Council - Regular Meeting

All right, let's try this one more time. Good evening, everyone. I am now calling to order the City Council, City Finance Authority, Housing Authority meeting. The time is 7.02 p.m. The date is September 16th. Pastor Jackson, Pastor Flores, would you guys please lead us in the invocation? And if those of you who are able to stand, if you could please stand.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council. Let us pray. Amen.

Father, we thank you for the privilege of coming to your throne of grace, that we may find grace and help in time of need. And Baldwin Park need your hand. upon Baldwin Park. I'm asking you, Lord God, in blessing the mayor, city council people, Lord God, giving them wisdom and knowledge and understanding in how to run the city, Heavenly Father. We're asking you also, Lord God, in touching our police department, that things are happening around the city, Lord, that they be able to handle it, Lord God, and be safe, Lord God, and keep the community safe as well, and that they may be able to go home and be safe with their children and their family, Lord God. Heavenly Father, we ask you also, Lord God, in touching our businesses here in Baldwin Park, that it may prosper and that it may grow, Lord. We need you in our schools, Lord, with our children, Lord God, that your mighty hand will be upon our children, Lord God, and walk with them in covering the protection around about them. Are they in school, Lord God, and out of school, Lord God, that no hurt, harm, or danger may come to them, Lord God, through trafficking or drugs or whatever, Lord God. We're asking you, Lord God, and putting your hands around the homeless situation, Lord God, and keeping the place clean and giving them an out, Lord God, and a way to help themselves. We need you, and we can do nothing without you. And so we call upon the name of the Lord, Paul Baldwin Park, and we just praise you and we thank you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

Thank you for that, Pastor Flores, Pastor Jackson. Council Member Avila, can you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you for that, Council Member Avila. City Clerk, can we get roll call, please?

Mayor Damien. Here. Mayor Pro Temayala. Here.

Council Member Avila. Yes.

Council Member Estrada.

Here.

Council Member Lozano. Here. Thank you.

Thank you for that. And there are no report from closed session. We didn't have closed session today. City Attorney, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I do have one item that needs to be added to the agenda as an item. This is being presented because after the agenda was posted, the Public Works Department received a notice from one of its employees that was primarily responsible for the preparation of an RFQ related to engineering services that they would be departing. So there arose an immediate need to issue that RFQ Before he left, and the need is also urgent because of the city's existing engineering agreements expired earlier this year. So it's important to get these new contracts in place as soon as possible to ensure appropriate consultants are available to address issues such as land development, review, design, project management and compliance with the state and federal programs. So if the council's in agreement, it would require a motion to add this item and would need to be approved by four votes.

Mayor?

Yes, go ahead, Council Member. I'll move to add to the agenda. We have a motion by Council Member Lozano. Can we get a second?

Second.

Second by Council Member Avila.

To the agenda motion made by council member Lozano, second by council member Avila. Council member Avila. Yes. Council member Estrada. Yes. Council member Lozano. Yes. Mayor Bruce Amayala. Yes. Mayor Damien. Yes. Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you for that, City Clerk. All right, we do 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 for attending the Housing Authority meeting and $50 for attending the Finance Authority meeting. We have a presentation tonight, which is the City of Boulder Park Transit Services Performance, Customer Experience, and Continuous Improvement. Who will be conducting the presentation? Daniel?

Good evening, Mayor, Council. I'll just introduce TransDev. They will be presenting, and I'll let them introduce themselves.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Juan Perez. I'm the Safety Manager for Transdev.

Good afternoon. My name is Narcisa Montemayor. I am the General Manager for Transdev.

Good evening. My name is April Garcia. I'm the Assistant General Manager at Transdev.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak with you today about the City of Baldwin Park Transit Service. and the continued partnership with the city and Transtep. Today, I wanna provide a brief overview of where the service currently stands, what the data is telling us, some of the challenges we have identified, and most importantly, what we're doing to continue improving the experience for Baldwin Park residents. Baldwin Park currently provides several transportation options designed to meet the different needs throughout the community. Our fixed route service, which includes the Teal and the Pumpkin Lines, operate Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. We also provide microtransit service on Saturdays and Sundays, serving the Teal and the Pumpkin Line bus stop areas. And our dial ride service operates seven days a week, providing curb-to-curb transportation with the city limits. Including standing reservations for medical nutritional appointments having these different options allows us to serve residents with different transportation needs, rather than relying on one size fits all approach. When we look at dial right the data gives us a good picture of both usages and performance. During the reporting period, Dial-Ride completed 5,853 passenger trips. These average direct ride durations was approximately 6.8 minutes, while the average ride duration was about 15.2 minutes. We also saw a 91.9% pickup on time performance and 85.6 drop off on time performance. These numbers are important because they allow us to go beyond simply saying that the service is performing very well. They allow us to identify where there is room for improvement as well. For dial ride passengers, in particular, reliability matters. Many of these trips involve medical, nutritional programs, or other essential activities. So our goal is to continue improving on-time performance. while maintaining a positive, respectful customer experience. Our microtransit data also provides some encouraging results. During the reporting period, microtransit completed 520 passenger trips. Pickup on-time performance was approximately 94.1%, while drop-off time performance reached 95.2%. the average direct ride duration was about 7.1 minutes compared with an average actual ride of approximately 9.1 minutes. One number that really stands out is the average 5.0 average riding rating shown in the customer experience data. That tells us when passengers are using the service, the overall experience has been very positive. As microtransit continues to develop, we want to make sure residents understand how to use it and how to plan their trips and how this service can complement our traditional transit options. Our fixed route system continues to carry the largest number of passengers. The teal line carried 46,164 passengers. while the pumpkin line carried 22,612 passengers, giving us a combined total of 68,776 passenger trips. During the same reporting period, there were six complaints reported.

I'm sorry, give me one second. Is the slide that you're putting up on the screen here the same as the PowerPoint that was emailed to us? Or was there any changes made?

We sent two things had us updated on Friday.

Mayor, you're referring to the one that's here on the part?

Yeah, I'm looking at because I'm looking at the one that they're presenting because I'm going off the one I printed out. And the numbers aren't adding up to what I have. But then I'm looking at the screen. And what's on the screen is not what was provided to us ahead of time. But when was this changed? Did we get the updated? Did you change it with our city staff? this is what's on the, on the website, the agenda staff report.

So it, uh, it appears that we made modifications after it was sent out. I think it's safe to say that.

Okay. So colleagues, if you guys are going off the PowerPoint, don't go off where they're showing up on the screen or you can go ahead and proceed. Thank you. No worries. Thank you, sir.

Okay. So, uh, so sorry about that. And, uh, This brings us to a challenge we have identified. Some of the primary concerns include trip delays, missed pickups, reservation concerns, communication challenges and the opportunities to improve overall service consistency. We don't want to hide from these concerns. We want to identify them, investigate them and use them to improve the service. When a passenger tells us that a bus was late, pickups was missed, or they had difficulty making a reservation, that the information needs to go somewhere. It needs to become actionable data. That is why communication between passengers, the city, dispatch operators, supervisors, and trans-dev management is very important. Our goal is to identify patterns, not simply respond to individual incidents after they happen. That leads directly into our complaint process. We want passengers to know that every voice matters. When we receive the complaint, the first step is to listen to and document the concern. From there, we investigate what occurred. Depending on the situation, that may include reviewing operational information, speaking with employees, reviewing available video, and examining other documentation. Once we determine what happened, we can respond appropriately. Sometimes that means additionally training or coaching, in other situations, corrective action. And sometimes the investigation may determine the operator followed proper procedures. But regardless of the outcome, complaints provided information that can help us identify trends and improve service. The objective is simply to close complaint. The objective is to learn from it. Of course, service improvement also requires investment in our employees. Our training and accountability efforts include customer service training, ADA assistance, training defensive driving training, dispatcher training, and established coaching and corrective action process. Our operators and dispatchers interact directly with passengers every day. So they play a major role in how the public experiences Baldwin Park Transit. We want employees to understand not only what the procedure is, but why it matters. Accountability doesn't only mean discipline. It also means providing employees with expectation training, resources, coaching, and opportunity to improve. One project I am especially excited about is the development of Baldwin Park Transit Welcome Packet. One thing we recognize is that the public transportation can sometimes feel confusing or intimidating to someone who has never used the service before. The Welcome Packet is intended to change that. It will provide residents with transit service information, help them understand how to plan a trip, and most importantly, help new passengers feel comfortable using the Baldwin Park Transportation Service. We want someone who has never ridden the bus or used the dial ride or tried microtransit to be able to look at this packet and say, I understand what I need to do and I can use the service. It's about education, accessibility, and giving residents confidence and independence. Ultimately, everything we have discussed comes back to the continuous improvement. Transdev cannot accomplish this alone, and neither can the city. It requires partnership. The city understands its community. Our passengers tell us about their experiences. Our employees see the service from the field every day. And TransDev brings the operational resources and experience necessary to turn that information into improvements. When we bring all these pieces together, we can make better decisions. Our goal is not perfection overnight. Our goal is to consistently measure, listen, respond, train, improve, and hold ourselves accountable. In closing, I want to thank the City of Baldwin Park for continuing the partnership and trust. We recognize that every passenger who steps onto one of our vehicles is trusting us to give them where they need to go safely and reliably. That is a responsibility we take very seriously. Together, the City of Baldwin Park and TransDev can continue building transportation systems that residents understand, trust, and feel comfortable using. Because at the end of the day, transit isn't just about buses and numbers. It's about people, places, possibilities, and connecting our community. Thank you. And we appreciate you guys having us here.

Thank you. Thank you for the information. Thank you for the presentation. I'm going to go ahead and open it up to the City Council for any questions or comments that you may have.

Mayor.

Go ahead, Mayor Patel.

Thank you. First of all, I want to thank you as well for coming and giving your presentation. I appreciate it. I just have a couple of questions. In regards to, you mentioned... Your total passengers, the total, I believe, for both lines was like 68,000, something like that. What was that timeframe that you looked at?

That was from January 1st to August 31st.

January 1st?

Yes, the first eight months of us having the contract for the City of Baldwin Park. So that's your total passengers from January to August.

Of this year?

Of this year.

Okay. And then my other question was regarding your welcome packet. I think that... Although I feel and I do feel it's a great idea to have that information compiled, especially with the services that you provide and that you offer and explain them. And maybe it would have been more beneficial to have something of that sort available on the onset from when you began, because there's a lot of questions and all of us up here. have received them from customers and writers. But I think something like that is beneficial. But to have something like that from the onset would have been a little bit more beneficial than, you know, than to have it at this point. But that's really all my comments. But I really appreciate, like I said, you being here. But thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for that, Mayor Pro Tem. Anyone else have any questions or comments? Go to Councilman Ravina.

This turns on.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for your presentation and coming up and speaking of the concerns that our community has brought up to our attention. And this is important. I appreciate that you took the time to come out and talk to the people that have concerns over the services, because as you know, our seniors are the ones that need the services the most. And whether it's one complaint or six complaints, They're all valid, and they're all important, and it's important that we address them so that those issues stop. And I see you being here. I think that will help the situation. And although our council member, our mayor did mention to have started this in the beginning, but moving forward, I mean, we didn't do it in the beginning, but moving forward, I hope that we continue the information, the communication with our city members, with the city itself. So whatever information needs to be sent out to the community, we have it firsthand. And they receive it as well. Because as I said, whether there's one complaint or six complaints, you do have a lot of writers, I didn't realize how big of a volume you had. But even if it's six, it's a concern to us. But I'm happy to see that you're addressing it so that we can fix that. So we appreciate it.

Thank you, Council Member Avila. Council Member Estrada, Lozano, do you guys have any questions or comments?

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you, Mayor. First of all, thank you for being here this evening, Wednesday evening, giving us the general information, like your PowerPoint presentation. So I've heard a lot of good positive things from this company. So, of course, a couple here, there, there may be a little... negative that could be repaired. But I'm glad you make yourself accessible. This is very important for us to make certain. And of course, Circuland throughout the community, it gives a lot of those that don't have a vehicle the opportunity to get on the bus and go shop. You said out of curiosity, so is it Monday through Friday that it's 6 a.m. in the morning?

Is that correct? Yeah, we run Monday through Friday. Okay. from 6 a.m. to 7.30.

Okay.

And Dollar Ride runs seven days a week. Okay, good. From 6 a.m. to 7.

Got to take that bus to go have breakfast at Kaiser, so I'll fix that up. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Mayor? Yeah, go ahead, Councilor Roosevelt. No, I just want to thank the TransDiv team for coming out. You know, TransDiv is a really reliable organization I know that, you know, they also partner with our neighboring agencies like Foothill Transit. So, yeah. would just echo what everybody else has echoed i uh has said i think it's really important that we continue to work together and you know figure out what the bugs are in our in our system i know that you know we've worked really hard to try to revamp our public transit system and make sure that it's accessible to residents and also efficient and so you know thank you for your partnership and i look forward to making sure that we continue to have that communication to to continuously better that system for the residents

Thank you, Council Member Estrada. Again, thank you for the presentation. I do have several questions. So you began operating on January 1st of 26, so it's been eight months, a little bit over eight months. So just walk me through here. Let's just start with the dollar ride. So if I'm going to call dollar ride to come and pick me up, what is the process? How does that work?

Okay, so it depends what type of technology knowledge you have. Um, for a dollar ride, you have to register with the senior center. Once you register with the senior center and they process your application, it is emailed to myself. Once I get the email, I put it in the system with the, with the ride post system. And now you become an active passenger. Now you have two options to book a reservation. You can book it yourself with the dial and write app on your phone. So you can do it independently, or you can call our car center, our call center, and our dispatchers will assist you in booking the rights for you. It depends what type of needs you have. If you have like a standing reservation, which would be somebody for like dialysis that goes Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, their schedule never changes. It's basically always standard the same. We can book a standing reservation. A standing reservation is for reservations that never change. Every week, same day, same time, same addresses. So the passenger doesn't always have to call and book reservations. They're automatically in the system and that's why they're called standard reservations. If you have your own personal needs to go to the grocery store to do any personal errand, you would have to call and everything is based upon availability. So the time you call doesn't always, the time you requested isn't always the time that we will offer you because we're trying to fit and schedule and try to do the best we can so we can pick up everybody. Our standing reservations is quite high in Dollaride. If I go back to, let me go back to the presentation.

Get my neighbor Jerry on there.

So our standing of Dollar Ride is, where is it at? I'm trying to find. Yeah, this is it. Is it? Yeah, so right now, 57% of your guys' scheduled reservations are done through the call center and 0.2% is done through the app. And 42.7% of your passengers in Dollar Ride have a, standing reservations and they're called subscriptions. So it's a subscription. 42% of your passengers are, don't have to call us unless there's a major, major change to their schedule. They don't have to call. They're already in the system and everybody else who doesn't have a standing reservation needs to be around their schedule because their priority. So that's normally for a nutritional and medical appointment.

So 57% are people that are booking through the call center. They're calling. 42.7% are through the app. I'm sorry, through standing reservations. And 0.2% through the app. So that just shows us that the majority of these people are not tech savvy, correct? Okay. Now that brings me to my next question. When someone calls the call center to book, do we have Spanish-speaking people or any other language there?

that has multiple languages, but we do have Spanish-speaking dispatchers that take the reservations for the city of Balcony Park.

Who handles the data from the app? Who's in charge of this system? Who controls it? Is it TransDev or is it the city?

No, it's TransDev. We don't control the information. We control the app. The RiteCo app is digital. So the only thing we can control from that app is booking reservations and assigning a driver and a bus.

So if, for instance, I had a reservation and I was left, nobody picked me up or they picked me up super late. Who controls that app? Who controls that? Is it the transdiv or is it the city?

No, we can see the information.

We can make modifications to that. No one can. So, but the city doesn't control your guys' scheduling.

No.

Transitive does.

Yeah.

Okay. So this is one of my concerns because when I've received these numerous complaints, I called myself because the person that was telling me and she's here actually to speak during public speaking. When they contacted me to tell me what they told her, I really didn't believe her. So I called myself the number that she contacted and the representative at the other line at first was rude. Once she found out who it was, then she changed her tone and she blamed the city that the city was the one in charge of this, which I know is false. But that just goes to show you YOU KNOW, WHERE THESE COMPLAINTS ARE NOW CONCERNING BECAUSE THEY LIED TO ME. AND I KNEW THAT THE CITY WASN'T IN CONTROL OF THIS. THE CITY DOESN'T HAVE ANY TO DO WITH YOUR SYSTEM. TRANSDIV DOES. SO ONE IS THE MISCOMMUNICATION. WE NEED TO DO BETTER WITH THE MISCOMMUNICATION. AND AGAIN, I'M GLAD YOU GUYS ARE HERE SO WE CAN ADDRESS THESE ISSUES BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, OUR PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR DOESN'T HAVE TIME TO BE DEALING, YOU KNOW, NEITHER DOES THE CITY STAFF, TO BE DEALING WITH THESE ISSUES BACK AND FORTH. AND WE'VE HAD THESE NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS. How many complaints have you guys received?

In the beginning of the service, the growing pain complaints, there were quite a lot in the beginning. Everybody was learning. Everybody, we were trying to see what fit the passengers better. I could give an example of a specific passenger who had 16 rides a day because they were under the impression that they can use a standing reservation for anything. So after I saw a couple of weeks of this and I noticed how it was hindering the service, I contacted Daniel and I let them know, what is your, what is your policy when it comes to scanning reservations? Cause each city has their own unique policies, their own requirements. So I wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page when it came to scanning reservations. So when we, we talked and we discussed it and we, that's when we discussed it was for medical. and nutritional, which is medical, anything that has to do with dental, vision, you know, physical therapy, that is covered, and the nutritional is going to the senior center to get the lunch. So when we spoke to this passenger where we told her, we can't take you to the laundromat every day. That's not considered a standing reservation. We can't take you to Carl's Jr. every day at 4 o'clock, 4.30, because they're taking, she was taking up so much of the reservations for other people who needed them. So when we cleaned that up a little bit, she was upset. But when we explained to her, like, it's really important that we focus on everybody, not just the specific. And this is the policy. We want to follow policy for everything. She was upset. But as of, to be honest, as of March, it was pretty quiet. We didn't know that there was complaints because none of the complaints came to us. And TransDev is really focused on if we get a complaint, we pull video. We pull recordings for the phone calls. We pull everything. So when we get complaints, we always ask, what time did you call? What date did you call? Did you catch a name? What did the person look like? We get all that. We do a thorough investigation. So like, I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, for yourself, if somebody would have called you and told you a lion was rude, I would have, and you would have told us right away, we would have jumped on that immediately because that is unacceptable and that's not any of our standards at Transdebt. So it's really important when the city council gets any complaint that it's communicated to us immediately so we can do a thorough investigation and make sure that if an employee is acting such a way, we go further with disciplinary action depending on what happens. So it's really important that when anybody gets any complaints, Transdev knows about them, because as of March, It was pretty quiet on our end.

So let me ask you, are your calls recorded? So as an example, because we only know what the residents tell us, right? And I'm not going to say that they're lying to us or they're not. I'm just going to let you know what I've experienced and the complaints that I've received. But are these calls monitored? Are they recorded? So is there a number that the city council or an email that we can... either contact you to let you know, hey, this just happened. That way you guys can look into it because we can't assume right away, obviously, that this person is saying, you know, is 100% accurate, right? You would have to investigate. You're not just going to go and fire someone. But is there like a phone number or an email that would be able to be presented to us so that if we get such complaint, we can just forward it to you guys? Yes. Okay. Perfect.

Okay.

Okay.

It has the office number and it has my email address. Perfect.

Okay. And then go ahead.

As soon as you get us the complaint, we're able to address it. Perfect. Okay. We don't let complaints just sit there. We don't let complaints just go by. No, we do a thorough investigation because that's unacceptable even for our scanners.

Perfect.

I'm really sorry.

No, I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad that they're not to your standards because, I mean, obviously they're not to ours either. How many dial-a-ride shuttles do you have at one point in time? Like, say, during the day, how many are operating? Is it two? Two shuttles, okay.

We have two shuttles Monday through Friday, one shuttle on Saturday and one shuttle on Sunday. Okay. Yeah, so because of the specific contract restrictions that we have, so you have a shuttle from 6 in the morning to 3, and your second shuttle comes in at 9.30 and closes out your day. So during the middle, when it's our peak time, you make sure there's two shuttles available when it's peak time. Early in the morning, you have one just because of the way the contract is built and the limited amount of hours. We try to make sure we cover everything as smoothly as possible.

So Monday through Friday, your shuttles are from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.? Okay, 7 p.m.

Okay.

And then, you know, I did hear... I'm sorry, what was your name, the gentleman who gave us the presentation? Juan. Juan. I did hear Juan say that... you know, you want to educate our residents, you know, our riders. So how would we be able to do that? How can we get, and I think this would be a partnership effort with Transnistria and the city to try to get this out there in multi-languages to educate our residents because I think a lot of them are confused and I've had these conversations with them where, hey, this is not an Uber service where they're not going to be able to pick you up at whatever time you want and take you from point A, B, C, and D. So, how would we be able to do that? What type of messages can we get out there? What type of education can we give our residents? You know, considering that the majority of them are seniors.

Yeah, I've been talking to Daniel. We've been discussing it where maybe some community outreach. I have sent Daniel a couple of examples of transportation manuals, which is a thicker document that fully explains in full detail exactly how to use each service. But we also want to develop like a pamphlet, a quick reference for the passengers, especially the dollar ride passengers. The dollar ride passengers is, I consider them, they need special care. And I want to make sure that they know and have everything we possibly need. I know during the competing, when we first got the contract, we spent a lot of time with the dollar ride passengers. on the phone for a very long time. Our wait times were extended further than normal, only because we were trying to explain to the passengers how everything was being handled, how we're trying to work together, let's figure this out. We don't just have to have patience. We know this is a new system for you. City of Baldwin Park is a new group. Let's get to know each other. Let's work together. And throughout these past eight months, it has improved. Our average wait time is a minute and 30 seconds. you know, for their phone service. So I think the more we reach out and the more we communicate with the passengers, it'll help build the relationship that we have with our passengers personally, and it'll also help the passengers learn how to best use the transportation service. Like today, we had a passenger who made an adjustment to her standing reservation. It made an adjustment because she had doctor's orders that she needed to stay home and not be out so much. Her adjusting her standing reservations allowed me to add two additional standing reservations that were waiting and hoping to get their standing reservations, you know, accommodated. And we were able to do that. We try to keep in close contact, not only with the passengers, but also with the senior center, with Wendy. You know, we work very closely trying to accommodate everybody, trying to make sure everybody's picked up. and try to make sure that even if they are no show. Right now, 11% of your downright service, they're a no show. 22% are cancellations. So that is 33% of the reservation from the past eight months that somebody could have rode, but the passenger either wasn't ready or canceled their ride at the last minute same day. That hindered anybody else getting the services. So this is why it's really important to communicate, educate. We don't, right now, we're not, nobody's enforcing a no-show policy, a cancellation policy. Nobody's enforcing any of that because I feel like this is still the educational phase. This is still, let's get to know how to use it. How does it work better for you? Help me, let me help you, you know, trying to build the relationship with the passengers. And I think it's improved a lot since January. In January, there was a lot of frustration because it's a new system. And it's very high in technology. I think that was the problem, the technology. The technology was just too advanced. So we made sure we had dispatchers available so the passengers can call us and get that one-on-one reservation, that one-on-one care to make sure they got to where they needed to be. And that's the reason why when you call and make a reservation, we always confirm your home address. You want to go to Starbucks? Which Starbucks? We don't want to take you to the wrong Starbucks. Some passengers get frustrated and they're like, well, why can't you just take me to Starbucks? It's like, there's a lot of Starbucks. Which one in particular? Oh, I don't want to go to the one on Baldwin Park. I wanted to go to one at Target. So I can go shopping and go to Target and drink my coffee at the same time. So we're trying to build those relationships with the passengers.

Perfect. Okay. No, I'm glad to hear that. And I knew that there was going to be trouble. I just didn't think it was going to be to this magnitude of complaints. And, you know, again, them being seniors and the language barrier, I think it makes it a little bit more difficult. But I'm really glad that you guys are here, that we're going to – what I'm hearing is you guys are doing your best to try to make these things work, educate them, letting them know how it works, so that this way their expectations aren't, you know, so high. Right. And is there a way that maybe in January of this year, and it doesn't have to be a presentation, it could be an email, that you can let us know what the percentage is of no-shows and the percentage of cancellations on the standing reservations. This way we know. You know, if there's going to be this amount of cancellations and no-shows, what type of policy maybe we can implement to let the residents know at that time? Because it isn't fair for the others that are waiting to get on a standing reservation that are waiting in line and they're not getting in and we're having a 33% rate of no-shows and cancellations. CANCELLATION SO MAYBE JANUARY, SECOND MEETING OF JANUARY OR FEBRUARY, WHATEVER, JUST SO WE CAN GET A BETTER IDEA BECAUSE BY THAT TIME IT WILL BE A YEAR THAT YOU'VE BEEN IMPLEMENTED. SO THE RESIDENTS SHOULD KNOW BY THAT TIME. Perfect. Those are the only questions that I have. I mean, you know, I shared my concerns with you. It was very frustrating for me, you know, to receive a lot of these complaints because, honestly, I didn't even know, you know, what to tell them anymore. And so it was, you know, we were going to city staff and city staff's kind of pulling their hair because, you know, they've got other things to worry about. But, yeah, let's continue to work on this. Let's continue to implement good customer service because we do have to have a little bit more patience. Obviously, you know, with our seniors, they're not, you know, They're not like you and I, right? But we do have to have a little bit more patience with them. And let's just, you know, see if we can work and improve, you know, the timeframes, right? Where the times that they're being picked up. Now, speaking of times, let me ask you a question. If you're picking me up, let's just say at 10.30 a.m., what is my requirement for me to be out there waiting for you?

So if you're saying it's 10.30, we never give our passengers a time of 10.30. If, let's say, my computer system tells me we're going to pick you up around 10.30, I would give you a 10.15 to 10.45.

Okay, so 15 minutes before.

Give you like a 30-minute window.

Okay.

And even when our driver gets there, let's say our driver gets there at 10.30 and you're not outside, the driver communicates with the dispatcher and we try to call the passenger. And I have every single one documented because the dispatchers are required to let me know when each passenger no-shows. And so... The passenger, there's a trial. We try to contact the passenger before the bus leaves. If the passenger doesn't answer or we can't leave a voicemail, we wait 60 seconds and then the driver drives away.

So what's the total amount of time that you're going to wait?

Five.

Five minutes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now, I mean, for an average person, I think that's okay. But someone with disabilities, it may be a little bit more difficult, especially under, you know, different types of weather conditions, whether it's really hot out there or it's raining. You know, they're not going to be able to be out there waiting for the bus, you know, 15 minutes before or 15 minutes after. And my concern is that five minutes may not be enough for a senior who may have a disability and won't be able to, make it out there in those five minutes. So, do you have some type of leniency on that on a case-by-case basis? Like, would the individual be able to tell you, I have a disability, I won't make it out there in five minutes? So, is this something that you can work on on a case-by-case basis?

That's something that we work on every day.

Okay.

So, if my passenger, if I call the passenger and tell him, hey, the bus is outside and the passenger is right, you know, I'm trying to get out there. I'm walking a little slow. The driver just leaves. Okay. The only time the driver will leave because the driver will not contact dispatch until after the five minutes has passed. And then the dispatcher tries to call the passenger. And if the passenger answers and says, hey, I'm on my way, we wait. We wait until the passenger gets to us.

Perfect.

Okay. But that also, we kind of want to take it case by case or we start talking to the passenger after a while. because each minute we wait prevents the driver to be on time for the following ride. So we try not to, you know, we tell, you know, please try to get closer to the door maybe. We try to talk to the passenger, try to figure out what works better for them. Maybe they need a phone call before the bus even gets there. So we want to talk to the passengers and get the information so we can meet their needs when it comes to communication.

Perfect.

Okay. So that's what we do right now. At the senior center in the beginning of when we first got the contract, everybody was getting picked up in different sections. So we try to make sure that everybody's getting picked up in the correct area. If a passenger is not there and we notate in their profile, they're vision impaired. They can't go or they can't hear. So they're not going to hear the honk. So the driver will sit outside, even go to the door if he has to, because they're hearing impaired. Obviously, they're not going to hear the driver. So the driver will go knock on the door. Special accommodations can be made. They just need to be communicated with us.

OK. And maybe that's something that we can include within the education package so that they're aware that there could be special accommodations. All right, perfect. Well, you answered all the questions that I have in reference to the complaints that I could remember that I received. So I'm sorry that I took up this much time, council colleagues, but I wanted to make sure that the questions that the public had were being answered. And this is just some of the questions that I could remember. If not, we would have been here a lot longer with the list of questions that I had. But thank you so much for the presentation. I really appreciate it. And definitely, if you could please leave us your card this way. If there's anything else in the future or one of the complaints, we can just reach out to you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, council members. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and move on to public communications. City Clerk, is there anyone wishing to speak?

Yes, Mayor, we have a handful of cards. But at this time, if there's anybody on the Zoom platform that is looking to speak kindly.

No, let's go ahead and start with the ones that are just letting them know to raise your hand.

Thank you.

First person is Juan Rios.

John Rios, resident for 50 years. One of the things I'm going to go after, starting with everybody that's out there. Have you ever gone to Barnes Park since you guys opened it? I sent some pictures to Jeannie today and Mr. Lozano because if I sent it to Danny, he would not share them. If you see those pictures, what's missing from them? Starting with Mr. Carrillo, you're supposed to be the COX park and rec. There's no signs through the whole park what you can do, if you can drink or not drink. So I blame you for one thing, And I blame Maria for not noticing everything. I had to get the residents from that area to call me up to go talk about it. I said, okay, I'll bring it up. Public Works, I sent a request. I talked to Anthony, I would say, when Cindy had her accident. off of Judas in the corner. I told Anthony we need to put a crosswalk because he got hit by a car. No response. There's still nothing there. The trash all over the city, I'm not going to call you guys up no more. I'm just going to put it on Facebook and TikTok. You guys are not doing your job. You guys are supposed to be working for us, the taxpayers. Another thing, we're going around talking to all the restaurants. On that study, you guys are wondering to do where to put food trucks. What part don't you guys understand? We do not want food trucks in Bowman Park. When Mr. Pacheco, Mr. Rosano and the girls were there, they would not permit them. That's why they put that law in there. There's no special permit. I talked to court enforcement. They said, well, you know, they're expired, but they have a month to renew it. They do not have a month to renew it. You're not even supposed to renew a special permit. Thank you. And I'll see you next month for sure.

Next speaker.

Good evening, Mayor Damien, city council members, city staff, and community members. I wanted to talk about things that are going on at the library right now. And I did pass out to everyone on the council that there is going to be a Hello Kitty and Friends library card. And we have gotten a lot of... It's been very popular when we put it on social media, so it's a big thing because there's a lot of people who are into Hello Kitty. So LA County Library and Sanrio are teaming up for a month of stories, creativity, and fun from September 18th through October 18th. Pick up a limited edition Hello Kitty and Friends LA County Library card at any LA County Library location while supplies last. Limit one card per account user. The limited edition celebrates the joy of reading, exploration, and connection, unlocking on all access paths to everything LA County Library has to offer. Just as a reminder, if you are coming to get your limited edition Hello Kitty pass, that starts Friday. Our hours, we open at 10. Please bring a valid photo ID, and you can also download and complete a library card application on the LA County Library website if you're interested. So lots of popularity with that library card, and hopefully more people will find out about the great things that we have at the library. So next, some programs that we have, and I'll put them in sort of date order. And the first one is we have a program called Adult Recess, and that's on Thursday, September 17th from 3 to 4.30. So we're going to do different things like games, puzzles, crafts. And the next one is a program for teens. And on Friday, September the 18th, from 4.30 to 5.30, it's for Hispanic Heritage Month. And it's a trip to indigenous ruins, explore the indigenous communities and history in Latin America as we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. So you can take a virtual trip to Chichen Itza and Tiwatiwakan, and that's a teen program. Starting back up is Baby Storytime on Friday, September the 18th, and it goes for six weeks through October 23rd. Baby Storytime, as I mentioned, is on Fridays from 10.30 to 11 a.m. And last but not least is our Toddler Storytime. We call it Smarty Pants Storytime. and that starts again on September 24th, and it goes for six sessions through October 29th from 10.30 to 11 a.m. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

Fidelia Espiritu? Fidelia?

Muy buenas noches. Perdone que hable en español, pero es el único idioma que yo hablo. Vengo representando para la persona de la tercera edad que toma el dial right. Nos prometieron un buen servicio y hasta ahora no lo he visto. He seguido paso a paso sus problemas y no problemas. En el caso es de que Two weeks ago, they left me two hours on the phone that I was the next person they were going to answer. I'm like a fool. The first time, 1.40. They cut me off. I'll mark it again. There were 45 more minutes until they complained that there was a line constantly ringing. Fue cuando acudí para decirles que iba a tomar una semana más porque estaba enferma. Cada viernes yo hablaba para mostrarles que tenía yo que faltar. Yo nunca falto a mis raíces. So I always spoke on Friday to say, next week I'm not going to be there. It was six weeks that I was constantly speaking like that. They always let me be last, but I'm very stubborn. Since you are very stubborn, you tell me that you are going to give me a good service, I want to ask for it. The people of Boabimpan are not used to saying the street, El numero. Nosotros decíamos voy a Church St. John's. Nada más hay una iglesia en Bowen Park. Un Banco de América, solo un Banco de América hay en Bowen Park. Un supermarket, hay un solo. El superior, un solo. Vallarta, uno. ¿Cuál es el problema de que ahora tenemos que decir la ubicación y la calle? Si no estamos acostumbrados, fueron muchos años en los cuales nosotros decíamos así. Ahora nos cortan el servicio de los de LAMP TRAC, que teníamos el trenecito, que era el orgullo de Baldwin Park. Si no lo saben, era el orgullo, aunque lo tomara una persona, We were happy to see the fucking train running from one side to the other. That train would take us to Kaiser in 15 minutes. That train would take us back to the center of the main. We didn't have any problems. They took that service away from us for a better one. Which one is the best? They changed our schedule. They changed what we have to say now, what street we want and when. And we have to wait an hour to change. You just have, yes, your time is up. Oh, sorry.

They're going to translate for you. Good evening. I'm going to address you in Spanish because it's the only language I speak. I represent the senior citizens and their rights. They

They promised us good service, and there's nothing like that. I have been following the problems for two weeks. On occasions, I have called, and I've been waiting over two hours. On the first time, one hour and 40 minutes waiting to speak with someone, and then they hung up, and then I called back in another 45 minutes. And then they took pity on me, and so they answered. So... I told them that I need more every week because I am sick. never miss my rights. So I call them, for six weeks I've been calling them. So they left me till the end. But since I'm very persistent, and they promised me good service, that's what I want. I want good service. If I need to go to church, there's only one church. If I need to go to Bank of America, there's only one Bank of America. If I need to go to the supermarket, there's only one supermarket, Superior. So what is the problem? And the problem is that now they need our location and the street. And that is, before we had the little train, that it was wonderful. It was the pride of our city of Baldwin Park. That little train took us everywhere. The little damn train took us to Kaiser in 15 minutes and then took us to Main Street like,

very quickly they and they took it away thank you thank you good evening mr mayor and council members city council staff and members of the audience uh my name is enrique gasca i am with the los angeles county sanitation districts and uh And I'm here to present on how we're here to serve the community and protect public health and the environment. The sanitation districts consist of 24 independent special districts that work together to provide vital sanitation services to over 5.5 million residents across 78 cities in LA County, including Baldwin Park. We have been serving the city of Baldwin Park since 1956. Your city is an acting member of the district's board of directors and votes on policy making decisions, including changes that impact rates and services. We own and operate 1400 miles of sewers. So if you see us digging up your streets, we promise we're just trying to make them better. We're protecting the vital sewer infrastructure beneath your feet. Currently in the city of Bowman Park, we have standard repair work to rehabilitate old sewer lines along Francisco Avenue at the southern end of the city. We expect to complete these projects before we begin the rainy season. We also own and operate 11 wastewater treatment plants. Collectively, we process over 500 million gallons of wastewater every day. That's enough to fill the Rose Bowl five times every day. These facilities treat and reclaim water for reuse in industries, irrigation of parks, cemeteries, golf courses, street medians and water crops, as well as groundwater replacement for the San Gabriel River and wastewater ways. In the near future, through Pure Water Southern California program, some of these treated wastewater will be subjected to advanced treatment that will allow it to be reused directly for drinking and other human uses. These efforts are essential to reducing the region's dependence on imported water and increasingly important to help our region face prolonged future drought conditions. In addition to wastewater, the districts manage a comprehensive solid waste program, which includes waste collection, recycling, and food waste management. This system reduces landfill reliance and promotes recycling, composting initiatives that protect our environment. Some of you may have driven by our facility, the Puente Hills Landfill, located by the 60 and the 605. Beyond waste management, we empower communities through education and outreach. We offer programs like the sewer science in local schools like Sierra Vista High School. We also host household hazardous and e-waste events around the city. This Saturday at Morgan Park from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., we'll be hosting an event that's open to all county residents, which is a great way to dispose of those empty paint cans, old computer monitors, they may be gathering in people's homes. We are available to provide a more detailed presentation of these programs and how we can support your city. I've also left some flyers in the back. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Good evening, mayor, city council, city staff, and members of the audience. My name is Paola Reyes. I am a district representative for Senator Susan Rubio. It is an honor to share with you all that I will be representing the wonderful city of Baldwin Park. It's a pleasure to be serving such a welcoming and active city. I'd also like to share with you all that eight of Senator Rubio's bills have made it onto the governor's desk. Three have already been passed, so they've become law. Two are hers, and then one she is a co-author of. The one that I'd like to share with you all is SB 1276, which is also known as the End Child Exploitation Act. This law... closes dangerous loopholes by making it clear that knowingly viewing live stream sexual exploitation of a child is a crime. So it wasn't before. This law also strengthens protections against AI generated and digitally altered images of minors. The senator is dedicated to fighting human trafficking and exploitation. So this bill was created to put the safety of California's children's first. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Thank you, Mayor and City Council. I look forward to getting to know you and working closely together.

Thank you, Paula. Welcome to Baldwin Park. Hopefully one of those bills on the governor's desk is funding for Baldwin Park.

Keep you updated.

Doesn't hurt to try, right? Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Good evening Mayor and good evening Council and all.

My name is Liz Tamayo, and I've been a resident of Baldwin Park for over 30 years. And then I just want to bring a concern that I have to you all regarding animal control. I know that the Baldwin Park closed. I just don't know how long. And you guys contracted with Pomona Animal Control. So like a month or no, like maybe six months, there was a dead crow in front of my yard. actual yard and we don't want to touch it so I call I didn't know I called the city hall and they said call Pomona I did and they said well we'll put you on the list and believe it or not it's like my husband said I can't have this here for three four five days so he scooped it up but could you imagine the dead animal in the trash bin for like over a week just the smell and the Who knows diseases? And I'm just so grossed out about all of that. So today, my daughter called me. I was driving to work. She said there's a decapitated cat, not on my yard, thank God, because we have a wrought iron fence, but it's in front of our house on the sidewalk next to our mailbox. And it's decapitated. I said, oh, my God, I just, I have such a phobia. I couldn't even, she sent me a picture, which I've not even opened yet. So, I mean, I can't share if you guys have a stomach for it. But I called and she says, oh, back to the crow. I got a call after about two weeks. And she's, oh, we're calling from the animal control. Do you still want us to pick up that animal, the dead crow? I said, are you kidding me? This is after two weeks. My husband refused to have that. So he threw it in the bin. I don't like him to do that. Just the smell and then just the whole thing. So that's my concern. Their response time is unacceptable to me. Are we going to have dead animals in my yard, in the sidewalk for that long? with flies. Now the dead decapitated cat is still there. And I called and she says, Well, I can't really assure you of a timeframe, but it'll be up to 72 hours. That's what I was told about the crow. And I got a call after two weeks plus. And I'm like, are you kidding me? You're calling me now. I had even forgotten about it. So that's just my concern to you that if you're aware of the response time that Pomona is granting to the Baldwin Park residents about dead and deceased animals in our property or in front of our sidewalk.

So we can't go ahead and finish speaking. And then I'll go ahead and address after public speaking.

I mean, they're asking, they're saying, just, just wait your turn pretty much. And I'm telling you two weeks after I'd called, I get a call. I'd going on three weeks, actually. Hey, did you still want us to pick up the, that dead animal? I'm like, Oh,

And just for clarification, this was from the Inland Valley Humane Society in Pomona?

Yes.

From them?

Yes.

And the crow incident you said happened six months ago?

I'm thinking six months. I'm sure it's on record, the call that I made. I called the city hall today to see... And she directed me to Pomona. And coincidentally enough, she told me there's going to be a meeting tonight if you care to do it on Zoom or come in person. I said, I'd rather come in person because that animal's still sitting there and I'm going to wait two weeks. My daughter saw it this morning when she was pulling out. Fortunately, I didn't see it because I too pulled out. But I'm so glad I didn't see it because I have such a... And could you imagine a decapitated cat?

Yeah, no, and I know we shouldn't, but this is something we should address, is what the six months prior for the Crow, we weren't in contract yet with Inland Valley Humane Society. That didn't start until July 1st.

I may be going back too far. Could have been July. but I'm sure it's on the record.

Yeah, but the CAT one does concern me because we do have a dedicated officer for our city. So we will look into that with city staff. They'll look into that tomorrow because it shouldn't take that long for them to go out there. That's the reason why we have a dedicated officer to serve the area.

I don't know. I hope they can come tomorrow and just remove it. They didn't tell me you had it designated. They directed me straight to Pomona.

I'm going to have Maria. Is that Maria back there? Yes, sir. Okay. She's going to get the information from you. We're going to have city staff look into that because, yeah, it's not acceptable. That's the reason why we have a dedicated officer so the response time is quicker.

Yeah, it's just... So I'm hoping that cat can be removed tomorrow.

Yeah, we're going to make sure city staff will take a look at that first thing tomorrow.

Yes.

Thank you for letting us know. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you.

That's it. What about any on Zoom?

Yeah, so that's all speaker cards we have on Zoom, but if you want to open up... Buenas noches.

Okay, no hay mucho problema, pero voy a platicar un, dos, tres, nada más. La semana pasada me cortaron el candado en mi negocio y robaron, porque como ven que no pasa policía en la noche, se basan a eso que está fácil de robar. La otra es que atrás del Jack in the Box no se ha limpiado. They have beds, sofas, everything. And they need to clean because it's very ugly. And there's graffiti. There's also a tree on my street. The trees are very big. They don't let people pass by. They cut them around. And in Delwood, from Fransquito to Big Delton, there's a lot of garbage. That's it. Not much to complain. Thank you.

Thank you, Evo.

Good evening. I don't really have much to say today. Last week, someone broke my lock and they broke into and they stole my stuff, you know. And besides that, I want to say that the homeless have camped there again. They have beds and other things and everything. And, you know, there's also a tree, a rather large tree that needs trimming and, you know, because it's blocking the access on the people who are walking by. And also there's a lot of trash in the area of Bellwood from Francisquito to another street. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. And if there's anyone else in the audience that's wishing to speak that did not fill out a speaker card, now is your time.

Hi. How are you? Nice to see you.

You as well.

Mayor and City Council. I'm Melinda Forbes. I'm the Administrative Commission for the Affordable Housing Project going on at the corner of Stewart and Los Angeles Street. I received information from Grant Power from the Habitat for Humanity that we're going to have upcoming information sessions coming on Thursday, September 24th at the Julia McNeil Senior Center, and also on Saturday, September 26th at the Esther Snyder Community Center. That'll be both in English and Spanish, and I do have flyers in both. But I wanted to make sure, I didn't know if Grant had sent it directly to you, but I really want to make sure that you're aware that we're getting very close and we're getting the word out to people who are in need of affordable homeownership. There you go.

Thank you, Belinda. I appreciate you bringing that to us. I didn't get it on my email, so thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else who did not fill out a speaker card wishing to speak, now is your time. All right, seeing no interest, I will now close public communication for in-person. And then we're going to go ahead and open it up to anyone on Zoom. City Clerk?

We have one person, Marlon.

Who, I'm sorry?

Marlon.

Marlon?

Marlon.

Oh, Marlon.

Hello?

Can you guys hear me okay? Yes. Awesome. Thank you so much for the time today. I appreciate being able to speak in front of the council. I just had a couple quick comments. One, I just wanted to credit, on a positive note, the social media team here at Baldwin Park. I really appreciate being able to find out all the new events and amazing things you guys are doing via social media. I know the traffic isn't super high, but I just think that it's good to note that We see a lot of amazing things and we take notice of the work that you guys do there. So I just wanted to give great credit to that because that's really awesome that you guys do that. It's an awesome way to see you guys moving into a direction with more technology and more awareness for the residents here. Another note I had, I wanted to comment on the security of the parks and how beautiful our parks are. I just wanted to say thank you for allowing us to have such access to great parks. I did want to say I have noticed some homeless population at some of the parks, and I'm a parent of two young kids involved with parking. I just want to make sure we keep our community safe, and I appreciate the current awareness that you guys have of the homeless population at the park. As we continue to have amazing parks, I think it's good that we continue to monitor the population at the park and just continue to make sure it's a safe space for the kids and people who want to use the park appropriately. And then last note I had was around pests and roaches and things like that. I'm a new resident to the city. I've only been here about two years and I know like it's so I know I don't know how big of an issue this is for absolutely everyone. I just know we're a fairly clean home and we had an issue with pests a while ago and And we worked really, really hard, and it was a very expensive issue to fix. And we hired a cleaning service. We paid a lot of money for pest removal. And it's something that's an ongoing issue. And I would have just thought it's just us. Our house is just in a bad system or whatever. But then I looked on social media, and I seen the complaint amplified, and a lot of people also having the same issue with roaches and things when they're having a fairly clean home and roaches and rats and things like that around the city. So I don't know if there's any way that the city could support us or give any type of resources to, you know, help as a community lessen this issue, similar to how we did with mosquitoes, which I thought was absolutely amazing. If we can do something like that for pests and roaches and things like that, it can just continue to make Baldwin's Park an amazing place for my family and for years to come. That's all. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Colonel.

No more?

Mayor, that wraps up all speakers.

Perfect. All right, I'll now go ahead and close public communication. All right, I'm just gonna, I know Mr. Rios always runs out of here before I comment on his, but I know he goes back to view the video, so I'll go ahead and address his issues. First of all, you know, Mr. Rios, I'd appreciate if you come up here to speak, we always appreciate to hear you out, but don't come up here and lie. The images that you send me, you send me about 20 images at a time and they don't have addresses. So I can't send these images and forward them to staff and send them on a wild goose chase to try to find out where these items are located. So if you want to go ahead and send them to Mayor Pro Temayala and Mr. Lozano, you're more than welcome to, but I will tell you that the majority of the time they don't have an address. Second, I know that you're very big on the food trucks and food vendors, and you've made it very clear over the last probably 15 years that I've known you that you don't like them in the city. Well, Mr. Rios, if they're permitted and they go through the process, they will be in the city. So the only thing I can tell you is start getting used to it. If you want to purchase from them, great. If you don't, go to one of our local businesses. And that's all that I have in reference to Mr. Rios. I KNOW THAT WE'VE HAD ISSUES OVER BY JACK IN THE BOX AT ABLE SHOP, AND I KNOW IT'S A CALTRANS ISSUE, AND I'VE HEARD THAT OTHER CITIES HAVE THE SAME ISSUES WHEN IT COMES TO CALTRANS AND THE FREEWAYS AND ALL OF THAT. SO WE REALLY NEED TO MAKE AN EFFORT TO TRY TO SEE WHAT WE CAN DO um who can we contact if we can get them to come to one of our meetings or maybe join us via zoom just so that we can ask the questions that we probably all have in reference to how dirty the sides of our freeways are and the areas that are under their jurisdiction um you know their excuse that they're busy is no longer an excuse i've seen other cities that have clean freeways so i don't see why baldwin park can't have them either so we need to push for caltrans to Uh, to get on it and if not, you know, I would suggest that maybe send Caltrans an email and copy both state senators Rubio and assembly member Rubio and we have power here. So maybe she can take some of that feedback back to the senator, let her know how frustrated we are as a city with Caltrans. Um, and in reference to. to the animal issue with the crow and the cat. City staff, if we can please get a hold of Inland Valley Humane Society and find out what their turnaround time is, considering that we do have, that we are paying for a dedicated officer because If it's going to be two weeks, then we need to bring them back to the meeting to find out why we're even paying for a dedicated officer if it's going to take them that long. And that's all I have in reference to public comments. Anyone else have any? Go ahead, Council Member Avila.

Yes, I just wanted to touch back on, you actually already mentioned it, but we mentioned this two weeks ago in regards to Caltrans cleaning all the exits from the freeways and all the area around there. We even discussed the fact that it is a safety issue. We have had a few fires already. near the exits and too close to our homes. So it is urgent that Caltrans gets contacted to clean up all those areas. The same area Jack in the Box was brought up two weeks ago as well. And that is a Caltrans area. I know our department tries to do their best and they have even gone into those areas to clean them up. However, I know they should not be going in there for safety reasons. I do appreciate you going in there. But we need to push Caltrans further and make sure if they're not following up, as the mayor said, contact the senator, the assembly, and the congressman if necessary, because it is not acceptable. Thank you.

Yeah, go to me. Okay.

All right. If there's no other council comments, I'm going to go ahead and go to consent calendar. Are there any items any council members are wishing to pull?

I'd like to pull item nine, please.

Nine?

Yes.

We could just pass it with consent. Yeah. Okay.

Call it out.

Call it out. Okay. Got it. Okay. But not separately.

Thank you.

Item 11. Who pulled item 11? Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Yes, I'm sorry. Item number 11 will be completely pulled off the agenda for tonight. And then we are pulling item number nine for Councilmember Avila. I'm going to go ahead and pull item number six. And I'm going to also pull 13A, which was the walked item so we can vote on it separately. Okay. Anyone else wishing to point any items? No? All right. So I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve consent calendar items 1 through 18 with the exception of 6, 9, and 13A.

Mayor? Yes. I'll make a motion.

All right. I've got a motion by Council Member Lozano. Can I get a second?

Second.

Second by Mayor Potemayala.

Items 1 through 18, with the exception of 6, 9, 13A, and tabling item 11 to a date uncertain. Motion made by Councilmember Lozano, second made by Mayor Brottamagliola. Councilmember Avila?

Yes.

Councilmember Estrada? Yes. Councilmember Lozano? Yes. Mayor Brottamagliola? Yes. Mayor Damien?

Yes, and I am abstaining from item number 18. That is the Baltimore Park Housing Authority's warrants and demands, and that is because my commercial landlord is on the warrants and demands.

Items 1, 1 through 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, well, all of them but 18, passport 01. Okay.

Thank you for that city clerk. All right. We're going to go ahead and go with item number six. That's the item that I pulled. Um, and that is the, um, city of Baldwin park, uh, SB 1693 business improvement tax. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead. I pull this item. I want to give council direction that city attorney already has a copy of the ordinance when this was put into place. So I want to go ahead and have city attorney and city manager review the ordinance. and see what type of modifications or amendments we can do to the ordinance and see if we're able to make those amendments and modifications within the council vote or if it has to go out to the voters for any amendments. And that's just so that we can bring this up to 2026 and see what type of benefits our city, our businesses can get from this BIT tax. Um, anyone have any questions or comments in reference to this item? Oh, sorry about that. It was 1982, not 87. So it's an old ordinance. Um, so that's my direction to staff and I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve item number six.

Second. Okay. We've got a first and a second, uh, city. We have a motion to adopt item number six motion made by mayor Damien. Second by council member Estrada. Council member Avila.

Yes.

Councilmember Estrada. Yes. Councilmember Lozano. Yes. Mayor Bertamayala.

Yes.

Mayor Damien. Yes. Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you for that, City Clerk. All right, we're moving on to item number nine, City Council approval of repairs and restoration of damaged Socalo Park signs. Councilmember Avila, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I pulled this item because I know it is urgent that we do approve some of the areas in this section. I do want to hold off on number one to approve the actual repair of the damage to the Socolow sign. But I do know, Manny, we do have to approve a certain amount of money to authorize the Director of Public Works to execute all necessary documentation. And that would be number three and number four. Is there anything else that I'm missing that we need to authorize except for the number one part of actually repairing the signs?

Yes, Councilmember Avila, I believe you captured all the elements. Just for clarification, we are requesting funding for $38,610, which reflects three signs that have been damaged, and that's what the staff report represents, minus the large sign that you requested that we hold off on at this point.

Right, so my recommendation would be to approve item nine with the exception of number one, and to go ahead and approve the 38,610, correct? Yes, ma'am.

Mayor?

Yes, go ahead, Councilman. I'll move to motion, but do you have a question? I do have one question. So just for clarification, Councilman Avila, so that's basically not approving the entire $149,000, but only the three directional signs for $38,000 and leaving the big sign out for another time?

Yes, and then approve item two, three, and four under that section.

Okay, that's for the $38,610.

Correct?

Yes. I have a question. Thank you, Mayor. Real quick, I'm kind of curious. Do we know if this vehicle, was it insured or was not insured, the driver? Do we know?

So for the Sokol signs, there are three incidences. Like one was vandalism, which a party wasn't identified. The second and third incident or accident, there were vehicles involved. And then we're going through the subrogation process with the help of risk management and our third party, Edmature.

And that's why I want to make sure that the section four and section two, three, and four does get approved with the exception of one for item number.

Very good. All right. Thank you.

And then we can hold off on repairing the actual sign until we look further into it to see what exactly we're going to do with that sign.

Sounds good.

That's your motion?

Yes.

We'll get a second.

I'll second.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you for that city clerk. All right.

We're going to move on to item 13. And that's the item that was walked on. And we're just, we just pulled it for a separate consideration since it was. walk on an emergency basis, and that's the authorization to publish a request for qualifications for on-call engineering services. Council colleagues, anyone have any questions in reference to this item?

No?

If not, I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve. I'll second. We've got a first and second. City Clerk?

Sorry, who made the motion?

I did, and then Council Member Lozano seconded it.

We have a motion to adopt item number 13A, motion made by Mayor Damien, second by Councilmember Lozano. Councilmember Avila?

Yes.

Councilmember Estrada? Yes. Councilmember Lozano? Yes. Mayor Pro Temayala? Yes. Mayor Damien? Yes. Motion carries 5-0. And just for the record, the agenda item was distributed to all members of the City Council, and one is available with the City Clerk's Office if anybody wants to approve the walk-on. Thank you.

Thank you for that. All right. Now we're going to move on to our public hearing. And that is public hearing regarding fiscal year, 25, 26 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report caper, Michelle.

Good evening mayor and members of the city council. My name is Michelle Bravo housing programs coordinator, and I'm here presenting the fiscal year, 25, 26 consolidated annual performance evaluation report, which is commonly known as the caper. The CAPER is an annual report required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It provides a summary of how the city utilizes its federal grant funding during the past program year and documents our progress towards the goals identified in our consolidated plan. This report covers activities funded through the Community Development Block Grant and the Home Investment Partnership Program and evaluates the city's accomplishments in serving low- and moderate-income residents and improving community conditions. The purpose of the CAPER is to demonstrate accountability for the federal funds entrusted to the city and measure progress towards meeting our housing and community development objectives. It also serves as HUD's primary tool for evaluating whether the city is carrying out activities consistent with federal regulations and the goals established in its approved consolidated plan. Through the use of CDBG funding, the city continues to support programs and services that address critical community needs, including public services, neighborhood improvement, public facilities, and infrastructure activities, as well as program administration necessary to ensure compliance and oversight. The activities undertaken during the program year benefited low and moderate income residents and helped advance the city's goals of maintaining viable neighborhoods, supporting public services, and improving the quality of life for our residents. During this reporting period, the city completed five public service activities and assisted 928 residents through a variety of community programs. The city also continued to invest in public facilities and infrastructure improvements, benefiting eligible neighborhoods throughout the community. In addition, approximately 70% of the CDBG-funded sidewalk improvement project was completed during the program year, enhancing pedestrian safety and contributing to a more attractive and accessible community environment. Two affordable housing developments were completed during the reporting period. These projects leveraged home funds in combination with other state and federal funding to expand the supply of affordable housing within the community. Of the new units created, six will remain affordable for a period of 20 years through recorded affordability covenants. The City remains committed to responsible stewardship of federal funds. Throughout the year, staff monitored project expenditures, compliance requirements, and performance objectives to ensure activities remained eligible under HUD regulations and aligned with the consolidated plan priorities. The CAPER reflects the expenditures of federal resources towards approved activities and demonstrates the City's ongoing commitment to timely utilization of grant funds. Staff also continued efforts to improve the expenditure rate of CDBG funds and home funds and advance projects towards implementation in order to maintain compliance with HUD timeliness requirements. As required by HUD regulations, the draft CAPER was made available for public review and comment during the prescribed public comment period. Copies were made available at the public library, city hall, and the city's website. The city allows you as well as residents to submit any feedback tonight so that we can report that back to HUD. In conclusion, the fiscal year 25-26 CAPER demonstrates that the city has continued to make meaningful progress towards achieving the goals outlined in its consolidated plan while maintaining compliance with HUD. We respectfully recommend that the city council approve the CAPER and authorize the submission to HUD. Thank you. This concludes my presentation. I am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for that, Michelle. City Council, does anyone have any questions in reference to the CAPER? I do have a question. Did we receive any complaints or any feedback when you published this?

No, we didn't receive any public comments during the hearing.

And then just one question. Where's Ryan?

He's out today. He has a personal issue to take care of.

Okay. So are you the one that does have the CAPER reports, or does the housing manager usually do it?

The preparation. Okay.

But the presentations are done by you or by the housing manager?

This presentation is by me.

By you? Yes. Thank you for that.

Mayor?

Yes, go ahead. Michelle, what was the last CDBG funding that we received?

The amount?

Yes.

I can give you approximately off the top of my head about 837,000 in CDBG funds. Okay. And we're anticipating getting about 854 fiscal year 26-27.

It's like we've gone down, no? Or...

So here's the thing is that as we start to roll out some more programs, we're anticipating increasing our allocations with the success rate of all of our activities. So it's staffing and some turnover that has created some delays in projects, but we are actually being more progressive with our internal departments in creating some new programs. So we hope to have a more exciting report to you this next fiscal year.

Thank you, Michelle. Appreciate that.

Thank you.

You mentioned staffing. What are your staffing levels at the moment? I thought you guys had increased your staffing.

No, that's for the housing authority. For the CPD programs right now, it's on myself, and then I am training Leah for online.

Right. Does anyone else have any questions? No? If not, I'll go ahead and open up the public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak?

If there's anybody on Zoom that's looking to speak, kindly raise your hand and you'll be let in.

Anyone in the audience wishing to speak in favor of the item? Anyone wishing to speak against? No? Anyone on Zoom?

Nope, nobody on Zoom.

All right, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to, is this a following received? No, it's an approved. Mayor? Yes, go ahead. Go ahead and move. All right, we've got a motion by Council Member Lozano. Can we get a second? City Clerk?

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Mayor Damien? Yes. Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you for that, City Clerk. All right, moving on to reports of officer, item number officers. Item number 20, that's the approval of employment agreement for the position of human resources risk manager. Manny?

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, the purpose of this staff report is a presentation and approval of our new HR risk manager. The individual's name is Alicia C. Ramirez. Her compensation will be per month $12,638.46, which equates to annually 151,661.52 cents. That is step four of the one through seven salary range for this position. This concludes staff's report and her anticipated start date, if council should approve this agreement, is Monday, October 12th. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Manny. City Council, anyone have any questions or comments in reference to this item?

Mayor.

Yes, go ahead, Mayor Pro Tem.

I don't have any questions. I just, if no one has any comments, then I'll make a motion to approve the employment agreement for the position of HR and risk manager.

We have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Ayala and a second by Council Member Avila. City Clerk, can we get roll call, please?

We have a motion to adopt item number 20, motion made by Councilmember, Mayor Bersamayola, Councilmember Avila. Councilmember Avila?

Yes.

Councilmember Estrada?

Yes.

Councilmember Lozano? Yes. Mayor Bersamayola? Yes. Mayor Damien? Yes. Motion carries 5-0.

Thank you for that, City Clerk. Moving on to item number 21, that's consideration of First Amendment to Chief of Police Employment Agreement, Robert A. Lopez. Manny? Manny?

Yes, sir. Mr. Mayor, the purpose of this staff report is to authorize an amendment to the Chief of Police Employment Agreement and to approve an increase to the Chief of Police annual compensation. He is currently at Step 3. After a favorable evaluation, City Council votes is recommending a two-step increase from step three to step five. And the current base salary of the chief of police is $23,043.12 or $276,517.44 annually. The new increase will reflect $304,860.48. That is the maximum step at step five. And this will be retroactive to July 1st, 2026. This concludes staff's presentation. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Manny. Anyone, any council members have any questions, comments?

Mayor.

Councilman Ravina, go ahead.

Yes, thank you. Thank you, Manny, for bringing this up and bringing that information to us. I just want to say, Chief, this is long overdue. You were very kind to come in and not demand a higher step when you got hired. And it's not that we overlooked bringing the steps up, but, you know, things happen. And that's the great thing about you that you understand. We appreciate everything that you do and that you continue to do for our department. I definitely agree that you do step five. So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Avila. Anyone else have any questions?

Mayor.

Mayor Potem.

I don't have any questions. I just have some comments regarding this. First of all, it does state here that the evaluation was done and we had an opportunity to review it and that it was approved, but I will publicly state here that I didn't approve it. I've had conversations with Chief with closed session with the council throughout his tenure here. And I've always had questions regarding various issues Parts of his position, although I've said before, I value law enforcement and what you bring to our community. It's very important. I feel that we have a leader who is goal-oriented, who I understand that community is a big part of what we are in public safety. But I really... have concerns regarding communication skills, just the goal setting objectives that were listed on your part. I didn't approve them. I didn't feel that there were any objectives that were being dealt with or goal setting. So I didn't approve the evaluation. I want to make that publicly known because I've had concerns with your leadership and leading this department. So I will be objecting to the approval of the contract. Thank you, Mayor.

Anyone else have any comments? Yeah, Chief, just want to, first of all, let you know that there are major goals and objectives that you need to meet and step up. Of course, I mean, Baldwin Park Police Department established back in 1956, and I've been through the ups and downs of the department. As a matter of fact, even at one time considering possibly with the Sheriff's Department because of the economic downturn that we had, but we end up being successful. You obviously become the first highest ever paid in the history of Ballin Park. So there's a lot of weight that's gonna be on you. And what I would like to see chief is that you report to the city council, maybe like a closed session could be less than five minutes. just on the various issues that are happening on the community with reference to crime. That used to occur before. I would like to see something like that being brought back in. And it's minor, but just to let us know. Because what happens in the community, obviously social media nowadays, I mean, people have information, rumors and innuendos out there. And part of the part for me, I know probably the council members is that When we're asked or contacted, we don't have the information because we're still flowing through. Obviously, we don't want to give any information that's not true. And I know it takes time before you get, and I realize that, but somehow we need to kind of step that up just a little to keep up with the with the social media as it just, you know, obviously has changed everyone's AI over social media. It just has become a big issue. So the actual goals and objectives that we're looking at, I think were fair. So I personally want to make sure that you understand very clearly that you're going to have to step up and their performance has to be exceptional because you're looking over a 6.7 square mile community with about 70,000 or less, and their expectations are very high. Those are the taxpayers that are paying every one of us that's here, part of the municipality. So I just want to let you know that, Chief. Thank you.

All right, so I do have a couple of comments to say, and I didn't want, I wish I didn't have to go here, but anyway, first of all, chief, I want to tell you that from at least from my recollection, going back to the last 15 years, you have been the most honest and honorable chief that the city has ever had, number one. Number two, the fact that you're now the highest paid. Well, let's not forget why the salary schedule is there. And that was done because under a prior administration to accommodate a certain chief of police that was fired and then rehired with a contract that was absurd because he could not get fired unless he committed a felony or whatever it was. They changed the pay scale to accommodate his ambitions and And at that point in time, they also accommodated the pay schedule for the CEO because the CEO couldn't make less than the chief of police at that time. So that's the reason why you're the highest paid because the salary schedule was changed and modified to accommodate one chief of police who, as we all know, was as corrupt as hell, number one. Number two, yes, of course, there's going to be goals and objectives. I get that. I understand that. And so do you and every other department head in the city. That's what we are. We're goal-oriented, and we have a lot of work to do And I'm not going to sit here and sugarcoat that the police department is perfect because regardless of what type of chief we have in place, you're always going to have those officers who are just a disgrace to the badge, period. And that doesn't fall on the chief of police, and it doesn't fall under the failed leadership of Chief Lopez. It falls on those individuals, and shame on them. So yes, do I expect you to enforce the law and throw the book at these, what I call thugs with badges? Of course, we don't want them in our city and we don't want them in our community, but that is not your fault. And we're gonna have them regardless of what chief is here. But from my recollection, I'm gonna tell you right now that as far as community policing, you are the only community policing chief that I've noticed going back at least 15 years. because the other chiefs, you couldn't approach them because they were not approachable. As a matter of fact, they weren't even out in the community, especially the one individual that they modified the pay schedule for. So I'm not gonna sit here and allow for you to be attacked this way. And I respect my council colleagues and I respect their comments, but let's be truthful about why we're where we're at. And I will tell you that yes, Chief, will we hold you accountable? Of course. We're gonna hold you accountable the way we hold every director and every staff member in the city accountable because we wanna make sure that we're doing the best for our community and for our residents. I get that 100%. But let's be realistic and be honest of where we're at. And the fact is that if we're going to evaluate you, let's evaluate you on facts and not on what we're hearing either on social media, these false social media platforms, or any other areas that we're getting information from. My evaluation regards to you, and I'm not gonna go into detail because we shouldn't be discussing evaluations in open public session. That's a closed session item. But your evaluation I believe was fair. You deserve the raise that you received. You've made improvements to this police department. Are we going to hold you accountable for certain items? Of course. I call you when I have a question or a concern. I say, Chief, we need to work on this. That's part of our job, right? But that doesn't mean that you're not doing your job. So... I'm not going to go further into this, but I'm upset that we had to go out this way to approve if your contract gets approved or not. I'm just very disappointed, to be honest with you. Very disappointed with the way some of these things went. But at the end of the day, I respect my colleagues. They're entitled to their opinions and their comments. And with that, I will call a motion to approve the chief's race. Mayor, sir? Go ahead. Oh, go ahead. I'll let Council Member Strada and then Councilor Lozano, I'll let you go after. You want to go ahead and say something, Council Member?

Can I jump in?

Yeah, go ahead, City Attorney.

I just, I want to be really careful here because I understand the city, you know, we have, the council has direct authority over the appointment of this position, but we need to be very careful about public criticism. The personnel issues have to be handled properly. BEHIND THE SCENES IN THAT WAY. WHAT'S BEFORE YOU RIGHT NOW IS THE APPROVAL OF A CONTRACT. WE DO NOT WANT TO PUBLICLY GO INTO INDIVIDUAL THOUGHTS OR DISPUTES OVER A PARTICULAR EMPLOYEE. EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE THAT AUTHORITY, THAT WOULD BE DONE PROPERLY IN CLOSED SESSION. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, CITY ATTORNEY. NEW SPEAKER GO AHEAD. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, MAYOR.

I would just say, you know, I'm very grateful for Chief. And as I think you, Mayor, you've touched on the most important part, which is that Chief is very approachable. And that's been one of the most important things for at least myself. And I know many of our colleagues making sure that we create a police department that's approachable, that's building a community relationship, that's involving itself in community policing. And I know that Chief has been working on a lot of that stuff. And these are changes that don't happen overnight. These are systemic changes. Police department is a very specific department and it comes with a lot of regulations and an oversight. And so, you know, I know that we'd all like to see changes from one day to the next, but we have to, uh, remember that change takes time. You know, that chief has been, uh, dedicated to the department for six years now so the longest serving chief in a while and i kind of reiterated that throughout throughout the last six years but i just wanted to you know thank chief and for the for the work and i'm glad to know that we have a stability and you know we will continue to work together to make sure that our officers have what they need to make sure that they are staying safe and being able to do their job and that our residents are safe and that we are providing our officers with the tools needed to keep them safe so thank you chief

Thank you for that, Council Member Strada.

Council Member Lozano?

Yeah, and thank you. You know what? I may have stepped over, and I'm glad the clarification was handed to me, but it wasn't to offend anyone. Just want to make that very clear. And yes, probably should have been shared more in closed session, but Mayor, I have the utmost respect for you. because I think we've known each other for many, many years, and we're going to agree to disagree. And that's going to happen because that's part of the environment. 15 years ago, there was a whole different council majority. And I'm not going to get into the process because part or one of those individuals that's on there now could potentially face some other issues within the court system. So I'm not going to get into it. Because we've had good times, bad times, but we've had, you know, the gangs that had been cleaned up from point exception of Fidel Vargas on up. So we can't deny that history in Baldwin Park. But because I have the utmost respect for you, I'm not going to get into a shoddy match with you. And we're just going to leave it as is. So we move forward.

Thank you for that, Council Member Lozano. Right. Now we've got all our comments out of the way. Can I get a motion?

A motion.

A motion by Council Member Avila to approve the contract. Second. Got a second. Roll call, City Clerk.

Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Yes.

Thank you for that, City Clerk. Thank you for that. Congratulations, Chief. All right, we're going to go ahead and move to a city council, city clerk, city treasurer, staff requests and communications. Council colleagues, I'm going to start from Council Member Avila to my right, to my left, to right. Do you have any comments or direction?

Well, I was going to put it on the next agenda, but you know, it was actually brought up by the caller. I was going to put on the next agenda under this area to look into our businesses, to see what they are doing to prevent rodents and all these little critters, because I did have a conversation with a few people that they are having a problem. And as you know, and as the caller mentioned, they have issues, but they're having it at their house. But I know there's some issues at some business locations. And I think the owners are the properties, the parking lots, they need to make sure that the properties are being maintained. They're being cleaned because if they are not being cleaned, there's trash. Rodents are going to come eventually get into the buildings, the same with the roaches or any other type of vermin that may be in the parking lot. So I know that's a lot of work for code enforcement, but I think it's important that these businesses are maintained in order for our restaurants and all the other stores are maintained clean because I think that's the issue. It's coming from the outside. Into the businesses. So we need to hold those owners of the properties accountable on maintaining those businesses. Another thing that I wanted to add to that is all the parking lots. Of course, the signage that we have that make sure that they're clean, that they're new, that they're not old. The one that has stood out for years and years, and Mr. Lozon, you probably agree with me, is the one that right there on Francisco and Ramona where that massage parlor is. That has been ugly, dirty, broken for probably before I even became a city clerk and to date. That property owner has not fixed it. So we need to make sure that they're maintaining their signage, that they're maintaining it. The property needs to be clean. The sidewalks within the property need to be clean. There's some areas that there's gum and just junk everywhere. So we really need to get on these property owners to make sure that all our shopping centers are clean and that will benefit the businesses within the shopping centers. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Council Member Mavila. Council Member Serrano? Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

I do have some items and I think it'd be just beneficial to update you all. I know Mr. Rios was talking about the food vendors. And so I think the biggest, the biggest point is that, you know, 10, 5, 10, maybe just 10, 8, 10 years ago, it was very different than you and council had the right to. ban street vending and so that is not the case anymore because of state law has criminalized street vending and so it's either we regulate and we find places to give the street vendors their opportunity to to uh to to vend or we allow or they're going to be wherever they choose to be as long as they're permitted um so i uh speaking on that topic i think i mentioned last time this item was on the agenda that we were going to meet with the department of public health and the county so uh city manager and i did And so we will, you know, one of the updates is that we'll share some of our information with them and then they'll share some of their templates if they have any and kind of share with those best practices as to how we move forward. So I just wanted to give you guys that update because I did, you know, ask to hold that item until we had that discussion. I recently saw that city of Irwindale and city of West Covina have moved forward with permanent data center bands. And so I'd like to request an update.

Yes, we requested that before.

So if we can get an update on ours, because I know that we're doing a moratorium and we're kind of going in a different, we're taking a different trajectory there. So just to, yeah, different pace. But if we can get an update on where we're at and how we can get to the final resolution. I know that... The whole thing about the pests was a big issue. And I think some of those pests, especially the smaller critters might be coming out of the sewers and a lot of our, a lot of our infrastructure due to the heat. I mean, it's been really, really hot. I don't know if any of you have tried to sometimes try your cold water and it comes out warm or just getting in your car. You can really feel that the last couple of weeks have been incredibly, incredibly hot. And I think that's one of the reasons is because you know, Baldwin park has a very, very minimal, amount of tree canopy shade. And so, you know, we have a lot of blacktop and it gets very hot around here. And so on that note, I'm hoping that we can find a way or maybe staff can come back and tell us what we would need to be able to create an urban forest plan and an urban forest policy. I know last year when we had the strong winds and palm trees were falling, I requested that we do not replace any more palm trees because they're not very beneficial with shade or water usage or any of that stuff. So um really creating a policy as to what you know what kind of trees we we can allow and how we can start working on urban forests to increase our our tree canopy it's really really important also thinking of our seniors i know we just heard from them during the public transit discussion but our seniors and also you know they've been living in ballpark for a very long time which means a lot of our housing stock is older so a lot of them you know the housing stock is older it gets um The insulation is not as good. They're probably living in higher temperatures indoors. And so just keeping everybody safe. I know that we had a conversation a couple of years ago about mitigating the heat with SGV Casita. And I don't know what ended up happening there, but it would be just, I think an urban forest plan would be really beneficial for everybody in multiple ways. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for that, Council Member Estrada. Council Member Lozano? I'll pass. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for that. Mayor Pro Tem.

I don't have any comments. I just want to thank the, real quick, I guess, just thank the individuals who came to speak tonight and to express their concerns. And I do agree with Council Member Avila, especially regarding the businesses and those complexes, especially those that maybe are vacant. you know, burned up, you know, where are we at with those, you know, moving them forward. But thank you, Mayor. I appreciate it. Thank you for that.

One more thing, Mayor.

Yeah, go ahead.

I just want to say happy Mexican Independence Day to everybody. And also to Guatemala. They had their independence yesterday on the 15th, so happy Independence Day to them as well.

Nicaragua.

Nicaragua, Guatemala too. A lot from Central America. Thank you.

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month. First I want to say, I want to thank the code enforcement team. I think that code enforcement has been doing a great job. Nick, if you can let them know. I know that if you let them know about the Council Member Avila's I know that they'll take care of it. But I've been very pleasantly surprised with their work, the effort that they've done, especially when it comes to bulky item pickups. You know, they've been addressing them really quick. They've been out there late at night. So I want to say a special thank you to our court enforcement team under the leadership of Carlos Ordonez. So I want to thank them for the great job that they're doing and they're being proactive. So I know that they've got a lot on their plates, but I want to thank them. Special shout out to them. And then I just want to remind everyone that they're having the Too Toxic to Trash event. which is a drive-through collection event held on Saturday, September 19th, which is this Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Morgan Park. So if you have any type of toxic waste that you need to get rid of, paint, or any type of hazardous material, take advantage of this. Morgan Park, Saturday, September 19th, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. And that's all that I have. City Clerk?

I want to mention a couple of things. He mentioned about street vending. And so I've been just having a meeting on the building right now. I was totally in between your answer. And I thought that the Maldives going on VEA is the first permanent street vendor. And which is really- And that the Maldives are really good. So ultimately- All right. I'm just going to call. just came from Baltimore High School, and they were having this event for Hispanic Heritage Month, and I saw the bodice, and I saw that it was so interesting, and I bought some. But having no idea who they were, and now being able to go to social media, so happy with that happening. And then also, the tree vanity, and so on April 29th, I believe, we were invited, and I can't remember his name, CEO, myself, intended activist, he was presentation on how to mitigate this, you know, increase speed and strategies, plant trees, etc. And so needless to say, I just want to congratulate, I want to congratulate Council Member Stoller for recognizing the active SGP tomorrow. So to extend that, congratulations. I also want to recognize the centers for rocking it off is pediatric cancer awareness fund. So anybody that's listening, we stand with you. And then lastly, I'm telling my co-inforcement, I know that somebody, I hope I'm not out of anybody by saying this out loud, but there was like limited coverage on Sunday. It was Sunday, I had to be driving in my parents' house pretty late at night and there was co-inforcement driving around. So kudos to the entire city for this. Even when we distributed the code, if my monitor had been anybody out, there was somebody out driving around. So thank you.

That's the great thing about court enforcement. People don't know when they're out. So.

But, but, but, but then lastly, I think it's just really important to touch on something that's really exciting to happen this week. And then you just saw him nerd and he can be good at school. The Supreme court, is allowing our mail-in voting to proceed as it is. So for everybody that's listening, for everyone in our community, it is safe to vote by mail the way you have. Sign your ballot, submit it in the thought box. Take it to the post office with a postcard or take it to a vote center. I'm just not going directly to the White House.

Or vote in person.

Or vote in person. As soon as we have our big person voting precinct established, we will make sure to share it

And then if you can just touch in on the voting. When you guys find out how many voting centers we will have, and obviously the boxes are in the same location, if you guys can let us know. I've already been getting people asking where they can vote in person, so that would be great. City Treasurer, do you have anything to say?

Great. Thank you to all of our staff. I see them in the morning when I'm taking them to school and throughout. So very great job to be seeing them online right now. And also everything to be, I see it that they're doing around. I've seen them going on to schools. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And thank you, Chief. There was a call out to your department, the area of Jones Junior High School, and PD was out there like quick because of the way parents carry on driving crazy and blocking driveways. So thank you for being out there. All right.

Thank you, everyone. City staff, no one has any comments? No? All right. Go ahead, Daniel. Sure. You want to come up to the mic? Okay. Okay.

So it should be installed again at Barnes Park tomorrow morning. So we're hoping that it will be done by Friday morning, maybe late tomorrow. And then we'll have to keep everybody off of it for a couple more months until the roots root and get established. But hopefully we can start planning on opening up the field in a couple months. Yes.

Well, let's keep all our fingers crossed. But if I could just give you a piece of advice, put something on there that says no entrance or whatever, because if not, we're going to have Mr. Rios here again. And is that they're playing on the on the soccer field and they shouldn't be there. But so and to staff that he offended, don't take it personal. That's Mr. Rios. We all we all get blows by him. No matter what we do, we're going to get punched by Mr. Rios.

But yes,

Thank you. Rose? Wow, Rose, you've been very quiet. Tell me you found some extra money. Yeah, you do need the mic, Rose.

But the audience may not be able to hear.

Just don't karaoke on us.

Be careful. You gave me the mic now.

Oh, brother, we're not going to be here until 5 o'clock.

No, I just want to give a city council update. And finally, we implement the updated building permit fees that we have not done for many, many, many years. Now the building permit fees catch up with LA County. And I want to give a thank you to Building Officer Long and his two staff, Maria and Nancy. and they while they are working very hard and very busy dealing with the counter and they take up their time it takes lots of time and to work with the company to implement the building permit in our current system I just want to mention that to City Council, and I'm very happy that the system is implementing the new building permit fee now. So which the city is getting the fee that is compatible with the LA County and help to bring up the revenue, assist the city and community. And thank you all.

Thank you, Rose. Appreciate it. Thank you. Nick? Maria? Might as well go down the line, right? Anyone else, Chief?