to keep them a little bit shorter.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Council Member Stroud, did you have any comments?

No questions.

welcome thank you for that thank you jose i appreciate you being here i also appreciate uh president muse uh vice president uh jasmine leos uh board members uh ralph galvan lena pacheco and javier vargas for being here as well we also appreciate the partnership and we are are graciously um excited to be using your chambers in the next probably nine months or so we're gonna go over there happy family over there but we're gonna make it work So we appreciate that, and we appreciate you coming out and always giving us these updates for our residents so that we're on top of what goes on with the water because sometimes we need to be educated when it comes to that, me included, because I'm not too smart when it comes to the water. But I want to thank you. Thank you for coming out and giving us a presentation and for your partnership as well.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you. All right, we're going to be moving on to public communications. City Clerk, do we have any speaker cards?

Yes, Mayor, we have a few speaker cards, but before we begin, I'd like to just, if there's anybody in the Zoom chat room that would like to speak during public comment, just virtually raise your hand, and when the time comes, you'll be admitted. Thank you. The first speaker card, Irma Morales with the LA County Library.

Good evening, Mayor Damon, city council members, city staff, and the community. I wanted to give you some updates on some of the programs going on at Baldwin Park Library. This Saturday, we're having a back-to-school extravaganza, and that's from three to four. So families are going to learn about resources that the library has and do a small craft project. We are also having our teen advisory board this Friday, August 21st from 430 to 530. And the teens discuss ways to get programming for the library and kind of give us their insights. And thank you for last meeting for recognizing them. We also have a teen Friday program on Friday, August 28th from 430 to 530 where the teens will do a craft. as i mentioned in the past we have a program called leap it's the library engagement and access program they're starting a emotional well-being group on tuesdays from september 1st through october 22nd from three to four and it's for adults to get together and talk about ways to different strategies for sort of life and so that will be going on there's no registration included or needed. And last but not least, is we're doing a welcome to the library for parents and babies. And that's going to be on Saturday, September 12 from 12 to 1. New parents and caregivers come meet us and each other. Join us for a special program designed just for you. bring your new baby and discover all the great programs and services we have for parents caregivers and children and connect with other new families in the community that one is registration required you can always go to visit lacountylibrary.org events to register or call the library for registration thank you for your time thank you i always appreciate you coming and giving us updates

next we have tony martinez with north star landscape good evening mayor members of the city council my name is tony martinez i am the founder of north star land care tonight i just want to leave you with three thoughts your decision the pressure and the principal. First, your decision. On August 5th, after considering staff's recommendation, the council voted four to one to award the contract to North Star, recognizing our qualifications and the savings to Baldwin Park taxpayers. Second, the pressure. After your four one vote, something changed. Tonight, council is being asked to set the award aside and authorize a new RFP. I have not seen the communication that led to that change, so I will not represent speculation as fact. But I will tell you, Baldwin Park is not alone. The city of Azusa's public record identified potential litigation involving West Coast Arborist and its tree service contract award. And just last night, the City of Norwalk's agenda identified existing litigation, West Coast Arborist versus the City of Norwalk, after Norwalk awarded its tree contract to North Star. Azusa, Norwalk, and now Baldwin Park. When litigation or its prospect appears around competitive tree contract decisions involving the same company in multiple communities, I believe we have the right to ask, Is legal pressure beginning to influence fair competition for public tree contracts? I've spent more than three decades in this industry. Competition should be tough, but in my opinion, a good corporate partner competes hard and respects fair outcome. What concerns me is when competition ends and legal pressure begins. We teach our children to stand up to bullies when pressure is used to change a fair outcome. That principle shouldn't change simply because the pressure comes through attorneys. Finally, the principle. This is bigger than North Star. Our industry deserves the opportunity to compete fairly because when qualified companies stop competing, taxpayers lose. Public contracts don't belong to North Star and they don't belong to West Coast Arborists. They belong to the public and they should be earned. Northstar isn't asking for special treatment. We're asking for fair competition. So tonight, stand with your taxpayers, stand with fair competition, and stand behind your 401 decision to award this contract to Northstar. Thank you.

Next, we call Cindy Rubio.

good evening um I'm here once again about the Baldwin Park Transit Services um instead of getting better as time goes on it's getting worse every time we need to use it um I had to try to make an appointment on August 7th to go from my house which is three blocks to Kaiser couldn't get an appointment, left on hold for over 20 minutes trying to get an appointment, called back in the morning and told me it's because I'm not a registered Dial-A-Write user. I've been using Dial-A-Write for almost 10 years. Then they told me if I didn't like it, that I could call the city. Well, city's closing on Friday. I did call the city. I left a message, got no response. I called back to the, I think it's RideCo or I don't even know what the name of the company is. And they said, oh, well, the manager's not here. We'll have them call you back. Well, it's been two weeks, almost three weeks now with no comment from city for the messages that I left from RideCo. The very next day on Saturday, I called back again to make an appointment for Sunday with no problem. They took my information. They scheduled the ride. They didn't say I was not a registered rider. They didn't say anything. I was on the phone more than 35 minutes on Friday trying to figure out why I wasn't listed. Oh, you're not part of the registration. You don't belong here. I said, look at my ride. You can see how many times I use a dialer ride. Well, there's nothing we can do about it. That's your city's problem. So I've tried to address them. I've tried to address you as a city. So if I could get somebody to please return my calls and figure out what is going on, I ended up using the transit to get to my doctor's appointment. I was told that the transit had already left, but there was no ride. When I got to the bus stop, I have to pass the bus stop. The bus hadn't even arrived yet, but I was told by trans deck or whatever they're called, but the bus had already passed. I don't like walking there anymore because I did get hit by a car on the sidewalk, walking to Kaiser. So I'm very uncomfortable with that. On my ride back, the crossover, I'm going to take the transit back home. They said, oh, the transit. I said, what time is the next transit? Oh, it won't be for an hour. I said, don't you ride every 35 minutes? Oh, we're running a little behind. I'd like an answer from somebody.

once once we uh have public communication is over then we'll go ahead and address some of your concerns okay thank you you're welcome mayor that concludes all speaker cards received thank you for that uh city clerk um i will now open it up to the public audience if there's anyone wishing to speak who did not fill out a speaker card now is your time

Excuse me, Danny. You're mumbling. It's not carrying right.

Your time hasn't started yet. Can you please restart his three minutes? I'm addressing something with our city manager. Once you start speaking.

When you talk, it's mumbling in the back. You can hardly understand what you're saying. From my microphone? Yes. Oh, I don't know.

David, is there something wrong with the mic?

For the purposes of the broadcast, everything is functioning nominally.

Okay. Well, this is going to be our last meeting in the chamber, so let's just bear with what we've got for now. But go ahead. Your time will start when you start speaking.

Okay. I have a few complaints with public works and court enforcement. I called court enforcement on Saturday and Sunday because I know that Sunday Carlos works. Saturday I caught him. I showed him the areas there are mattresses all over the place, especially on Main Street. Graffiti all over the Main Street again. Those are outlets for the city. Main Street, Pacific, Puente, Fraser. Those are the big streets that go out. Los Angeles goes out. We have to keep them clean. It's not my job to call you guys up and let you know. I do it because I wanted my city clean. know i don't want no street vendors i see the on the agenda you guys have on number 13 you want to do a study for food vendor you know how many times do you guys have to be told we don't want no food vendors in the city you have to be hit you over the head know it's something that you know i try to help public works and i try to help most of the time now i'm sending everything to danny you know which tomorrow i'll send you some more pictures danny thank you thank you mr reels uh is there any else anyone else in the audience wishing to speak

Hello, good evening. Good evening. Two or three weeks ago, I was watching here in the city of La Fuente, from El Jondipo to La Fransquito, there was a man completely healed. And nothing. The police were following him from El Jondipo to El Pasito. A patrol arrived, another patrol, another patrol. I don't know how many they have here. They arrived like eight. Eight patrols. So I think there are a lot of patrols for a single person who has been arrested. That there are two patrols is fine. It means that the city is left alone, that it was an emergency to report something. I think it's too many patrols to arrest a person and they didn't arrest her either. I don't know where they would have taken care of her. The traffic was completely stopped on the street. And I don't like it. On the other hand, I've told you many times that Jack and the Bucks have beds there, the homeless, they have televisions. It's ugly. I tried to get in there and they want to fight with me. I can't be there telling them to come here until today. I called the police and they arrived quickly. I liked that because they gave me a good service. They arrested one, but we need more reinforcements to push them out because it's hard. They burned the neighbor's building where I am in front. They burned it and another day something more serious is going to happen. They burned a complete building, but we have to be careful that they are not burning and throwing garbage because there is too much garbage. And here Mr. Taekwon-do, from behind the Quintaco, Mr. Lee, they destroyed his truck, they scratched a whole new truck. I'm repairing it, but there's a woman walking there, a skinny one, and they're moving her because the man is angry because they destroyed his truck. Try to help me so I can keep reporting everything. Thank you.

Good evening. Two or three weeks ago, there was an issue. There was a naked man walking all the way from Home Depot to to Francisco and he was naked. And one patrol showed up, two patrol showed up, three patrol showed up, and there were up to eight patrol units there. And I think that although they stopped the man and everything, they didn't even arrest him. And I think there was too many patrols for that one single issue. I was wondering at the time where What happens if another issue comes about and something else needs to be resolved? there are other cases and um like i said there was no arrest made in that case and that looks really bad a same thing as i mentioned before by jack in the box behind jack in the box there are the homeless individuals who hang out there with a mattresses tv sets and as i approach them or when they see me they want to fight with me you know and uh uh we called the the police officer i'm pretty grateful that they there was a quick response they showed up rather quickly and they are arrested individual we need to show a little bit more power and take care of these matters you know there's also trash and there's also danger of these individuals light fires and they can burn buildings or or cause another disasters behind the the Thai condo here next to King Taco, there was a gentleman whose truck was a brand new truck was scratched and he was pretty upset. We fixed it, but we need to be more aware of all these things that are taking place. Thank you.

Thank you for that. All right. Is there anyone else wishing to speak who did not fill out a speaker card? I'm sorry, Ms. Rubio, you only have one opportunity to speak during your three minutes, but we will address your concerns once. No, we understand, but you only have three minutes for public speaking and then we will address your concerns that you spoke about as well once we're done.

elected officials, appointed officials, Jesse Plata, resident of Baldwin Park. I'm coming here to first, I would like to start off thanking, thanking for the repair on the sidewalks that is going on. There's more than one, but one that I've been seeing for over 25 years at 3717 Foster, about 200 feet from the school. That's been there terrible for, like I said, over 25 years. That I wanted to thank you. I wanted to also thank you. Not everybody might see it the same way. Thank you for smearing that crosswalk sign that you had right here across City Hall. There ain't no place for rainbow colors there. If that's what they want, then I want one there too that says straight people, straight gender, not those weirdos that don't know what they are. Now, if there's any monuments or streets still left for Cesar Chavez, I suggest you leave them alone. He did more than anybody here in Baldwin Park has ever done. But maybe he did do something she never spoke till when she got jealous or what? I go to Morgan Park over there to work out seniors. Go over there and there's some concerns there. Now I go there to the weight room. Supposedly that class is being conducted by. Mount Sac. Now could we have more accountability there? If it's going to be closed, have them send a sub. I have also asked the instructor. Or simple fan. And it's stuffy there. Fans cost like $50 to $150 at Home Depot. Simple fan would take care of that. Thank you.

I know everybody's missed me, especially Mr. Damien. Anyway, here's one of the things I want to start with is the BP measure and the county. Thanks to everybody there, we have 10.5% income tax on everything that we buy in the city. Thank you very much for that. You know, people are going to go shop other places like Riverside and also in the Chino. now then well let's talk about bp measure which is a joke which i've told you all about this committee which you were lucky if we have two to three people show up and then we have a people a person that's running it the city manager with a sports complex thing We pissed away probably close to 50,000 for three baseball fields. That's not a sports complex. And thank you, Avila and Danny, for pointing that out to the city manager that's been in parks and recs for many years. OK, and I told you he shouldn't be city manager to begin with. OK, you might as well put Maria in there. She knows what she's doing. That's the one that took care of Manny. Now, when you go into parks and rec and you're going to sit in here, you want a complex that's going to have some land and build on it for a sports thing. This thing of taking the school land is a joke. We've pissed away two years of this stuff. Let the leagues have their baseball over there at the stuff. Start buying the property. I told one guy to call you, Danny, on a piece of property that he would even bulldoze down whatever's there. We need to build land. We need to get the land. And there is land here. It's just that everybody's making excuses. But you'll piss away a pocket park over here over a million dollars up on Main Street. It's a joke. Okay, now let's go on to Royal Coaches. Across the street, they're parking all their trucks in the barbershop thing that the city owns that property. They put up razor wire, which is illegal with the city, but nobody's done anything about it. All the businesses down Ramona on the south side have razor wire. Oh, well, we've got complaints, but it's still up there. It's been up there for over two years on some of this stuff. Now then, let's talk about catering trucks. Why do you want to bring them in here? I can't believe it. We got rid of the taco vendors on the street. Now you want to bring in the taco trucks. listen they only pay for a city license they don't pay for anything else they don't give the city any benefit but you're robbing all the restaurants here that pay everything here they pay property tax they pay all this but you guys want to screw them out of money stop this stuff the vending trucks and the taco guys on the street and edin emirato sitting in jail for after two years still i'm so sorry stop your time is up sorry thanks thank you for that i get carried away once more anyone else that didn't fill out a speaker card uh wishing to speak now is your time all right see no action city clerk is there anyone on zoom or online

Yes, Mayor. At this time, we have one person interested. Danny, you are unmuted. You're welcome to speak. You have three minutes to start now.

Hello, everybody. Can you guys hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, thank you. I never in a million years would think that I would actually be up here speaking to my city about some concerns that I have. I didn't come prepared. But I'm just going to let you guys know I am a Baldwin Park graduate. I'm a pharmacy technician certified from the adult school. I'm boxed with Zepeda in Baldwin Park, Morgan Park boxing program. And I am a true representative of Baldwin Park as a community, as a community. A regular person that just represents the people. So I'm just make this quick. I'm here to really speak about the flock cameras that are coming up here in Baldwin Park. I don't know if you guys heard of them, but they have been used for ill purposes from the police department to even regular civilians being able to hack these cameras and spy on people that won't necessarily know they're being spied on. I don't remember you guys voting for that, so I don't even know how that's possible. I'm suggesting that we cancel the renewals for those cameras and you guys follow suit among other cities like Santa Ana that has done the same as well. We have Olive Square Market that's been vacant for I don't know how long. But we want to prioritize putting these illegal cameras up that take our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights away. And I'm not okay with that. I have much respect for everybody here in this panel. I know you guys have probably seen me before. So this is with all due respect. I will follow up on this. And I hope to hear from any one of you. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Is that the only speaker on Zoom, City Clerk?

Yes, Mayor. That wraps up all speakers.

Perfect. All right. Seeing that there's no other further interest in public speaking, I will now close public communications. I did want to first start with Ms. Cindy Rubio. I know that Daniel and... manny this is an issue that we've had constantly over and over and over and it doesn't seem like the situation is getting any better the exact things that she mentioned up here tonight are very similar to the exact complaints that i receive from residents they place that whole there's an issue with the schedule and there's an issue with an app but the most aggravating thing is i think at this point in time i think it's time that we bring something back to the city council um you guys internally maybe discuss something uh and based on their contract and what are our next options are because at this point i don't even know which route to go i think that we've given them ample time to fix their their problems um and they just seem to get be getting worse and we didn't have these many we didn't have these many complaints when we were using the other vendor uh and they were using pen and paper so maybe the technology that they're using uh is not up to par or whatever the situation is but let's bring back something so that we can discuss as a city council and reference to that um mr rubio we will a city staff will look into that and figure out what our next options are uh because i i just have a feeling that these complaints are not going to stop um i've been hoping for them to get in to improve but they just haven't seemed to be improving so we'll look into that and see what our next options are in reference to that um mr rios in reference to oh you stayed today um in reference to your your comments and some of the ones that you addressed at the last council meeting um i do get your pictures unfortunately mr reels you text me so many pictures but you don't tell me the locations for them so i don't know Where do where to send staff? I can't send them on an Easter egg hunt trying to find where these locations are, but know that staff is trying to address these. Um, maybe 1 of the things that we can do internally is have a future meeting with the presentation on how to educate our residents on how to use the bottom park connect app. I think that Mr. Rios, if you use the app, I think it'll be a lot easier and faster for you to report the issues because it'll go directly into the pipeline of things to do and take care of. Yes, it also captures the GPS, so it'll be a lot easier for our staff to know where these items or these complaints are originating from. And then in reference to the food vendors, that's something that we're going to discuss later. But for some of the comments that were made, they do pay sales tax. They do have to apply for a. Sales tax permit with the State Board of equalization. So they do pay sales tax in our cities and what we're going to be discussing later. It's not in reference to illegal food vendors. It's actual legal vendors that have already been vetted and permitted by not only the state and the county, but also with the city of Baltimore. Um, that's the only comments that I have the flock issue. Um, we will, that's something that, uh, I've been looking at, um, and it is just going to take a further, more information into reference to that. I know that there's a lot of, uh, lot of issues with the flocks systems in different cities um and you know we'll get to that when we bring it to a future agenda item as far as i'm concerned and abel will uh he's got we'll address the issues over at jack in the box uh with the homeless situation those are the comments that i have does anyone else come from robina yes mayor thank you

First of all, to all of you that came up to speak, your concerns are important to us because a lot of those concerns we have addressed here before, but I'm glad that you're coming up and speaking about them. As far as the transportation, Ms. Cindy, you are correct and the mayor is correct. I don't think we had this many problems in the past. There was problems and that's why we try to go to a better company and it seems like it's just worse. So thank you mayor for requesting for us to look into something else to better serve our community because our seniors are very important. And that side of town, especially because it's further from everything, they need to make sure they have reliable transportation. So we will continue to look into that. In regards to the trash around the city, I have been driving around the city and it's heartbreaking in a sense because yes, I see mattresses. Yes, I see furniture. Unfortunately, we have a service here that we are not using as residents and we need to continue to educate our residents that they need to call waste management because it's a free service. all we need to do is call in advance let them know we have x y and z items to be picked up they will tell you what day to put it out and they will pick it up so education is too important in our city to educate our residents because Our departments can do so much. They can clean up so much, but it's up to us residents to help out as well. Because we live here, we need to make sure that we're also doing our part. But I appreciate you coming and tell us, for example, Abel, the areas like Jack in the Box, where there's homeless and a lot of trash, because those are like private properties. They belong to Caltrans. And we need to make sure that we're after Caltrans to make sure that they're cleaning, that they don't allow homeless because you're right. There's a lot of fires that can be happening there and we have had fires. I do want to point out that Baldwin Park PD, along with other agencies, did clean out an area recently, a homeless encampment, correct, Chief? It takes a lot of coordination for them to do, and they're constantly working on what area they're going to hit next. They have to give notification. They can't just move them out. They have to notify them. They have rights. They have to notify them. They're going to come out. They're going to clean out the areas. So they are working diligently to make sure these encampments are not happening. But if you see them, continue to come and tell us, continue to inform us. So the chief is well aware and he can contact the staff and they can have another plan so they can continue the cleanup. Again, the idea here is to help those that want the help and also make our city look better. But I appreciate you coming out and let's look out. Let's educate our residents. on keeping our city clean i was driving around over the weekend and there is a lot of stuff that i see that that as residents we need to take responsibility and make sure that we're also doing our part but definitely report what you see if if you see that that is not being cleaned up thank you thank you for that council member avila uh anyone else have any comments to make see none i will now close did i close public communications already

Well, in case I get in a close public communication, all right, we're going to move on to, um, before we move on to consent city manager, would you like to make the announcement?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is a milestone moment for the city of Baldwin Park. After 70 years, we will be updating our city council chambers. This is our final meeting in this venue. As it looks like today, we will be relocating for approximately nine months to Valley County Water District. The address is 5121 Lanty Street on the northern end of the city of Baldwin Park, right off Arrow Highway and or right behind Pleasant View School. So once again, this is our final meeting. The city is coordinating. a multi-million dollar improvements for this facility with sound, lighting, technology, infrastructure, and improving all of the walkway. Very exciting opportunity for the City of Baldwin Park. Once again, tonight is our final meeting. All Planning Commission, Recreation Community Services Commission, Uh, city council meetings, measure BP meetings will all take place at the, uh, at our temporary facility, Valley County water district. Thank you. This concludes my comments, mayor.

Thank you, Manny. All right, we're going to move on to consent calendar, uh, council colleagues. Any of you wishing to pull any items from consent. anyone you want to pull it you want to go ahead and pull it well item six all right so council member avila will pull item number six and i will pull item number five anyone else wish to 20 items if not i will make a motion to approve consent calendar items 1 through 12 with the exception of item 5 and 6 that were pulled for discussion a second all right We got a first and a second city clerk. Can we get roll call?

We have a motion to adopt item one through four and seven through 12 motion made by Mayor Damien, second by Mayor Pro Tem Ayala. Council Member Bravula. Council Member Estrada. Yes. Council Member Lozano. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Ayala. Yes. Mayor Damien.

Yes. And I'm going to be abstaining from item number 12, which is the Baldwin Park Housing Authority's warrants and demands. And that's because my commercial landlord is on the warrants and demands.

Items one through four and seven through 11 pass five zero item number 12 passes four zero one.

Thank you for that city clerk. All right, we're gonna go to item number five, which was pulled by me. Manny, I'm gonna go ahead and pass this on to you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do have a small correction to the letter of authorization for this particular matter. The city took a closer look and staff took a closer look at the letter of authorization and collaboration agreement. the city went ahead and made a few modifications that are primarily pertaining to a 30-day quit for the city if the city chooses to terminate the agreement that exists. In addition, rather than an 18-month uh exclusive period the city negotiated a nine month exclusive period and the city council has all of the updated changes for this particular letter of authorization and collaboration agreement thank you thank you for that city manager uh anyone have any questions in reference to item five and the changes that were made to the letter of agreement

no all right thank you manny i appreciate you making those changes um i will go ahead and make a motion to approve item number five with the changes that were made to the letter of agreement thank you mayor i'll second and i got a second city clerk can we get roll call please we have a motion adopted item number five is amended a motion made by mayor damien second by council member lozano councilman ravila that's over strata

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion carries five zero.

Thank you for that city clerk. All right. Moving on to item number six, uh, council member Avila. That's right.

Thank you, mayor.

As you all know, item number six was brought up two weeks ago, and it was voted four to one to go ahead and give the contract to the new company. And I just want to discuss a few of the things that we talked about. we have nothing against the the pre the current company that that's working that's doing our tree service here in our city at this time however we did talk about other other services and services that can be provided by other companies we have a large report there was uh everybody was vetted they would did a scoring system to score everybody looking at the scoring system that was done by i believe three three people in our staff, correct? And based on performance, qualifications, completeness, cost, community benefit, everybody got scored in different areas and everybody got a different score. and we all looked at the scores we all looked at the different companies that applied and in the end we decided to go with north star to to award the contract to it was recommended by the city staff to awarded to the current company that we have however we decided to go with the other company because based on the report we can either go with what was recommended by staff or the city council may elect to not award the contract to what west coast arborist and provide staff with alternate direction which is what we did at the time we decided to go with no start and not keep the contract that we have at this time. I just wanted to point out that it was various reasons. We saw that they were gonna provide the service that we needed and everything that the city required. At the time, I also recall saying that, or it was stated somewhere that they did not have the years experience that West Coast has. I also made a comment that how do you get experience if you don't give people the opportunity? I don't have any documentation stating that the work it's not compatible. that they don't do that they have had um any problems and again we we voted excuse me for one to to not go with west coast so to see this item back here on the dais to bring it back to rfp was very shocking to me and and i really don't understand the whole process of going back to RFP. I know Manny, you had a better explanation on why we should go back to RFP after we had made a decision because it is on the report that we may elect not to not to award the contract to West Coast. Can you elaborate a little bit on that, please, on why it would be beneficial to go to RFP?

Yes, I definitely can, but I believe our city attorney is better suited. I was discussing this subject matter with our city attorney as well as our assistant city attorney, but I'll turn it over to our city attorney.

The recommendation is being presented. This is an option for the council. The council made a good faith analysis of the contract. There is language in the RFP that clearly indicated that you are allowed to look for the best value for the city. I think there was a discussion at length about the overall benefit for the city and going in that particular direction with this company. the reason for the recommendation to reject bids the city always has an option this has not been finalized yet it was the direction was to to go in a direction of a two-year contract but to bring back a contract it's not finally yet and so what we're looking at tonight is we we received a protest And the protest was challenging the methodology that the council used that there is language in the RFP that they felt wasn't being followed appropriately. In particular, the that the cost savings was only 25% of the evaluation. and so you know looking at the larger scheme of things the normal thing to do to avoid litigation uh you know when there's a challenge like that if there's a a basis to it that or there might be a basis to it again i'm going to go back and say i think the council did do a good job in trying to evaluate this um the recommendation is to reject all bids go back out clean that up to make it uh make it clear that cost is something that maybe we want to consider greater than just 25 percent but again the council has the discretion here to either continue go forward with our original recommendation to select this company and they would be within the rights to do so. The more conservative approach would be to reject all bids and rebid it to clarify the issues that were raised in the protest letter.

Thank you for the clarifications, but I don't believe, or at least I didn't just base it on the cost.

Of course, the cost has a lot to do with it because any dollar that we spend here in our city, it affects our community members.

It affects the services that we bring. It affects programs for our students, for our seniors. It affects a lot of things. so i think as as a whole we always look at cost cost is so important but we also looked at the services that would be provided by bringing in a new company whether it would be the one we had chose last week or anybody else we always look at the service they would bring and as a matter of fact the mayor stated that on that contract we would want to add that if they were not performing to this according to the services that the city needed that we would cancel that contract so that was already stipulated there we were very clear on the services that we needed and the cost it was something important but it wasn't everything that we made our decision on i honestly i know we had great discussion i honestly do not agree with bringing it back for an RFP I feel that we originally made a good decision we have the right to make a decision and I um I want to make a motion if nobody else has any comments uh to reject item number six before we uh second emotion does anyone have any comments or questions regarding item six

Mayor, real quick question. So basically, it deletes it. So then we go back out again and obviously obtain whomever wants to, whether reapply or open up to others. Am I correct?

So her motion would be to reject staff's recommendation altogether. Go ahead.

We still haven't finalized a contract. North Star would still have to come back with a contract.

Thank you. Sorry about that, Mayor. Thank you.

so i i do have uh so does anyone else have any comments before i i want to hear it okay so

I mean, look, the way I look at it is like this. When we first voted on this contract, the whole thing is, and I'll give this analogy, this example to make it very brief. When you own a home and you hire, you go and hire a landscaper and you tell them, okay, I'm gonna need this grass cut and I'm gonna need these trees trimmed. And let's just say you go and you get two or three, to get quotes from two or three different gardeners. you're going to know that all three gardeners are going to be able to mow your lawn and trim your trees right so if all three of them are let's just assume two of them were the top two for you now it comes down to one thing right as a resident you're going to say well how much is it going to cost me a month for you to come into my garden right one's going to say i'm going to charge you x amount of money the other one's going to say i'm going to charge your next amount of money well if someone's going to tell me they're going to save me almost half a million dollars in six years it's not rocket science and you're gonna say, well, you're both gonna be able to trim my trees and you're both gonna be able to cut my lawn, but I'm gonna save almost half a million dollars going with this company. Well, you've got the job, right? That's similar to the way I saw it. I saw it as this was being a best value contract for the city, because at the end of the day, it is our job up here to make sure that we're protecting our taxpayer dollars. And if we can allocate that funding to something else within the city, then that's our job to do. So I think that what we did and what we voted at that time, was fair. I'm going to say that, you know, I will address the West Coast Arborist protest and threat of litigation. I was very disappointed that after the council made a decision on a 4-1 vote to vote on a public process, the matter immediately escalated to a threat of litigation against the city. I do not like the message it sends if any contractor believes that threatening litigation will influence or change a city council's decision. just as their protests should not disqualify them from city work their protests should also not give them the advantage or automatically guarantee them additional city work either so you know i don't even i don't even i'm going off of legal counsel's advice i understand the savings are there my whole thing is now if we start getting into some type of litigation now we're gonna have to spend money to defend this case and the way i look at it is well where's our savings now right so now it comes down to two things we're gonna end up we're gonna end up having to defend ourselves in litigation which i know is bogus litigation because it was just the fact that they you know they throw in to sue us because they didn't get the contract or we go ahead and go with council's advice, reject all the offers. However, within the staff report, they're also proposing that we give them a month-to-month contract up to $75,000, which I don't feel that they should get automatically either. So, you know, I don't believe that the city council should make, you know, contracting decisions because we are afraid that a company may sue us we shouldn't listen uh we should listen to our legal counsel follow the law and then make the decision that is the best that is in the best interest of the city and our taxpayers i i totally get where councilmember avila is coming from And I agree that I think the four to one vote should stand. But then I'm also conflicted with our council's advice and what's in the best interest of the city and its financial position that we're in. So we're kind of you know, I'm kind of put as far as I'm concerned. in a situation where I completely agree with Council Member Avila 100%, and I don't agree that we should give them an automatic month-to-month contract. I feel that if we are going to reject all these bids and go back out to RFP, I believe that a few things should happen. Number one, I believe that the new RFP needs to be clear from the beginning about how proposals will be evaluated, how much weight is given to the price, qualifications, and experience, and what authority the city council has in making the final award. Also, if our municipal code needs to be amended, it needs to clearly authorize a best value process for maintenance services. I would also like a city attorney, if you can please bring back an ordinance as soon as possible so that we do not find ourselves in this situation again. But again, where I'm not comfortable is automatically giving West Coast Arborist another month-to-month contract for up to $75,000 without first knowing what other options are available. Again, I completely agree with Councilmember Avila, but then I'm also thinking about the advice of our legal counsel about rejecting offers, our proposals and going back to RFP. But one of the things that I will not approve or vote for is to automatically give West Coast Arbors 30 day month to month contract. I would feel better that if we are going to go to RFP, that we bring this back immediately, make this a top priority. and we just stay with no arborists until we get that contract signed and then under your authority a city manager because you have up to 50 000 signing authority uh then if anything arises such as an emergency where an emergency uh is needed for anything with the with the trees or arborists you have your sign authority to bring in something on an emergency basis only without awarding an interim contract to anyone so i know you have your motion on the on on the floor councilmember avila

that's just kind of like where i'm coming from but i would like to hear from my other council colleagues to see what what do you guys think is the best uh the best way to go here and just just back to what you're saying uh mayor i strongly i strongly believe city council has the last word and the last choice and i completely disagree i know uh everybody has a voice here but we had already made a choice i i don't like being bullied i don't like uh being threatened we made a choice fairly looking at all the reports that staff made and yes staff made a recommendation i still don't agree with it and i still stand on no on item number six okay so we do have your motion on the floor council member before we have uh ask for a second a call for a second on councilman avila's does anyone have any comments strada i may have a comment after the vote

I mean, no, I understand both sides. I mean, I would say that, you know, I'm not particularly happy with the idea that we would get some sort of letter that would come off as threatening from our long term partners, regardless of whether we choose to work with them or continue working with them or continue to or choose to separate, right? There's no At the end of the day, this isn't about picking and choosing. As many of my colleagues have said, it's about making sure that we are being sustainable, that we're being financially savvy, that we're taking care of taxpayer dollars, and we're in competition alive. Also, I think in general, it's a good rule of thumb to always put out bids and see what's out there, how we're performing, and how our operators are performing. I would really just touch on that. But other than that, I understand the sentiment on both sides. Yeah, just to thank you for that. I'm sorry.

Well, go ahead. I'll just make a real quick comment. I agree with my colleagues as well. They've been here for years. And they service the community and I understand they've also hired some of our residents and I respect that at the same time. This is how you end up. And paid at the end, because we have a different type of a change in mind and then I don't think that's very professional. I just I just want to state that for the record.

Thank you for that council member Lozano. Mayor Proctor.

Mayor, thank you. I too hear what my colleagues are saying and I appreciate their comments, especially in regards to selecting an arborist for our community. I stand by what I said two weeks ago at our meeting and the way that I voted, the reason why I voted the way I voted. but I do understand our concerns to financially responsible to this community. I'm with us on that, but I'm more in tune to not rejecting the item as it's listed here, but to maybe support what Mayor Damien is saying in regards to coming back and taking the consideration of our legal counsel. uh with the amendments or the edits that he's including which are how to evaluate the authorization, clearly the best value, all of those kinds of stipulations be placed within the ordinance that we're asking legal counsel to come back with. So I am completely in support, Mayor, of coming back with those edit comments that you've added. And I again want to thank West Coast Arborist for your long-standing relationship. Thank you.

Okay. So I think we've all had a chance to comment on this. Um, we do have a motion on the floor by council member Avila, and that is to reject, um, council's, uh, I'm sorry, staff's recommendation on item six. Is there a second, once again, is there a second, I will go ahead and second her motion.

We have a motion. to reject item number six, motion made by Council Member Avila, second by Mayor Damien. Council Member Avila?

Yes. Before you make the motion, and to clarify that you reject item six, but also then come back with a contract for North Star, I presume. Does the second agree to that?

Yes. So her motion is basically rejecting staff's recommendation number six, reverting back to our original decision of the 4-1 vote to award the contract to North Star based on a uh best value right and we would return at the next meeting with that contract yes at the next meeting so we have a first and a second city clerk can we get roll call please doesn't bravula yes that's remember strata you know hey can i say something that i want to say before

or just this uh is it is it going to affect you it's about the contract it's about the contract itself go ahead um i know that we have previously stated that it'd be a two-year i think that you know i think we just think if it's six years at six years i mean i don't think no one else should be treated differently that would have been the norm for any other company so i just want my colleagues i don't know if we could implement that in other words yes we gave him two two years thinking about that after term i said well you know what is that really fair are we being fair why are we just you know get them on the six year versus the two years we would have done that for anyone else okay so Either one of two things. Do you want to amend your motion or do you want to make a substitute motion? I'll make a substitute motion as it is awarded that it be at six years.

Let's clarify first. Are you talking about awarding it to North Star or are you just saying whoever it gets awarded to?

At this point, it's going to go to North Star. Am I correct? Is that what we're saying? That's what the motion. Okay, right. I want to add that it also includes six years versus two years that we had.

So he's adding for you, when you bring the contract back to award, if it gets awarded to North Star, to bring it back as a six-year contract versus a two-year contract.

Thank you, Mayor.

so unless you want to amend your motion he's asking i think the best thing here would are you open to amending that the motion to include a six year no i'll just amend it yes that is correct that is correct okay remember that we still have the 30-day calls correct i was going to add thank you mayor thank you so my motion is to reject item number six

to award the contract to North Star with the six year contract with the 30 days termination if they are not providing the services that city needs.

That's my motion. Thank you. Mayor Damien, does your second still stand?

Yes.

Great, thank you.

Wait, I'm sorry, City Clerk. So basically your motion is reject staff's recommendation. Correct. So we're not going to go back out for bid.

Continue the award of a contract that we did two weeks ago to North Star, but instead of a two-year contract, it's a six-year contract with the 30-day right to terminate if they don't provide the services the city needs or requires.

Okay, so there's a first and my second.

Is that clear? Yes, it's clear. But Mayor Damien, your second still stands. Yes, my second still stands. Thank you so much. Council Member Avila.

Yes.

Council Member Estrada. Council Member Lozano.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Temayala.

No.

Mayor Damien.

Yes.

Motion carries 4-1.

Thank you for that, City Clerk.

Thank you.

All right. So now that that's out of the way, we're going to move on to there's no public hearing. We're going to move to reports of officer reports of officers. Item 13 consideration of mobile food truck vendors and direct staff to bring back an ordinance for City Council's adoption. Council colleagues, I believe everyone received the PowerPoint presentation several weeks back. So Okina, if you can just kind of walk us through what it is that you need from us so that we can move on to the next slide, please. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. David, can you bring the PowerPoint up, please? This would be for the mobile food truck.

apologies okina we only received two power points one for sgv habitat and one for valley county water oh uh so i know that do you guys still have your printouts from the mobile food vendor

it's also included in your agenda as well yeah so let me ask you akina in reference to the locations that you were recommending from the powerpoint presentation is there anything that you need from us in particular uh as to whether do you need us to say yes we're going to agree with with certain location or we're not going to agree with a certain location or yes that you need from us i could do that i could provide you a summary of

uh the overall summary of the study session and the result that and direction that was provided by city council to restrict so the very first item to summarize it is the hour restriction so currently we have uh under the current code requirement We have different components with regards to food vendors. The separation between that is ice cream truck, the regular food trucks, in addition to the hour restriction. Currently, the operation hours is seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. For the uh proposal let me start with all vendors except for ice cream vendors a council directed staff to revise and amend the code or brought bring back an ordinance to change that component for sunday to thursday the operation will be from 9 a.m to 10 p.m versus 8 p.m for all food trucks in general except for ice cream truck is from on friday and saturday from 9 a.m to 12 a.m which is midnight and for the restriction of the ice cream vendors that's roaming for roaming only um allowing them from 9 a.m to 9 p.m and uh in terms of council's direction is to restrict the to remove uh the restriction based on those hours with regards to time limits the current code required that there's a 10-minute interval for food trucks or food vendors to move a council directed staff to lift that requirement For Sunday to Thursday, limiting the hour of operation from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. For Friday and Saturday, operation hours are from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m. midnight. In terms of location restriction, currently there's no restriction that's mandated by the code. council directed staff to bring back the location which i will go over after this with regard to competing business restriction there's no regulation with regards to that council directed staff for mobile vending cannot park in front or next to a fixed location business meaning that it's a like-for-like business so there's a taco business a taco truck should not be parked there for the purpose of protecting the existing business and having different variety so in your agenda there should be location attachment this was provided to you at the last study session also provided to you a few weeks before the report went out in terms of the update so we'll start with location number one location number one we'll start off with the west side of the city along ramona There is some parking area right in front of Ramona on the south side of Ramona between Syracuse and Barnes Avenue. There's some area that has some red mark. So anything that's not painted red, any food truck can park on there on the south side of Ramona. and it's the south side only because the north side is the neighboring city jurisdiction of Irwindale. So with that, do you want me to go over all the location or you want me to?

No, I think that we all have these locations already. That was council's homework at the last time that we moved it for us to review this. So I think that right now what we need to do is go back to... uh staff's recommendation for what's current and what's proposed yes and i think that we've already kind of brushed through this at the last the last time we met in regards to this so i think at this point in time what we need to do is just solidify um if we're comfortable with the proposed hours and the proposed locations based on the maps Yes, I'll open it up. Thank you. Can I appreciate, I know that we've been going back and forth with this. So, uh, city council, I'm going to go ahead and open it up for discussion. So what we're going to discuss is number one, the current and proposed hours. So as you guys can see the hours are for all vendors, except the ice cream vendors, a Sunday to Thursday, 9 0 AM to 10 PM Fridays and Saturdays, 9 0 AM to 12 AM. And then for ice cream vendors, it's going to be 9 0 AM to 9 PM.

are all of you in consensus with those hours here yes sorry can you repeat the for the street so for the food vending people we we had said that we'd want to allow them a little bit of extra time to make sure that they have time to clean up and as was before they got there did we said didn't we agree 12 a.m yes yeah i just want to make sure oh that's stop selling stop selling plus

whatever time they so okay so then okay so i don't really we addressed that portion of it last time did we because i think the cleanup time yeah 11 or 10 no so so the hours would be intended for them to stop the sale of at 12 midnight on friday and saturday and then at 10 p.m sunday through thursday so what is a reasonable amount of time to allow them to clean up after they're done selling is it half an hour an hour

so let me provide some insight with regard to street vendors so for example somebody pull up with a van set up their tables and so forth on the sidewalk or area that is not allowed the city um sorry the health department does not does not allow that right now because they don't have an appropriate cleaning station and sanitary station yeah so we're talking trucks that's the full thing there is no cleanup there's no pickup correct they 12 at midnight they will close their windows and drive off there's nothing to clean up

By 12, 30, 30 minutes. Because... you still got to clean up i mean because we also make sure that if any any patrons you know left trash on the sidewalk that they're responsible for that trash as well and i think that that should be part of you know the information we provide during the permitting process to let them know that they're responsible for any trash around their area after every sale that way it'll give them you know i think 30 minutes is enough time for them to pack up and clean and leave yes

once so after after council make a decision tonight we will work with the city attorney office they will they will help us prepare the ordinance we will add conditions of approval as part of the ordinance itself to make sure that Even when you approve this, these are part of the conditions of approval. Removal of trash, no gray water or dirty water being dumped or spilled on a sidewalk, washing off to storm drains and so forth. All those requirements will be added and will come before the council for the final consideration of the ordinance itself. We could provide clarification on the hours for the 9 to 12 midnight hours

operation and with a maximum of 30 limit 30 minute max limit for the pack up okay so i also mayor okay i also um i mean i do want to address some of these some of these maps are i think great locations but they're also a budding areas that already sell food and so you know the the biggest issue i have with with trying to regulate street vending is that i mean there's there's multiple there's multiple studies and reports on the flaws in state law and so you know i wish mr reels was here so you could hear this the one time i'm going to kind of address this but you know state law has made it very clear that we're not going to outright ban street vending that we're going to find a legal pathway towards them and we're not going to criminalize it that's the main goal of the of the state law So second, the problem is that that state law is flawed and it's not concrete in the way that it's meant to be. And it contradicts a lot of the things that are done at the local level, particularly at the county health department. And so the biggest problem is that we're putting people in legal limbo because now they're trying to do their part. And then they get these artificial barriers along the way. So I feel that one of the issues when we select these areas is that we ourselves are creating artificial barriers by saying, hey, you cannot sell anywhere except these areas. And then come to find out, well, these areas already have these food places where, well, you can't sell because these places already have food areas. So for example, Ramona, there's a restaurant there burned down, but I'm sure it's going to come back. And then up the block, there's another restaurant, I believe. There's another food area. There's another food... restaurant in that area as well and so i think i know that that's one i think the kaiser area i mean that makes perfect sense i mean it's a wide street there's warehouses all over there's workers there's healthcare workers across the street and there's even some residential area people that might be able to walk there and get some food i 100 agree with that i believe you also highlighted uh ramona which i think makes a lot of sense i mean we have an abundance of parking and multiple areas where people can park and enjoy themselves and bring life to the downtown The problem is that on Ramona, well, there's King Taco and there's all these other vendors like Taco Naso and Uruapan and all these other restaurants. So that also creates an issue, right? So with the Metrolink, I think it also kind of goes down to the same thing. Metrolink, I think, is a great place that we can activate in the downtown core, a little quiet and dark because it's bisected by the Metrolink station, by the train tracks. But it's still very near a lot of these, a lot of these food areas. And so we want to make sure that when we're doing this, we're not creating more artificial barriers for the vendors. It's always been very, very important for me to make sure that we aren't pushing those types of and I'm not saying that it's on purpose, but it's always important to me that we're not pushing these artificial barriers or these situations where we put people in limbo and then they can't move forward. they end up in positions to get cited or kind of feel like they're being targeted. And that's not what we want, especially not right now, not with the current administration or any of the, just in general with the current things that are going on. And so some of those are the things that I wanna make sure that we're keeping in mind. I really wanna make sure that we're looking at street vending as an opportunity. I think somebody said that street vendors don't pay taxes. I think those days are long gone. You know, cash is practically non-existent now, right? We all pay with our phones, we all pay with card. And a lot of these food vendors, especially the trucks, now have POS systems. So they're collecting taxes and you're paying and there's a full receipt where you can itemize these things. I also want to note that, you know, this is not a, it's not taken away from anybody. There's no study that can say that street vending has taken away from any restaurant locally. here in the City of Baldwin Park, and I did the math since last time, you know, there's about 22 fast food drive-thrus in a city that's less than squared miles. And that means that there's more than three, there's three drive-thrus per squared mile, and that is an exorbitant amount, right? And for one reason or the other, we have those 22 drive-thrus, and that really makes us a food desert, right? And our residents do not have opportunities or options when they want to eat out. They have minimal opportunities to eat out. They have minimal opportunities to spend money in the local economy and spend time locally. And that is an issue that we can address through street vending. And street vending is also a multiplier of the economy. There's a full-on report, an economic report of street vendors being able to add an extra circulating dollar to the economy because they are locally buying the ingredients and items that they need to vend. So I really want to make sure this is just a thoughtful conversation that we can push for something that makes sense, that we can actually get people to abide by and help them. I also would note, I know that you all want to start working on this ordinance soon. And I 100% agree. I think we've been at this for a very long time. I was able to set up a meeting. It is about a month away. So Manny and I will be meeting with the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity, their health department, and a couple of other agencies to make sure that we can better understand what are best practices when we do food vending. I think it's one of the most important things that we can do is also align ourselves with the county and the county department of health, because they are the ones that dictate a lot of these

the regulations and and the policies and being able to align ourselves with them is much easier less confusing for a lot of people to understand what we're trying to do in the city and you know if you look at the county you know that the city is doing something similar so I just wanted to also put that out there so I think that we're all in consensus with the hours but now it's the locations that we're uh kind of looking at so let me ask you this council member uh would you like to table this and bring it back once you and the city manager meet with um would the county so that we can see what best practices they may have in reference to locations and then bring back recommendations to solidify the ordinance before we adopt it yeah i mean i would i i i i would hate to uh it's up to the staff make staff come up with something and then we know when this item comes up i say hey wait a minute i i just found out this right yeah you just have new information so i i think to be honest with you i think it's safest instead of adopting this going back and forth for us to get whatever information you're gonna get and then bring it all back at once once staff's been able to uh to see what it is that needs to be adopted depending if there is and then bring back something to ordinance uh okina

Yes, I want to piggyback off Council Member Estrada. Everything you touch on is vetted, we've reviewed it. So these locations that I've identified and staff, when we establish this location, we drive the city, we review, we do street views, we do aerial view. When we carefully select these locations, and all the area that's not selected is because there's red curbs there's no parking there's other restrictions so these specific location that's identified on the slide are the location within the city that has um the ability to park legally per regular parking we try to restrict things that is happening adjacent to residential as directed by the city council so this is what's left within the city and opportunity we even look at some industrial area that has very narrow street large truck circulation and access we restrict some of the area due to the capacity of non-dedicated private roads or easement that is not city or public property. So this is what's left and what's remaining. I just want to share that with you. One of the slides, I believe it's Slide number seven, it shows the MTA parking lot. Half of that trying to minimize the disruption of residential because Council Estrada and a few council member did express the interest of having kind of like a food truck rally opportunity with a temporary use permit. So we've identified that MTA parking lot area for that opportunity as well. So I wanted to share that so that way you can get a better understanding why staff selected be specific location in order to comply with parking regulation assists with illegal parking that doesn't burden our police department our parking enforcement department as well as our code enforcement department

have any more questions customer stuff no i just say uh you know that's that's i mean that's a good train of thought i just wanted to make sure that um you know we're considering these things right and as we navigate this like like i said right i'd hate to be pushing on this and then going back and forth and and we miss a detail or something i would just ask that you know as we do navigate this we do meet with at least i mean try to make that meeting with some of our food vendors just to better understand their processes right because i mean they're all selling something different Like, you know, I'd hate to have to assume for them or create a policy based on something that I haven't touched base on. And I think it could be a simple meeting just to understand what their concerns are, what they're looking for. And, you know, if we're also keeping those things in mind as we craft this policy, like I said, right, we really just want to aim for a one and done.

Anyone else have any comments or questions? all right council member so uh so do you want to make a motion to approve this or do you want to table this until you meet with the county and bring something back or what what what do you guys want to do here only because we don't want to approve this tonight and then you and uh maddie meet a month from now with the county and there are new things that we should have added to this ordinance that we didn't uh you know i think if we're going to push this ordinance how we want to make sure as

as perfected as possible so do you guys feel comfortable with tabling this until you guys bring us back something from the meeting with the county yes if you guys are okay with that i will you want to go ahead and make a motion sorry just so you so just a point of information so we have our meeting on the 14th of september so that's right before our last uh council meeting of september so maybe we can have something by october first meeting of october october 7th so

So you want to make a motion to bring this back to the October 7th meeting?

October 7th? Yeah, that'll be a good motion.

I think October 7th works.

I'll second.

City Clerk, we have a first and a second.

We have a motion to table item number 13 to the October 7th meeting, motion made by Councilmember Estrada, second by Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Mrakas, Second by Council may pretend my all accounts on bravo customer strata yes customer was on a yes, yes, Mayor damien yes wishing carries five zero.

Mayor Mrakas, City Clerk right now we're going to be moving on to. Mayor Mrakas, Item number 14 that's the. Mayor Mrakas, Great already my agenda. That's the San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity project update. And Grant, you're going to be presenting.

Mayor Damien, council members, city staff, it's a pleasure to be with you this evening. i'm grant power i'm director of real estate development for san gabriel valley habitat for humanity my pleasure to join you this evening i'd like to ask if you will excuse me from going through the powerpoint presentation page by page i think that that might not be our best use of time at this uh late hour uh instead i would like to direct your attention to three areas of interest that will summarize i believe state of progress that we're making in implementing the affordable homeownership expansion agreement which was approved by the city council back i believe in 2021 my first area of emphasis has to do with what i call the small scattered site projects that are supported by this agreement those include affordable adus home repairs, critical home repairs, and acquisition rehab. To date, we have completed the construction of two affordable ADUs out of four that were agreed. In addition, we have completed 16 critical home repairs when the original target was 14 with the agreement to add five more to that 16. The last one has to do with acquisition rehab. We have completed two units in that category out of a total original of six. And right now we've identified another project site and are beginning to engage city staff on qualifying that next project for funding. I'm saying these things to you to emphasize that on the small scattered site category of this agreement, we are on track. We have until December 31st of 2027 to complete those activities. Okay, second area of emphasis is our flagship project at 4430 Stuart Avenue. Many or most of you should be already familiar with this project. We have been working steadily on construction there for the last nine months, and we are making progress. As you may recall, that project is an adaptive reuse conversion of a faith institution, including a conversion of the sanctuary, the original sanctuary building, and an education building into 11 affordable units for sale. On those 11 units, we are well over halfway to completion. In addition, there are four new construction units that already have their foundation. We are getting ready to go vertical on the construction of those four new units at Stewart in the coming weeks.

Excuse me, Grant. In regards to the slides, if you just want to share with the staff, next slide, and they will move the slides along because we're not quite sure what slide you're on.

Okay.

Thank you.

Which slide are you on? That would be slide number three.

Yes, you can see under this slide that's titled Extension Request approved on March 4th of 2026. There was an extension granted to us that ends on 31 December 2027. And in the bullet points that are listed below that, you will see our intent to complete the Stewart construction, although that is actually prior to the end of 2027, to complete Torch, build two adus two more to complete additional critical home repairs and to renovate or build single-family homes on that list what i was just alluding to was our progress regarding the adus the critical home repairs and the single family acquisition rehab so on all three of those categories we are on track in regards to stewart's You can go to the next slide, please. You may recall that we received an extension to the end of December of 2026 to finish construction of the 15 units at Stewart that I was just describing to you. Along the way, we have encountered a few technical delays in the process. I will not take a lot of time to enumerate those, but just suffice to say that we have determined that we need an extra three or four months to get to the end of construction of the 15 units so that they are ready for sale, low-income families as end buyers. So part of tonight's presentation is to request a new extension approval, taking us out to the end of April of 2027 to complete construction on Stewart. I'll pause there and ask if there are any questions related to progress on Stewart.

In regards to the extension, I believe we will have to bring that back at a subsequent City Council meeting and we'll check with legal. That is correct. Thank you. And continue with your presentation, please.

Okay, and I'd like to ask if we can move past Stuart to the property located on Torch Street. I believe it's 12779 Torch. um on this act we haven't we were given a deadline of december 31st 2027 um you can see here an additional extension request end of 2028 to complete 13 13 new construction attached units all affordable all for sale to qualified low-income families upon completion this project is to the need for us to work with the city on getting to concurrence on the improvements that need to be made on Marlinda Street. So let me see which slide we could look at in that regard. we have yet to begin construction on torch in fact we're quite we're quite a ways back we're still on plan review and plan review has been extended long enough for us to get over this hurdle of what what we do on marlinda avenue this issue was brought before council back in january and i believe and last year uh in in even in 2025 so that we could come up with the solution However, finding that solution has been has proved to be a long process. And so I'd like to focus your attention on this screen so we can discuss it. And the objective here is to see if we can reach the point of decision from our perspective that will enable us to carry on with the rest of the pre-construction due diligence needed for this project and start construction as soon as possible. As you can see here, the city's standard practice and requirement is to improve street frontage of all proposed development sites and potentially relocate or underground the existing power lines as a condition. In the case of Torch Street, we have found that that condition on Marlinda would be costly and costly to the extent that it would make that project on Torch financially unfeasible as planned. In regard to some other details of this project that are relevant to this discussion, SoCal Edison is still doing an assessment of the electrical capacity needed to support 13 new units on Torch and has indicated to us, at least for now, that it expects to drop electric power from the existing lines on Torch Street, not the power lines on Marlinda. project also has no entrance or exit on marlinda so we expect no additional traffic impact there only on torch street now the reason why these details are significant this evening is that we are making the following ask because of the prohibitive cost of the marlinda street improvements as we understand them we are requesting the city to take responsibility for Marlinda Street as a separate project unrelated to TORCH. Of course, Habitat would complete reasonable street front improvements that abut the project site. Those include sidewalk, street, better, and parkway improvements on Marlinda. I'd like to stop there and ask if there are questions related to what I'm sharing with you about the Torch Street project.

Thank you for the presentation, Grant. I'm now going to go ahead. So basically, I mean, you touched on the important parts. I think the two major factors here for the city council has always been the sewer project, but mainly the Torch Street project. So we're just going to go ahead and get down to business. Council, do any of you have any questions or comments so we can start this discussion and get it moving? Do any of you guys want to kick this off?

I will go ahead and pretend. First of all, thank you for the update. It's been some time and. Although I, I appreciate, you know. What your organization brings and the collaborations you bring here to our community. I will voice my disappointment, as I have before. I'm glad to finally see some movement with the Stewart property, but I will voice, I'll say dissatisfaction, disappointment, especially with the torch project. long time ago and i've i've every time we've this has come up i've mentioned it that i was very particular about merlinda street and i voiced my concerns then i voiced my concerns every time this project comes up i i want to see the project come to completion But these were concerns that I voiced then, especially because now you're saying the costliness of Merlinda. We know what we're talking about, the electrical poles, okay? It was not... something we didn't know about okay we're we we sat up here for some time this tonight my council colleagues and i talking about um being um fiscally responsible and everything like that but you're coming at us now after some time um now asking us to flip the bill for a street that actually doesn't really belong to us it belongs to the residents on the other side so i i'm very disappointed as i said i have all the confidence in your organization and what you're bringing here the collaborations you've done and I'm really appreciative of them. But this particular project, Torch is what I'm talking about, is I'm very disappointed because it's been a long time and just the extensions and the extensions and the extensions that you're asking for. I think we need to Decide what we're going to do. Are we going to complete it? We're going to finish it. What are we going to do? Because, you know, residents live in that community. There's projects all around it that are coming up and this one's still like this. So that's my disappointment. And I would hope that we can come to some sort of, you know, recommendation to get it done. That's my, that's my concern. Thank you, Mary.

Thank you for that. Anyone else have any questions or comments.

Mayor, I know, you know, I think we all share the sentiment about torch and we'd like to see it sooner than later. I think that there's a lot of, you know, I think the telephone polls have been a. You know, when we first talked about cell phones, the telephone polls, I think we. You know, it's been something that's been brought up, but we also agreed that, you know, that we wouldn't want to focus on the aesthetics of it. Right? We weren't going to lose. Affordable housing project, because we wanted to focus on the telephone poles. You know, this is a private road, and I have yet to fully grasp or understand why we're trying to force. an affordable home ownership developer to carry on these costs. The idea of undergrounding telephone wires is not cheap. It's not fast. It takes an exorbitant amount of energy and time and resources. And I understand that we all have a wish list. We'd all love that every time a developer came in and built something that they can add all these amenities for us. The truth is that nothing is free. And when we ask an affordable home ownership developer to add on these things like moving telephone poles, undergrounding wires, those things cost money. And that money has to come from somewhere. It has to get paid back somewhere, some way, somehow. And ultimately, what's going to happen is that these units are going to be more expensive than they are now. And then the affordable caveat goes away. know i know that uh you know like like i said so i 100 understand the idea of wanting to do all these extra amenities but you know it's just not feasible in an affordable home ownership program um you know i know that there's development across the street and all these other developers have come up faster you know private development with market rate housing with private equity and private financing is very very different uh from what we're trying to do here to me my my goal is to create housing and create units and that's why we put this money towards these towards these projects. The goal of aesthetics, I mean, the simple fact that we've eliminated the maze of concrete cinder blocks that was on that street for years, I don't know how long, but for a very, very long time, along with the dilapidated house, that is an aesthetically pleasing change. Just alone with the empty lot looks a million times better than it did three years ago, four years ago, five years ago, right? So, you know, the end goal of this project has always been housing. It has never been... aesthetically moving things around you know I we brought this up a couple of months ago and you know I feel like it should have been brought up sooner the idea that you know there's more to it than just aesthetic portion of it um you know but I really do think that we have to find a solution, be solution oriented, and look towards an end result of being able to break ground and getting this done. But like I said, I think the biggest issue here is understanding why we're trying to get Habitat to build a widening street 10 feet halfway through. And then halfway through, it's going to go back to revert to the 20 feet, especially when it's a private road. It's not their road. I think the city owns a portion of it. The rest of it is owned and divvied up by 10 other property owners. This seems to be an issue with a lot of the projects that we've been building. I'm not understanding why it is the issue, but ultimately I think that that's what we have to figure out and really just come to a come to a decision on this because that is that's the only thing that's holding us back then we have to go back I know Grant you showed me that the fire department had approved your current plans as is um so I think that's another important point to bring out um but you know I kind of just I think those are the most important points right now so I'll leave it at that thank you mayor thank you go ahead thank you mayor

Thank you Grant for coming and giving us an update. It's always important to keep us updated on where you're at. It's great. The projects that you have completed and the projects that you're working on, a lot of low income families have benefited from this. And that is the whole purpose of bringing Habitat to the City of Baldwin Park. Because if it wasn't for Habitat, there's a lot of families that would never have been able to purchase a home because this is low income. And having said that, it is the reason why you were brought on board. Has it taken longer than we expected? It has. Have you come across a lot of bumps on the road? You have. The main one that I see is those light poles that were not originally and had never really been part of your building or part of changing as council member Estrada said, aesthetics was not part of that. The project was to focus on the land on Torch, not on the light poles on the sidewalk, nor the private street of Martin Linda. And that has been a big issue. You have had to change plans for whatever reasons. It has been maybe our delay, your delay. There's been a lot happening. I feel there's a lot of things trying to stop this project that I feel will benefit our community. I think it's important that we continue to work to push this project to make sure that more residents have that opportunity to purchase a home again, a home they would never be able to purchase because of their income, a home that they feel they belong in because they're in the city that they love. There's a lot of families, I work in the school district, and there's a lot of families that don't want to leave Baldwin Park, but they have because they can't afford it. This program gives the opportunity for families to afford that dream home that they thought they would never be able to afford. That could be their first purchase. That could be the stepping stone for them to later on purchase a bigger home. And I think that's what Habitat offers and that's what we're losing focus. yes it's unfortunate that we haven't finished it yes it's unfortunate because now we're not having people buy this home but let's let's really focus on what's needed we need to build that project we cannot move those light poles they're too expensive because your program will not be an affordable housing bottom line why would we even go into marlinda it's not our street It's not a street to go into and to work and and if we even try to take ownership of that street, we all know how long it takes. To get ownership of a street, we have to get everybody on that street to agree to give it to the city. It's just a lot of work. I think. we need to forget about the light pole, moving the light, the aesthetic, making it better, and just focus on the project within the property that was originally talked about. That's the square footage we need to focus. And I think... Councilmember Estrada mentioned that the fire department already approved your project, right? What happens from there after the fire department approves? What would be the next step?

Sorry, yeah, you're looking at me council member, so I'll try to answer it. I think the project is still on the entitlement phase because there is a subdivision map associated with the project. So, um, the fire department approval of the site plan, it's, it's for entitlement purposes. So once the project is entitled, um. AND MAYBE OKINA AND NICK CAN CORRECT ME IF I'M MISS SPEAKING, BUT IT WOULD GO TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION FOR THE PLANNING COMMISSION'S APPROVAL. THE PROJECT WOULD BE ENTITLED. THEN THEY WOULD MOVE INTO THE CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENT PHASE WHERE THEN THEY ARE DESIGNING THE PLANS FOR CONSTRUCTION PURPOSES. AND THEN THEY CAN GET THEIR BUILDINGS APPROVED AND GET ANY IMPROVEMENTS uh public improvements installed in Torch Street and then I think as far as the since I'm since I'm speaking I think um prior Council's direction was you know we had several options and hybrid options but I think the bottom line was or the bottom or the couple options that we narrowed it down to was um just to leave marlinda completely as is i think that that was um our legal team one of our legal team's recommendation and then the other option was um to build the road through the middle of their project where it was to get out you know access out you know we were discussing that option but i don't think that was um habitat's preference or that that wouldn't pencil out because they may have redesigned and take a big step back to redesign their on-site project and then the the third option which i think what was what habitat proposed was um kind of a substandard road where it necked down where the power poles were and um trying to kind of salvage what we have there and make minimal improvements um on marlinda that's what um habitat's street improvement plans showed on marlinda so i think

those were the three options and i and i think council or legal counsel and the city council were leaning towards just completely leaving marlinda as is yes and and again i i think we need to focus on the project and the the original plan and the property that we plan to do that project on and move from that we need to forget about marlinda we need to forget about moving those slide posts and just continue with the project grant because You know, we have families waiting that we don't know their way. We don't know who they are yet, but we know there's families. You need to move forward with the plan. And the longer we sit here and contemplate, well, do we move the pole? Do we not move the pole? Do we do, Marlinda? It's just taking the project longer. And I think we're all at fault for this project being delayed, all of us, because we're changing our mind here, changing our mind there. But we need to make... a decision and continue that project continue the the original plans that you had that fits in that particular lot and forward and get the project out of the way so they could see what habitat does i mean we've already seen what habitat does you've done a lot here in the city from from doing uh the project um excuse me all the adus and the home improvements and all of that you do a lot I want this project finished as soon as possible and we need to stop putting more walls in front of them to complete the project. Of course, we need it to be up to code and everything that they're doing, but we need to move forward. We need to stop fighting and stop bickering and get this project moving. That is what I would like to see here. Yes, it's late. We can't go back. It should have been done. We can't live in the should have. Let's move forward. Let's get this project done with what we have, with what fits there. And let's just get moving and get this house.

Council Member Lozon, do you have any comments? Yeah, my comment is, I mean, you know, I've worked with a lot of streets that have not, that were challenging as far as trying to get them paved and so on and so forth. California, Elizabeth, and several others, right? And we still have the ones up on, up off of Clark, Clark and Los Angeles that also need, but never was able to get the 100%. people to sign off on it. So obviously that didn't go anywhere. And you do have three different areas where they're paying for the next 30 years. So I'm kind of curious, my question here, Daniel, I don't know if you could answer it or not. Are there septic tanks on Marlinda? So they're actually connected. So I suppose I'm just kind of curious because, I mean, it's unfair for those residents. Yes, we want to see people get homes, but at the same time, I don't want to see those that have worked hard for the American dream, those homeowners that live there, being in that way. It's not fair for them. It's going to be so awkward. Kind of reminds me of some of the old developers in Baldwin Park when I took a tour back in 1992 to see these developers that didn't give a damn about Baldwin Park. And I won't mention those developers' names, but I'll give some of those that want to take a tour to show you the disastrous types of products that they were delivering to Baldwin Park. And they were just being built that way. And this kind of reminds me of that way. I mean... If we're going to pick up the cost, or let me say the taxpayers are going to pick up the cost, then what about, how much would it cost for those residents to do that project on their own? Do a special type of...

I guess, you know, on that note, I mean, with all due respect to the council, I don't think we're, you know, initially we're doing what the city standards are, right? We're not adding barriers. We're not making it extra challenging that's what the previous developer did i mean i have up here on my screen a map of it the sidewalk was put in in its ultimate location with the idea that the previous developer was going to pave it so that's why you know stat i think it's um i mean kind of in defense of staff we're doing you know what we normally do for every project i understand that the council wants this is a unique project where we want to partner with them and that's why we brought all these options forward right because if the council wants to um not require you know improvements on the street and leave the street at it as is i think you know staff staff will do what the council's desire is but i i i don't i wouldn't put it as you know staff is creating roadblocks and this is you know partially staff's fault i i don't think that's fair to staff um we want to do the standard criteria um like mr lozano saying you know we want to

projects to be consistent and we require all projects to do to do the same thing and that's why we brought to the council so many options and daniel i didn't say staff i say we are putting because we're asking different things here we're asking remove the light poles fix the street i didn't say staff you're going by what we're asking you to do so i never once mentioned staff we're the ones putting the roadblocks we're putting walls because we're asking habitat to to pave the street to do this to do that they can't do that it's going to become a non-affordable project so not once did i mention staff i'm sorry yeah and i mean just to um councilmember lozano's point you know the street is in very very bad shape um but

Like I said, we're supportive of whatever the council decides. Staff will work with Habitat. I think it was important to highlight these concerns. I think they're valid concerns, but we will do what the council desires. I think we've narrowed down the options to the ones that I mentioned. Yeah, we'll help this project move forward the way that the council wants to move forward with it. It is a challenging project. I think I said last time this project went bankrupt and no matter even if you get a different developer come in, you're going to have these challenges. um but yeah I mean I think I think it would be also I don't know if the council's gotten a chance to go out there it would be probably good to go out there but yeah at this point you know um Community Development Public Works we will all um move forward however the council decides to move forward

Yes, thank you very much, Daniel I agree with with our director of public works staff has been working very diligently on this project so at this point I think grant is almost done or he's completed his presentation, we would wait for council's direction of how to proceed.

I do have a question for Grant. Yes. So Grant, you said that SoCal Edison is still doing an assessment. When did they actually begin the assessment?

I'm not aware of the start date for that, but I know that intermittently we have talked to an engineer who is looking at that project and trying to understand what the capacity is for the existing grid to support the addition of 13 homes.

So see, this is my concern. Number one, I completely understand, and I'll go back to Council Member Avila, I don't think it's all of our fault of where we're at here. I think that certain people have faults as to why we're here. I will address the reasons why we're here. We did discuss this over a year ago, and we did decide that we were not gonna agree to reduce the properties to repair these power poles. so we had already decided on that over a year ago so i don't know why we're back here again but i will also blame you guys grant because you guys have delayed this project a lot now in reference to the private street well this is a private street the problem here is that we as a city invested almost two million dollars for this project so that it becomes a for you know affordable home ownership so we're gonna have two options here either we make this project work we get it done as soon as possible or council we're going to sit there with an empty lot so the end of the day regardless of what comes to that lot there whether it stays vacant and the street stays the same or we add some homes add a little bit of value to the area the street's still going to stay the same regardless of whatever the street's still going to stay the same because it's a private property it's a private road just like we had the issues with kalino except for that kalino was in way worse situation than what this street is i mean they even have a street sign there on the street that's a street private street so At that point in time, I don't think it's fair that we as a city are going to fork the buck here to make the investment to repair these streets because it's a private street and we're going to have a fight on our hands because we're going to have Elizabeth and every other street saying, you guys repaired this one. We want ours repaired. That's number one. Number two, we can't force a developer to do it, especially since it's affordable homeownership. So the argument of the street, I think that we just leave the street the way it is. Let's leave the way it is. And let's move on with this project and get this done. But I'm telling you right now, Grant, I'm not happy with the timeline. And yes, I know there's been roadblocks, but it's neither all staff's fault. It's your guys' fault as well. And I'm kind of disappointed that I haven't seen Brian here. Because he's the one that spearheaded this project and was here often at the beginning. And it's been crickets from him for the last three times that you've been here. And it's not your fault, but I'm saying if you really want to partner with the city to get this project done, I think that it would have shown good value for him to be here and let us know, hey, we're committed to this project. Because it makes me feel like you guys are not committed 100%. And that's my concern. Do I want to make this project work? Absolutely. Do I want you guys to continue with the project? I want you guys to move forward with this project and get it done. But I want you to get it done. I don't want to continue having these meetings where we're having to extend it year after year. Now we're at 2028, basically 2029, because you're asking for December 31st. And early in January, we had the same conversation in reference to the timeline. So I'm willing to help make this project work, but you need to commit to us now that you're gonna make this work in a timeline. And if you have to drop whatever you're doing in Pasadena, Glendale, or any other city, then I'm gonna expect you to drop what you're doing out there and focus and prioritize the City of Baltimore Parks Torch Project. That's just gonna be my recommendation to you because at this point in time, I'm starting to feel like this is just going over and over and over and it's getting old. So I will support the project. I will recommend that we leave the street the way it is for staff to bring back the appropriate paperwork to make this happen. But again, I expect for this to happen. And if Brian needs to leave where he's at and come here and focus here and prioritize us, then that's what you guys need to do. Because just the way we've committed, I expect for you guys to commit. Because we did fork these $2 million out back in 2021, 2022. And here we are going into 2027 now. Those are my comments.

Mayor, I just want to make a quick question. Go ahead. I'm kind of curious. I was never, ever able to get 100% signatures for Alina. So they're all paying for it, right? Did they go into special taxes?

No, no, no, no. We got 100% signatures from them. It took us a long time because there were some residents that were not interested. And I'm like, why would you guys not be interested? We're going to do connected to the sewers. We're going to rebuild your street.

Yeah, special.

Well, that was ARPA funding. That was ARPA funding.

Oh, wait a minute. But so they're not being charged anything on their property taxes? I don't know unless their property taxes went up and they got reassessed, but not based on what we did. Oh, my God. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm glad you're telling me that. Look, let's just say this, because all the ones that live in California on their property taxes for the next 30 years. So, I mean, if they got something free like that... I understand ARPA funds. ARPA funds should have been considered right here at this project because that's one hell of a project. Let's put it this way. All those people there, Those investors, the apartment was the biggest opposition for me. You know, Mr. Lozano, we're not going to do it because my taxes are your property. So unless that person got away. No, he agreed. Right. He was the one pushing back on it as well. No, no. In other words, what I'm saying, in other words. Oh, the property tax. Exactly. Because Elizabeth, California, go there. It's on the property taxes. Is it 30 or 40 years that that goes on when someone agrees to sign over the property to the city? happened on elizabeth in california i don't know one was here during that time anyone know okay but yeah Right, no, no, no, I know, but they were, in other words, we got the signatures, so then they would be, I forget what it was, it's very little. But nonetheless, if that would have been applied, well, it's done, it's done at this point, okay? I mean, because they scored, but I'll follow up on that. But Kalina was in a lot worse situation.

yes a lot worse than what these guys are connected to the sewer so the the caveat well the portion of arpa was that we could invest in water infrastructure on private property how we were able to dig it out and then resurface because we have so i needed the whole the whole pipes and all that that's the only reason we were able to do it not because of any other thing thank you so okay so do you want uh anyone want to make a motion mayor before um before we make a motion i just want to you know acknowledge the se portion of it i mean you know i i'm sure some of you have all been reached out to at some point by you know people who are trying to develop here like our recently our medical facilities and one of the biggest hurdles sometimes is edison and the response times and so know we are a public agency we have a completely dedicated person that is our government affairs person at se so i i would say that we also have to you know kind of i would say that we kind of have to put a little bit of effort on se and and pressure them to be responsive on this project as well because we would you know we want to make sure that those delays aren't also adding to this i know that i know that and i just know that because a lot of the you know like a lot of the new medical facilities that are in town have kind of dealt with that and they deal with se as to

trying to get their approval and and and their permitting and things so i just wanted to note that okay so grant i mean well actually we have to do this but um uh we just do expect now do you think that you're gonna finish this by december 31st of 2028 You're scaring me here, Grant.

Your silence was a little bit hard to predict at this stage because there's a lot of unknowns on the way in terms of the review time it takes to get to the point where construction can begin. As far as the exact time, it's not absolutely clear in my mind, but we are asking for that period of time in which to perform for now. So let me ask you, when do you anticipate to break ground?

depending on how entitlements go spring spring of 27 okay so how long does it take for entitlements i'll defer to um nick you know nick probably knows more in detail exactly where they're at in the entitlement process

good evening city council uh yes this this project has both um um planning commission and city council approvals ahead of it due to the entitlements that are included which include a zone change general plan amendment so given that um once we have a complete project and we are closer and with the fire department's approval uh where we even uh that's maybe the the largest hurdle we're close um

perhaps um three months perhaps to get all through all the entitlements so grant if you get it within three months of the entitlement are you still predicting a or estimating i want to say predicting you're not a i still have to get through the final final plan review plan check and uh site work uh planning so so spring

I feel safer with that. All right. And would you be able to come back in a few months to give us an update as to where you're at? And then this way you can give us an estimated completion date because yes, you know, we have a December 2028 here, but it seems like that's not even going to happen. So that way we're kind of aware of where we're at now that we know where we're going with this project so far. But again, we just, we just really have to make this happen.

Understood.

Customer style. You want to make a motion?

Sure. So, and then just, you know, can we make sure that our plan checkers and everybody is all on board to make sure that we just kind of.

Yes, sir.

No delays on our part.

Absolutely.

All right. So I'll make a, I'll make, what are we, what's the motion? Attorney, just to be clear.

I think it's a presentation, but I think that.

Oh, okay. So just make a motion to bring back the appropriate paperwork to approve the requested extensions.

Right. But I think as part of that motion authorizing that the project that the proposed project on torch would come back without requiring changes to the undergrounding or to Arlinda.

All right, so we'll bring back the documents needed to approve the requested changes and extensions.

Next meeting.

yes i don't know that it needs to come back no it doesn't be it was just a presentation so he could just move forward with the project correct right because ultimately it's going to have to go through planning anyway and but this is just direction to staff that we we're not going to require uh touching the poles or the street just get the project done the way it is and get it going i guess that's right clear direction yeah okay now

Yes, the key is to receive and file the presentation. This is just an update. Any request for an extension will have to come back at a separate meeting for consideration because we have to prepare the document, prepare the addendum, as well as modify any agreement that need to be done.

But with this receiving file, you also need the direction to proceed with the project without touching or making improvements to Melinda, correct?

yes i believe if you want to vote on that portion that would be appropriate that way you that way you guys already know and you guys can get going with the project and with line with regards to staff focusing and spending time on the project there is no delay on staff part it's it's all hands on deck um you got the commitment of myself and our public works director and the rest of the staff that's we've been waiting on the sideline for them to submit and finalize

All right. All right. So motion to receive and file the presentation without making changes to Marlinda.

I'll second. All right.

We have a motion to adopt item number 14. Receive and file item number 14 with direction. Motion made by Councilmember Estrada, second by Mayor Damien. Councilmember Avila.

Yes.

Councilmember Estrada.

Yes.

Councilmember Lozano. No.

Where is he? Rosanna? Yes.

Mayor Prasanna Yala. Yes.

Mayor Damien. Yes. Position carries 5-0. Thank you for that, City Clerk Grant. Thank you for being here. Sorry we're hard on you, but we just want to desperately see this project going and getting some families in there. So please work with our city staff so we can expedite whatever needs to be expedited and we can get this project going, okay?

Will do. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Thank you. all right so now that we're done there we are down to city council city clerk city treasurer staff requests and communications council colleagues any of you have any comments or requests yes go ahead councilman jensen market up here on main street tagged up like no tomorrow and it was still even this evening so chief we could check into that and see um some of these these guys that tagged up that whole instant market um

Oh, you did. Oh, thank you, sir. Appreciate them. Thank you very much. And then I'm just going to make certain chief and I'm going to do a good job because it just seems like we're getting a little a little jumpy with some of these individuals out there that are are just being very deviant out in the community. So, okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate them.

Thank you for the council.

Mayor. Go ahead. Sorry. Oh, thank you. uh so may i just wanted to say i know like uh so this is our last meeting in these council chambers and i know last time we gave direction to save some of this wood and we can do something with it and so i'm hoping that you know that direction is still standing and we're able to preserve some of this stuff and we can use it i did uh you know i i recently met with habitat and we had this i and i was i was trying to encourage them that we could do some little libraries with some of this wood right so you know um i would like to you know we we and i want to bring that back i know that we we made a we had this huge campaign around the little libraries and i know that we even put it out to the community and we requested people to tell us if they would be willing to host the library at their house or their property and i believe we should have this whole list up and i should and i would really want to follow through with that okay yeah all right thank you go ahead

Yes, I just want to thank Public Works, the bus stop that got knocked down by a car accident on Francisquito and Fraser. It's up. I'm very excited because a couple of days ago it was scorching hot and there was two gentlemen waiting for the bus trying to protect themselves. And yesterday, I think yesterday or the day before I saw it, put back up. So thank you for working on that. I know it was a little bit of challenge there. Also, the area of Francisquito right there in front of Sierra Vista, I know it's supposed to be maintained by the school district and for some reason or another, it's not being maintained, but the minute I call Public Works, they come out and they clean it up. Although it was an agreement to have the district clean it up, maintain it and water it, but they immediately come out and clean everything up. And I always see them power washing all the bus stops. So thank you for that because there is, you know, some homeless that sleep there and they're coming out. I see them pretty often power washing the bus stops. Thank you.

Thank you for that, City Council Member Avila. Mayor Patel, do you have any comments? no barrett thank you thank you for that all right um i just want to say this is our last council meeting here at the next the next council meeting as manny has indicated will be held at the valley county water district uh two weeks from now i do just want to remind the community we are having a family resource fair on thursday august 27th next week uh the 27th from 5 to 7 p.m at the terry g muse Family Service Center behind Morgan Park. This is going to be for TK through 12th grade students. Baldwin Park residents only. Students must be present to receive backpacks and school supplies. This is more of a resource fair. There will be free haircuts. um there will be resources such as any type of mental health or any family resources that are available with different organizations they will be there providing services and supplies and school supplies so come out and see what the family service center has to offer i want to thank the family service center for putting this together along with maria moreno and some community organizations and again that's going to be next thursday august 27th from 5 to 7 pm it's important that you guys come on and see the resources that are available because a lot of residents always ask you know different situations that they're involved with and they're not aware that we have these resources available for them and that's all go ahead daniel

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I JUST WANT TO MAKE A QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT. OUR CDBG SIDEWALK PROJECT IS COMING TO AN END. WE'VE SPENT ABOUT, I THINK, AFTER THIS MONTH WILL BE AROUND $900,000 WORTH OF SIDEWALKS AND CURB AND GUTTER AND PAVEMENT THAT WE REPAIRED. We're kind of running out of locations. The contractors kind of wants to move on as well. They're not staffing as much as we'd like. is kind of dwindling down to the very end of the project so i i think in two to three weeks we will be finishing up the project and then our plan is to come back with a similar project and put it out to bid hopefully around october november to do it again maybe starting in february with and and do a little more paving of some streets and probably a little bit less sidewalks with our cdbg funding

Thank you for that, Daniel. That was a great project. Thank you.

And thank you for that because it's much needed. And we're looking forward to the street one next. So thank you for that. That's all that I have. Anyone else have anything else?

That's it.

Yeah, we have until 945. So we got it.

eight minutes before let's go no uh can we can we take a nice group picture yes at our last meeting here before we all once we once we dispatch our interpreter I can stay here till midnight everyone let's go

Mayor, if I may, just going to be very, very quick. So I want to, one, thank Shirley and Samantha. Sometimes the work goes, it's an unthankful work sometimes, but they survived a nomination process. The nomination process has officially closed and they navigated incredibly, probably put a lot of miles in their car, but grateful for the work that they do to move our democracy forward. The city car. To Norwalk, to trips to Norwalk. And so also just like completely but I want to thank the police for everything that they do. Also want to thank all the teachers, everybody that works in education, wishing them a great start to the school year. Yeah, you're welcome. So this was my son's seventh first year of school. um from tk now going into fifth grade which was very emotional and for the past uh well his first year he his board said that he wanted to be a race car driver as an as an adult uh and then that quickly changed to paleontologists so um i thought for uh for many years that he was going to grow up to be um work at jurassic park but this year uh he wrote that he wants to be a police officer so uh your your work is uh doesn't go unnoticed and we are very grateful for everything that you do thank you so much

Thank you for that city clerk. All right. It is now 9 38 PM. I will make a motion to adjourn. Can I get a second or Jordan? Thank you. Good night. Oh yeah.